cheap class?

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hey im not new to this forumn, just new to posting

i was playing my way through bg again just a little while ago and it clued into me that clerics are way too overpowered in this game. my main is a gnomeish cleric illusionist and hey is so strong its not even fair. i soloed my way to baldurs gate in like 2 hours falt with some pit stops for a side quest or 2 or 10 and it was a breeze. you can like hold and lightning everyone!!! whats your take on this?

 

Yeah that's pretty much what shines in bg1. Moreover you can also charm and paralyze everyone

 

Not to mention there are three books of wisdom in BG, that can effectively take your gnome up to a wisdom of 20, giving him an insane number of cleric spells.

 

The gnome Illusionist/Cleric is one of the best multiclasses out there. First off when you are rolling your character you have to have a minimum of 16 Dex which is great. Second you need a minimum of 9 in Int and Wis. The best roll I got was

Str 10 (18)
Dex 18
Con 16
Int 19
Wis 17
Cha 18 (10)

You can flip flop the Str and Dex. It all depends on what is more important to you. I played through with this character once and at the end he had the following stats.

Str 19
Dex 18
Con 16
Int 20
Wis 20
Cha 10

I gave the dex and con tomes to Kivan/Coran. I had Kivan and Imoen with my Gnome. It was very easy to walk through because the gnome pretty much cover the need for a mage and cleric. Once I hit Chapter 4 I picked up Coran and dropped Kivan. Coran was a master with a both as was Imoen. My gnome was the front line tank with a large shield +1, his warhammer +2, Robe of Arch Mage Good, and a Ring +1. AC -2. Other item includes Girlde of piercing and boots of Avoidance.

 

And a killer for lore. Add the tomes and you can achieve a very good lore score, though nothing to match a bard.

 

kuemper

The gnome Cleric/Illuionist with his high stats and higher than normal lore score can skip learning Identify spell. This gives this class the ability to add extra 1st level spell, Magic Missile. Now the only question comes what rings should this class use: Two rings of Wizardry or One ring of Wizardry and a ring of Holiness? Now that is the question.

 

I have played that class, and I always, always, always took one ring of wizardry and one ring of holiness. I really try to get by with only one healer, and therefore having a ring of holiness makes it a lot easier by giving you a couple of extra healing spells.

 

Believe it or not, I'm actually playing this class too at the moment. The idea started here, and I've started writing as I play in my CS thread. I'm planning on giving him one Ring of Wizardy and one Ring of Holiness. He'll be a major spell-caster by the time I'm done.

But I'd hardly consider it cheap. Even with the Ring of Wizardy he still needs to use the Identify spell a lot, though probably only because I refuse to go to a temple to get stuff checked out. Starting lore is 22 at INT19 & WIS17, though I hope to get the tome of WIS from Durlag's Tower as soon as I can. But most good items require 30 lore or more.

 

Why would you keep ID permanently memorized? I find I can schlep back to an inn, shift it into my memorization, sleep, cast, rearrange spellbook, sleep and off I go. Much simpler as I usually have more than 1 item to ID anyway.

 

@kuemper:
Because I sleep only when I absolutely have to. Plus I'd rather be able to ID stuff right away than have to wait and "schlep back to an inn" all the time. And in this case, with my PC being a know-it-all personality, I don't think he could stand the thought of there being something that he doesn't know what it is. Plus, if all of my mage spells are non-combat, I can wear armor and just take it off when I want to cast something arcane. I'll probably change my habits once I've gotten the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi and get my lore up higher, but for now I need the ID spells.

 

What exactly does Lore do? I notice that everyone in my party basically has the same amount and dont really notice it ever going up..

 

Lore allows you to identify items without a need for the Identify Wizard Spell.

Below is table containing class and lore points received per a level.

Bard 10
Cleric 1
Druid 1
Fighter 1
Mage 3
Paladin 1
Ranger 1
Thief 3

When you have a multiclass character you receive Lore points for the class that gets the highest Lore points. For instance if you are a Fighter/Thief your Lore value would go up by 3 for each level your thief goes up.

Intelligence and Wisdom also changes the value of Lore. If Int or Wis or both are above 15 you get a higher Lore Value, if they are below 10 you get a lower Lore Value. That is why when you create a character in BG1 and import them over into BG2 it is highly recommended that you give all the tomes to the PC and not to the NPC because this will increase the PC over all stats. This is especially true for Wisdom since there are 3 tomes. Now throw in the gnome character within this post. A gnome can have a 19 Int to start with and a 17 Wis. By the end of BG1 you will have 20 in both with all the tomes. This is a big bonus with Lore value, I believe 30+ to your total Lore Value. Since you this character is a Mage/Cleric he gains 3 Lore value for each Level. By the time this character starts BG2 his Lore would be roughly 50+. Which is awesome for identifing magically items.

If you want a character who identifies items very easily I would go with a Bard who could possibly have a 19 in Int and 21 in Wisdom by the end of BG1 plus their higher levels and 10 Lore per a level, etc...

 

a bard will have more then enough lore to identify most stuff on his own anyway after a few levels at +10 lore per level.

 

^True enough. Besides, I cannot see why anyone would take a bard with a starting wisdom of 18. There has to be some better place to put those ability points.

As an aside, in terms of lore value, does wisdom and intelligence contribute equally? For example, is the bonus for 18 wisdom equal to the bonus for 18 intelligence? What would give the higher lore value, a gnome illusionist cleric, with 20s in both intelligence and wisdom, or a half-elven mage/cleric with a wisdom of 21 and an intelligence of 19?

 

Yes, it's exactly equal; both refer to the same 2DA file even. And it does match what's in the manual on p.136, hard as it is to believe that it got something right.

 

according to the manual for Tales of the sword coast both Int and Wis give the same bonuses to lore, starting with a +3 bonus at 15 in the stat.

15_+3
16_+5
17_+7
18_+10
19_+12
20_+15
21_+20
22_+25
23_+30
24_+35
25_+40

meaning your gnome would get +30 to lore from stats, and the Half-elf would get +32.