F/M/T Worth it in BG?

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I was just thinking. A Fighter/Mage/Thief can become quite a powerful character, but really, how powerful can it get?

In ToB, it can get really intense and you can start taking small armys out with ease. However, there are limitaions. The number of HLA's that the character will get will be REALLY low, and the character will only start developing properly towards the later stages of the game, so it asks the question, is it really worth it?

The same goes for BG. The regular cap for XP is only 89k. That equates to 29666 XP for each class. That can't be good in terms of level development They would also develop at a waaay slower rate than the rest of the characters in your party, even if you played solo. So what do people think? Would it really be worth taking a F/M/T in BG ...

 

Solo, it would be worth it as long as you had an XP cap remover. In a group they would probably suffer even with an XP cap remover. I think you would have to use some pretty cheesy tactics in order to level up very much. If you simply want to see how it would play, load one up and CLUAConsole massive xp and level him up and wade into some tough areas to see if he/she floats.

I know, I'm such a cheater!

 

We know Ballrock!

So what do you think the chances of this character surviving are without the XP cap remover? Worth it or not in the game or even in the sequel?

 

F/M/T has a decent chance to get through. You can use good armor as a fighter, take it off to pick locks/find traps and such. The mage part is pretty useless until he gets up leveled enough, so having your mage spells disabled doesn't mean much at first, and you can always ditch the armor later. I have only ever been able to stay alive if I multi class my mage. It will definitley make you think more. The trick is wands, they can use wands with armor on. I like to play solo this way. Of course, I only finish about one out of every five games I start.

 

The biggest part that doesn't appeal to me is the fact that you won't get to cast 9th level spells throughout the entire game! That's a big putoff in my book, and I'm sure it will be for others to. But I guess those that do play as a F/M/T will probably just use the cap remover to get what they want ey, Ballrock!

 

You could always just use Gatekeeper to change things. Take for instance a 300 year old elven mage, he had been studying in his woodlands for years, when a group of dragons wipe out his people. He decides to leave his burnt out woods and go on the road adventuring. He is already a 9th level mage, but he decides that he would like to become a fighter and a theif as well, after all he is a relatively young elf and wants to broaden his experiences. To role play this character, you simply start a F/M/T and save the game as soon as it deposits you out side Winthrop's Inn. Close out the game and open Gatekeeper and make his levels 1/9/1, save it, and restart the game and play him.

I know this doesn't exactly mesh with the story line, but it works allright to play out the character. Of course I am not a purist, and I cheat like the dickens.

 

Always the cheater ey Ballrock! Well that's what I'm trying to do for this game! Make an uber character without cheating! So I just wanted to know if people think it would be worth it to try a F/M/T in the normal game. No mods, no cheats, nothing. Just the vanilla.

 

Depends on what you mean by "worth it" and to a much larger degree to whether you mean just "vanilla" BG1 or the entire BG series.

For BG1 alone this might be a nice challenging character to play as a solo or as part of a small group like a duo or trio using either NPCs or other PCs (multi-solo). FMT with an RC or a FMC or a MC.would be quite powerful as a dynamic duo. With the assistance of Algernons cloak you could quite easily solo as far as BG City and then take Qualye along as your side kick to finish up the game. As mentioned the lack of spells can be offset with the use of wands.

For the entire series I have heard people raving about this class for versatility and it is certainly useful in BG2 party play where the lack of good thief NPCs makes it very useful to have the PC handle those duties. As far as HLAs go you would at least have the option to take them from any of your classes when they do arrive IIRC.

 

I mean the vanilla of the entire series. But I guess im going to stop b!tching and start playing with this class right now so I'll finally know! No cheating, no mods, nothing, just the vanilla throughout the entire series! Will report back later after I've started!

 

BG1 with no expantionpack you stop at:
Fighter 5
Mage 4
Thief 6

My first game was with F/M/T and after i hit the limit i got so anoyed at both lack of testing more spells, and the general low levels that i started againw ith a F/M instead. and just left the thieveing to Imoen.

Personally i would never have bothered playing a 3class in BG1 without XP Cap remover. I even find 2class multi to be to much at most times.

Either way, i would not have bothered playing with him in a party with more than 3 PC/NPC total. In a 3 man/woman party he will gain as much XP per class as a normal 1class would do in a 6 man party.

MY suggestion would rather be to try several 2 class multi's example fighter/thief, mage/cleric, cleric/fighter.

 

@raptor: at 89,000 you are 5/5/6 F/M/T, not 5/4/6. Since a 2-class mage can only reach level6 at this point you can cast the same spells as a F/M multiclass at level6.

A F/M/T is less than 2 levels behind a pure class and far less then 1 level behind a 2-class multiclass.
With the 89,000 XP cap I'd say a F/M/T is superior to any F/M,F/T or M/T.

Even with TotSC installed he is strong, but most people don't like F/M/T because they want their PC to be the highest level character.

It's a myth that F/M/T or F/M/C level up too slowly to be strong, they just level up a bit slower than the other party members.

 

If you want an F/M/T with the XP cap, I'd suggest soloing until you hit maximum level (at either 60K or 120K if you have the expansion) and then grabbing some party members. If anyone tries that, I'd be interested to know how exactly the XP gets spread out when your F/M/T finally hits the XP cap. Does your character's "share" of the XP get lost, or does it get spread among your party members? Given how XP from a kill is given normally, I'd suspect the latter. (A 35 XP gibberling seems to give 6XP to the first five characters and 5XP to the last one, suggesting that it parcels out one experience point at a time and goes around the characters like the line-up of a baseball team. But this is just from observation, so I could be wrong.)

Actually, this is giving me a party idea...

 

It believe it gets "lost" - in fact it actually gets added to your total exp exactly as it does prior to the cap - it just does not register on your stat sheet nor qualify for any level ups.

The old cap remover from Team BG would simply remove this restriction so if you applied the cap remover and loaded a save game where a character had "capped out" and kept playing they would now have the level and exp they had alreeady earned while capped.

 

So you're saying that throughout the whole game, that extra xp that would be unable to share with the entire party is LOST??? That would add up to alot of lost points later on yeh?

 

The cap is either 89K or 161K.

 

Well duh. But there's really no point of getting the extra XP all to yourself if you're not going to go up another level before you hit the cap. Think before you post, kmonster.

 

Would people rather have a F/T and a F/M instead of just a single F/M/T? I think if you played a duo with these two it would be alot easier than just playing solo with the main man powerhouse!

I forgot how that works again Tal! When you import a character from BG to BGII how do the hip points work again? Do they get averaged out or ...

 

When you import to SoA, your XP gets capped again. Any time I get a character up past 161K in my uncapped BG1, when I import to SoA it gets cut back down to 161K anyways! I end up having to either CLUA it back or just leave it and go on my way.

Hit points are dealt with the same exact way in BG2 as they are in BG1.

As to an F/T and an F/M instead of an F/M/T, well, I've actually had a lot of good experiences with using two-man parties where one of them is a thief. (Even Imoen can do some decent damage with a backstab. ) Although I'd probably add an R/C to round it out; you need someone who can tank. Hmm, sounds like a good trio..

*runs off before he can contemplate adding yet another party idea to his list*

 

Felinoid: I belive you can start a game in BG2, wait until John "Wailing Baby" Irenicus finishes hes Monologue, and Save. Then copy the game over to MPSAVE, and remove your own character and Add him again (from bg1), I belive he should get all the XP that way, at least he will get all items from BG1.

Regarding 2man party, I still love my Ranger/Cleric and Thief/Mage combo from IWD1 all 4 basic classes covered, and both can Stealth.