Favorite class and noobish questions

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I would agree that a MC character is probably going to be stronger by the end game. But I would say the same thing regarding just about any single classed character and any dual classed character. You get two sets of HLAs, and you get the benefits of all the other abilities of two classes. The thing with paladins is that they are pretty much done at level 20. You won't get any additional bonuses to your THAC0, your saving throws won't get any lower (although they don't need to go lower - they will already be negative if you a ring of protection or something similar equipped), and you already have all the spells you'll ever get (or almost). The only thing you'll get past level 20 is an additional 3 hps per level. There is very little difference between a level 20 paladin and a level 25 paladin - 15 hps to be precise. You add in that you can reach level 20 as a paladin with a total of 3.6 million XPs. If you're going through the whole BG1/SoA/ToB saga, that is late SoA or early ToB.

Not that this is a problem exclusive to paladins. I would say the same thing for single classed fighters and rangers as well. (In fact, fighters hit level 20 even earlier at 3 million XPs. That's almost certainly still in SoA.) The thief has it even worse - a thief is basically as good as it will ever get at level 16. Unless you're playing an assassin, you've maxed out your backstab multiplier, and you have gobs and gobs of thief skill points in everything that you need. Even multi-classed thieves start pumping Detect Illusion while still in SoA - there's simply nothing else to put points in.

So if we're talking strictly single-classed, the only classes that continue to see advancement at high levels are clerics, druids, and mages, as all continue to receive additional high level spell slots, and that many spells have damage linked to character level. You could make the argument that casters would benefit the most from dual classing into a casting class from a non-casting class. You make up those early levels so fast, that if you dual classed right at the beginning of SoA, you'd probably regain your first class's abilities by the time you left Irenicus' Dungeon, or shorty thereafter.

Now if you just want to have the most uber-character possible by the end of the game, the best way to do that is to exploit the game. This is done by dual-classing at the end of SoA. You dual-class, and export your character at the end of SoA, and then you import this character to start ToB. The game is coded so that any character with less than 2.95 million XPs is raised to 2.95 million XPs at the start of ToB in their active class. Or you can simply create a new character at the start of ToB, dual-class, export, start a new game and import that character. Same end effect. Although I should caution that there are some combinations where you'll be left with a bit of work to do to regain the abilities of your first class. For example, if your 2nd class is a mage, you won't have the abilities of your first class back without gaining another level or two in ToB.

Now this of course is uber-cheesy as well. This method would give your character 5.9 million XPs total - at a minimum - at the beginning of ToB. This is far more than you'd ever get unless you were soloing through SoA.

 

A bit of a late reply, but I disagree completely. Any party that can deal with Sarevok and his goons should have no problem with Drizzt. Actually, assuming TotSC is installed, any max-level, properly built fighter, with proper usage of buffs and potions, should be able to solo Drizzt relatively easily. At least that's my experience with BGTutu, maybe the original was different. I'll demonstrate in my LP once I get there.

Just check his stats:

Any fighter using a 1h-weapon and shield, by the end of the game, should have way more HP than Drizzt, better THAC0 after buffs, at least close to the same AC just on Dexterity and equipement, and a comparable number of attacks per round with Haste. If you use the best stat-enhancing potions before the fight, it becomes completely trivial.

Sarevok, for reference, has 285 HP and is backed up by several high-level mages.

 

I haven't tried to beat Drizzt w/out cheese for a long time and recently I made the strongest party that I ever played, one that killed Sarevok on the hardest difficulty 3 times in a row w/out anybody getting noticeable damage. It was BG1, not BGT. I took the saves and went to Drizzt. Lowered the difficulty to Normal, put my people in a circle around him, saved.
Buffed to the max (oh, the scarce bottles of STR 24), saved again. The lowest AC in my party was -7, THAC0 -1. I could get some better AC if my PC used a mace and a shield, but I decided that the extra dmg from the Staff of Striking would be better.
In the 1st fight I managed to do perfect damage control, I kept a party member under fire until they were 1 hit from death, made a step back, Drizzt would switch targets and the character returned to the fight. Somehow he didn't target the same person twice, so after a while I ended with 6 severely wounded people. I knew the end was near, so I paused and calculated how much damage did I do to him. 103. Reload.
The second fight was very different. He targer my PC first and I didn't step back in time. He killed me, but before I could reload I saw that a moment later he died too! So I knew that it was possible, but needed another 4 or 5 trials to actually win. After the fight I calculated damage that I made to him, but didn't note it down and it's not important enough for me to count again, but I think he died after getting 131 damage. 1 hit earlier it was 123, so it works as if he had between 124 and 131 HP. 92 with 30% damage resistance is about 132, depending on rounding of individual hits, so this is consistent with your stats.
Anyway, it is indeed possible to kill Drizzt w/out cheese. I think that with a party that would be better for the task (I've had 1 mage and 1 thief-mage, not great against him) killing him on the hardest difficulty would be feasible too.
At the same time it's much harder than killing Sarevok.
Thank you, Dr Asik.

ADDED:

 

Personally I have a lot more trouble dealing with Sarevok in a non-cheesy way. You can't get a perfect surround pre-battle, you have to deal with all the mages at once, Sarevok hits very hard himself, granted, not nearly as hard as Drizzt but still.

Good to see that it's feasible in vanilla BG, thanks for the report. With my character Zeckul, who is a Berserker 5/Cleric 8 at the end of the game, I achieve -10AC before buffs and -13 (or maybe -14) after buffs. Then Golden Girdle for another -3 vs slashing, and full plate's innate -4 vs slashing, and I'm actually at -20AC vs Drizzt. Mind you, that means he still hits about 50% of the time, but it's manageable.

A LOT of buffs can help especially if the character is Fighter/Cleric:
- Potion of Mind Focusing (+3 dex)
- Potion of Storm Giant Strength (24 str)
- Draw upon Holy Might (raises str, dex and con)
- Luck
- Aid
- Haste
- Bless
- Defensive Harmony
- Armor of Faith (reduced damage)
- [Berserk (Berserker only)]

 

You don't have to deal with them at all.
Just ignore them and go after Sarevok, after he's dead the fight is over. At least in BG1.

BTW, where did you get Drizzt stats from?
http://baldur.cob-bg.pl/bg1?pg=2,4,21 shows something different, among others 108 HP.
And I'd like to see Shandalar stats.

 

Ye well BGT with SCS they will attack you all at once! And I have ONLY the components of general smarter AI, NPC use potions and better calls for help(genius component- in bandits camp all bandits except from main tent and gnoll cave came after me, and used potions, rain of arrows was kinda hard with low level party )

and thing is with final battle (my difficulty -> normal but im not a v.good player)
You CAN'T take them one by one which makes things definitely more interesting and hard. Semaj starts with malison/death spell which is easy to evade when you have boots of speed -> just send one character with death ward. My fighters were mostly level 8/9 so pretty high level for Sarevok I would think. Angelo has protection from magic scroll and 10 arrows of blasting(I would have prepared if i'd knew :S - still had 2 fire rings and some scrolls), well in short its nasty and tense! I passed it in 4th try in kinda cheesy way- basically running away from Sarevok with PC and letting others take care of Angelo/Semaj/Tazok and random battle horror i summoned walking into a trap. Then I cheesed some more! I recharged summoning wands in shop prior to that and let coran and kivan shoot him, still after like 20 gnolls, hobgblins and dogs he was "injured" so i rebuffed my warriors and he died in 20s- but still had to pull two of them out of the battle, coz he hits hard. To me it was challenging to go at them at once.

I'm scared to think would would happen if I installed improved final battle

 

It's easy to abuse the AI so you only fight Sarevok, but I personally count that as cheese. You're supposed to fight them all.

They're straight from the game files (DRIZZT.CRE), viewed with NearInfinity.

Shandalar stats:

XP Value 26000
Levels 29/30
AC -20
HP 96
THAC0 11
#attacks 1
All elemental resistances 100
Magic resistance 0
All physical resistances 80
Wears the Robe of Neutral Archmagi, and a normal Quarter Staff

 

I've never tried to kill Shadalar - I imagine he's quite tough...

 

Some tricks:
1. You can draw away Tazok before starting the fight and kill him alone.
2. The same with battle horrors, though IIRC to get near some of them you need invisibility / hide in shadows.
3. Get to Sarevok invisible. He starts the talk. You may need to get closer for it, but you can set off the clouds. Then run away and wait until they expire.

Thank you.

 

I believe I may be losing my noob status sometime soon, I finally slew a dragon! Last time I played through bg2 I took off all my equipment and let the Sundenesellar dragon take my gold since I couldn't beat him, but this time I put up a fight. My party was charname (R/C), Keldorn, Korgan, Jaheira, Viconia, and Imoen. Mordenkainen's sword is what really saved me. That thing took the brunt of the dragon's wrath while my buffed-up warriors surrounded him and pounded away.

Unfortunately it ran out of time half way through the fight and then my party was in trouble. I tried the cheesy tactic of running away with the person the dragon targeted while the others rained arrows upon him, but that didn't last very long. Soon, all the was left was me and Viconia. I put up another Iron Skins while Viconia casted regeneration, and I barely made it out still alive. Still, after that my ego was inflated enough to try the other dragons, and to my surprise I had the hardest time with the first one, even Firkraag went down like a pansy. Carsomyr...my god that weapon is powerful.

 

Its amazing how difficult dragons can be until you learn more about the game.

 

IMO, high end summons are key to a lot of the tougher fights, including dragons. Mord's are among your best choices anywhere, in terms of being able to take a pounding - they almost always expire due to time before they are destroyed. Druids have greater elemental summons, which are fantastic, but they have their summon bears at level 6. Those things are surprisingly effective at taking an absolute pounding. Devas and Planetars also work very well.

 

Unless your enemies have the death spell, in which case your Mordies will be unsummoned. I can't remember if elemantals can be unsummoned like that or if they're considered gated in and will thus not be affected. Planetars are awesome, though.

But even skeleton warriors make for good summons if you haste them.

 

Yeah, the big ones - not the little whimpy ones that you get prior to level 13 or so (forget when exactly you get the upped versions).

And yeah, death spell is auto-unsummon. I also think that death cloud spell also kills all summons - at least I think it says so in the description.

Overall though, summons are the may function of my casters, even my mages. I think they do far more damage by summoning critters than they deal direct damage. Then again, I also use my mages for tearing down enemy defenses, so I probably memorize fewer offensive spells than most.

 

IMO the best use of mages is whacking enemies with their sticks in all but the toughest fights.
No, seriously. They are way better tanks than warriors or anybody for this matter and having them take hits is the best use of their skills (eq equo with hasting everybody).
Though that's because I just find giving them orders to do sensible casting too bothersome and I was never remotely satisfied with what they do when they act scripted.

 

I believe it does as well, but I don't use it much because Death spell is party friendly and Death fog is not. I believe both spells also kill monsters under a certain HD. At least umber hulks are easy to deal with with these spells.

And yes, I meant the big ones. The other ones are next to useless. If I'm soloing a caster, getting the skeleton warriors is always the turning point in the game. From then on it gets so much easier. And by the time they're getting outclassed, you've got project image and Mordies to take up the slack and not long after you'll have lvl 9 spells and the game might as well be over aside from a few of the dead magic rooms in WK.

But why would you want to do that if in all but the toughest fights your fighters can do this just as easily. And don't need to rest at least twice per area to restock on mirror images and stoneskins. Sure, you can make a mage immune to any attack, but most of the time it's just extra work when your fighters can do it just as easily without the need for buffs.

Frankly, I use mages mostly only when there's a fight coming up that's tough enough that my fighters can't handle it easily. Then it's time for the buffs, the summons, or, if it's just one single enemy, to debuff it and then nuke it. Unless I intentionally make it hard on myself and solo a spellcaster or make a party of only mages, then I always have to do it. Though usually I just stick to summons then.

 

Agree with henkie - against run of the mill fights, my mage is using either slings, darts, or throwing daggers.

 

Because it SAVES rests. A quite early, 12th lvl mage can survive 24 hits with stoneskin +1 from own HP. This can be greatly increased with mirror image if needed. On the highest difficulty enemies do ~20-30 Dmg/hit at this point. That's a total of over 600 HP sunk. They get hit much more than fighters, let's say twice as much. Still, they can take twice as many attacks w/out mirror image and ~4 times as much with it. And later in game it only gets better. Also, you can always move a mage away, so you get all the toughness of your fighters PLUS that of mages. Though since the middle of Act 2 in SoA you have to do it sporadically...
With this tactic since mid-game I very rarely have to rest because of wounds or loss of protections, I do it almost entirely because of tiredom or will to prepare to some tougher fight.
Seriously, try it. You have to learn to keep hand on the pulse, because if protections run out and you're too slow, a mage is dead, but once you get past the initial troubles, it works much better than slinging rocks (which I was doing for years too).
ADDED: Also, this tactic changed my party squad. I used to have 3 warriors (half warriors count too) and 3 mages (half mages count too). Now with 2 fighters a 4 mages I do about as much physical damage, have a party much more resistant to damage and when it comes to harder fights, the more mages-the better.

 

Well, I don't play on the hardest difficulty, just core rules, but resting for recovering from wounds? I have regeneration items for that. Seriously, I rest for recovery in BG1 (providing my PC isn't an orc or a dwarf, in which case they regenerate too once you get the tome for CON +1), but in BG2 it's not that hard to find regeneration items so I never need to rest to recover from wounds. And these items are pretty much the first thing I get once I'm out of chateau Irenicus.

In BG2, I never rest to recover from wounds. I only do it if my party is tired or if I'm running out of spells. And if you're having your mages on the front lines all the time, I'm guessing you're going to run out of spells a lot quicker than my mages who basically just throw rocks at enemies for 90% of the time.

 

In my parties, slow regeneration items (like ring of regeneration) were deeply insufficient to heal my warriors between fights. I think that Ring of Gaxx, Axe of Unyielding, Blackrazor are the only items good enough to do it. Stone skins save me from healing too.
Difficulty sure has a lot to do with it, but maybe I have a more aggressive playing style too.
Anyway, about the middle of Act2, mages stop running out of stone skins. They run out of magic missiles, identifications, fireballs etc. before the protections end.