Negative Plane Protection

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Hi everyone!
Long term player, first time poster, and I'm planning on resurrecting BG2 and taking it for a run to shake the cobwebs off. Im planning on doing a power run, with tactics on max difficulty (Insane? Or am i getting my games confused?

Anyways I'd love to hear some opinions on my party:

HUM Undead Hunter: Bastard Swords (Foebane and Purifier)
HUM Kensai -> Mage: Axes and Scimitars ( Axe of Unyielding and Spectral Brand)
HUM Beserker -> Cleric: Hammers and Flails ( Crom Fraer/Runehammer and Flail of Ages)
Unsure whether to have a multi Fighter/Thief or a Kensai -> Thief
H/E Cleric/Mage: Maces, Slings & Shields (Sling of Everard, Mace of Disruption/ Mace of the Star & Darksteel Shield)
ELF Sorcerer: Staff of Magi

As you might be able to tell, I HATEEE!!!! level drain, and if i have the Amulet of Power on my Sorc, then my entire party should be able to have negative plane protection for Melissan. This is also why i chose Undead Hunter over the Inquisitor.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

Multi classes are very versatile as they can draw from all classes HLA pool, so a MC fighter/thief can set time traps and then GWW the helpless foes to death quite effectively. Dual classes are only useful to advance to higher levels in spell casting classes, with some hefty bonuses from the first class. (the ability to use armors and weapons with grand mastery, big HP boost, some basic healing spells etc) Also if you dual class to a thief, you will have too many thieving skill points which most would go to waste since they level up fast. (live fast, die young&beautiful this applies to thieves and bards)

 

Other thoughts

First of all, I totally agree that multi classing your fighter/thief is the best way to go for power. combining GWW and assassination is just deadly. Using use any item with bashing power of the fighter is also powerful.

Yu have a very well balanced, solid team. here are a few comments:

Level drain is a female dog, but there are many ways around it. For example, limited wish spell, protection from undead scrolls (combined with project images gives you unlimited supply), summon monsters to use as fodder (again with images you can make hordes) then have your cleric (sunray, false dawn, turn undead) to blast them away. Another is to have your mage cast stoneskin and prot from magical weapons (while everyone is hidden either by invisibility spell, or otherwise) and attract all the vampires (or any other level drainers), then when they gather, blast them away from afar, not to mention the most direct way of casting NPP spell for 5 rounds. Any one of these methods can be used much earlier than waiting for the NPP weapons. (you get the runehammer and the spectal brand +5 almost at the end of the game.)

That being said, I think you should still go with the inquisitor over the undead hunter. the inquisitor is just awesome when dealing with any lich or magic user. Without any mods, inquisitor can take on loads of magic users by himself (as opposed to only 1 breach per enemy mage)or kill demi liches in 2-3 rounds. even with mods or smart mage scripting, once you get the spell immunity abjuration out of the picture (such as chain contingincy of 3 ruby rays) they still become hapless victims to the inquisitor.

Another consideration is to lose the cleric mage for a sorceror. the orig cleric mage builds a solid well rounded team, but a sorceror will make the team POWER! the sorcerer will add a tremendous offensive fire power. you will have to make up the loss in clerical power through potions, scrolls, and items. But seriously, the most useful cleric spells give you hours and hours and hours of usage time (1 turn/lvl!!!!) that you don't need much of them. for my gaming, I always run out of mage spells first before I run out of cleric spells even with a 3 to 1 mages to cleric ratio.

Happy hunting!

---------- Added 0 hours, 13 minutes and 7 seconds later... ----------

forgot to say, the extra sorceror can also reduce your level drain problem if you choose limited wish spell, because you get that spell faster than a cleric mage, and you get lots of them!!!!

 

I'm not so sure about the multi-class > dual class thing, at least not when dualling to a spellcaster. Sure, you have the benefit of fighter HLAs, but on the other hand you will have less high level spells. It depends on what you want if this balances out for you, but I personally would choose a Berserker 7 -> Cleric over a F/C multi.

That being said, the Ranger/Cleric multi-class is quite possibly an even better choice, as it gives you access to Druid spells as well. Not sure about Ranger -> Cleric dual classes, I thought only the Beast Master kit could dual to Cleric, which wouldn't be a very good option, but it might be that the plain Ranger could also dual... I can't remember off the top of my head.

Along the same vein of thought, I think a Kensai -> Mage would be better than a F/M multi-class. Sure Time Stop / Shapechange -> Tentacle Face / GWW == massive ownage, but if I recall correctly, you only get maybe 2 lvl 9 spells as a F/M multi, which isn't much at all.

If I were you, though, I'd swap the C/M (which is very nice, don't get me wrong) for a Wild Mage. Awesome and hilarious in a single package.

If you want pure power, though, just the sorcerer is enough. Normally, I don't use spellcasting much, and just let my melee damage dealers/tanks deal with anything, but if they encounter something that's giving me trouble, there's nothing like having a sorcerer + Robe of Vecna + Amulet of Power. Nothing like emptying you entire spellbook in a succession of Time Stops like 6 times over through a similar series of Projected Images.

/edit
@ Pyroreaver: Congratulations on finally making your first post after nearly 3 years!

 

reliving BG2

thanks henkie, decided to relive the game again. this is one of the best games of all times!!! I'm excited to still see so many people still in this game after so many years after the release