POLL: Magic vs Bashing?

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I do enjoy spellcasters but I haven't gone much further than a 50/50 multiclass with a protagonist. Typically, I play a team. All my BG saga protagonists have been paladins except for a fighter/mage that I didn't play past rescuing Aerie. Same in the Icewind Dale saga, except apart from single player parties, I played multiplayer a bit, controlling just one of the characters, and I must say, it was quite strange to be stripped of an arcane caster or a fully fledged cleric at hand, or even a thief for traps and some locks that wouldn't be bashed. In IWD2, I soloed thrice but finished the game with only one of those characters, a paladin/wizard. The other two were a paladin/sorcerer (switched quite early) and a paladin/ranger/fighter/monk -- a girl by the name of Archentrudis who started as a fighter with 8 STR and 8 CON but 20 WIS and 18 DEX.

NWN OC and SoU gave me the first real bashing solo experience, except a paladin, while a viable basher without magic, is still a caster and his buffs, properly applied, make great difference.

The KotOR games have had a great effect on my roleplaying and I had to rely not only on both might (melee, sometimes blasters) and "magic" (the Force), but also on skills. While my Revan was definitely a skilled guy, he had at least one better specialist friend for each skill he had except Persuade. He was a force user (Scout turned Consular) and he often played Yoda standing in the middle of the battlefield and throwing whirlwinds or waves around, not even touching a lightsabre through the whole battle. At other times, however, he would buff up and chop everything into pieces -- a Consular with a death wish. He chopped Malak into pieces in a lightsabre duel.

My Exile was somewhat after that manner but even more specific than Revan. He was the Consular with a purple sabre, who had led troops as a general and had seen battle first-hand. He became a fighter in a way despite his will and he never ceased to be one. In the Mandalorian camp, he defeated everyone without using the Force even for buffs (but he still had had to use the Force to pwn all the five Handmaidens at once -- come on, he was a level 12 Consular ). He did have the power to pwn everything that moved with the Force from distance and in massive numbers and he did use it (imagine Wave in Force Potency mode (+10% damage at increased force point cost) at DC around 50 if not more, with some 700 force points + regen). However, wading into battle with a lighsabre lighted on the run was his first reflex, even as he jumped into a room full of elite Sith troopers. He was always lavish in using the Force to extend his melee abilities but the Force was so special for him that he rarely used it in combat (despite being a Consular/Jedi Master). He never played Yoda unless time was essential (cleaning the room with the Force is faster) or his Guardian padawans had got to the target more quickly than their non-force-jumping master. Contrary to my Revan, he didn't have uber saves but he had an almost untouchable AC, making him get away with his apparent death wish. In the meantime, he ended up with 18 INT and lots of skills, becoming the skillmaster of the group in some areas, contrary to Revan.

At the moment, I'm playing HotU and my character is spellcasting paladin/CoT (as opposed to a min-maxed low-WIS one) and a charisma-based one (as opposed to the typical STR-based build with devcrit). Because of the specifics of this build, he can hold his own, but the buffs change the situation radically. I remember standing in front of a drow leader and surrounded by his underlings, getting down to half HP while casting all the buffs one by one and then chopping them all down almost in one swoop.

I suppose I generally enjoy a character that is intelligent, a great talker and a leader type. It would be nice to be skilled with traps and such, and some of my characters have been, but I'm typically short on skill points. Perhaps one day I'm going to play a paladin with some of the rogue skills. Perhaps even a rogue/paladin, although I don't like the idea of being unable to turn Sneak Attack damage off.

In a MMORPG, I guess I would like to have a vast range of skills and be a capable soloer, not depending on a party for survival and success. Spellswords based on classes like wizard, ranger, fighter and/or rogue should turn out quite capable, I think, or generally those types that combine INT and DEX, although sometimes they just won't do the job. I would like a character somewhat similar to myself and, probably, to a large extent and, while I've had some advantage over people I've had to fight, I'm no circus monkey. I may be intelligent, but not in genius area and I'm no astrophysicist. So, I guess, that would make an all-around character. Hard to make one in D&D unless you can also sing and play instruments.

 

Definitely bashing. C'mon, when you're up against level 9 spell immune monsters, you gotta give em the bash. A fighter keeps going and going, the wizard is good till the spells run out. I've never struggled at all in any D&D game with a smash-bash character. There's always a bigger sword somewhere.

 

I do both, but magic I enjoy more. Strategies and planning and all that. I dislike the way you can win any fight in TOB by just having two fighters swing away. The ideal game is where you need both.

 

I normally use primarily bashing with mages to buff them and strip away enemy protective spells.

For the harder fights I will have my mages start blasting away.

Typically my mages will end up with a paltry 1-2% of the kills.

 

Definately bashing. I hardly ever use magic at all - mainly because I always play a Red Tiger Barbarian

I'm actually surprised at the amount of people who prefer bashing. I had always thought magic was more popular around here.

 

The usual way I play Crpgs is
1. Dual-class or multi-class fighter/mage
2. Pure Sorcerer or Wizard or Druid
3. Fighter with only healing/defensive magic in the party permanently; mages etc only join if they have quests
4. Barbarian magic kept to a minimum rangers principal magic-users

 

In BG II monks are by far the best fighters, who needs a big sword when you can knock the wind out of a dragon with a kick... But I perfer wizards as they are much more entertaining to play... And since i modded my game its much harder excellent

 

@JSBB: My mages in BG2 typically ended up with something between 4% and 7% in the beginning IIRC but much of it was probably melee kills, actually. Then again, after some time playing, I learnt my favourite tricks such as double web (from two wizards), then clouds, then fireballs, room cleared, so perhaps I'm somewhat downplaying their kill ratio. The more I play IE games, the more mages turn into mobile artillery units. A notable exception would have to be my ToEE wizardess who had 22 DEX, a fighter level, an elven chainmail and shield, max possible Tumble and a rapier. Was she a devil in the fray...

@KC: I suppose caster-heavy parties are characteristic of second and later times through. In Baldur's Gate II, having 3 mages and 3 priests in your party (with multiclassed characters) plus a self-buffing omniresistant paladin with Carsomyr saves quite a lot of time. Like this or this. Having a partly spellcasting partly bashing soloer tends to speed things up a lot, too. Like this or this or this.

[ October 25, 2005, 16:50: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

ME WILL CRUSH YOU! CRUSH YOU TO GOO!

Actually, I prefer being a thief, and silently sliding blades into peoples backs, but for lack of a better category, I picked bashing.