F/T or F/M/T?

[Guest mongerman]

Well, in my SCSII game, I decided there was no space in my powergaming party for a thief, so I installed no locks and traps. Now, several hours into the game, I realised I really missed having a thief around. Guess its restart time.

 

Question, since there is no need for thief skills to go above 100, should I dilute my thief and fighter skills to become a f/m/t for some added flexibility and tanking power?

 

TIA

[Jarno Mikkola]

Question, since there is no need for thief skills to go above 100, should I dilute my thief and fighter skills to become a f/m/t for some added flexibility and tanking power?

That totally depends on the party... so what kind of party do you have?

[Lemernis]

If the slower leveling doesn't bother you it's a powerful class indeed. I think I tried it once in the past and the slow leveling didn't sit well with me, but that's obviously a matter of individual taste. I was impressed with what the character could do skills-wise.

 

For me this class comes down to whether you can tolerate no armor for a melee fighter. Combining Fighter and Mage was something that until recently I was unable to satisfactorily bring together in the same character. Main issues for me have always been 1) you can't cast in armor (though there are mods now that change this; still feels like cheating to me, though), and 2) just how to combine spellcasting and melee fighting in the most satisfying way.

 

I think I've worked those issues out for my own taste. I'm currently playing a multiclass Kensai-Mage (hacked via Shadowkeeper) and have managed to keep his AC low without armor with certain spells. And I have to say, I do really enjoy the combination of melee fighting and spellcasting. I try to have him specialize in spells that target and impair/debilitate individual opponents and he then moves in with dual-wielded swords and Vampiric Touch. The two other arcane casters in the party cast area-of-effect spells like Greater Malison, Glitterdust, Emotion, Chaos, Slow, etc. This allows the PC to target individual enemies a little more freely, though he sometimes has to help out with other types of spells.

 

This approach was perfectly suited to the BG1 leg of my BGT game when Blind, Hold, Contagion, Confusion, Feeblemind, and Domination worked on many opponents. Especially early on it was great with Blind and Hold. But in chapter two of BG2 now, I'm kind of in a no man's land for that type of spell. And I'm often running up against mages buffed with Improved Invisibility and Globe of Invulnerability. As such, along with the party's two other arcane spellcasters the PC ends up expending a lot of spells toward bringing down enemy spell protections. I'm looking forward to eventually getting back to the BG1 combat approach and using Power Word Stun, Power Word Blind (single target version via SCSII), Energy Drain, and Power Word Kill. But again, I'm sure the PC will have to contribute to first lowering the enemy's spell protections.

 

Sorry for the personal playstyle tangent. Anyway, yes, I would recommend FMT. You could install the BG2 Tweaks component that allows you to use wear multiple AC reducing items (given the increased difficulty of the game via SCSII this is not a big deal). But you really don't need to. Assuming that you give the PC high Dex to begin with as a thief, Stoneskins and Ghost Armor should offer enough physical protection.

 

Launching your attacks with a backstab should be a lot of fun. But the hard part with SCSII will then be instantly following with any sort of spell that might debilitate the target right away, eg, a spell that stuns, paralyzes, confuses, etc. The target's spell triggers will be activated by the attack and you'll then have to expend spells toward stripping those protections.

[Guest mongerman]

My party will probably consist of

 

1. barbarian (never tried one, so might as well start), or the classic berserker/cleric

2. ranger/cleric

3. wild mage

4. fmt/ft

[Guest mongerman]

I'm trying out a party with classes I have never used before.

 

1. barbarian (let's see if 80% dmg reduction is as good as it looks...)

2. wild mage (never tried wild surges before as well)

3. ranger/cleric (will I have enough healing as a multi r/c?)

4. f/m/t or f/t

[Lemernis]

I'm trying out a party with classes I have never used before.

 

1. barbarian (let's see if 80% dmg reduction is as good as it looks...)

2. wild mage (never tried wild surges before as well)

3. ranger/cleric (will I have enough healing as a multi r/c?)

4. f/m/t or f/t

 

No Imoen?

 

If you weren't planning on it already, do yourself a favor and install the excellent mod Wild Mage Additions. It is a beautifully realized mod. Everyone I know who has played it highly recommends it.

 

I would say that with that party composition you'll probably be glad that you have some extra mage spellcasting. It's really helpful to have two arcane casters. And assuming that you want to get the most out of your wild mage, you'll have him casting wild magic fairly often, right? (If he's casting regular magic all the time, why bother playing a wild mage to begin with?) So having a FMT will free him up to unleash his wild magic a little more.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I'm trying out a party with classes I have never used before.

Perhaps it would be good to not go all in with one go, but...

 

1. barbarian (let's see if 80% dmg reduction is as good as it looks...)

2. wild mage (never tried wild surges before as well)

3. ranger/cleric (will I have enough healing as a multi r/c?)

4. f/m/t or f/t

1. Yeah, that's with all the items one can musteron the character, including Jan Jansens armor, ever looked at it's stats?

2. Remember to save before every time you'll be casting spell on this character, cause you have 1/20 chance he will totally screw things up for you

3. In a way, you'll have more healing spell than even pure cleric cause you can use the Call Woodland Being to heal the entire group with cure light wounds for 1 4th level spell, with all the other attack spells it has, it's a great deal actually.

4. I personatly would go with M/T, or Yoshimo->Imoen... and for SCSII, you'll need definetly need another mage, so go with the F/M/T.

 

If you weren't planning on it already, do yourself a favor and install the excellent mod Wild Mage Additions. It is a beautifully realized mod. Everyone I know who has played it highly recommends it.

Perhaps you should then broaden your perspective, as the first encounter is definitelly hard if you don't know what's to happen. And even if you do, it can be hard to make it out alive with 2 or 3 level 1 characters.

[Lemernis]

If you weren't planning on it already, do yourself a favor and install the excellent mod Wild Mage Additions. It is a beautifully realized mod. Everyone I know who has played it highly recommends it.

Perhaps you should then broaden your perspective, as the first encounter is definitelly hard if you don't know what's to happen. And even if you do, it can be hard to make it out alive with 2 or 3 level 1 characters.

 

There's a fairly easy remedy to that problem: reload the autosave until you win without a fatality. It's hard but certainly winnable.

 

I had forgotten about that first encounter, though. It's a doozy. I think I did have to reload, but only once.

 

Lest mongerman come away with the impression that the mod throws a lot of tough encounters at the player, it doesn't. There's only one instance of that. The mod offers some really well designed spells for a Wild Mage. Very creative and thoughtful stuff. And the Spellshaper kit it also well done (choose it).

 

2. Remember to save before every time you'll be casting spell on this character, cause you have 1/20 chance he will totally screw things up for you

 

I hear what you're saying about the chance that Wild Magic produces a negative result. At it's base I think it's higher than 1/20 isn't it? In the ToB manual on pp. 38-39 the Wild Surge table lists the 100 possible outcomes and there's a lot more than 5 that are undesirable. However, the chance of a desirable outcome improves with caster level and the spells Chaos Shields and Improved Chaos Shield. There is also at least one magical item in Wild Mage Additions that improves the chance of a desirable outcome even more--making it rather high, actually.

 

That said, it's not easy to live with the undesirable outcomes. I would never play the class as a purist, accepting the negative outcomes. In any game, I always quicksave before any encounter to begin with; and in my Wild Mage game I did reload a fair bit more than usual on the basis of bad outcomes from the wild surges. The hassle factor of that was more than offset for me, though, by the fun parts with this mod: mainly, all the neat new Wild Mage spells it gives you. They are really well done. I would say I unleashed a wild surge only about 1/10 of the time (which after a certain point most often produces a desirable outcome). The rest of the time I just enjoyed the mod's great spell selection.

 

Overall, I had a really good time with this mod. Wild Mage is not a class I feel inclined to play again. But I did enjoy myself with it, for it's novelty. It was very satisfying to defeat a Kangaxx with Cowkill, for example. But I would definitely not have ejoyed playing a Wild Mage without Wild Mage Additions. That is for sure.

[Lemernis]

Mongerman's concept of trying out classes that he hasn't used before puts me in mind of what it might be like to put together a number of classes that are viewed as weak: Wild Mage, Wizard Slayer, Jester, and Beast Master. I think it's fair to say that those are the least popular (and most maligned) BG2 kits of all time. (Any others anyone can think of to round out the list?)

 

And especially if playing the entire saga viaTutu or BGT, I'd add Monk, because although powerful at high level they're so weak at low level.

 

For the most hardcore challenge, install the toughest SCS/SCSII components (other than enemy HLAs, which is impossibly difficult). And always live with wild magic surge outcomes whatever they may be!

[coaster]

Vanilla druid or cleric are probably pretty feeble.

 

Instead of wild mage (who are, on average, hugely powerful) I'd suggest one of the crappier specialist mages, eg enchanter, abjurer or transmuter.

[Lemernis]

Vanilla druid or cleric are probably pretty feeble.

 

Instead of wild mage (who are, on average, hugely powerful) I'd suggest one of the crappier specialist mages, eg enchanter, abjurer or transmuter.

 

 

Yeah, Wild Mages can become quite powerful, it's true. It's tough accepting the negative outcomes from wild surges, though. At least early on that would definitely pose a major challenge.

 

I doubt there would be any real hope of completing a no reload game with such a group, mainly due to all the bad things that can be conjured by wild surges.

 

Maybe add a Diviner to the list. With SCSII's enemy's Spell Immunity: Divination that would render a Diviner pretty useless. And in BG1 they don't have any useful Divination spells other than Identify.