Mage 2 dual classed to Fighter BG2/Tob/Ascension insane double damage run

[KainenMorden]

I'm almost done with my BG1 EE insane double damage run with my dual classed fighter/mage. The idea was basically a fighter with some utility, yes I realize there's a strong argument to be made for other f/m multis/duals being far stronger. I went lawful good and rolled an 88 so I had good stats and took 4 pips in long swords, 1 in dagger, 2 in sling. 

How would you play this character in BG2? I'm thinking of dual wielding long swords and flails, not sure if 3 pips in 2 weapon fighting is worth it. 

What party do you think would work well?

Also speaking of parties, I chose the option to choose companion pips from lvl 1. Do you think that messes with the game balance too much? I still found the game very challenging even with Khalid with 4 pips in bows and Kagain with 4 pips in daggers. I suppose the tradeoff is, companions who had "illegal" pips can't get them now, as far as I can tell. 

[polytope]

On 4/4/2023 at 3:11 AM, KainenMorden said:

I'm almost done with my BG1 EE insane double damage run with my dual classed fighter/mage. The idea was basically a fighter with some utility, yes I realize there's a strong argument to be made for other f/m multis/duals being far stronger. I went lawful good and rolled an 88 so I had good stats and took 4 pips in long swords, 1 in dagger, 2 in sling. 

How would you play this character in BG2? I'm thinking of dual wielding long swords and flails, not sure if 3 pips in 2 weapon fighting is worth it.

Decent build because you've given up only a small fraction of your hit dice potential to be able to use any item or a scroll that a mage could, in BG1 that's mostly wands, in BG2 you'll have:

• Amulet of Power for level drain immunity
• Staff of the Magi - SCS has a component to remove the invisibility, but not the dispel on hit or saving throw bonuses, very nice if you have the THAC0 to hit things with it.
• Wands again, but including the Spell Striking and Paralyzation ones, can be handy tactically, plus lots of powerful scrolls.

I would probably have gone neutral and two-handed weapons rather than good aligned, so as to use the Soul Reaver along with the SotM, and to never worry about Unholy Blight spamming. Two pips in two-weapon fighting should be enough (SCS doesn't add a lot of AC boosts to enemies) I guess you'll have your next proficiency point at level 9, so lvl 12 before you'll be dual wielding and probably 18 before you're at least specialized in flail (unless you want the 5th star in longsword first, in that case lvl 21).

Edited April 7, 2023 by polytope

[Endarire]

For BGEE >> BG2EE, I went Human Fighter (Kensai)13 >> MageX.  The physical part helped lots.  I very much didn't like the spell preparation at high levels, but at least more modern mods (5e Casting) will fix that.

[KainenMorden]

On 4/6/2023 at 10:15 PM, polytope said:

Decent build because you've given up only a small fraction of your hit dice potential to be able to use any item or a scroll that a mage could, in BG1 that's mostly wands, in BG2 you'll have:

• Amulet of Power for level drain immunity
• Staff of the Magi - SCS has a component to remove the invisibility, but not the dispel on hit or saving throw bonuses, very nice if you have the THAC0 to hit things with it.
• Wands again, but including the Spell Striking and Paralyzation ones, can be handy tactically, plus lots of powerful scrolls.

I would probably have gone neutral and two-handed weapons rather than good aligned, so as to use the Soul Reaver along with the SotM, and to never worry about Unholy Blight spamming. Two pips in two-weapon fighting should be enough (SCS doesn't add a lot of AC boosts to enemies) I guess you'll have your next proficiency point at level 9, so lvl 12 before you'll be dual wielding and probably 18 before you're at least specialized in flail (unless you want the 5th star in longsword first, in that case lvl 21).

I'm just getting through Ch 2 of SoA, so far I've actually found it a fun tactical challenge. I like having a good physical damage dealer that can be used in combination with Korgan. 

 

I decided to not lvl npc companions on this run and just leave them as they were originally designed. So far my party is Jaheira, Anomen(who I got knighted),Korgan, Aerie and Jan.

I'm thinking this will be my party for the whole game but will move some companions around to put in Edwin and HD, I'm thinking Aerie will be taken out and Jan will be removed at times. 

 

I thought about doing this as a 2 handed weapon build, so far I'm lvl 9 with 5 pips in longsword. I just thought maximizing DPS would be better and also I went lawful good to get duhm. My plan is to go evil to get black razor.  I also found out foebane got nerfed so blackrazor is almost as good. 

 

I'm conflicted on putting the pips in flails even though I think I will need to offhand doe to survive in melee during ToB. I plan on putting 5 pips into flail for Anomen but I don't think I will have him dual wield, just use foa and a shield. 

Is there another weapon worth putting pips i for this build at this point besides flails?

[polytope]

On 4/12/2023 at 3:19 AM, KainenMorden said:

Is there another weapon worth putting pips i for this build at this point besides flails?

Since you have a party with at least one other fighter it's not critical but I would say halberds, simply for the Ravager halberd in ToB: You'd mostly be using it with (Greater) Whirlwind HLA, so only three stars are needed (the main difference between mastery and grand mastery is attacks per round, which is always 10 anyway if you GWW). A mage dual classed to a fighter can still use scrolls of Black Blade of Disaster, which might also be worth saving for major bosses.

Edited April 13, 2023 by polytope

[KainenMorden]

9 hours ago, polytope said:

Since you have a party with at least one other fighter it's not critical but I would say halberds, simply for the Ravager halberd in ToB: You'd mostly be using it with (Greater) Whirlwind HLA, so only three stars are needed (the main difference between mastery and grand mastery is attacks per round, which is always 10 anyway if you GWW). A mage dual classed to a fighter can still use scrolls of Black Blade of Disaster, which might also be worth saving for major bosses.

What about using critical strike instead? My plan for this Charname was to mostly take hardiness and critical strike and maybe not take anything towards gww but I'm curious as to your thoughts on what HLAs would work best. 

 

What other scrolls would you save for tough fights? I suppose timestop for the toughest fights, possibly the spell immunity scrolls as well and bbod, the only thing I don't like about that is it can destroy items in EE because the slaying effect becomes disintegration. 

 

Also, could I get away with having Charname as the only fighter in Tob? I think it might be tough to keep 2 fighters alive on insane double damage 

What equipment do you think would be best as the game progresses? I realize this is highly contextual

[polytope]

On 4/14/2023 at 7:17 AM, KainenMorden said:

What about using critical strike instead? My plan for this Charname was to mostly take hardiness and critical strike and maybe not take anything towards gww but I'm curious as to your thoughts on what HLAs would work best.

Critical strike is certainly superior when Dual Wielding and for general per-round damage, GWW is only needed if you have a two handed weapon with an interesting on-hit procc... like the Ravager halberd.

As for scrolls, I'd certainly save Stoneskin even though you'll be casting it at a lower level, it will still soak a few hits which will more than make up for your character having lower base hp than a regular fighter. Also Blur and probably Mirror Image (since Ilbratha is only once/day).

I like having more than one fighter-type (if you have just one and they're debuffed then your party's physical damage potential nosedives until you can remedy the problem), on insane difficulty you'll be relying a lot on Stoneskinned characters (although your PC can become one if he has a scroll) and summons to take hits, but with scrolls of Blur etc. your AC might keep you pretty safe from physical attacks by all except bosses.

[KainenMorden]

19 hours ago, polytope said:

Critical strike is certainly superior when Dual Wielding and for general per-round damage, GWW is only needed if you have a two handed weapon with an interesting on-hit procc... like the Ravager halberd.

As for scrolls, I'd certainly save Stoneskin even though you'll be casting it at a lower level, it will still soak a few hits which will more than make up for your character having lower base hp than a regular fighter. Also Blur and probably Mirror Image (since Ilbratha is only once/day).

I like having more than one fighter-type (if you have just one and they're debuffed then your party's physical damage potential nosedives until you can remedy the problem), on insane difficulty you'll be relying a lot on Stoneskinned characters (although your PC can become one if he has a scroll) and summons to take hits, but with scrolls of Blur etc. your AC might keep you pretty safe from physical attacks by all except bosses.

 

I'm running 2 fighters now, will it be difficult to keep one of them alive in tob because only 1 will have defender of easthaven to offhand?

Also, thinking of giving charname pips in katanas for celestial fury because I will be able to wield blackrazor and have korgan get pips in bastard swords for foebane which is nerfed now in BG2ee. 

Who else would you include in such a party? Do I need 2 mages? I only use edwin and aerie for now but aerie is probably the weakest companion in my party right now, I think I will switch her out for HD eventually, still lvl 11 now. 

[polytope]

12 hours ago, KainenMorden said:

I'm running 2 fighters now, will it be difficult to keep one of them alive in tob because only 1 will have defender of easthaven to offhand?

That flail is really only supreme if you can stack it with other sources of physical resistance, i.e. a normal fighter with Hardiness and DoE takes 40% normal damage from hits (effectively 80% on insane), a barbarian would take only 20%, a fighter/cleric or even a high enough level ranger like Valygar would take only 15% with Armour of Faith. On Insane I think you're better off using stoneskinned character and summons to take hits from really damaging enemies, it involves a bit of micromanaging and SCS AI likes to switch targets to injured characters if they're close enough, but rarely switches targets more than once per round, so if you've goaded an enemy into attacking one character you're usually safe to charge in with a few others.

12 hours ago, KainenMorden said:

Also, thinking of giving charname pips in katanas for celestial fury because I will be able to wield blackrazor and have korgan get pips in bastard swords for foebane which is nerfed now in BG2ee...Do I need 2 mages? I only use edwin and aerie for now but aerie is probably the weakest companion in my party right now, I think I will switch her out for HD eventually, still lvl 11 now. 

About Celestial Fury, it's still good, but you'll probably be 15th level before you can even specialize with it, you'll almost be in ToB before your character has enough proficiencies to use it for maximum effect, and stun immune enemies become more and more common (as are high level enemy fighters with berserker/barbarian rage or potions of invulnerability/magical shielding) and you can get the Ravager halberd soon after completing SoA (well, soon if you've already done Watcher's Keep up until the final seal).

I usually have two arcane casters (don't need to both be single classed) because it's so convenient to be able to throw a Ruby Ray and a Breach/Remove Magic in the same round, or Greater Malison and Emotion.

The traumatized elf and bloodthirsty dwarf are incompatible iirc, unless you have another mod to make them get along, I never liked Aerie as a character anyway, but mechanically I think she's fine. Haer would also be a good candidate for using Celestial Fury, since he doesn't need 5 pips to be at his maximum potential with it, whereas it always feels awkward for a fighter who's spent the proficiency points to get grandmastery in one weapon to be wielding one of a completely different type that he's only proficient in.

[KainenMorden]

On 4/17/2023 at 7:55 AM, polytope said:

That flail is really only supreme if you can stack it with other sources of physical resistance, i.e. a normal fighter with Hardiness and DoE takes 40% normal damage from hits (effectively 80% on insane), a barbarian would take only 20%, a fighter/cleric or even a high enough level ranger like Valygar would take only 15% with Armour of Faith. On Insane I think you're better off using stoneskinned character and summons to take hits from really damaging enemies, it involves a bit of micromanaging and SCS AI likes to switch targets to injured characters if they're close enough, but rarely switches targets more than once per round, so if you've goaded an enemy into attacking one character you're usually safe to charge in with a few others.

About Celestial Fury, it's still good, but you'll probably be 15th level before you can even specialize with it, you'll almost be in ToB before your character has enough proficiencies to use it for maximum effect, and stun immune enemies become more and more common (as are high level enemy fighters with berserker/barbarian rage or potions of invulnerability/magical shielding) and you can get the Ravager halberd soon after completing SoA (well, soon if you've already done Watcher's Keep up until the final seal).

I usually have two arcane casters (don't need to both be single classed) because it's so convenient to be able to throw a Ruby Ray and a Breach/Remove Magic in the same round, or Greater Malison and Emotion.

The traumatized elf and bloodthirsty dwarf are incompatible iirc, unless you have another mod to make them get along, I never liked Aerie as a character anyway, but mechanically I think she's fine. Haer would also be a good candidate for using Celestial Fury, since he doesn't need 5 pips to be at his maximum potential with it, whereas it always feels awkward for a fighter who's spent the proficiency points to get grandmastery in one weapon to be wielding one of a completely different type that he's only proficient in.

So you're saying that as the game progresses, fighters should no longer front line and hang back and only attack after a mage/cleric tank/summon has drawn aggro?

If that's the case and I want to put pips in halberds for ravager, should I still invest pips in 2 weapon fighting?