1. What is your favorite kit?
2. What is the hardest kit to solo?
3. What is the most broken kit?
4. Worst kit?
1. What is your favorite kit? 2. What is the hardest kit to solo? 3. What is the most broken kit? 4. Worst kit?
1. What is your favorite kit?
2. What is the hardest kit to solo?
3. What is the most broken kit?
4. Worst kit?
1. Cleric of Lathander.
2. Wizardslayer.
3. Berserker or Wild Mage.
4. Sun Soul Monk is absolute dogshit.
for non-EE edition, as I haven't played Beamdog shit
1. Assassin, poison is busted
2. Anything without access to arcane magic and wands makes soloing hard
3. Kensai (damage) or Berserker (immunities), while dualed to mage
4. Wizardslayer, not being able to use magic items sucks.
Archer
Any monk kit
Inquisitor
Any monk kit
1. Bounty Hunter. BH traps are basically better fireballs you can't use in combat. Also, BH are great dragonkillers.
2. Kensai. Relying on stats only sucks.
3. Wild Mage or Vanilla Sorcerer. Spellcasting has always been a gamebreaker in DnD.
4. Shapeshifter. The class is just a honeytrap that lures you in with a theoretically good shapeshifting ability that doesn't scale at all and basically forces you to play caster with the wors divine class book by the endgame.
>Shapeshifter. The class is just a honeytrap that lures you in with a theoretically good shapeshifting ability that doesn't scale at all and basically forces you to play caster with the wors divine class book by the endgame.
moron. All druids are casters, losing armor and getting werewolf form is nothing to them. Shapeshifter can still get Earth Ele HLA and use it to tank. All druids get Insect Plague and Creeping Doom which makes them S tier in vanilla game. They literally could get nothing but those two spells and still be S tier it's that fricking broken.
>Not a word of how the kit is objectively better than others
>Appeal to HLA that are common among all druid classes
>2 spells that are easily magresisted by anything dangerous
>"Muh S-tier" mentality on a class that can't even "Breach"
Pathetic.
Excellent bait, now this thread will explode because the autists will get triggered. Druid is a natural scrub filter and you've outed yourself several times already.
Don't replay to the shapeshigay. He is desperate for validation.
> All druids get Insect Plague and Creeping Doom which makes them S tier in vanilla game.
What makes you think that? If you think so because they interrupt spellcasting, well without SCS's stupidly buffed mages you can interrupt spellcasting with the condition of death by having any warrior unleash 10 APR.
Werewolf form is actually pretty powerful. High damage, high hit, multiple attacks, regeneration.
It's bugged and doesn't give you what it says on the cover.
Arguably best tank in the game. At least top 3 while being competitive with 1st place. Definitely not the worst kit.
>Arguably best tank in the game. At least top 3 while being competitive with 1st place.
Nah, definitely above it would be blades, arcane casters in general, paladins, barbarians, earth form druids, even rangers. Gotta use shapeshifter rebalance to make it useful. Vanilla doesn't even regenerate, it's an EE thing.
>Tell me you don't know how to play shapeshifter without telling me you don't know how to play shapeshifter.
>Werewolf form is actually pretty powerful. High damage, high hit, multiple attacks, regeneration.
And the attacks only count as a +2, which means the werewolf form is shit.
>caster with the wors divine class book by the endgame.
How easy is to save against Nature's Beauty, again?
>kit
who the frick says this shit
kys OP
Ukrainians, it means kot.
That's what they were called in AD&D 2nd Edition. Kys zoomer.
A kit is a sub-class in late AD&D
it's not a synonym for class moron
>4. Worst kit?
fact that all posts (excluding that one explicitly not considering EE) states that some EE kit is shit amuses me greatly. Good job Beamdog.
I don't do EE, so keep that in mind with my answers.
>1. What is your favorite kit?
Overall: Blade; Runner-Up: Cavalier
By Class:
Fighter: Berserker
Ranger: Archer
Paladin: Cavalier
Cleric: Priest of Helm
Druid: Totemic
Mage: Illusionist
Thief: Swashbuckler
Bard: Blade
>2. What is the hardest kit to solo?
Kensai - Has some value for dual-classing but absolutely shit as a sole class, and terrible to solo the game with.
>3. What is the most broken kit?
Conjurer - Mage is the strongest class, Conjurer is the strongest Mage kit
>4. Worst kit?
Beast Master - All the traditional terrible kits have a build or two where they're fun and effective. No one ever uses Beast Master. It's just bland and terrible and lags heavily behind all the other Ranger kits.
How is Conjurer stronger than a Wild Mage?
Because I don't spam reload.
Wild Mage is not a kit. It is a class on its own that Beamdog made a kit for god knows what reason. Like Barbarian.
>Beamdog
Wild Mage was added in ToB you mong, and it was already a mage kit back then
Barbarian was always a fighter kit under the hood.
Pardon my noob tier understanding; but don't bards suck? I could never get them to work - is it cause of the extra damage? I always assumed it was marginal but would be happy to learn I'm full of shit
>but don't bards suck
No.
Bards are essentially worse Fighter/Mages, but Fighter/Mages are absurdly powerful so it doesn't matter much. You lose out on the upper spell levels, Mage HLAs, Grandmastery and some HP/THAC0, in return you get a big boost on casting level (Bard Remove Magic is incredible), UAI, Offensive/Defensive spin if you are a Blade, Bard Song/Improved Bard Song, HLA traps, some unique items and so on.
Blades are contender for best tank in the game, period, and they can buff your party on top of that.
>bards are good
>doesn't mention pickpocket or bard lore
do you even play rpgs anon?
A Blade is a functionally a better Fighter/Mage through all of BG1, TotSC, SoA and around the beginning of ToB, depending on how much you stack XP. Whenever you see someone shilling for a Kensai / Mage or any other Fighter / Mage combo, they're imagining what it is to actually be playing a Blade and instead subject themselves to dozens of levels of an inferior different playstyle till the build matures.
The reason for this is exactly the mindset of your question. People have this unreasonable prejudice that Bards suck, even if the pure data and numbers show differently.
Bards suck because they're nancy boys.
Blades have awful base THAC0 progression (thief level), can't even specialize in weapons, and gain no APR. Bards are not fighters, they aren't even clerics (who are significantly better in melee even before they buff themselves). Their spell progression is also behind a pure mage.
let the bladelet have his moronic fantasy, we all know fighter/mage is significantly better
>Blades have awful base THAC0 progression
Let's compare? At 2500xp, the Bard has 19 THAC0 and the F/M has 20. At 10000xp the Bard has 18 and F/M has 19. At 161k (BG1's cap), the Bard has 16, the F/M has 14. Now SoA's cap is 2.95Mxp, which puts Bard at 10 and F/M at 7.
These are not huge leaps in difference, especially when you consider the Blade's Offensive Spin grants +2 THAC0. So, in terms of APR, the F/M doesn't distance himself until around ToB. In the meantime, the Blade is usually better or as good.
>specialize in weapons, and gain no APR
Fair points. But again, Offensive Spin gets a +1APR. With specialization, the Fighter won't equal that until 128,000xp. And he won't actually surpass the Blade (and only by 1/2APR) until 2.5 million XP. IE - around ToB again.
>spell progression
At 4000xp, the Bard has 2nd level spells and a CL4. The F/M has 1st level spells and a CL2.
At 40,000xp the Blade has 3rd level spells and CL7. The F/M has 3rd level spells and CL5.
At BG1 cap, the Blade has 4th level spells and CL10. The F/M has 4th level spells and CL7.
The Blade clearly won BG1.
At 660,000xp the Blade has 5th level spells and CL13. The F/M has 5th level spells and CL10.
At 1.3Mxp the Blade has 6th level spells and CL16. The F/M has has 5th level spells and CL11.
The F/M won't get higher level spell until 3Mxp. Again, by the time ToB usually rolls around.
None of this factors in the Blade's pickpocketing, his lore, his bardic song, his HLAs, any of that. Just in terms of competing against a F/M the Blade is functionally as good / better until around ToB.
>not playing a spoony bard
priceless
>F/M
Everyone agrees multis suck, and even they are better than your blade
> At 161k (BG1's cap), the Bard has 16, the F/M has 14.
The fighter has +3 THAC0, +3 Damage, +1 APR, and exceptional strength before strength tome.
>Fair points. But again, Offensive Spin gets a +1APR. With specialization, the Fighter won't equal that until 128,000xp. And he won't actually surpass the Blade (and only by 1/2APR) until 2.5 million XP. IE - around ToB again.
No, he'll surpass the blade immediately because haste doesn't stack with offensive spin and you're going to haste for any battle that matters.
>spell progression
No one intelligent plays F/Ms. You dual to the mage when it matters, in SoA.
>None of this factors in the Blade's pickpocketing, his lore, his bardic song, his HLAs, any of that.
His pickpocketing is useless, you can hire any npc thief to do it better then dismiss as soon as they are done. Lore is a meme stat. Bardic Song is useless until HLAs, and Bard's HLAs are much, much weaker than mage or fighter's.
>they are better than your blade
Literally just proved otherwise.
>he'll surpass the blade immediately because haste
Wrong. First, your F/M doesn't start with Haste. Second, Haste doesn't max out your damage like Spin does. It also doesn't give you the +2 THAC0. And by the time your Fighter half hits level 13 to get the full APR to stack with Haste? The Blade's already had Improved Haste which DOES stack with Spin and the point is moot anyhow. Seriously, learn the game.
>No one intelligent plays F/Ms.
The post was arguing that the Blade is better than the F/M. That's the conversation you autismed your way into. But hey, if you want to argue a Dual Class, I'll have that fight too. I've ran these numbers a million times. When are you dualing to Mage? And are you taking a Fighter kit? Think carefully before you respond. Many of the traditional break-points are inferior in this scenario and you don't want to look like a fool for not having appropriately researched.
>His pickpocketing is useless
High enough to reliably get everything in the game. Especially since the bracers of pickpocketing are conveniently positioned in the beginning at the Copper Coronet, and the Half-Elf, one of the few races that can go Blade gets the largest racial bonus to Pickpocket of any race.
>Lore is a meme stat. Bardic Song is useless / Bard's HLAs are much, much weaker
Too much effort to teach you how to play the game. We'll just leave that thought with a "lol. lmao" and stick to the Fighter/Mage mechanics for now.
>First, your F/M doesn't start with Haste.
Blade doesn't start with a usable amount of offensive spins either. Congrats, 4 rounds for clearing out a whole area. Do you rest for every mob in BG1?
>Second, Haste doesn't max out your damage like Spin does.
Maxing damage is a meme ability. At most it is +4ish damage. Meanwhile, exceptional strength and weapon specialization is giving up to +5 THAC0, +7 damage per hit and +1/2 APR. And that APR is actually permanent.
>The post was arguing that the Blade is better than the F/M. That's the conversation you autismed your way into. But hey, if you want to argue a Dual Class, I'll have that fight too. I've ran these numbers a million times. When are you dualing to Mage? And are you taking a Fighter kit? Think carefully before you respond. Many of the traditional break-points are inferior in this scenario and you don't want to look like a fool for not having appropriately researched.
Berserker is even more objectively better than blade.
>High enough to reliably get everything in the game. Especially since the bracers of pickpocketing are conveniently positioned in the beginning at the Copper Coronet, and the Half-Elf, one of the few races that can go Blade gets the largest racial bonus to Pickpocket of any race.
Literally caps at 42 for BG1. You need like 200 pickpocket to pickpocket properly unless you are save/reload spamming.
>Too much effort to teach you how to play the game. We'll just leave that thought with a "lol. lmao" and stick to the Fighter/Mage mechanics for now.
Mages literally only get 2 less lore per level than blades. Mages with max INT and WIS will have more lore than blades. And literally all lore saves you is resting at an inn at the cost of 1gp to spam identify a few times. The only useful bardic song pre-HLAs is Skald.
>Congrats, 4 rounds for clearing out a whole area.
At level 1 that's 4 more rounds than the F/M has. Then the Bard gets Haste first, casts it more times per day and it lasts longer. All on top of his Spins too.
>Maxing damage is a meme ability. / Meanwhile, exceptional strength...
Exceptional Strength means shit. Either build should have a 19 Strength before the end of BG1. Meanwhile, proficiency is only just offsetting the Spin's -2 THAC0 / +4 or so extra damage. It should be noted that the Blade gets that with every weapon he has 1 dot in, so the Fighter can't just use the best weapon he has, he has to stick to his build or lose the several proficiency dots he's sunk.
>that APR is permanent
By the time his APR is high enough to beat the Blade, you have enough Spins and casts that his functionally is too.
>Berserker is even more objectively better than blade.
You had one job to do. Name your dual-class levels. You didn't do it. This leads me to believe that you cannot, otherwise you'd have confidently done so and put me in my place. Although I now have won our exchange and there is literally no way for you to recover, I'll be magnanimous and answer the rest of your post to show how gracious in victory I am.
>Literally caps at 42 for BG1. You need like 200 pickpocket to pickpocket properly
wat. Half-Elves get +25 off the bat before anything else is calculated. Then a 19 Dex is another +15. That's enough to get anything in BG1, even with a Blade's reduced numbers. And even if it wasn't, the few exceptionally hard targets you can use your abundance of Perception/Power/Master Thievery potions that don't serve any other use and have been sitting in your inventory since you found them two acts ago.
>Mages literally only get 2 less lore per level than blades.
Yeah, sounds close right? You do remember that the Blade levels MUCH faster than a Mage though, right? And in your case, your Mage has another class siphoning off XP.
You do realize everyone already knows that bards are the shittiest class and people respond to your hilariously wrong posts just to make fun of you? Just take your meds and gtfo, watching a moron like you getting humiliated is cringe af.
>everyone already knows that bards are the shittiest class
Not him but anon please, not when Monks exist
Monks are like that mungy old dirty mutt you root for because he's so miserable you can't help feeling bad for him. Bards made the mistake of not being quite as pathetic so they get shat on.
>A Blade is a functionally a better Fighter/Mage through all of BG1, TotSC, SoA and around the beginning of ToB
lmao they wish
>The reason for this is exactly the mindset of your question. People have this unreasonable prejudice that Bards suck, even if the pure data and numbers show differently.
Theorycrafters always seem to assume they'll be at max level all game long, which is moronic.
Why would even pick anything but Cavalier for your Paladin.
Inquisitors are pretty damn good and Undead Hunters are underrated considering the prevalence of undead monsters and the effects they're immune to.
The real question is why you'd ever pick a base paladin when all the kits are massive upgrades?
Inquisitors shit all over all other Paladin setups and Undead Hunters aren't exactly bad.
Blackguard was worth playing but then Beamdog nerfed the shit out of it for no real reason.
My favorite Kit is Blade. It has far more character than fighter-mage and has surprisingly fun variety. It has fun styles like playing it as a ranged character with offensive whirl and melf's minute meteors.
Inquisitor is the most broken and my favorite because magic is the reason for all bullshit encounters and Inquisitor makes magic frick off.
>kit
I don't know, I only ever played pure Monk.
1. Avenger
2. Bard
3. Kensai
4. Beast Master
favorite has to be jester, it's massively underrated
confuse on demand that turns into confuse/slow/unconscious at epic levels is ridiculous all the way through the game, and you still get all the good parts of bard
1. Kensai/Archer; that damage scaling is so sweet (Kensai comes out on top)
2. Wizard Slayer; all of the item restrictions really make it tough early, when it really matters
3. Bounty Hunter; AoE, ranged, mr-bypassing, no-save maze is breasts awesome and it's totally kit-exclusive to the BH. Inquisitor's specials contend with the BH's, but BH wins out because special traps increase in value as difficulty increases. There are multiple ways to deal with magic and invisibility, but nothing comes close to the power of a no-negotiation battle reset. I mean, you can even start fights with those things too.
4. Totemic Druid; those summons are just a cheap crutch
Dragon Disciple
Anything Monk
Kensai
Anything Monk
Inquisitor
Evil Inquisitor
Inquisitor
Evil Inquisitor
Believe it or not, Inquisitor is both the question and the answer
Any point in playing a pure berserker or should I just dual class to mage.
roleplay reasons only. although BG saga is so easy, you can play any class for flavour. I only min/max when playing solo.
Berserkers are strong even without being a mage. You could also dual it into Cleric or Thief or Druid for an objectively better Cleric or Thief or Druid if you want.
Bring along Korgan and he will be your answer. Yes, they're excellent
>1. What is your favorite kit?
I'm a simple man and vote for archer.
>I'm a simple man
>EE
Yeah, no shit.
1. Berserker
2. Wizard Slayer
3. Berserker
4. Wizard Slayer
Berseker is the strongest kit by far in the game and if you think Kensai is better for Mage you have literally never done no reloads through the entire sage
The blanket immunities Berserker gives you easily trivialize the strongest threats on the game with AI mods.
Korgan can even fully tank fricking Beholders without the cheesy Shield with 100% chance to save vs their ray spam due to manlet save boosts + Berserker immunities
Arcane magic is for women and effeminate men like Edwin.
Everyone's a Chad up until contingency kicks in and they can't scratch an old man with their +3 stick of vorpality. Enjoy Evard's Tentacle Rape.
>nothing personal, kid
>*dispels behind you, at twice his level*
AHHHH SAVE ME SCS
Oh look, it's the original cuck o rpgs.
Jokes on you, I've got Spell Immunity: Abjuration. What now old man?
>Spell Immunity: Abjuration
you've made the mistake of thinking an inquisitor wouldn't have a wand of ruby ray of reversal, a mistake you will not make again
Spell Trigger -> Spell Immunity: Abjuration, Spell Immunity: Alteration, PfMW
Chain Contingency -> Enemy sighted -> Horrid Wilting x3
What now Mr. Inquisitor?
First, I'd laugh as you cast horrid wilting three times on Kitthix.
Then, I take my non-magical two-handed sword and hit you until you die since you don't have stoneskin up.
>kit set up specifically to kill mages needs to go 2v1 to kill a mage
Stoneskin should be precast by every single person who has it in their spellbook the moment you finish a rest, without exception. 16 hours of immunity to physical damage? You'd be crazy not to.
>2nd edition high level arcane casters are overpowered, especially within the confines of BG2
yes
Kensai is the type of class what only works when you start at level 7 like BG2 does.
I tried this dumb class in BG1, and he was just a regular dude without armor and got destroyed by wolve sand bandits.
>game force feeds you 200 potions
>WHAT DO I DO WITH THESE?!?!
Is SCS with full custom party the way to go? It broke my game when I tried it, every boss is immune to damage
Did you install your mods in the correct order?
1.) Cavalier
2.) Sun or Moon Soul Monk, I guess
3.) Berserker, solely because it's so good at dual-classing
4.) Sun or Moon Soul Monk, I guess
>the bladegay is still at it
the kinds of people that play bards are always insufferable whether it be tabletop or crpg.
>start argument
>get proven objectively and mathematically wrong
>"heh, this guy is still at it?"
What a disingenuous sore loser c**t. Why not try RPing as someone who's not a b***h for once?
you weren't arguing with me
your shitty bard kit will be worse at melee for almost the whole of BG1 until he gets his claws on that str tome, which, if wasted on him, will allow him to enjoy his 5 minutes of glory until he will again get overshadowed by f/m and other melee multiclasses
he will have to use his special ability to catch up to actually good melee classes
but that also means he will have to strictly chose between having acceptable thac0 and apr or acceptable ac, he can't have both
he will suffer from low hp and also won't be able to negate critical hits
at the lategame, where shitty builds get filtered, he will end up being an enhanced bard song battery or casting his subpar level 6 spells, permanently in defensive spin
but enhanced bard song is very based
In BG2 he also has to deal with the fact that he is worse at his job than HD.
>there aren't a dozen different ways to enhance your strength before the Tome including MC-only powers that do explicitly that
If you've never played the game, why do you even bother speaking?
>you can either out DPS or out tank all other classes, but you can only be the best in the game at one at a time! haha that sucks!
I guess you got me there.
>ioun stones don't negate critical hits, 8hp/level is too low, I never learned how to use defensive spells like mirror image!
You understand that half the build is caster, right? And that he has access to the full mage spellbook and- y'know, nevermind. I'm sure you just auto-attacking everything works too.
>in the lategame where every competent player already has AC at the cap, I still use defensive spin because again, I'm a fricking moron who doesn't know how to use mage spells or buffs
Gotcha.
heh, i forgot how it is to play vanilla bg2 without some difficulty enhancing mods
you do you bruh 😉
>can't refute points
>makes irrelevant statement implying difficulty has been established in any scenario
>runs like a b***h
Thank you for the win.
i've made my points in the post you've replied to man
you've not refuted them lmao
enjoy your "win" 😉
Yes I did. Look closer, I refuted you in the quote. For example, your argument that the period of time before the tome where he only has 18 Strength is nonsense because the game provides multiple ways to acquire a higher strength before then including an innate DUHM ability.
I'm not surprised that you're either pretending to be too moronic to read it, or literally were too moronic. But I'll enjoy that win either way, thanks.
can you two just suck each other off already, I'm using HD if I want a bard in my game
Any mods that make two-handed weapons suck less (compared to dualwield with belm/kundane offhand)?
you mean mods that allow you to select fighter HLAs sooner than on 3m exp?
that would be too OP
>suck less compared to *most optimised weapon setup in the game*
You can beat the whole game on insane by one handing clubs if you really want to, just make a grandmaster halberd fighter and wreck faces.
1. What is your favorite kit?
Bounty Hunter
2. What is the hardest kit to solo?
Wizard slayer
3. What is the most broken kit?
Bounty Hunter
4. Worst kit?
Pure clerics. Kmart mages
Jester
Kensai
Sorceror
Sun Soul Monk
Speaking of Bards, did you know that in the Aerie/Haer'dalis romance Aerie will always break up with Haer'dalis because he's an butthole?
Not always. It's possible to cuck yourself and have them run off together.
You have to go pretty far to force them both to leave the party, and presumably they don't stay together regardless since the reason Aerie breaks up with Haer'dalis after they start dating has absolutely nothing to do with CHARNAME.
Damn. I never take him anymore because he is dead weight in combat, but I thought that romance thing between them was neat. I didn't even remember them breaking up, I thought it works out for them.
>I didn't even remember them breaking up, I thought it works out for them.
There's a reason that that Haer'dalis only has one epilogue and Aerie isn't mentioned in it, and Aerie only has 2 and Haer'dalis isn't mentioned in either of them.
If they start to romance each other, Aerie will break up with Haer'dalis on the spot at fixed locations (the only ones I know of are Suldanessellar and Saradush) because he starts monologuing about how cool it is that all these civilians are getting slaughtered and Aerie finally realises that the whole Doomguard thing isn't a joke but what Haer'dalis actually believes. Haer'dalis doesn't even care because he never considered it a long term relationship in the first place. It's actually kind of a nice factor of Aeries character development since she stands by her own principles even if means going against her boyfriend but no one ever sees it because they don't want to get cucked by the spoony bard.
>dead weight in combat
Haer'dalis is the best NPC tank bar none my dude, he's far from dead weight.
>Haer'dalis is the best NPC tank bar none my dude,
IDK, Jaheira is pretty damn tanky and she's able to move while tanking.
If you have SCS then Jaheira is definitely a contender because she can hit 100% physical damage resistance that's completely undispellable on top of things like Entropy Shield, but in the regular game she can't. Haer'dalis edges her out with cast time 1 PfMW and Stoneskin in the middle of battle as well as Spell Immunity, Mirror Image and all the other perks of the Arcane spell book compared to Hardiness and cast time 9 Iron Skins. Haer'dalis can tank better than Jaheira in the base game before even using Defensive Spin.
>Haer'dalis is the best NPC tank bar none my dude
Unlike Anomen, Nalia, Korgan... no, wait, you're that lunatic, disregard.
>Nalia
All she has over Haer'dalis is level 7-9 Mage spells, and all the good tank spells are 6 and below. Spell Trap is great and all but if I have a mage with level 9 spell slots I'm not going to use her to tank, and then Haer'dalis has UAI and can stack up resistance gear as well.
>Korgan
You shouldn't ever be tanking with Korgan, you should be using him to chop the shit out of whatever is being distracted by your tank. Hardiness and Berserker immunities are to keep him alive and under your control, not for him to take point. His AC is generally not going to be great so even if he's taking 40% less damage he gets hit too much.
>Anomen
He's only even comparable in SCS, in the base game he's a worse tank than Jaheira is.
I'm not the dude from before who thinks Bard is the strongest class, but they aren't bad at all and anyone who thinks they are bad doesn't know what they are talking about. Any class that has access to the Mage spellbook is automatically good.
>walking away from Hasted dragons and hordes of elite fire giants and planetars
You're really going to tell me you've never had a situation in this game where you've won a fight you should have lost because you managed to keep a particular strong enemy distracted long enough? You need to play on harder difficulties.
>You're really going to tell me you've never had a situation in this game where you've won a fight you should have lost because you managed to keep a particular strong enemy distracted long enough? You need to play on harder difficulties.
see
>Caring about whether a class can tank for 30 rounds vs. another classes 50 rounds is irrelevant.
Half the classes in the game can last long enough as a tank to utterly destroy most bosses. The best way to beat enemies is to just straight up kill them quickly. I did a 5 fighter 1 fighter/thief playthrough of IWD and literally every boss died in the first round despite having maximized (doubled) HP. And BG2 bosses are comparatively weaker once you've removed SCS-provided spell protections (though you'll never have 5 characters with grandmastery in their weapon to wail on them, sadly).
>I did a 5 fighter 1 fighter/thief playthrough of IWD
That's a different game my dude
>BG2 bosses are comparatively weaker once you've removed SCS-provided spell protections
IWD is a cakewalk compared to BG2, I don't even know how you came to this conclusion. Even without SCS shit like Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, the bottom of Watchers Keep, IWD has nothing that can compare, and then lets you min-max your entire party on top of that. IWD also has very few mages.
>Half the classes in the game can last long enough as a tank to utterly destroy most bosses
If you are playing on insane difficulty, Golems can instantly kill any non-helmet wearing class from full HP, and they are far from the hardest hitters. It's not a matter of 30-50 rounds, it's a matter of 1-5 in some cases. Firkraag has 3 APR, grandmastery, 25 strength and then casts improved haste and is fully capable of killing a fighter in a single round if he lands all his hits. This is all in vanilla, not SCS. In SCS you have fighters using Whirlwind Attack or Critical Strike and if a group focuses on you, they can kill a Fighter/Mage with a fresh stoneskin in a single round.
Caring about the gameplay to this level of depth really only matters when doing challenge runs like no reload insane modded difficulty, but when talking about the min-maxed gameplay of a class that's the only time its actually going to be relevant. So the fact that if Korgan gets surrounded by HLA using drow he WILL die and there is literally nothing you can do to stop it without interrupting another character to bail him out, whereas Haer'dalis can 0 cast time shit out PfMW and sit pretty for an extra 4 rounds, does make a difference.
>IWD is a cakewalk compared to BG2, I don't even know how you came to this conclusion. Even without SCS shit like Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, the bottom of Watchers Keep, IWD has nothing that can compare, and then lets you min-max your entire party on top of that. IWD also has very few mages.
I'm talking purely about enemy HP, THAC0, and resistances. The argument being that "once you have the enemy protections down, you can just go fricking murder them".
IWD1 Belhifit: 350ish HP, -15ish AC.
ToB Mellisan: 250ish HP, -12ish AC, 50% resistance.
Bear in mind that you fight Belhifit at level 12-13 while you fight Mellisan at level 30-35ish with HLAs including Critical Strike which mean you can't miss.
> Firkraag has 3 APR, grandmastery, 25 strength and then casts improved haste and is fully capable of killing a fighter in a single round if he lands all his hits
Firkraag only has like -10 THAC0 so you can reduce his hit rate to 15-5% or so if you are properly buffing/debuffing/itemized.
>Firkraag only has like -10 THAC0
my bad, it's actually only -5 in vanilla which is an hilarious joke. In my current installation w/ SCS and other mods its -12, not sure if its SCS or something else buffing him.
>IWD1 Belhifit: 350ish HP, -15ish AC.
>ToB Mellisan: 250ish HP, -12ish AC, 50% resistance.
Belhifet also has 3 THAC0 to Melissans -7, 3 APR to her 5, you fight him once to Melissans 4 in a row without rests, Melissan has more adds both in turns of what she summons as well as the mandatory pool fights, Melissan casts higher level spells on you during the fight, Melissan is completely immune to all 4 elements and has 90 MR while Belhifet is just fire and has 80. Belhifet has 350 HP and 25% resistance to physical damage, so effectively 438, while Melissan has 250 with 50% resistance with 4 fights, so effectively 1500. Your PCs in Icewind Dale will be lower level but they should also all have very good +4 or +5 equipment which you wouldn't have at a similar level in BG2. A fighter in melee with Belhifet will be doing more damage and taking less back than with Melissan. Melissan is clearly more dangerous, which makes perfect sense because she's the final boss of a harder game that takes you to higher levels. The biggest problem with Belhifet is that he auto-dispels you. BG2 has harder enemies even discounting mages.
And even if you get Firkraag down to 5-15% chance to hit by preparing properly, that's the point. Even if you prepare properly he can still hit you with his 6 APR, and there are plenty of of NPCs he can kill within a single round if not a single hit if he actually lands it. And Firkraag is the weakest dragon of the lot.
The point being if you are comparing classes and NPCs in the most min-maxed way possible the only thing that matters is the highest difficulty and what can go wrong, and if you have Haer'dalis in front of Firkraag with PfMW, SI: Abjuration and Protection from Fire the answer is practically nothing, while if you have Korgan with Berserking and Protection from Fire the answer is he can still potentially get fricked to death in a round or two. The ideal scenario is to have them both there anyway, but with Firkraag attacking Haer'dalis.
>Belhifet also has 3 THAC0 to Melissans -7
pic related are his stats.
>Melissans 4 in a row without rests
Cmon, literally no one in ToB plays a party that doesn't have the ability to wish rest.
> Melissan has more adds both in turns of what she summons as well as the mandatory pool fights, Melissan casts higher level spells on you during the fight
None of these matter. The point is, if you aren't attacking the enemy in melee, you can always run away. If you are attacking the enemy in melee, they will die almost immediately. Melee enemies in infinity games have no ability to cope with kiting.
>Your PCs in Icewind Dale will be lower level but they should also all have very good +4 or +5 equipment which you wouldn't have at a similar level in BG2.
IWD equipment is much weaker than BG2's. Most characters are wielding +2 or +3, and they aren't busted +2 or +3 weapons like flail of ages or celestial fury.
>And even if you get Firkraag down to 5-15% chance to hit by preparing properly, that's the point. Even if you prepare properly he can still hit you with his 6 APR, and there are plenty of of NPCs he can kill within a single round if not a single hit if he actually lands it.
If he's down to a 5% hit rate then he'll deal an average of (32 + 43)/2 * 6 *0.05 = 11.25 damage per round to whatever he's attacking. If 15%, that's 33.75 damage per round. If you drink a potion of extra healing every round you'll heal 27 HP a round, making you almost invulnerable to him.
You deal ~20 damage per hit to him, and with 10 APR can theoretically kill him in a single round, assuming your THAC0 is low enough (it should be close if you have your buffs ready). Similar calculations hold out for Mellisan, if 2-4 characters with 7-10 APR, 20-25ish damage per hit, and low thac0 converge on her, or anything else not immune to physical damage, it's going to die in 1 or 2 rounds max.
>pic related are his stats.
And it says right there dude, base thac0 3. It's modified after but so is Melissans -7, and she uses DUHM for 25 STR to match Belhifats too.
>C'mon, literally no one in ToB plays a party that doesn't have the ability to wish rest.
You would be surprised, its a strategy you have to plan for in advance after all because potions of insight are not common. You can beat the fight without it and I would say the vast majority of first time TOB players aren't aware of it.
>if you aren't attacking the enemy in melee, you can always run away
Unless said enemy is in a group and they box you in.
>they will die almost immediately
Some will, others won't. Golems have huge physical resistance, fighter/mages or dragons have their own protections. Drow all use +5 protection gear on top of high dex, and you can again be attacking one guy, kill him in a couple of rounds, but his 3 or 4 HLA fighter buddies Critical Strike'd you in the meantime.
>Most characters are wielding +2 or +3
I went and loaded my last IWD1 save just to check and I can kit out my whole party with +4/+5 weapons. You get quite a lot, even if they are just generic +4 longswords of action or something.
>If he's down to a 5% hit rate then he'll deal an average
Averages aren't the question here, its potential outcomes in situations where for whatever reason you can't just reload and try again. He isn't going to be dealing pure average all the time, he just needs one lucky streak to pump out 25 STR grandmaster doubled damage on whoever he's attacking.
The point being there are going to be times where you want to keep a melee enemy occupied or away from other characters, and doing average damage calculations doesn't reflect that at all. Someone taking damage from a wayward crit, or a spell, or they get unlucky and three enemys land attacks on them all at once, and suddenly you need to get them out of combat and the easiest way to do that is have someone else jump behind them and take agro. Or, you have a party thats got frick all frontliners, one or two, and you can't afford to let enemies get into your backline. Or there's an enemy archer that you want to focus on one character who isn't going to take any damage from them so you can ignore them until you've taken care of the mages and fighters, or 2/3rds of your party got wiped out by a Horrid Wilting or something and you need someone to . That's where the tank comes in. It's not as important as having a healer or a mage or physical DPS but you will need a character who can go into melee and just sit there while you kill the enemies from afar or are casting Heal on your physical DPS at some point if you are playing the game on hard mode. There's just too much randomness in the game mechanics for you to actually never come across a time where you want someone who can jump into a big group of enemies and just not die no matter what they do to them, even if its just for a few rounds.
>10 constitution
>350hp
Really makes you think.
>literally an evil demon lord
>reputation: 10
>on insane difficulty getting hit is not a workable strategy and you must use spells to tank
we know, that's why most of us play on classic
>Fight mind flayers
>Turn on Story mode
dude chaotic commands lmao
>Laughs in AC-ignoring Intellegence-Drain meelee attack
>AC-ignoring
It's not AC ignoring, they have to roll to hit you. Their THAC0 isn't even good. They do have have 4 APR though.
It's only AC ignoring if you get stunned. If you can nullify the psionic attacks, Minsc can win a fight against them.
Just cast PfMW bro
I did use it. chaotic commands + invulnerability potion on tank, and slayer mode for the mother brain to beat that dungeon. But I just hate fighting them so much that the next time I had to fight them I just said frick it story mode for this fight.
Not getting grandmastery as a Paladin really holds them back.
Tanking isn't that useful in BG2 anyway. Bosses have two states:
1. Buffed, protected, not something you need to stand by. Literally just walk away and you take zero damage.
2. Debuffed, unprotected. Dies in <10s when you order a bunch of buffed melee characters to gang up on them.
There's literally no enemy in BG2 or ToB that, unprotected, can stand up to even a single buffed fighter for more than 5 rounds. Caring about whether a class can tank for 30 rounds vs. another classes 50 rounds is irrelevant.
>cast pfmw
>AI retargets to other PC
wow so good spell
1. Dragon Disciple
2. wizard slayer
3. Beserker > Mage
4. Beast master.
I once did a wizard slayer > thief for Use any item. It's good (can have 100% MR) but not worth it.
>Male
>Human
>Unkitted Fighter
>Chaotic Good
>Two handed swords
Aw yeah, its adventuring time