Jesters, Swashbucklers, and Skalds ... Oh my!
Mark
get rather boring. Wouldn't it be more fun to slug it out as a Paladin or
Mage?
Thanks
Kish
>
> It seems to me that playing through Shadows of Amn as a thief or bard would
> get rather boring.
How so?
Mark
"Kish" <Kis...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3C69B8E3...@pacbell.net...
I suppose sneaking around as a Swashbuckler might be appealing to some, but
it seems to me taking on hoards of enemies with a warrior would be more
entertaining. Maybe it's just me.
CCF
> I suppose sneaking around as a Swashbuckler might be appealing to some, but
> it seems to me taking on hoards of enemies with a warrior would be more
> entertaining. Maybe it's just me.
My wife tried the Swashbuckler and had limited success. The class appears built
to fight (hence the name) but since they lack the armour of the fighters they
rapidly take a very bad beating. The same lack of armour makes less than useful
as a second line fighte with your clerics. Also the no backstab thing ruins
them as theives.
Jesters sound cool as well but since everyone saves at +4 my jester rapidly
became a nothing as everything made its saving throw and he was dancing around
like a nitwit. Blades suffer the same disease as swashbucklers though the
defensive spin helps some they still really can't toe-to-toe with any real
monsters for long.
Jeremiah
"Mark" <jm...@willinet.net> spake thusly:
>
> I suppose sneaking around as a Swashbuckler might be appealing to some, but
> it seems to me taking on hoards of enemies with a warrior would be more
> entertaining. Maybe it's just me.
Are you a Diablo player by chance? You'll find that a party of
warriors won't do so well in BG2... you really need a balanced party.
Sometimes stealth really comes in handy.
Gebhard Blucher
Mark <jm...@willinet.net> wrote in message
news:u6je2d3...@corp.supernews.com...
It's all personal taste. I find playing single classed fighters,
paladins and rangers very, very boring. I also think sorcerers are
kinda boring to play; sorta one-trick ponies. I've never cared for
the 2nd edition bard either. Hmmm... come to think of it, I really
only like magic users, thieves, multi and dual classed characters...
Maybe I'm the boring one. ;-)
GB
David Carson
Blade Bards are loads of fun. They can't slug it out as well as a
Paladin, true, but they have so many fun options.. the offensive and
defensive spins, all those combat-enhancing spells that normally go
unloved because a straight Mage never wants to be in a fight, various
bard-only magic items etc. etc. Of course you don't need to play one
yourself, just get Haer'Dalis in the party.
But ultimately, your comment only makes sense if you only have one
character. If you have a full party, you'll surely have a thief. Not
being able to open locks or find traps will cause a much greater
reduction in fun than the fact that one of your party of 6 can't slug as
well as the others. :-)
Cheers!
David...
Phaenar
"Jeremiah" <br...@spam.to.dev.null> wrote in message
news:dnja8.38059$p5.63...@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com...
Yep, a good rule of thumb in AD&D is one cleric, one mage, one thief, and
fighters, fighters, fighters.
Many of the offshoots of the thief class that "fight" are children of the
2nd edition AD&D pen & paper and were designed for campaigns where
role-playing was more important than the dungeon crawl. Make no mistake,
BG2 while a great CRPG is a dungeon crawl -- you have a lot of fighting to
do and there's no way around it.
I have heard that with the right equipment some people have turned Blades
into awesome fighters at levels 20+. While that may be true, I personally
don't see how they could compare to an elven fighter with 18/+ strength, 18
dex, 18 con, Firkraag's Plate armor, 3 points in dual-wielding style, 5
points in longsword, and dual wielding Daystar and any one of half a dozen
other great longswords (such as Ilbratha that heals you with each successful
hit).
I have this Ranger, Valygar, dual-wielding a Katana (Celestial Fury) and an
Axe (Frostbrand) and he has only 2 points in each because Rangers can't
specialize beyond 2 points. He does have 3 points in dual-wielding style.
He also has a belt of frost giant strength (strength 22). The man is a
whirlwind of destruction! Alone he'd bad enough news for my enemies but
he's accompanied by a Halfling lass by the name of Mazzy Fention who wields
a mighty two-handed Githyanki vorpal sword and she acquired the special ToB
skill, "Greater Whirlwind," that does 10 attacks per round without
penalties.
After a previous bad experience whereupon I was forced to reload my game, I
have always been doubly careful to ensure Mazzy and Valygar wear their Helms
of Charm Protection into every battle :-)
Arcana
of the ram, wearing white dragonscale armour. For some reason, I can
backstab/assassinate with this brutal weapon, averaging 93 to 103 per hit,
three hits per round. So, how many hit points you got?...
PM
Never moon a werewolf.
Phaenar wrote in message ...
Paithan
> "Jeremiah" <br...@spam.to.dev.null> wrote in message
> news:dnja8.38059$p5.63...@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com...
> > In article <u6jf8h9...@corp.supernews.com>,
> > "Mark" <jm...@willinet.net> spake thusly:
> > >
>
> into awesome fighters at levels 20+. While that may be true, I personally
> don't see how they could compare to an elven fighter with 18/+ strength, 18
> dex, 18 con, Firkraag's Plate armor, 3 points in dual-wielding style, 5
> points in longsword, and dual wielding Daystar and any one of half a dozen
> other great longswords (such as Ilbratha that heals you with each successful
> hit).
>
Hmm, blades make decent fighters but they never get at the regular fighters level.
My blade :
Armor : bladesingers Chain (immune to normal weapons)
Main hand : Scarlet Ninja-to
Off hand : Belm
casts stoneskin
cast protection from magical weapons
uses offensive spin
cast improved haste
cast tensers tranformation
et voila, you've got yourself a nice fighter with 10 attacks per round
Phaenar
"Paithan" <pai...@programmer.net> wrote in message
news:51e0c56c.02021...@posting.google.com...
I admit that's totally awesome. How many battles can you do before you need
to rest to regain spells? I just give Valygar the ring of regeneration and
he's good as new for the next battle until 24 hours have gone by, or
whatever the fatigue limit is.
Paithan
Well, hmm normally 2 (3 at max). Ok, he's still no match for Valygar,
but he managed to solo SoA and almost ToB (almost, stupid final
battles, can't get passed them)
James Prieels
> My wife tried the Swashbuckler and had limited success.
> The class appears built to fight (hence the name) but
> since they lack the armour of the fighters they rapidly
> take a very bad beating.
I've played a 3-month online campaign of BG2 with a Swashbuckler
and the problem was not as much the AC, as it was the lack of HP.
That was in the days before ToB however, and Use Any Item could go
a long way in protecting a Swashie.
In my view, it depends on whether you like backstabbing or not.
If you do, the Swashie is not for you. If you don't, they'll
serve you better than a regular Thief will.
> Jesters sound cool as well but since everyone saves at +4
> my jester rapidly became a nothing as everything made its
> saving throw and he was dancing around like a nitwit.
Jesters begin to shine in the later game. The reason is that
at later levels, their song gets additional, better effects.
Level 1: Confuse
Level 15: Slow
Level 20: Unconsciousness
Opponents have to save vs. *each* effect separately, every
round. Even at a +4 bonus, they most always get affected by
one or more of its deadly effects, especially since the song
bypasses magical resistance. Even Golems and Drow will drop
to the Jester's song. Only very few creatures (i.e. dragons)
are unaffected by it.
The downside is that a Jester is not very exciting to play...
Their best mileage comes out of an AI script set to <None>,
and doing no more than Stone Skin/Invisibility/Bard Song.
> Blades suffer the same disease as swashbucklers though the
> defensive spin helps some they still really can't toe-to-toe
> with any real monsters for long.
Sure they can. Their high level grants them a *lot* of Stone
Skins. Then either boost their defensive capabilities (Defensive
Spin, Protection from Magical Weapons) to get spells off
uninterrupted, or their offensive capabilities (Offensive Spin,
Tenser's Transformation).
Add Protection From Fire/Acid/Magic Energy, all long-lasting
spells, and not only is the Blade protected for up to 20 turns,
but he can force his opponents to fight in an environment of
Fireballs, 20D6 Skull Traps and Death Clouds (or your Mage's
Incendiary Clouds).
In Tob, Use Any Item really puts Blades over the edge. They get
to dual-wield the Scarlet Ninja-To, lay Spike and Time Traps,
and their song is boosted to Skald-levels.
Their extremely high level grants their Dispel and Remove Magic
spells a level of success close to that of an Inquisitor.
And then there's the cheese: Mislead, the melee fighter's Project
Image. Or dual-wielding Haer'Dalis' Chaos blade.
The Blade is one of my favourite classes. They lend themselves
very well to online play, since so many features are packed
into a single character.
It all depends on your playing style. Playing a Bard, or any type
of Fighter/Mage, takes more effort and preparation than a pure
Fighter does. In return, however, they're much more versatile
and open up a lot more options.
Cheers,
James
Katherine F.
typed into his/her/its computer the following:
>get rather boring. Wouldn't it be more fun to slug it out as a Paladin or
>Mage?
I admit it's kind of annoying when you look at the
"Information" page and see that your "Most Powerful Vanquished"
is "Goblin", when your fighters all have "Big Kick-Ass Black
Dragon" and your mages have "Stupidly Damage-Resistant Golem The
Size Of A Large Mansion". Thieves and bards are there to provide
useful skills to the party, not to kick butts and take names, so
when you're playing one you can end up feeling like a fifth wheel
-- unless you select skills and proficiencies carefully and make
full use of the relevant abilities.
A thief with high Stealth ratings and a nice melee weapon
(katanas are good here; they do the same damage as a two-handed
sword but can be used one-handed, so you can dual-wield them) can
sneak ahead, defog the map, and backstab the Big Nasty -- you can
kill quite tough critters in one go this way (especially if
you're an Assassin and get backstab up to 7x). A bard with
well-chosen buffing spells (e.g. Ghost Armor, Strength, Tenser's
Transformation, Improved Haste, Blur etc) can be a terror in
combat -- more so than a mage because they have more hitpoints, a
better THAC0 and *much* better weapon choices. Also, having a
skilled bard or thief means you never have to pay for anything
bought from stores (well, except temples and the Adventurers'
Mart) and you can use the cheesy but fun tactic of stealing
something from a fence, selling it to them, then stealing it
back... Oh, and did I mention that a skald's bard song provides
+2 to hit and damage and -2 to AC for allies at *1st* level?
(And the bard stronghold is the most interesting. My
opinion, of course, but then I've always wanted to run a
theatre.)
--
Katherine F. Diary: http://puritybrown.diaryland.com/
"If somebody *offered* me an army of undead, I wouldn't say no, but I can't
be bothered to go *looking* for one!"
-- the green dragon Irachallanak, on being unjustly accused of having
100,000 zombies in his basement
Christian Landry
news:u6je2d3...@corp.supernews.com:
Wouldn't it be a little bit hard to go through the game without a thief?
By your logic, it'd be boring to play Shadows of Amn with a thief in one's
party; which is silly.
I played Shadows of Amn with a Lawful Evil Swashbuckler. He mainly fought
with dual long swords. I never considered him one of my main frontline
fighters, relying on Korgan and Valygar instead, but he hanged in there.
Plus, I was able to keep a pure thief throughout the game and had full
control over which thieving skills was increased.
I can understand why someone would feel that their main character should be
one of the frontline fighter or the main spellcaster and such, but how is
that any different from having your character being the main thief?
Christian Landry
djarvinen
It's just you. :)
"Different strokes for different folks."
"De gustibus est non disputandum."
"What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." Oh wait, that
one doesn't quite work...
*Lots* of flexibilty and different styles in this game. It's one of
the many things that make it so great.
DJ
Yereth
good and can open locks if I need him to. Now I realize I do not use the
thief the way I should. For example: I never used the trap abilities and
(PLEASE let someone explain it to me!) I don't know what backstabbing is. Is
it attacking out of stealth mode?
Anywayz, I think I almost finished the game. I killed (its been a while, so
I can't remember his name) the guy you're chasing the whole game (a hell of
a battle, lost 4 of my party) and ended up in hell. In hell I opened the
door and there he was again, with a bunch of deamons!!!!!!!!!!! I figured
I'd probably never win that battle and left the game alone for a while.
Then I went experimenting with Win 2000 and found out it supported almost
nothing. I had my drives converted already (BG 2 was on F:\ ). I wanted to
install Win ME again and windows asked me if I wanted to format my C:\ in
FAT32, so I said yes. What did it do? Windows ME destroyed my partitions and
made 1 C:\ partition. ALL WAS ERASED, including my BG 2 savegame. I almost
cried!!
Think I'm gonna start playing the expansion soon...
Yereth
Jonathan Ellis
Mark wrote in message ...
I've just completed BG, TotSC, BG2 and ToB with a paladin
protagonist. By the end of the game, he was hitting "50% of kills"...
mind you, I was finishing off most battles with my fighters, and my
mages concentrated more on weakening than on killing, although there
were some notable exceptions (Aerie landing the final blow on Draconis
with Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, or Jan's casting of Melf's Acid Arrow
taking down the Shadow Dragon with all my warriors knocked out... or
Imoen soloing the Demi-Lich of Watcher's Keep at 18th level, armed with
nothing but the Staff of the Magi and a single 9th-level spell slot
spent on Dragons Breath: no sequencers or contingencies, but an active
Spell Trap from the Staff of the Magi... and, after casting Dragons
Breath, the Spell Trap trapped the attempted Imprisonment, restoring the
9th-level spell so it could be thrown straight back again in the form of
another Dragons Breath...)
So now I'm trying a Bard. I rather like the concept behind the Bard
"stronghold / class quest" in BG2 - write and stage a successful play in
the playhouse under the Five Flagons Inn. It's also interestingly
different - since my protagonist can't stand up to a Wolf single-handed
in the first map (as my Paladin did, wearing splint mail and toting a
bastard sword and shield, neither wolves nor gibberlings could lay a
claw on him), battles are a lot harder. It's also still hard to keep
Khalid alive for long enough to reach level 2, although once he does
he's not so bad. (He died about six times during attempts at the
Bassilus quest - I reloaded, rather than go back to Beregost and
resurrect him only for the same thing to happen again.)
But now that I have a second front-line fighter available in Minsc
(perhaps I should have picked up Kivan, or even Ajantis, before going
off to deal with Bassilus? Two front line fighters would have made that
quest MUCH easier), things are looking up. It looks like I'm going to
end up with the "classic" party (Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc,
Dynaheir), although what I'm going to do while Imoen is dual-classing I
don't know yet. (Coran? Safana? Or do I do what I did last time and
dual-class Branwen after giving her a book of dexterity? Not likely -
this time I'm reserving the book of dexterity for me.)
One day I really *will* take Garrick, and actually make a go of
keeping him in the party, I swear... instead of letting him stay dead
when he gets killed in the spiders' house (which happens to him every
time I go in there. For some reason he always seems to be in the front
line...) And Tiax. And Quayle. And play out the Skie/Eldoth story,
possibly even with the Garrick love triangle angle. (With Shar-Teel in
the party just to spice things up a bit.
But the first time through, I played a Paladin, who was noble,
heroic, righteous and altogether Aragorn-like (LotR's Aragorn displays
at least as many qualities of the classic D&D Paladin as of the D&D
Ranger - including the proverbial healing hand), who comforted Jaheira
for the loss of her husband during BG2, and married her afterwards after
renouncing godhood.
This time I'm playing a Bard, and playing him as a hopeless
romantic who believes that, despite all appearances, there *is* some
good in everybody, so (although he'll probably initially like Aerie)
he's likely to end up with Viconia in the end, and hopefully get her an
alignment change, and Sarevok too - a romantic idealist who *really*
believes that music can soothe even the most savage breast, and is
proved right.
...and the time after that, I might play evil. Perhaps a thief or
fighter/thief (half-orc?), of assassin-ish nature, who when he discovers
his evil heritage will accept it and try to take over the Throne of
Bhaal as an assassin (very much as Cyric did - beating the God of
Assassins at his own game, surely he deserves to keep it if the last
Bhaalspawn doesn't want it?), only to later get disillusioned by the
fact that he himself always saw Murder as a *personal* thing - one
murderer, one victim - whereas what Bhaal and his Spawns seem to be
becoming are the anonymous mass-murderers of senseless and unprovoked
war, which is enough to shock even him. (An assassin, that is, with
something of a code of honour not too far away from Terry Pratchett's
Assassins Guild, who pride themselves on the *personal* touch, and whose
rules forbid the killing of innocent bystanders, although they kill
people for money: killing anyone that they *haven't* been paid to kill
is genuinely anathema to an Assassin of the Guild): so, an evil
character who eventually backs off and decides not to become a god, and
can still justify this decision while keeping his evil alignment... and
with an evil Viconia as a fitting romance partner. (I might play this
one as a half-orc, just because I can...)
...or as a truly evil character, possibly a chaotic evil Cleric of
Talos or lawful-evil Monk (the latter as possibly the nearest thing to a
dark paladin - besides, barefist attacks are cool), who accepts and
embraces the dark side on an evil crusade, with an evil Viconia first as
his queen and later as his loyal High Priestess upon attaining
godhood... or a female character with a CN Anomen in that same role, his
wisdom buffed up by Potions of Insight when wanting to learn spells...
...or as a gnomish adventurer-type (illusionist/thief, sort of like
Jan Jansen?) who sees the whole thing as one big joke and doesn't have
an ounce of malice in him (chaotic good or neutral, possibly even
neutral good) but would quite happily become a god because "it seemed
like the thing to do at the time" or "another awfully big adventure",
romancing Aerie if that romance is possible, but eventually choosing
godhood rather than the relationship with her because it sounds the more
fun option, rather than the responsibility and chores of having a
mundanely earth-bound family...
...or a chaotic neutral elven wild-mage, by my own definition of
chaotic neutral (which isn't in accordance with the D&D definition...
[1]) Romancing Aerie of all people - and choosing to stay with her
rather than become a god, just because he feels like it. (And perhaps
because she, this innocent naive little elf, is the only one who really
trusts him and he just can't bring himself to break that trust.
Especially if the alternative, i.e. becoming a god, is doing what's
actually *expected* of him, by a creature as powerful as a Solar who has
until recently been bossing him about, telling him what to do, and
obviously keeping secrets which it has known all along but which have
only been revealed to the character bit by bit - I can just imagine a
good or neutral wild-mage refusing godhood, purely so as to spite a
Solar...)
...Or a dashing female Swashbuckler who sweeps Sir Anomen off his
feet. (Haven't named a female role among all the above role-playing...
nor a specialist Thief.)
...or an amoral chaotic-neutral Bounty Hunter who's only in it for
however much cash it can get him/her. Romancing Viconia if male, or CN
Anomen if female. Or maybe Jaheira, only to dump her in it upon
attaining Godhood.
...or a Dwarven Berserker Fighter, with no romance, who takes the
option of paying for a night with every woman he finds on the grounds
that it's the only way he's ever going to get any, unless Phaere fails
to see through his drow-elven disguise ("woah, I got to sleep with a
real woman without having to pay for it! Hot damn!"). ;-) Maybe an
honourable berserker like Minsc, or an evil one like Korgan.
...or a druid, purely so I can get the druid grove quest...
Ye gods, there's *hundreds* of ways to play and roleplay this
game...
Jonathan.
[1] For me, chaotic neutral characters basically do what they do, like
what they like, and don't give a flying monkey's uncle what anyone else
thinks. This doesn't necessarily mean there's no order to their actions:
only that any order there is does not come from outside (as in, imposed
by someone else), and is liable to be changed at a moment's notice if
the CN character feels like it. This does not prevent a CN character
forming strong friendships and attachments - indeed, often the closest
friends of a CN character are the only ones who can ever trust him,
though there are never many close friends of any given CN person.
CN people tend therefore to be loners, displaying neither great
altruism nor great malice - not so much selfish as self-centred: and
tend to seek out "frontier" societies where the rule of law is weak -
not so that they can take advantage of other people without fear of
legal retribution (which a CN person will usually not do, and will
expect in return not to be done to him), but so that other people, and
particularly governments, cannot take advantage of them by means of
imposing laws and conventions (such as, for instance, paying taxes.)
There may even be a sort of "consensus code of honour" in a CN
society, but this tends to be highly flexible, and lasts only as long as
anyone can actually arrange for a consensus to be formed on the matter
(usually in a rather mob-ish on-the-spot sort of way, as in "all those
in favour, say aye, if you're not here you don't count".) Justice is
often a matter of who shouts loudest, or has the loudest people to do
the shouting for him on the day, though people with a good reputation
will usually find themselves with more supporters more often than people
with a bad reputation. (This doesn't mean that someone with a "good
reputation" is actually as Good as his reputation makes out: although
simple bribery is not the way to a good reputation among CN people, as
it will be seen for what it is - an attempt to make somebody do or say
something they didn't previously want to do, which is something that is
anathema to any truly CN person.)
Trying to impose genuine law and order on a CN society is like
herding cats. A few people have managed it successfully - for instance,
Wyatt Earp and his ilk (one would cast them as LN) in the American Wild
West: and Earp's greatest deed in this respect is *not* the OK Corral
shootout (which can be seen as symbolic of CN-style "justice" imposed on
known CE people), but the fact that his more usual method was to walk up
to troublemakers and arrest them in the street, without a shot being
fired - and that many of them came quietly.
Jonathan.
Jeremiah
"Yereth" <yer...@wanadoo.nl> spake thusly:
> I really like to play with a thief mainly because you really need one who's
> good and can open locks if I need him to. Now I realize I do not use the
> thief the way I should. For example: I never used the trap abilities and
> (PLEASE let someone explain it to me!) I don't know what backstabbing is. Is
> it attacking out of stealth mode?
Yes, but a) by a thief or stalker, b) attacking from behind
(i.e. stabbing them in the *back*), and c) attacking with certain
one-handed, bladed weapons (i.e. *stabbing* them...).
Not only do you get the +4 from being invisible, you get the
damage multiplier, and you get to hit first...
Derville
"Yereth" <yer...@wanadoo.nl> wrote in message
news:Xsxa8.142$xP6...@castor.casema.net...
> I really like to play with a thief mainly because you really need one
who's
> good and can open locks if I need him to. Now I realize I do not use the
> thief the way I should. For example: I never used the trap abilities and
> (PLEASE let someone explain it to me!) I don't know what backstabbing is.
Is
> it attacking out of stealth mode?
Never use traps? Good man! I have yet to use them in anger on anything
more terrible than Gibberling type enemies, although my excuse is that I
keep forgetting I've got them in my special abilities menu ;-).
As for backstabbing, you're right, it is attacking out of shadows.
Essentially;
* Get a weapon suitable for backstabbing (Daggers, Short and Long Swords,
nearly all Staves, and the odd other weapon - Clubs, I think, also work for
backstabbing (*boink!*)).
* Having equipped the weapon (this is important - re-equipping a weapon
while invisible will cancel all but Improved Invis and better), make your
Thief invisible, either with the Mage spell or by using their Stealth
ability.
* Get behind your opponent. Starting with TOTSC way back when, you have had
to be behind your enemy to backstab them (original BG1 let you backstab
people in the left nostril if you so wished ;-)). Needless to say, this can
make backstabbing Jellies an exercise in frustration.
* Let rip with your weapon, and if you make your to-hit roll (you get a +4
bonus from being invisible, plus any bonuses you already have from items,
spells etc), then the enemy will take damage. At this stage, running like
hell in the opposite direciton is a good idea if your opponent is still
alive. Then rinse and repeat.
--
Phil
"Over and out? Oh no, one hundred and thirty seven for five, last time I
heard"
- Colonel K
(remove 'your.inhibitions' to reply)
Mike Hall
> I can understand why someone would feel that their main character should
> be one of the frontline fighter or the main spellcaster and such, but how
is
> that any different from having your character being the main thief?
The reason why it's best to have a mainline fighter as the PC is because
fighters are extremely difficult to kill. Everyone else (especially when
playing Core or above) is an easy kill for any jackass who can cast Power
Word: Kill! PC Mages tend to have the 8 hour spell-trap running and
cleric/druids hit 60 hit points very quickly but the poor little thief is
still terrified of Horrid Wilting (which he's unlikely to save against) even
up to the Throne of Bhaal.
Having to ressurect Jan regularly isn't much of a hassle. Having to reload
regularly is a pain.
Mike Hall (wondering whether anyone has played a PC with a large con
penalty)
djarvinen
I had a mage once (Sorceror actually) with a CON of 6. Omigod, was
that painful! You had to be *very* careful. "Watch out! There's a
ferocious mouse over there! I think it's going to bite you---oops, too
late..."
But actually, once you get Stoneskin, Mirror Image, etc., it's not too
bad.
DJ