Herbs Addin - Poisonkiss or Firebeard?, [Topic split by Baronius, from Bug reports and suggestions thread] Options

[Lemernis]

Which staff do you think might be better for a game in which I'm using a stave wielding meleer Wild Mage and a party very weak in the tank department?* Firebeard +3 or Poisonkiss +3?

* Wild Mage, undualed Imoen, Xzar, Minsc (Drew's Berserker mini-mod), Tiax, Finch

This post has been edited by Lemernis: Aug 28 2006, 12:33 AM

[Lemernis]

Thanks for starting a new topic with this, I should have seen to do so myself, apologies.

The Wild Mage will be using Jouma's enchanted staff, whichever one I end up selecting.

The THACO for a mage isn't very good to begin with. So I don't have to worry about either weapon being overpowered in this case. I would think I'll probably deliver the most damage overall with Firebeard since there's no saving throw against it. Although Poisonkiss's total 32 poison damage looks pretty devastating when it does hit and the victim fails the saving throw. Seems like a coin toss which one to use.

In terms of character concept, Poisonkiss might be more appealing to the PC because it seems to offer a higher risk-reward ratio. As a wild mage the PC (Wis 8) operates from a nutty theory about Chaos and risktaking creating opportunity. But in terms of gameplay I also want to use whichever weapon will actually be most fun.

In order to try something offbeat and challenging, my meleers are Minsc, Tiax, and the PC. Tiax and the Wild Mage both do a combination of spellcasting and meleeing (with staffs). Both the PC and Tiax spellbuff before major battles. Depending on the encounter, the PC may cast quite a few spells first before entering melee. Once I get my hands on a scroll of Ghoul Touch I'll have the PC using that spell a lot (wonderful spell for a meleeing mage).

To increase the challenge even more I'm playing with Sword Coast Stategems installed, and sure enough it has been very tough going--especially with the wild surges. But still very satisfying gameplay. The low level battles that you normally don't break a sweat on with a standard party with more tanks require some real effort to win.