Party of lesser-used classes and kits Options

[blastermaster]

I've enjoyed the interesting aspects of this mod relative to vanilla BG2 and other difficulty mods. After a few run-throughs though, using a standard or semi-standard party isn't too much of a challenge. With this mod, a low-level challenge, no-reload challenge, and/or poverty challenge are all out of the question. So the only other challenges I can think of are a "no arcane magic challenge" (which frankly I think is quite do-able thanks to Iron Skins and Greater Restoration and Auramasters), or perhaps a party entirely composed of the types of classes and kits that people tend not to use (at least from what I can see in the journals here).

Some classes I am considering:

Archer
The major issue here is that so many monsters have extra resistance to missiles, relative to other damage types (or outright immunity). So this leaves you with essentially the Bow of Gesen's flat 2 piercing damage, or using Arrows of Piercing whenever you have some. Also, I think Tuigan isn't available until somewhere in Watcher's Keep (unless it's randomized?), which hurts the archer in the early game. The lack of Strength bonus to damage, and the Dexterity bonus to Thac0 actually not scaling like it does with Strength (and, to add insult to injury, it is of course much harder to raise Dexterity in this game as compared to Strength). Called Shot is intriguing, but there are only a few encounters in which you're facing just one enemy hitting you, so the Thac0 penalty from it would just impact one of them. Unfortunately the STR loss per hit is too short-lasting to be relied upon to kill something by getting them down to 0 STR, though perhaps in multiples this is more readily achievable?

Wild Mage
Potentially using high-level spells early in the game is nice, but a Wild Surge on 1 out of 20 spells means you're likely to really get hurt by this in perhaps the majority of battles. I suppose you could reload until at least your pre-buffing goes correctly, and then take fights from there, but that's no fun.

Blade
Can't cast the all-important level 7 Ruby Ray spell, so he's stuck using scrolls for this. Same with Limited Wish for undead protection. No Alacrity, meaning you're just getting one spell per turn out of him. Use Any Item is still pretty nice and you could make quite a tank out of a Blade, but the offensive capability is really lacking. And without the classical fast leveling of a bard, or the usefulness of the HLA traps, it seems like a Figher/Mage multi is almost entirely dominant over this class.

Inquisitor
No higher than Specialization really hurts, especially if you're using two-handed weapons - he will max out at 5 attacks under Improved Haste. Would be a nice tweak if paladins could get grandmastery in 2H swords, given it's their signature weapon style and it is so important in games in which the un-nerfed grandmastery is used.

Swashbuckler
The weapon and armor for this class are underwhelming and very expensive. Lack of Use Any Item hurts a ton, and the HLA of Acrobatic Combat is extremely underwhelming. Still, the possibility for a very low AC could make him a good tank, but why not use a Ranger Cleric for this purpose and get more offensive output and more defensive capabilities?

Thief dualed to a Cleric
Level a thief to 23 to get Use Any Item, then dual him to a Cleric. I believe he can then get 105% physical resistance (40% hardiness from Wish, 25% from Jan's armor, 10% from Defender of Easthaven or Warblade upgrade, 5% from Master of Disciplines, 10% from Armor of Faith, 15% from Scarlet Ioun Stone if PC is a necro). And he could use Scarlet Ninja-to in offhand to get 6 attacks under Improved Haste, and cast spells from scrolls. Not great, but pretty useful. Alternatively, I think you could take a Cleric and dual immediately to thief. Armor of Faith gives you the 10% resistance right from level 1, and likewise the 15 round duration. You lose out on higher-level cleric spells, but it would be an interesting character for sure. Without the Scarlet Ioun Stone, he loses a lot of appeal as a tank, and I think would be forced to aim for low AC route for damage prevention.

Viconia
The 65% magic resistance is very tempting, especially with the Human Flesh armor being available pretty early. But from a weapons perspective, she's just no help in combat with a poor Thac0 and limited weapon selection that maxes out at 4 APR. Still, Greater Restoration is pretty awesome.

Monk
A better Viconia in some ways, ending up with more magic resist in the mid to late game. But maxing out at 5 attacks per round is still a bummer here, not to mention the inability to really do piercing or slashing damage. I am also curious why their Thac0 doesn't get better than 5. If I remember correctly, they used the fighter Thac0 progression in vanilla.

Wizardslayer
Again, intriguing for the magic resist. It appears they use the 1% per level growth up until level 20 or so (as defined by the manual, though in the actual original ToB game it was 2% per level until level 20). At least, unlike every other character here, they can attain the all important grandmastery. But lack of magic rings and cloaks is going to make for some terrible saves when spells do sneak through. There's basically severe penalties to this class throughout the entire first half of the game; 20% magic resist at level 20 means you're still going to get chunked 80% of the time when you fail your saves.

Beastmaster
Clubs and Quarterstaves are pretty good in this mod, so the weapon restrictions aren't as bad as they'd be in a typical BG2 difficulty mod. And the extra HP from Find Familiar would be pretty nice. Relative to most of the above kits, this actually wouldn't be too bad. But it feels a lot like a subpar ranger, rather than an entirely new kit or class decision.

Any cool strategy ideas for the characters above that I am missing? Curious to hear people's thoughts.

This post has been edited by blastermaster: Apr 7 2015, 12:34 PM

[blastermaster]

Thank you for the feedback and insight! Very useful. What is your current party? Or are you saving this for the journal reveal?!

On the topic of no-reloads, I'm afraid I don't have enough experience with this mod to pursue that. I've only done a couple of runs and I tend to intersperse them with Swords Coast Strategems challenges, or vanilla challenges, so I soon forget some of the specifics of these battles (enemy resistances, number of waves of enemies, when a monster is invulnerable, etc.). Even with extensive experience though, I think some battles (Yaga Shura, Twisted Rune) would still be a bit difficult for me due to complexity. I actually think TOB is easier to no-reload than SOA though, at least given my current run. Yaga Shura is the only battle that's really given me trouble, and part of this was because one of my character slots was occupied by a thief waiting to get his Kensai abilities back :-)

For archers I would love to make a PC archer run (I could probably modify the Vagrant quests to look for an Archer instead, too), but there's basically no upside. Similar to something like a Bounty Hunter... I hate the idea of just handicapping myself. I like the kits that provide some weird ability you can build around. At least Beastmasters give you a few extra HP, even if their Summon Animals ability is useless.

The monk's level 4 enchantment issue is certainly problematic. I wonder if there was a way to grant them "strikes as +4" fists when you get those Gauntlets of Crushing. And likewise +5 when/if you upgrade them to the IA-specific upgraded version. It would make sense, thematically, to me. But seems awfully hard to combat things like the Troll Queen, Spider Queen, and Skeleton Grandlords without a major crushing damage dealer being able to touch them.

By the way, your comments on Blades and Silence was an interesting consideration that I forgot about. I am just about wrapping up a run in which I never saw a Silence spell. My party is a Necromancer, Cernd, 3 Riskbreakers and a Kensai-Thief dual. Dragon fights, with the exception of Dracolich, have pretty much been a joke, both due to better strategy on my part now that I know how to fight them, and because I never even had to consider their silencing abilities.

If I did Cleric/Theif, I would either dual the Cleric at Level 7 (essentially just for the HP and full strength Armor of Faith castings), or I would go from Thief (once getting UAI) to Cleric. Use Any Item is just so interesting, strategically. It gives so many options, I really enjoy it.

Your comment on Viconia is making me consider some kind of low-AC run. As mentioned above with my current party, I am accustomed to going the route of physical resistance and healing, but the Kensai-Thief is easily hitting -24 AC and it has been enjoyable to watch Gem Golems just whiff at him. Also I've not ever used any of the heavy plate armors in this mod, so that is part of my interest in things like Inquisitors and Wizard Slayers.

And thanks for the insight into wizard slayer. Though I am afraid even 63% MR isn't that impressive in my eyes (though you could roll him as Evil and give him the Human Flesh armor I suppose). At 63% MR, facing a 3xADHW you are still going to get hit by all three about 5% of the time, which likely results in death. And of course, before getting Warblade, at lower levels, it's far worse both due to not having Warblade and due to having lower innate resistance. But yes, once out of the Underdark and past Kruin, it seems like you can have a very strong magic resistance and count on surviving such things most of the time. (Though it seems to me that a Monk may give you similar magic resistance but with more flexibility in terms of rings and amulets and potions). Really tough call between this and monk, were I to make one of these gimped parties.