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]

Very exciting battle against the Ice Golem and Elemental Golem. Many things were key.

SPOILER!

1) summon Noble Spider to draw Elemental Golem while I'm casting Alacrity (he dies within a round)
2) under Alacrity: PFMW, Ray of Fragmentation x 10 (Ring of Acuity!), Vampiric Touch x 10, Larloch's Drain x 9, Minor Sequencer Larloch x 2, Sequencer RoF x 3, Spell Trigger RoF x 3.
3) during the above, re-cast PFMW when purge magic hits. Cast Spell Immunity: Evocation to become immune to the Ice Golems cold attacks (yes, remarkably even the Freezing Wind attack actually has this spell school, most IA spells are School-less).
4) After a slow hits, equip Boots of Speed, cast Improved Haste. At end of round, quickly chug Potion of Freedom. In IA, it appears a "free action" type item will prevent future haste spells, but not cancel existing ones. This is crucial. So for the next couple of rounds, we get 9 attacks per round.
5) Purge magic. Get hit a bunch of times, Contingency: PFMW.
6) Improved Haste
7) Potion of Freedom
8) dead Ice Golem.
9) Use remaining PFMW against Elemental Golem, with 3 x Critical Strike in between each PFMW. Easy at this point, but ended up using my last PFMW (had scrolls if needed though).

Anyways, without the SPOILER!

potion of freedom and ring of acuity

it wouldn't have worked I don't think. Another purge was coming and I wouldn't have been able to save a round letting PFMW come via Contingency.

As for the next expanded stronghold quest, I did a couple of quick trial runs and I don't expect to be able to SPOILER!

keep Pasha alive

. No idea if the stronghold quests would continue, but this is kind of the nail in the coffin for EDE.

[Krell]

As for the next expanded stronghold quest, I did a couple of quick trial runs and I don't expect to be able to SPOILER!

keep Pasha alive

. No idea if the stronghold quests would continue, but this is kind of the nail in the coffin for EDE.

If Pasha dies, the stronghold quests won't continue. You can keep him alive with lots and lots of summons, so I'd personally wait until I have the Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning or even Lord of the Underworkd (why not). Use Wish/rest as prebuff to summon multiple quantities of heavy summons, this will help in future fights as well.

Cleaned up some loose ends - Roenalls, Theshal, Ashideena. Tried Orcus, but he may be too much for me at this point. Foreknowledge would help, letting me refresh Spell Turning and Spell Immunity a bit faster and get back to whacking away sooner. Haven't tried using Alacrity in the battle yet, but it might help.

Supreme Golem in Watcher's Keep is ludicrously difficult for me at this stage. And as sort of a preview to the Epic Divine Encounter, it's terrifying. Somehow he's hitting me for 25 damage while I'm under PFMW and protected from Elements. Oils of Resurgence aren't doing anything, perhaps because they are interfering with another regeneration item. I can get him down to around 320 HP before my own HP is pretty low. Maybe Cat Figurine would help here, but after Ch. 4-5, I don't have to fight this guy anyways. He seems to block any Ch 2 or 3 parties from beginning level 3 in WK.

Orcus should be fine if you already assembled the Memory of the Apprenti. A long fight, though, make sure you have at least 10-15 PFMW scrolls and enough improved hastes memorized. Spell Turning becomes unreliable as rounds progress simply because summoned vampires will eat it away with their Dominate spells. For that, you should have a couple Globes of Invulnerability memorized as well as all of the Spell Immunities you can. Refreshing Spell Immunity and PFMW at the same time is possible if you have Contingencies memorized (also, it's very wise to have a spare Chain Contingency as well). The rest of the 9-th level slots should be Absolute Immunity - Improved Alacrity does very little in this fight, I wouldn't bother memorizing even one. Don't bother with summons either.

The Supreme Golem in WK is a lot more harder than the EDE Supreme Golem. First of all, Helm's Supreme Golem (in WK) has Purge Magic once every 4 rounds. Second, he starts with some kind of earthquake effect, which the other one (in EDE) doesn't have. The thing which hits you back is called "Elemental Backlash", it inflicts damage of all elemental types on the attacker with each successful blow much like a regular (permanent) fireshield. So you need to refresh elemental protections as well as PFMW to have absolute protection...well, for 4 rounds before the next Purge Magic hits (or you could use elemental-protective gear). Thing is, as far as I remember, you need some good saves vs the Elemental Backlash or it has a chance of lowering your elemental resistances even further. And all in all, you shouldn't fight that golem as of yet. Sure, that is the only way to continue inside WK at present chapters, but you can wait until after Underdark when you will be given the opportunity to fight the Green Wyrm instead. The wyrm simply has better treasure, including some (possibly crucial) ingredients like for example the Ring of Air control, which is important to create the Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning. If your character is evil-aligned or has certain low reputation, however, then Helm's Supreme Golem will attack you on sight.