Vagrant's journal, Building as OP crew as possible Options

[pekkae]

Welcome.

Playing like it was planned to be played. As I have some time on my hands until the end of January and it's like a lockdown here in Finland, what else am I going to do? ( I could ... read books, finish school or something else but ... oh well)

The rules

- No non-protagonist-related drops (no Necro's stuff etc.).
- Our Custom Characters get 90 points to divide among attributes.
- We have the tomes from bg1 to spread among our crew
- Simplified economy + we'll console in the trinkets we need
- No personal stuff, except for the NPC's we are using
(EDIT: - We learn all spells (so we lower difficulty when scribing scrolls)
(EDIT2: - Forging restrictions in place as well)

The exceptions

- We will most likely give our sorcerer (sorceress) the same bonus spell slots as other mages get. I don't get why sorcerers spell slots are not developing in later levels where as every other arcane caster's slots will. Though this will be at such a late stage that it doesn't probably matter at all.
- We have a few supplementing items we'll use throughout the game (described below).

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Thoughts on the crew

I think I have this figured out.

We are not looking to survive the mod. We are looking to obliterate all opposition and in every and all possible encounters to milk away as many summons as possible to max out our rewards. Our plan is to once again do the demogorgon fight as fast as possible and then just dominate the rest of the way. Demogorgon with my style requires enormous spellcasting capabilities up front while enormous H2H capabilities throughout the fight. We'll try to construct our crew so that every character will be completely and insanely OP once they are fully developed.That's the way we like it. That's the plan. I'm not sure how it will work out. The 2nd thing is that we like characters who can fill out multiple roles, even though in some cases we lose out on some uber-powers.

For Chapters 2-3 we'll just take on rotating crew members so we'll ave as easy time as possible as we want to maximize fun while minimizing endless reloads & trying to figure out tactics. Or our tactic boils down to maximize strengths, enter, obliterate, repeat.

Since we are playing with a Vagrant we won't have a Necro with us. That means we could be somewhat more powerful in chapters 1-5 as plethora of characters are much more powerful than a Necro throughout chapters 1-5 (think: Berserker/Mage, Auramaster, Thief/Mage or even Nalia or especially Edwin). Edwin can easily wipe the floor with a Necro until chapter 6 (+2 spells per level, mirror images, II's). However, since we'll still need 2 spell casters and we absolutely need a sorcerer for early access to all lvl 9 spells, we won't bring Edwin along to spellhold. Most likely. And we want our supporting arcane spellcaster to be able to do something else than just casting, so Edwin won't fill that spot either.

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Composition

We have our "tank" covered in Vagrant, who by chapter 7 will be better at tanking than any other character in the game. So no DD this time around though we will take one for chapters 2-3 but we most likely won't bring a DD around for spellhold so our tanking capabilities there will take a big hit. Gladly warrior HLA's won't be that far away once in chapter 4 but for a few key fights we'll need a way to survive. As the fights in chapters 4&5 are dominable with 2,5 fighters (that means 2 full fighters +a dual classed / multi-classed one), our plan of bringing along 3-4 full fighters (or characters who count as such under buffs) means we should be more than equipped to handle those encounters.

We are quite set on Vagrant obviously. After that it's Jaheira and Neera. Those are the locks. Neera because of the nice extra quest in ToB and also because she has great stats & personal item. Jaheira because we've never played it and we need healer. She's supposed to be great and she can fill out both "healer" spot as well as dish out huge amounts of damage in H2H (while buffed).

Vagrant is the best tank in the game and can deal & absorb an insane amount of damage as well, but we do need some help up front so we'll take either one of the ultimate damage dishers, so either Riskbreaker or a Kensai. I can't wrap my head around why RB is better than a Kensai, but I've had a Kensai / a version of a Kensai with previous runs so I'm really too familiar with it - I've done everything I wanted with it. Riskbreaker would be a nice change. That's the only reason we are leaning towards a RB.

We need a supportive arcane caster, so we'll do a custom thief/mage, who'll join in Spellhold. This character will fill out a number of roles, it can support in h2h and will fill out the role of supportive arcane caster. It can also hide in shadows and backstab. Yay!

Then it's just the last slot. We have 3 fighters already in Vagrant, RB ( or Kensai) and the Avenger (so 3 chars who can critical strike already). We have our arcane spell casting covered in Neera + Thief/Mage. We have "only" Jaheira as a healer so we have quite the doubts about our healing capabilities, as we are lacking a Necro & Cernd. So we would likely be looking into healing as well as H2H capabilities.

Pure Cleric's are out of the question because the dual classed version is superior in every way, even getting a 7th level fighter dualled to cleric pumps the cleric to a whole new level. So our choices boil down to dual-/multiclassed fighter-cleric characters where a character like Dwarven Fighter/Cleric would probably fit perfectly. Normally we would be looking into Fighter/Druid combinations, since it's easily and by far superior to the cleric-combinations but ... we already have that in Jaheira and I don't want two very similar characters. Also various Paladin's (or a blackguard for it has permanen NPP + immunity to fear) would be a possibility but since they are quite terrible as healers and lose out to a regular fighter in H2H, it will most likely be a smoother ride with another type of a character on board. And last but definitely not least is the Ranger/Cleric combination, enabling the OP version (where the char will get druidic spells as well). We don't really see why if druidic spells aren't enabled would anyone play that class, as losing out grand mastery and/or faster level gains hurts. A lot.

We are leaning towards the R/C or the dwarven F/C. The F/C could easily utilize staves until chapter 6 when it gets the warrior HLA's. It won't be any sort of a problem protecting that character unitl then. Also Rasaad could be an option.

So we would end up with the following, where last changes will be made in Spellhold. It would be easier if we postpone the last changes until chapter 6, but that feels a little bit like cheating.

PC: Vagrant
Jaheira the Avenger
Neera the Sorceror
Custom T->M
Custom RB (or a Kensai)

And the last slot (most likely) goes to;

Custom Dwarven F/C
Custom Ranger/Cleric combination
Mazzy Fentan
Blackguard (possibly Dorn)
Rasaad

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Non IA Item's we'll use.

I think compliment IA's items quite nicely while not being OP (with the possible exception of Aegis of Torment)

Tymora's gift (belt +10MR, +3Luck, ch 3)
Black Wolf Talisman (amulet, +10HP, +10Resistance to Cold, +1 AC, ch 2)
Clasp of Bron's Cloak (amulet, +5 phys resistance, ch 3)
Aegis of Torment (amulet, +3AC, +2CON, +15HP, ch 6)
(Edit: we also upgraded the reaching ring to a version that has bonus spells from levels 1-7, instead of levels 5,6 & 7)

+ possibly

Amulet of Ilmater (amulet, +1 AC, +3 Saves, immunity to poison, chapter 6)
Sash of the Black Raven (for a monk, +2 thac0, +2 AC, chapter 6)
Heaven & Earth (mace +4, +2 str, ch 6)
(EDIT: ^We only used amulet of Ilmater)

(EDIT: If anyone is interested the item packs are "Item Pack by Daulmakan 1,8" & "Item upgrade mod pack by Westley Weimer v 4.0". In addition to the items up above they do introduce items that are completely OP, which we do not use & new ways of forging (like rings of protection +2 for 5k), which we do not use either).

This post has been edited by pekkae: Feb 23 2022, 06:55 AM

[pekkae]

A note about wares:

From every store we encounter will buy all scrolls of dispel magic as well as all scrolls of remove magic. This is a small marginal cost for us at this stage, but it is a thing that makes us rely a less on wish:rest down the road. A lot less that is. It's sort of a bummer though, as this particular thing makes a certain fight / fights a lot easier for us, but if you are playing for the first time or so you are going to have a lot harder time because you didn't prepare throughout the game. And even though some merchants can be accessed later on, a few important ones won't be so you'll actually lose a few scrolls that can be the difference between winning and losing a fight.

The 2nd scroll type we almost always buy is all "protection from fire" scrolls, for similar reasons. It will be super important down the road. Even with our setup up having 4 characters who can cast that spell (Vagrant, T->M, Jaheira + Neera) I have a feeling we might need this. It's like a very cheap life insurance down the road.

We also usually buy potions of absorption & insulation, for there's a few encounters where we know we'll need 'em. Also we buy some potions of agility for Neera and potions of defence, though we will get these from HLA's as well at some point. (IIRC).

It seems that scrolls of remove magic have been intentionally omitted from the game as they are quite rare. (we've only ever found 1 merchant who would have 3 scrolls of remove magic for sale ). For our purposes, remove magic is far superior to dispel magic though even with that we have a plan. We'll see how it works out.

The only other important thing that we buy in terms of scrolls & potions is potions of freedom where we buy all and every potions of freedom every time a merchant has them. When writing this we have 8 potions of freedom with us.

These simple preparations will make a big difference. We think.