Yet. Yet another journal., Turbocharging Shaman & maximising exp & skipping difficulty Options

[pekkae]

Journal Part 0. Prologue.

Welcome. Again.

Ahem. Will play super slowly. (edit: have actually pretty much stormed past the initial encounters)

We're trying to skip some of the most difficult things in the game while maximising exp. And also, we'll be turbocharging our Shaman throughout the game. We'll also ben the rules for a little bit to try some uncoventional things.

So yet again we are not aiming to survive, we are aiming to anhilate. Every an all content in the mod. We think we have what it takes. Ahem. Again.

The Rules

- No non-protagonist related forgin
- We rolled a 96 for our PC (I have a screen cap to prove it =))
- 92 pts for the custom character(s) we have
- We have tomes from bg1 to spread among the crew
- Max HP's for NPC's
- Rotating crew in the beginning, one change towards the end
- Insane all the way
- T/M can use Githzerai Blade. I mean, thiefs can use Katana's so ... I don't get why it's not available?
- Ribald's exteneded store sells Amulet of Master Harper

!! Some items are treated as consumables. Like ring of danger sense (it will give permanent bonus to detect traps). Ditto for reaching ring (S/M will get it) & the druid's ring for extra 5th & 7th level spell slot. Will not spend time on swapping rings

We are going to max out our XP throughout the game. That is the key reason we're taking a Thief with as well.


***

The crew:

Vagrant

Late game tanking, great summons. Str 18, Dex 18, Con 19, Int 9, Wis 12, Cha 18.


Jaheira

Early game comprehensively OP character. Summons Clan Spirits, so an additional damage dealing machine.


Neera

Because her personal item is superb. Early access to swords, trolls + 5 improved hastes.


Swashbuckler/Mage

We need a thief. This should be about the best possible version, combining both effective melee with really good casting ability.


Aerie the Shaman

Aerie, but a Shaman. Shall get a personal item. We haven't decided yet, but +2 spells per level seems like an "IA standard" or so. Not sure what else we should do with it. We'll decide later.


The last slot

Custom DD early game, switch to Keldorn the Undead Hunter later on (90% sure this will happen but one never knows)


***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Mar 19 2024, 02:01 PM

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[pekkae]

Haha.

After 4 years (or so) with 10 different crews I think I finally figured out something important about the mod.

Even with this crew, we are optimizing the wrong things.

Vagrant is great, but we've never needed to tank with it. Which is important for the flow of the game, for Vagrant isn't that good of a tank really, as it's relying heavily on buffs to keep it safe and they tend to run out. Pure power wise the DD just is a superb character compared to the Vagrant. Vagrant is great though, as it can dish out massive amounts of damage, has really effective summons and a late game Vagrant can take in massive amounts of damage as well (my version now has almost 300 HP) + those innate resistences are really nice as well. But that is very late game, when those elements come into play.

Jaheira is great, probably one of the most OP characters in the game (after a well developed CERND in my books), but I still think that with numerous different crew compositions she actually hurts the overall performance. And nowhere is it in more plain sight, than with the Orc-horde fight. Let me explain. The most effective way to play the game is to achieve a crew where *every* character you have has a role to play in each of the fights, throughout the fights, including H2H. The big minus about Jaheira is that she is "competing" with some of the items, that are absolutely essential to achieve almost any kind of results with H2H from the non-fighter classes in the game.

A Shaman for example, is in dire need of paws of the furious cat, which make the Shaman a much more effective fighter. Without them, the continuous outlook is rather bleak. Ditto for Necro, it absolutely needs the Golem Slayer to properly function in golem fights, but if you have Jaheira, the GS most likely goes to her. So essentially Jaheira quite effectively handicaps a Necro, in many fights. I would be willing to bet, that a crew with Necro protagonist that includes a Shaman (or Cernd) is better off dividing said equipment to other members and leaving Jaheira's spot for someone else.

So to optimizing for a run, I'd probably be better off with about this kind of crew described below. The only place where I see problems is the GBU, where we were relying somewhat to Jaheira's regen's as well. But other than that, this kind of crew can easily handle the prebuffing needs (it's actually better because Necro can buff under alacricity & has the full range of buffs available), has extreme tanking capabilities (all three of DD, Pally + Vagrant can tank!) and it has extreme spellcasting capability. And effective use of the most OP equipment in the game.

Vagrant (PC) => Vagrant (Valygar)
DD => DD
Jaheira => Undead Hunter (personally I would like to try the Half-Orc Blackguard with access to Paladin's gear!)*
S/M => F/M/T (or F/M or F/I)
Shaman => Shaman, but with paws
Neera => Necro (PC) with full Necro gear

With this setup we've managed to optimize APR's extremely well. Vagrant reaches 9 APR (gauntlets, axe main hand, uber-club off-hand), DD gets to 9 (with belm off-hand), Undead Hunter 9 APR, F/M with water's edge reaches 9, Shaman reaches 4 and Necro reaches 2 (with 6 vs. golems for the "triple damage effect). You can only improve DPS by replacing the Shaman.

*Why the pally and not something else? Simple, it can cast clerical spells. And it is the onlly character that reaches 9 APR without the fighter gauntlets/off-hand scimitar, leaving those to other memebers of the crew. Also, it has amazing equipment, reaches 24-25 STR/DEX/CON, 85% Magic Resistance and because of the setup, has access to numerous different weapons - so you can effectively wield say flails/war hammers/bastard swords/long swords or so, as it can't specialize that much but the gear completely offsets this. And to top it off, the clerical buffs with the 6.6. changes are amazing.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Apr 2 2024, 09:56 PM