As it's been relatively quiet for some time at the forum I though I'd do a post about a run I've been thinking about recently. I don't have the time to start this in the near future, but every now and then I find myself yet again tinkering with the crew composition. Any comments would be welcome.

Our last run with "double -5" worked extremely well for most parts of the game. While we has some difficulties, we managed to develop our crew to quite OP mid-game and break through the demofight.

This time instead of being insanely capable in spellcasting we thought we'd develop an extreme H2H crew, playing on insane. This is what is in the works:

The locks (edit: they turned out not to be locks ...)

PC: Necromancer. Shall get the Necro stuff thus with required buffs be a little bit competent in H2H as well. With 2 APR / Decent Thac0 through TPT & Giant Strength. We thinks she'll be ok.

Jaheira: Early game superpowers. Great 2H H2H. Skins & Critical Striking. She rocks.

Custom multiclass F/I: Early game ubertank. Will get fighter Thac0's & Critical Strikes. Worked amazingly well on the last run.

Riskbreaker (probably Imoen): Will get JD. Gets to amazing physical resistance though Hardiness + CBS + JD. Will be an amazing tank + damage dealer.

What we're thinking

A custom R/C multiclass. Shall get full access to druidic spells. So fighter Thac0's, Critical Strikes + skins. Oh and insanely low AC (effective should hover around -28 unbuffed mid game). The only character that can both tank + has about the best combat buffs available (Draw Upon Holy Might should work wonders + Righteous Magic). We think she'll be great.

And the last slot.

Valygar the Vagrant? Can probably tank a little bit with Vagrant bonuses + Defender of Easthaven + Greean leaves armour + Armor of Faith + Double Regen. And can summon. Gets ofc fighter thac0's & critical strikes.

But if not Vagrant, whom should we take? Regular fighters are out of question for physical resistance through only hardiness is rather useless on insane - the characters need something else to protect themselves or increased physical resistance though something else.

A custom made Swashbuckler/Fighter could work as a dual classed assassin->fighter.

What else?

The strongest you have already listed our played before (like Kensai).

Valygar as protector is already a strong melee choice with nice utility. The vagrant mostly brings additional summons to the table.

I am personally quite charmed by a two weapon paladin, monks once into their magic resistance, and even the pure swashbuckler is a nice addition.

Thanks for the reply!

Yes Kensai is so effective with JD it's a little bit gamebreaking.

I'm not sure about Valygar, I'd like to play it to see how it goes but on insane Valygar version of Vagrant (without forging the Vagrant protagonist's stuff) doesn't have that good of physical resistance so I'm thinking the Vagrant will be in trouble. To even it out we could use staves / halberd's for the Vagrant in addition to dualwielding axe + defender of easthaven.

How would you play the dual-wielding paladin? I played Keldorn once or twice, giving him JD in the end. It's quite the effective character then.

I haven't played a swashbuckler, but the lack of UAI + critical strike makes the kit non-starter for what we are looking for.

It might just be that the crew turns out to be:

Necro
Jaheira
Multiclass F/I
Multiclass R/C (with full access to clerical spells)
Dual Assasin -> Fighter
Valygar the Vagrant (or a riskbreaker)

Played like this Vagrant would get JD thus buffing it's physical resistance quite a lot. The A-F is a 2H weapons specialist who can get up to 80-90% in phys. resistance, great APR's and ofc. it can PFMW / stoneskin from scrolls when needed to help out.

That's five characters who should have -15 Thac0, 7-10 attacks per round + critical strikes. Even though we won't get that many per character, because of the dual- & multi classes. Also everyone will be able to protect itself in a meaningful way. On insane hardiness + RvE:Regen doesn't really amount to that much.

The swashbuckler gets enough gear to be contributing, and I always want a thief for traps and locks. The most power is in the on hit effects, and with the very low ac and the effect that raises ac, they are very durable.

Paladins with bastard swords and JD are quite nice. It takes a while to get them there because these weapons come late, but meanwhile there are enough long swords avaliable as well as axes. Some cleric spells like armour of faith and resist fear, cure paralysis and they are very useful as well on utility.

Great to see another run from you!

It's a shame, that we don't have more time for modding lately. I had a (well, in my opinion at least!) nice idea for Thief rebalancing, that could bring all kits back to the game without the need to dual class them. After that change, a single class Assassin would be a good addition to your party, I'm sure of that.

At some point we will introduce those changes (and many more!), I hope you will be motivated to test new party composiotions and tell us your opinion about them!

Sounds fun! My vote is for 3x RB, 2x Avenger (1x dual wield, 1x 2H), and sorcerer or necro.

I’m surprised to hear you say that JD breaks the game, since JD comes nearly at the end of the game. Good luck!

im really waiting for u next changes.

i would like to test everything u offer =)

Hmh. Ok. I'm a bit worried about the very low HP of the Swashbuckler + very low APR's if using 2H weapons. That's why I've always sort of dismissed them outright. Playing on insane the negative sides only are alleviated.

Completely agree on the Paladin. Keldorn with beefed up wisdom rocking JD + The Truth for example is really good character.




Haha. Nice to see someone read my ramblings. It would be much fun to try out new things you are working on, at least that way I wouldn't have to make up my own alterations to the game to make it more interesting. Care to share anything about the modifications to the Assassin?





Thanks! I don't about to RB's, I think I would have terrible time surviving with this crew as only 3 skinned characters + RB's arent that good with 2H weapons. But on core this is probably as deadly as it gets.

(post moved to a seprate thread)

Oh sorry. I thought you meant dual weapons. I completely misread.
In that case you are right, swashbucklers are not too good.

Paladins do well either way. Berserker, barbarian, kensai and dwarven defender are fine, but lack magic powers thus if you use several then I would opt for a few dual class.

Rangers are meh. Risk breaker cannot specialise.

Other than that, avenger is amazing.

I'm a bit worried about about the Swashbucklers durability, I probably should start on Core rules if using them just see how it works. Probably better to use Swashbuckler as a dual wielder, possibly with Water's Edge in off-hand. I usually play with forging restrictions in place so it would be Hexxat for me, as her robe upgrade is really, really nice item.

I'm actually tinkering with the classes quite a lot as I don't really want another run that's like the runs that I've had before . We'll see where it ends.

Paladin, for Blessed Bracers + Blessings is by the end very, very deadly character. But quite terrible at tanking. And I hate the fact that Devas are so underpowered in IA compared to Swanays, Smilodons and such summons.

I've been tinkering with the crew for a little bit and I find myself most attracted to the following combination.

Necro (shall get the full Necro gear)
Jaheira
Priest of Lathander -> Mage (changes described below)
Riskbreaker for dual-wieding superpowers + ultimate physical resistance (hardiness+ CBS + JD + blessings should get this char to 90%)
Valygar the Vagrant (shall get FoDW ... for there's no +4 version od defender of Easthaven)

And for the last slot I will make a custom Swashbuckler->Fighter that will specialize in 2H weapons. Shall get gauntlets of extraordinary weapons specialization. Can't protect itself that much so no need for Hardinesses, so full on CS for this character. I'm not sure if it's more effective than a Kensai, even with Swashbuckler bonuses + GoEWS but this character should be able to reach about -24AC (without swashbuckler bonuses), 7 APR with -18 Thac0. Will use Halberds + Staffs.

Priest of LAthander with the following modifications.

+ Gains +2 in Wisdom
+ Can use Blessed Bracers.
+ Gets Boon of Lathander every 5 levels
+ Gains -1 in casting time on level 14
+ Gets +2 casting level at level 15
+ Gets to use Might of Avariel (without increases in casting levels, it's broken that way at least on my game)
- 1 in STR + DEX + CON
- Doesnt' get hold undead
- Cant summon a Deva

I'm surprised that the bioware NPCs make the cut - Jaheira lacks the critical additional spells that an auramaster druid would get, and only has 15 strength, lacking behind other warriors. She has a unique item, but does that make up for creating a custom character with more optimized attributes?

Unless your swashbuckler is getting UAI before dualing, I would expect a kensai to be a stronger character. One of the advantages of a kensai that I have found is crucial is the THAC0 bonuses they get - in the mid to late game, there will be powerful enemies that a non-kensai will hit 50% of the time of less, and kensais being able to hit reliably does so much heavy lifting. If you are getting UAI before dualing, then it is probably worth saving the gauntlets for another character.

A kensai/rogue (dualing at level 27) is probably the most powerful warrior possible in IA because of being able to a bonus of 9 to THAC0 and damage - it's the only character I've found that is able to beat the EDE solo (but it cannot get to the EDE by itself).

I never thought about creating a custom Avenger, since I find Jaheira is optimized enough. Also our Riskbreaker would be probably be Imoen, as she has really good stats for a Riskbreaker & her unique item more than makes up for non-optimized attributes. I don't remember if Valygar (as Vagrant) has Vagrant bonuses instead of having protector minuses, but I would make the changes in my local game if they are not there (protector gets -1 con and vagrant gets +1 con). Other stats are good enough. Plus Valygar's armour upgrade is really nice item for a Vagrant.

So I would have

Necro
Jaheira
Imoen
Valygar
Custom (Swashbuckler->Fighter)
Custom (PoL->M)

I would dual class Swashbuckler from level 2 I guess to a fighter. And yes, while the Kensai will hit more than anything else in the game in the late game my S/F having 10+ critical strikes makes up for it enough, meaning that compared to a Kensai S/F will have a slight edge in APR's + we'll have the Swashbuckler bonus effects in use as well. While it won't be as effective as a Kensai, the character is a little bit more flexible + can also be an amazing damage dealer. Plus we'll get amazingly low AC thanks to some thief specific items + bonuses. I also don't want to have a character with very limited utility at the same time, as dualling the PoL to a mage at level 15 will make it's cleric class unavailable for a pretty long time.

I'm quite sure the Swashbuckler doesn't get UAI, it's dropped from the HLA table.

Baldur's Gate II is meant to be played with BioWare NPCs, that's why we made a huge effort to bring back some of them and make them as useful as possible. In general they won't be as good as player created characters, but they have their flavor, items and banters, so I'd highly recommend using them for role playing if you aren't focused on power gaming

Jaheira has access to DuHM, which increases her strength + Avenger is at the moment one of the most overpowered kits, Clan Spirit is absurdly powerful, with proper buffs it can even solo an Elemental Golem, if I remember correctly.


As pekkae said - Swashies don't get UAI as HLA, they have other interesting abilities.

Yea, they are not that good stats wise but in most of the cases their personal item upgrades easily more than make up for the non-optimzed stats. Nalia is a better fighter/mage than any custom made character, ditto for Jan for Thief/Mage. Also Imoen as Riskbreaker/Kensai works insane well at least the way I develop those characters. Minsc already has better stats than a custom made character would have + great personal item if one likes Barbarians that is

And of course it's much more fun playing with say Minsc & Jan.

I think I have this figures out. Ahem. Again

We'll go with

Necro (PC)
Jaheira
Imoen the Riskbreaker
Valygar the Vagrant
Custom Fighter/Illusionist
Custom Priest of Lathander dual classed into a mage.

We'll edit the Priest of Lathander the following way:

+ Gets 2 in casting time
+ On level 15 gets a bonus of +3 to caster levels (divine) (so casts divine spells as 3 levels higher)
+ Gains boon of Lathander every 5 levels starting from level 5
+ Gets +3 to Wisdom
+ Immunity to silence, greater silence & grave silence
+ Immunity to fear
+ Can use blessed bracers & Might of the Avariel (without bonuses in caster levels)

- Gets -6 to STR, -2 to DEX and -2 to CON
- Doesn't receive "hold undead"
- Can't use any armors
- Can't use 2-handed weapons
- Can use bucklers & small shields only
- Can't use missile weapons
- Doesn't receive weapons-style bonuses

( + but can use mage robes after dual classing)

We'll dual class her from level 15 to a Mage, thus eventually ending up with alacricity and ok casting time bonus with enough spell slots to be effective.

This way we'll have amazing summoning abilities (clan spirit, swanmays, skeleton lords, smiodon, greater elementals & anaconda's) and almost all characters are such that we can protect them in the fights. We'll also have enough casting abilities + really good H2H abilities. Our custom Priest of LAthander should be a great tank & very versatile + can pack enough of a punch to be effective H2H combat as well. We think she'll be great!

At strength - 6?
With the right gear I guess... But that takes a while

Well, it's back to the drawing board. After having a glimpse of the new & upcoming things from v7 I'm quite confident that I won't start a playthrough until the shiny new thingies are available!

It's a bit of a shame, I think the crew planned here would have worked out amazingly well especially considering the crew's summoning capabilities + buffing capabilities (almost 2 full mages with half a mage in F/I) + the best summons in the game, out counting greater elementals, as we only get Sunnis from Noble Staff of Earth. Plus the tremendous H2H capabilities we would have had.

But we'll use this crew as a template and make enough changes to keep the game fresh.

So Im thinking about the following:

Necro PC
Jaheira
Imoen the Riskbreaker
Valygar the Vagrant (gets FoDW)
Custom Half-Orc Shaman
Either Priest of Lathander -> Mage or a Custom made Fighter/Illusionist

The character would have had the correct buffs to offset this, though it would have been quite useless in combat if not fully buffed.

That's an ok price to pay for the most precious & powerful abilities in the game (at least what we think) as in casting time minuses.

I've been tinkering with the composition again, after seeing the new kits & powers in more detail.

I've play tested the Swashbuckler a little bit and for a few days, I've been enraged about "WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THE SWASHBUCKLER IS AMAZING?!?" and then I came back to this thread and yea, I was told.

How do you play the Swashbuckler in terms if Improved Anvil, is his dps enough to carry his weight.

Always thought his thaco later in the game would be a problem with no grandmastery etc even though he does get some bonuses to it

I had one run with a Swashbuckler, using version 6.2. His name was Duke Nukem and believe me, he was a really good asset to the party, though he needed Water's Edge in his offhand to do real damage. Now we have an option of using Hexxat as a Swashbuckler, she has great basic stats and a cloak that gives additional APR, which is the most important stat for Swashies. Swashbucklers have a nice thaco progression due to their fast level ups and kit bonuses, they can get some Critical Strike HLAs and have a kit-specific HLA Acrobatic Combat, which increases AC and thaco for 5 rounds.

dps = damage per second?

Swshbuckler beats out all fighters in the game thac0 wise besides the Kensai. The other characters who can beat her Thac0 wise are a dual Kensai/Thief (with max buffs & equipment) and the Assassin/Fighter, dualled after UAI with max equipment.

For damage, I'm fairly confident that she only loses to a Kensai & RB. Though if they are not maxed, Swashbuckler comes out on top. Our version should be around 50-60pts of damage per hit (on average) with 9 APR late game. That's including the to-hit effects. That is better than what Kensai can get.



This is my plan exactly .

We' had some glimpses of the new up & coming changes so this has turned our plans upside down. As we like our crews themed - the "theme" for the crew isn't to maximize H2H, it's actually to maximize new stuffs in the game. (there's new stuff in IA as well, right?) So we're going to try the new kits, new stuffs & some new adventures (for us at least).

We'll play version 6.6 Beta.

So we'll take all of the NPC's we don't usually use along with some new kits we haven't played in order to maximize "freshness" (to an extent). We'll also install the Tower of Deception - mod, as it's supposed to work fine with IA. So we have a bunch of new things to try out. We'll do ToD before moving to Spellhold.

Then again, as our most fun thing to do is to develop absurdly OP crews and characters, certain choices rule out other choices, as we don't want to have two characters competing for the same stuffs. They play such a big part in what makes a character useful. Unfortunately some choices will rule out the most OP characters (we think), but we're hoping that we can develop our crew to extremely OP levels nonetheless.

We'll most likely end up with the following:

PC Necro,

As it's still the most OP character. We'll see how OP we can make our PC, as we'll balance the stuffs a little bit. Having a Necro though rules out Cernd. Once you've played with the -5 Cernd, the -4 version is just not going to cut it. We promise to exploit the Necro superpowers to the fullest extent.


Shaman (Minsc)

it's amazingly effective in the early parts of the game. Has unique superpowers from the early game on. Gets spirit shift for casual late fight whacking. But there's a "but". Having a shaman rules out Jaheira though, as in one of the most powerful NPC's out there. That is because we want to make the most diverse & competitive Shaman so it needs to use the most OP equipment. Unfortunately for us, that equipment is normally reserved for Jaheira (/Cernd). We're not sure how useful a Shaman is towards the end of the game. Though it's "competing" for the sport on the team with Jaheira/Cernd, both of whom are not that great in the most difficult fights in the game.

Minsc works nicely for this as the dialogues are exceptional and he's quite nuts. And carries around a guiding spirit animal of his own.


Hexxat

From our tiny bits of playtesting she looks like she can be developed to "hilariously OP" - levels. Shall get Waters Edge +4 to maximize her potential. So that means we won't take a RB/Kensai with us, as they compete for the same equipment. Insanely effective and as a bonus she has what's like undispellable continuous berserking on steroids.

I can't believe I didn't figure this out before.

She'll get the Swashies special armour. We'll also cheat a little and get her the cloak from v 6.5.

We should be able to drop her effective AC to around -40 after midpoint of the game. She should be quite safe. Not CERND-safe, but safe.


(Kel-)Dorn

The undead hunter. Gets undispellable useful bonuses and gets to cast clerical spells. Especially access to remove paralysis is very welcome addition.

So we'll turn Dorn into an undead hunter and give him Keldorn's stuffs. Why? Keldorn's new stuffs are amazing and we've never played with Dorn. So in principle, we are playing Keldorn, but with an additional quest and perhaps a little more interesting dialogue. The reason we take a Pally is because we took Hexxat and they compliment each other very well. With this setup we can max our APR's quite effectively. Shall get JD for maximum OP strength later in the game. Pally is the only character that can reach 9 APR without Water's Edge (/Belm) or gauntlets of extraordinary specialization.

it's a little bit of a shame that there isn't an "off hander" weapon, that would compliment the main weapon extremely well. Oh, besides Water's Edge of course. And Belm. FoDW would be amazing, but we have forging restrictions in place. So there's an off-hander. Oh. Well. So. Never mind. But, like, besides those.


F/I

Custom made gnomish fighter/illusionist. We'll max the stats and use a NPC as a template. Might use Neera for this as we really like her quest in ToB. The one character that keeps us in the game in the early parts. Gets +1 spells per level. Gets fighter Thac0's. Gets fighter HLA's. Gets amazing equipment. Can prebuff & debuff. etc.

Amazing tank + damage disher. Has everything besides high hitpoints. Though we can probably circumvent that a little bit. Shall use the Hammer of Thor & Githzerai blade late game. Oh and most likely the 0.5APR gauntlets so shall have 8 APR under IH. And after midpoint in the game also has nice amount of Critical Strikes.


R/C Multiclss

We have calculated and balanced now that we get the actual descriptions, abilities, items & everything. Unfortunately we don't think we can fit a kitted Cleric here. We don't see how we can protect the character throughout the game.

So we'll take the R/C instead. We'll use the cheating version with full access to druidic spells. We'll probably use Rasaad here for we want his extended quest in ToB, as we've never done it.

Should hover around -26AC ... -29AC mid game with good combat utility.

***

So our frontline should be quite safe, at least from mid-game onwards. We should have enough APR's (We'll end up with 26 APR // 3 characters). We'll be lacking a little bit in Critical Strikes, though F/M & (kel-)Dorn will probably only focus on CS's. Hexxat has 3. It's a little low and R/C will have other nice HLA's as well. We could fix this easily by switching Shaman with Jaheira.

***

Changes:

- Hexxat's cloak is revered back to the 6.5 version (for the most op version)
- R/C gets access to druidic spells. Most notably we need Iron Skins.
- We'll get a club +5, which we otherwise wouldn't have

Good luck with your run! It will be an interesting read for me, if you decide to share your thoughts and I hope it will be even more interesting playthrough for you!

Shaman (Minsc) - Shamans should be the ultimate "stayin' alive" characters, I hope this will be visible. They should be able to wear most "druid-exclusive" items and at some point some items for Shamans will be introduced probably.

Swashbuckler (Hexxat) - with unnerfed cloak she will be insane! Late game she will be even better at dealing damage than Kensai and have far better protections. I don't remember, why do you need to cheat Swash armor? I think the only condition is that you have a Swashie in your party, though it might be restricted to a "good alligned" character...

(Kel-)Dorn - how can he get 9APR? He can't get Grandmastery and don't forget that evil characters can't use those Paladin bracers. Anyway Keldorn's new armor should be a nice addition for both survivability and packing a punch.

R/C Multiclss - it's a shame that there's no place for a pure Cleric kit in your team. Most kits should be able to survive and add survivability to the rest of the party, plus you have a Shaman when things get dire. At some point I hope I will add improved holy symbols to the kits to make their distinctive features even more apparent.

Thanks! We'll see how it turns out. We're not looking that much facing the mundane stuff in the game (we'll skip some spider fights for example ), but we're mostly looking into developing the new & introduced equipment & spells & stuffs. I'll share thoughts as much as I can!

From my playtesting the Shaman is really nice & works very well. We'll use the spirit fire extensively in the early parts of the game but I have no idea how those abilities will work at 6MExp(+) levels. It's sort of a shame that we can't fit both Avenger & Shaman in the group. We'll give paws of the furious cat to the Shaman for him to be able to participate in the fights as well. And the Shaman will get the circlet of the woods/golden flowers.

I thought the Swashbuckler armour was a PC only - drop. But at least the description at readme/items doesn't say so. So maybe we don't have to cheat Nice! (just playtested and yes the armour it's usable by an evil character as well).

We'll change Dorn's alignment to good in order to get the blessed bracers. And we'll also fix his stats to match Keldorn. So we'll be playing a character that is 1:1 Keldorn fights-wise. Though we've never played with Dorn so we're hoping to make the dialogue a little bit more interesting and we're looking to do Dorn's quests, as we've never done em.

According to my calculations and tiny bits of playtesting, we're not sure if a kitted cleric has enough to protect itself in the fights. And since we have a Pally, who'll get the bracers, we're restricted in APR's without access to Critical Strikes. Those are the two major reasons we're inclined to take R/C instead. There's though oodles of nice new stuff to try out though - and it'll leave the kiteed Cleric's abilities for us to try out in possible future runs as well.