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voiceless anal fricative
May 6, 2007

I assume they mean "-instead of on something else" like a fighter or thief/mage

Vhailors also duplicates the items in your quick slots doesn't it? So you can have your bard cast timestop, adhw etc from scrolls without actually consuming them.

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The Doormat
Dec 20, 2010

:dukedog:
Yeah idk what people are on about, Bards kick rear end. Using the Thief exp table means that their mage spells scale ludicrously hard and fast, and unlike a dual-class F/M you can actually play the character instead of waiting for them to blossom. Multclass and Duals become disgusting eventually but if I'm playing BG1 or SoD I'd much rather have a Bard charname.

Imho their greatest sin is that they're not a 'full' caster in a game that devolves into 4D Wizard Chess past a point, which is really just a D&D problem.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

The Doormat posted:

Yeah idk what people are on about, Bards kick rear end. Using the Thief exp table means that their mage spells scale ludicrously hard and fast, and unlike a dual-class F/M you can actually play the character instead of waiting for them to blossom. Multclass and Duals become disgusting eventually but if I'm playing BG1 or SoD I'd much rather have a Bard charname.

Imho their greatest sin is that they're not a 'full' caster in a game that devolves into 4D Wizard Chess past a point, which is really just a D&D problem.

I actually feel like multi Fighter/Mages are a little overrated. They take forever to unlock high level spells. Give me a Bard and their fast progression and long lasting buffs over that.

That said dual class Fighter/Mages are of course incredible and nothing beats that. But Blades/Bards are fun from the start and plenty strong.

rojay
Sep 2, 2000

bike tory posted:

I assume they mean "-instead of on something else" like a fighter or thief/mage

Vhailors also duplicates the items in your quick slots doesn't it? So you can have your bard cast timestop, adhw etc from scrolls without actually consuming them.

Yes, that's what I meant. Bards are fine, just not the class I want to duplicate by the time I get Vhailor's helm.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever
Multi-classes would be a lot better if they let the player just permanently stop advancing in one class when they hit the point of minimal return. No 'catch-up' like with dual-classing, and it would work with the logarithmic experience values in the game. No more experience sharing - one class stagnates and the other advances at normal speed. This would even work with the rare triple class. I did that with my svirfneblin thief/illusionist years ago and it worked very well; there simply wasn't a hugely compelling reason to level thief past 9. I feel that fighter... well, fighter/anything is fairly similar.

Slashrat
Jun 6, 2011

YOSPOS

JustJeff88 posted:

Multi-classes would be a lot better if they let the player just permanently stop advancing in one class when they hit the point of minimal return. No 'catch-up' like with dual-classing, and it would work with the logarithmic experience values in the game. No more experience sharing - one class stagnates and the other advances at normal speed. This would even work with the rare triple class. I did that with my svirfneblin thief/illusionist years ago and it worked very well; there simply wasn't a hugely compelling reason to level thief past 9. I feel that fighter... well, fighter/anything is fairly similar.

This is basically what 3rd and 5th edition do, though many classes in 3rd edition tended to have class abilities that suffered significantly in effectiveness (mostly due to low DCs) against similar-level monsters if you had focused your levels on it.

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.

The Doormat posted:

Imho their greatest sin is that they're not a 'full' caster in a game that devolves into 4D Wizard Chess past a point, which is really just a D&D problem.

Back when I played tabletop we instituted a global level cap of 7 (3.5 rule set) to avoid this exact issue. Level cap applied to NPCs as well. Access to spells above level 4 was the exclusive domain of rare magic items with downsides or conditions on their use. It made the game so much better. The mere presence of spells like Teleport, Raise Dead, and Dominate in your world just prevents so SO many stories from taking place and making sense. Want to run a political assassination plotline? What’s the point? Any King influential enough to be worth targeting is going to have a Raise-Dead-capable cleric on his payroll.

Baldur’s Gate suffers from this as well. Oh we got accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders? So raise them from the dead and let’s friggin’ talk about it. The priest of Oghma downstairs can do it for 750 bucks, you telling me the leaders of this giant international shipping corporation don’t have a fund set aside for this?

The only reason the iron crisis ever gets as bad as it does is because Elminster apparently prefers to sit on his rear end eating pudding instead of just teleporting down to the bottom of the nashkel mine and mind controlling mulahey into giving up the whole plot. It would have taken less time than one of his smug cryptic conversations with you, which he apparently has all day to do.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
I don't feel like the 3e way of doing things perfectly works either because if you do like a 10/10 fighter/mage in 3e you have much shittier spellcasting than an equivalently experienced fighter/mage would have in 2e. Because that 10/10 fighter/mage in 3e is the equivalent of a 20th level character, whereas in 2e a 10/10 fighter mage would require 750k xp which is the single class equivalent of a level 11 fighter or level 12 mage. But that 10/10 fighter mage in 3e is being compared to a level 20 mage or level 20 fighter and is going to fall wayyyy short of either.

Obviously 3e does have prestige classes as well which change things a lot and many of those grant progression in both classes so that you don't fall behind on spell casting or attack bonus (3e equivalent of thaco)

That said the 3e style of multiclassing also lends itself to doing dips into classes for just the frontloaded abilities like taking one level of fighter for martial proficiencies etc. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that style of multi class progression. Prestige classes do fix a lot of the problems but not all of them.

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos
I like that 3e is such a fundamentally weird
(I usually say bad here but no one has ever fixed the gish problem so I can't fault it specifically here) implementation that even some of the high level buffs to pure classes or pure classes made to be intentionally dipped to prestiges introduced in 3.5 and Pathfinder only just clouded the solution space and opened up even more ridiculous dip strategies.

God bless everyone posting NWN2 and Kingmaker builds to the internet because I sure as hell am not going to get those right.

Mr E
Sep 18, 2007

Yeah I've played a ton of D&D and Pathfinder, both tabletop and CRPGs, and still need guides for anything past D&D 2.5e. 5e isn't bad to get a build together but that's mostly because I don't see much reason to pretty much ever multiclass.

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

You don't have to in order to remain competitive which is a good thing but make no mistake, multiclassing is probably the strongest its ever been in 5e

I'm running a Paladin/Sorcerer and it's actual absurdity

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Ginette Reno posted:

I don't feel like the 3e way of doing things perfectly works either because if you do like a 10/10 fighter/mage in 3e you have much shittier spellcasting than an equivalently experienced fighter/mage would have in 2e. Because that 10/10 fighter/mage in 3e is the equivalent of a 20th level character, whereas in 2e a 10/10 fighter mage would require 750k xp which is the single class equivalent of a level 11 fighter or level 12 mage. But that 10/10 fighter mage in 3e is being compared to a level 20 mage or level 20 fighter and is going to fall wayyyy short of either.

Obviously 3e does have prestige classes as well which change things a lot and many of those grant progression in both classes so that you don't fall behind on spell casting or attack bonus (3e equivalent of thaco)

That said the 3e style of multiclassing also lends itself to doing dips into classes for just the frontloaded abilities like taking one level of fighter for martial proficiencies etc. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that style of multi class progression. Prestige classes do fix a lot of the problems but not all of them.

I thought about this too, but I wasn't sure how to bring it across in words. The experience to level growth in 2e (apart from druids) works very well in terms of keeping multi-classes competitive. I wish that they had kept that somehow.

I am aware that in 3e the game is built around a labyrinthine prestige class system, which is not exactly a point in its favour. I am also aware that 5e encourages players to take one-level 'dips' in certain classes, which I find very cheezy.

The Doormat
Dec 20, 2010

:dukedog:

Ginette Reno posted:

I actually feel like multi Fighter/Mages are a little overrated. They take forever to unlock high level spells. Give me a Bard and their fast progression and long lasting buffs over that.

That said dual class Fighter/Mages are of course incredible and nothing beats that. But Blades/Bards are fun from the start and plenty strong.

My most recent trilogy playthrough was as a F/M and they kicked rear end, but it really felt like all they had to offer past a point was HP damage instead of anything really novel. My npc mages were more effective at stripping defenses or targeting saves, and Mazzy and other dedicated martials tended to be more consistent when I didn't feel like pre-buffing or resting after each fight.

I was using some tweak or another to let multiclass Fighters get grandmastery though. It was fun but it might've colored my opinion.

I also maintain that 3e Bards are also disgustingly good, but you need to navigate labyrinthine multiclassing breakpoints to make the most out of them, and again, Wizards are right there and even more of an issue.

Suspicious
Apr 30, 2005
You know he's the villain, because he's got shifty eyes.

Mzbundifund posted:

Back when I played tabletop we instituted a global level cap of 7 (3.5 rule set) to avoid this exact issue. Level cap applied to NPCs as well. Access to spells above level 4 was the exclusive domain of rare magic items with downsides or conditions on their use. It made the game so much better. The mere presence of spells like Teleport, Raise Dead, and Dominate in your world just prevents so SO many stories from taking place and making sense. Want to run a political assassination plotline? What’s the point? Any King influential enough to be worth targeting is going to have a Raise-Dead-capable cleric on his payroll.

Baldur’s Gate suffers from this as well. Oh we got accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders? So raise them from the dead and let’s friggin’ talk about it. The priest of Oghma downstairs can do it for 750 bucks, you telling me the leaders of this giant international shipping corporation don’t have a fund set aside for this?

The only reason the iron crisis ever gets as bad as it does is because Elminster apparently prefers to sit on his rear end eating pudding instead of just teleporting down to the bottom of the nashkel mine and mind controlling mulahey into giving up the whole plot. It would have taken less time than one of his smug cryptic conversations with you, which he apparently has all day to do.

Why didn't they use a Phoenix Down on Aeris :(

voiceless anal fricative
May 6, 2007

Mzbundifund posted:

Back when I played tabletop we instituted a global level cap of 7 (3.5 rule set) to avoid this exact issue. Level cap applied to NPCs as well. Access to spells above level 4 was the exclusive domain of rare magic items with downsides or conditions on their use. It made the game so much better. The mere presence of spells like Teleport, Raise Dead, and Dominate in your world just prevents so SO many stories from taking place and making sense. Want to run a political assassination plotline? What’s the point? Any King influential enough to be worth targeting is going to have a Raise-Dead-capable cleric on his payroll.

Baldur’s Gate suffers from this as well. Oh we got accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders? So raise them from the dead and let’s friggin’ talk about it. The priest of Oghma downstairs can do it for 750 bucks, you telling me the leaders of this giant international shipping corporation don’t have a fund set aside for this?

The only reason the iron crisis ever gets as bad as it does is because Elminster apparently prefers to sit on his rear end eating pudding instead of just teleporting down to the bottom of the nashkel mine and mind controlling mulahey into giving up the whole plot. It would have taken less time than one of his smug cryptic conversations with you, which he apparently has all day to do.

The idea of restricting levels to make higher level magic properly epic is cool, but there are also easy ways around these things, narratively. Raise Dead has a bunch of caveats for example - it doesn't work if the body is missing essential bits (like, say, the head), if they've been dead for more than a day, if they've been killed by a death effect, etc. So narratively that just changes assassination requirements a bit for high status or wealthy people, which also makes sense in a world where anyone with a couple of potions of invisibility could fairly trivially slit a king's throat. It also requires a fairly powerful cleric to cast, so narratively a lot of people just wouldn't have access to it, even if they could afford the material costs which are a lot lower in video games. Resurrection has fewer restrictions, but doesn't still have some (can't remember what they all are tbh), but the main one is simply that there aren't many clerics around who are powerful enough to cast it.

Other powerful spells also have limits or risks placed on them too, so you can make them work narratively. Teleport spells usually require knowledge of the place you're going to, and have a chance to fail and send you elsewhere, etc. Dominate allows for saves, but can also be a really interesting narrative device to create intrigue etc.

As for why powerful characters like Elminster don't simply disintegrate bad guys like Mulahey is usually just explained by the fact that they're constantly busy putting out larger fires. In Baldur's Gate the iron crisis isn't just mulahey's doing and Nashkell isn't the only mine affected. Elminster doesn't know what's causing it but also doesn't have time to get to the bottom of it, so he deputises the PC to deal with it. There are also hints that he's using it as a test of your intentions, resolve, power, nature, alignment, etc. That's certainly the impression you get from the various conversations he has with you, anyway.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

bike tory posted:

As for why powerful characters like Elminster don't simply disintegrate bad guys like Mulahey is usually just explained by the fact that they're constantly busy putting out larger fires. In Baldur's Gate the iron crisis isn't just mulahey's doing and Nashkell isn't the only mine affected. Elminster doesn't know what's causing it but also doesn't have time to get to the bottom of it, so he deputises the PC to deal with it. There are also hints that he's using it as a test of your intentions, resolve, power, nature, alignment, etc. That's certainly the impression you get from the various conversations he has with you, anyway.

There's also the idea of powerful characters wanting to oppose the Elminsters of the world too. Cyric doesn't just kill you in Throne of Bhaal because if he tried Mystra or Kelemvor would get involved or any of the other countless deities opposed to him

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

bike tory posted:

The idea of restricting levels to make higher level magic properly epic is cool, but there are also easy ways around these things, narratively. Raise Dead has a bunch of caveats for example - it doesn't work if the body is missing essential bits (like, say, the head), if they've been dead for more than a day, if they've been killed by a death effect, etc. So narratively that just changes assassination requirements a bit for high status or wealthy people, which also makes sense in a world where anyone with a couple of potions of invisibility could fairly trivially slit a king's throat. It also requires a fairly powerful cleric to cast, so narratively a lot of people just wouldn't have access to it, even if they could afford the material costs which are a lot lower in video games. Resurrection has fewer restrictions, but doesn't still have some (can't remember what they all are tbh), but the main one is simply that there aren't many clerics around who are powerful enough to cast it.

Other powerful spells also have limits or risks placed on them too, so you can make them work narratively. Teleport spells usually require knowledge of the place you're going to, and have a chance to fail and send you elsewhere, etc. Dominate allows for saves, but can also be a really interesting narrative device to create intrigue etc.

As for why powerful characters like Elminster don't simply disintegrate bad guys like Mulahey is usually just explained by the fact that they're constantly busy putting out larger fires. In Baldur's Gate the iron crisis isn't just mulahey's doing and Nashkell isn't the only mine affected. Elminster doesn't know what's causing it but also doesn't have time to get to the bottom of it, so he deputises the PC to deal with it. There are also hints that he's using it as a test of your intentions, resolve, power, nature, alignment, etc. That's certainly the impression you get from the various conversations he has with you, anyway.

Ginette Reno posted:

There's also the idea of powerful characters wanting to oppose the Elminsters of the world too. Cyric doesn't just kill you in Throne of Bhaal because if he tried Mystra or Kelemvor would get involved or any of the other countless deities opposed to him

These are all good points. People tend to assume due to the high power level of P&P characters and video games that raising the dead is as easy as flipping a switch. Narratively, it's an incredibly miracle. Keep in mind also that in 2e, at least, there was a chance of resurrection failure. Also, it's often implied that the dead don't have to come back, and it may be that deities won't allow their petitioniers to come back. I remember reading once in a 2e book set in Cormyr that the royal family has a scrict decree that, should anyone in the line of succession die, they either cannot be brought back by law or they are removed from consideration for the thrown, in order to prevent disputes.

In the second case, that's the thing about direct divine intervention... if my deity is getting involved, what is to stop any other deity from also taking direct action?

That said, yeah, the handling of death is very inconsistent. For example, in one of the Salvatore books Matron Baenre, the 2000+ year old one, is killed. She's probably the most powerful cleric of Lolth ever to live, so why didn't the spider queen bring her back? Much later, her daughter Quenthel is resurrected and it's treated like an utter miracle, but in even later books Artemis and Drizzt kill several high priestesses and the act as if bringing them back is routine business except for one that dies to Artemis' vampiric dagger - she simply has no soul to call back to her body. That is very ominous in and of itself, but the point is that we went from the most powerful monarch ever dying with no thought of bringing her back, then the gasp-inducing resurrection of a much lesser ruler followed by, with one exception, the routine raising of a few priestesses of no great importance.

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

Mzbundifund posted:

Baldur’s Gate suffers from this as well. Oh we got accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders? So raise them from the dead and let’s friggin’ talk about it. The priest of Oghma downstairs can do it for 750 bucks, you telling me the leaders of this giant international shipping corporation don’t have a fund set aside for this?

The plot of Baldur's Gate 1 is a coming of age story, but you are also a god-child who cannot be resurrected. So, you know, save often. This is hand-waved away with Imoen, for reasons we all know. But within the confines of that game, you have to murder some folks, and they stay dead, because that is how the plot works.

Why can't Jaheira resurrect Khalid? The plot says he was mangled beyond disbelief by Irenicus, which fair enough, Jon-Bon is a monster, but in theory, tragedies like that should not happen. I have a rod of resurrection right here, it not only insta-heals anyone I touch with it, it also brings people back from the dead.

Aerie's injuries don't really make sense either. She was scarred a long time ago, I understand, but when I have someone cast a healing spell on someone, they are all well again.

voiceless anal fricative
May 6, 2007

Eh, again there's a combination of explicit limits written into the rules and narrative reasons for those things. Khalid has been dead too long and his body too mutilated for anything but the most powerful magic to work, which you don't have access to in Irenicus dungeon. Jaheira also refuses to try and find higher level magic to resurrect him and I'm pretty sure at some point she explains that decision as part of her views on death and nature and cycles and poo poo.

In general healing spells don't restore severed body parts in DnD. There is a specific cleric spell that can regrow severed limbs but it's really high level. Aerie probably could cast it by the end of SoA but her whole story arc is about her coming to accept herself and finding a sense of self-worth despite losing her wings and poo poo. It'd be kind of out of sync if there was the option at the end to get her wings back.

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

It's not really well supported by the game mechanics, is what I suppose I am saying. If Korgan, with his 150 odd hit points, gets taken down to having less than 10 left, it seems like the sort of injury that would entail severed body parts. But in general, it is what drives Star Trek, the power of plot over-rides everything.

Decrepus
May 21, 2008

In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.


Anyone who dual classes is sickos.jpg

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Decrepus posted:

Anyone who dual classes is sickos.jpg

I wouldn't quite go this far, but I agree that it's a rubbish mechanic. I've never done it outside of playing Anomen. I know that people think that he's a knobhead as a character, which he is, but I like him mechanically largely because he has enough fighter levels to be useful but he's past the point of getting back his cleric powers and is advancing as a cleric, which is the class that I most care about.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

JustJeff88 posted:

I wouldn't quite go this far, but I agree that it's a rubbish mechanic. I've never done it outside of playing Anomen. I know that people think that he's a knobhead as a character, which he is, but I like him mechanically largely because he has enough fighter levels to be useful but he's past the point of getting back his cleric powers and is advancing as a cleric, which is the class that I most care about.

Anomen is arguably the strongest npc in the game. With his spells he's both tanky and does terrific damage. I'm not sure who I'd rate over him. Maybe Neera just because Wild Magic is so absurd at high levels. Maybe Edwin because of the extra spell slots. Even then it's debatable though. Anomen is strong right out of the gate and never fades.

sebzilla
Mar 17, 2009

Kid's blasting everything in sight with that new-fangled musket.


You could make decent arguments for Aerie, Jan, Haer'Dalis, maybe Jaheira as well.

Empty Sandwich
Apr 22, 2008

goatse mugs
finally strong enough to murder Drizzt without cheese

decided to head over to good old Durlag's place to see how he's holding up

I'd never used Shar-Teel, Dorn, Corgan, Edwin, or Yeslick before, but this is fun as hell

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Ginette Reno posted:

Anomen is arguably the strongest npc in the game. With his spells he's both tanky and does terrific damage. I'm not sure who I'd rate over him. Maybe Neera just because Wild Magic is so absurd at high levels. Maybe Edwin because of the extra spell slots. Even then it's debatable though. Anomen is strong right out of the gate and never fades.

The series has a ton of NPCs who could easily overshadow the player character for those who don't know or don't care to min-max to the extreme; Anomen is one of many.

As for me, I'm not crazy on fighter/cleric hybrids in general. Given that clerics can already use every armour and shield and that having one cleric level locks the player out of any non-blunt weapons, I don't see the reason to have levels in both. Clerics have the second- best HP in the game as well as the second-best Thac0 as well. I know that they have some great buffs, but they don't need warrior levels to cast them upon themselves. I just feel that pairing warrior with cleric slows down progression to spells and high-level abilities. Warrior/mage works, and thief + anything is better than a pure thief, but I don't think that warrior levels add enough to cleric to justify splitting experience. Again, I only like Anomen because he's already done warrioring when you meet him and he advances in his casting class with no impediments or exp loss.

voiceless anal fricative
May 6, 2007

Rappaport posted:

It's not really well supported by the game mechanics, is what I suppose I am saying. If Korgan, with his 150 odd hit points, gets taken down to having less than 10 left, it seems like the sort of injury that would entail severed body parts. But in general, it is what drives Star Trek, the power of plot over-rides everything.

Yeah I get what you're saying, it's a wider issue with DnD really. Similar problems crop up when you consider that Korgan with 1 HP left out of 150 can still run 30ft in 6 seconds while carrying 250lbs and then make 3 attacks, until a rat bites his ankle and suddenly he's dead on the ground.

I think the general idea with DnD healing is that it uses magic to massively speed up the natural healing process. It doesn't regrow lost body parts because that wouldn't happen naturally.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

JustJeff88 posted:

The series has a ton of NPCs who could easily overshadow the player character for those who don't know or don't care to min-max to the extreme; Anomen is one of many.

As for me, I'm not crazy on fighter/cleric hybrids in general. Given that clerics can already use every armour and shield and that having one cleric level locks the player out of any non-blunt weapons, I don't see the reason to have levels in both. Clerics have the second- best HP in the game as well as the second-best Thac0 as well. I know that they have some great buffs, but they don't need warrior levels to cast them upon themselves. I just feel that pairing warrior with cleric slows down progression to spells and high-level abilities. Warrior/mage works, and thief + anything is better than a pure thief, but I don't think that warrior levels add enough to cleric to justify splitting experience. Again, I only like Anomen because he's already done warrioring when you meet him and he advances in his casting class with no impediments or exp loss.

Fighter/Clerics are one of the best multi or dual classes because Clerics have a fast xp table so you don't really lose out too much on spell progression. Anomen or a PC Fighter/Cleric will still get higher level spells pretty quickly, especially compared to a Fighter/Druid or Fighter/Mage.

Also while Clerics can buff themselves up really well they only ever get one attack per round, so a single class Cleric will struggle mightily to do damage compared to a multiclass who gets that crucial extra fighter/specialization APR. That APR difference only gets magnified when the Fighter/Cleric gets buffed with improved haste which doubles their attacks/round, meaning they'll get more out of it since they start with higher APR to begin with than a single class Cleric.

Single class Clerics are still real solid. They can tank well and they can still buff themselves up and hit hard, albeit with low APR. But I think Fighter/Clerics are better overall unless your goal is to use the Cleric in a more support role which is definitely a viable thing to do.

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos
Any fighter dual class is there for the proficiencies if you're min maxing. Grand mastery so good you don't even get the full deal in most of the IE games but even some of the lesser amounts of pips are fun bonuses that always apply and stack with buffs. If you know you're gonna get epic level experience, proficiency is a really compelling reason to dip into fighter first.

Incidentally Anomen makes everyone angry he doesn't have 3 pips in maces.

Percentile strength is also "fun" but kind of a dead end for clerics who get spells to be their own personal buff Jesus early on beside something like BG2 where belts of strength are falling out of cabinets in a heap. Incidentally Anomen also makes people mad he has percentile strength but average dex.

voiceless anal fricative
May 6, 2007

There are two cleric kits (lathandar and helm) that get buffs to give you extra APR. Boon of Lathandar in particular stacks up really well once you get enough casts of it. There's still a lot of buffing and prep needed to temporarily mimic what a fighter/cleric gets by default, but no one ever said these games were well balanced.

I love playing single class clerics though.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

zedprime posted:

Any fighter dual class is there for the proficiencies if you're min maxing. Grand mastery so good you don't even get the full deal in most of the IE games but even some of the lesser amounts of pips are fun bonuses that always apply and stack with buffs. If you know you're gonna get epic level experience, proficiency is a really compelling reason to dip into fighter first.

Incidentally Anomen makes everyone angry he doesn't have 3 pips in maces.

Percentile strength is also "fun" but kind of a dead end for clerics who get spells to be their own personal buff Jesus early on beside something like BG2 where belts of strength are falling out of cabinets in a heap. Incidentally Anomen also makes people mad he has percentile strength but average dex.

My annoyance with Anomen is he starts with no points in flails and Flail of the Ages is by far the best weapon for him. He gets so many levels over the course of the game that you'll eventually get him to grandmastery by TOB anyways though.

Empty Sandwich
Apr 22, 2008

goatse mugs
an Anomen

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever
Assuming though mods, though, aren't even fighter/clerics limited to two, maybe three proficiency pips? I thought that 4 or 5 were reserved for single-class fighters. It's been so long since I played this game or 2e that I simply don't remember.

bike tory posted:

Yeah I get what you're saying, it's a wider issue with DnD really. Similar problems crop up when you consider that Korgan with 1 HP left out of 150 can still run 30ft in 6 seconds while carrying 250lbs and then make 3 attacks, until a rat bites his ankle and suddenly he's dead on the ground.

I think the general idea with DnD healing is that it uses magic to massively speed up the natural healing process. It doesn't regrow lost body parts because that wouldn't happen naturally.

Abstracting HP is really hard. Sometimes I wish that D&D had used a split fatigue/luck/stamina/'fate' points vs health points system. A fair few other system do.

voiceless anal fricative
May 6, 2007

Dual class fighter/whatever can get Grand mastery once they get their fighter levels back

rocketrobot
Jul 11, 2003

JustJeff88 posted:


Abstracting HP is really hard. Sometimes I wish that D&D had used a split fatigue/luck/stamina/'fate' points vs health points system. A fair few other system do.

There are exhaustion points and crap like that nowadays.

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

bike tory posted:

Yeah I get what you're saying, it's a wider issue with DnD really. Similar problems crop up when you consider that Korgan with 1 HP left out of 150 can still run 30ft in 6 seconds while carrying 250lbs and then make 3 attacks, until a rat bites his ankle and suddenly he's dead on the ground.

I think the general idea with DnD healing is that it uses magic to massively speed up the natural healing process. It doesn't regrow lost body parts because that wouldn't happen naturally.

I am now arguing for the fun of arguing, but the game also features potions of regeneration, which while not all that fun to use, they still seem to feature regeneration. There's also the rings of regeneration in BG2 (thanks, Ribald!), whose description say that within the ring floats the ichor and brains (!) of a troll. It's not precisely clear from the game mechanics, since the infinity engine didn't really feature limb loss, but trolls do just spring back up if you don't beat them for a few moments.

This does seem like an exercise in "don't think about it too hard, dummy", since the actual healing mechanic in the game just means you get some hit points back, and that means the character can take another punch or three.

CainsDescendant
Dec 6, 2007

Human nature




Relevant: https://youtu.be/CuQBeW8qFgs

Ratios and Tendency
Apr 23, 2010

:swoon: MURALI :swoon:


Are Neera and Rasaad's BG2 quests worth doing? I quit my first attempt at the EE's when it wanted me to collect Neera's cats...

Dillbag
Mar 4, 2007

Click here to join Lem Lee in the Hell Of Being Cut To Pieces
Nap Ghost

Ratios and Tendency posted:

Are Neera and Rasaad's BG2 quests worth doing? I quit my first attempt at the EE's when it wanted me to collect Neera's cats...

Rasaad's is marginally less annoying and you need to at least start it to find the best BG2 EE NPC.

Neera's quest is annoying as gently caress, and all the NPC voices are lovely and obnoxious. The only good part is murdering that shopkeeper on the promenade. When I bother to do it I always console myself the cats because gently caress that poo poo.

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Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Ratios and Tendency posted:

Are Neera and Rasaad's BG2 quests worth doing? I quit my first attempt at the EE's when it wanted me to collect Neera's cats...

There's a few good items in them. A nice shield you can get in Neera's, and Rasaad's has gem of true seeing which is great.

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