So, who's better?

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I really enjoy playing a cleric/thief. I think the mage/thief is the most powerful character in the game followed by the cleric/thief. IMO the multiclassed is better for going into ToB (for reasons we can't discuss in this forum). You could always sk in assassin, but that would be cheating (although the old rules allowed a half-orc cleric assassin, so it's only cheating a little ).

Holy power helps you hit more often -- it lowers thac0. It doesn't give any additional attacks. It also sets strength at 18(00). That would be a reduction from the numbers I gave. You would need to use clubs and staves to backstab.

 

Hold up... How can Cleric/thief be "juggernaut of destruction"? I thought they are just lame healers who dont have offencive magic

P.S. Whats the point killing the guards besides lowering your rep.?

 

@T2Bruno: Had to check this one out...Holy Power gives a +1 to STR, DEX and CON for every three lvls of the caster, right? And it's actually Champion's Strength which gives a major boost to thac0 and sets the strength to 18/00, but the mother of pearl I was looking for was Righteous Magic. No extra attacks thought there either, but similar effects to Kensai's Kai in respect of making the caster do maximum damage. It also gives a strength boost. With this and Holy Power though yon cleric/thief will easily have a strenght of 25 and (s)he'll do a huge amount of damage with a backstab. But I'm eager to find out how much exactly...

 

Even though clerics don't have good offensive spells (correct me if I'm worng), they can buff themselves and then just use weapons to overwelm their opponents? So, difference between a cleric and a mage is: Cleric buffs himself (and others) and then kills his enemies, while mage just uses direct damage spells and has low hp and high AC?

P.S. Whats the point killing the guards besides lowering your rep.? They give sh*t exp

 

@Klazier: Good point, that's Amnish Legionaries. And for an evil character a pooey rep's a good thing. With a rep of 1 you get a lot of spawns of...umm, let's see...four Amnish Legionaries worth 3200xp a pop, an Amnish Centurion worth 7300xp or so per head and two cowled mages worth 4000xp each. The soldiers lug around a random treasure, a spear, a helmet and regular full plate mails and these are worth 1800gp each for a shopkeeper that hasn't got them in stock already, 1500 if they have one (IIRC), and the lowest price you can get from them is 1200gp. So even if you'd stick to one single merchant and sell all the goodies to him/her, you still get at least 6000gp for each of the spawned groups. Then there's all sorts of random items, scrolls, gems, potions, arrows, weapons and armor, but besides the scrolls and some of the potions they're mainly extra gold for your purse. The greatest exception being those random arrows of detonation for an assassin. Boom! A whole group gets poisoned!

Oh, there's good offensive spells for a cleric, just not that many. Holy Smite with a high lvl cleric does a fair bit of damage and it seems to ignore magic resistance. The same goes for Unholy Blight, good against good guys, but since there aren't so many around it's not so useful to have memorized. Putting three Holy Smites in a spell trigger kills and cripples almost any group of baddies you can find in the game, but that's mainly a special treat for your cleric/mage in the endgame of SoA...

 

You're thinking of Draw Upon Holy Might -- a great spell. Second level, adds one point of str, dex and con per every three levels (and is a bhaal power for good characters). Holy Power is level 4, sets strength to 18(00), adds one hp per level and uses the thac0 of a fighter. Righteous magic is level 5, adds one point of str for every three levels, adds one hp per level, and uses the thac0 of a fighter.

Draw upon Holy Might is the most useful spell early on, along with Holy Smite. A CG cleric/thief is quite powerful. most of your enemies are evil and the spell choices of a good cleric are very deadly to thone enemies. At low levels the thieving abilities are the main abilities you fall back on. At high levels, Bolt of Glory, Holy Word and the deadly combination of hide in shadows and blade barrier will be excellent tools. Righteous magic can be useful for those times you cannot avoid a toe-to-toe fight. Never underestimate the power of the turn ability. By chapter six, the cleric/thief will be chunking the lesser vampires with the turn ability alone. Those that survive still must survive Sunray.

Evil cleric/thieves have an enormous advantage against undead. Controlling a host of lesser undead will keep the higher ones busy. No need to conjure help (even though the aerial servant is really good) because you simply use turn.

Getting back to spells, IMO the Bolt of Glory is the single most useful spell against dragons and demons. The Shield of the Archons is quite capable against mages.

Once you get high enough level, the cleric/thief will be able to obtain a 25 strength for backstabs. This gives a +7 to hit and +14 damage. Main weapons of choice will be either the Staff of Striking (1d6 + 9) or the +4 Staff of Rynn (1d6 + 4) both are available early in the game.

Staff of Striking will do a maximum of 104 points of damage, while the Staff of Rynn will 79 points of damage. An advantage for these weapons is their speed. I had no problems dealing with opponents soloing a gnome cleric/thief using the Staff of Rynn.

Never overlook the power of traps. A well placed trap (or two) will make any battle a lot easier.

As I've said before, high level thieves become much more powerful after installing ToB.

 

So now encouraging someone to experience the game in the it-that-must-not-be-named expansion is against the rules?

[It was a reminder to everyone that the original poster doesn't have ToB and that discussion should continue with that in mind (i.e. no ToB spoilers). There have already been posts with ToB spoilers in this thread. If you need further clarification, you can contact me via PM. -Tal]

 

Yeah, it would be great if we would just stick to SoA. 'Coz at some point I got lost, whether we are still speaking of SoA or ToB

Btw, which monsers are undead besides skeletons?

I'm currectly playing my main character(Sorcerer) in Chapter 4(maze under spellhold) and I find it annoying that I used all my spells and I have to rest. Do clerics(or mages) use their spells as fast as offencive Sorcerers? By offencive I mean that I have alot of attacking spells. Coz I hate the idea to rest after every battle

Spoiler

Oh and, I'm currently in Chapter 4(maze under spellhold), my lvl is 12 and I have a full party of 6, and I wonder, how far I am trough the game? 30%, 50%, 60%, 70%? Or maybe less?

P.S.S. How am I supposed to fight beholders? They keep killing all my party and me.

 

Hmm, did you complete all other subquests before sailing off to Spellhold? If you still have quests to undertake you can do them all when you leave Spellhold and come back to Athkathla.

If there are no more subquests, you are close to the end of the game, but not very close. I would say 70% or such.

Against beholders. Use summons, they do not use their ray attacks efficiently against them. A hasted group of Fire Elementals are very effective. You could also use Skeleton Warriors with 90% Magic Resistance, but it requires a lvl 15 caster. (cleric or mage)

Use your Magic Resistance items and potions. And characters, Viccy equipped by decent MR gear can stand up well against Gauths.

Use protective spells. Minor spell turnings, deflections, spell immunities, AND Spell Shield (a MUST to have against Beholder's dreaded Anti Magic Ray), will buy you lots of time. If you have greater Spell Turning spell, beholders can chunk themselves to death by aiming their eyes at you. (serves them right)

Death Ward (shields against insta death attacks such as Death Ray and Disintegrate.) Protection from Petrification (some beholders like using flesh to stone) and Protection from Lightning are must to have since even the lowly Gauths hurl lightning bolts as their second nature. Protection from Magic Energy or Spell Immunity:Necromancy will make their Cause Wound attacks harmless. (though the latter will also make you immune to healing spells)

Greater Malison+Chaos combo is very effective, since it is extremely difficult to resist (a save vs spell at -8!) with huge area effect, and when confused, beholders can not use their rays as effective.

Or make it a big bad kamikaze attack. Have all of your party launch a total 6 fireballs from wands and potions (no spell as you will get spell failure) against a large beholder army and they will perish fast. You will likely to get a few hits from their rays but you can survive.

 

*eep* Ok, there's no other Keep in SoA than D'Arnise Keep. And, uh...Don't go for an assassin/cleric, there's no actual benefits in it except the poison weapon. A cleric/thief is an excellent choice, if you want to swing that way...

There's a lot of ways to tackle beholders, but as with almost any tough monster, you don't want to fight fair. Why should you? Disable them, any way you can, but getting them just confused is a great way to go...and three things come quite handy here as well. Traps, traps and traps. If you have them that is...

 

You are right, I didn't do all subquests in the main City, coz everyone just asked me to do the other quests, which led me to spellhold, haha.

I'm quite low lvl to be in the spellhold, is that what you mean?

 

You run into the same problems with all spellcasters. The D&D system requires rest to regain spells -- there's no way to get around that yet in your game.

Beholders can be webbed, they are susceptible to blinding by the Glitterdust spell, and they are damaged by Cloudkill. Web/Cloudkill is effective. Glitterdust/whack-em is also effective. Berserk ability offers immunities to a couple of the attacks of the beholder. As Iku mentioned, traps are very effective if you know where the beholder is and can draw it to you -- but you may not have enough points in traps to be of much use.

You can get an item that will help with future battles against beholders. Read the spoiler for more.

Spoiler

There are a lot of beholders in the underdark (which is where you are heading). To make those a bit easier to fight do not take the portal to the Underdark! You will miss a great area of the game, the Underwater City of the Sahuagin. You need to go with Saemon (but come back into the asylum to grab loot) and have him get you a boat. You'll end up in the Sahuagin City; wander around the city after agreeing to help (i.e., kill things) to find a cloak -- the Cloak of Mirroring. This cloak will greatly aid in your fights with beholders. There is a lot of good loot to be had here (including one of the most powerful weapons inthe game -- which happens to be a spear). If you have a monk in your party be sure you side with the king.

 

Cool, I didn't know I can use Web/Cloudkill/Glitterdust on beholders.

Spoiler

I entered Underdark right now, I did find the Robe of Mirroring. Well, I didn't have any monks with me (is there a NPC which can join my party and is a monk?) so I chose to help the Prince. Who shoul wear the robe? One of my fighters (Minsc and Korgan)?

My currect team is:
Minsc
Korgan
Me(sorcerer)
Aerie
Imoen
Jaheira

Is this team any good? I know I have too much wizards xD. I didn't have time to make any subquests in the main city, coz every one was like "Quick! Help me! We dont have much time!" etc. Do you guys just ignore and contimue to make other subquests? I think I missed ALL romances...

 

For the future: igi at teambg.eu has made a mod which allows you to regain spelss after a certain period of time. That period can you alter at installation. In that manner you'll be able to avoid the rest fight rest syndrom.

 

Cool, that could be useful. If anyone else wants a direct like, here, I found it. http://www.teambg.eu/forum/index.php?board=24.0

 

Either Minsc or Korgan are excellent candidates for the cloak. Their berserk ability will help with some spells which the cloak does protect against.

Your party is powerful enough. Strong spellcasting with three good fighters.