Starting party with no intent to multi class

Remove all ads!

@JT
I think wisdom is far more useful than int in real life. I see int as kind of the ability to solve logic problem. Most mathematics have very high int and that don't make their lives easier. On the other hand, a very wise person has it easier in almost every situation.

The Paladin1-2/sorcX is not as good as many seems to think. The extra saves is very good but the drawback - not to be able to recieve gifts for good quests and wanting to kill every enemy rather than talk with them and get new quests, makes the paladin level not worth it in most cases. The sorc tend to be the talker in most parties since not many uses bards. With a maximum party size of 6 you don't always have room for more than one sorc.
On the other hand: A second sorc in the party will get a large bonus from taking that paladin lvl without any minuses. But they aren't too many so the "problem" with "overpowered" pal1/sorcs is small.

[ February 19, 2006, 21:37: Message edited by: Mudde ]

 

Plus 5 (more when your charisma goes up) to saving throws, proficiency with all weapons, immunity to fear, and the ability to wield a holy sword is a pretty strong advantage for a sorcerer and worth a level or two. It's more than worth the cost of passing on a reward here and there. (It's also really munchkin.)

 

Drew
saving throws, proficiency with all weapons, immunity to fear, and the ability to wield a holy sword
Which is some spell resistance and some saving throws. And a weaker sorc. Trade off worth it? i dont know. Its also not only some rewards, but quite a few quests, where the only dialog option is "you will die now"


On a related note my rogue does all the talk. And hiding&backstabbing. And scouting. And traps dealing. And has 21STR+ and evolving. Very powerful and pure ofc.
(not very pure, since im playing through 1rst time, i took 1lvl of fighter, since i dont know which weapons are good in the game, to have some variety)

Killing these nasty shamans with one sneak attack is very funny, and healthy for the party.

 

I doubt it in a normal game.

Since you won't use them for tanking purposes sorcerers aren't targeted often and can defend themselves very well because of their powerful defensive spells. My sorceress didn't have problems defending herself.

But the drawbacks are enormous. You get important spells like fireball,stoneskin,mass haste, improved invisibility and finger of death 1-2 levels later,you might not even get level 8 or 9 spells during the game, your buffing spells last shorter and spells like fireball and chain lightning do less damage.

It is worth adding paladin levels after level 19 or so, but you'll probably need either HoF mode or heavy level-squatting (which I consider cheating) in order to get that many XP.

 

I almost entirely agree with you, kmonster. The two best things about taking a couple of levels of Pally are the aura of courage and divine grace.

To me, the idea of a sorcerer wielding the holy avenger is rather blasphemous. The HA should be wielded by someone who will take it into melee constantly, not by someone who will only use it when sorely pressed.


I've never taken only 2 levels of pally for a sorc for the reasons you describe. My mages have rarely ever been forced into melee and I don't make any major sorc or wizzy character development decisions with melee on my mind.

To paraphrase an oldish movie, a sorcerer's "first, best destiny" is to be a nuker, not a tank or a swashbuckler.

 

Personally I think both ways of playing have merit if done correctly, and "powergaming" if not taken to an extreme can still capture the "spirit" of any particular game.

If you're up for a challenge and want to add some difficulty to the strategic aspects of IWDII - try playing through with a limited number of characters.

I just finished playing through with only three - a pure Barbarian, pure Cleric, and Pure Ranger.

Talk about being tempted to multi about 3/4 of the way through the game!!!

Cheers,
HOM

 

^^ No doubt about who was the most useful character in that trio...

 

An Aasimar pally/sorceror with 20 Cha gets proficiency with all weapons, the ability to wield a weapon granting magic resistance, and +5 to his saves with just one level of Paladin. If you use a human you get a measly +4. In my humble opinion, the loss of one level is more than worth +4 (more at higher levels.....you increase CHA with your sorcerers, right?) to his saving throws.

 

What does a sorcerer need proficiency in all weapons for when his primary duties consist of staying in the back nuking or disabling the enemy with spells and wands and occasionally sniping with a ranged weapon?

The same question might be asked about why he needs another +4 to saving throws given the same criteria.

If that "single level" means that he only reaches 15 instead of 16 it also means he loses out on a level 8 spell choice and even if he makes it to 16 he gets that higher spell choice much later as well as all his other highest spell choices a full level later in game time than he would without the level of pally.

When you consider MCing you have to take into consideration how that/those levels in another class effects the character throughout the whole game not just how it effects "the numbers".

Taking a level of pally nerfs a spellslinger from that point on by the amount of time it takes to gain each new level and takes away the corresponding highest level spells for that level for the entire game period between level ups for the rest of the game.

Using an ECL race basically has the same effect. So in the case of an Aasimar pally1/sorc X- you essentially take two levels from your sorc for the entire game.

 

^^ No doubt about who was the most useful character in that trio...

wanderon,

Honestly... depends upon which part of the game I was in... first half... up to say, Kuldahar... it was the Barbarian buzzsaw coupled with Mr. Everlastingarrow.

From that point on... you're right... it would have been darn near impossible without the Cleric's summoning capability.

Up to that point though... I mean, with only three characters to look after... well, there's plenty of loot, magic items, and more importantly healing potions to go around.

Wish I had known about "squatting" though... there was a significant portion of the middle of the game where I killed a mountain of monsters for 0XP... probably could have ended higher than 19th level if a had known about it.

Cheers,
HOM

 

ok lets see

proficiency with all weapons: With a sorc, i beg your pardon, useless.
proficiency with all armor: same. (useless)
immunity to fear: like clerics lvl1 spell(very low casting time). useless.
wield a holy sword: low(!) targeted(!) spell resistance. In tough fights Imp.Inv. grants 100% targeted spell resistance. In an easy fight the sorc will not be targeted. Useless.

saving throws: this is great i admit. However, the sorc will not, or shouldnt be, under fire anyway and if he is, then for a purpose(WoB or sunfire) and is well protected already. Seriously you wouldnt send your sorc w/o any protection would you.

Ok now what we get by NOT taking pal level. First the obvious
-more powerful spells. Good
-powerful spells come earlier. Good.
-advanced dialog talking abilities. Good.
-single class build. Roleplay&topic. Rather good.

next. We can play as a drow!!
-innate high(!) spell resistance, no need for HA.
-+2 saving throws vs spells if im not mistaken
-Bonus on INT, probably useless, but could turn our sorc in skillmachine if needed.
-various other drow abilities, which may be useful or not.

the choice is yours. As for me i know what ill be playing next game. =)

 

The paladin bonusses are not worth wasting sorc levels but they are far more useful than the drow bonusses.
Choosing an 2 level ECL penalty race is even worse than taking paladin levels.

 

Cric, I wouldn't dismiss the Pally's fear immunity. It really isn't comparable to the cleric spell, since the pally immunity is on 100% of the time and doesn't require a spell to be cast.

That said, I'd pretty much agree with your other pally assessments.


Drow? I'm not a fan of -2 ECL races for big time spellcasting classes.

 

It's been explained many times (probably even in this thread) that ECL races aren't really a disadvantage, because they increase the exp the party gains.

 

@JT

I'm no math nerd but I sincerely doubt thats the case when you are speaking of a full party. The ECLs will still start and end the game behind their non-ecl companions remaining behind for the enitre game (which as mentioned earlier means they gain their spells later all game long) and I would bet dollars to donuts they will end the game behind what a non-ecl played in their place would be.

Its "possible" that a single level ECL with some excellent perks (like Aasimar for instance) might be useful enough to take the ECL hit in a main spellcaster for a full party but I'd be very leery of a 2 or 3 ECL for a main spellcaster and reserve them for "utility" or "back up" or other non-essential roles.

 

JT, I don't necessaryily doubt that ECLs don't hurt, but frankly, I'd rather take a big ECL race with a non-spellcasting class than a spellcasting one. All in all, I don't mind losing a level or 2 with one of my tanks or a rogue. But I hate giving up spellcasting levels.

 

Wanderon, I wasn't very clear. Yes, if you have just one ECL guy, he will be behind his 0-ECL partymates. But if the entire party is ECL, they will soon be only a fraction of a level behind a 0-ECL party. This is because they will earn more exp than the 0-ECL party, because the game does not consider ECL levels when awarding exp.

Example: human and drow parties with 30k exp each. The human is level 8 and the drow is level 6, so the drow will be earning significantly more exp. Soon his level will catch up to the human.

Feel free to try it out with competing human and drow parties in normal mode. The humans will be higher level in the prologue and chapter one, but then the drow will catch up.

(I'm not even mentioning HoF, because the spell resistance races are so far superior there that playing a normal race is deliberately crippling yourself.)

 

@JT

You are welcome to live in that fantasy if you wish but I doubt it works out that way in reality.

Remember that:

1) This only applies to kill exp not quest exp.

2)The lower the party level the less monsters you face both in quantiy and quality - less monsters means less exp.

I still maintain the premise that for main spellcasters in a full party a single class non-ecl race (or possibly a single ECL for some classes) is probably the best choice and taking a 2-3 ECL race is probably a mistake from a gameplay standpoint (altho certainly justified from an RP one).

 

@JT: A human sorcerer with 5 drow companions will still end up 2 levels higher than a drow sorcerer with 5 drow companions.
You don't have to choose a drow sorcerer in order to make the other party members drow.

Drow still need 2,000 XP more for each level up than humans, so there still remains an about 1/8 level penalty for a level16 drow party compared to a human party.


@wanderon: You should take a look at the MONCRATE.2DA file. The few extra harder monsters you get for having a higher level party can't even out the far lower fighting XP gain you have with your higher level party.
Only the quest XP gain near the end isn't eaten up by the fighting XP difference completely.

 

Wanderon, it isn't a fantasy, and it really does work out that way. ECL parties are effectively level-squatting, and thus the game gives them more exp for killing, which makes up for the fact that they need more exp to levelup. The equal exp for quests issue doesn't matter, because it causes the ECL party to fall a little further behind... which causes them to earn even more exp, and thus catch back up.

Kmonster's 2000 exp figure is correct. At low and mid levels, it will be slightly annoying; at high levels it will barely be noticeable.

And yes, in mixed parties the 0-ECL races will end up higher than the ECL races. That could be exploited to give your spellcasters higher levels; a human sorcerer teamed with 5 deep gnomes will eventually be nearly three levels higher than a human sorcerer teamed up with 5 humans.

Of course this all assumes you aren't willing to do ordinary squatting/muling.