Why Barbarians?

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Hmm Deano, please help my level drained brain: Why isn´t it roleplay to choose, enjoy and play a dc char?

 

Screw im.
DC rules!!!!
But a multiclass ranger cleric IS awesome. At least in IWD. Never tried that in BG2.

 

DC chars are now really annoying me!

YES : they are bloody good

NO : I HAVE HEARD SOOOOOOO MANY stories about them it REALLY annoys me. All i hear about here is arsing Kensai/Mages and flippin' DC Fighter/Thieves! AARGH!

i have used a DC char, but she is a Mage dualled to a Cleric. I think in some ways DC chars are excellent... and i am not trying to say otherwise. It is just the fact that MOST, not everyone, but most, tend to play with a char that works rather than something that interests them and is someone they want to roleplay.

So don't start Flaming my views. Yours can be just as jaded, as can everyone's including my own. I am here because i like to enjoy Bg2 as a roleplaying not, not a chance to make this typically POWERFUL character that can take on Demons and Irenicus all by himself. And don't even think about starting the Backstab argument or that they aren't powergaming type characters, because to be honest they are.

 

All right <sigh> a detailed statement:

In fact, just having a powerful char isn´t an obstacle in roleplaying. My fighter-thiefs are primarily thiefs, just like my fighter-mages are primarily mages. You may say: "Then play a mage or a thief". Basically it´s a question of taste. Single class chars are nice, but in my eyes they are only challenging in the mages and thief classes. Pure clerics and pure druids are not my world. All the fighter classes like paladin, fighters and rangers simply bore me to death - you have the choice to hack or to hack. I haven´t really tried sorcerers and monks yet, however.

What I like about dc chars is that they offer more playing options than most single and multiclass chars. mc fighter-* chars are well able to defend themselves. Especially as thieves they´re almost tanks (except in terms of armor class). Playing a dc fighter-mage or cleric is different, you have to decide if you want to fight or cast spells - you can´t choose both paths at the same time - but it is great to have the choice. Honestly: Even Gandalf had a longsword and was well able to use it and I like this particular type of a mage.

Crawl is quite right when he says that mc chars are offering the same options but <BIG BUT> they are mediocre in more terms than just weapon proficiencies - especially mages can´t cast some of the high level spells, a dc-fm for ecample can cast up to level 8 spells where mc Jan´s limit are lvl-6 mage spells. On the other side a human dc char doesn´t get any of the race advantages a mc char can have - which come in quite handy on a thief (halflings, dwarves or elves), escpecially at low level.

I played mc, dc and sc chars in BG-1 and BG-2 and I enjoyed the dc chars most. The mc fighter-* chars performed quite well during BG-1 where nobody had a better weapon proficiency than +3, they had a good THACO and due to the xp limit just as good spellcasting abilies than dualclass chars. Of course single class chars were better in their particular discipline but not that much. In BG-2, where the X-cap is much higher the difference between advantages and disadvantages becomes much more apparent for you can gain much more levels than in BG-1 - and this will be an even sharper contrast with the add-on where you IIRC can reach lvl-40. The dc chars simply don´t have to distribute all their xp on two classes like the mc chars. So the true advantage is that a dc char makes much better use of his xp than an mc char.

And this results in a really powerful character - you may call this powergaming, but I can´t see a problem in it - isn´t a single class fighter or paladin powerful too? Hell, it doesn´t mean that you play a one-man-army blasting your way through the game! The whole game is about getting more powerful with level up and even dc chars are NOT immortal. When mc players are cheering about their wonderful chars, where´s the problem - so do the pallys, mages, monks, clerics and sorcerers too

The whole so called "powergamer vs roleplayer" discussion is a ridiculous trench fight, firing on dug in positions, that maybe funny for a while. However, I can´t quite get, why there is always a messias (no insult intended Deano) who likes to tell me that, because of playing a dc char, I´m not only not a roleplayer but a powergamer. They must be converts, regarding the energy they put in their efforts <shakehead>

 

wow Ragusa

okey okey

you put that choice across

but i never sed anything about DC chars not being roleplaying... i was actually angry at the bloke who sed "roleplaying is shite".

i agree with you about most of the stuff in there... i would not mind you playing a DC char so much, but it seems that one hell of a lot of people here tend to rely on them to be their powerhouses of the party, and tend to rely on their Main char to run up and bash the large dragon single-handed. Yes, that is a great feat... but you do have other party members to get rid of inconsistencies in differing classes.

IMHO everyone has a favoured class they like to play, mine being the Cleric, but i cannot see the appeal of doing a DC Fighter to either a Thief or Mage. A DC fighter theif tends to overly rely on a grandmastery in a weapon and then use this to backstab (not necessarily everyone but i have heard a lot of tales recently). And a DC Fighter/Mage... well these are the chars who like to do everything themselves.

i know it's a person's choice in the end how they want to play the game, and that's fine. But it can't ALWAYS be fun to have a group where one person seems to dominate and have the Super-Charged thief with a Katana.

Oh well.... *waits for the fames*

 

Deano, if it makes you feel better, if I tried to charge a dragon and take it down single handed, I would get my ass handed to me Anyway, I have a perfectly good reason why I usually play fighter-mages so much. It all has to do with the first CRPG I ever played (looks around to make sure noone else is in ear shot), Ultima 8. Ok, ok, I know it had it's problems, but it was the character type that interested me. Ever since then, I've liked to play fighter-mages. What can I say, old habits die hard I guess. And incidently, fighter-mages are not as godly as everyone seems to think. Mine was nice, to be sure; however, he was never the be all, end all of my party. He played his roll, but so did everyone else. I didn't just hack and blast my way through the game solo. I enjoy the character type, and I do roleplay him as I roleplay all the characters I create for any game. If I am a power gamer, I have never been informed of it. I detest Diablo and all it stands for. And besides, powergaming can just as easily be achieved with any class. A monk, sorcerer, or even a cleric could me used as a powergaming class. It all depends on how that player wants to use his PC in the gameworld. But's that's just one (non)humble man's opinion.

 

What would you think about a thief (the nice swashbuckler class excepted) going to Mr.Firekraag, saying: "All right you little scump - en garde! I´ll slize you into tiny little pieces with my grandmastery and AC -4, hehe...".

Actually this is not exactly how I imagine a thief to roleplay and I expect Mr.Firekraag to be surprised too. I simply can hardly imagine a thief to think: "Hmm, I could use backstabbing but that´s unfair and would make my fight to easy... <think> No! Better Idea! I´ll make a clever frontal attack to maximise losses and to give enemy mages opportunity to cast tons of protections on their low-AC/ HP bodies...".

*I* would send this guy to spellhold immediately. Once you used backstabbing you are visible and have to fight overtly, but it give you the opportunity to hit the most dangerous opponent first and hard. That´s how I use it. You mostly have to attack *groups* of enemies who attack you once you are visible. I don´t run away to let my party fight on - only to get a chance to backstabb again. And you overlook that you can´t use backstabbing on quite a number of opponents such as Kua-Toas, Gauths and Beholders to name a few.

For all of those who are afraid to powergame I recomment the use of braclers of bondage or fumbling, that´d help

 

I found my invincible kensai/mage who took out Irenicus, all 3 dragons(didn't touch the silver one), the Mindflayer lair and the Beholder den with minimal effort from Minsc and the rest of the chaps very fun to play. Of course, it was also great fun wiping out the Radiant Heart and the entire Temple District. Yes, he is legit.
And don't tell us Powergamers to play Diablo or we powergamers will tell you roleplayers to go play Barbie.

 

He Ragusa, you forgot to tell that Barbarians are immune to backstabbing too...!

 

<whispering> I heard some dreadful news about the add-on "Throne of Bhaal"! There will be an item, named the cursed ring of powergaming - it´s features are: Str+1, damage +1 and THACO +1. <whispering even more quiet> B E - A W A R E !

 

Hey Ragusa, you forgot the +2 to saving throws and permanant spell turning and invisibility when equiped. Wooohoooo!

 

Oh yes, silly me - and I forgot the immunity to all weapons weaker but +12 too

 

btw Punisher, you´re rigt - I tend to forget too many things these days <shakehead>

 

well thanks for your views guys.

well... i gues you will always powergame, and if that is the way you want to be, so be it.

 

RPG = Roleplaying Power Gamer

 

Hi, guys. Well, I can see that the debate between "role players" and "power gamers" continues unabated. I guess you could say that I'm with the role players in that I'm always playing a character close to heart (an elven mage) instead of one that I think may prove most powerful, but one unfortunate (and perhaps even ironic) result is that, in some cases, this approach can actually take away from the role-playing experience. What I mean is that I sometimes tailor my mage in a way that makes her a bit too weak, so that when the tough battles arise, I might spend hours (literally!) merely trying to survive. As a result, I'm spending my time fighting instead of doing the things that make role playing so much fun: talking to NPCs, trying to solve riddles, exploring maps, developing relationships with party members, etc.). So I guess that role playing will always be my own preference, but it can't be taken to an extreme. (Conversely, playing a character that easily wins every battle would, for me at least, detract from having fun, which is more difficult without a genuine challenge.)

 

Well, I am a real powergamer, A BARBARIAN, (Buahahaha) , and battles with Umber hulks and those kind of pretty strong creatures are a piece of cake. But the more difficult battles, like fighting dragons, Liches, Mindflayers etc. are pretty tough to me.
And you certainly are not able to defeat them like it is nothing! Even powergamers have to battle some battles again, because they LOST THE FIGHT!!!

So I think it doesn't matter if you are a Roleplayer or a powergamer, Just be yourself, and play like hell...

 

I don't know about most of you, but when I play a roleplaying game, I'm not thinking about the PhAt LeWt, I'm interested most in the storyline, and the character development. I love trying to choose the right path of my alignement, and follow it to a t. Sure, the battling is fun, but if thats all you play the game for, then you'll lose interest quickly. Oh well, I'm a hopeless storybook girl. =)

 

I agree with you Laurana. The story is very important as is characterdevelopment I think .
I like to see my character getting level 18 - (I just became that) with a thaco of -4 and -3, and savingthrows wich are all under 0 - from a little guy that started once in Candlekeep, who was glad that he had beaten a koboldraid of 7 kobolds (!) with only Imoen, Xzar and Montaron!

 

I really like to play thiefs. You can do really incredible things with a high level thief OTHER THAN BACKSTABB `N `HACK `N `SLASH. I usually spent six fighter levels on my powergaming dc fighter tiefs, 32.000 xp, enough for a lvl-20+ thief.

Unlike usual thiefs who NEED to backstabb to achieve some substantial damage, I can allow my char to fight overtly if necessary

Besides from beeing a good fighter this thief is an excellent, some people maybe surprised, thief - able to pickpocket everyone (except Aran Linvail ), pick every lock and disarm any trap (except this crusher in spellhold ).

His wild criminal energy makes him loot every house accessable and pickpocket people of all kind, including guards, so his party rarely suffers lack of cash.
And he´s even more useful: He scouts for my party, unseen, as you can expect from a shadow thief. He finds traps to prevent careless people, like always dreaming Aerie, to get killed accidentally, paving the way for the party.

Sometimes this includes detecting enemies - then he can prepare an ambush, placing traps in a door way, sneaking towards an enemy mage, backstabbing him and then running back to his party. His enemies will follow him, and will quite likely run into archer fire, traps, a barrier of skeletons and a web, killcloud or fireball, tss, tss, really careless.
Well, *my* powergaming fighter-thief naturally is doing all this by himself, including mage spells, archer fire, healing and druid spells...

And what is wrong with a strong char? I don´t feel it denies me valuable roleplaying experience when I *don´t* have to reload frequently...

Btw: Next I´m going to play a powergaming dc swashbuckler-mage, harharhar