Hey there,
im just restarting BG2 & ToB again and wanna try the F/M multiclass.

He'll be a dual-wielder in blades, maybe Longswords and later on Scimitar?
Not sure which progression i should use first, especially if i reconsider the availability of certain weapon within the game.

So I'm looking for general advices which blade combo would be fine. Using 2 weapon proficiencies should be okay, so I'm not restricted to only one weapon class.

Furthermore, I wonder where you can get some good armor in the earlier stage of game. I want to use him as a Fighter, so i dont use robes. Armor Bracers may help, but i prefer a shiny nice (chain) armor.

I only recall Bladesinger's Chain and some other Elven Chainmails, but u ll get them pretty late. The melodic chain is restricted to bards, so I cannot take this one either.
The certain mithril chain mail wont be available aswell, and i dont recall any further armor which allows you to spellcast while you wear it.

And no, i dont wanto to take off my armor when casting spells (especially within the battles ;) )

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As I recall, the quickest way to obtain elven chain is from the aristocrats in trademeet. (You have to kill them though - if it's any comfort, they attack you first).

If you want a new spin on spellcasting in armor, try G3 Tweaks' Allow Arcane Casting in Armor component. You can cast spells in any armor, but with a miscast penalty. I found it adds a new dimension to playing multi- and dual-class mage characters.

Caveat: as the author, I may have a biased opinion. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hmm, didnt know that u can get one in Trademeet, thats not bad, though i dont wanna kill this guy instantly (AL NG) [img]smile.gif[/img]

@CamDawg: I ve installed the G3 Tweaks already, and they seem to have imported the D&D3.x rules for casting.. Hmm, this could really get surprising to cast within Full Plate Armor [img]smile.gif[/img]

On the other hand, elven chain does fit better with the PCs' race (halfelf) and so with his elvish background.

Regardig the sword style, i m still not sure if i stay with 2 longswords or with longsword plus smaller blade, like scimitar, short sword..

I just dont like the imagination how in the nine hells you could use 2 longswords effectively. They are pretty large and therefore difficult to swing while having a small off-hand weapon seems to be more logical.
I know that D&D 3.x uses the penalty for off-hand weapons which are not one size smaller than your character. Is this rule in any kind implemented in 2nd AD&D (or say: BG2) so that i would get a real benefit when using 2 different weapons (and therefore spending way more weapon prof. points) ?

[ 11-08-2005, 04:19 AM: Message edited by: Karrde ]

in BG2 you get the same two weapon bonuses or penalties if you're using two bastard swords or two daggers or any combination - the game doesn't care what weapons you use or how big you are

You could... *GASP* Shadow keeper or CLUA in a set of Drow Chain. or Adamantium chain. that armor also increases your spellcasting time.

I recall buying chain mail I could cast spells with from the bridge district. I think it comes with the Bonus Merchants.

The bonus merchants are only located in the slums and Adventurers Mart. The only chain mail that enables you to cast spells in armour found in the Bridge District is the melodic chainmail. But this can only be used by bards as Karrde pointed out.

Bracers of defenseAC3 and ring of protection +2 are your best bets IMO Karrde in SOA until you get the Bladesingers chain. It has always annoyed me how little armour there is early game for fighter/mages early game.

[ 11-09-2005, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Zarr ]

Yeah, Ive thought about using AC3 bracers, but on the other hand, I have Edwin in my party and he really needs AC [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well, at least there are still the AC 4 bracers..

Well, Ive decided to freeze the idea using the fighter/mage, instead im playing the fighter/assassin. I ll have many arcane support later (Edwin, Imoen, Solaufein, maybe Haer'Dalis) and I wont need to fill a thief slot.
And yet, Assassin and Fighters work well together.
I've edited my PC a bit to make the assassin class more like D&D 3.x Assassin presige class, so i gave him the innate ability to cast improved invisibility 1/day. It's pretty handy and does fit with the kit.

@Regarding further "arcane chains" (cool name, eh? ;) )
Hm, but im not sure if Drizzt's Mithril Chain does support spellcasting..

And maybe it would be better if you could also cast arcane magic with the Jester's Chain (the one u can get from the slot machine in spellhold).
Why better?
At this stage of the game, you wont need this colorful chain, there are way stronger chains available.
To balance this (and interpreting the background of a chain for bards) I'd propose for any further item upgrade mod to be able to upgrade jester's chain (let's say AC 0 or 1 and some bardic improvements like extra spells/ level, additional bardic songs or such stuff).

I prefer the Drow chain... But thats just my 2 cents.

[ 11-09-2005, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: Kyrvias ]

Are you sure? Because I can clearly remember using a chain bought from the bridge district with my fighter/mage/thief. I'll try to find out which mod it came with.


edit:
The mod is Song and Silence! The item is Caster's Chain, an unenchanted chain mail that allows spellcasting.

[ 11-10-2005, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: Iron Greasel ]

One of my ideas is a rather sweeping Item Balancing mod: Makes the overpowered stuff weaker (Celestial Fury now only has a 20% chance of forcing the enemy to Save or be Stunned on each hit), makes the underpowered stuff stronger (Ardulia's Fall is now +2 and carries the same cumulative Slow effect seen on the Flail of Ages), and gives every item with a unique name some unique properties (Cutthroat is no longer a generic +4 Short Sword).

In this mod idea, the Jester's Chain still has the same base AC, but it allows Wizard spellcasting, grants immunity to Intoxication while worn, and casts Protection from Normal Missiles twice a day--perfectly in character with the item's Description.

That makes perfect sense.

Yeah, this sounds nice.
There are so many overpowered items you are kinda forced to use (or take the fitting weapon prof.)

There is the weird thing through the whole saga that many items appear in strange time frames.

either it is outdated or it comes at the very end of the game.
Ardulia's Fall for example, a quest reward, suckt at this stage of the game. You can already have a +2 mace and since its a temple reward, it should have some more divine enchantments on it.

Or Montolio's cloak. This cape really rocks, but you will be in Amketrath when you get it. Wow. The playability is kinda reduced when i can use a nice item only a few gaming hours.

It would be really nice to make a item mod update.
I would like to see more special features like you get them in IWD1 + 2, like ability bonus, elemental protections and so on.

[ 11-11-2005, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: Karrde ]

Are you sure? Because I can clearly remember using a chain bought from the bridge district with my fighter/mage/thief. I'll try to find out which mod it came with.


edit:
The mod is Song and Silence! The item is Caster's Chain, an unenchanted chain mail that allows spellcasting. </font>[/QUOTE]I was talking about an unmodded game ;)

This mod looks quite interesting though. Maybe if I play a Bard again in the future I'll try this mod. IMO Bards are, although still fun to play are shafted in the game compared to say Icewind Dale. A real pity as Bards are one of my favorite classes...

[ 11-11-2005, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Zarr ]

hello all!

i'm just commenting on your weapon proficiency situation.

I disagree that dual wielding long swords is quite rediculas and i would shake my head if anyone were to do so lol.

Although you probably want to specialise in bladed weapons due to your half elven race, consider dual wield axes. You get frost axe +3 and fire stone +3 in chapter 2. Both these weapons carry elemental damage which bypass the effect of stoneskin (because it is elemental, not physical it goes right through). This is a great combination, probably the best dual wield later and rocks with dwarfs (then later get crom fayer +5 in off hand :D , then eventually Axe +5 in mainhand). That's my solo dwarven build that i've taken through BG1 and am now working through BG 2 with and he is the best fighter i have ever seen.

anyway, i digress. Consider Katanas. Celestial fury +3 is a great weapon and you can easily find a +2 Katana for your off hand. Imagine stunning your foes so they can watch you cast spells on them helplessly [img]smile.gif[/img] . If you max your katana you can eventually get doom +5 and by then would have enough points for simitar if you choose to use that as your other weapon.

For an elf, I would go for Katana/scimitar combination, it'd look wicked too ;) . spec in katanas first to get the most of celestial fury.

That's my 2 cents. Hope it helps

Don't bother dual-weilding if that second weapon is there only for an extra attack.

[ 11-15-2005, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: krunchyfrogg ]

Why not?

Kundane and Belm each give you an extra attack per round for both your main hand and off hand if used as an off hand weapon, don't they?

Extra attacks can't compare to elemental damage in my opinion. An extra attack can make a stoneskin go down faster, but elemental damage can eat right through it.

But if you have the Flail of Ages in your main hand, and Belm in your off hand, you get increased chance of elemental damage and increased chance to slow the target each round.

Belm's / Kundane's extra attack per round is given to the main hand weapon I believe.

The elemental damage caused by weapons such as Stonefire and the Flail of Ages don't wear down the Stoneskin, they act to disrupt a spellcaster's next spell casting and cause minor hit point damage. Oui? Non?

Well, with D&D 3.x rules, elemental damage negates stoneskin. stoneskin protects vs. physical (usual) damage only. im not sure if magical damage negates stoneskin aswell. magic missile does, but this is a bad example because of the force effect.

@Blades:
well, i think that there are many devastating dual-combos, right. but there is also a logical kind of thought which makes dual-wielding in certain cases just ... ridiculous.
a longsword can be pretty long, around 100 cm. same goes with katanas. therefore it just does not fit to the wielders agility and size to swing two larger swords perfectly and in harmony.

thats why d&d 3.x gives the penalty for off-hand weapons which a pretty large (mentioned above).

thats why i would like to use a larger sword in the main hand and a smaller in the off hand (parry-like weapon).
so, for off hand would short swords be fine or daggers (maybe scimitars too, but thats the hard limit).

A couple of points, BG2 is a modified AD&D 2.5 E rulesystem (2.5 because of the implementation of combat and tactics book rules - mastery, etc, as well as various splatbook additions (pages from the mages, race/classbooks, etc),

In AD&D wielding two weapons is possible but carries a -2 penalty to the main hand, and a -4 penalty to the offhand (modified by reaction adjustment for dex), specialising in two weapon fighting style reduces this to -0/-2 (for main and offhand respectively) while being ambidextrous reduces this to -0/-0 (as there is no offhand) (or -2/-2 if not specialised in two-weapon style), the specialization also allows the use of two weapons of the same size. (gaining both benefits however costs 2 weapon proficiency slots, quite expensive to a low level fighter)

as for your question, I would get the bonus merchants (it's not really an add on-as it was released for those people who bought the collectors super special uber edition and was developed for the game) then use the Robe of Vecna (AC 5 reduces casting time of spells) and Dakkon's Zerth Blade in the offhand (katana that grants extra mage spell slots), then decide on a decent weapon for the primary hand (I'm partial to the blade of roses despite it's lack of uber utility, it just seems like the kind of finess weapon a F/M would devote themselves to).

RE the mod which places a % miscast on armor, what about changing that to wild surges per the Wild Mage spells, would definitely make things more interesting than a simple "spell failed" dialog.

It makes sense to carry the lighter weapon in your weaker hand, but for Baldur's Gate, it's the opposite that's actually more efficient. The first attack of each round depends on the Speed Factor of the weapon in your *main* hand, and your offhand weapon always hits last. So, if you have a really heavy weapon (Flail) in your right hand and a really light one (Dagger) in your left, that makes sense in the real world, but in BG you're just slowing yourself down, possibly even costing you Attacks per Round because your opening Speed Factor is so high. (NOTE: This refers only to weapons *in general,* not specific weapons. I am not advising anyone to offhand the Flail of the Ages here.)


More "interesting," yes, but that would make Wild Mages much less unique, thereby robbing them of one of the main reasons why they're fun. There's no point in stealing anybody's thunder.

I think this is a great idea, but perhaps it should only be applicable to wild mages.

Hmm,
i really hope Icewind Gate will come true so that D&D 3.x rules will apply to BG2 ;)

[ 11-22-2005, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: Karrde ]

It makes no sense to me. When wearing clumsy armour that limits movement you sometimes lose a spell because you fumble some magical gesture required for the spell. When being a wild mage you sometimes lose a spell because the mysterious energies you tried to channel broke free from you control. Those are not the same thing.

And if you apply the wild surge tables to armour, you must also apply them to being interrupted while casting, like being hit whit an arrow. Imagine trying to fry some goblins with a fireball. An arrow hits you. You accidentally change your gender instead of the intended explosion of fiery destruction.

Yes, it does make things more interesting but when I try to slow poison on myself I don't want to accidentally summon a balor if it fizzles.


edit: broken quote tag

[ 11-22-2005, 07:01 AM: Message edited by: Iron Greasel ]