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Maidros · 09-05-2004, 11:21 PM

This is the first of my full set of analyses of the various classes available in BG2. The full set will be posted one after another in alphabetical form.

CLASS FAQ

This document is intended to help people choose the class of the protagonist. In this document, I shall treat only the plus and minus points of all the classes and their kits. I do not attempt to grade any particular class or to compare one with the other with a view to proving the superiority of one over the other. That comparison is often a personal choice, so I will refrain from it. It must be remarked that BG can be beaten by a kensai dual classed to mage as by a jester and which class one one chooses is often a matter of personal taste. However, I shall enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of each class, so people may know what benefits accrue to each class. All the classes are examined keeping the BG single player game in mind.

Note two things.

If you find any mistakes in this, please email me about it. My email id is snag1978@hotmail.com. If you find I have missed out any advantages/disadvantages of any class, please email me about it as well. But please do not email me with things like 'this class sucks - it should never be chosen.' All classes in BG are eminently playable and there is no class that is so good or so bad as to make the others really superior/inferior in comparison.

Secondly, everything I know is in this document. I am not hiding anything. All cheesy tactics/tricks are in this as are spoilers for several really difficult battles, so if you are aiming for a 'clean' game without any spoilers, you may dislike some portions of this document. Wherever there is cheese/spoiler, I have tried to mention it, so people may like to skip it.

Now without further ado, let us go into the classes and examine them carefully.

Barbarian:
Game information:
A barbarian can be an excellent warrior. While not as disciplined or as
skilled as a normal fighter, the barbarian can willingly throw himself into
a berserker rage, becoming a tougher and stronger opponent. The barbarian
uses the fighter avatar.

Advantages:
- They move at 2 points faster than the usual character.
- Barbarians are immune to backstab.
- Can Rage once per day for every 4 levels (starts at 1st level with one
use). Rage gives them +4 to constitution and strength for 5 rounds.
Gives a -2 armor class penalty and +2 to saves vs. magic (for 5
rounds). Rage also gives immunity to all charm, hold, fear, maze,
confusion and level-drain spells.
- At 11th level, the barbarian gains 10% resistance to slashing,
piercing, crushing and missile damage. He gains +5% to this every 4
levels thereafter.
- The barbarian rolls d12 for hit points instead of a fighter's d10.

Disadvantages:
- A barbarian cannot wear full plate or plate mail.
- A barbarian cannot specialize past normal specialization.

Now to examine the class, let us begin with what race and attributes should be chosen for a barbarian. The best race is the half orc - this way, you can get 19 in both strength and constitution, which is really worth while. (you get one additional HP at each level until level 10, and the extra strength is very useful). The downside of playing as half orc is that you miss out one point on charisma and intelligence. But this is not really a disadvantage, since it is *most unlikely* that your barbarian will ever have 18 in charisma or intelligence, even if you are playing as non half-orc. But you can also choose any of the other - human, elf, dwarf, etc. Note that elf and halfling are not advised, the former because of the penalty to the constitution, and the latter because of the penalty to strength.

There is another drawback that if you are a half-orc you will miss out the Aerie and Jaheira (if you are male) and Anomen romances (if you are female). Whether this is bad is a personal point of view.

The attributes should be 19 in both strength and constitution and 18 in dexterity (note this is from the best possible stats point of view - you can reduce them at your own peril.) Try to get at least 11 in intelligence - this is because you will frequently be going up against mind flayers (which drain intelligence with each hit) - if you have a intelligence score of less than 11, two hits from the illithid can kill you (which is really bad since the death of the protagonist ends the game). With score of 11, you can afford to stay on the frontlines for some time against the illithid. This is more important for barbarian than for other fighters since the barbarian has some armour restrictions which the other fighters do not and you will have to be careful.

slight spoiler:
Any alignment is okay, but try to get the Bhaalspawn ability 'draw upon holy might' as one of your Bhaalspawn abilities. This ability is a 'good ability' but is randomly chosen even if you are evil/neutral, although the chance of getting this ability is low if you are evil. The reason why I emphasise the 'draw upon holy might' is that the barbarian ability 'rage' (which increases the strength and constitution of the barbarian) stacks with this ability (which also increases strength, dexterity and constitution) for the first half of the game (until you lose all Bhaalspawn abilities). Therefore, with this ability, you can get 25 in both strength and constitution (cast 'draw upon holy might' followed by 'rage') which is awesome (you are most likely to kill most low level enemies in one blow and do terrifying amounts of damage even to other enemies). Just as important, once your constitution is more than 19, constitution based regeneration will kick in - at a constitution score of 25, your character will have excellent regeneration (like a wolfwere). So not only is your character doing obscene amounts of damage to the enemy, but also regaining HP at a non trivial rate.

cheesy trick:
The points allocated to you at each level up is dependent on the constitution you have at that point. Therefore, if you have a constitution score of 25 when levelling up, you will get a bonus of two HP at each level up (compared to when you had a constitution of 19). Note that even when the constitution drops down after the level up, the bonus points you have gained stay.

Any weapon and style is fine - just follow your own ideas in this regard. Many people here will choose 'katana' and 'two weapon style' - katana for the additional damage it does and 'two weapon style' for the extra attack. But this is really a very personal point of view - you could just as well take a two handed weapon and do extra damage with it - you gain a critical hit on both 19 and 20 with the two handed weapon style.

Now let us analyse the advantages of this class.
The barbarian moves faster than the other classes (except the monk) by two points. While this does not sound very impressive, it makes for a very interesting archer class. You can always hit and outrun most other classes - the hit and run archer is most easy with the barbarian class. This also works well for a scout - it you do not have a thief - since you can run in at your enemies, spot them and run out before they react and catch you.

The barbarian is immune to backstab. While in general, this is not a very useful ability, this is a lifesaver on occasion. High level thieves (especially assassins) can do terrifyingly heavy damage with a backstab. While, in general, in the game, there are not all that many backstabbing thieves, there are some (rune assassins in the tanner's basement, the tiefling assassins in the third level of the Watcher's Keep, the thugs of Cyric in the Pocket plane, etc) and this ability often means the difference between life and death. There is nothing as annoying as seeing your best fighter backstabbed to death in one hit (often 80-90 points of damage).

spoiler: If you have the rogue rebalancing mod (the component with the encounter with the chosen of Cyric), this ability is an absolute godsend. This literally means the difference between life and death for a fighter class, make no mistake about it.

Rage ability: This is a great ability - this allows you to go from 19 to 23 (or with 'draw upon holy might' from 22/23 to 25) and this makes the barbarian a very powerful tank. Besides the immunities conferred by 'rage' (immunity to charm, hold, fear, maze and confusion) make the barbarian nearly impossible to take out of a battle by any magical means. The additional bonus to saves against magic is another great help. The barbarian works on the fighter table for the saving throws - so the weakest of the saving throws is against 'spells'. This problem is further compounded by the lack of ability to wear rings/cloaks of protection because of magical armour. Since the rage gives you better saving throws against spells as well, this is a true marvel. The immunity to 'level drain' - one of the more annoying abilities of certain undead - means that the barbarian is a great undead slayer (curiously, it turns out that a raging barbarian is much better than an undead hunter paladin in this regard). The downside of the penalty to AC is almost negligible. AC (armour class) is the least important of the attributes once you are well into the game. This ability alone makes the barbarian really a very powerful class.

The further advantages of weapons resistance are magnificent as well, especially late in the game (when you get the ToB high level abilities). The weapons resistance stacks with the high level ability 'hardiness' conferring a total of 60% resistance to weapons damage. If you have the 'Bhaalspawn abilities' from Ascension mod, for the final battle, it is possible to have 85% weapons resistance in total.

spoiler: The weapons resistances stack with other kinds of weapon resistances (girdle of inertial barrier, defender or easthaven, etc) which may increase your weapons resistances to more than 100% (for a short time, while 'hardiness' lasts). This is really awesome. But this is a very cheesy trick, so it is not used by many players who desire to 'play fair'.

The d12 means that you can roll +2 HP over a fighter at every level. By level 10, this means that you will have 20 more HP over a fighter. This is further increased by using the trick, I suggested above. It will not be surprising to have a barbarian of around 250-300 points by the late game (curiously, this is more than the average number of HP that a dragon has). This makes the barbarian a HP powerhouse and really difficult to kill (especially with the regeneration).

Disadvantages of the class:
The barbarian may not dual class or be a multi-class. This is a really serious restriction, but for this class, it is not too bad.

The weapon resistances kick in very late in the game, so they are not going to do much to save you in the early part of the game, where the barbarian will get hit more than the others. While it is true the barbarian has more HP, the barbarian will take more knocks than anyone else since the choice of armours is limited. The best armour for the barbarian in SoA is the shadow dragon scale (and you have to kill a shadow dragon to get it!), and in ToB, there is a choice between Asyleferund chain mail, grandmaster's armour, etc. So in the early part of the game, you will need a full time healer to keep the barbarian healthy. This may mean an over-dependence on clerics/druids and may affect the balance of the party. But the barbarian, because of the regeneration (due to high constitution) can overcome this to some extent.

Unlike the fighter, the barbarian may not go beyond 'specialised' in any weapon. This means that you cannot assign more than 2 stars in any weapon. The weapon mastery bonuses were nerfed down from the original table, so this is not as bad as it might have been, but still it is a restriction.

Since barbarians work on the fighter table, they will always be in danger against high level wizards (especially when they cast instant death spells like finger of death, disintegrate, etc) since their saving throws are not too good against spells. While direct damage spells like horrid wilting are not too bad for the barbarian (the number of HP should allow you to absorb this damage and still operate), the instant death spells are a real menace. Keep alert for high level wizards and keep the barbarian away from them until you have brought the defenses of the wizard down. Once you have enemy mage defenses down, the barbarian can kill the mage in less than a round usually.

09-05-2004, 11:21 PM	#1
Maidros Elite Waterdeep Guard Join Date: August 3, 2004 Location: Haifa, Israel Age: 46 Posts: 19	This is the first of my full set of analyses of the various classes available in BG2. The full set will be posted one after another in alphabetical form. CLASS FAQ This document is intended to help people choose the class of the protagonist. In this document, I shall treat only the plus and minus points of all the classes and their kits. I do not attempt to grade any particular class or to compare one with the other with a view to proving the superiority of one over the other. That comparison is often a personal choice, so I will refrain from it. It must be remarked that BG can be beaten by a kensai dual classed to mage as by a jester and which class one one chooses is often a matter of personal taste. However, I shall enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of each class, so people may know what benefits accrue to each class. All the classes are examined keeping the BG single player game in mind. Note two things. If you find any mistakes in this, please email me about it. My email id is snag1978@hotmail.com. If you find I have missed out any advantages/disadvantages of any class, please email me about it as well. But please do not email me with things like 'this class sucks - it should never be chosen.' All classes in BG are eminently playable and there is no class that is so good or so bad as to make the others really superior/inferior in comparison. Secondly, everything I know is in this document. I am not hiding anything. All cheesy tactics/tricks are in this as are spoilers for several really difficult battles, so if you are aiming for a 'clean' game without any spoilers, you may dislike some portions of this document. Wherever there is cheese/spoiler, I have tried to mention it, so people may like to skip it. Now without further ado, let us go into the classes and examine them carefully. Barbarian: Game information: A barbarian can be an excellent warrior. While not as disciplined or as skilled as a normal fighter, the barbarian can willingly throw himself into a berserker rage, becoming a tougher and stronger opponent. The barbarian uses the fighter avatar. Advantages: - They move at 2 points faster than the usual character. - Barbarians are immune to backstab. - Can Rage once per day for every 4 levels (starts at 1st level with one use). Rage gives them +4 to constitution and strength for 5 rounds. Gives a -2 armor class penalty and +2 to saves vs. magic (for 5 rounds). Rage also gives immunity to all charm, hold, fear, maze, confusion and level-drain spells. - At 11th level, the barbarian gains 10% resistance to slashing, piercing, crushing and missile damage. He gains +5% to this every 4 levels thereafter. - The barbarian rolls d12 for hit points instead of a fighter's d10. Disadvantages: - A barbarian cannot wear full plate or plate mail. - A barbarian cannot specialize past normal specialization. Now to examine the class, let us begin with what race and attributes should be chosen for a barbarian. The best race is the half orc - this way, you can get 19 in both strength and constitution, which is really worth while. (you get one additional HP at each level until level 10, and the extra strength is very useful). The downside of playing as half orc is that you miss out one point on charisma and intelligence. But this is not really a disadvantage, since it is most unlikely that your barbarian will ever have 18 in charisma or intelligence, even if you are playing as non half-orc. But you can also choose any of the other - human, elf, dwarf, etc. Note that elf and halfling are not advised, the former because of the penalty to the constitution, and the latter because of the penalty to strength. There is another drawback that if you are a half-orc you will miss out the Aerie and Jaheira (if you are male) and Anomen romances (if you are female). Whether this is bad is a personal point of view. The attributes should be 19 in both strength and constitution and 18 in dexterity (note this is from the best possible stats point of view - you can reduce them at your own peril.) Try to get at least 11 in intelligence - this is because you will frequently be going up against mind flayers (which drain intelligence with each hit) - if you have a intelligence score of less than 11, two hits from the illithid can kill you (which is really bad since the death of the protagonist ends the game). With score of 11, you can afford to stay on the frontlines for some time against the illithid. This is more important for barbarian than for other fighters since the barbarian has some armour restrictions which the other fighters do not and you will have to be careful. slight spoiler: Any alignment is okay, but try to get the Bhaalspawn ability 'draw upon holy might' as one of your Bhaalspawn abilities. This ability is a 'good ability' but is randomly chosen even if you are evil/neutral, although the chance of getting this ability is low if you are evil. The reason why I emphasise the 'draw upon holy might' is that the barbarian ability 'rage' (which increases the strength and constitution of the barbarian) stacks with this ability (which also increases strength, dexterity and constitution) for the first half of the game (until you lose all Bhaalspawn abilities). Therefore, with this ability, you can get 25 in both strength and constitution (cast 'draw upon holy might' followed by 'rage') which is awesome (you are most likely to kill most low level enemies in one blow and do terrifying amounts of damage even to other enemies). Just as important, once your constitution is more than 19, constitution based regeneration will kick in - at a constitution score of 25, your character will have excellent regeneration (like a wolfwere). So not only is your character doing obscene amounts of damage to the enemy, but also regaining HP at a non trivial rate. cheesy trick: The points allocated to you at each level up is dependent on the constitution you have at that point. Therefore, if you have a constitution score of 25 when levelling up, you will get a bonus of two HP at each level up (compared to when you had a constitution of 19). Note that even when the constitution drops down after the level up, the bonus points you have gained stay. Any weapon and style is fine - just follow your own ideas in this regard. Many people here will choose 'katana' and 'two weapon style' - katana for the additional damage it does and 'two weapon style' for the extra attack. But this is really a very personal point of view - you could just as well take a two handed weapon and do extra damage with it - you gain a critical hit on both 19 and 20 with the two handed weapon style. Now let us analyse the advantages of this class. The barbarian moves faster than the other classes (except the monk) by two points. While this does not sound very impressive, it makes for a very interesting archer class. You can always hit and outrun most other classes - the hit and run archer is most easy with the barbarian class. This also works well for a scout - it you do not have a thief - since you can run in at your enemies, spot them and run out before they react and catch you. The barbarian is immune to backstab. While in general, this is not a very useful ability, this is a lifesaver on occasion. High level thieves (especially assassins) can do terrifyingly heavy damage with a backstab. While, in general, in the game, there are not all that many backstabbing thieves, there are some (rune assassins in the tanner's basement, the tiefling assassins in the third level of the Watcher's Keep, the thugs of Cyric in the Pocket plane, etc) and this ability often means the difference between life and death. There is nothing as annoying as seeing your best fighter backstabbed to death in one hit (often 80-90 points of damage). spoiler: If you have the rogue rebalancing mod (the component with the encounter with the chosen of Cyric), this ability is an absolute godsend. This literally means the difference between life and death for a fighter class, make no mistake about it. Rage ability: This is a great ability - this allows you to go from 19 to 23 (or with 'draw upon holy might' from 22/23 to 25) and this makes the barbarian a very powerful tank. Besides the immunities conferred by 'rage' (immunity to charm, hold, fear, maze and confusion) make the barbarian nearly impossible to take out of a battle by any magical means. The additional bonus to saves against magic is another great help. The barbarian works on the fighter table for the saving throws - so the weakest of the saving throws is against 'spells'. This problem is further compounded by the lack of ability to wear rings/cloaks of protection because of magical armour. Since the rage gives you better saving throws against spells as well, this is a true marvel. The immunity to 'level drain' - one of the more annoying abilities of certain undead - means that the barbarian is a great undead slayer (curiously, it turns out that a raging barbarian is much better than an undead hunter paladin in this regard). The downside of the penalty to AC is almost negligible. AC (armour class) is the least important of the attributes once you are well into the game. This ability alone makes the barbarian really a very powerful class. The further advantages of weapons resistance are magnificent as well, especially late in the game (when you get the ToB high level abilities). The weapons resistance stacks with the high level ability 'hardiness' conferring a total of 60% resistance to weapons damage. If you have the 'Bhaalspawn abilities' from Ascension mod, for the final battle, it is possible to have 85% weapons resistance in total. spoiler: The weapons resistances stack with other kinds of weapon resistances (girdle of inertial barrier, defender or easthaven, etc) which may increase your weapons resistances to more than 100% (for a short time, while 'hardiness' lasts). This is really awesome. But this is a very cheesy trick, so it is not used by many players who desire to 'play fair'. The d12 means that you can roll +2 HP over a fighter at every level. By level 10, this means that you will have 20 more HP over a fighter. This is further increased by using the trick, I suggested above. It will not be surprising to have a barbarian of around 250-300 points by the late game (curiously, this is more than the average number of HP that a dragon has). This makes the barbarian a HP powerhouse and really difficult to kill (especially with the regeneration). Disadvantages of the class: The barbarian may not dual class or be a multi-class. This is a really serious restriction, but for this class, it is not too bad. The weapon resistances kick in very late in the game, so they are not going to do much to save you in the early part of the game, where the barbarian will get hit more than the others. While it is true the barbarian has more HP, the barbarian will take more knocks than anyone else since the choice of armours is limited. The best armour for the barbarian in SoA is the shadow dragon scale (and you have to kill a shadow dragon to get it!), and in ToB, there is a choice between Asyleferund chain mail, grandmaster's armour, etc. So in the early part of the game, you will need a full time healer to keep the barbarian healthy. This may mean an over-dependence on clerics/druids and may affect the balance of the party. But the barbarian, because of the regeneration (due to high constitution) can overcome this to some extent. Unlike the fighter, the barbarian may not go beyond 'specialised' in any weapon. This means that you cannot assign more than 2 stars in any weapon. The weapon mastery bonuses were nerfed down from the original table, so this is not as bad as it might have been, but still it is a restriction. Since barbarians work on the fighter table, they will always be in danger against high level wizards (especially when they cast instant death spells like finger of death, disintegrate, etc) since their saving throws are not too good against spells. While direct damage spells like horrid wilting are not too bad for the barbarian (the number of HP should allow you to absorb this damage and still operate), the instant death spells are a real menace. Keep alert for high level wizards and keep the barbarian away from them until you have brought the defenses of the wizard down. Once you have enemy mage defenses down, the barbarian can kill the mage in less than a round usually.