[Jim]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: ...List of things where a Blade beats a Fighter/Mage: Bard Song that barely does anything A weakened version of the least useful Thieving skill Woo! High Lore! Running around real fast

Bard Song - agreed, that sucks. A certain ToB HLA nullifies this disadvantage though.

A weakened version of the least useful Thieving skill - True, although there are a couple of instances where being able to pick pockets is useful.

High Lore - simply a time/money saver, although a F/M will have no issues idenfitying anything anyway.

Running around real fast - I assume you mean via Offensive Spin combined with boots of speed? I suppose this at least means that no opponent is going to run away from you (not that this would be much use in game, I agree).

I feel more credit needs to be given to the Offensive/Defensive spins. Offensive spin grants an extra attack - mostly making up for the lack of ApR compared to a warrior, maximum damage from the weapons! - i.e. a super KI that lasts far longer, and +2 to hit and damage which makes up for the lack of specialisation. What does this mean? It means that when dealing with 95% of the foes in the game, the melee offensive abilities of the Blade beat those of a F/M. The other 5% will give the Blade problems due to the relatively poor THAC0, something the warrior classes do not suffer from, but then there's buffing/summoning which the blade can use to help deal with this minority of "thorn/ass interaction" enemies.

List of things where a Fighter/Mage beats a Blade: THAC0 AC Saving Throws ApR Hitpoints Spellslots Spell levels Equipment restrictions Stronghold (not really a power consideration, but still) Race restrictions

THAC0 - agreed.

AC - not really. Defensive spin combined with some decent equipment/chain mail whoops any AC a F/M can come up with, however the F/M can have a superior permanant AC. Once you get UAI - any AC a F/M can manage gets trumped by the Blade.

Saving Throws - true.

ApR - true - However the Blade can get 4 ApR using certain weapons, 5 with OS which has hit the cap anyway.

Hitpoints - I disagree. At the start of SoA, an 89,000XP F/M will have roughly (assuming 18 CON and max D10/D4) (6*((1D10+4)/2)+(6*((1D4+2)/2) = 42+18=60HP. In contrast, an 89,000XP Blade (assuming 16 CON and max D6) will have (8*(1D6+2)) = 64HP.

We can take this to the other extreme of 8 million XP giving 24/20 levels of F/M compared to 40 of Bard:

F/M: ((9*((1D10+4)/2))+(10*((1D4+2)/2))+(15*2)+(10*1)) = 63 (fighter class) + 30 (mage class) + 30 (fighter HP post level 9) + 10 (mage HP post level 10) = 133HP.

Blade: (10*(1D6+2))+(30*2) = 140HP.

So we have 133HP for a F/M, compared to 140HP for a Blade, and that's even with 18CON vs 16.

Spellslots: Agreed.

Spell levels: Agreed, although high level scrolls can still be cast by the Blade.

Equipment restrictions: Agreed, but becomes nullified through UAI.

Stronghold: Bah! But agreed.

Race: Agreed.

The F/M is certainly a superior overall class due to the excellent spell casting power, and I'm not trying to say that a Blade can compete power wise, but for the majority of the game the Blade can hold his own.

True, that is possible, but I prefer to gain EXP from things like that, instead of using up perfectly good spells that I'd rather use against enemies. (The flip side of that is that the Swashbuckler can't cast spells like Stoneskin and PfMW from memory, of course, but happily there are far fewer battles that would encourage a Swashbuckler's use of those spells than there are Traps in the game.)

This boils down to preference, since in the games I play XP is plentyful anyway, and I don't have a problem with casting stoneskin after a rest anyway due to its long duration, or simply gritting my teeth and taking a butt load of damage from a trap and then getting some healing. It might not be ideal, but the game doesn't neccessitate a thief.

As for Stealth, you know perfectly well that it's only HiS that will always fail if there's an enemy in your visual range--MS works just fine. If a Swashbuckler needs to vanish when there's a bad guy in sight, a simple Potion will do the trick, and when's the last time you were short of Invisibility Potions?

But once hidden in the shadows, the thief requires constant skill checks to ensure that he will remain hidden. This check is an auto fail once a hostile is visible, which will bring the thief out of the shadows regardless of skill. Sure, you can run away and hide again, or quaff a potion, but that was not the point I was making. All I was saying was that invisibility > HiS.

Capable? Yes. Since all the Blade kits have been soloed all through the game, then by definition they are capable characters. I am simply down on Bards because they are so almost completely eclipsed by the other classes, especially multiclasses. I don't mind a character not being really useful all the time, that'd be too much to expect from anyone. But when I notice that I never say to myself, "Boy, it's a good thing I've got Haer'Dalis in the party!", I tend to file that as a black mark.

One could argue that multiclasses will always be better than their single class counterparts (with the exception of the mage), as are powergaming dual class characters, which brings into question why play a straight class if there's always a better alternative. One must consider role playing and play style, as well as quicker level progression.

You may not have ever appreciated HD in the party, but with a permanant 60% physical resistance attainable (the highest permamant physical resistance of any other NPC or PC a player can come up with) I've sure been glad to have him from time to time. Again, this is preference.

...A Blade can kick some major ass when buffed to the gills. A Swashbuckler is kickass 24/7.

I guess that's fair enough. I prefer to play a character that requires more patience and nurturing but has excellent potential rather than one that has little depth but has power available on tap.

True. I would remove the second 'far,' though.

Yeah I had a feeling I was going a little too far with that one [img]smile.gif[/img]

Oh, I wasn't referring to Resistances, simply to not getting hit at all. The Swashbuckler owns the title of Lowest Permanent AC in the Game (the lowest AC the game will recognize, in fact), and with a few Stoneskin scrolls saved for emergencies, who cares about Physical Resists when there ain't nothing gonna touch you?

Rock bottom AC is fair enough, although it doesn't guarantee that you won't get hit. Many bosses have a THAC0 so low that your AC is irrelevant anyway. If the cap is -24 (iirc), and a boss such as Demogorgon has a -19 THAC0 or whatever it is with 4 ApR or something, he isn't going to run into problems hitting you anytime soon...I place far more value on a moderately high AC but with high physical resistances.

On a side note, a Blade can achieve a lower AC than a swashbuckler can. Sure it won't be permamant, but is nontheless manageable. If a swashbuckler can keep piling equipment on until he reaches the cap, that's as far as he's going. This may be considered cheesy (in fact I'm fairly sure it is), but a blade can use his DS (and even improved bard song ability) to actually bypass the AC cap...I need to investigate this more but I'm sure it's possible. Basically, it involves reaching the cap, but still having an abundance of items/abilities left to push the AC beyond the cap, once the cap has been reached.