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Originally posted by Bozos of Bones:
Just for the record, I resent you calling me Bozo.
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Oh, chill out. I meant nothing by it. Some people use overly long names that I just will not bother to retype.
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Now, the issue: I do not picture a fighter necceserilly as a tank, but think of this: there are 6 slots. There is a fighter tank with the coolest armor. There is a fighter. There is a spellcaster. There is a cleric. There is a rogue. There is a monk. There are no more spaces. This is the most used combination. I do not use it.
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Having a monk in a party is "the most used combo"??? I think not. IMHO, the standard combo for a 6 character party is 2 tanks, 1 rogue, 1 arcane spellcaster, 1 healer (cleric or druid), and 1 utility character (basically anything you want).
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Why I wouldn't opt for rogue-fighter is that the fighter is the only character who can use armors with NO penalties. Why ruin that with someone who can only be ussefull in a chain mail? Why ruin rogue abilities with fighter's health? Why have only one character in the party who can use an armor fully? YOu get several GREAT armors that are available in one time. The only thing that can make this worthwhile is weapon specialisation. Try to get the penalties to be roughly the same, and the feats and abilities diverse. A ranger/rogue is a whole other thing. He is an extremely usefull character when wearing light armors and dual short or bastard swords. Just don't dabble into rogue spells, they're too weak. A 5-11 combo is best. not 6-10 because then you have to choose between envenom and hamstring, and they're both great.
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We see fighters vastly differently. Just because the fighter class allows you to wear heavy armor without penalty, does not mean that you have to wear it. All fighters are not necessarily plate-wearing tanks.
If you have a low to mid STR, high DEX character, why wouldn't you wear the best light armor you can? Heavy armor is meant for low DEX characters, not high DEX characters. There are some great light armors in the game as well. IIRC, there are some +5/+5 and +6/+6 light armors that are every bit as good as the best heavy armors. Why would I want to wear chain mail (except for Drakkas' Chain)? It has a max DEX bonus of +2 and also has an armor check on skill rolls.
Having a fighter-rogue does of course weaken the rogue skills of such a character, but with a decent mix of levels, you can make a F/R that has rogue skills that are more than capable enough to be very useful. But as always with multiclassed characters, there are trade offs. A fighter-rogue trades off some higher level rogue abilities for some fighter abilities. I think that it's a fair trade off. I tend to play my rogues as swashbucklers and feel that a fighter-rogue multiclass matches this well.
I don't look at fighter-rogue as taking a fighter's slot in a party. That's not how I look at it at all. A fighter-rogue fills the "rogue" slot. The fighter-rogue is just a different type of rogue, a different flavor. Just like the different flavors created by the rogue kits in BG2. (Once again, I think that the fighter-rogue compares to the the BG2 swashbuckler kit. And the ranger-rogue compares to the BG2 Stalker kit.)
There's really nothing wrong with a lightly armored, high DEX fighter/rogue. You just have to understand how to get the most out of it. They are not assassin type rogues. They are more of a warrior rogue. Perhaps the good hearted swashbuckler. They will probably eschew the more "assassin" like rogue feats in favor of the more up front combat skills.
I agree that ranger-rogues are good. I think that you meant "ranger" spells, but I agree that they're not really worth worrying about in a ranger-rogue. You just won't have enought ranger levels to get enough ranger spells to be useful.
In a macro sense, fighter-rogues and ranger-rogues are not all that much different. Both can be very decent rogues and solid light "fighters". From a role playing perspective, ranger-rogues are more woodsy than fighter-rogues, while fighter-rogues are somewhat more skilled in the martial skills. Both are very good and solid choices for a "rogue" character for any party.
Bozos, I think that you're stuck in the paradigm of a fighter being a heavily armored tank and that you are undervaluing the light armors in IWD2. You can make a highly capable high DEX, lightly armored warriors in IWD2. Just don't confuse them with heavily armored tanks.
[ 09-23-2003, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: Magness ]