[motub]

Originally posted by Magness: Nice post, motub.

Thanks [img]smile.gif[/img] !

Originally posted by motub: I don't see any point in Fighter/Rogue, since fighters are mostly meant for melee, and rogues are not melee fighters.

Originally posted by Magness: I disagree with this comment. Thinking of fighters as strictly melee-only tanks is too limiting. There's thoeretically no reason why fighters can't be a number of other types/styles of fighters.

Theoretically, you're right. But it's again a question of design and how big your party is.

Originally posted by Magness: A Fighter/Rogue can be seen as being like the BG2 Swashbuckler kit. I fought my Fighter/Rogue in melee quite a bit with considerable success. She was basically the 3rd backup tank in my party and was really more of an archer, but she was exceptionally capable in melee in Normal mode. There's not one thing wrong with the concept of a fighter/rogue. It's all about how you envision the character.

With only four in my party, and my preference for getting through a battle with everyone alive (I just hate losing XP through death), it's very crucial that my party has a standard strategy for big battles like Shengarne Bridge or the Horde Fortress exterior (I've only just finished the Fortress, having for various reasons restarted the game several times). Our strategy is basically to hold 'em up (my druid and ranger/wizard both have Entangle), kill great numbers of held enemies with flaming oil, Produce Fire, Rainstorm or Whirlwind (if I'm desperate), while the 2 melee fighters (Barbarian/Paladin and Monk/Rogue) either use ranged weapons on sorcerers/shamen who may not be in range of the main group kill tools, or go hand to hand with any who escaped the entangle and are heading for the weaker members of the party. There's simply no place for a jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none like a swashbucker or even a bard, and I miss the bard .

Originally posted by motub: Heck, that's why I don't like paladins either (though I have one in my party)-- a melee fighter doesn't have time to be running around healing other team members, though Bless is not to be sneezed at.

Originally posted by Magness: There's no reason for a pally to run around and heal if you have a cleric or a druid. Paladins are every bit as much of a pure tank as a pure fighter or barbarian. I use any pally spellcasting I have for pre-battle buffing.

Yes, of course pallys are great tanks, but unless you are going to use their cleric-like capacities, you might just as well make a fighter or barbarian instead. Now, if, like me, you don't have a cleric, and the druid is busy "holding them up" with Entangle and Spike Growth, then the pally's healing abilities appear to be more necessary-- but I just spend all my money on healing potions instead. Another nice benefit of the monk/rogue is that a s/he's cheap-- I don't have to save up for great heavy/magical armor for anyone but the pally and I've already got more magical weapons than I can use, and so can pump more cash into potions. We need them, since we don't have a dedicated healer, and use a lot of flaming oil-- at least until my wizard gets Fireball...

With only four members, and everyone already dual-classed to handle the most important basics, I just am not willing to triple-class anyone to get the level of cleric spells I will probably want later, and I don't feel that I can afford to pull the pally from her duties as a tank to use the cleric abilities, given that such a small party so often needs to fight large numbers of very strong enemies. In this situation, I feel that the team has got to be a very tight ship, where everyone has a job, and knows their place. If the pally is one of the tanks (in my party, the main and really only true tank), then large amounts of the pally's capabilities (the cleric side) goes unused, because it's much more important that she plant herself between that bugbear and my wizard so that the ranger/wizard can pepper the orc shaman with arrows, rather than leave the wizard exposed, and in fact put the wizard in more danger, by walking over to heal the wizard (since the bugbear will follow the pally). The only reason I have a pally at all is for buff spells like Bless, the Turn Undead ability, and Holy Avenger-- and I think she's going to give up the right to advance as a pally as soon as I have Bless, unless I multi her to a straight fighter and stop advancing as a barbarian (unlikely). I felt similarly about IWD. I just don't see much use in a Paladin-tank (as opposed to a regular tank). Heck, they don't even take rewards, so I have to keep switching my party order just to get paid!

Originally posted by Magness: I absolutely agree that Ranger/rogues are excellent characters. A good symbiosis of the two classes. I've never played a monk/rogue. How well did she work out? What were her primary weapons? Bow? Fists? Melee weapon? What kind of stats (STR, DEX, etc.) did she have?

Well, as I mentioned, I'm not that far yet (just about to enter the Horde Fortress, which I have completed in another game with a larger party, but I haven't gotten further in the game with any party). At this point she's L3 Monk/L3 Rogue, but being a Tiefling, she's "effective level" 7 rather than 6. Right now she fights with weapons (mostly crossbow, then a blade and shield, since her Wisdom AC bonus isn't worth much yet), but when I get her to level 4 monk I'll try out her fists. Of course, since I didn't think to check her Armor Proficiencies or Weapons Feats, I had her fighting in Splint Mail (against those dratted bugbears on the Shengarne Bridge) and using a Scimitar +1, so she hasn't been performing very well. I switched the armor to some Leather +1 that I got as spoils, and when I play again I'll make Caballus' Whispering Staff the active weapon, so she ought to do a bit better.

She started with STR 14, DEX 14, CON 16, INT 16, WIS 10 (yes, I know, that was a mistake on my part) and CHA 8. Some time later I realized my mistake with the Wisdom thing, but I was unwilling to start over yet again, so I just used DaleKeeper to give her an WIS of 16. I should probably reduce her INT to compensate, but I just didn't have the patience.

At her current level, her Hide is 8, her Arcane Lore is 6, Move Silently is 9, Open Locks is 5, Pick Pockets is 5, and Search is 8. I'm reading this from my last save opened in DaleKeeper, so I don't know if these are the pure numbers or include the bonuses, but I'm very pleased with these skill levels for a char who hasn't even gotten inside the Goblin Warrens of the Horde Fortress yet. I feel confident in her ability to disarm what few trapped chests there are in the Fortress, and to hide well enough to lead those Orogs into the loving arms of my druid's Web. All I have to do is switch her Witherbranch boots with the Vghotan's Band that the Druid is wearing, and she can still pull the same trick inside that she pulled so well outside.

So basically she has turned into a rogue scout: she hides and checks out the layout, then entices a group of enemies to swarm her, which she can survive as a monk-- or will be able to survive when she gets to be a better monk-- anyway, she can stay in the swarm a short time and do some damage. The druid casts Entangle or Web right on her, and the ranger/wizard casts Entangle or Web on any enemies behind the main group who didn't get caught by the first cast. The barbarian/paladin can pepper somebody with crossbow bolts, while the monk/rogue walks back to the party (having some sort of Freedom of Movement enchantment on her). Then the whole party can shoot arrows, fling flaming oil, cast Sleep or Produce Fire or whatever, and whittle the group down to something manageable. If anyone gets out of the Entangle/Web and comes for the party, the barbarian3/pally3 and monk move forward (but not too far so as not to entangle the Barbarian) and... distract them... while the ranger4/wizard2 and ranger1/druid4 continue their physical or magical ranged attacks. Usually by the time anything gets loose and gets to the rangers, it's pretty weak, and they both have dual-wield anyway. Thus far the strategy has worked well, as long as I make sure to rest somewhere safe after every battle-- even if it means going away and coming back. Of course I couldn't rest on Shengarne Bridge, but picking the battles carefully and using every pot of flaming oil I could get my hands on, plus a couple of surprising weapons helped a lot. I got 10 Daggers of Closing Arguments (during the battle on the Pallisade, I think), 5 of which I sold for a very tidy sum, but flinging 3 of the other 5 at Xuxi succeeded in shutting him up (25% chance of Silence), so that battle went much easier. Plus a book that I *cough* acquired *cough* from Ethylarra turned out to cast Whirlwind 3x/day. Now this is a very dangerous spell, since it goes random once it reaches the spot you cast it to and so my party had to run away from it, but boy did it clean up the area. So we didn't suffer much major injury. And that's why I'm really enjoying this smaller party: it really makes you think about how to use the resources you have as effectively as possible, because even this early in the game there's little room for error if you want your whole party to live. I have no idea how we're going to get through the Ice Palace (never been there, so don't know what to expect), but then again, I never thought we'd survive Shengarne Bridge, much less prevent its destruction. So we might do better than I think [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Interestingly, though I'm not sure this strategy will keep my party alive throughout the game, I'm finding that it's working much better than it probably would have at the same point in IWD, thinking of how constricted the spaces were in the Orc Warrens and Dragons Eye and the massive numbers of undead in the Valley of Shadows. So I wonder if this means that IWD2 is ultimately easier than IWD, at least in the early stages (I haven't finished IWD either). I'm looking forward to finding out.