What's your style?

[Midget Gems]

What's your playing style?

One thing that is clear from our discussions on this board is that everyone has their own style of play. You only have to look at the three of us that make up the Midget Gems family to prove the point.

'Young' Midget Gems packs his team with archers, who shoot down anything that moves.

'Teenage' Midget Gems packs his team with powerful melee fighters, who charge the enemy at every opportunity.

'Old Man' Midget Gems goes for the subtle magic-user approach, in the hope that brains will overcome brawn.

Having said all this I wondered if the playing style was reflected into the amount of experience that each Class contributes to the total experience gained by the party. So I looked through my saved games and averaged the results. This is for a party of six where the team stays the same for most of the game. Where a dual class is used I have taken the dominant characteristic. Also I make no claim that this is a measure of the success of each class, each contributes in their own way and some NPCs are there strictly for fun.

Class % Experience

Fighter (melee) 20%
Fighter (archer) 31%
Thief 13%
Cleric 7%
Mage 13%
Bard 16%

Read into this what you will but would any of you good people like to compare your results with mine?

[ 04-25-2002, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Midget Gems ]

[Katherine]

I like to go magic heavy and keep fighters down to one or less per party. My most recent party ended with:

main fighter: Shar (was [img]graemlins/bunny.gif[/img] Tiax, but I got sick of him)
perfunctory thief: custom thief
PC: specialist mage
The Diva who sometimes cast spells but mostly just looked pretty: Quayle
Spell caster and backup fighter: YeslickSpell caster and backup fighter: Xan

I don't know what their XP percentages were. It's not really reliable, though, as I switched the characters around a couple [img]graemlins/bunny.gif[/img] times. I'll check out the numbers tomorrow and post.

Which of that triumvirate are you?

[Ar-Cunin]

I use 1 fighter - partly as a blocker - and gives him/her all the best protection. The rest of the party stands back using missile weapons (and spells when apropriate)

[Lanthir]

I usually use Minsc and Jaheria as the fighters and magic an range for everyone else.

[SecretMaster]

I tend to stick with missle weapons of any type. Then I have 1 cleric, (yeslick) and i mage (dynaheir) the rest are melee, so I have Minsc, Yeslick, Ajantis, then my main guy. I also get Imoen so she can just be my recon and stop traps.

[Sherpa Doug]

The front line fighters (infantry) have value that may not show up as points in that they keep the enemy busy while the mages and archers (artillery) do the killing.

The way I play, clerics don't do much killing but they are important for healing and spells that trip up the enemy.

Thieves also don't do a lot of killing so they don't earn points, but thieving skills can get a lot of loot and solve quests. Sometimes you can pickpocket the needed item from the bad guy and don't need to kill him, except to get the points depending on your alignment.

[jason_y2k1]

i prefer to have 3 people shootin archers and bolts then 3 runnin in and slaughterin the rest of the enemy it works 4 me

[SixOfSpades]

I'm in the 'Single-Tank' style. Buff fellow uses his Boots of Speed--the enemy has time to fire ONE arrow before he's in their face. Then my back rank opens fire, and if the bad guys happen to have a good AC, they unleash a barrage of spells & Wands.

Of course, it all depends on who I'm using. I'll decide who I want in my party first, then alter my playing style. I'm running a mostly Neutral party in BG2 now, and it has THREE Tanks, and another quirk is that every single member is a spellcaster of some sort. Nifty.

[Little Dragon]

I try roman style fighting

main character charges with cleric both tanks and Yesilck acts as a medic to

archers stay back and fire. with bard who attacks with spells, cross bows and heals archers

[Legolas]

Everyone in my party has either a composite longbow, a shortbow if a composite longbow isn't allowed, or a sling if that person can't use a bow or carries a shield.
Apart from that, I always have a thief, one or two mages, a cleric or a druid, and the rest rangers and/or paladins.

I shoot at every oponnent first, waiting for them to come to me so I can get as many shots off as possible before I switch to close combat with everyone who chops better than he or she shoots.
My mages will keep shooting along with the thief, unless I deem the enemy enough of a threat to actually use magic (which is rarely). Occasionally, I send in the thief as a 'second wave', and once the enemy is occupied I might throw in my mages as well, but mostly they just stand back whirling their slings.

In BG2 I prefer playing an archer and use hit and run tactics instead, while I lock the rest of my party in a closet so they won't get themselves into trouble