Character composition question for ill-suited classes

[Aerich]

Not that I've completely finished the game yet, as I've been sidetracked by other games and little time wasters called work and school...

What kind of stat allocation would you give for a two-class character split between a warrior and spellcaster?

I'm thinking of two that could be a dynamic duo at the front end of a party, a monk/sorceror and a paladin/wizard. The advantage is switching back and forth between classes, otherwise a deep gnome monk/illusionist might be the way to go, or the ubiquitous pally/sorc.

I am mulling the idea of taking a sorceror to level 6, focusing on personal defensive buffs (Shield, Mage Armor, Death Armor, Mirror Image, Blur, Blink), then going monk for 20 lvls or so, and filling in the rest with either sorc or monk as I feel necessary. The concept is a truly unhittable tank, even on HoF. Major focus is defence, massive hitting power is a secondary consideration. Race could be human, half-elf, or wild elf without an XP penalty, or an aasimar, drow or deep gnome with an XP penalty.

Paladin/Wizard is preferably human, drow, or aasimar. A harder hitter than the monk, but still focused on defence first.

[Gimli]

Well since you are looking for defense first, for the Monk you want to go with Wis and Dex for AC (Deep Gnome also gets another +4 racial bonus). Wis I would say should be the higest stat as you can't buff it like you can Dex via Cat's Grace. If you went with an Illusionist->Monk, you would also have a high enough Int (13 is perfect since it sounds like you want to be able to cast up to level 3 spells) to take Expertise and could really have an amazing AC (and AFAIK your mirror images all have the same AC that you do, which then helps them last that much longer). Also you'd get some extra skill points that way which might come in handy, and the free racial mirror image, blur, and invisibility abilities thrown in. I would go Wis, then Dex and a 13 Int first, then worry about Con/Str; Cha could be dropped as low as possible.

The Monk/Sorc would allow you to switch back and forth if you decided you needed to later in the game (disclaimer: I don't play HoF) and get some extra spells per level (altho not tons more than an Illusionist with the extra racial spells the deep gnome gets), but then you'd have to drop Int as low as possible, not be able to take expertise, and not have the skill points to work with. I think the Deep Gnome build is "better" but either could work for what you're looking for. Warning tho, both would "nerf" martial arts somewhat as if you get even +1 to your BAB from a class other than Monk the game gets confused and no longer applies the special Monk MA/BAB table properly (might be a mod that fixes that?). Also part of the "ease of use" mod lets you use Weapon Finesse with fists so the average Str score could be mitigated somewhat. And you'd still have the stunning attacks (and a harder to resist quivering palm thanks to the high Wis).

Pally/Wizard is very demanding stat-wise; I really think going Sorc->Pally has much more stat synergy and would reccomend going that way instead. Max Cha obviosly. Unless you are going to cast without armor on and then switch to the inventory screen and then don armor, you will also need a high Dex (otherwise you can go for the heavier armors and only really need about a 12 Dex to still get the best AC you can that way, and with Cat's Grace, an 8 or 9 Dex would do). Then I would say Str/Con are about equally important and Int not at all. Wis can also be dropped pretty low as the high Cha will make up for the will save penalty.

[Gimli]

PS - for the pally, the armored arcana feat can let you use light armor and a bucker (if you take it 3 times you can ignore 15% worth of armor check penalties) so that is something to think about as well. Extra Smiting would also help to add some damage even without a maxed out Str.

[Marty4]

A major problem with the two multiclass options, as Gimli has pointed out, is that the two classes in the combination rely on vastly different stats to function effectively. The good thing about a paladin/sorcerer is that the CHA bonus will benefit both classes. The paladin/mage is definately doable (I mean, many here know my favorite mix is the Drow paladin2/ranger1/rogue1/mage). However, a sorcerer/monk created solely for a high xp seems somewhat hard to accomplish.

If I were to make a high xp tank sorcerer/monk, I would do the following:

Class: Deep gnome (-4 to CHA hurts here, but I think we can make it work).

STR 8
DEX 18
CON 12
INT 3
WIS 18
CHA 13

This looks ugly, but it is as good as it gets IMO. There may be a way to tweak the stats in favor of a better attack bonus, such as dropping your hp. It also may be advisable to use the Ease of Use mod section that makes monk fists finesseable (sp?) which would drastically improve your attack. In fact, in that case I would switch the 18 DEX and WIS for 20 DEX and 16 WIS.

A trick part of this guy is figuring when to switch over to monk. Level 8 sorcerer seems good for Stoneskin, but it feels like you are skimping on monk levels at that point. Remember, you need a CHA equal to 10+spell level to cast that spell, so if you want stoneskin you should increase the CHA to 14 when you gain another attribute point.

As for the paladin/mage (or whatever combo you want), I would do the following:

Drow
STR 12
DEX 20
CON 16
INT 20
WIS 7
CHA 5

Since you only have two guys, I wouldnt worry about xp penalties. Go for a high ECL.

Gimli, I don't recomend armored arcana feats, as I would rather wear one of the many great mage armors in the game. As for the off hand, the above pally/mage is absolutely amazing at dual wielding small blades, so no shield is required. I usually don't use smite, especially since the build above won't benefit from it, but if it is a paladin/sorcerer then that may be a good idea.

Good luck with your crazy new guys!

[Gimli]

Have never done it before (armored arcana) but remember a really nice build suggested on another forum that used it (the post IIRC was comparing a sorc/pally to the deep gnome monk as the "ultimate unhittable/immune to everything, good for a distraction" type of character) . Altho now that I think of it I think that person took it just once to use a buckler, so nice catch, does seem excessive to take it 3X. And yeah, I meant for a Sorc/Pally with a maxed Cha, then go for the smiting which just gets better and better at higher pally levels (especially if he's going for HoF). Dual wield does get a bad rap sometimes b/c of the way damage resistance is handled in IWD II, but it is very powerful for quite a bit of the game, and if un-modded the HA is a longsword which is about the best main hand weapon in a dual wield pair I can think of (I once thought of running a ranger who would take just one level of paladin right before finding the HA for just that purpose). So you may be right in it being better than going with the buckler and AA. I forget now anyway if the best bucklers are better defensively than some of the offhand weapons that also provide some defense - and I haven't gone through the whole game yet myself, and never played HoF).

[Marty4]

The only good bucklers that come to mind are modded ones (With EOU, I've seen a +3 on HoF). Without mods, I think that certain daggers in the game would give better defense.

Hey cool Gimli, we have exactly the same number of posts!

[ 10-18-2005, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: Marty4 ]