other solo cleric kits

[wally p]

I was doing some light (read: non academic, hehe) reading (i.e. BG2 stuff) and realized a couple things.
*minor spoilers*


In addition to the cleric of helm kit being more viable than once thought, the other two, the clerics of talos and lathander have more potential than I first supposed when I was choosing between the three.

to wit:

The Boon of Lathander(BoL) ability is as follows (according to Dsimpson's description, which looks like it's directly from the game itself):

• cast 1 time per 10 levels
• lasts (essentially) 1 round per level
• grants +1 to hit/damage, +1 saving throws, and 1 extra attack per round

at first it looks like a weaker version of the seeking sword, but then I realized that it had several distinct advantages over the seeking sword (some of which directly addressed its weaknesses:

• BoL doesn't disable spell-casting, allowing the cleric to be both melee-enhanced without cripping spellcraft, vastly increasing the cleric's flexibility
• BoL applies to any weapon a cleric can wield. So while you won't get the elven bonus applied to the seeking (long) sword, one could apply the BoL to attack twice a round with Crom Faeyr for example.
• As a subset of the previous advantage, now you can attack more times per round with a weapon that cuts through stoneskin or does other interesting things. Also, I imagine this applies to slings, making ranged combat more appealng as well.

So in the early game, the seeking sword will probably be a better bet due to its nice damage range, great thac0 bonus and greater ApR. But, once you find the uberweapons, BoL could easily do more damage per round with its two attacks than the Seeking Sword necessarily could. Don't forget, HRD is just as potent with BoL as with the Seeking Sword!


The cleric of talos might be a more dicey proposition, since I'm not sure, at this point what % protections the storm shield allows, but it does confer protection (I'm assuming that it's commensurate with the cleric protection spells, in which case it's 100%--nice!) to Cold, Lightning, and Fire.

And this sets up a really nice synergy with the other ability: casting lightning bolt ever 5 levels.

As someone pointed out (I think it was either Illumina or Butterfingers, I can't remember at the moment--sorry! pipe up and you'll get credit), the damage of this lightning doesn't seem to cap like the mage version. It just keeps scaling in damage....more and more lightning damage...and I don't know if there are many lightning immune or highly resistant monsters, but I'm betting not.

So then it's a matter of protecting oneself and then bounching that fiend-lightning around a corridor for lots and lots of damage and toasty-woasty dead enemies. Even highly resistant enemies are going to fail their checks being zapped as often as they could be in closed areas.

any thoughts?

[Odruith]

I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to *Not* want to continue my game as Arundhel(fighter/thief) and rather start as a cleric of talos and either solo it or use a core evil party of like.. viccy, korgan and edwin only. Not sure though.

But I really want to see just how cool a Talassan can be.

[Rataxes]

I've found myself not using the kit-specific abilities of the Priest of Helm as much now in late game SoA. So I'm thinking that if you could somehow get through the beginning, where the need for melee power is most critical, a non-kitted Cleric should fare almost as well as my Priest of Helm has done so far, and I expect my reliance on the clerical spells to only increase as I go on. Iron and Adamantite Golems are just about the only things in the late game that my PoH would have had severe difficulties dealing with had it not been for the Seeking Sword.

I've also noted that the Priest of Lathander with it's Boon of Lathander, would probably be more powerful than the Priest of Helm though, past the early stages. Due to all the reasons you listed yourself.

The Storm Shield provides complete immunity (100%) to Fire, Magicl Fire, Cold, Magical Cold, and Lightning. This is a great elemental protection, usually the only one you need. I can't say I've noticed any off-the-roof scaling for the Lightning Bolt though. Tried it out at level 40 and it rarely did more than 20-40 damage against various mephits, ogres, thieves and goblins, this was with most of them actually failing their saves. Butterfingers played on a Mac version on SoA and if I recall correctly, neither ToB, Baldurash, or even the offical SoA patch was available to him, so he told about many strange bugs that couldn't be reproduced on the "properly patched" PC version of the game.

[ 02-08-2004, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[drew_jarvie]

Rataxes, in your solo page, did you ever consider being human so you could dual class?

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by drew_jarvie: Rataxes, in your solo page, did you ever consider being human so you could dual class?

Well, dual-classing was never an option since the idea was to see if I could solo a pure cleric throgh the game.