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The "Joe Average" playthroughs made me realize stats ultimately don't matter much. There are so many ways to boost them and other combat related things that your base numbers don't matter beyond convenience., like say, as previously mentioned, Khalid's 15 STR lets him wear full plate. I only really care about NPC's kits and other perks they might have (like Mazzy's stun immunity granting short sword)
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Jun 26, 2022 00:44
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| # ? May 25, 2024 17:55 |
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Yeah, I'm the same. And if you add in mods or save-hacking with EEKeeper, you can make any NPC any kit you want really, so all that matters is personality, dialogue, etc.
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Jun 26, 2022 00:55
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This is a good mod if you wanna get really wacky with alt versions of NPCs. https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/tweaks/levelonenpcs/
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Jun 26, 2022 01:27
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Yeah, it's funny how people underrate Khalid just cuz his voice actor's a weeny. 4 pips in longbow with a back up two handed sword, full-plate, 17 con, fighter xp table, he's a beast.
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Jun 26, 2022 01:27
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Khalid has good stats for a pen & paper character, but this game has a number of other frontlineres with better stats. I also maintain that having to prep a special spell because the guy who is supposed to hold the line and protect everyone might turn yellow (literally, in this case) is a huge 'con'. The player should not have to cast 'Do Your Bloody Job Properly' as a matter of course.wizard2 posted:My main gripe is that some characters come super late, Tiax for example, and don't get their share of the spotlight unmodded. I say the same thing about Quayle.
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Jun 26, 2022 03:37
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Jaheira groused about how I was a lazy bastard for not going to Nashkel, but she didn't leave. Yeslick on the other hand bailed in the middle of the Cloakwood exit random-encounter gantlet to absquatulate to the Friendly Arms on account of Dorn being a real piece of work, but he was perfectly chipper when I re-recruited him after that. this party is hideously mismatched in ideology and I love it.
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Jun 26, 2022 03:42
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JustJeff88 posted:Khalid has good stats for a pen & paper character, but this game has a number of other frontlineres with better stats. I also maintain that having to prep a special spell because the guy who is supposed to hold the line and protect everyone might turn yellow (literally, in this case) is a huge 'con'. The player should not have to cast 'Do Your Bloody Job Properly' as a matter of course. This is just you playing him wrong. He's great as an archer/secondary tank.
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Jun 26, 2022 04:38
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Yeah he’s best as ranged DPS, you want him dealing damage while someone else kites. In low level nobody should tank, you want to kite while the rest of the party shoots, and the guy with the longbow is good at shooting. Kite with Jaheira, her only ranged option is slings.
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Jun 26, 2022 06:54
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If I'm using Khalid and want to be tryhard overkill, I just rush Keil's Helmet from Durlag's and Bracers of Archery from Gnoll Fortress after some Ankheg farming.
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Jun 26, 2022 06:57
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Mzbundifund posted:In low level nobody should tank I think this is why he gets a bad rap. He's the most obvious tank at the beginning of the game, when no one can really tank. So lots of hits that do enough HP damage to trigger his morale break, lots of him dying to a wolf etc.
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Jun 26, 2022 07:01
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DeadButDelicious posted:My last playthrough was as a blade and yeah can confirm that bards definitely get a bad rep from... Somewhere. I dunno. But with the right buffs and a narrow hallway nobody is getting by a blade in defensive spin. Hot take: bard hate is based on homophobia permeating the grognard community
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Jun 26, 2022 07:27
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Hold on. Coran has an illegal pip in long bows.
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Jun 26, 2022 09:56
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Yes, and 20 dex. He's a Gary Stu iirc, one of the dev's characters from PnP.
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Jun 26, 2022 10:08
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I'm always puzzled by people who clearly never use Khalid telling me he's bad because he breaks easily. No? I use him almost all the time. In important encounters, you use resist/remove fear not because he breaks easily, but because they'll cast horror.
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Jun 26, 2022 13:49
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bards: the fact that everybody who performs music or poetry is gay is certainly a large part of it but some small blame must also rest with the additional fact that p&p 2e bard bad
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Jun 26, 2022 14:24
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Yeah in tabletop you absolutely won’t roll a 90+ on your stats, you won’t know every encounter in advance, and you won’t get a million wands to spam either.
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Jun 26, 2022 14:50
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goblin week posted:Hot take: bard hate is based on homophobia permeating the grognard community
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Jun 26, 2022 15:25
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Bards to me always seemed to be a multi-class jammed into a single-class.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:13
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That was more or less true in 1st edition. It turns out that "jack of all trades, master of none" in a system that dramatically rewards hyperspecialization means they aren't very effective.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:22
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Jack of all trades can be something like convenient or fun when working in the non combat skills of 2e that require competency to even attempt but that was rightly fixed by getting rid of competency for some of the no duh I can try that skills. Bards are a better class for adventure life sim campaigns and less so dungeon diving into Myth Drannor or even adventure life sims leaning toward big bad evil guys of the week. And then it becomes a full recommendation against when you consider D&D is probably a bad choice for adventure life sims.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:39
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Suspicious posted:I'm always puzzled by people who clearly never use Khalid telling me he's bad because he breaks easily. No? I use him almost all the time. In important encounters, you use resist/remove fear not because he breaks easily, but because they'll cast horror. He does mechanically have slightly lower morale break threshold than other characters. In the game Ive just started I've already had him morale break twice before getting to beregost. But it's the same as several other characters that no one associates with having the same issue, like Kagain, Tiax and Garrick. I think it's what I said. Morale is lowered by taking big hits or having party members die. I'm not sure of the mechanics but "big hits" seems to be based on losing x% of their HP at once. Characters almost never suffer morale failure later in the game because they have more HP and aren't going to lose like 70% of their HP in one go. Meanwhile almost everyone gets Khalid at level 1 where he has like 10HP and lovely AC, and is much more likely than any other character to take a hit that causes morale break as a result.
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Jun 26, 2022 21:11
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I will agree that Khalid's cowardice is compounded by lovely low-level 2e combat. That said, I still don't like him as a tank, which is precisely how people are most likely to use him. Nearly everyone here is discussing the issue from a position of long experience and oceans of knowledge of the game; I'm looking at it from the perspective of someone playing a new RPG who keeps asking themselves why a presumed warrior keeps running away from war.rope kid posted:They were also pretty bad, mechanically, for 3 editions (IMO). I agree, with the exception of bards in IWD2 - those were a beast. I was about to say 'in spite of not following the book rules', but it's probably more apt to say 'because they didn't follow the book rules'. rope kid posted:That was more or less true in 1st edition. It turns out that "jack of all trades, master of none" in a system that dramatically rewards hyperspecialization means they aren't very effective. Agreed. As an example, druids in early EverQuest were a fun, versatile class. They were the most-played class in the game yet almost useless in high-level raiding because they didn't specialise in anything. Clerics, on the other hand, did nothing but heal and were literally indispensable. WoW did a much better job with druids, I'll give them that, but WoW went with the approach wherein druids allowed the player to select one or two of four specific archtypes, while EQ tried to make a class that was good at direct damage, healing and support all at once and failed utterly. Ironically, bards were a jack-of-all-trades class in early EQ... a light melee class built around mana regen (very important!!!), speed, temporary buffs and crowd control. They were the least played class in the game due to having to press buttons precisely every three seconds, but they were incredibly desired for high-level raids. At one point I had a max level druid and bard: the former couldn't even get a group and the latter was invited to every raid and on several occasions recruited by powerful guilds. Night and day experience, I tell you. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 21:34
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honestly my main problem is that he keeps shouting his own name 
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Jun 26, 2022 21:36
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At least in tabletop, I found that it was easier to create a versatile single-class character by choosing just about anything except a bard. I would start at least semi-competent in one role and could then throw skill points and feats at whatever direction I wanted to take the character in. Depending on how strict the DM is, you can often get a helping hand too - if the character concept and roleplay is strong enough.
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Jun 26, 2022 21:46
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JustJeff88 posted:Khalid has good stats for a pen & paper character, but this game has a number of other frontlineres with better stats. I also maintain that having to prep a special spell because the guy who is supposed to hold the line and protect everyone might turn yellow (literally, in this case) is a huge 'con'. The player should not have to cast 'Do Your Bloody Job Properly' as a matter of course. He has better stats than almost any other tank in the game. Ajantis needs guantlets of dex. If he gets those, he is arguably better than Khalid. Does level slower. Coran has a poor con score and is better served as an archer/scout anyways Jaheira has garbage stats in bg1. She needs dex gloves and even with that she's more fragile than Khalid and unfortunately doesn't get high enough level to unlock Iron Skins. Kagain is amazing due to high con and shorty saves but he needs gauntlets of dex to not get hit all the time Kivan has excellent str and dex but his con score is trash. He's an archer Minsc has worse dex and con than Khalid Shar-Teel has garbage con. She's best used as an archer or dual fighter/thief Yeslick has shorty saves but garbage dex Like there's a lot of characters that I think can be competitive or even better than Khalid if you give them gauntlets of dex, but he's really the only frontliner in the entire game who out of the box requires no gear to be good. Almost every other character that people consider good fighter classes are either best used as Archers due to poo poo con (Kivan/Shar-Teel/Coran) or if they do have the con to front line they have the penalty of having horrific dex. And because there's so many characters that need the dex gloves Khalid gives you flexibility there. It's really nice to have a frontliner who doesn't need dex gloves since so many npcs want those. His morale sucks but remove fear is cheap and Khalid's AC is going to be good enough due to his high dex that he's not gonna break that often anyways once you have him in plate with a shield.
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Jun 26, 2022 22:26
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Yeah the fact that he has big Con and good (for an NPC) Dex is really nice. Strength doesn’t matter for his early archery and can be buffed easily with a spell later (and the 2nd level divine spell list is super thin on competition for those spell slots), and the fact that he doesn’t need the gauntlets of dexterity frees them up for your second martial and lets him equip a THACO-buffing item in that slot instead.
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Jun 26, 2022 23:20
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Empty Sandwich posted:honestly my main problem is that he keeps shouting his own name lmao I have him doing ranged stuff and he's been fine, whereas Minsc broke after one hit from Greywolf, so they (Minsc and Dynaheir) are benched at the inn while J+K, Neera, Xan, and Imoen come with me. To be honest, it was the voice lines (Minsc's) that did it. Imoen also annoys me but she kills a lot of stuff and I need a thief. And Xan I am not sure at ALL about but I think having someone to drop charms and sleeps and stuff is gonna help me win the stuff thats killing me right now
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Jun 26, 2022 23:28
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JustJeff88 posted:I agree, with the exception of bards in IWD2 - those were a beast. I was about to say 'in spite of not following the book rules', but it's probably more apt to say 'because they didn't follow the book rules'.
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Jun 26, 2022 23:48
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I make Xan a fighter/mage or a blade just because his moonblade is badass and I want him swinging it in combat.
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Jun 26, 2022 23:52
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rope kid posted:I stretched their power a bit in IWD1 as well. I at least wanted to make their bard songs valuable. This is the IE game that I remember the least by far, so someone else would have to fill in the differences between this and p&p for me. Until EE, IWD bards couldn't use the beloved Blade kit, so any improvement was needful. There's nothing sacred about 2e rules as written, and I'm in favour of any change that is more balanced and fun. Rythian posted:I make Xan a fighter/mage or a blade just because his moonblade is badass and I want him swinging it in combat. Agreed. A character with a powerful hereditary racial weapon that he cannot use is good storytelling but rubbish gameplay. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 23:56
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rope kid posted:They were also pretty bad, mechanically, for 3 editions (IMO). Rangers are the new Bards, having been bad for 3, 3.5, 4* & 5e. *Not 100% sure on this since I played 4e exactly 3 times before we went back to 3.5 5e Bards are the poo poo though. College of Lore Bards continually blow my mind with their versatility in actual play, whether it's a combat encounter or a RP situation.
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Jun 26, 2022 23:58
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rocketrobot posted:Rangers are the new Bards, having been bad for 3, 3.5, 4* & 5e. I've been told that revised rangers in 4e were excellent ranged damage dealers, but I cannot corroborate that as I never got to play.
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Jun 26, 2022 23:59
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JustJeff88 posted:I've been told that revised rangers in 4e were excellent ranged damage dealers, but I cannot corroborate that as I never got to play. Are rangers also going to take the record for Revised Editions within editions?
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Jun 27, 2022 00:17
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Rythian posted:I make Xan a fighter/mage or a blade just because his moonblade is badass and I want him swinging it in combat. Xan was also a PnP character of one of the devs, a githzerai warrior. In BG he was originally going to a fighter with a badass moonblade but they decided there weren't enough mages so he got turned into a mage, and for whatever reason they also slapped the worst specialisation on him too. TL;dr a fighter/mage is probably closer to the original intent!
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Jun 27, 2022 00:41
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You think enchantments are bad in BG1?
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Jun 27, 2022 00:45
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No it's probably the best school, but I think that evocation is probably second best and it sucks to lose those spells.
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Jun 27, 2022 00:51
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You're losing magic missile and... uh, magic missile.
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Jun 27, 2022 00:58
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You lose a ton of cool spells (Lightning Bolt, Cloudkill, Fireball) but most of them you can still cast with wands.
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Jun 27, 2022 01:06
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In BG1 magic missile is really useful for interrupting enemy mages, but it's also available in wands.
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Jun 27, 2022 01:08
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The moonblade lets Xan finish off enemies he's disabled with his spells.
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Jun 27, 2022 01:12
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