This video will go down in history as the definitive breakdown of classes in BG1 and 2. Decades from now this video will be referenced. This video will outlive you Davaeorn. You will be immortal.
@@Gnoll-1337Ioun stones gave crit immunity back then, so monk and kensai used to be a bit more tanky. Jaheira was better with Iron skin with casting time =1. First dropped or was dispelled. Cast anktger one during the battle. Doom had cast time =1. A lot of changes with EE and even more with T/A + SCS.
Just got into Baldur’s Gate last week. I have 6hours in the game, and I haven’t left the tutorial zone. I keep remaking my party over and over the more I learn about classes. This video is helping me make my decisions.
THANK YOU!! I played TONS of BG and Monk is both my favorite and most played class. Everytime I mention how it's actually really underpowered compared to every other single class/kit, people start raving about it's late game potential. Completely ignoring 2 facts. The end game isn't that long and the path to it is arduous af and even in the end game literally every class actually does things significantly better.
People repeat the shit they found off a website 20 years ago without thinking about it, someday monks will be buffed to be good, until then we must suffer on.
@@Davaeornlol Monks are great in 5th edition. Arguably the greatest achievement of 5Ed is to have made ALL classes viable from the start and thus fun if a class interests you.
I fell your pain man. I haven't played BG nearly as much as my friend has but I have played pathfinder and D&D for near on a decade. I love monks, or maybe the concept of monks? Either way it's disheartening sometimes to see the disgusting shit other classes can do all while you flail helplessly at an enemy all while being told you are somehow better? It makes no sense whatsoever. If you ask any D&D vet they will tell you that the late game literally doesn't matter. Because either you never make it to the late game or if you do everyone has god tier gear anyway so EVERYONE is strong. What matters most is the very early game and some rough patches in the mid game. Old monks excel at neither of those areas. There is a story synonymous in my friend group with monks and how bad they are. It was when our group was still small, we had the DM, his wife was playing a druid, I was playing a monk, and my friend was playing a paladin. (this was in pathfinder 1E btw) We had a fight with a stone giant oracle. The druid and I are literally breaking ourselves on this giant. She is doing her best with her spells and I am doing 0-3 damage per hit because of DR. All the while the paladin is standing off to the side and buffing himself. 3/4 turns later (as the two of us are nearly dead) he is finally done buffing and activates his boots of flying to go up and swing at the boss. Nat 20, and because he had used a litany spell that buffs crit damage along with a max level smite...he legit did enough damage to one shot the boss regardless of the amount of damage we had done up to that point. So you tell me who is more powerful. the 40+ AC paladin with 3x the hp everyone else that can literally one shot a boss or the monk who literally broke his hands doing 1-2 damage per hit....
Love the content, the fact that there is someone on this level of knowledge and he is willing to share all of it in one comprehensive video is awesome!
@Davaeorn question for you. So I'm listening to the video and I'm at the monk part. My question is do you think people argue the monk is so good are saying that for solo whereas you are talking about group dynamics? E.g. the dark soul monk kit can detect illusions, but you'll always have a thief anyways? Time stamp is roughly 3:35:03. Ten seconds before that roughly, maybe 10 minutes ish for the monk in general. Thank you for your hard work and enjoy the day. P.S. I think you forgot to mention Increased movement rate and hide in shadows/move silently as options for why you'd play a monk, especially solo. The human monk is almost like a half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Thief. Granted like you said how the Ranger is a shitty fighter and I think the stalker is a shitty ranger, so the stalker is a shitty shitty fighter.
man I really appreciate this video, sometimes id spend weeks starting and restarting different classes trying to figure out what would be the most fun. I've rewatched this whole video like 3 times cuz I just like hearing BG2 discussed, middle school nostalgia for me. the spell guides and weapon breakdown videos are also amazing.
Man, I got to say, my throat hurts watching you have to go through all of that in one sitting. Being a D&D nerd who loves to explore the depths of builds, this was very very addicting, and I loved it. Took me awhile to get through all of this, but was well worth it.
Always wanted to play the original Baldur's Gate games and after beating BG3 twice I feel like its the perfect time for it. Very glad to have comprehensive guides on this 25ish year game.
Hey Dav, I've been playing BG2 for 20 years but only decided to do a solo run through the whole saga for the first time this week. Your videos really inspired me, and I'm proud to say last night I killed Amelyssan's ass last night with a berserker mage! It was core rules unmodded but still. The arcane spell guides were really helpfull too. It's crazy to me that people prefer the kensai mage, those immunities given by berserk are just too good! Thanks for keeping this game alive brother, looking forward to more from you!
I love to solo this game too! How'd your run go? I used Robes of Vecna, Flail of the Ages, and Belm or Defender of Easthaven. Is that what you used, or did you go for Blackrazor or Foebane instead? I haven't gotten to Throne of Baal with him yet, but Shadows of Amn through the Underdark and Watcher's Keep went pretty well for me. And yes, the enrage immunities are fantastic! A mage would have to rely on Spell Immunity or something and get immunity to conjuration (maze) abjuration (imprisonment) and enchantment (charm), using up three sixth level spell slots each fight to avoid those instant game over spells, while a berserker can just pop one of his enrage abilities and cover everything.
Was watching this for background noise/supplemental information while making my bounty hunter. Rolled a 97 while on the bounty hunter section. I take this as proof Daveorn is the chosen one. Thanks man.
I think I've watched / listened to this breakdown 8 or 9 times by now. It's just brimming with fast-paced, succinct information. I learn something every time.
If you did a weapon and armor tier list that would be legendary, obviously different pieces are better or worse for one class or another but could do alot with a list like that! Love your content man this is as comprehensive as it gets. ❤️
Something that is worth noting is that the old version of Baldur's Gate (I mean BG1 before BG2 came out) allowed characters to dual-class a fighter or some other general class (like a cleric) to a specialist mage. So I dual-classed a cleric to an enchanter and also dual-classed a fighter to a necromancer. More recent versions (even if they are old by now) of Baldur's Gate changed that but I wonder if it is possible to import a character that is a dual-class to a specialist mage in the old version of Baldur's Gate 1 to a new version of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn.
Thought of your monk rant when Rasaad exploded in my recent SoD playthrough He wasn’t even a party member, he was still in the first chapter feeding refugees and the werewolf exploded him in under two seconds. I didn’t even realize it was him until I picked his damn monk slippers off the floor 😂
Okay, so about the Ranger class (and other "esoteric" classes) - these classes do not translate well to the Baldurgs Gate games to begin with, because they have skills in pen and paper that didn't make it to BG. The Baldurs Gate fighters rely on like to-hit, damage, percentage chances etc. Like Fighters and D. Defenders for example, those are so great in the Baldurs Gate series because their primary mechanic is raw numerical to-hit / damage / etc. Rangers on the other hand, work much, MUCH better in a pen and paper setting with a human Gamemaster who can create situations for roleplaying and using the skills Rangers have in pen and paper - tracking, finding food and water, trailblazing etc. All of which do NOT exist in any of the Baldurs Gate games.
You overstate the usefulness of the Ranger in PnP. Even if we use accessories like skills & powers, combat & tactics and spells & magic the abilities the ranger gets are weak and super-situational. If I really need a scout I would rather get a hireling than a ranger. Why waste a character slot for this shitty class? Especially in a shortman party (3-4). The only exception is the Archer which is a specialist fighter with ranger abilities (win-win). You mentioned - tracking Tracking is not that useful, since maps are small and there is no quest the requires tracking in the game. Even in PnP I would rather use scrying then risk being jumped by some monsters or animals following a smelly ranger. Wizards and Clerics are superior. - finding food and water If the game had a survival system where you had to eat and drink, then this would matter Even so clerics have create water and heroic feast, which is superior. Even in Eye of the Beholder the cleric was responsible for the food. - trailblazing (pass without trace ?) to my knowledge only druids get this in the base game - you could have also mentioned camp skills, since rangers are supposed to be survival specialists But Wizards are better, since they can cast various shelter spells, like mordenkainens magnificent mansion, which is superior. In the base game the only extra things Rangers get compared to BG: - tracking skill bonus +1 every 3 levels. Note: if you take the Tracking HLA in ToB then this one is also covered. - 2d6 special followers at level 10, which would be too weak in the SoA and ToB setting anyway. In skills & powers you can create a ranger selecting from the following ability pool: - bow bonus (+1 attack with bows), weapon proficiency system has this covered in BG - climbing - detect noise - empathy with animals - find and remove wilderness traps - followers - hide in shadows - move silently - pass without trace - priest spells - sneak attack - speak with animals - special enemy - tracking proficiency - two-weapon style - weapon specialization If you ask me we got most of these covered with the base class and the kits, but in BG they are even better suited for a video game. Compared to PnP there are some differences: - I don't think the stealth penalty in non natural environments (urban areas and dungeons) is implemented. - In PnP the ranger can use any type of armor, but if he goes heavier than light he looses the two weapon fighting benefits.
@@kenawyn All of which depend on the kind of DM and Campaign in which the Ranger exists. If the DM always starts every Campaign above Level 1 (which is required if you want to use those nifty Ranger-replacing Spells Wizards and Clerics have) then of course Rangers are useless. Ditto for the DM who skips travel time and jumps right to the Dungeon crawl. It all depends on whether the DM creates situations whose solutions would be ideal for a Ranger to match. Hence, my original point - the class is better suited to PnP where a human DM basically forces the need for a class like the Ranger. Removing certain Spells that make the game too easy etc.
@@zimmicks3170 I agree, in low level campaigns the ranger is great. In our games the DM never restricted spells and abilities for balance reasons. Or at least not after we had already made our characters and the game was running. It would have been a dick move, since you play for months expecting some spell or ability to come online and the DM tells you, oh by the way that ability you have been waiting for is no longer allowed in this campaign for reasons. Also, if the DM has to gimp other classes to keep the ranger viable, then there is an issue with the ranger class design. If I remember correctly, we only had a ranger in our group once, and the player asked the DM to change his class at level 12, since he felt like a gimped fighter by that point. Reasons: - Slow leveling. He was usually 1 level behind the fighter. - No specialization (in base game only the fighter gets specialization). - Shitty stats (13, 12+1, 18-1, 9, 14, 10) - he had to allocate his stats in a bad way to qualify for ranger, because of the minimum stat requirements (13, 13, 14, -, 14, -). He only qualified because he choose to be an elf. - Shitty AC because of light armor and dual wielding. He had 15% less chance to hit with his longsword (remember elves get a bonus) and dealt 6 less damage per hit. Then he always took a lot of damage because of high AC and couldn't remain in combat for long. Also our priest always buffed the fighter, since he argued that the Rangers defenses are weak, and he would rather buff the fighter, who is already good and with buffs becomes nigh untouchable. As the encounter level went up and he had fallen further behind. The GM even gave us a strength boosting item, in hopes that we give it to the ranger, but the party decided to give it to someone else (made more sense). The DM offered him to use the skills & powers accessory book to rework his ranger using point buy, but even then he could not create a character that he was satisfied with, and finally rerolled as a fighter/druid, which he enjoyed way more than the ranger. He could contribute a lot more and his character became a major participant in most party strategies.
@@kenawyn Honestly, the AD&D 1st Edition Ranger was probably the best version. At 1st Level he began with 2 Hit Dice (2d8) worth of HP which was double the Fighter. And in the Unearthed Arcana supplement, Rangers could Specialize IIRC. AND, they could select Giant-kin as their Chosen Enemy, which basically encompassed all of the most common low level monsters (Orcs and Goblins were considered Giant-kin) and got the Bonus to Damage increased every level. So by the time you face Giants, your damage bonus per hit was 10-plus just from the Ranger Bonus. Add in Strength bonus and Specialize bonuses and its better than a Fighter.
Wow, just... wow. Huge undertaking. I felt like we were sprinting at the end. I'm tired and it was wonderful Ill keep my own amendments to a minimum. 1. Mage dual to fighter at lvl 2 is better than pure fighter in my opinion. Access to find familiar, prot from pet, shield spell, maybe even friends spell and the ability to use wands for the rest of the game is worth the 6hp. That one weapon prof point can be put to use as well for a head start on your second GM. 2. Its hard to tell when to categorize a build as strategy and when its cheese. But wizard slayer ability should be noted will be carried by aoe attacks. This includes druid fire seeds and arrows of detonation. It wouldnt change my ranking, but fire seeds for example bypasses MR. 3. Cleric kits suck. So same thoughts as Mage 2 > Fighter here. Mage 2 > Cleric doesnt really give up much but gives clerics access to find familiar, lots of really great mage wands for those dead cleric levels (offensively speaking) and saving throw penalties to specialty mage schools in the cleric list. Enchanter 2 > Cleric for example gives saving penalties for Cleric's Command (remember, it can still land beyond lvl 6--just not automatic), Hold Person (makes it useful for a little longer), and my favorite MISCAST MAGIC. This already has a -2 penalty. 80% spell failure at save -4 is no joke and unlike Silence 15', it is NOT negated by vocalize (looking at you SCS). Makes lvl 3 cleric spells useful for the entire game... Congrats Dav on a massive video.
Yeah that's why I was avoiding anything dual other than 9 it opens up a world of possibilities :( Yeah i forgot to mention the wizard slayer aoe too although its been patched to not go through protection from fire anymore (which most will have up)
Weapon Proficiency points cant be shared across classes. So that one point cant contribute to GM. Best case, a single point to use a fringe weapon without penalty.
@@Davaeornlol I'd like to hear your thoughts on low level duals as well. Do you ever use them? What combinations are best, etc.? For example, let's say someone wants to play a straight fighter (instead of a berserker) because they want to grandmaster crossbow and flail, wear heavy armor and get more/earlier HLA's than an archer. Do you think it's just best to go with a straight dwarf fighter for the shorty saves, or would an enchanter2/fighter be better so that you can cast spells from scrolls and use wands (extra strong Sleep and Paralyzation wand hits for enchanter) + a familiar + Sleep and Prot from Petrification helps early on, or maybe an assassin2/fighter for the +1 hit/damage bonus, plus poison weapon (although it levels twice as slowly as for pure assassin I think) and 2x backstab + about 55% detect illusion or about 80% open locks or something, or is the pure archer just better if you want to gm crossbow anyway? Obviously there are other interesting low level duals too like various cleric2 duals.
@Rick Glaze very late response but yes they can? Not quite sure what you mean. If you put a point in Dagger as lvl 1 mage and dual to fighter, when you recover your mage lvls, you also recover your mage pips. Just pick up where you left off from there. Alternatively, if you sandbag levels and level up multiple levels at once, including unlocking previously dualled from class, those pips can all be assigned as if they are all unlocked. This is the only way to get grandmaster in BG1 with a fighter lvl 6 dual to cleric, druid, or thief and sandbag those lvls until you have enough to unlock your fighter class. Cheers
This video is great. Picked up BG1 for the first time, found this video and decided to make twin half orcs, one Zerk and one Barb. Really wanted to see the difference. Listen to this video as I play, theory craft teams to make as I play through again. Definitely a gem to find when picking up a 25 year old game.
Single class barbarians have always been my favorite, for the reasons you said near the end of the description. They can become immune to physical damage and rage makes them immune to most spell effects. I subscribe to the idea that AC loses a lot of it's effectiveness in ToB, and barbarians lean into this. I'm loving this video. Thank you.
Sadge that barbarian rage weaker than berserker but like you said barbarian straight beats pure fighter in scaling. Ac falls off completely and dr stacking becomes too important. Dr scales more the more u have theres no excuse not to play barba.
Cleric thief half orc is super fun, especially when you realize that you can backstab with quarterstaff for whatever reason and it deals a shit ton of damage
Dual classing really deserve it's own video. There are so many possibilities not mentioned here. For example I'm great fan of low level duals, especially fighters. Level 3 fighter to anything basically, at least, doubles you APR. Mage 2 to fighter allows usage of scrolls and wands etc.
For as long as this game has been around and how critically acclaimed it is I would think there would be far more youtube content. Your vids came on my feed a few years back and your spell guides opened up the arcane knowledge that was withheld from my brainlet intelligence in my youth when i had first played. I have you to thank for that. Once the dogshit tier spells are ruled out and rare situational ones its like a swiss army knife how to win a fight.
Thank you for taking the time to create these guides. It has vastly improved my gameplay. I have watched all of your videos. We appreciate you more than you know.
Man, this is a piece of sophisticated art stretching across five blissful hours. I'd rather accept a ring from that Koveras fella than rolling a monk, now.
Is Monk bad? I was trying to think of what class to play for an evil run with a party consisting of Viconia, Kagain, Dorn, Edwin, and either Safana or Tiax for the first game, and replacing Kagain with Korgan and Safana/Tiax with Hexxat in the second, and rolling a Dark Moon Monk for my Charname.
Dav!!! First and foremost, good to see you man. I pray that you're feeling better each day. Wishing you easy times ahead! And as for this video... This is a magnum opus in it's own right! Years of waiting and decades of knowledge, makes this a crown jewel for any die hard Gate players. I will watch it as soon as I'm able. Wishing you lots of health and blessings!
Something interesting that you can do is you can pick enchanter as a starting class, and then dual to cleric right out of the gate. This way you basically have a pure cleric that has a bonus to their enchantment spells, and also has access to find familiar. Its nothing gamebreaking, but i think its definitely worth mentioning
@@Davaeornlol That's your own fault for not understanding the complexities of dual classing. For example, did you know that if you dual class to a fighter as a level 2 mage, you can use robes and scrolls and stuff being pretty much a pure fighter. You lack the understanding of the versatility that dual classinf early provides. Thats why you are mediocre.
I just finished my first playthrough of BG1 with a Kensai. Loved every minute of it, and now I’m planning out a second playthrough, maybe with a custom party. This video had some invaluable information! Thank you so much for putting in the time and effort and sharing your knowledge! Great stuff, man.
Thank you for making this video. I got BG 1&2 on sale back when 3 released. Didn’t realize how many options there would be just to create a character. This is a huge help because I was completely lost.
I've been playing a Shadowdancer run with SCS etc. One super useful usage I've found for Shadowstep is that you can pop it, put on detect illusions, and dispel every Mage's illusion spells during the time stop. That is *so* useful. Once the timestop ends, your Mages can easily dispel the enemy Mages without having to worry about wasting a round on True Sight, etc.
Bro, I started playing BG1 again, so naturally encounter your videos. But not only are they the best BG videos out there, these are arguably the best guides for games that I've encountered. Can't say enough good things about them.
I've played BG1-2 at least once a year since it came out. Was still interesting hearing your thoughts on the game and I learned plenty. Listened to the entire thing. Well done sir.
It depends on which game and my mood to be honest, along with what mods. Davaeorn covers the hardcore SCS pretty well, but favorites from when it came out to my recent playthroughs: Multiclass cleric ranger when you could get both druid and cleric spell trees, Any triple class for a solo run or any dual class for a solo run, WIld mage as anything because it was OP and fun to fuck with. Too many to really mention mate but those are the ones for non hardcore SCS that I've tried. Also make sure everyone plays the game with companions at least 20 times lol. The game has so many mods and so much variability that anything can be fun.@sugahtron
This is your best video yet! Despite being nearly 5hrs long, the time flew by. For me, this is the definitive Baldur's Gate kit/class guide. Looking forward to more videos!
Thanks for the info this is excellent, your commitment to the game and hobby is commendable. I've owned BG1 since it came out but when both EE's came out I just found all of the kits and options overwhelming. Especially when you factor in BG2:EE and the massive difference between a low lvl BG1 character and a max level character.
I was thinking to make such a guide, thank you for showing how long it can be :). As a side remark, I am also thinking of another guide of class guide with a different approach. You mentioned tanks when parsing the fighter class, and I think this would be great for the BG community to get a list of "roles" or ways to build a character and sort the class according to these roles. Here is a potential list (maybe not exhaustive): - tanks - melee damage dealer - range damage dealer - spell damage dealer - buffer - dispeller (remove debuff from your party or magical resistance of ennemies) - crowd control - scout (invisible/stealth character) - rogue stuff (steal/ unlock / handle traps) - healer/rez - summoner
I've already watched over an hour and I plan to watch everything, but you're killing me with these several hour long videos man haha. Thank you for making such a comprehensive guide on the classes, I really appreciate it.
Shamanic dance has been fun in a casual run with friends. The summons served as shields for my friends and I against the guys that eat brains, vampires, and I was also able to solo a Balor when my dancing summons started to become elementals. It's great for holding a chokehold to allow my party to throw spells.
Took me and evening and this morning to get through this, and I haven't played BG for years, but this was super insightful, thanks for condensing what must be thousands of hours of system mastery into this video, bravo sir.
Thank you for this video, I live for theory crafting but would never be able to get all this information myself, grateful for others who share their information with others.
I didnt give dnd a fair chance first time I tried it because of how steep the learning curve is to start. Mans doing gods work people deserve a chance to enjoy these games
Just started replaying BG again and this video dropped. So far you have laid it down on my first character choice (Inquisitor) the next one I have rolled is a Blade (just my favourite class really) so looking forwards to what you have for them later!
I've been playing this game for some 20 years yet I still sit through this entire video in one go, loving every second of it. I'd say you can be pleased with this video, it's still the best of it's kind out there. But hey, if you wanna re-record and improve, I sure as hell don't mind more content! Much respect and all love mah dude. P.S How the heck do you beat Alhoon on insane SCS?! The rest of his crew were a piece of cake but he himself is such a fucking beast.
Holy shit, no idea how you managed to do this monstrosity of a video in one sitting, this is beyond impressive. Special kudos for doing it off stream, most of the time when ppl do these kinds of videos, there is a bunch of arguing with the chat and subscriber tts cancer that make it painful to follow. I actually watched all of it, was thinking about picking up Bg after like 5-6 years and your videos are amazing for refreshing my memory and even learning new things. You said you wanted ppl to talk shit, so here we go... note: most of my experience is from BGT, not EE, so some things may not apply a) mage->fighter - Sounds dumb, but it's not bad if you do it at lvl 2 and get a familiar, which ends up as a net +10 health or something like that. You also get things like identify and firiends to make your life easier. If you ever wanted to play a vanilla fighter because you are a boring person or something, this is just a strictly better version of that. Berserker is still better, so whatever. b) cleric/thief and thief(swashbuckler)->cleric - These are actually extremely powerful classes. I'm talking from experience, I went through about half the game with the multi, then realized that dual is better and did an ironman SCS+Ascenssion run. This was one of my smoothest runs, it was about as easy as it gets with the mods I was using. The idea is to level a thief up until he gets enough detection and then play a cleric afterwards. Both classes level very fast, which is nice. Swashbuckler seemed like an obvious choice, I don't care about backstabs and +2 bonus to hit/dmg is massive, especially in the late SoA onwards when you get energy blades. The power of this class is that you cover both your detection and your restoration with one character, opening a party slot for an extra mage or at least a hybrid like H-D. Your char doesn't do much on his own, though still performs much better than any npc thief or cleric, but it's a small price to pay for not having to drag Vicky and Jan everywhere. So imo, this multi should be at least at the same rank as a poorly built mage, given that it literally opens up the opportunity to pick up Nalia or Imoen. Also, dual is much better in SoA because, as you stated when talking about C/M, you want high level cleric spells earlier. Multi seems interesting with UAI, but I never got that far. c) archer->cleric - You are doing it wrong! You're not supposed to use slings, that sounds terrible. The point of this is that the archer bonuses apply to energy blades (I'm 90% sure it still does that in EE...). To be fair, when I played it, taking enough ranger levels to unlock casting would automatically give your cleric all druid spells, so R->C was one of the strongest casters in the game, but even without that that, having engergy blades with +4/+4 is just obscene. Otherwise, it's just a cleric that you have to babysit through fetch quests to level up. d) bounty hunter - You are underrating this class by a lot. The maze trap + thief HLAs is the best combo in the game, it's not even close. Maze trap can be used in combat, it goes through almost anything and it's aoe. You can solo almost any boss fight in late SoA and ToB just by using it, removing everyone from the map, then setting a bunch of HLA traps where they stood. I don't care how many attacks per round your F->M has, you are not going to do nearly as much damage as 3 spike traps. It's obviously still a pure thief before lvl 21, so it's a pain to keep alive through BG1, but if you want to do a quick keep+ToB run, this is one of the most fun classes you can pick. e) sorc vs. berserker->mage (vs. RDD) - I disagree on your pick for the best build in the game, I think sorcerer is better than any other class or dual, though I can see your point about berserker. I don't think being able to hit things is as important as having access to arcane spells, so I don't consider F->M to be that much better than a pure mage. Sure, in BG1 it's good to have a fighter that doesn't have 9 con like a moron, but then again, having a sequencer very early is also pretty fucking great. Later in the game, your mage can kill almost anything that can be killed by a weapon simply by using time stop + shapeshift. It's controling the mobs and stripping protections that matters, and if you are a sorceror, you always have access to rare and powerful spells as soon as your level allows. In my runs, I tend to not take more than 2 pure mages because the third one would have to wait forever to get high level scrolls. With sorc, I can have 3 pure arcane casters at all times, all with full spellbooks. Having the extra spell without casting restrictions is also insane, so sorc is better than any specialist and I have no clue why you would consider RDD to be better. You are giving away a spell at each level (except at lvl 3 because you get a free fireball, yay!) to get some extra health and effects that can be replicated by potions. It's a terrible deal.
Yeah I purposely only did dual classing at 9 because there are billions of low level or high level duals possible, would be way too much :( I feel all those cleric builds just really fall short of the HP DUHM RM combo tbh. Even a pure cleric having 4 apr 25 str and max weapon damage a swing isn't far behind energy blades, and it lasts a hell of a lot longer too, while also giving you the freedom to swap weapons if needed. The power of f dual to mage is the ability to weave in a ton of autos safely and still cast a spell too. The only high level scrolls that matter imo are CC, TS, and HW, all of which you get 2 of before elf city, that being said yeah you can get level 9s in spellhold on a sorc which is pretty gr8, but since you can also get a planetar the level 9 spell seems superfluous on a sorc tbh aside from memery. As for DD I really REALLY value pff, especially in ToB with the burning men and every high level wizard time stop imp alacrity spell crushing you, or amelyssan spamming breach wish and losing fire protection while balor are running around casting implosion etc etc. Still to each their own, at the end of the day everything is viable but some are definitely better than others indeed XD. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Overall great insights. Great channel. In the base game (no mods) the Totemic Druid is better than the regular druid because the spirit animal is a very good summoned creature that improves as you level up. It is one of the better things that can be summoned at mid and low levels. You get this for giving up shapeshifting into animals which you will never use. In the base game Totemic druids can still shape shift into Fire and Earth elementals as an HLA.
Loved the video and the comments, this game has a lot of depth and has kept me playing since I was a kid and it makes me happy seeing others keeping it alive. As someone who plays in the unorthodox manner of not having a party and just soloing things I'll add a few notes: Dragon Disciple's fire immunity is huge as you can stack on top of it with spells or items, any anything above 100% fire immunity results in fire healing your character. So if you have 150% fire immunity and fireball yourself for what would be 20 damage, you instead heal yourself for 10. Second, Cleric/thief is legit cool as u can summon skeletons to take aggro, and then hide in shadows in a corner and then backstab with your staff. As staff is a backstab weapon and you need to be a half-orc to be a cleric/thief having the potential base 19 str start with a 2h weapon backstab makes for fun early game if you're into that stuff.
Back in the day, before they nerfed the cleric/ranger, they used to be pretty bad ass. They could get full access to all divine magic, as if it was a cleric druid multi-class. That being said, you can still edit game files and change the class back to the original setting, which I've done in the past. It was a top 5 class for sure
Great to have this breakdown - a lot more changed in the BG2EE than I realized. Really glad you're going over all this and look forward to learning a bit from you videos on how to play at the uber high SCS difficulty levels (which I never could quite figure out). Glad to see you rank Dual over Multi and especial Berserker over Kensai. I think maybe back in the day there was a case to be made for Kensai, but I never liked it.
I don't know if you've tried this yet, but how about attempting to finish the game on the hardest SCS difficulty level with something like the weakest team? Rasaad, Minsc, Valygar, Keldorn, Jan (Imoen after spellhold), and CHARNAME=Cleric Dual to Ranger
Brother just want to let you know thanks to your awesome info dump videos I'm replaying BG1 now and it's just as awesome as I remembered back almost 20 years ago. Thanks buddy!
I love the Jester Class. Early game is a riot as you have a mid to high level spell at start. Whatever the "bonus" to enemies is, you have a unusually high level spell at gamestart, infinitely... INFINITELY recastable. a 30 radius AOE of confusion is being cast every 6 seconds, meaning they need to save every 6 seconds, forever... and once you get invis, the game becomes broken easy half of the time, and its even funnier, you can walk right into crowds, invisible... and its just a matter of time till monsters die at thier own hands, or are softened by self damages for the rest of the crew to mop up. I roleplay it as my bard wispering crazy insanity inducing phrases of logic, fabricated truths that mortal minds snowball into life meaning madness...
In the original BG2, Jester song was amazing. You could sing while invisible, it ignored magic resistance, and it worked on undead and golem (which normally would be immune to charm). The Enhanced Edition gave jesters a huge nerf for some reason.
Fighter gains an extra half attack on level 7 and then 13. So when you dual class with fighter you should leave fighter at level 7, 9 or 13 unless you're going for HLA. Level 9 is a cut off because of the HP and grand mastery on weapon training. In SoA you can hoard your level ups so when you dual you go from level 3 to (fighter level +1) that way you can drop all your new weapon proficiencies into another weapon mastery.
like the video man, nice and complete. 1- my perception is, at least in some versions of the game, the miscast from wizard slayer, stacks on "every hit", that means, even if the target is immune to your weapon, a hit is still nevertheless a hit, there's no damage done, but the miscast will stack. so a wizard slayer with tuigan bow + basic arrow, can disable any spellcaster in 1 round. and it works on demigod as well. 2- math, 1D8 weapon, the average damage is 4.5, not 4. (because you can not roll a 0...)
This guy right here… I mean, I couldn’t even imagine such comprehensive guides existed. And the devil is as eloquent as a black grandpa 😯 Best guide hands down. Amazing content! 🔥🔥🔥 Also, subscribed 👍
My first run on Baldurs Gate 1 was as a pure cleric with a Warhammer. It sailed through both games. Man, the mods you’re doing are wild. I need to look through the rest of your content.
@@Davaeornlol I felt that everything you said about Helm's Seeking Sword is entirely valid but it absolutely helped me chump BG1. Later on (I did play with Ascension on but not SCS) it did fall off pretty hard since I needed to be part of the bros team of massive buffs (BG 2 squad was PC, Aerie, Ammoen, Jaheira, Imoen, and Minsc). Kinda curious who I'd give the biggest hammer to in my next playthrough. Keep up the good work, I'm going backwards and watching some of your older videos whenever I have the opportunity to put a "podcast" on XD
I play BG & BG2 since 1999. I am not as good as Davaeorn by far. I try to remember which characters build where THE MOST FUN and share it with you: 5. Berserker. Best DpR. Great Immunities while berserking. Best Fighter against vampires, planetars and demi liches. One trick pony. A+ Tier 4. Berserker lvl9 dual to Mage. Berserker who cast arcane spells. S Tier 3. Cavalier: Tank. Strong early and mid game. Immunity to Fear/Charm/Poison and Remove Fear/Level. . Strong in TOB. 80% Damage resitance (buffed), 75% magic resistance and +6 to saving throws (unbuffed, item stats, Paladin saves not included). He can cast Divine Protection, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Armour of Faith and has all Fighter HLAs. You stack only Hardiness 3 times rest Critical Strikes. You have Atributes like 21 19 20 10 12 19 before you cast Draw Upon Holy Might. Killed Thaxll'ssillyia in less than 3 seconds with combat damage(Holy Might, Impr. Haste, Critical Strike, et cetera). You switch Carsomyr(Dispell on hit) or Flail of the Ages with Defender of Easthaven(Damage resistance). My Party was overrun and dead by 10 Glabrezu demons in 3rd level Watchers Keep. This alone guy killed every one of them. There is no Mage or Lich in ToB who can harm him while wearing the cloak of mirroring. Just imprisonment and Maze have effect. Shangalar (Twisted Rune) exploded after 3 crit hits before his contingecies fired up. For me: S Tier. 2. Sorcerer. Casts arcane spells. S Tier 1. Cleric lvl 11 dual to Mage: Versitile. Absurd with Sequencers and Contingencies. Insane with Improved Alacrity. Then Wish. Very strong in TOB. My personal S+ Tier acording to my expierience and preferences. You could also wait for level 14 to get Greater Divine Protection or Impervious Sanctity of Mind if you think its worth it. You dont really need to. You unlock late when you hit 3200000 exp.. It could make your Chain Contingencies stronger an you would not need Time Stop that much. I prefer level 11 (just 1400000 exp.). I give one example this dual class can do: Wanna buff your party and summonings? Lets cast Haste, Emotion Hope, Emotion Courage, Remove Fear, Bless, Chant, Prayer, Recitation, Wrath of the Faithful, Protection fom Evil 10r, Defensive Harmony, Mass Invisiblity in an instant. On top you can wear helmets, shields and weapons who have stats to it and do all the things which all the other mages can do. And you have more HP. I want to Note also that Davaeorns guides are the best I ever read and watched. I have read a lot FAQS around 2000-2004.
This is by far the deepest guide of this kind; thanks a lot. As a side note, your discussion of the classes is based on 'insane' difficulty with SCS. If you instead play on LoB difficulty, several things are of course quite different. For instance, all summoning is much more powerful because summoned creatures get the LoB bonusses to their stats as well.
Yeah, I always find LoB tedious sadly because it shatters immersion in so many ways. Like a mage in bg1 will cast one or two spells then chase u with a stick for an hour while u slowly range him down because his boosted stats means you lose melee fights but he doesn't have extra spells so it's just weird and stupid XD
Holy shit this was a lot of info in one package, had to watch in four pieces :D Very informative package of the differences which I bet gives some new info even for older players, I salute you! My first time with BG & IWD was nearly 20 years ago as a kid, being non-native English speaking had nearly zero knowledge of the core rules and the restrictions that different classes imposed on your rolls. Recently played through the EE-versions with much improved rules reading skills, and as it inspired me to plan of a solo run, this was a much needed info package of what aspects I definitely need to take into consideration in creating my character. Thank You again!
It's such a shame that the priest kits didn't follow more closely to the actual kits from AD&D. For example, the Tempus cleric got extra APR like a fighter, a weak beserker rage that could effect a certain number of allies, and the ability to get constitution bonuses above +2.
Yea baldurs gate seems like fighter dual is its bread and butter. I dont play pnp but I would assume theres other classes that have similar mechanical that were left out. I was particularly disappointed with how thief kits were so bad at combat. Is there any reason to fighter cleric multi tho when u can just go tempos cleric? That's something I remember from pathfinder where multiclass became terrible because new hybrid kits became the new multiclass. They went too far with it too of like a billion kits for every class and they all seemed to do the same thing just different flavor text.
@@ethosterros9430 Yeah there was a reason actually. So I’m sure you’ve probably seen the different spheres which a spell has. A generic cleric can cast from all spheres. A speciality cleric is limited by having a list of major and minor spheres, and can only cast spells that fall into those spheres. You can cast all the spells that fall within your major spheres, and only up to either 2nd or 3rd in your minors. Additionally fighter cleric duals/ multis have more diversity in how they specifically want to build by taking a certain amount of levels in a class. This is important mainly for proficiencies and Thac0. With this said, many people found them a little over tweaked (which they are) and just make them need 20% more experience.
Hey man, I'm new to the BG world and wanted to do a full blind-ish story run through every game before touching BG3. Just wanted to let you know your videos have been super helpful. I'm not playing a game remotely as difficult as you are, but your spell guides and class explanations have been an enormous boon for my understanding of the game -- and an equally harsh curse on my ability to stick with one character instead of trying out a hundred alts. Your knowledge of this game is so impressive it's actually obsessive, and I love people so into their weird little hobbies that it's completely unreasonable. You're a font of useful, clear information and the delivery's rock solid.
Attempting my first playthrough of (unmodded) BG2 after many, many years. For some reason I've chosen a shaman. It is an... interesting class.... It is an okay support class once you learn to play to its strengths. One strength that you didn't point out is that having a sorcerer-style chaotic command plus spiritual clarity means that you always have an answer to charms and confusions if you get surprised by such attacks. Also, having a rez always on hand is nice too... especially if you have Rashaad in your party...
Have to agree about the swashbuckler. While it has a certain charm against competent melee opponents it relegated to missile weapons and as a last line of defense for your spellcasters. The one exception is if at level 10, you dual class to the cleric. Once you get to level 11 in cleric you get a vastly improved melee combat cleric, with three thief abilities that are at least 100%. They can still use the Detect Illusion and find traps even with heavy armor. Can get three slots in dual wielding, effectively 2APR. Retain the +3 AC bonus even in heavy plate. With buffed strength they are almost as good as a fighter without holy power spell buff. They can only specialize in clubs I think, which you hate. I do find the +2 club in the druid grove useful as it essentially acts as a poisoned weapon. The only disadvantage they have slightly less HP than the normal cleric, but not by much. Great dual class for a cleric if you can bear going through BG1 as a swashbuckler.
I just found your channel, and let me tell you that I enjoy your content a lot. BG1 was actually my first PC game - my uncle gave me a copy for christmas when I was a kid - with 6 cds packed in a standard plastic case (including sword coast) the thing was BULGING. I finished my first campaign when I was 9. Your videos play my nostalgia like a fiddle and your passion have earned you a click on a subscribe button.
Just watching this, nice guide! Just one thing: (still at the beginning) A wizard slayer can use aoe auto attacks to hit mages with protection from magic. That would be arrows of explosion and dual classing to druid. (And maybe jans bolts, I don't remember if non-jan can use it), so there is some side usage in mage disabling :D
Yeah there's a lot of shit i wanted to mention but didnt, I wanted to talk about this specifically cause it was patched to not work if the enemy is using protection from fire (and most do) but if he doesn't then it does work. Some enemies (like irenicus at the tree of life) DONT have protection from fire up for some reason so it would be useful there indeed. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
One of my favorite solo games was with Wizard Slayer 9 / Thief. With use any items it was hilarious. I just stood in front of Irenicus and watched him rapid-firing me with magic missiles that did zero damage.
F/M/T and F/M/C still get access to the extra spell slot mage HLAs, but yeah other than that nothing. I wouldn't say you need another thief in the group as a F/M/T; you just have to be more careful about how you distribute your thieving abilities. As long as you forego luxuries like pickpocketing and wait 'til late game to invest in set traps you'll be fine.
Been waiting for this for months or is it over a year now since the spell guides were finished. Makes me want to try out some new classes. Thanks for the great content
This is one of the best videos on the internet. Your knowledge of the game and the entertainment I had listening to your emotion describing each class was incredible. Fantastic video!
New Davaeorn content!? Hell yeah. I always have your vids on my second monitor while playing BG, I feel like it helps my game passively absorbing info.
I played Baldur's Gate when I was like 5. I didn't understand what was going on, and died all the time when I got to the kobold dungeon and would inevitably give up there. Now I'm listening to a very passionate man yell about this game for almost 5 hours and it is highly entertaining.
i spend more time choosing a class and planning out who my party members are gonna be than actually playing the game so thanks for this, weird that watching a 5 hour vid is gonna save me time but there ya go
And that's why he's Rasaad and not Rahaappy
Too true.
Gotta feel for a character that can get smoked in Story Mode.
😂😂
@@Davaeornlol Choo choo
Asceticism isnt meant to be easy after all.
This video will go down in history as the definitive breakdown of classes in BG1 and 2. Decades from now this video will be referenced. This video will outlive you Davaeorn. You will be immortal.
Thanks for watching and commenting buddy!
Can't say enough good things about it
@@sgtpepper91 it's uninformed
"Heroes always get remembered but you know legends never die"
@@WetBoy How so?
"Chris Farley died to a timestop auto attack" out of context, this is really funny for some reason.
Feelsbadman
This is THE definitive class guide for BG 1 and 2 as far as I'm concerned.
It's so beautiful that we can have this much love for these old games!
god bless thanks for watching frend
Wow. Just came here to hear Dav praises my favorite class: the late game powerhouse, Monk!
BIG
I remember the original BGII guide praises them like crazy … 😂
I recently started giving Rasaad a chance and agree. Late in the game he’s actually pretty decent.
@@Gnoll-1337Ioun stones gave crit immunity back then, so monk and kensai used to be a bit more tanky. Jaheira was better with Iron skin with casting time =1. First dropped or was dispelled. Cast anktger one during the battle. Doom had cast time =1. A lot of changes with EE and even more with T/A + SCS.
Just got into Baldur’s Gate last week. I have 6hours in the game, and I haven’t left the tutorial zone. I keep remaking my party over and over the more I learn about classes. This video is helping me make my decisions.
I envy you :) Discovering deepths of this game is fun experience.
My 'otels as clean as an elven arse!
Lol same but I have been playing for 20 years
How was your run? Did you make it all the way through?
THANK YOU!!
I played TONS of BG and Monk is both my favorite and most played class. Everytime I mention how it's actually really underpowered compared to every other single class/kit, people start raving about it's late game potential. Completely ignoring 2 facts. The end game isn't that long and the path to it is arduous af and even in the end game literally every class actually does things significantly better.
People repeat the shit they found off a website 20 years ago without thinking about it, someday monks will be buffed to be good, until then we must suffer on.
@@Davaeornlol Monks are great in 5th edition. Arguably the greatest achievement of 5Ed is to have made ALL classes viable from the start and thus fun if a class interests you.
if you play with a small party, end games comes A LOT quicker, try it some time
I fell your pain man. I haven't played BG nearly as much as my friend has but I have played pathfinder and D&D for near on a decade. I love monks, or maybe the concept of monks? Either way it's disheartening sometimes to see the disgusting shit other classes can do all while you flail helplessly at an enemy all while being told you are somehow better? It makes no sense whatsoever. If you ask any D&D vet they will tell you that the late game literally doesn't matter. Because either you never make it to the late game or if you do everyone has god tier gear anyway so EVERYONE is strong. What matters most is the very early game and some rough patches in the mid game. Old monks excel at neither of those areas.
There is a story synonymous in my friend group with monks and how bad they are. It was when our group was still small, we had the DM, his wife was playing a druid, I was playing a monk, and my friend was playing a paladin. (this was in pathfinder 1E btw) We had a fight with a stone giant oracle. The druid and I are literally breaking ourselves on this giant. She is doing her best with her spells and I am doing 0-3 damage per hit because of DR. All the while the paladin is standing off to the side and buffing himself. 3/4 turns later (as the two of us are nearly dead) he is finally done buffing and activates his boots of flying to go up and swing at the boss. Nat 20, and because he had used a litany spell that buffs crit damage along with a max level smite...he legit did enough damage to one shot the boss regardless of the amount of damage we had done up to that point. So you tell me who is more powerful. the 40+ AC paladin with 3x the hp everyone else that can literally one shot a boss or the monk who literally broke his hands doing 1-2 damage per hit....
@@steeltrap3800 Monks are objectively the worst class in 5e as well
Love the content, the fact that there is someone on this level of knowledge and he is willing to share all of it in one comprehensive video is awesome!
Thanks for watching and commenting buddy
And don't forget the deadpan humor! Not a shitty fighter....a shitty shitty fighter!
4
@Davaeorn question for you. So I'm listening to the video and I'm at the monk part. My question is do you think people argue the monk is so good are saying that for solo whereas you are talking about group dynamics? E.g. the dark soul monk kit can detect illusions, but you'll always have a thief anyways? Time stamp is roughly 3:35:03. Ten seconds before that roughly, maybe 10 minutes ish for the monk in general. Thank you for your hard work and enjoy the day.
P.S. I think you forgot to mention Increased movement rate and hide in shadows/move silently as options for why you'd play a monk, especially solo. The human monk is almost like a half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Thief. Granted like you said how the Ranger is a shitty fighter and I think the stalker is a shitty ranger, so the stalker is a shitty shitty fighter.
man I really appreciate this video, sometimes id spend weeks starting and restarting different classes trying to figure out what would be the most fun. I've rewatched this whole video like 3 times cuz I just like hearing BG2 discussed, middle school nostalgia for me. the spell guides and weapon breakdown videos are also amazing.
I do the same god knows how many alts I rolled over the years in mmos and other games.
Man, I got to say, my throat hurts watching you have to go through all of that in one sitting. Being a D&D nerd who loves to explore the depths of builds, this was very very addicting, and I loved it. Took me awhile to get through all of this, but was well worth it.
Always wanted to play the original Baldur's Gate games and after beating BG3 twice I feel like its the perfect time for it. Very glad to have comprehensive guides on this 25ish year game.
God bless friend hope you enjoy it
My heart fills with joy seeing somewhat fresh content still being made about this classic game 23 years later.
Hey Dav, I've been playing BG2 for 20 years but only decided to do a solo run through the whole saga for the first time this week. Your videos really inspired me, and I'm proud to say last night I killed Amelyssan's ass last night with a berserker mage! It was core rules unmodded but still. The arcane spell guides were really helpfull too. It's crazy to me that people prefer the kensai mage, those immunities given by berserk are just too good! Thanks for keeping this game alive brother, looking forward to more from you!
Hell yeah buddy congrats and thanks for watching and commenting!
I love to solo this game too! How'd your run go? I used Robes of Vecna, Flail of the Ages, and Belm or Defender of Easthaven. Is that what you used, or did you go for Blackrazor or Foebane instead? I haven't gotten to Throne of Baal with him yet, but Shadows of Amn through the Underdark and Watcher's Keep went pretty well for me.
And yes, the enrage immunities are fantastic! A mage would have to rely on Spell Immunity or something and get immunity to conjuration (maze) abjuration (imprisonment) and enchantment (charm), using up three sixth level spell slots each fight to avoid those instant game over spells, while a berserker can just pop one of his enrage abilities and cover everything.
I'm one of those who prefer kensai/mage and berserker/cleric.
Was watching this for background noise/supplemental information while making my bounty hunter. Rolled a 97 while on the bounty hunter section. I take this as proof Daveorn is the chosen one. Thanks man.
bruh a 97? Niceeeee
I think I've watched / listened to this breakdown 8 or 9 times by now. It's just brimming with fast-paced, succinct information. I learn something every time.
If you did a weapon and armor tier list that would be legendary, obviously different pieces are better or worse for one class or another but could do alot with a list like that! Love your content man this is as comprehensive as it gets. ❤️
Soon.tm
Something that is worth noting is that the old version of Baldur's Gate (I mean BG1 before BG2 came out) allowed characters to dual-class a fighter or some other general class (like a cleric) to a specialist mage. So I dual-classed a cleric to an enchanter and also dual-classed a fighter to a necromancer.
More recent versions (even if they are old by now) of Baldur's Gate changed that but I wonder if it is possible to import a character that is a dual-class to a specialist mage in the old version of Baldur's Gate 1 to a new version of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn.
Thought of your monk rant when Rasaad exploded in my recent SoD playthrough
He wasn’t even a party member, he was still in the first chapter feeding refugees and the werewolf exploded him in under two seconds. I didn’t even realize it was him until I picked his damn monk slippers off the floor 😂
Okay, so about the Ranger class (and other "esoteric" classes) - these classes do not translate well to the Baldurgs Gate games to begin with, because they have skills in pen and paper that didn't make it to BG. The Baldurs Gate fighters rely on like to-hit, damage, percentage chances etc. Like Fighters and D. Defenders for example, those are so great in the Baldurs Gate series because their primary mechanic is raw numerical to-hit / damage / etc.
Rangers on the other hand, work much, MUCH better in a pen and paper setting with a human Gamemaster who can create situations for roleplaying and using the skills Rangers have in pen and paper - tracking, finding food and water, trailblazing etc. All of which do NOT exist in any of the Baldurs Gate games.
Very true.
You overstate the usefulness of the Ranger in PnP.
Even if we use accessories like skills & powers, combat & tactics and spells & magic the abilities the ranger gets are weak and super-situational.
If I really need a scout I would rather get a hireling than a ranger.
Why waste a character slot for this shitty class? Especially in a shortman party (3-4).
The only exception is the Archer which is a specialist fighter with ranger abilities (win-win).
You mentioned
- tracking
Tracking is not that useful, since maps are small and there is no quest the requires tracking in the game.
Even in PnP I would rather use scrying then risk being jumped by some monsters or animals following a smelly ranger.
Wizards and Clerics are superior.
- finding food and water
If the game had a survival system where you had to eat and drink, then this would matter
Even so clerics have create water and heroic feast, which is superior.
Even in Eye of the Beholder the cleric was responsible for the food.
- trailblazing (pass without trace ?)
to my knowledge only druids get this in the base game
- you could have also mentioned camp skills, since rangers are supposed to be survival specialists
But Wizards are better, since they can cast various shelter spells, like mordenkainens magnificent mansion, which is superior.
In the base game the only extra things Rangers get compared to BG:
- tracking skill bonus +1 every 3 levels. Note: if you take the Tracking HLA in ToB then this one is also covered.
- 2d6 special followers at level 10, which would be too weak in the SoA and ToB setting anyway.
In skills & powers you can create a ranger selecting from the following ability pool:
- bow bonus (+1 attack with bows), weapon proficiency system has this covered in BG
- climbing
- detect noise
- empathy with animals
- find and remove wilderness traps
- followers
- hide in shadows
- move silently
- pass without trace
- priest spells
- sneak attack
- speak with animals
- special enemy
- tracking proficiency
- two-weapon style
- weapon specialization
If you ask me we got most of these covered with the base class and the kits, but in BG they are even better suited for a video game.
Compared to PnP there are some differences:
- I don't think the stealth penalty in non natural environments (urban areas and dungeons) is implemented.
- In PnP the ranger can use any type of armor, but if he goes heavier than light he looses the two weapon fighting benefits.
@@kenawyn All of which depend on the kind of DM and Campaign in which the Ranger exists. If the DM always starts every Campaign above Level 1 (which is required if you want to use those nifty Ranger-replacing Spells Wizards and Clerics have) then of course Rangers are useless. Ditto for the DM who skips travel time and jumps right to the Dungeon crawl. It all depends on whether the DM creates situations whose solutions would be ideal for a Ranger to match. Hence, my original point - the class is better suited to PnP where a human DM basically forces the need for a class like the Ranger. Removing certain Spells that make the game too easy etc.
@@zimmicks3170 I agree, in low level campaigns the ranger is great.
In our games the DM never restricted spells and abilities for balance reasons.
Or at least not after we had already made our characters and the game was running.
It would have been a dick move, since you play for months expecting some spell or ability to come online and the DM tells you, oh by the way that ability you have been waiting for is no longer allowed in this campaign for reasons.
Also, if the DM has to gimp other classes to keep the ranger viable, then there is an issue with the ranger class design.
If I remember correctly, we only had a ranger in our group once, and the player asked the DM to change his class at level 12, since he felt like a gimped fighter by that point.
Reasons:
- Slow leveling. He was usually 1 level behind the fighter.
- No specialization (in base game only the fighter gets specialization).
- Shitty stats (13, 12+1, 18-1, 9, 14, 10) - he had to allocate his stats in a bad way to qualify for ranger, because of the minimum stat requirements (13, 13, 14, -, 14, -). He only qualified because he choose to be an elf.
- Shitty AC because of light armor and dual wielding.
He had 15% less chance to hit with his longsword (remember elves get a bonus) and dealt 6 less damage per hit.
Then he always took a lot of damage because of high AC and couldn't remain in combat for long.
Also our priest always buffed the fighter, since he argued that the Rangers defenses are weak, and he would rather buff the fighter, who is already good and with buffs becomes nigh untouchable.
As the encounter level went up and he had fallen further behind.
The GM even gave us a strength boosting item, in hopes that we give it to the ranger, but the party decided to give it to someone else (made more sense).
The DM offered him to use the skills & powers accessory book to rework his ranger using point buy, but even then he could not create a character that he was satisfied with, and finally rerolled as a fighter/druid, which he enjoyed way more than the ranger. He could contribute a lot more and his character became a major participant in most party strategies.
@@kenawyn Honestly, the AD&D 1st Edition Ranger was probably the best version. At 1st Level he began with 2 Hit Dice (2d8) worth of HP which was double the Fighter. And in the Unearthed Arcana supplement, Rangers could Specialize IIRC. AND, they could select Giant-kin as their Chosen Enemy, which basically encompassed all of the most common low level monsters (Orcs and Goblins were considered Giant-kin) and got the Bonus to Damage increased every level. So by the time you face Giants, your damage bonus per hit was 10-plus just from the Ranger Bonus. Add in Strength bonus and Specialize bonuses and its better than a Fighter.
The work that went into this video! This is the go-to class guide.
Wow, just... wow. Huge undertaking. I felt like we were sprinting at the end. I'm tired and it was wonderful
Ill keep my own amendments to a minimum.
1. Mage dual to fighter at lvl 2 is better than pure fighter in my opinion. Access to find familiar, prot from pet, shield spell, maybe even friends spell and the ability to use wands for the rest of the game is worth the 6hp. That one weapon prof point can be put to use as well for a head start on your second GM.
2. Its hard to tell when to categorize a build as strategy and when its cheese. But wizard slayer ability should be noted will be carried by aoe attacks. This includes druid fire seeds and arrows of detonation. It wouldnt change my ranking, but fire seeds for example bypasses MR.
3. Cleric kits suck. So same thoughts as Mage 2 > Fighter here. Mage 2 > Cleric doesnt really give up much but gives clerics access to find familiar, lots of really great mage wands for those dead cleric levels (offensively speaking) and saving throw penalties to specialty mage schools in the cleric list. Enchanter 2 > Cleric for example gives saving penalties for Cleric's Command (remember, it can still land beyond lvl 6--just not automatic), Hold Person (makes it useful for a little longer), and my favorite MISCAST MAGIC. This already has a -2 penalty. 80% spell failure at save -4 is no joke and unlike Silence 15', it is NOT negated by vocalize (looking at you SCS). Makes lvl 3 cleric spells useful for the entire game...
Congrats Dav on a massive video.
Yeah that's why I was avoiding anything dual other than 9 it opens up a world of possibilities :( Yeah i forgot to mention the wizard slayer aoe too although its been patched to not go through protection from fire anymore (which most will have up)
Weapon Proficiency points cant be shared across classes. So that one point cant contribute to GM. Best case, a single point to use a fringe weapon without penalty.
@@Davaeornlol I'd like to hear your thoughts on low level duals as well. Do you ever use them? What combinations are best, etc.?
For example, let's say someone wants to play a straight fighter (instead of a berserker) because they want to grandmaster crossbow and flail, wear heavy armor and get more/earlier HLA's than an archer. Do you think it's just best to go with a straight dwarf fighter for the shorty saves, or would an enchanter2/fighter be better so that you can cast spells from scrolls and use wands (extra strong Sleep and Paralyzation wand hits for enchanter) + a familiar + Sleep and Prot from Petrification helps early on, or maybe an assassin2/fighter for the +1 hit/damage bonus, plus poison weapon (although it levels twice as slowly as for pure assassin I think) and 2x backstab + about 55% detect illusion or about 80% open locks or something, or is the pure archer just better if you want to gm crossbow anyway?
Obviously there are other interesting low level duals too like various cleric2 duals.
I've been having a lot of fun with Mage 3 --> Cleric in one of my multiplayer games. Agree that it's an underrated dual!
@Rick Glaze very late response but yes they can? Not quite sure what you mean. If you put a point in Dagger as lvl 1 mage and dual to fighter, when you recover your mage lvls, you also recover your mage pips. Just pick up where you left off from there. Alternatively, if you sandbag levels and level up multiple levels at once, including unlocking previously dualled from class, those pips can all be assigned as if they are all unlocked. This is the only way to get grandmaster in BG1 with a fighter lvl 6 dual to cleric, druid, or thief and sandbag those lvls until you have enough to unlock your fighter class.
Cheers
This video is great. Picked up BG1 for the first time, found this video and decided to make twin half orcs, one Zerk and one Barb. Really wanted to see the difference. Listen to this video as I play, theory craft teams to make as I play through again. Definitely a gem to find when picking up a 25 year old game.
Single class barbarians have always been my favorite, for the reasons you said near the end of the description. They can become immune to physical damage and rage makes them immune to most spell effects. I subscribe to the idea that AC loses a lot of it's effectiveness in ToB, and barbarians lean into this.
I'm loving this video. Thank you.
thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Sadge that barbarian rage weaker than berserker but like you said barbarian straight beats pure fighter in scaling. Ac falls off completely and dr stacking becomes too important. Dr scales more the more u have theres no excuse not to play barba.
Cleric thief half orc is super fun, especially when you realize that you can backstab with quarterstaff for whatever reason and it deals a shit ton of damage
Dual classing really deserve it's own video. There are so many possibilities not mentioned here. For example I'm great fan of low level duals, especially fighters. Level 3 fighter to anything basically, at least, doubles you APR. Mage 2 to fighter allows usage of scrolls and wands etc.
Yeah there is a lot of shit you can do especially if you're only playing bg1 or even wilder, the original bg1
Hell yeah, this guide is pure gold. Nice work Dav!
Thx buddy
For as long as this game has been around and how critically acclaimed it is I would think there would be far more youtube content. Your vids came on my feed a few years back and your spell guides opened up the arcane knowledge that was withheld from my brainlet intelligence in my youth when i had first played. I have you to thank for that. Once the dogshit tier spells are ruled out and rare situational ones its like a swiss army knife how to win a fight.
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Thank you for taking the time to create these guides. It has vastly improved my gameplay. I have watched all of your videos. We appreciate you more than you know.
God bless you friend.
Man, this is a piece of sophisticated art stretching across five blissful hours. I'd rather accept a ring from that Koveras fella than rolling a monk, now.
They're fun to play even still I just wish they got some love, thanks for watching and commenting friend
Hahaha!
Is Monk bad? I was trying to think of what class to play for an evil run with a party consisting of Viconia, Kagain, Dorn, Edwin, and either Safana or Tiax for the first game, and replacing Kagain with Korgan and Safana/Tiax with Hexxat in the second, and rolling a Dark Moon Monk for my Charname.
Agree this is art!
@@TheCoolerDrilis If you're on the highest difficulty + the difficulty mod, yes. If not, it doesn't matter. If it's Neverwinter Nights, no.
Yes the manlet king with the biggest of Bhaalz that ever spawned has returned wb:)
Thx buddy
Dav!!! First and foremost, good to see you man. I pray that you're feeling better each day. Wishing you easy times ahead!
And as for this video... This is a magnum opus in it's own right! Years of waiting and decades of knowledge, makes this a crown jewel for any die hard Gate players. I will watch it as soon as I'm able.
Wishing you lots of health and blessings!
Thx buddy you're always my favorite eyeball.
@@Davaeornlol God bless you Dav! I hope you're feeling well this.
Seriously man I keep coming back to this video and spell guides even when I'm not actively playing.
@@brucechamberlin2545 Same here.
Haha same here
Something interesting that you can do is you can pick enchanter as a starting class, and then dual to cleric right out of the gate. This way you basically have a pure cleric that has a bonus to their enchantment spells, and also has access to find familiar. Its nothing gamebreaking, but i think its definitely worth mentioning
Yeah I decided not to even consider anything under or above 9 just because there are now a billion possibilities.
@@Davaeornlol That's your own fault for not understanding the complexities of dual classing. For example, did you know that if you dual class to a fighter as a level 2 mage, you can use robes and scrolls and stuff being pretty much a pure fighter. You lack the understanding of the versatility that dual classinf early provides. Thats why you are mediocre.
@@WetBoy Rofl, nothin perssonel kid.
@@WetBoy you want to watch 200 5 hour videos? Maybe make em yourself? What makes you think dev didn't know about this? Aaah get outa here
@@maomaeramnon3870 I don't deal with losers that have less subscribers than I do
I just finished my first playthrough of BG1 with a Kensai. Loved every minute of it, and now I’m planning out a second playthrough, maybe with a custom party. This video had some invaluable information! Thank you so much for putting in the time and effort and sharing your knowledge! Great stuff, man.
Glad you're enjoying the game friend thanks for watching and commenting!
It's amazing to me that this game has been out as long as it has and people like you are still putting out great content like this for it.
Great work!
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
I wish I had this video to refer to YEARS AGO. Thanks for all the work you put into this, it's inspired me to start another run through.
Thank you for making this video. I got BG 1&2 on sale back when 3 released. Didn’t realize how many options there would be just to create a character. This is a huge help because I was completely lost.
God bless buddy hope you enjoy the games
I just came here to praise all your efforts in this video and your great knowledge about the game. You deserve it. Keep going!
Thanks for watching and commenting buddy!
Davaeorn!!!! I've been looking forward to this for ages. Great content as always!
Thanks for watching and commenting buddy!
Best video ever. I've been thinking about these classes for 20 years and still learned so much from this
Hell yeah buddy thanks for watching and commenting!
I've been playing a Shadowdancer run with SCS etc. One super useful usage I've found for Shadowstep is that you can pop it, put on detect illusions, and dispel every Mage's illusion spells during the time stop. That is *so* useful. Once the timestop ends, your Mages can easily dispel the enemy Mages without having to worry about wasting a round on True Sight, etc.
Good idea m8 thanks for watching and commenting!
They'd be giga busted mage thief duals if they weren't so gimp on skill points.
This will now be my guide for all my new games. Bravo.
Thanks for watching and commenting buddy
Bro, I started playing BG1 again, so naturally encounter your videos. But not only are they the best BG videos out there, these are arguably the best guides for games that I've encountered. Can't say enough good things about them.
I've played BG1-2 at least once a year since it came out. Was still interesting hearing your thoughts on the game and I learned plenty. Listened to the entire thing. Well done sir.
It depends on which game and my mood to be honest, along with what mods. Davaeorn covers the hardcore SCS pretty well, but favorites from when it came out to my recent playthroughs:
Multiclass cleric ranger when you could get both druid and cleric spell trees, Any triple class for a solo run or any dual class for a solo run, WIld mage as anything because it was OP and fun to fuck with. Too many to really mention mate but those are the ones for non hardcore SCS that I've tried.
Also make sure everyone plays the game with companions at least 20 times lol.
The game has so many mods and so much variability that anything can be fun.@sugahtron
This is your best video yet! Despite being nearly 5hrs long, the time flew by. For me, this is the definitive Baldur's Gate kit/class guide. Looking forward to more videos!
Soon.tm thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Thanks for the info this is excellent, your commitment to the game and hobby is commendable. I've owned BG1 since it came out but when both EE's came out I just found all of the kits and options overwhelming. Especially when you factor in BG2:EE and the massive difference between a low lvl BG1 character and a max level character.
I'm glad you found it helpful friend thanks for watching and commenting
You are a true scholar sir. These are the most in-depth guides I've ever seen for a game.
I was thinking to make such a guide, thank you for showing how long it can be :). As a side remark, I am also thinking of another guide of class guide with a different approach. You mentioned tanks when parsing the fighter class, and I think this would be great for the BG community to get a list of "roles" or ways to build a character and sort the class according to these roles. Here is a potential list (maybe not exhaustive):
- tanks
- melee damage dealer
- range damage dealer
- spell damage dealer
- buffer
- dispeller (remove debuff from your party or magical resistance of ennemies)
- crowd control
- scout (invisible/stealth character)
- rogue stuff (steal/ unlock / handle traps)
- healer/rez
- summoner
This, this right here would be insanely helpful. Especially coming from someone that is the Candlekeep-tier repository of the BG series.
I've already watched over an hour and I plan to watch everything, but you're killing me with these several hour long videos man haha.
Thank you for making such a comprehensive guide on the classes, I really appreciate it.
Shamanic dance has been fun in a casual run with friends. The summons served as shields for my friends and I against the guys that eat brains, vampires, and I was also able to solo a Balor when my dancing summons started to become elementals. It's great for holding a chokehold to allow my party to throw spells.
Nice, thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Took me and evening and this morning to get through this, and I haven't played BG for years, but this was super insightful, thanks for condensing what must be thousands of hours of system mastery into this video, bravo sir.
Thanks for watching and commenting johnny tightlips I aint sayin nuthin.
Love how the video has chapters on it. You do great work, sir!
Thank you for this video, I live for theory crafting but would never be able to get all this information myself, grateful for others who share their information with others.
The monk roast was hilarious
Somebody has to tell the truth
I just listend to 2 class guides in this video and liked them. The fact you spent all this time to explain all of them deserves a Like by default.
You are a legend in so many way. Who makes videos this long and this detailed?!?
The dude explained the system for almost 5 hours. Damn! Great job and lot of work.
I didnt give dnd a fair chance first time I tried it because of how steep the learning curve is to start. Mans doing gods work people deserve a chance to enjoy these games
Just started replaying BG again and this video dropped. So far you have laid it down on my first character choice (Inquisitor) the next one I have rolled is a Blade (just my favourite class really) so looking forwards to what you have for them later!
Glad you're enjoying it friend good luck out there!
Only 1 hour into the video and I gotta say, you sir are a true beard of knowledge in this game. Love the content!
Thanks buddy glad you're enjoying it!
I've been playing this game for some 20 years yet I still sit through this entire video in one go, loving every second of it. I'd say you can be pleased with this video, it's still the best of it's kind out there. But hey, if you wanna re-record and improve, I sure as hell don't mind more content! Much respect and all love mah dude.
P.S How the heck do you beat Alhoon on insane SCS?! The rest of his crew were a piece of cake but he himself is such a fucking beast.
Dispel or run!
Holy shit, no idea how you managed to do this monstrosity of a video in one sitting, this is beyond impressive. Special kudos for doing it off stream, most of the time when ppl do these kinds of videos, there is a bunch of arguing with the chat and subscriber tts cancer that make it painful to follow. I actually watched all of it, was thinking about picking up Bg after like 5-6 years and your videos are amazing for refreshing my memory and even learning new things.
You said you wanted ppl to talk shit, so here we go...
note: most of my experience is from BGT, not EE, so some things may not apply
a) mage->fighter - Sounds dumb, but it's not bad if you do it at lvl 2 and get a familiar, which ends up as a net +10 health or something like that. You also get things like identify and firiends to make your life easier. If you ever wanted to play a vanilla fighter because you are a boring person or something, this is just a strictly better version of that. Berserker is still better, so whatever.
b) cleric/thief and thief(swashbuckler)->cleric - These are actually extremely powerful classes. I'm talking from experience, I went through about half the game with the multi, then realized that dual is better and did an ironman SCS+Ascenssion run. This was one of my smoothest runs, it was about as easy as it gets with the mods I was using. The idea is to level a thief up until he gets enough detection and then play a cleric afterwards. Both classes level very fast, which is nice. Swashbuckler seemed like an obvious choice, I don't care about backstabs and +2 bonus to hit/dmg is massive, especially in the late SoA onwards when you get energy blades. The power of this class is that you cover both your detection and your restoration with one character, opening a party slot for an extra mage or at least a hybrid like H-D. Your char doesn't do much on his own, though still performs much better than any npc thief or cleric, but it's a small price to pay for not having to drag Vicky and Jan everywhere. So imo, this multi should be at least at the same rank as a poorly built mage, given that it literally opens up the opportunity to pick up Nalia or Imoen. Also, dual is much better in SoA because, as you stated when talking about C/M, you want high level cleric spells earlier. Multi seems interesting with UAI, but I never got that far.
c) archer->cleric - You are doing it wrong! You're not supposed to use slings, that sounds terrible. The point of this is that the archer bonuses apply to energy blades (I'm 90% sure it still does that in EE...). To be fair, when I played it, taking enough ranger levels to unlock casting would automatically give your cleric all druid spells, so R->C was one of the strongest casters in the game, but even without that that, having engergy blades with +4/+4 is just obscene. Otherwise, it's just a cleric that you have to babysit through fetch quests to level up.
d) bounty hunter - You are underrating this class by a lot. The maze trap + thief HLAs is the best combo in the game, it's not even close. Maze trap can be used in combat, it goes through almost anything and it's aoe. You can solo almost any boss fight in late SoA and ToB just by using it, removing everyone from the map, then setting a bunch of HLA traps where they stood. I don't care how many attacks per round your F->M has, you are not going to do nearly as much damage as 3 spike traps. It's obviously still a pure thief before lvl 21, so it's a pain to keep alive through BG1, but if you want to do a quick keep+ToB run, this is one of the most fun classes you can pick.
e) sorc vs. berserker->mage (vs. RDD) - I disagree on your pick for the best build in the game, I think sorcerer is better than any other class or dual, though I can see your point about berserker. I don't think being able to hit things is as important as having access to arcane spells, so I don't consider F->M to be that much better than a pure mage. Sure, in BG1 it's good to have a fighter that doesn't have 9 con like a moron, but then again, having a sequencer very early is also pretty fucking great. Later in the game, your mage can kill almost anything that can be killed by a weapon simply by using time stop + shapeshift. It's controling the mobs and stripping protections that matters, and if you are a sorceror, you always have access to rare and powerful spells as soon as your level allows. In my runs, I tend to not take more than 2 pure mages because the third one would have to wait forever to get high level scrolls. With sorc, I can have 3 pure arcane casters at all times, all with full spellbooks. Having the extra spell without casting restrictions is also insane, so sorc is better than any specialist and I have no clue why you would consider RDD to be better. You are giving away a spell at each level (except at lvl 3 because you get a free fireball, yay!) to get some extra health and effects that can be replicated by potions. It's a terrible deal.
Yeah I purposely only did dual classing at 9 because there are billions of low level or high level duals possible, would be way too much :(
I feel all those cleric builds just really fall short of the HP DUHM RM combo tbh. Even a pure cleric having 4 apr 25 str and max weapon damage a swing isn't far behind energy blades, and it lasts a hell of a lot longer too, while also giving you the freedom to swap weapons if needed.
The power of f dual to mage is the ability to weave in a ton of autos safely and still cast a spell too. The only high level scrolls that matter imo are CC, TS, and HW, all of which you get 2 of before elf city, that being said yeah you can get level 9s in spellhold on a sorc which is pretty gr8, but since you can also get a planetar the level 9 spell seems superfluous on a sorc tbh aside from memery. As for DD I really REALLY value pff, especially in ToB with the burning men and every high level wizard time stop imp alacrity spell crushing you, or amelyssan spamming breach wish and losing fire protection while balor are running around casting implosion etc etc. Still to each their own, at the end of the day everything is viable but some are definitely better than others indeed XD. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
I just gotta say, this is absolutely unequivocally the most in depth class guide for the BG series I have found anywhere.
No, it's not.
After ten thousand years... I'll listen to this at work today. Cheers!
Woo!
Overall great insights. Great channel. In the base game (no mods) the Totemic Druid is better than the regular druid because the spirit animal is a very good summoned creature that improves as you level up. It is one of the better things that can be summoned at mid and low levels. You get this for giving up shapeshifting into animals which you will never use. In the base game Totemic druids can still shape shift into Fire and Earth elementals as an HLA.
Yeah it has a massive bonus to wep enchantment and in the base game NOBODY uses pfmw, they use mantles etc, which the summons could hit through NP.
Loved the video and the comments, this game has a lot of depth and has kept me playing since I was a kid and it makes me happy seeing others keeping it alive.
As someone who plays in the unorthodox manner of not having a party and just soloing things I'll add a few notes:
Dragon Disciple's fire immunity is huge as you can stack on top of it with spells or items, any anything above 100% fire immunity results in fire healing your character. So if you have 150% fire immunity and fireball yourself for what would be 20 damage, you instead heal yourself for 10.
Second, Cleric/thief is legit cool as u can summon skeletons to take aggro, and then hide in shadows in a corner and then backstab with your staff. As staff is a backstab weapon and you need to be a half-orc to be a cleric/thief having the potential base 19 str start with a 2h weapon backstab makes for fun early game if you're into that stuff.
Nice, thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Back in the day, before they nerfed the cleric/ranger, they used to be pretty bad ass. They could get full access to all divine magic, as if it was a cleric druid multi-class. That being said, you can still edit game files and change the class back to the original setting, which I've done in the past. It was a top 5 class for sure
Oh man! What an undertaking! This slipped under the radar in my subs but will be definitely giving this a watch. Great stuff!
hope you enjoy it friend.
Great to have this breakdown - a lot more changed in the BG2EE than I realized. Really glad you're going over all this and look forward to learning a bit from you videos on how to play at the uber high SCS difficulty levels (which I never could quite figure out). Glad to see you rank Dual over Multi and especial Berserker over Kensai. I think maybe back in the day there was a case to be made for Kensai, but I never liked it.
I don't know if you've tried this yet, but how about attempting to finish the game on the hardest SCS difficulty level with something like the weakest team?
Rasaad, Minsc, Valygar, Keldorn, Jan (Imoen after spellhold), and
CHARNAME=Cleric Dual to Ranger
We struggle enough with good teams tbh but maybe XD
Thanks for watching and commenting friend, yeah kensai was always whatever to me unless you're going thief in which case it's a blast.
Brother just want to let you know thanks to your awesome info dump videos I'm replaying BG1 now and it's just as awesome as I remembered back almost 20 years ago. Thanks buddy!
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
I love the Jester Class. Early game is a riot as you have a mid to high level spell at start. Whatever the "bonus" to enemies is, you have a unusually high level spell at gamestart, infinitely... INFINITELY recastable. a 30 radius AOE of confusion is being cast every 6 seconds, meaning they need to save every 6 seconds, forever... and once you get invis, the game becomes broken easy half of the time, and its even funnier, you can walk right into crowds, invisible... and its just a matter of time till monsters die at thier own hands, or are softened by self damages for the rest of the crew to mop up. I roleplay it as my bard wispering crazy insanity inducing phrases of logic, fabricated truths that mortal minds snowball into life meaning madness...
It could be fun to give it a serious go with malison indeed. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
In the original BG2, Jester song was amazing. You could sing while invisible, it ignored magic resistance, and it worked on undead and golem (which normally would be immune to charm). The Enhanced Edition gave jesters a huge nerf for some reason.
Several playthroughs of BG1/BG2 and this video is still very good to get new insights. Also your comments are hilarious! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Fighter gains an extra half attack on level 7 and then 13. So when you dual class with fighter you should leave fighter at level 7, 9 or 13 unless you're going for HLA.
Level 9 is a cut off because of the HP and grand mastery on weapon training.
In SoA you can hoard your level ups so when you dual you go from level 3 to (fighter level +1) that way you can drop all your new weapon proficiencies into another weapon mastery.
Thank so much for the info. This saved me alot of research as someone playing this game for the first time ever!
like the video man, nice and complete.
1- my perception is, at least in some versions of the game, the miscast from wizard slayer, stacks on "every hit", that means, even if the target is immune to your weapon, a hit is still nevertheless a hit, there's no damage done, but the miscast will stack. so a wizard slayer with tuigan bow + basic arrow, can disable any spellcaster in 1 round. and it works on demigod as well.
2- math, 1D8 weapon, the average damage is 4.5, not 4. (because you can not roll a 0...)
This guy right here… I mean, I couldn’t even imagine such comprehensive guides existed. And the devil is as eloquent as a black grandpa 😯
Best guide hands down. Amazing content! 🔥🔥🔥
Also, subscribed 👍
Thanks for watching and commenting friend glad you're enjoying it!
Berzerker 7 dualed to Thief is my go-to. So much fun.
I waited for this for a long time! Thank you. Just started watching.
My first run on Baldurs Gate 1 was as a pure cleric with a Warhammer. It sailed through both games.
Man, the mods you’re doing are wild. I need to look through the rest of your content.
BG is a blast for sure, mods make a huge difference id really recommend checking some out. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
@@Davaeornlol I felt that everything you said about Helm's Seeking Sword is entirely valid but it absolutely helped me chump BG1. Later on (I did play with Ascension on but not SCS) it did fall off pretty hard since I needed to be part of the bros team of massive buffs (BG 2 squad was PC, Aerie, Ammoen, Jaheira, Imoen, and Minsc).
Kinda curious who I'd give the biggest hammer to in my next playthrough.
Keep up the good work, I'm going backwards and watching some of your older videos whenever I have the opportunity to put a "podcast" on XD
And here I was starting to wonder about which audiobook will I listen to for the rest of my shift, great timing.
Thanks for watching and commenting friend
@@Davaeornlol Thanks for making it.
I play BG & BG2 since 1999. I am not as good as Davaeorn by far. I try to remember which characters build where THE MOST FUN and share it with you:
5. Berserker. Best DpR. Great Immunities while berserking. Best Fighter against vampires, planetars and demi liches. One trick pony. A+ Tier
4. Berserker lvl9 dual to Mage. Berserker who cast arcane spells. S Tier
3. Cavalier: Tank. Strong early and mid game. Immunity to Fear/Charm/Poison and Remove Fear/Level. . Strong in TOB. 80% Damage resitance (buffed), 75% magic resistance and +6 to saving throws (unbuffed, item stats, Paladin saves not included). He can cast Divine Protection, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Armour of Faith and has all Fighter HLAs. You stack only Hardiness 3 times rest Critical Strikes.
You have Atributes like 21 19 20 10 12 19 before you cast Draw Upon Holy Might.
Killed Thaxll'ssillyia in less than 3 seconds with combat damage(Holy Might, Impr. Haste, Critical Strike, et cetera). You switch Carsomyr(Dispell on hit) or Flail of the Ages with Defender of Easthaven(Damage resistance). My Party was overrun and dead by 10 Glabrezu demons in 3rd level Watchers Keep. This alone guy killed every one of them. There is no Mage or Lich in ToB who can harm him while wearing the cloak of mirroring. Just imprisonment and Maze have effect. Shangalar (Twisted Rune) exploded after 3 crit hits before his contingecies fired up. For me: S Tier.
2. Sorcerer. Casts arcane spells. S Tier
1. Cleric lvl 11 dual to Mage: Versitile. Absurd with Sequencers and Contingencies. Insane with Improved Alacrity. Then Wish. Very strong in TOB. My personal S+ Tier acording to my expierience and preferences.
You could also wait for level 14 to get Greater Divine Protection or Impervious Sanctity of Mind if you think its worth it. You dont really need to. You unlock late when you hit 3200000 exp.. It could make your Chain Contingencies stronger an you would not need Time Stop that much. I prefer level 11 (just 1400000 exp.).
I give one example this dual class can do: Wanna buff your party and summonings? Lets cast Haste, Emotion Hope, Emotion Courage, Remove Fear, Bless, Chant, Prayer, Recitation, Wrath of the Faithful, Protection fom Evil 10r, Defensive Harmony, Mass Invisiblity in an instant. On top you can wear helmets, shields and weapons who have stats to it and do all the things which all the other mages can do. And you have more HP.
I want to Note also that Davaeorns guides are the best I ever read and watched. I have read a lot FAQS around 2000-2004.
dude no way!!! this is a real gift of a video can't wait to let the knowledge wash over me
Thanks for watching buddy
This is by far the deepest guide of this kind; thanks a lot. As a side note, your discussion of the classes is based on 'insane' difficulty with SCS. If you instead play on LoB difficulty, several things are of course quite different. For instance, all summoning is much more powerful because summoned creatures get the LoB bonusses to their stats as well.
Yeah, I always find LoB tedious sadly because it shatters immersion in so many ways. Like a mage in bg1 will cast one or two spells then chase u with a stick for an hour while u slowly range him down because his boosted stats means you lose melee fights but he doesn't have extra spells so it's just weird and stupid XD
Holy shit this was a lot of info in one package, had to watch in four pieces :D Very informative package of the differences which I bet gives some new info even for older players, I salute you! My first time with BG & IWD was nearly 20 years ago as a kid, being non-native English speaking had nearly zero knowledge of the core rules and the restrictions that different classes imposed on your rolls. Recently played through the EE-versions with much improved rules reading skills, and as it inspired me to plan of a solo run, this was a much needed info package of what aspects I definitely need to take into consideration in creating my character. Thank You again!
It's such a shame that the priest kits didn't follow more closely to the actual kits from AD&D. For example, the Tempus cleric got extra APR like a fighter, a weak beserker rage that could effect a certain number of allies, and the ability to get constitution bonuses above +2.
Yea baldurs gate seems like fighter dual is its bread and butter. I dont play pnp but I would assume theres other classes that have similar mechanical that were left out. I was particularly disappointed with how thief kits were so bad at combat.
Is there any reason to fighter cleric multi tho when u can just go tempos cleric? That's something I remember from pathfinder where multiclass became terrible because new hybrid kits became the new multiclass. They went too far with it too of like a billion kits for every class and they all seemed to do the same thing just different flavor text.
@@ethosterros9430 Yeah there was a reason actually. So I’m sure you’ve probably seen the different spheres which a spell has. A generic cleric can cast from all spheres. A speciality cleric is limited by having a list of major and minor spheres, and can only cast spells that fall into those spheres. You can cast all the spells that fall within your major spheres, and only up to either 2nd or 3rd in your minors.
Additionally fighter cleric duals/ multis have more diversity in how they specifically want to build by taking a certain amount of levels in a class. This is important mainly for proficiencies and Thac0.
With this said, many people found them a little over tweaked (which they are) and just make them need 20% more experience.
@@chunckenugget7015 damn that sounds like a weaker specialist mage but I guess they get like apr too and other things
Hey man, I'm new to the BG world and wanted to do a full blind-ish story run through every game before touching BG3. Just wanted to let you know your videos have been super helpful. I'm not playing a game remotely as difficult as you are, but your spell guides and class explanations have been an enormous boon for my understanding of the game -- and an equally harsh curse on my ability to stick with one character instead of trying out a hundred alts.
Your knowledge of this game is so impressive it's actually obsessive, and I love people so into their weird little hobbies that it's completely unreasonable. You're a font of useful, clear information and the delivery's rock solid.
Glad you're enjoying the game friend thanks for watching and commenting! I too know the feel of rerollitis some day they will find a cure for us
Attempting my first playthrough of (unmodded) BG2 after many, many years. For some reason I've chosen a shaman. It is an... interesting class.... It is an okay support class once you learn to play to its strengths. One strength that you didn't point out is that having a sorcerer-style chaotic command plus spiritual clarity means that you always have an answer to charms and confusions if you get surprised by such attacks. Also, having a rez always on hand is nice too... especially if you have Rashaad in your party...
Yeah just at the end of the day i wish they removed the dance.
Hey Dav - Thanks for all your hard work on these guides. Love your streams!
Have to agree about the swashbuckler. While it has a certain charm against competent melee opponents it relegated to missile weapons and as a last line of defense for your spellcasters. The one exception is if at level 10, you dual class to the cleric. Once you get to level 11 in cleric you get a vastly improved melee combat cleric, with three thief abilities that are at least 100%. They can still use the Detect Illusion and find traps even with heavy armor. Can get three slots in dual wielding, effectively 2APR. Retain the +3 AC bonus even in heavy plate. With buffed strength they are almost as good as a fighter without holy power spell buff. They can only specialize in clubs I think, which you hate. I do find the +2 club in the druid grove useful as it essentially acts as a poisoned weapon. The only disadvantage they have slightly less HP than the normal cleric, but not by much. Great dual class for a cleric if you can bear going through BG1 as a swashbuckler.
Swashbuckler dual-wielding clubs is such a lack of taste though.
Maybe try Swashbuckler with time trap and whirlwind or 2 scimitars that give +2 apr, so 4apr x2 (imp haste) = 8 apr. It's hilarious... For some time.
This is awesome, and thorough. Thank you for your work!
Davaeorn!! You really did it!! Tausend Dank, mein Freund! Time to install BG1 again.
Woo!
I just found your channel, and let me tell you that I enjoy your content a lot. BG1 was actually my first PC game - my uncle gave me a copy for christmas when I was a kid - with 6 cds packed in a standard plastic case (including sword coast) the thing was BULGING. I finished my first campaign when I was 9. Your videos play my nostalgia like a fiddle and your passion have earned you a click on a subscribe button.
Thanks a lot friend glad you the game as much as I have, it really is one of the best ever made imo.
Just watching this, nice guide! Just one thing: (still at the beginning)
A wizard slayer can use aoe auto attacks to hit mages with protection from magic. That would be arrows of explosion and dual classing to druid. (And maybe jans bolts, I don't remember if non-jan can use it), so there is some side usage in mage disabling :D
Yeah there's a lot of shit i wanted to mention but didnt, I wanted to talk about this specifically cause it was patched to not work if the enemy is using protection from fire (and most do) but if he doesn't then it does work. Some enemies (like irenicus at the tree of life) DONT have protection from fire up for some reason so it would be useful there indeed. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
One of my favorite solo games was with Wizard Slayer 9 / Thief. With use any items it was hilarious. I just stood in front of Irenicus and watched him rapid-firing me with magic missiles that did zero damage.
This video has been essential for me getting into a more advanced playstyle! Thank you my dude!
F/M/T and F/M/C still get access to the extra spell slot mage HLAs, but yeah other than that nothing.
I wouldn't say you need another thief in the group as a F/M/T; you just have to be more careful about how you distribute your thieving abilities. As long as you forego luxuries like pickpocketing and wait 'til late game to invest in set traps you'll be fine.
Been waiting for this for months or is it over a year now since the spell guides were finished.
Makes me want to try out some new classes. Thanks for the great content
Thanks for watching buddy hope you enjoy it.
A 4 hour class guide? Well better get strapped in for the long haul. Cheers mate for the great content.
Thx for watching and commenting friend!
I can’t count how many times I’ve come back to this video since you released it. Excellent job! Thanks!
This is one of the best videos on the internet. Your knowledge of the game and the entertainment I had listening to your emotion describing each class was incredible. Fantastic video!
New Davaeorn content!? Hell yeah. I always have your vids on my second monitor while playing BG, I feel like it helps my game passively absorbing info.
Glad you're enjoying it buddy thanks for watching and commenting
I played Baldur's Gate when I was like 5. I didn't understand what was going on, and died all the time when I got to the kobold dungeon and would inevitably give up there.
Now I'm listening to a very passionate man yell about this game for almost 5 hours and it is highly entertaining.
Hell yeah glad you're enjoying it friend
i spend more time choosing a class and planning out who my party members are gonna be than actually playing the game so thanks for this, weird that watching a 5 hour vid is gonna save me time but there ya go
Hell yeah thanks for watching and commenting buddy!
I enjoyed sooo much your great piece of knowledge. Those were sweet butter 5 hours pleasure.
Glad you enjoyed it brother more to come soon.tm