The only thing I'd like to correct is Alignment absolutely matters - some equipment can only be used by good/evil/neutral characters and certain companions will leave you if you're not good/evil. Edit: you can and should get above 90 in your attribute rolls. Theoretically the highest roll would be 108 (all 18s) but it's astronomically low chance.
The game effectively rolls eighteen dice and that's your starter stats. The odds of getting all eighteen sixes on a single roll are 1,012,713,333.1 to 1. That's one billion twelve million seven hundred thirteen thousand three hundred thirty-three point one to one. Getting a roll of 90+ is only 28,000 to 1. So yeah, just go for 90. :P
I will now write the most true proposition regarding BG/IWD games: THE MOST FUN CHARACTER AND THUS GAMEPLAY IS THE ONE YOU GOT THE MOOD FOR AT THE TIME YOU PLAY IT !!! (Euphoric about Pirates of the Caribbean that I watched recently, right now I am pretty much enjoying the Bard Blade kit (Cpt Jack Sparrow) with a Pirate appearance :D )
I'd say the most powerful character in the original game is the Half Orc Fighter/Thief. 19 Str, 18 Dex, 18 Con. Get stealth to about 80%, and start back stabbing. Add boots of speed and it's just not fair.
For class, some good choices if you want to be powerful and actually good at something, or not feel gimped, are ones like Sorcerer, Fighter, Fighter/Thief, Blade (bard kit), Archer (ranger kit). Really most of the multis have quite a lot of potential. Fighter ones usually always enhance the paired class and give more variation in playstyle. Some standouts are fighter/mage, fighter/cleric, fighter/druid, thief/mage, and aforementioned fighter/thief. The triple multiclasses are a bit much and require more specific knowledge to pull off, I think. On that note, dual classes also make up some of the strongest classes possible, but require a lot more specific knowledge to know when to dual, and how to get over the initial hump after dualling (you lose access to the first class for a time). Berserker fighter dual to mage is arguably the strongest class in the game, but to pull it off you generally want to know exactly what you're planning. There's also some specific stuff to know if you wanted to play a sorcerer. Mainly that you have limited spells you can learn, so you want to know what spells are worth picking. Watch Davaeorn's arcane spell guide if you want to know what are good, and you can't really go wrong. Even with the limited spell list, you can get most of the spells you really want, and get to become one of the strongest classes. Lot's of fun once you get the hang of it. Single class mages are also an option, and do get to learn all the spells with the exception of the kits which each lose a spell school, but kits get more spellslots. Again you'd want to know ahead of time what kits are better experience. Conjurer is generally considered the best, and I think Invoker doesn't lose anything too significant either. Wild Mages are also great if you don't mind loading a lot too. Bard, specifically the Blade kit is also a sleeper option that is easily underestimated. Few things, first is you only get up to 6th level spells, but your spells scale higher and sooner because your caster level reaches higher than any other caster. This means a couple of things, one that all the damage spells you learn will be doing more damage earlier, and more importantly, certain key defensive spells (stoneskin especially) will last longer so you don't have to rebuff as much as other casters. Blade's also have th highest potential AC along with their magic, so along with their defensive magic they are actually the premiere tanks, not fighters or paladins. On harder difficulties both of them can actually get destroyed very quickly without the magic protecting them. Fighters are actually physical damage specialists. Highest single target dps. Berserker and Kensai kits do it even better. Archer if you want to do it ranged. To get the most out of them need to choose good weapon types. Axes, Flails, Longswords, Katanas, all good choices. Crossbow for Archer (or shortbow if you really want a bow). Have support buff them with protections, and watch them explode enemies, or do it from ranged and not worry. Thieves aren't bad options, but unless you're wanting to micromanage for backstabs, they mostly perform trapfinding and lockpicking duties. You NEED to have someone with both skills capped for dungeons especially. Mage/thief is good because you can cap those and peform primary thief duties, but also have spells to go invisible for backstabs, and some spells synergise really well with that. Fighter/thief on the other hand makes your backstabs more lethal (also easier to hit), more tanky, and you can still end up being the only thief later in the game (probably want a second one for thievint duties early). There are some pretty solid thief kits, but they reduce skill points by quite a bit, so you'd also be wanting a second thief while they focus more on the stealth skills to get the most out of their kits. One other minor thing missed in the video, Dwarves also get the dwarven defender kit for fighter, and gnomes can only be illusionist type mages, which also means they multiclass with the illusionist kit. Haven't really touched on Clerics/Druids. They're great, get a companion to do their job. If you have to be one, recommended multi with fighter. Paladins are ok, really aren't as epic as they are in bg3. Monks are kinda bad. Blade, Sorcerer, and Berserker/Archer would be my standout single classes for the main character. Blade let's you be able to try out a lot of playstyles, fighting ranged/up close, buffing, spell chucking, and even though you're not the best at those, you still end up being the best at tanking. Roll 90+ on stats. Just do it, it rarely takes more than a few minutes, and makes your player character feel more special and in line with who they end up being. Every player character wants 18 dexterity, and their cap for constitution. Either 18 for most or 16 for single class mages and thieves. Then just focus on what's specifically good for the class and if anything left over charisma for better merchant prices and overall interactions or strength for carry weight. Very fun game when you actually get into it. Decent story, and the world actually feels quite extensive. Highly recommend, can't say enough good things about it. S tier all the way.
I found barbarian is really good for first playthrough. You can only specialise in weapon proficiencies but that only means you can use many different weapons instead of hyper specialising. This makes you not get screwed over for picking a weapon class that doesnt really have any highly enchanted versions like spears in bg1. But I will say your fighting style is pretty important. You have to sacrifice so many extra points to pivot out of a style even with only specialisation. You also have a big amount of immunities with rage (little worse than berserker immunity). Get highest health even among other fighter kits and resistance to physical damage which is massive. But its mainly the proficiencies that matter for first run unless you try solo.
In BG1 bows are very strong, both because they do a ton of damage and because BG1 has a lot of exploding and anti-magic arrows. In BG2, your archer's relative dps is going to drop off, and there aren't any of those cookie cutter arrows no more. Or, I think they are still in the game files and you can find them occasionally in weird random drops, but merchants don't carry them and there are no scripted stashes. Too bad, so sad. Here's a secret about BG2 though: some of the outcomes of your early choices will depend on what weapons you can actually get your hands on in BG2. This isn't random or balanced over all weapon classes like in lets say Diablo. The game has a few named weapons that are really good, and they only come in the weapon types they come in. There's an awesome flail. There's a couple of really good axes. There's a 2H sword that you can only use if you're a good paladin. There is a single good broadsword that you can only get super late game, but there are great longswords all over the place. There are crossbows and short bows that kicks ass, but if your archer has gone whole hog into longbows, you're kinda screwed. BG1 has lots of rogue companions that you can recruit and two or three of them are really good, so you don't have to be one yourself. BG2 ... maybe not so much. I still think that as a dual class or multiclass rogue you will get enough skillpoints to do all the thieving, lockpicking and detrapping you need. Multiclass fighter/thief or thief/mage are a ton of fun. If you're also a fighter your backstabs will have a lot more oumph, and if you're also a mage you can turn invisible, load up with magical armor or sneak up and fireball enemies before they know you exist. Synergies baby.
i'd say if you're playing baldurs gate 1, i'd warn about RNG and disabling spells and traps and poison, that and how weirdly it calculates armor and hit chance, you want negative AC and negative hit chance. RNG very early on can get you killed really quick or even one-shot especially if you play a caster, disabling spells can get you and your party killed also, traps can kill too so you need to have a trap spotter, luckily for you the first companion you get is imoen who can do that. however with that said, you can do all the cheese the enemies does to you and then some, you can hit them with sleep spell and you win most fights with it, you can stack skull traps, you can mass summon from summon scrolls. my first playthrough on BG 1 was a sorcerer and he got one shot so many times early on, then i got sleep spell and pretty much breezed through to end game. but i can't see why you couldn't play literally any character you want, just know that this is old D&D and the classes and rules are a bit different.
Hit chance is so hard to calculate. Thac0 is to hit AC 0 but you dont know the enemy's AC. You can have 7 Thac0 meaning just roll a 7 after all the bonuses but enemy has -8 AC and you dont know so now you have to roll 15 to hit. Now they can also have bonus ac vs your damage type so now you gotta roll a bit higher. Same for enemies with positive AC. Just gotta find rolls that hit and guesstimate. (or use mod)
Thief - Bounty Hunter. You can throw special snare traps out of enemy LOS and kill them that way. All you do is go to stealth, scout, once you scouted an enemy or enemy group move away a bit from theirs and your LOS and throw special snare trap at the edge of your LOS near them, trap will get triggered and it will kill then camp and repeat.
I’ve played half elf ranger and half orc fighter with max strength. Honestly rangers are just fun to play, whereas I find the fighter effective but just a little boring if I’m being honest. There are plenty of thieves to pick from to round out your party so I never really went for a thief character
no. wisdom and intelligence influence the number of the spells you can memorised (and not for all classes) but not the casting itself (the power of the spells is nfluenced by your character lvl). charisma does nothing in combat, it only influences your encounters with npcs and prices
I've tried to play 'sanely' in BG1, and never used a bow in face-to-face combat - does the game penalise you for that? Does BG2? (never played) Wish there was a penalty for / prohibition on non-evil clerics animating dead. Am not pining for lack of this, though.
No penalty for swapping weapons in combat but if you were to shoot a bow in melee range you suffer a -8 to hit penalty and melee enemy gains a +4 to hit you.
The only thing I'd like to correct is Alignment absolutely matters - some equipment can only be used by good/evil/neutral characters and certain companions will leave you if you're not good/evil.
Edit: you can and should get above 90 in your attribute rolls. Theoretically the highest roll would be 108 (all 18s) but it's astronomically low chance.
to each their own!
The game effectively rolls eighteen dice and that's your starter stats.
The odds of getting all eighteen sixes on a single roll are 1,012,713,333.1 to 1.
That's one billion twelve million seven hundred thirteen thousand three hundred thirty-three point one to one.
Getting a roll of 90+ is only 28,000 to 1.
So yeah, just go for 90. :P
2nd ED rules are the best hands down
I will now write the most true proposition regarding BG/IWD games:
THE MOST FUN CHARACTER AND THUS GAMEPLAY IS THE ONE YOU GOT THE MOOD FOR AT THE TIME YOU PLAY IT !!!
(Euphoric about Pirates of the Caribbean that I watched recently, right now I am pretty much enjoying the Bard Blade kit (Cpt Jack Sparrow) with a Pirate appearance :D )
I'd say the most powerful character in the original game is the Half Orc Fighter/Thief. 19 Str, 18 Dex, 18 Con. Get stealth to about 80%, and start back stabbing. Add boots of speed and it's just not fair.
Kewl
For class, some good choices if you want to be powerful and actually good at something, or not feel gimped, are ones like Sorcerer, Fighter, Fighter/Thief, Blade (bard kit), Archer (ranger kit).
Really most of the multis have quite a lot of potential. Fighter ones usually always enhance the paired class and give more variation in playstyle. Some standouts are fighter/mage, fighter/cleric, fighter/druid, thief/mage, and aforementioned fighter/thief. The triple multiclasses are a bit much and require more specific knowledge to pull off, I think.
On that note, dual classes also make up some of the strongest classes possible, but require a lot more specific knowledge to know when to dual, and how to get over the initial hump after dualling (you lose access to the first class for a time). Berserker fighter dual to mage is arguably the strongest class in the game, but to pull it off you generally want to know exactly what you're planning.
There's also some specific stuff to know if you wanted to play a sorcerer. Mainly that you have limited spells you can learn, so you want to know what spells are worth picking. Watch Davaeorn's arcane spell guide if you want to know what are good, and you can't really go wrong. Even with the limited spell list, you can get most of the spells you really want, and get to become one of the strongest classes. Lot's of fun once you get the hang of it.
Single class mages are also an option, and do get to learn all the spells with the exception of the kits which each lose a spell school, but kits get more spellslots. Again you'd want to know ahead of time what kits are better experience. Conjurer is generally considered the best, and I think Invoker doesn't lose anything too significant either. Wild Mages are also great if you don't mind loading a lot too.
Bard, specifically the Blade kit is also a sleeper option that is easily underestimated. Few things, first is you only get up to 6th level spells, but your spells scale higher and sooner because your caster level reaches higher than any other caster. This means a couple of things, one that all the damage spells you learn will be doing more damage earlier, and more importantly, certain key defensive spells (stoneskin especially) will last longer so you don't have to rebuff as much as other casters. Blade's also have th highest potential AC along with their magic, so along with their defensive magic they are actually the premiere tanks, not fighters or paladins. On harder difficulties both of them can actually get destroyed very quickly without the magic protecting them.
Fighters are actually physical damage specialists. Highest single target dps. Berserker and Kensai kits do it even better. Archer if you want to do it ranged. To get the most out of them need to choose good weapon types. Axes, Flails, Longswords, Katanas, all good choices. Crossbow for Archer (or shortbow if you really want a bow). Have support buff them with protections, and watch them explode enemies, or do it from ranged and not worry.
Thieves aren't bad options, but unless you're wanting to micromanage for backstabs, they mostly perform trapfinding and lockpicking duties. You NEED to have someone with both skills capped for dungeons especially. Mage/thief is good because you can cap those and peform primary thief duties, but also have spells to go invisible for backstabs, and some spells synergise really well with that. Fighter/thief on the other hand makes your backstabs more lethal (also easier to hit), more tanky, and you can still end up being the only thief later in the game (probably want a second one for thievint duties early). There are some pretty solid thief kits, but they reduce skill points by quite a bit, so you'd also be wanting a second thief while they focus more on the stealth skills to get the most out of their kits.
One other minor thing missed in the video, Dwarves also get the dwarven defender kit for fighter, and gnomes can only be illusionist type mages, which also means they multiclass with the illusionist kit.
Haven't really touched on Clerics/Druids. They're great, get a companion to do their job. If you have to be one, recommended multi with fighter.
Paladins are ok, really aren't as epic as they are in bg3. Monks are kinda bad.
Blade, Sorcerer, and Berserker/Archer would be my standout single classes for the main character. Blade let's you be able to try out a lot of playstyles, fighting ranged/up close, buffing, spell chucking, and even though you're not the best at those, you still end up being the best at tanking.
Roll 90+ on stats. Just do it, it rarely takes more than a few minutes, and makes your player character feel more special and in line with who they end up being. Every player character wants 18 dexterity, and their cap for constitution. Either 18 for most or 16 for single class mages and thieves. Then just focus on what's specifically good for the class and if anything left over charisma for better merchant prices and overall interactions or strength for carry weight.
Very fun game when you actually get into it. Decent story, and the world actually feels quite extensive. Highly recommend, can't say enough good things about it. S tier all the way.
fun times :)
Thx man. I played divinity...loved it. Can't or won't play bg3 w out a physical copy. Thx fir these
Won't would be the proper grammar for personal choice.
I found barbarian is really good for first playthrough. You can only specialise in weapon proficiencies but that only means you can use many different weapons instead of hyper specialising. This makes you not get screwed over for picking a weapon class that doesnt really have any highly enchanted versions like spears in bg1.
But I will say your fighting style is pretty important. You have to sacrifice so many extra points to pivot out of a style even with only specialisation.
You also have a big amount of immunities with rage (little worse than berserker immunity). Get highest health even among other fighter kits and resistance to physical damage which is massive. But its mainly the proficiencies that matter for first run unless you try solo.
In BG1 bows are very strong, both because they do a ton of damage and because BG1 has a lot of exploding and anti-magic arrows. In BG2, your archer's relative dps is going to drop off, and there aren't any of those cookie cutter arrows no more. Or, I think they are still in the game files and you can find them occasionally in weird random drops, but merchants don't carry them and there are no scripted stashes. Too bad, so sad.
Here's a secret about BG2 though: some of the outcomes of your early choices will depend on what weapons you can actually get your hands on in BG2. This isn't random or balanced over all weapon classes like in lets say Diablo. The game has a few named weapons that are really good, and they only come in the weapon types they come in. There's an awesome flail. There's a couple of really good axes. There's a 2H sword that you can only use if you're a good paladin. There is a single good broadsword that you can only get super late game, but there are great longswords all over the place. There are crossbows and short bows that kicks ass, but if your archer has gone whole hog into longbows, you're kinda screwed.
BG1 has lots of rogue companions that you can recruit and two or three of them are really good, so you don't have to be one yourself. BG2 ... maybe not so much. I still think that as a dual class or multiclass rogue you will get enough skillpoints to do all the thieving, lockpicking and detrapping you need. Multiclass fighter/thief or thief/mage are a ton of fun. If you're also a fighter your backstabs will have a lot more oumph, and if you're also a mage you can turn invisible, load up with magical armor or sneak up and fireball enemies before they know you exist. Synergies baby.
Lots of fun stuff in BG to uncover!
i'd say if you're playing baldurs gate 1, i'd warn about RNG and disabling spells and traps and poison, that and how weirdly it calculates armor and hit chance, you want negative AC and negative hit chance.
RNG very early on can get you killed really quick or even one-shot especially if you play a caster, disabling spells can get you and your party killed also, traps can kill too so you need to have a trap spotter, luckily for you the first companion you get is imoen who can do that.
however with that said, you can do all the cheese the enemies does to you and then some, you can hit them with sleep spell and you win most fights with it, you can stack skull traps, you can mass summon from summon scrolls.
my first playthrough on BG 1 was a sorcerer and he got one shot so many times early on, then i got sleep spell and pretty much breezed through to end game.
but i can't see why you couldn't play literally any character you want, just know that this is old D&D and the classes and rules are a bit different.
Yep
Hit chance is so hard to calculate. Thac0 is to hit AC 0 but you dont know the enemy's AC. You can have 7 Thac0 meaning just roll a 7 after all the bonuses but enemy has -8 AC and you dont know so now you have to roll 15 to hit. Now they can also have bonus ac vs your damage type so now you gotta roll a bit higher. Same for enemies with positive AC.
Just gotta find rolls that hit and guesstimate. (or use mod)
Thief - Bounty Hunter.
You can throw special snare traps out of enemy LOS and kill them that way.
All you do is go to stealth, scout, once you scouted an enemy or enemy group move away a bit from theirs and your LOS and throw special snare trap at the edge of your LOS near them, trap will get triggered and it will kill then camp and repeat.
kewl
As a character that never have leaved Candlekeep, most of the classes does not make sense.
I’ve played half elf ranger and half orc fighter with max strength. Honestly rangers are just fun to play, whereas I find the fighter effective but just a little boring if I’m being honest. There are plenty of thieves to pick from to round out your party so I never really went for a thief character
For some!
@@Renfail Although a solo assassin play through might be interesting if it’s possible.
The answer to the title question is as many as you can!
for some
Is spell casting tied to attributes?
For example CHA for sorcerers and INT for wizards as in later d&d editions.
Yes
@@Renfail CHA for sorcerers still like 3rd and 5th editions still? Was thinking of playing one.
Yep!@@1helluvaguy738
@@Renfail Cool. Thanks!
no. wisdom and intelligence influence the number of the spells you can memorised (and not for all classes) but not the casting itself (the power of the spells is nfluenced by your character lvl). charisma does nothing in combat, it only influences your encounters with npcs and prices
I've tried to play 'sanely' in BG1, and never used a bow in face-to-face combat - does the game penalise you for that? Does BG2? (never played)
Wish there was a penalty for / prohibition on non-evil clerics animating dead. Am not pining for lack of this, though.
Unless you have specific perks, yes, there are penalties for close combat with bows
No penalty for swapping weapons in combat but if you were to shoot a bow in melee range you suffer a -8 to hit penalty and melee enemy gains a +4 to hit you.
Paladin.
That's one way to roll :)
I absolutely despise 5th edition. It feels so streamlined, and boring.. made for a modern audience
Sucks to be you. Here's some tissues to wipe those tears.
You're not wrong but this game is old af, like I started playing this game 13 years ago and it was old then lol
I know what you mean. And despite op being an ass it sucks for everyone.
@@doncoyote68 Im an ass, because 5th edition d&d is made for children? Alright.. Ill stick to bg1 and 2. Bg3 and solasta were boring as hell
@@Renfailsometimes gatekeepers are a good thing. Just a heads up