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Hey guys,
So today i decided to take a break from WoW and reinstall this sweet game and play it.
I remember playing it on either a warrior or mage about 1-2 years ago, getting pretty far in the game too.

I've been reading up to remember stuff, and my main question is, what class to pick? I can't remember much of my last toon, but i get the feeling i was playing a hardcore mage and he was was amazing.

I know the warrior has good damage, and obviously if you wanna be a caster then you go with mage. I also know the classless system of the game.

I need to know a few quick things, to better help me decide what to pick:

1- If i make a mage, and go for the pure caster path, is it doable? (and by duable i mean not really hard to play, as long as it's decent). Also, what would be my weapon of choice?

2- How is the play style of a survivor? I really want to make one, and specialize in playing just like a rogue/assassin. using daggers, poisons, hiding and stuff. I read tons of posts on these forums but barely found any details on how exactly this class works and if it can be done this way.

3- Assassin's kiss skill, that uses backstab, makes me confused lol. Do i have to be behind a target to get the ability to trigger?

4- How exactly does the survivor class skill "sneak" work, for the male version? I know that it makes me go in stealth mode, but as soon as i get a few inches near the enemy they attack me. Does light or distance affect this?

5- can i get tips on how to play a survivor in it's RPG sense of playstyle that will work with the game's combat mechanics? sneaking, traps, backstabs, daggers, poisions, and stealing tricks or correct methods?

6- can i please get a list of what survivor skills are broken, or don't scale well as i level up?

Thanks alot for anyone who answers these, because so far, the idea i'm getting is to make a pure hack/slash warrior with a few mage spells like freeze, in order to play smoothly through the game, and well, i'd rather be a caster or surviver if i have more insight on how these 2 classes work later on in the game.

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3- Assassin's kiss skill, that uses backstab, makes me confused lol. Do i have to be behind a target to get the ability to trigger?



I can't answer all those questions but I got a handle on this one. How backstab works is you just attack like normal. The more points you have it back stab the greater % chance you have of doing double damage. When the back stab damage is applied, you will see the work backstab just under the damge applied to the monster. Maxed out back stab gives a 50% chance to do double damage. So the net effect is a dagger is then doing 150% of its listed damage.

The best daggers in the game have a range of about 47-63 damage. (A little higher for non magic weapons) Compare this to the best one handed swords which go 71-100 on the uniques and a bit higher in non magic weapons. Swords however can get no additional damage from spells only greater % chance to hit and speed increase. So a 47-65 damage dagger will give an effective damage range of 70-94 which the backstab modifier. Similar damage to a one handed sword. The dagger with the best potential is the one from the Holy weapons quest. If you save before you identify it, you can reload to get better mods on it.

My warrior class is using a dagger. Of course the warrior is better at melee not just because of higher damage from strengh points but because of the whirl speacial attack which will hit all close targets instead of just one.

From reading other posts I believe scorpians is one of the favorite traps of survivors. I tried them out with my warrior and with only 1 point in the deadly gift skill they over power the imps in the wasteland. If you place the Aura of command skill on a scorpian it will follow you around and attack who you attack instead of running around randomly. I don't like them much because they seem too strong for just 1 skill point.

There are multiple ways you could play a survivor. Keep in mind that all 3 classes could be made into casters because the merchants in the market place and Verdistis sell silver charms early in the game and gold ones will drop in the last 3rd of the game. It takes awhile to get enough money to buy them. With charms and equipment even a warrior class with no points in constitution can get 600-700 mana around level 25ish. Not all games go the same, sometimes the merchants sell strength charms when you need mana.

Some dangerous quests can be done earlier by using shadow potions or the fade from sight spell. You can do missions behind enemy lines this way.

Skelatal wall can help occupy baddies while you cast. Life leech is great for the Elite orcs no matter what class you use.

Don't know if any of this helps. I have noticed that monsters in the wasteland (last part) have around 75-100 resistance so elemental spells don't work as well then but the curse spell(there are two, the one in the survior tree is better) will lower there resistance. Hell spikes are good because monsters have no resistance to them as they are considered a physical attack.

I suggest saving your game before you add a new spell. Then try the spell, if you don't like it, reload your save and select a different one.

Edit- I stated swords can get no additional damge from spells. I meant physical damage. There are of course the ones that add elemental damge but these can apply to any melee weapon. The elemental ones that add poison, fire etc help more in the beginning of the game and not as much later on.


Last edited by red_green; 16/03/08 01:57 AM.
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differences between classes (minor spoilers)

Early Starter Tips (NON-Spoiler Version) (contains much of the information in the above topic)


AFAIK a pure mage character is feasible (have not played a mage), though you may want a few other skills, like Lockpick and Identify. The Survivor's Curse spell is much more effective than the mage's Withering Curse.

Kaan's Mage Guide

Playing a mage character...


For a mage I'd try a bow for a weapon. Some people try to find a knife/sword with Frost on it (unlike the Freeze spell, Frost on a weapon ignores the target's resistances, so is very effective).

Archery as a warrior - my thoughts

There was a 'way of the sniper' topic in the old forum, most of which is probably in the above topic in some form. That was the only thing resembling a survivor's guide that I recall (that poster used a survivor with a bow (dagger as a backup) with Poison Weapon).


A survivor is probably the most challenging class to play, with less of a strength damage bonus than a warrior, and less of an intelligence mana bonus than a mage. Of course you wouldn't try building a pure melee fighter or a pure magic user with a survivor, so these differences aren't necessarily disadvantages.

After finishing the game with a melee warrior on the normal difficulty level I started another with an archer survivor on hard. I'd have to play a survivor on normal or a warrior on hard to be sure, but I think more of the increased challenge came from the difficulty level than the class change. In any case, if you have played the game before judicious choice of skills and play style can make a big difference in your character's performance.


I don't know if anyone has tried a pure assassin build.

As Red Green described, you do not need to be behind a target to use Assassin's Kiss; it is just a damage bonus for knives and daggers. With a very good dagger and this skill maxed, you can pretty much get up to the max damage of a good one handed sword. The game is fairly biased towards swords when it comes to unique weapons that are always in the game, but there are at least a couple unique daggers.
I don't know if the damage bonuses from Assassin's Kiss (short blades) and the warrior's Augment Damage skill (melee weapons) stack or not.


Sneak works pretty much the same as Embrace Shadows, the Fade From Sight spell or a shadow potion (none of which I've used much). Getting too far into the light or too close to an enemy will turn you visible, as will directly targeting an opponent with an attack or pulling a lever, opening a door, etc. Sneaking and Embrace Shadows consume stamina, and will expire if you run out (Fade From Sight consumes mana and IIRC shadow potions have a maximum time limit). I would guess Embrace Shadows is either more effective than Sneak or uses less stamina (1 stamina point per second when maxed), otherwise there wouldn't be much point to the skill.
I believe you can use Telekinesis to put out torches as you are sneaking around.


Alchemy Guide (for making poison potions) - see also restoration potions

Tingalf in Ars Magicana or Finnigan in the cellar of the Ducal Inn in Versistis are good sources for traps, poison, etc.

Scorpion traps are very overpowered. The spell description says level 1 scorpions have 100 hit points, but IIRC they are actually level 100.

Save before attempting to steal. Reloading is easier to do than dealing with getting caught (though there are ways to handle that, as well).
There is also an exploit for stealing, though it may make it easy enough not to be fun anymore.
If you place a container in your inventory and open it, then drag and drop loot into the container it is not considered stealing, so you can simply walk away. It is considered stealing when you remove the items from the container, though, so make sure you are alone when you do so. If you have not joined the thieves' guild yet, the lowest weight container is a sack of grain.


The only skills that are broken are True Sight and the damage portion of Crossbow Expertise.

Assassin's Kiss - max if you are using a dagger

Pickpocket - mostly unnecessary, but some find it fun. Level 1 is required for a quest, though you may be able to find an item with this skill bonus. Level 2 is needed for a minor optional quest.

Lockpick - max, can get 2 levels in Verdistis

Evade Trap - IMO there are not enough dangerous traps in the game to make this worth the skill points.

Deadly Gift - If you are going to use scorpion traps you only need level 1, otherwise you may want level 4 or 5.

Elven Stamina - After the beginning of the game, stamina was rarely a problem with my warrior. It may help with Sneak.

Embrace Shadows - don't know; save first and compare it to Sneak

Poison Weapon - max. Even for an archer, this is better than Poison Arrow.

Identify - I would max; some prefer paying traders to identify. You can get one level from a quest in Ars Magicana.

Alchemy - at least level 3 or 4 for making poison potions; level 5 if you want. Can get 1 level in the Dark Forest.

Know Creature - Max if you are going to use elemental attack spells, so you can determine an opponent's resistances. If you are pretty much sticking to physical + poison damage you don't need it at all, IMO.

True Sight - broken (even without it, archery is very effective)

Blind - probably max; several opponents in the game use a Blind + Hell Spikes combination, which is quite effective, but you can follow up with an in-character attack

Skin of Poison - may be effective; I tend to avoid these types of skills simply because I don't want opponents hitting me, even if they get damage in the process (I know I will get hit, but in principle I want to maximize how fast and hard I hit an opponent and minimize how often and hard I get hit). If you are not playing a tank melee warrior, though, this could be a handy backup if you get surrounded.

Curse - Even level 1 can be quickly cast repeatedly on a target to significantly reduce its resistances; follow up with a poison (or other elemental) attack.

NecroShift - You can not do anything in the possessed body, other than scout around, so it is not very useful.

Trader's Tongue - somewhat useful in the beginning and mid portion of the game (especially if buying expensive items like charms or spell books), but eventually gold is fairly easy to come by.
can get a level in Rivertown and another in Verdistis

Ranger Sight - Elven Sight is much more effective. sights and weapon range
Eventually I started rejecting equipment with sight bonuses, so my sight range would not get too much larger than my screen size (the fog of war was useful for determining exactly where I had explored already).

Wisdom - Wisdom - is it worth the skill points?

Charm - don't know (probably ignore); it has rarely been mentioned in the forum. I think you may need to Curse a stronger target before being able to Charm it (at level 5, Charm can be resisted with a Spiritual Resistance of 25).

Magic Barrier - probably max (though you will eventually get lots of resistance bonuses on equipment)

Aura of Command - useful if you are going to use traps, resurrected or summoned creatures

Heaven's Gift - a relatively slow way to get a practically unlimited supply of potions, low level loot and gold; some people like it. At level 2 or 3 (don't recall) you can get regular health and mana potions, which you can then mix (with Alchemy level 1) to get a restoration potion to re-fill your mana, so with a moderate supply of mana to start with, the spell can be cast repeatedly as long as your right mouse button can hold out.

Survivors Instinct - whatever you wish. During battle it will not make much of a difference, but I found it (at level 2 or 3) handy to top off my health whenever I headed back to base to stash loot, visit traders, etc. After entering the wastelands I max the skill to use up some skill points, and it was all the healing I needed for most of the rest of the game (I used 3 minor restoration potions fighting 2 of the end bosses).


Free skills, and spell books you can buy (spoilers)

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Ok so what do you suggest i make?

A warrior with some mage spells?
A pure mage
An assassin based survivor

I want something that is decent to play for my first time. I don't think i have to time to replay the game, so i wanna pick something that i won't regret halfway through the game.

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A warrior with a few mage spells is probably the simplest and easiest option. If things get too easy you can always choose a handicap (don't use charms, etc) or increase the difficulty setting. If you don't do a lot of reloading to get the best possible stats on equipment, you probably will not have to worry about the game getting too easy (though it does tend to get easier as it progresses).

If you like playing mages, that is certainly a viable option.

A pure assassin or thief based survivor is probably a little more challenging than the other options, usually done by those who specifically have an interest in playing that type of build. I think warriors are the most popular character, followed by mages.


At least for the first third of the game, or so, you have plenty of opportunity to adjust your playing style. After that you can still make changes, but if you don't keep some stat / skill points in reserve, dramatic changes might be difficult and/or slow to make.

If you want to keep your options open, you might want to start with a warrior. Mage spell books can be bought, and you can get mana boosts from equipment or charms if you want to start doing magic (or simply use more restoration potions). A mage would be more difficult to turn into melee character. A survivor can move in either direction (would make a better warrior than a mage would, and better mage than a warrior, but obviously not as good a pure warrior or mage than those classes themselves).


If you get stuck or bored or wish you had developed your character differently, you can always use iZakaroN's SaveEditor (or from Kiya's site, with description) to redistribute your stat and/or skill points. It requires a bit of hex editing, but you can even change your character's class (Some more hex offsets...).

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hmm so should i stop playing this new Survivor i made, and start a typical hack & slash warrior with freeze, and some other random spells?

I was playing to play my Survivor like this:

Sneak up on enemies, use dagger as main weapon coated with poison, kill 1-2, go back into sneak mode, ambush a few more, rinse and repeat. Also i would set traps and lore enemies to them. Pretty much your typical roleplay gameplay style of a Rogue/Assassin/Ninja/Thief

I was gonna keep a nice bow in handy, pump up agility and health, moderate strength and barely any mana.

I was gonna take the following skills: (some were not maxed so i get more points from quests or books, or to later on max if i have more free points)

Telekinesis (1 point)
Restoration (2 points)
Freeze (maxed)
Identify (4 points)
Alchemy (3 points)
Lock pick (3 points)
Pickpocket (1 point)
Know Creature (2-3 points)
Blind (maxed)
Curse (i heard it is better than the Mage version, should i max it?)
Assassin’s Kiss (maxed)
Deadly Gift (1 point for scorpions)
Poison Weapon (maxed)
Embrace Shadows (test it to see if it's better than sneak)
Elven Sight (3 points)
Bow Expertise (maxed, no dagger expertise?)
Repair (1 point)
Augment Defense (maxed)
Life Leech (maxed?)

Also, is Fade From Sight spell a good idea for my class?

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I suggested a warrior since it sounded like you were not too sure about playing a survivor. If you have already started one, though, that impression was obviously incorrect.


I'm not sure if you would want to Sneak all the time, or just with stronger opponents. You can not move as fast when sneaking (maybe Embrace Shadows is better?), so it would slow gameplay down. In games like Thief that adds to the atmosphere, but DD is balanced with more direct combat in mind (ie lots of weaker opponents with a few stronger opponents and bosses).
Also, some combat is triggered by dialog options or cutscenes, so you may have to move out of an opponent's sight range before being able to Sneak (not sure how these skills work, but if being too close will un-hide you, I assume trying to hide too close to an opponent will fail).

Traps are a good idea. Playing a warrior I stashed some at my base to try out eventually, but never got around to it.


Your plans for your stats sounds good. Stamina regenerates fairly quickly when resting, so once you get your health up a reasonable amount, I don't think you will need to get your constitution too high just for stamina. You can judge that as you level up and use the sneak skill(s), though.
If you are going to be using traps a lot, stacks of traps can start to weigh a fair bit. Most of the game you can keep the majority of traps at your base, though, and teleport back whenever you need more, so moderate strength may be enough. Survivors don't get a big damage bonus from strength, so once you have enough for equipment requirements there isn't a huge benefit to increasing it, anyway.


[color:"orange"]Telekinesis (1 point)[/color] - I maxed this skill with purchased skill books.

[color:"orange"]Restoration (2 points)[/color] - right, you can get 3 levels from quests and a found spell book.

[color:"orange"]Freeze (maxed)[/color] - Some people like Freeze, but as a warrior I never bothered with it. Try it out and see how you like it.

[color:"orange"]Identify (4 points)
Alchemy (3 points)
Lock pick (3 points)[/color]

Sounds right.

[color:"orange"]Pickpocket (1 point)[/color]

Yep, but if you are not going to pickpocket for fun, keep an eye out for equipment with this bonus. I found 1 item with Pickpocket relatively early (before I needed it) and throughout the game also found 3 items with Repair, 1 with Identify and 3 with Trader's Tongue.

[color:"orange"]Know Creature (2-3 points)[/color]

Level 1 - identify monsters up to level 10. Shows the hitpoints of the monster.
Level 2 - identify monsters up to level 20. Shows damage and armour of the monster.
Level 3 - identify monsters up to level 30. Shows offence and defence of the monster.
Level 4 - identify monsters up to level 40. Shows the chance to hit, hearing and sight of the monster.
Level 5 - identify monsters up to level 50. Shows the resistances of the monster.

IMNSHO you don't really need the exact hit points, since you can see both the damage done and the health bar of you opponent. Damage and armour are also easy to observe. The offence and defence don't mean much by themselves, and don't really help in formulating an attack. The chance to hit it fairly easy to observe experimentally. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> If you use Sneak (etc) a lot, knowing the sight range of an opponent might come in handy. IMO, the only useful information given are the resistances, and that is primarily of interest to a mage who needs to determine which type of attack spell to cast.

Before investing too many skill points in this, try just killing one of a monster type, and then check your trophy page for the details.


[color:"orange"]Blind (maxed)

Curse (i heard it is better than the Mage version, should i max it?)[/color]

See how effective casting level 1 a couple times quickly is (or how easy it is to right click a couple times before switching to an attack), then decide if you want or need a higher level.


[color:"orange"]Assassin’s Kiss (maxed)
Deadly Gift (1 point for scorpions)
Poison Weapon (maxed)
Embrace Shadows (test it to see if it's better than sneak)
Elven Sight (3 points)

Bow Expertise (maxed, no dagger expertise?)[/color]

Assassin's Kiss is the only 'dagger expertise'.


[color:"orange"]Repair (1 point)[/color]

Fully repaired equipment brings the best price. I put 2 skill points into Repair, and with 3 found items having that skill bonus, could batch repair equipment with less than full durability to sell or trade with. Before those items (the first just outside Aleroth, the third halfway through the game), I found plenty of crappy, broken or full durability items to be able to trade as much as I wanted, and never needed to pay to have anything repaired or sell anything good at less than full durability.

Gold is easy to come by mid to late in the game, though, so paying for repairs isn't going to hurt (for a good item, the jump in value after repair can be much more than the merchant charges to repair, so you can still come out ahead).


[color:"orange"]Augment Defense (maxed)[/color]

There is a quest in the Dark Forest that can either give you a level of Augment Defence or Augment Damage.


[color:"orange"]Life Leech (maxed?)[/color]

Some people like Curse (perhaps multiple times) + Life Leech (also maybe multiple times) + an attack to finish off strong opponents relatively easily.
Save and try it out (I never tried it playing a warrior, though LifeDrain on a weapon was handy early in the game).


[color:"orange"]Also, is Fade From Sight spell a good idea for my class?[/color]

That depends on how much mana you have, vs how much stamina. If you keep running out of stamina but have lots of equipment mana bonuses, you may want to try Fade From Sight. Otherwise, I think the effect is pretty much the same as Sneak / Embrace Shadows (nobody has mentioned a big difference between them in the forum, anyway).

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so which curse skill should i use? i know there are 2, and read some post that the survivor version is better than the Mage one, is this true?

Also do you know where i can get the actual scorpions to use for traps?

Do you know a average amount of strength goal for my Survivor, so i know when to stop?

Oh and by the way, i was doing some testing on sneak ability. I aggroed like 4 Orcs in the forest, and they were about 2-3 feet (game wise) from me, and popped into it and they stopped following me, instead wondering around trying to find me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

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The survivor's Curse skill can not be resisted, so that is the one to use. The mage's Withering Curse will not effect stronger opponents, since their spiritual resistance will be too high. Also, Curse can be very quickly cast multiple times, which has a cumulative effect and greatly helps any followup elemental attack; I don't think you can do with this with Withering Curse.


Early in the game you will have to rely on random drops or container contents for scorpion traps (the other 2 types will probably be more available). George in Aleroth sometimes has traps.
Once you leave Aleroth and get to Ars Magicana (far to the east), there is a black market dealer there who is fairly good for survivor supplies. North of there, in Verdistis, there is a trader in the Ducal inn cellar that also carries survivor supplies. Blake in Ars Magicana and Mpenzak in Verdistis also sometimes have traps.

Any NPC can have traps (though the ones I mentioned above have a better chance). NPC inventories get reset after about 10-15 minutes real time (depending on the NPC), so you can check whenever you stash loot at your base or need to get potions, etc.

If you quick save before running your mouse over an item/chest/merchant or hitting the alt key, you can identify the item or trade with the merchant, then quick load to get different stats or inventory. This can be done repeatedly to get the best stats or specific bonuses on an item (save after finding good candidates) or looking for specific items (such as spell books or charms) from merchants. Don't waste too much time with this, though, it really isn't necessary to get the best possible equipment.


Stop investing in strength when you have no more equipment you really want to use that has a strength requirement that you can not meet, and when you don't frequently become encumbered carrying enough traps and a moderate amount of loot.
I'd expect this amount to be around 50-60 or so (at least for equipment requirements). If you don't want to wear heavy plate armour, etc and use Aura of Command on a scorpion or two (so don't need to carry a ton of traps with you), then you may not need as much strength. If you like looting, or carrying around extra traps, you may need more strength. It really depends on your playing style.


Being able to Sneak directly in front of opponents is handy. I wonder if that works with Embrace Shadows, etc? Was it night or daytime?



P.S.
'quick question' my [nocando]!

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It was day light in the woods outside Aleroth <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Only problem is, it drains stamina too fast, but a few more levels and a few points in Elven Stamina should handle that.

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Even just a higher constitution should help with your stamina. Playing a warrior, at the start of the game I fairly frequently ran out of stamina from either running or using the spin attack special move repeatedly, but once I got up a few levels and raised my constitution, stamina became much less of a problem (usually only if I had to run a long distance, which wasn't too often, between the teleporter stones and pads). I always hit 'R' to toggle on the 'always run' mode, rather than walk/run based on how far you clicked from your character.

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[quote


Charm - don't know (probably ignore); it has rarely been mentioned in the forum. I think you may need to Curse a stronger target before being able to Charm it (at level 5, Charm can be resisted with a Spiritual Resistance of 25).

[/quote]

I think the charm skill is broken. From the spell desription its sounds like a spell I used in another game. It should allow you to convert a monster to fight on your side and thus would be a powerful spell. However I tried it in the wastelands and used surviors curse to lower the monsters resistances to less than 20 (spiritual) I had the charm skill maxed and when I cast it a little pink heart appears on the creature I cast it on meaning the charm spell was in effect. The mosters still attacked me instead of fighting for me. Fortunatley I knew to save before trying it out so reloeaded. So avoid charm like the plague.

I believe scorpians will attack even after you go invisible. So while an assassin build may be more challenging than other build, I guess scorpian is the balancer if things get too hard.

Both spellshield spells are a help. One is for physical damgage and one for elemental. You can ususually get 1 or 2 points in this from spell books. These spells can be cast on the creatures you summon. Have said this I don't use them much because after a while it just gets to be a lot of extra casting. They can be nice in an extra tough situation.

Oh and ressurect will revive a creature you killed and then it will fight for you. It won't be as strong as it was originally but its a great spell to have.
Be sure to test it out, you might like it.

Even a survivor should probably get 500 mana (from equip or charms) it gives you greater flexibility.

In this game a lot of spells just need 1 point in them to help alot. ie resurrect, life leech, I prefer to max the survivors curse because that way it takes less casts to get the resistances down.

If you decide to reload to get the best uniques you can generally get 50 to 120 resists just from your equipment before adding any charms. But this won't happen until your past midway through the game. Very early on the 2 most important resists to try to get avbout 20 into is poison and fire. You don't need to worry about lighting until the wastelands. When you go to the sewers under Verdistis you should have 15% spiritual resist or you risk getting polymorhed.

You can buy equipment to try out spells to. Early on when I was level 4, I had boots with deadly disks on them. As I was not very good at melee then. (I was killing orcs south of the market to do the Marcus quest) I could use freeze and deadly disks to get by until I leveled. Then when I didn't need that skill and get better boots I just sold the ones with that spell back. I killed the leader of the black market under the sewers with deadly disks when I was level 13. Actually its a decent spell but you have to be fairly close to the target to get its full effect.


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I think the charm skill is broken. From the spell desription its sounds like a spell I used in another game. It should allow you to convert a monster to fight on your side and thus would be a powerful spell. However I tried it in the wastelands and used surviors curse to lower the monsters resistances to less than 20 (spiritual) I had the charm skill maxed and when I cast it a little pink heart appears on the creature I cast it on meaning the charm spell was in effect. The mosters still attacked me instead of fighting for me. Fortunatley I knew to save before trying it out so reloeaded. So avoid charm like the plague.


I tried Charm lately with my lvl 12 Warrior and it seemed to depend on the type of creature wether they could be charmed. With thugs, the charm definitely worked (if there was only one thug on the screen and I charmed him, he would stand still; if there were several of them, he'd attack those who attcked me). It does not work on boars though; they do show the pink heart, but they still attack me. Anyone can confirm this?

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I think the charm skill is broken. From the spell desription its sounds like a spell I used in another game. It should allow you to convert a monster to fight on your side and thus would be a powerful spell. However I tried it in the wastelands and used surviors curse to lower the monsters resistances to less than 20 (spiritual) I had the charm skill maxed and when I cast it a little pink heart appears on the creature I cast it on meaning the charm spell was in effect. The mosters still attacked me instead of fighting for me. Fortunatley I knew to save before trying it out so reloeaded. So avoid charm like the plague.


I tried Charm lately with my lvl 12 Warrior and it seemed to depend on the type of creature wether they could be charmed. With thugs, the charm definitely worked (if there was only one thug on the screen and I charmed him, he would stand still; if there were several of them, he'd attack those who attcked me). It does not work on boars though; they do show the pink heart, but they still attack me. Anyone can confirm this? [/quote]

I tried charm on the imps in the wasteland and it works. They will fight on your side. Apparently it works on more intellectual enemies but not beasts. So your correct, my bad, I should have tried it out on other enemies. It is a very powerful spell on whatever it works on. With the imps, they will all knock each other off and then you just kill the last 1 or 2 left standing.

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[quote]I tried charm on the imps in the wasteland and it works. They will fight on your side. Apparently it works on more intellectual enemies but not beasts. So your correct, my bad, I should have tried it out on other enemies. It is a very powerful spell on whatever it works on. With the imps, they will all knock each other off and then you just kill the last 1 or 2 left standing.


it does seem rather random though... it did not work on the 'Bandit Leader' (west of Poor Area), contrary to working on normal thugs, but he showed the pink heart too. Maybe all creatures show the pink heart even if they resisted the spell? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

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Yea it would be nice if level 5 show creature spell would say immune to charm or something. I tried out the level 5 show creature just to see if it would say anything like that but it doesn't. I have the feeling that the charm spell won't work on any leaders, sub bosses or main bosses. I want to test it out on orcs because for a non melee build if charm works on most of the orcs it would be a big help.

In other games the charm spell would be in a summoner tree. I am starting a new survivor to be a summoner with a bow as a back up. The idea is to cast skeletal wall, charm the enemies you can to fight for you, when 1 dies ressurect it to fight for you. Then when your army is larger than the enemies, you can just kick back, have a brew and let your minions do all the dirty work. Using a bow to kill the toughest ones. So in a few days I'll better know what charm works on and what it doesn't.




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I have the feeling that the charm spell won't work on any leaders, sub bosses or main bosses.


This. It came to me after posting. No bosses, no uniques and probably no stupid beasts either
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I want to test it out on orcs because for a non melee build if charm works on most of the orcs it would be a big help.


it does <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> stupid thing is, I'm using a bow right now (and have been since I left Aleroth... bows DOMINATE at the early levels it seems), and so charming is of limited use, because all orcs just come running after you, charmed or not. I would have to engage them in melee to make this work

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In other games the charm spell would be in a summoner tree. I am starting a new survivor to be a summoner with a bow as a back up. The idea is to cast skeletal wall, charm the enemies you can to fight for you, when 1 dies ressurect it to fight for you. Then when your army is larger than the enemies, you can just kick back, have a brew and let your minions do all the dirty work. Using a bow to kill the toughest ones. So in a few days I'll better know what charm works on and what it doesn't.


If I started over, I would probably make a straight bow fighter (Warrior or Survivor wouldn't be much of a difference). Bows are ridiculously overpowered compared to melee weapons, probably due to Strength bonues damage being applied to them (for whatever reason). I'm still trying to make my Warrior a melee tank, but so far (level 17, doing Orc Quests) bows are just a lot more efficient and safe to use. I would actually have played a character like the one you are suggesting, but I wanted to save that for Beyond Divinity (with my Death Knight being a pure melee tank and my character a mage summoner/archer)




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[quoteIf I started over, I would probably make a straight bow fighter (Warrior or Survivor wouldn't be much of a difference). Bows are ridiculously overpowered compared to melee weapons, probably due to Strength bonues damage being applied to them (for whatever reason). I'm still trying to make my Warrior a melee tank, but so far (level 17, doing Orc Quests) bows are just a lot more efficient and safe to use. I would actually have played a character like the one you are suggesting, but I wanted to save that for Beyond Divinity (with my Death Knight being a pure melee tank and my character a mage summoner/archer)



[/quote]

Your right about over powered bows. Why is that in every game of this type they always overpower bows? I find that a bit annoying. It gets even more overpowered in the wastelands. My melee charactor routinely gets bows that do 25-160 damgage from drops and the highest one is, get this 61-190. The highest 2 handed sword I found was around 90-145 damage. On top of the bow doing more damage, you can use the split arrow skill and all the elemental damage skills. The one that adds posion to a bow gives much more poison(I think 8 to 10 times more than for the melee poison skill)

I enjoy fighting the orcs the best. At level 17 is tough against the elites. I always took out any of the drummers 1st, 1 point in freeze to stop them because you usually have to chase after them. I wasn't strictly melee then either. I had 1 point in skeletal wall at level 16 which occupied half of the orcs. If your lucky sometimes the elite giant orcs will drop a gold charm.

In my opinion level 16 (because thats when you can start getting really nice skills) until about level 28 is the most fun to play. The beginning is a bit of a hassle economically and as your charactor gets stronger it begins to overpower
most of the enemies.

I reloaded all the uniques, saving before I identified to get really nice equipment. But the game wasn't balanced for the best equipment, at least not on normal level, so I am trying hard difficulty with no reloads. I guess there are no unique bows but like you say the ones that drop are way high damage already.


It takes a while to get a good melee charactor. Around level 22-25. They usually lack agility before then. Not enough agility means you get hit too much and have to low of a chance to hit back. Plus takes tons of stamina potions for swirl attack. One point in life leech can compensate for low agility as my charactor would drain a giant elite orc down so 1 hit would kill it.

You can check your chance to hit by mosing over your offense rating. The defense rating will show the chance that a monster the same level as your charactor has of hitting you. I found that when my melee tank had less than 75% chance to hit he would kinda suck eggs.

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Bows are ridiculously overpowered compared to melee weapons, probably due to Strength bonues damage being applied to them (for whatever reason).

The further you can draw the bowstring back (without breaking the bow) the more force the arrow will strike with. That may not scale exactly the same as a melee weapon, but at least having the strength damage bonus is plausible.


There is one unique bow in DD, which you can get in the Dark Forest as a quest reward.

A high agility is good for a melee warrior. Sometimes getting the first hit in can make a significant difference in the outcome of a fight (especially when using the passive Stun skill), and missing a few times in a row with a strong opponent could mean death, or having to either retreat or burn though restoration potions.

On average throughout the game, most warriors characters will have 2 points in strength per level, 2 in agility and 1 in constitution. Of course that will vary, especially at the start of the game, based on weapon and armour requirements of what you find / buy, what bonuses your equipment has, and your playing style.


...Beyond Divinity (with my Death Knight being a pure melee tank and my character a mage summoner/archer)

I played a melee DK and crossbow archer hero; for the first part of act 1, though, crushing damage works better than piercing for many opponents (ie skeletons), so I had my hero use a club or walking stick most of the time. Playing again, I would make my hero the melee warrior and have the DK be a bow archer. The DK gains armour class as he levels, so doesn't need as much strength for equipment requirements; as a bow archer (or mage), he could neglect strength a bit in favour of agility (or intelligence). A crossbow is mostly strength based, so you would not be able to boost agility as much using one.

The math appendix of the Beyond Divinity Strategy Guide gives some general suggestions on stat point distribution.

Also, with bow/crossbow expertise skills, I only put a point or two into the damage and accuracy boosts, and a couple into Point Blank, but maxed Reload Time (gives a direct boost to Speed).

I didn't find bows/crossbows overpowered in BD, at least not sticking to normal arrows (in the original release arrows were much more expensive, so I saved up special arrows for later when I needed them, but didn't actually switch to power arrows until near the end of the game). I only used splitting arrows once, in a confined space with my hero and the act 1 summoning doll firing from different corners; the goup was very quickly cut down to just the boss, and I then switched to power arrows. The act 1 summoning doll is the only doll that can equip a ranged weapon (crossbow); most of the time I never bothered using it in battle (can not last long in a melee fight), but kept out of harm's way it can provide good support in tough battles.

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The further you can draw the bowstring back (without breaking the bow) the more force the arrow will strike with. That may not scale exactly the same as a melee weapon, but at least having the strength damage bonus is plausible.




Ah yes but there was a time that I was into archery. Was resonably good at it. This was with a reflex bow before compound bows came out. (This dates me I think--oh well) Anyway no matter your strength an archer always draws back to the exact same point. The nock of the arrow would be near the corner of your mouth. Drawing back the same amount to the same point insured accuracy. Its the same in any sport like a golf swing, bowling etc. The same release means accuracy. So there should be no damage modifier applied. How it should work is there should be more now classes with higher str requirments. Because if your not as strong you maybe use a bow that takes 45 pounds to draw. If your stroner 50 or 55. So it would be more realistic to have the high damage bows require 100 str.

At any rate the bow I found that did 61-190 damge is rediculously high. Consider the fact that there is also a skill to increase bow speed and some bows have speed 6 on them. This means that a bow is doing 50% more damge than the highest damage 2 handed sword in the game at the same speed.

If you took 100 swordsman and 100 archers and placed them 100 yards apart in a real life medevil setting. My money is on the swordsman. Because bows just do not do more damage than a sword and an reknocking an arrow can not be done at the same speed as swinging a sword. So the Swordsman would take losses until they closes on the archers but once then closed - that would be the end of the archers.

I know its a game but every game like this makes the archer the most powerful unit. The archer was a support unit not a unit that fires 6 arrows with more damge than a swordsman with poison on top of that. I will load my charactor with the high damage bow and post the pic later.

The solution inmy case is simple, I don't have to use the ultra powerful bows. But it just irks me to have them so inbalanced that I have to play down to the games level and use lesser items to give the enemies a chance in the last 1/3 of the game.

Edit to add pics. Even with no mods these bows would take out anything much too fast to be fun to play. Only perhaps if you didn't use the skill that adds speed to a bow would anything have a chance. Why put something like this in the game because killing everything in 3 seconds isn't what I call fun. In my mind the idea of having powerful items is to go up against a powerful opponent. The enemies in this game don't have enough hit points to stand up to bows like this. Plus look at how low the requirments are.

Another point with the bows is you can stand face to face with a melee monster and still keep firing. I always wonder how anyone with a sword standing 1 foot in front of you, would allow you to nock another arrow. But all games are like this. I wish one of them would make an archer type one of the most challenge charactors to play. That would make playing an archer more rewarding imo.

Games tend to make archers into tanks. Archers never wore as heavy armor as the swordsman. In games they have the same heavy armor as a melee unit and can stand up in the frontlines after they get the requirment to where the armor. I think archers couldn't where armor because it would be too difficult to fire accurately in it and they probably needed to be able to run faster than swordsman if the swordsmen that defended tham were overrun. The ranges should be limited as well. Bows used in this time period were not accurate over 40 yards. Thats why archers fired high arching volleys in mass. It was the volume of arrows that did the damage on massed troops.

The more I think about it the less sense it makes to have an archer this strong. A swordsman stans right next to his opponent, in the game his max % to hit can be 94% Really how can he miss, he can get blocked. But these are heavy swords not the fencing types and no one in the heavy armor is go to dart out of the way. The take the archer class. He can pluck away from 80 yards or so and hit at the same 94% with more damage.

What really turned me off to over powered archers was Diablo2. Probably a dirty word in these forums. At one time everyone who Pked would build a high level archer because it was as over powered as in this game. At least this game does not have the skill where you face the wrong way and the arrow does a 180 and follows the enemy.


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