Has anyone played and completed the game without an arcane caster?

[Brian Sirith]

Or just with Woljif and an Eldritch Scoundrel?

Is it doable? Is there some spell I will need without which I will be unable / have a very hard time completing the game?

I also have Daeran along.

Sry for spamming questions. I'm at the decision making part.

I'm also adding my party composition. I roleplay so the classes may change the people may not:

- PC: Dhampir / Hell Knight of Chain / Greatsword Str build
- Regill
- Lann (I asked earlier and people said his default class is strong so I'm keeping him to Zen Archer)
- Daeran
- Woljif
- Camellia -> Arue -> Galfrey (If she will. Again RP reasons)

[Sador]

I would *strongly* advise against it, unless you're playing on story mode.

[Andante]

Originally posted by Brian Sirith:

Or just with Woljif and an Eldritch Scoundrel?

Is it doable? Is there some spell I will need without which I will be unable / have a very hard time completing the game?

I also have Daeran along.

Sry for spamming questions. I'm at the decision making part.

You'll get access to haste later than usual which makes certain fights a pain. Fights with and without haste is night and day difference.

Also alot of "impossible" bosses have super low touch AC and only arcane casters have access to great touch AC ray spells. These bosses aren't "impossible" they just require min/maxed party combos that can push their to hits sky high with right buffs.

Also just curious, how are you building your party?

A big issue with people building their parties is they have too many non-support characters and too many pure dps characters.

DPS characters DO ZERO dps in DnD without correct buff support due to game mechanics. I can have a party with 1 DPS character and this DPS character will do literally 1000 times the damage of your party of 5 dps, because I can push my dps character to have +70 to hit with an extra 10d6+ damage of various types while attacking 6+ times a turn. while you have 5 dps characters with +30 to hit and do zero dps.

[Brian Sirith]

Originally posted by Sador:

I would *strongly* advise against it, unless you're playing on story mode.

I'm not. I'm playing on core. I was just wondering -I'm early on in the game- before the Defender's Heart battle and trying to make class decisions.

[Sador]

Originally posted by Brian Sirith:

Originally posted by Sador:

I would *strongly* advise against it, unless you're playing on story mode.

I'm not. I'm playing on core. I was just wondering -I'm early on in the game- before the Defender's Heart battle and trying to make class decisions.

Then I would definitely make sure to include arcane casters. Especially in later acts they make a massive difference.

[stars2heaven]

If anyone thinks you absolutely need one, could you elaborate? You definitely don't need to have one along atleast up to chap. 3. I don't see why anything would change beyond that.

[Statist Nr. 27]

You should atleast get a buffer.

You can complete the game on normal (I guess) without one, but the difference between having one and having none is huge.

Originally posted by stars2heaven:

If anyone thinks you absolutely need one, could you elaborate? You definitely don't need to have one along atleast up to chap. 3. I don't see why anything would change beyond that.

This could be very subjective but for me Chapter 4+ were way more difficult than chapter 1-3.

And even in chapter 3 how u do wintersun without one on higher difficulty? (Maybe its just me but without one I failed hard).

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Brian Sirith:

Or just with Woljif and an Eldritch Scoundrel?

Is it doable? Is there some spell I will need without which I will be unable / have a very hard time completing the game?

I also have Daeran along.

Sry for spamming questions. I'm at the decision making part.

It is doable. But you it would feel like you only penalty yourself.

In theory you can find every essential spell as a potion or as a scroll. But unlike spells which can be recovered after a rest those are limited.

So you are basically asking yourself the question if you want to reload saves oftens because you do not know what expects you and if you can deal with them without the usage of scrolls and potions, or to have at least two spell casters to cover a wide range of support spells.

To give you some examples: seeing invisible stuff for the party and protection from energy like fire is something I am using almost for every battle. Same with stonekin and other.

Yes, you can definitely do the game well without knowing all spells etc. But you will definitely find out that some situations appear more often than others. And I would definitely not want to miss out on things like stoneskin or protection from arrow. There are simply not enough scrolls and potions and gold to buy the limited items.

[Siegdarth]

Yeah, and Wojit is an arcane caster anyway (a very powerfull one by the way). If you use potion brewing and scrolls you can preserve a few of the spells you will need most such as heroism, blur , displacement and haste.

[Brian Sirith]

Originally posted by Andante:

Originally posted by Brian Sirith:

Or just with Woljif and an Eldritch Scoundrel?

Is it doable? Is there some spell I will need without which I will be unable / have a very hard time completing the game?

I also have Daeran along.

Sry for spamming questions. I'm at the decision making part.

You'll get access to haste later than usual which makes certain fights a pain. Fights with and without haste is night and day difference.

Also alot of "impossible" bosses have super low touch AC and only arcane casters have access to great touch AC ray spells. These bosses aren't "impossible" they just require min/maxed party combos that can push their to hits sky high with right buffs.

Also just curious, how are you building your party?

A big issue with people building their parties is they have too many non-support characters and too many pure dps characters.

DPS characters DO ZERO dps without correct buff support. I can have a party with 1 DPS character and this DPS character will do literally 1000 times the damage of your party of 5 dps, because I can push my dps character to have +70 to hit with an extra 10d6+ damage of various types while attacking 6+ times a turn. while you have 5 dps characters with +30 to hit and do zero dps.

I'm building the party based on the roleplay.
So I intend to stick with the specific companions but I'm looking for the best classes for them. I know it won't be optimal but I want the best I can get with these guys.

- PC: Dhampir / Hell Knight of Chain / Greatsword Str build
- Regill
- Lann (I asked earlier and people said his default class is strong so I'm keeping him to Zen Archer)
- Daeran
- Woljif
- Camellia -> Arue -> Galfrey (If she will. Again RP reasons)

[Fluff]

You can beat the game on Core without any casters. But it will make some encounters much harder than they should be, both in terms of buff or dmg, where caster would end things in a turn, you will need several times more.

There are some enemies with too high AC but low touch AC. And SR (spell resistance) is much earier to beat than AC at this state of the game.

Scrolls and elixirs - will help you greatly with non-caster party. It also opens you to battle manuevers and more inclass buffs/debuffs as a 'should do' side. And resistances. Attacks of opportunity on crits. Also 'Last Stand' mythic talent will be good for everyone.

[Edgewalker]

Originally posted by Brian Sirith:

Or just with Woljif and an Eldritch Scoundrel?

Is it doable? Is there some spell I will need without which I will be unable / have a very hard time completing the game?

I also have Daeran along.

Sry for spamming questions. I'm at the decision making part.

Dude, don't do that.

Reasonable minimum is 1 divine caster 1 arcane caster and only then put 4 melee in your squad if you wish.

I myself tried some no caster parties - finished kingmaker on hard/unfair with 5 warriors + healer (and even Icewind Dale with the same combination ^^) but seriously don't do that here.

[Sador]

Originally posted by stars2heaven:

If anyone thinks you absolutely need one, could you elaborate? You definitely don't need to have one along atleast up to chap. 3. I don't see why anything would change beyond that.

I'm sure you don't "absolutely need one", but they make the game a lot easier.

Act 4 and 5 AC can become really, really high and enemies can have a lot of immunities or resistances. Without arcane casters you're missing out on a lot of powerful spells, buffs, touch attacks and high level damage spells that make those fights significantly easier.

[Brian Sirith]

Hmm... ok. So from what I see most people believe that while doable I'll be in a significant disadvantage...

I suppose I'll retrain Woljif to Arcane Trickster though he was hitting so well up to now I was reluctant to do so.

Thank you everyone! That was very helpful!

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Brian Sirith:

I'm building the party based on the roleplay.
So I intend to stick with the specific companions but I'm looking for the best classes for them. I know it won't be optimal but I want the best I can get with these guys.

- PC: Dhampir / Hell Knight of Chain / Greatsword Str build
- Regill
- Lann (I asked earlier and people said his default class is strong so I'm keeping him to Zen Archer)
- Daeran
- Woljif
- Camellia -> Arue -> Galfrey (If she will. Again RP reasons)

Technically it should be okay. I am just worried if it is still fun with the difficulty. Woljif as Eldritch Scoundrel can learn from scrolls after all. And Daeran is a good support character. That is already the "two spellcasters minimum recommendation".

But you might still have to rely a lot on potions, scrolls, diamonds, diamond dust and so on.

[Fluff]

Also from the opposite side - you can easilty beat the game with a party of pure caster/s.