good classes for a beginner?

[Captain]

i was playing a mage but realized i have no cantrips

then i started a berserker/barbarian (i forget which one) but now im not sure what to do,

please help

i am super noob

[Clovis Sangrail]

Good starter characters that I like --

Dwarven defender (a fighter kit) -- Max STR (18/91 or greater), DEX (17), CON 19. Give him a battle axe for melee and throwing axes for range, and max axe proficiency. Best tank going. He'll be like a fireplug.

Elven fighter or ranger -- Max STR (18/91 or better), DEX (19), CON (17). Put points in longsword and longbow. This is Legolas if you play it right.

[Talana 💃]

Fighter/Thief is a good choice ( some nice stuff to steal at Candlekeep ), and so is Fighter/Mage , imho.Personally I think those two choices are the easiest .
Have fun, whatever you choose - I don`t believe you can go all wrong with any class choice .
Don`t worry about cantrips, you`ll get a lot of them.

[NuGuy]

Cantrips dont exist in this series.

I would suggest a class that gets decent HP, such as fighter, barbarian, ranger, paladin.
In this game, if your main character goes down, its game over. Your companions however can be resurrected.

Actually you might want to try a cleric, they can wear armor and cast divine spells.
Clerics dont need to find scrolls to scribe to their spell book. They automatically get all their spells on level up. The "command" spell is very powerful at level 1.

Also a good tip for new players is focus on ranged weapons in the beginning. You have very limited hp and you can die very easily.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Largely depends on chosen difficulty mode.

There are like 29 story companions in this first game. Some you can meet very early, with or without meta-gaming. Others you will meet much later only.

Why not play a Paladin or Paladin kit? There are only two paladin companions. One good, one evil.


Also take a look at the huge PDF manuals for this game. There are two. And they can be extremely helpful.

[AlexMBrennan]

Berserker and barbarian have good immunities through their rage. I would personally recommend berserker for a first time player - you are immune to everything, you get +15 HP, you can wear full plate, and you get grandmastery in whatever weapon you choose.

Ranged weapons are also very strong due to your low health pool which makes the archer ranger kit attractive in BG1 (but less so in BG2)

Don`t worry about cantrips, you`ll get a lot of them.

Cantrips are not presend in 2nd edition, and thus also absent from this game. You don't get any unlimited/free spells - if you run out of memorised spells then you need to switch to your backup weapon.

You will probably want to equip your mages with slings to stop them from running into melee if you leave the default AI on.

[Min Yua]

My personal opinion:

Easy:
- Berserker: Probably one of, if not the best melee class.
- Barbarian: No heavy armor, but good immunities.
- Paladin: All subclasses work quite good.
- Ranger/Archer: Easily the class with the highest bodycount in BG I (ignore the other Ranger-subclasses).
- Thief/Swashbuckler: Similare to a fighter with lighter armor, but with thief abilities. Pretty much broken once you reach a higher level in BG II.

Medium:
- Fighter/Thief: I'd prefer the Swashbuckler, but it's still a decent choice. Juggling different armor and the slower leveling can be somewhat annoying.
- Cleric: Easy enough once you get used to the spell-System in BG I.
- Fighter/Cleric: Same as above, better fighting skills but will take longer to get access to good spells.
- Druid (and Figher/Druid): See cleric.

Hard:
- Pure Mage/Sorcerer: Basically no spells to use in the beginning, takes quite a while to get useful, no armor, not a lot of HP. Mages are really weak at first and only become useful starting around level ~ 4-5. Best to avoid for your first playthrough.
- Figher/Mage: Not quite as squishy as a pure mage, but takes forever to get useful (I feel it's a decent choice for BG II though, since you start at a higher level there).
- Dualclass: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Classes#Dual-class
I would avoid it as a beginner, as it requires at least some knowledge of classes and mechanics.

Originally posted by Talana 👒:

Don`t worry about cantrips, you`ll get a lot of them.

Sadly, no cantrips in Baldurs Gate.

Originally posted by Captain:

i was playing a mage but realized i have no cantrips

Give them a sling, keep them in the back and let your fighters handle the rest. Mages take a lot of patience and babysitting in the beginning.

[Captain]

Thanks a lot everyone, what a welcoming community.

I was at first playing a barbarian, but I felt I would be too weak at later levels (I have no idea about DnD or anything) but figured the lack of armor, and limited use of rage, I may as well go Fighter my first play, and just tank.

I read about fighter/mage for being super tanky but i cant understand how it works so im just a fighter for now.

ty every1

berserker/mage or barbarian/mage looks wicked cool.

[malkavius77]

Mages don't get cantrips but there are tons of wands and scrolls that are way better than cantrips anyways. I wouldn't reccomend mage or sorcerer for first run until you understand the spells better.

Barbarian or Berserker are great starts though. I think barbarian is actually better for a new player. Since they can only specialize it gives them more variety of weapons, fast move speed and a rage that makes them immune to most status effects a mage can throw at them. Also they become the tankiest non caster class in the game while dishing out good damage. Berserkers are similar but more of a min/max choice that you kind of have to plan out how you want to build them to get the most out of them.

[malkavius77]

Originally posted by Captain:

Thanks a lot everyone, what a welcoming community.

I was at first playing a barbarian, but I felt I would be too weak at later levels (I have no idea about DnD or anything) but figured the lack of armor, and limited use of rage, I may as well go Fighter my first play, and just tank.

I read about fighter/mage for being super tanky but i cant understand how it works so im just a fighter for now.

ty every1

berserker/mage or barbarian/mage looks wicked cool.

Also barbarian have d12 HD for hp so they have the most hp in the game. They aren't weak at all since they get a scaling damage resistance starting at lvl 11 i think. Also medium armor isn't the best in BG1 but it generally is in BG2 which negates their inability to wear heavy armor. Also you get more rage uses as you level up. Both kits are much better than base fighter.

[Captain]

Oh Dang really! DO you think i should re roll back to my original plan of barbarian?

[malkavius77]

I mean if you really like the idea of a mage you can stick it out. But they will feel very weak if you don't know what spells/wands to use. They will generally die in 1-2 hits unless you have at least a couple defensive spells up. And they are very limited on the amount of spells they can have learned in BG1. Though them and sorcerers are pretty much the strongest classes in the game the further you get into BG2 it takes a bit of game knowledge to really ulitlise them to their full potential.

At the end of the day play what class you envision your main character being the most. But if you did pick a fighter type I think barbarian cavalier of berserker would be your best options due to how much easier they can make the start of the game and they all stay very strong throughout.

[Captain]

oh no, im playing a base fighter right now haha

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Captain:

i was playing a mage but realized i have no cantrips

Are you a 5e player? Because if you are forget everything you think you know about D&D, 2e is a different beast.

If you want to play a Mage it's fine, but the easiest way to play one for the first level or two is as a knife thrower. Start them out with an 18 Strength (+2 to damage with throwing knives), 18 Dex (a bonus of 2 to hit with ranged weapons and a bonus of 4 to AC) and 16 Constitution (+2 hitpoints per level) an 18 Int, you can leave Wisdom and Charisma 10. You want to cast the Shield spell, which will drop your AC to 0 (-2 vs. missiles) and you have two attacks per round with an effective THAC0 of 18 that deal 1d4+2 points of damage. That's good enough to handle most of the trash on the early maps. Because it's a RTWP game, you can get away some kiting that wouldn't work in a PnP session, so even enemies like ogres and bears are killable if you have enough patience. You can always get more throwing daggers from killing the skeletons on the high hedge map (one map south of where you start), and they respawn regularly, so don't bother with buying any.

On the Friendly Arm Inn map you can find a Ring of Wizardry (Evermemory) hidden at the base of pine tree on the southern edge of the map (walk East from the drawbridge and you should find it if you keep pressing [tab] to highlight it. This item will double your level 1 spells. So in addition to memorizing Shield, you can memorize Sleep. Sleep should let you immobilize groups of enemies as long as they aren't undead. Against weak undead like skeletons and zombies, try Burning Hands instead of Sleep. It's not as good as Sleep, but it works pretty well against enemies with less than 10 HP (there are a lot of them in BG).

If you want an easier time, you can solo for a bit. Your XP is divided by the number of party members you have, so with one party member you get 6x the XP as with a full party. Mages get stronger the faster you level, so picking up a couple of quick levels before you get your party members can make the early game easier. Other than Imoen they'll scale to your character's XP (to a max of 32000 XP) the first time you recruit them. If you really want to level quickly, look up Korax the Ghoul in the forum search. Otherwise, one map north of the FAI there are some Ankhegs who are vulnerable to the Sleep spell and thus an easy kill for a mage. In the cave there's a +1 dagger as well, which will be a pretty good weapon for your character if you have to melee (you shouldn't until you have ghost armor, stoneskin and mirror image, but sometimes you can get away with it).

The easiest characters to play starting out are IMO:

• the Berserker. Really just click on what you want to die, and if they cast spells Rage first so you're immune to the spell effects.
  
• The Fighter/Cleric (multi-class). You get a taste for spell casting in the game and with Draw Upon Holy Might they hit hard. You also don't really get a good choice for a Cleric in BG.
  
• The Fighter/Mage. Once you understand that you'll get your AC from spells and potions it plays more or less like a Fighter early on. Later once you get Mirror Image, Stoneskin, Protection from Magical Weapons and Protection from Normal Weapons, it plays like a Fighter that can't get injured. Finally once you get Simulacrum and Project Image it plays like an army of Fighters that can't get injured.
  
• Fighter/Thief is also a pretty good choice. This more has to do with your choices for a Thief being very limited in BG2, and traps being pretty strong (they're toned down in the EE, but still strong).

[Captain]

so it seems like the general consensus is that a base fighter is far worse than a barb or berserker unless i do fighter/mage

so i shouldnt have just deleted my base fighter hahahah oh no!

[malkavius77]

Fighters by themselves are just worse because they don't offer anything that other kits don't do better. But kits weren't added until BG2 and then to the EE editions which kinda of made base fighter obsolete.