Fighter-Druid.

[Blinkybubs]

Are these a good combo and do druids need wisdom?

[Zotliatlicor]

Fighter Druid are fun to play, and they can be very strong. Jaheira is a Multiclass Fighter / Druid, and she has actually good stats too, but not compared to how many would design their own F/D. 15-17-17 in the Fighting stats and high Wisdom and High Charisma. She is a good companion.

For the Player Character i find it best & Strongest to play a human Fighter (Berserker) Dualclass into Druid at Fighter lvl 9. You get a bit less Fighting but more Spellcasting. Just my preference. You still get the option to wear the Best Armours and gain Grandmastery in your chosen Weapons of Choice (mind Druid Ethos rule waht weapons you can use)

Wisdom is nice to have High on any Divine Caster Class, but it is NOT necessary. Anomen (Fighter / Cleric Dualclass) has only 12, and can get to 16 if he becomes a knight. I like to have Anomen Fail his Knight Quest, and stay at 12. He still gets more than enough spells to cover his duties as Divine Caster.

From 15 and upwards, Wisdome grant you some bonus castings of lvl 1-4 (18 Wis), but that is all. Wisdom no longer (in EE) affect saving throws. Only bonus spells.

Making a character ready for Dual class is kind of hard when it comes to Fighter / Druid, as you need 15 in the PrimeStats for Fighter (Strength) and 17 in the PrimeStats for Druid (Wisdom & Charisma both). Then you might want at least 9 in Intelligence (to be able to cast scrolls and use Wands), AND you want a good Constitution (min. 16) AND a decent Dexterity (15-18). There is no Dump Stat so you need to roll very high in Character generation.

As you see, Jaheira has all the stats at the minimum level. Rolling a Multiclass Fighter Druid is actually more easy, since the generator always put min scores in Prime Stats.

Fighter Druid is extremely Tanky (with Ironskin spell), The biggest Full Plate & Shield, and although few very good spells, the good ones are so good they are considered Broken. Insect Plague wins most fights by itself. Call Lightning is devastating later on in outdoors areas, and there is more than enough outdoors. Summon Fire Elememental is the best summoning spell before Planetars and Devas, and Druid has some decent PC Buffs and Party Buffs (not the best, but ok).

[Brevan]

I'd recommend multiclassing, so you have access to the Fighter's High Level Abilities (mostly for Whirlwind and Deathblow). If you want to play with the Druid's HLA shapeshifting, then those benefit greatly from Whirlwind. Deathblow used with a Fire Seed is pretty awesome for those cases where it works (brings down several demons or mind flayers in 1 shot). Downside is that it takes ages to unlock Druid level 15 as Multiclass (so if you do Dual, it's painful to switch after level 14), but the non-spell HLAs work swell.

I don't recall any good low level druid spells (summon Nymph at level 4 is another OP spell, Entangle was great pre-EE), so would agree Wisdom isn't critical. It should also help you resist having your concentration broken when you're hit while casting, but I haven't tested that in EE.

Don't forget Druid's get Greater Elemental Summoning (Elemental Princes), which are allowed to be active with Devas/Planetars, and they're pretty epic themselves (immune to +2 and lower weapons, etc).

[Blinkybubs]

Was thinking of going to a spear user and rolling a 96+, might take some time to get the roll though.

[Zotliatlicor]

Originally posted by Blinkybubs:

Was thinking of going to a spear user and rolling a 96+, might take some time to get the roll though.

Might be fun, but you may also quickly get frustrated. Spear on itself is THE WORST weapon in the game, and there are not many good ones to find even if you choose them. 1d6 piercing, so many are resistant or close to immune to this damage type.

Quarterstaff would be the sensible choice if you want to go 2-H. You can get a +4 Staff at the very start. But dual-wielding with Scimitar / Dagger / Club is also viable, and Belm Scimitar) in Offhand. You also get some nice Scimitars & Daggers, sadly most are just +2. But you get +3 and better later.

Why Club you say? There are not many Clubs, but those that are are very good. I play with Jaheira often, and she has Club as her Strongest weapon at the start (2 **). And if (When) you do Trademeet, you get 2 very potent Clubs, one is sadly only +2, but it is a killer, often overlooked by many players, and a +3 that does +3 Acid (almost nothing resists acid, goes through mages protections like Stoneskin etc). My Jaheira Dual-Wields, and has Club & Belm for extra attacks.

Lategame you get a stronger Club (+4/+5). I also used Clubs as main (and Staff when clubs could not hit) with a Beastmaster that made it to the End of ToB. Beastmaster has the LEAST possible weapon choices in this game. (well, Mages too, but i don't count them).

[Blinkybubs]

Are you suggesting dual-wielding clubs? Could be interesting I suppose.

[Brevan]

Lots of options, but I'd like to point out that Daggers aren't bad. You can get the +2 Boomerang dagger whenever you want to pick-pocket it (or have a mage read the Limited Wish scroll in Ribald's shop -- "Quest like no other"), which grants an extra attack whether in melee or thrown, and has excellent damage. When you get Pixie Prick, that might be worth using quite often, it's knock-down lasts 2 rounds and occurs quite often (especially against mages/rogues, but also for some reason the fairly tough Chromatic Demon in Watcher's Keep). You could still use Belm in the off-hand (+Attacks in the offhand always apply to the main weapon in EE). Dagger-down-side is Piercing damage, so you'll still want a club or staff handy.

[Blinkybubs]

I'm going to run a full party rather than a single character and this won't be my primary priest in the party. I actually rolled a 96, with a 18/97 strength and took scimitar. club and dual wield. Thank you for your input fellas.

[Hamish]

there is one massive drawback of the multi classed Fighter/Druid. Spell Progression. Druids get A LOT of spell slots when they reach level 15, which is 3 million experience points. on multi class this is 6 million experience points in total to get 3 million on the druid class. This is very late game ToB in a full party, on a completionist run.

From the wiki, it's 6, 6, 6, 5, 3, 2 1 (Level 1 to 7 going left to right) at level 14, to 6 in everything at level 15 - this is a really annoying thing about Jaheria.

I would prefer my Protagonist to be the dual classed version because of this!

Some other advantages in dual classing are, you can grand master in weapons, your total spells will not only progress faster, but will be higher in total (it caps at level 25), I would even say you are more tankier, as you will have higher HP potential (pure fighter to level 9 has more HP than a multi classed anything)

Of course, as someone has said, you will loose the Fighter HLAs, and the stat rolling is hard due to needing 15 str, 17 wis and 17 charisma (however, if you made the character in BG1 and imported, you could have less thanks to the tombs you can get to raise stats)

[☻]

I use Jahiera alot and she is a multi class fighter druid. It does come late game but that payoff is pretty rewarding. She's pretty useful throughout the series but her summoning power is standout and when you get that big payout in TOB it feels great to finally let loose.

[Hamish]

Originally posted by ☻:

I use Jahiera alot and she is a multi class fighter druid. It does come late game but that payoff is pretty rewarding. She's pretty useful throughout the series but her summoning power is standout and when you get that big payout in TOB it feels great to finally let loose.

Agreed, she is almost always in my party. Her SoA story line is great, romance or not, as you know, leads to some great items and experience and IMO the most rewarding companion quest line - obviously no details needed.

I just think for a protagonist, I would prefer the Dual class option.

[Blinkybubs]

My protagonist is actually going to either be an undead hunter or cavalier. This character is to be somewhat a combat utilitarian role.

[Centurion]

Originally posted by Hamish:

there is one massive drawback of the multi classed Fighter/Druid. Spell Progression. Druids get A LOT of spell slots when they reach level 15, which is 3 million experience points. on multi class this is 6 million experience points in total to get 3 million on the druid class. This is very late game ToB in a full party, on a completionist run.

From the wiki, it's 6, 6, 6, 5, 3, 2 1 (Level 1 to 7 going left to right) at level 14, to 6 in everything at level 15 - this is a really annoying thing about Jaheria.

I would prefer my Protagonist to be the dual classed version because of this!

Some other advantages in dual classing are, you can grand master in weapons, your total spells will not only progress faster, but will be higher in total (it caps at level 25), I would even say you are more tankier, as you will have higher HP potential (pure fighter to level 9 has more HP than a multi classed anything)

Of course, as someone has said, you will loose the Fighter HLAs, and the stat rolling is hard due to needing 15 str, 17 wis and 17 charisma (however, if you made the character in BG1 and imported, you could have less thanks to the tombs you can get to raise stats)

This is exactly the thing. It's not that F/D is a bad combo, it's that late game thing. I just finished a run with Jaheira and the Druid utility is very useful. Done right, the Druid spells can be extremely beneficial. Barkskin is never bad, and I have learned how the various "insect swarm" spells can really cheese spellcasters (most of whom would not be immune as this is Divine magic.) However,...

There are always two knocks against Druids of any type, but especially those with split classes. The first is that killer jump to Level 15. It is tough even with a single-class Druid. And until then you are limited to a single level 7 spell. It is not unusual to not break this ceiling until ToB! Consider that a Cleric-type would achieve the same level at a mere 1,575,000 xp. Just FYI, this is a feature of the original PnP game where, for role-playing purposes, this is the level of (the) Grand Druid (BG2 replicates this by allowing you to duel Faldorn for the Druid Grove leadership.)

The other is the nature of the class. D&D classes, in theory, are a series of equal trade-offs of abilities. This has never really been true. For Druids, the trade-off of weak AC, limited weapons, and more limited spells at lower levels is the ability of Shapechange. I am sure some will disagree with me, but I have generally found this to be the single most useless ability in the game. In general, by the time you can use it, the creatures you can become are just not all that powerful or useful, Disabling your spellcasting to be a bear is not a terrific strategy. And when you put this into a dual or multi-class combo, with Fighter, there is literally no situation where your "animal self" is preferable to your fighter skills. I have never once shapechanged Jaheira.

Here's the thing, Baldur's Gate is a CRPG, which means it is both role-playing and a game. From a gaming perspective there are much more powerful classes and combos, or at least ones that don't take so long to reach their full potential. As to role-playing, that is your call. Hey, if you want to play a "Forest Warrior," F/D sure beats Beastmaster!

I will add one thing, Given the whole Level 15 XP thing, if you are doing this for your PC, I would for sure do SoD for the added experience and levels, and maybe even consider adding some quest mods to either game for more XP.

[Blinkybubs]

Isn't Grand Druid level 18 in 2nd edition? Or is that Arch Druid? Books in other room...

[Hamish]

Originally posted by Blinkybubs:

Isn't Grand Druid level 18 in 2nd edition? Or is that Arch Druid? Books in other room...

Check the book, I would like to know out of curiosity! Personally, I have to admit, I know very little to none about the PnP DnD. I played it once along with my brother in the 80s, I was about 9 at the time, and it was fun. I think I was some sort of Cyrstal guy, and I used my arms to shatter a trap! I never got into it with my friends though (we were into much less wholesome things like smoking, fighting people etc) I now feel I missed out on something.

[Blinkybubs]

Centurion is right. Not 100% sure why I was thinking level 18. The best way to play is with miniatures tbh but I haven't played in a couple decades at least. I do have a few books though, mostly 2nd edition but 3-5 1st edition as well.