Harrim sucks

[zeeb]

He's the only character in my current playthrough that has died and boy have he died an insane amount of times. Everytime he gets to low HP the enemy just autocrit him to slay him outright.

He's garbage.

The ress scrolls aren't cheap either so now I have to resort to save scumming.
I wish I never met Harrim, he's draining all my money and sanity.
Guess it kinda fits him being extremely chaotic aligned though.

[mbradtke]

give him a longspear and enlarge him, that way he can attack from behind, he is a support character, he is not supposed to be in close melee normally, with proper gear and build he can become quite tanky tough, esp against giants because of the racial, you can also reduce person him to increase his AC f.e, harrim is tricky to play tough so im not suprised many think he is bad

[ptirodaktill]

20 base movespeed, 2 useless domain and a wasted feat. I just use him for buffs and give him perception percs, then dump hem once Tristana is ready to join.

[Perception312]

He's just a substitute for Tristian when Tristian isn't around. And a very good High Priest advisor.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

20 base movespeed

That's a big one right there, his stumpy legs just aren't made for adventuring. I've never used him once in all my playthroughs outside of doing his quests once. And it was painful doing his quests watching him waddle along behind the group while everyone else did all the work. It was like watching Willow in that horrible Disney reboot where he's trying to keep up with all these teenagers.

Originally posted by zeeb:

He's the only character in my current playthrough that has died and boy have he died an insane amount of times. Everytime he gets to low HP the enemy just autocrit him to slay him outright.

As said, if you're going to use a Cleric in melee, they need some help to stay alive. Enlarge and/or reach weapon is one way. Alchemist buffs, temporary hp, multiclassing, and micromanaged healing (esp in turn based) might work too.

But if you're playing in real time, your best bet is actually to kill enemies faster. You usually get a few rounds in every fight before enemies start to swap targets, so you want to end or control fights before that happens by increasing the overall damage (and/or control) in your group. Unfortunately, vanilla Harrim isn't great at helping with that either.

If you're in turn based, then you'll probably need to use another strategy to keep him alive as enemies will usually choose the best target they can attack within their range, and a melee Harrim will likely be a more attractive target vs another melee character.

[Radiac]

Make a merc.

[dwarfpcfan]

He's a cleric so even without his special domain spells he has access to all the essential cleric spells and he excels at summoning. Focus on that and he'll do perfectly fine.

if you have to send him into melee make sure he's properly buffed with blur, displacement, invisibility the standard stuff and he can survive fine as a secondary melee.

But really using a cleric as front liners i just wasting the best tools clerics have.

[Martialis]

Noob doesn't know how to play a real cleric. LOL.

[Immortal Reaver]

Reach weapon + Enlarge. That will solve it. With 20 speed he will always be behind frontline.

[99Random]

As others have said, if you are going to use him as melee use a reach weapon. Harrim having a shield does not indicate he will survive close range fighting.

There are those that are incompetent at building him into a solid character and will tell you not to use him. Just do not fall for the healing trap that Tristain is since if you need that much healing you are doing it wrong.

[ptirodaktill]

At least Tristan come with a usable domain and +2 all finger. Why do you even want to melee with 14 STR dwarf is beyond my understanding, he is gona deal 0 dmg anyway.

[99Random]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

At least Tristan come with a usable domain and +2 all finger. Why do you even want to melee with 14 STR dwarf is beyond my understanding, he is gona deal 0 dmg anyway.

I am fine with Tristain, just sad when people use him as heal bot.

[Frostfeather]

Tristian, Harrim, they're both subpar for a long time unless you change their class to an overpowered class to compensate for their numerous weaknesses.

For Clerics, it's more a matter of some Domains being overpowered and these two simply don't have those Domains. Yes, any relatively experienced player can eventually "save" any subpar character (including Tristian or Harrim) one way or another. But for newer players in a game with inflated enemy stats and inflated enemy numbers... their relative crappiness in the early game does matter.

[Dragon Master]

Use Harrim as a summoner and a buff/debuff support, not a healer like Tristian. He can wear good armor and weapons but keep him back until people like Valerie or Amiri are in the front lines. Harrim isn't meant to be a front-liner, he's a support character.

[Orion Pax]

Originally posted by night4:

Tristian, Harrim, they're both subpar for a long time unless you change their class to an overpowered class to compensate for their numerous weaknesses.

For Clerics, it's more a matter of some Domains being overpowered and these two simply don't have those Domains. Yes, any relatively experienced player can eventually "save" any subpar character (including Tristian or Harrim) one way or another. But for newer players in a game with inflated enemy stats and inflated enemy numbers... their relative crappiness in the early game does matter.

Exactly. It’s not that you can’t salvage a character like Harrim if you know the game - you can. It’s just not that rewarding in my opinion.

Why not just get a merc cleric or bench him for someone else since you can only field 6 in a team? Since he is not just different but objectively worse. It just feels like a hit to players in the early game, that’s all.

I end up going with Jaethal at Ancient Tomb instead just for someone halfway decent at Nature checks.

[mbradtke]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

Why do you even want to melee with 14 STR dwarf is beyond my understanding, he is gona deal 0 dmg anyway.

Of course, pls enlighten us, if u think the 14 str makes him useless in melee, you still have to learn a lot about the gamel...

Originally posted by Orion Pax:

Why not just get a merc cleric or bench him for someone else since you can only field 6 in a team? Since he is not just different but objectively worse. It just feels like a hit to players in the early game, that’s all.

Because noone likes mercs, they have no dialog, no story, no quests, they are not fun, just silence dummies.