Baldur's Gate II kits, incredibly cheesy?

[Revi]

I've just recently started to think about this, since I'm re-reading the AD&D 2nd edition rulebooks in preparation for a pen & paper campaign, but have you noticed how incredibly cheesy the kits in BG2 really are? They are gamebreakers.

Take the fighter, for example. In pen & paper games, non-kitted, pure-class fighters are a common sight. In BG2, you have to be stark raving mad to choose a non-kitted fighter over a Berserker or Kensai. There is just no single advantage to be gained. Both kits are *always* better than the true class. And not by a little, either. The Berserker, for example, gets this free "cheese" button which simply allows him to ignore every type of crowdcontrol.

Same with Bard. Blades are powerhouses of destruction, almost better tanks than fighters. Skalds are extremely good buffers. But with the existence of these two kits, what purpose does the true class still serve? None whatsoever.

That's why I think kits are really cheesy in BG2. On my next "honest" playthrough, I don't think I'll use any of them. It just feels wrong compared to the PnP game.

[sear]

I think this boils down to the fact that the computer format ruins a lot of the time-based penalties. Once-per-day spells etc. really aren't limited at all when there is no downside to resting. If there was a real-time cooldown of, say, 20 minutes or something, it'd make much more sense. The same is largely true of wizards as well - spell limits are only a big deal unless you get stuck in a dungeon for an extended period of time.

[Aeronth]

I disagree. True classes are very versatile, while kits are merely specialists. They have both advantages and disadvantages.

What make some kits powerful are the flaws in game balance. The kensai and the berserker are strong because missile weapons are useless to a fighter. The kensai is even stronger because a mere PfMW make obsolete the (already weak) armors in the game. The blade is strong because pickpocketing is almost useless, and bard songs aren't worth a PC slot.

That's why I'd rather blame the game itself.

[Blomdor]

Kensai in particular just doesn't mix well with the game and is very easily abusable. All of the Kensai's disadvantages can be circumvented trivially via dual classing. I'm a bit surprised that they put it in, actually, for more than just that reason. I don't see how the PC could be a kensai if he grew up in a library on the Sword Coast.

The other kits are mostly OK, and some are IMO very nice additions to the game. If anything I wish there were many more options for clerics because the three faiths already available are not distinguished enough from each other gameplay-wise to be really remarkable. It would be really nice to be able to choose from a wide variety of priest types with really noticeable differences in spell selection and abilities like you can in IWD2.

The fighter kits seem to obsolete the default class IMO largely because of the grandmastery nerf making the difference between 2 and 5 pips basically insignificant. Fighters felt much more fun and useable to me with the unnerfed grandmastery mod because it makes their ability to both melee and arch better than almost any other class more of an asset and makes the difference between them, Archers, and Berserkers much more noticeable gameplay-wise.

None of them are remotely as cheesy as sorcerers are x(. Kensai duals come close, I suppose. Arcane magic stinks so much like cheddar that it's hard to appreciate the more subtle odors.

[Aeronth]

I don't see how the PC could be a kensai if he grew up in a library on the Sword Coast.

I don't see how he could become a fighter at all. And if he had to, not wearing an armor makes much more sense.

[QuenGalad]

Most of the so-called cheese isn't really a property of the class chosen. The cheese is in the eye (and mind) of the beholder If you got someone who didn't know where to go, what to expect and what equipment to get, no class would be really all that powerful. They seem cheesy to us, because we always know who we're going to fight, what kind of protections to use and so on.
Dualclassing is the epitome of this - we choose Kensai/Mage or Thief or whatever because we know the other class would make up for the drawbacks of the Kensai, not because it makes roleplaying sense. Therefore, the cheese is ours and not the Kensai's - it's the player's choice to follow the path of best results and not of the story. From a roleplaying perspective, characters can't make life choices based on "I will get UAI on level 40 so eventually I'll be able to use an armor anyway." Well, unless they live in the world of the Order of the Stick.
I also agree that the Kensai should not be dual-classable at all, as well as a wizard. These are the classes that canonically need extreme devotion to study, forfeiting many other aspects of life. I think Kensai should actually be a sub-class of Monk.

I played a Fighter/Mage once and it was horribly boring : I couldn't identify either with her Fighter or Mage side. It works a bit better with Solaufein, who has a different background, but for my PC's, I dualclass only if it makes sense character-wise. For example, it makes sense to me that a Thief would also train in fighting, but it makes ZERO sense that a Wizardslayer would become a Wizard.

[Tricky]

I don't think the kits are about getting any kind of advantage. Some simply are especially weak, much more so than for instance a fighter compared to a beserker. What changes is the approach you take to the game and your role play by extend. 'Weak' kits aren't bad, they simply result in different gameplay.

I remember someone joking about making a 'squirrel' kit (scores of 1 for every attribute) and it probably still being capable of finishing the game with the right equips. That's a unique challenge.

[Blomdor]

That's true re: the game being winnable with 1 in every attribute. I sometimes wonder if the "tactical" mods I routinely dump on the game detract from the experience in some ways, because I've always felt like the first, plain vanilla run through was the most fun because I could run with anything under the sun without much frustration, whereas with SCSII and/or Tactics it often feels like you NEED some way to bring down x overpowered protection spell or survive y overpowered attack.

Strongly agree with the weird dual classing (non)restrictions. A kensai can dual to a thief and break all his codes of conduct, but a paladin can't become a priest of Lathander? What?

[Aeronth]

I'm currently playing the game with SCSII for the first time. My party isn't custom made, so I have Minsc running around (poor Minsc, I had to give him a longbow to keep him safe...).
I feel like anyone without arcane magic (abjuration, more exactly) is nothing more than cannon fodder. It's undoubtfully interesting from a powergaming standpoint, but it sure makes the game... gloomy.
In fact, SCSII was supposed to balance magic, but all in all it only made clear that arcane magic rules the game.

Anyway... why would the kensai be oathbound like the paladin is?

[QuenGalad]

That's why I don't use difficulty mods and stuff. They turn the battles into some sort of puzzle, where you must first go through it or read up on what effects exactly the enemy has, how to dispel them and then proceed EXACTLY as needed and use defined equipment to do so. In most cases they are impossible to win on first run simpy because you don't know what to expect, and this breaks all game immersion for me. The party shouldn't be able to precisely predict what spells the enemy will be under and how he'll attack.

The Kensai is described a bit like a samurai, with the word allegedly meaning "sword saint". A fighter trained to master her weapon at the expense of anything else (no armor, no projectile weapons). The ki attack is near-mystical which is what makes me think of her more like a sub-class of Monk. I didn't neccesarily mean she was oathbound - though the way the class is described, she could be - but all this tells me this is a class that really, really has to focus on her katana (or whatdoyouchoose). I particularily can't see her mixed with thievery which requires a wholly new set of skills and a different mindset altogether. The same thing applies to Wizards in my mind - years upon years of spell research and the ability to hurl fire from your bare hands - and you're going to learn pickpocketing in your spare time?

[Tricky]

They can unlock and lock things with spells anyway.

[Aeronth]

The Kensai [...]

Are you implying that other classes, e.g. the cleric, the thief or the druid, don't require as much dedication as the kensai does? Obviously they do. Hiding in plain sight, resurrecting somebody by praying, those are not the kind of feats you'd expect from anyone, don't you agree?
The kensai is especially a bad example, since he's spared the effort of practising while wearing a very heavy armor.

I think it's the whole multi/dual-classing system you're against (which is a very decent point of view, I'm not criticizing it).

[QuenGalad]

I am going not only by the class abilities, but also by their descriptions. Any class can be treated with more or less dedication by the person concerned. However, the Kensai descriptions and abilities hint at an extreme specialisation ("become one with the sword", ki attacks and whatnot.) As to training in armor, speaking as someone who has been running around in chainmail and hitting people with swords, it's much easier to train to be an armoured tank. You need constitution, yes, strength and you need to get the hang of it, but you rely on the armor to protect you. You don't have to perfect both evasion and attack techniques, because the armor gives you additional protection. Kensai has more to learn, especially if, again, you consider the class description as well as abilities - damage and thac0 bonuses and ki attacks and the whole "sword saint" stuff all imply her skill goes beyond the abilities and beyond the mindset of a straight fighter. So, more to learn, less time to tinker, plus, this kind of path would probably appeal to people who want to get specialised.

I'm not really against mutliclassing in general. In fact, I've gotten into a big dispute on this very forum with Galraen when I said a Ranger/Rogue was a favourite mix of mine (this was NWN we were talking of) partly because these classes have so much in common. Turned out Galraen had a strict view of rangers as "Followers of Aragorn" types while I do not, hence the discrepancy.
I think it makes good sense if you pair Fighter/Thief, for example, but not Berserker>Thief, because thievery needs discipline and reserve. But I see no problem with Berserker>Druid, since druids will often be on their own and needing to be able to defend themselves even if magic fails, and can be rather "wild", untamed guys. I have no problem with Cleric/Thief, although I usually see them as evil - followers of an evil deity carrying out its nefarious agenda in the dark. And so on, which is why I don't make Kensai>Mages, but have no problem if anyone else does.

To get back to the discussion, I believe the cheese is put generously on top of most classes by players, who choose to use certain combinations of spells, abilities and gear. Although some classes are more cheese-receptive than others.

Drat. Now I'm hungry.

[Revi]

You all make some really good points. I agree with you, QuenGalad, that it's more the way we use kits than the actual kits themselves which unbalance the game. Still, I've chosen to restrict myself from using kits in my honest playthroughs for now (I do alternative playthroughs of the game, sometimes all cheese allowed, sometimes as honest as I can).

The kits exist in PnP as well, in fact, the class-specific guidebooks have very little to offer beside kits. I'm in the process of setting up a PnP game with a friend of mine, and we've already decided not to use any of these class guides. In the PnP game, most kits are just meant to give players ideas of how to RP their character, but the few kits that actually do something are almost as bizarrely overpowered as the kits in BG2. The Cavalier, for example, who gets a free warhorse (haha) and the same kind of silly immunities he has in BG2, or the Swashbuckler, a thief with the THAC0 and ApR progress of a fighter. I honestly don't know what the developers at WotC were thinking when they made kits like this. Maybe they just loved these fantasy archetypes so much that they wanted them to feel very loved, or maybe these class guides were just a rush for money.

[vaypah]

I honestly don't know what the developers at WotC were thinking when they made kits like this.

Now, now...TSR still owned the rights when those books came out. WotC are only responsible for the overpowered stuff from 3rd edition onward

[Revi]

Now, now...TSR still owned the rights when those books came out. WotC are only responsible for the overpowered stuff from 3rd edition onward

I didn't know that...