GameBanshee Forums

lemme rephrase that:
Paladin (no kit): weak. Carsomyr makes a paladin good, but a lot of other weapons in TOB are arguably just as good. Lay on Hands is alright but no supstitute for heal. Compares to a Ranger in fighting but no DUal Wield and no Stealth
Paladin Kits: Inquisitor is just too good for a Paladin IMO. Almost as good as the Wizard Slayer in his own game. Cavalier and Undead Hunter r better than Paladins but not quite as effective as Inquisitor. IMO there just to refined in their bonuses.

IMO there is no 'worst class'. Take the Beastmaster. A normal ranger might wear full plate but no stealth then. There r some staves that compare to swords. The Beastmaster however can use bows just as good as any Ranger and can use Flame Blade if he cant find a good Club or Staff. In Baldurs Gate Trilogy he is awesome cuz he gets a familiar bonus hit points and can have free summoning. take the Wizard Slayer. By level 15 has a good chance to avoid magical effects and has a significant decrease to magic damage done to him. He can destroy any mage with 10 hits. It doesnt matter what protections the mage has because al he needs to do is connect for the spell failiure to apply. He doesnt need to do damage. All this is is an opinion poll. But its still fun to rip of the classes u hate.

2.Paladin and all kits (What does he trade? HP, levels, and proficiencies for what? Detect Evil, Protection from evil and a few crappy priest spells)

The paladin has the same HP as the fighter. the only reason it's lower at certain exps is because the level is lower.

and you missed out a +2 bonus to ALL saving throws. Plus, a Paladin with AoF and DUHM can wreck some havok. They are, perhaps, too strong

Saving throw bonus is nice but its not gonna help in melee. IMO Paladins just dont compare to fighters and rangers in combat. Cavaliers kill demons, Undead Hunters kill Undead and Inquisitor kill mages. Where does the vanilla paladin fit in? IMO his combat abilities dont match the Fighters grand mastery and the Rangers free Dual wield. I think im gonna make a new thread before i get this 1 off topic.

The "crappy priest spells" are a lot better than most people think, Thrain already mentioned Armor of Faith and Draw Upon Holy Might (both awesome spells because they scale up with your level), but there are more useful spells like Doom, Remove Fear, Strength of One, Defensive Harmony, Holy Power, Lesser Restoration, Negative Plane Protection...
And don't forget Paladins can turn undead, not as good as a cleric, but not that much worse.

Do they get level 4 spells? I thought it went up to lvl 3. Still you have clerics for them.
Paladin Advantages:
1.Carsomyr. Best weapon in SoA and one of the best in ToB
2.Turn Undead. It's like 2 levels behind a Cleric's.
3.Two (++). Makes them alright warriors.
4.Lay on Hands. Fast healing that goes up to 78 hit points.
5.Protection from Evil, Know Alignment, Detect Evil
6.Up to level 4 Priest Spells
7.+2 to saving throws
Paladin Disadvantages
1.Very restricted stats. Require 13 in Wisdom and 17 in Charisma. If u want
18 in Str, Dex and Con then ur Intelligence is gonna go way down.
2.Can become fallen, making them a weak version of a fighter.
3.No combat bonuses above two weapon proficiencies. Can't compare to
Rangers and Fighters in combat.
4.Gains levels slower than a fighter. Max is 34 in ToB vs. a fighter's 40.
5.Alignment restrictions. Must be Lawful Good.
6.Stronghold doesn't provide unique rewards or money. Carsomyr can be
obtained otherwise.
7.Will become fallen if they do not accept a stat and HP loss in hell.

I know some of the disadvantages are thin but so are some of the advantages. If I missed anything tell me. If u prefer holy warrior with some spellcasting and special abilities over plain fighting, then the Paladin is for u.
If not, the Fighter and Ranger r better choices.

[QUOTE=Pepsimax_x5]
Paladin Disadvantages
1.Very restricted stats. Require 13 in Wisdom and 17 in Charisma. If u want
18 in Str, Dex and Con then ur Intelligence is gonna go way down.[/QUOTE]
False! Paladins have great stats in BG2 (not in NWN) cause they have alot of stats that need to be higher then another. So if for rolling you would roll a 2 for charisma it's automaticly raised to the class minimum (17).
You can easaly roll over 90 when creating a paladin.

Strange. I always had a hard time rolling with paladins. Do u people have a comeback for everything i say?

[QUOTE=Pepsimax_x5]Strange. I always had a hard time rolling with paladins. Do u people have a comeback for everything i say? [/QUOTE]
Nope, totally agree with the rest!

with the fallen thing, its not that hard to not become fallen. and i wudnt cconsider bearing the pain and suffering of others to be a disadvantage....

when roling for stats i almost always get 18, 7, 16, 14, 14, 18. between 7 and 14 dex there are NO bonuses so it is ok if it goes low.

the carsomyr is a great weapon and the paladin's turn undead is better then a fighter/cleric's.

the only real disadvantage i see in a pally is that they are really hard to roleplay corectly.

Well..

It's clear that a lot of the posts are confusing which classes are weak with which ones the posters don't play well or understand well. Bards, for instance - but don't feel bad, I can't play a bard for beans. Kensai & monk both also fit into this category.

Some people have very strong play prediliections which set classes - I like melee heavy groups which simply steamroller the opposition, with arcane & priestly support largely for hostile mage suppression & buffs. At higher levels I use traps and swarms of summons to do the bulk of the work. This inevitably constrains what classes work well (or poorly) for me.

So far, the only classes which I can see as possessing absolute disadvantages regardless of playstyle are Beastmasters, Avengers, and some specialist mages (Transmuters, Necromancers, maybe Diviners and Enchanters). We might argue single class druids are also pretty borked, especially because of that EXP jump thing.

Some classes & kits, like Wizard Slayer or Inquisitor offer tradeoffs which are irreducible judgement calls - is the loss worth the gain? Each person has to make that decision themself, there is no objective answer.

Good gaming to all!

Specialist mages are strong as pure mages... They get more spell, but doesn't have acces to 1 of the (8?) schools of magic. So it isn't a really big disadvantage.

BTW : I've a little question about specialist mages : Do they get the Saving Throws against their school of magic boosted by 2, and the enemy's S.T. lowered by 2?

I'm not really clear, so there's an exemple.

An enchanter who's targeted by a Charm Person spell (Saving Throw vs spell with a +3 bonus to cancel) will receive a bonus of 2 to his Saving Throw because it's an Enchantement/Charm spell.

If the same enchanter cast a Sleep spell (S.T. with a 3 penality). In the AD&D 2nd edition rules, the target would suffer an additional penality of 2 because the spell is casted by a master in enchantements/charms.

I'd say the Wizard Slayer, Beast Master, Avenger, Jester are all pretty weak in a way or another

[QUOTE=Morbent]I'd say the Wizard Slayer, Beast Master, Avenger, Jester are all pretty weak in a way or another[/QUOTE]

Well, even the jester has a nice looking when trying to solo a bard.

by Avenger do u mean the one for the druid?

no way thats awesome!

druids got all crappy 2nd level spells IMO and it gives em web wich i love

For the "Worst Class" poll

I suppose I would say I don't like to play as the bard, cause I don't like the whole "netural" alignment part, so for that part, I don't care for druids either. Both are somewhat weak in the old melee-bash-i-can-take-a-few-hits department as well. I know, I know, they aren't fighters, but if I'm not going to play as a fighter or priest class, I'd just as soon play as a thief or mage, who also can't take many hits, but at least have awesome abilities to make up for it. The Bard's lore score is handy, and the Druid gets some wicked high-level spells in ToB, but it still doesn't make them playable in my mind. Besides, the weapons and armor limits on both suck. Happy gaming, everyone!

[QUOTE=Jkittenluv21]Besides, the weapons and armor limits on both suck. Happy gaming, everyone! [/QUOTE]
S

P

O

I

L

E

R

Head on over to the planar prison, after rescuing Haer'Dalis and in there you can get melodic chain mail. Usable by bards. With that and a ring of protection, you should be able to reach the negatives very easily. When I did this, Haer'Dalis had reached -2 armor class, and with stone skin, he freaking owned
(NOTE: Planar prison not sphere)

Bards are not restricted from any weapons (except weapons like Carsomyr or Staff of the Magi of course, but UAI can help in those cases ), and they can wear one of the best armors in the game (Aslyferund Elven Chain +5) without losing their spellcasting abilities.

Well...

[QUOTE=SP101]Specialist mages are strong as pure mages... They get more spell, but doesn't have acces to 1 of the (8?) schools of magic. So it isn't a really big disadvantage.

SNIP[/QUOTE]

That's true for some specialist mages, like Conjurors (who really only lose true sight) or Illusionists (who only lose 4 really nice spells - Horror, Skull trap, Animate Dead, And Abi-Dalzim), but for Transmuters - NO Abjuration spells - no stoneskins, PfMW, yadda yadda yadda -get real! Or Necromancers who lose all illusions, which means no project image, mislead, mirror image, or invisibility of any kind? I think not.

There's no way it's worth trading off one more spell per level for missing those.

Sorry, no idea about the saving throw thing.

[QUOTE=Raumoheru]by Avenger do u mean the one for the druid?

no way thats awesome!

druids got all crappy 2nd level spells IMO and it gives em web wich i love [/QUOTE]

Maybe that's just me, but I think the Sword Spider, Baby Wyvern and Fire Salamander forms are pretty useless, except in some very rare circumstances (eg. the Fire Salamander for Fire immunity).

And the bonus spells aren't all that useful either, I never liked Web since it webs my party as well , chromatic orb is nice, but any mage can have it, and if you wanted to do lightning damage, use Call Lightning. As for Improved Invisibility and Chaos, they can be useful sometimes, but as for CO, you can cast them with a mage instead...

I love druids, but I think the Avenger is the worst kit out there

just my 2 cents anyway

The Sword Spider form is a great in the beginning of the game, 5 attacks per round + poison damage (you can do Chateu Irenicus all on your own without even resting ), and the extra spells are useful, too. The -2 to str and con are not that big of a deal either, a druid has no use of constitution over 16 anyway and the lower strength is easily negated by one of the many strength enhancing girdles.