GameBanshee Forums

Hey everyone. I'm playing ToB for the second time, with my Blade that I've played through BG1 and SoA. He's been doing "okay" so far... really, I've found that Blades have less than mediocre fighting ability (sure, you got spins... but only a few times a day), mediocre spellcasting, and horrible thieving. So all around, they're pretty ****ty characters, and I can't even fathom a way to get them to -24 AC, unless you have to use defensive spin for that which I've found completely useless as far as spins go- and offensive spin doesn't do much more than haste your PC.

Anyway, the first time I played ToB I didn't even get past killing Gromnir. His soldiers would just wipe my party out in seconds, literally doing 50% with each hit on core rules.

This time I made it to the drow Bhaalspawn, and I got so bored and frustrated I just gave up on ToB and am starting a new character of evil alignment (first time doing that). The main reason being is I couldn't use cheese to beat her; there was nowhere to run and lure enemies too. Which is another thing I'm starting to hate about BG2 and on: I can't seem to make it through a battle without cheesing out.

Fighting that b*tch was just ridiculous. Constant instant-death spells and area-effect spells. It's funny how whenever *my* characters use those spells they never work, but if a stupid cannon fodder enemy cleric uses it, it kills my main guy. Great. I opened up BG1, when the series was still good, and started to make my evil fighter. Or maybe a monk.

Anyway is there any advice on playing ToB? I admit, I'm used to spellcasters being practically useless except for using Magic Missile to interrupt enemy spellcasters (but MM is useless in ToB now thanks to all the buffs that enemy wizards can *instantly* cast on themselves) and to add buffs to my fighters. Can someone give me some instructions on how to utilize my spellcasters to their fullest potential? Enemy mages just seem so strong in ToB- even cannon fodder mages seem to be casting timestop and finger of death spells.

I read all these threads about people making the game even *harder*, and I just don't understand how ya'll do that ****. How can you possibly make this game harder than Insane? Even on core rules, the game is hard enough that it becomes tedious at best.

Anyway, advice would be greatly appreciated. I would like to uncover the plot and actually have *fun* doing it. But it seems I'm doing something wrong, because even mundane battles rip my guys up.

Thanks.

Apart from giving you an extra attack a round for 24 second Offensive Spion also gives you +2 to hit and +2 damage on top of every hit doing maximum damage, used in conjunction with buffing spells (Improved Haste, Tenser's Transformation, StoneSkin etc., etc.) it turns a Blade into a killing machine.

Worried about their spellcasters casting time stop, get you mage to cast it first, if you've equipped him/her with just the Amulet of Power your guy/gal will get theirs in first. Using the right spell coombos that usually means game over for the opposition. Time stop, followed by Improved alacrity, then Spell Sequencer (Greater Malison * 3),Spell trigger (with three Chain lightnings can be devastating, that's an average of 94 HP of damage to the first target), then maybe an Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting or two then whatever takes your fancy.

A Blade is anything BUT weak. The class is one of the best fighters in the game (next to arcane and then divine casters).

Remember that you are part caster, so as galraen mentioned, you need to buff yourself up.

Spirit Armor can give you great AC (and a +3 save vs. magical attacks) while you're wearing a mage robe or Jan's Armor.

Improved Haste doubles your attacks per round, so you should be doing about eight to nine attacks when dual wielding.

Tensor's Transformation is the spell to turn you into a fighter. Your hitpoints are doubled (expect somewhere around three hundred), your damage, THAC0 and AC are slightly increased, which still helps. Cast this spell last when you buff.

Offensive Spin Makes you move faster and makes you do maximum damage for twenty four seconds, as well as what galraen mentioned. This one puts the Kensai's Kai to shame. Useful when you do not have Improved Haste or when you're forced to fight without buffs.

Mirror Image is amazing for giving you some eight free hits, meaning that you can pummel your enemy while they get rid of your images.

Blur provides you with a rather nice AC increase of -3, not to mention a +1 bonus to your saving throws.

Spell Immunity can make you immune to an entire SCHOOL of magic. Yes, you CAN cast it multiple times and choose different schools.

Protection from Magical Weapons makes sure that for five rounds even the best fighter can't even touch you with his magical sword... or fist.

[/b]Stoneskin[/b] gives you some twenty or so skins (free hits) which can greatly extend your life in combination with the other spells. They do have to hit you after all to take off a skin, so first they need to get past your AC, then the images, and that's if you don't have Protection from Magical Weapons going.

Defensive Spin gives you a -11AC bonus! This is amazing! If you're under the affects of freedom, you are even allowed to move! You CAN use this with Improved Haste too, just cast this right before Tensor's and you're a walking wall.

Then you have wands. While in Tensor's you can't cast spells, you can still use the wands. You have cloudkill, fireball, lightning, flame strike and even "chain spells" (where you get three to four consecutive spells with no downtime) from the wands. That's just the blatantly offensive ones though. You have wands that remove spell protections or debuff and curse your enemies. Wands that can give take some attention off of you through fear or putting new targets on the field.

And that's just putting aside the high charisma and the incredibly cheap pick pockets skill which can net you some desired items and a pretty penny.

What Crenshinibon is basically saying is that Blades are great fighters when you want to micromanage them and buff them all day. It's not for everybody.

Give him a Ring of Free Action. That, with the defensive spin is awesome.

blade is weak without buff so buff before ur fight. if u send him to battle naked(no spell or buff), he's not so good. mister Crenshinibon listed all the useful buff spells. cast them before fight then send him in and watch him kill, can't go wrong with that. blade requires good management and spell combinations to be great. blade is actually one of best class in the game. though i wouldn't play it as pc since i can get Heardalis(watever his name is)

Stoneskin spell actually gives a max of 10 skins at lvl 20(doesnt progress higher), same for Iron skins spell. Also the max AC amount that the defensive spin gives is -10. Against enemy mages is always handy to use AoE spells like cloudkills, skull trap, death cloud, incrediary clouds, abi's horrid wiltings etc., since they like to use shadow door and mislead spells which makes targeting them with single target spells impossible without casting a spell to remove their invisibility. Those kinda spells usually penetrate their defenses easily and usually kills them nicely, if not the cloud spells atleast keep interrupting their spells usually. Against instant death spells use a death ward if you have a cleric, or spell deflection, spell turning or spell trap spells on your mages. For getting rid of mages defenses i recommend the remove magic spell which works nicely aslong as your higher lvl than your target(s), it removes anything but spell deflection, spell turning and spell trap spells, but removes any resistance spells they might have on making them suspectible to those AoE spells i mentioned. Dont play a blade or a mage(sorce) if you dont wanna be buffing yourself all of the time. Try to have fun!

Yeah, that's way too much micromanagement for me. I'd rather have 1 - 2 mages with good spells, but the problem is I don't even know what spells are good for them to have. Plus, I find that mages are constantly obliterated in the game by backstabbers and instant-death magic. I've had to revive Arie like 9 times.

Use spells like Spirit Armor and Stoneskin to protect your mages. Armor of Faith will reduce physical damage done to you while Mirror Image will have the opponent hitting you eight times before they can get to your ten skins.

Concerning Defensive Spin and Freedom of Movment I'd consider using that an exploit/glitch/bug.