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Hi guys, so here's the thing:
Wishing to start a new game SoA + ToB with my brother, who is gonna play a ridiculously awesome Kensai/mage, I was thinking to play another badass class.

I was thinking of a Dual class Berserker/cleric, or Berserker/druid.

But I saw all over the internet stuff about multi ranger/cleric.


So I did this. Created a human and a half elf.
Made the human go lvl 13, made him dual to cleric, save, to druid, save.
Hacked the saves to get all the characters 4000000000 XP.


Here's what I came to:

Ranger/cleric: tons of HLA. A lot. Really. A lot of spells available, but I only have 3 slots for the last levels, which is really nothing, and really frustrating when i see the large amount of awesomly badass spells at that level.

Berserker/cleric: a HGE range of spells, even for lvl 7 he have 7 slots of spells. Only cleric HLA, which are awesomly impressive. It has also a LOT more weapon specialisation points, than ranger/cleric.

Berserker/Druid: Pretty much the same thing as berserker/cleric, with less attractive spells in general except ironskin, insect thing and nature's beauty. Can also wear scmittars and spear, which I simply love. Especially spears.

So, by the end, I saw that the ranger/cleric may have all druid and cleric spells available, but in the end, he can only cast a few high level ones in combat. And doesn't have all the weapon specialisations and choices that the two other have...

So I'm wondering, how come everyone find it more effective?

And second question: which of berserk/cleric or druid is better?

And finally: Which class is best, and why?

I know I'm missing some points, that's why I'm asking. All the answers I found over the internet contradict each others so I'm a bit lost...

Thanks for your help!

Hi, I'm currently playing a Berserker(13)/Cleric dual class. Basically, I'm unstopable. Grand mastery in flails, two points in dual wield, and well, the rest is obvious, and frankly a little boring.

I wiped out these two battles completely by myself, EASILY, I mean, VERY easily

Spoiler

The Bodhi finaly battle, I mean her whole lair, and the weird rogue-stone-portal-rune-staff of the magi thing

. This was on the hardest difficulty.

HOWEVER, I can't see how a ranger/cleric can possibly be WORSE than the berserker cleric build. I mean, it has everything the beserker has, PLUS, well, there's only one spell and it's ironskins, but what a spell. I suppose there are a couple of others.

The only reason I didn't play ranger/cleric was for roleplaying aspects. If I was powergaming, I'd have to say go ranger/cleric, purely for the spell flexibility. The only things that the berserker has over the ranger is better thac0, and berserk rage. And it isn't much of an advantage in my opinion, you can gain the same bonuses with spells as a ranger/cleric.

Berserker/Druid I have no experience with at all, but my guess is that it's worse that the other two - no turn undead, smaller spell selection.

Good thread, and when some of the bigger boys get their teeth into this I'm sure you'll have all your answers. Just for the hell of it, why not play a thief/cleric, just so that your party covers fighter/mage/cleric/thief?

Finally, if your brother is dual classing, perhaps you should multi-class? In the long run I suspect that a multi is more powerful than a dual, as you'll get the high level abilities from both classes. Also, nothing worse than a lvl 1 cleric and a lvl 1 mage running about high level dungeons.

Hope this helps, if only a little. In my opinion (and I would say this, I'm playing it) go berserker/cleric (FoA, CF, OBVIOUSLY).

iomg wrote:Ranger/cleric: tons of HLA. A lot. Really. A lot of spells available, but I only have 3 slots for the last levels, which is really nothing, and really frustrating when i see the large amount of awesomly badass spells at that level.

Berserker/cleric: a HGE range of spells, even for lvl 7 he have 7 slots of spells. Only cleric HLA, which are awesomly impressive. It has also a LOT more weapon specialisation points, than ranger/cleric.

Berserker/Druid: Pretty much the same thing as berserker/cleric, with less attractive spells in general except ironskin, insect thing and nature's beauty. Can also wear scmittars and spear, which I simply love. Especially spears.

So, by the end, I saw that the ranger/cleric may have all druid and cleric spells available, but in the end, he can only cast a few high level ones in combat. And doesn't have all the weapon specialisations and choices that the two other have...

So I'm wondering, how come everyone find it more effective?

And second question: which of berserk/cleric or druid is better?

And finally: Which class is best, and why?

I know I'm missing some points, that's why I'm asking. All the answers I found over the internet contradict each others so I'm a bit lost...

Thanks for your help!

At a rough guess you're playing with the XP cap on. Look up the G3 Tweakpack, install the tweak that removes the XP cap, and try it then. Also bear in mind that Rangers don't get spell slots above level 3 and multi-classes divide the XP between both classes equally so you will gain spell slots slower than a fighter/cleric dual. At really high levels it won't make a difference since you eventually stop gaining new spell slots anyway but it will take longer for your spells to max out.
More to the point, you don't really need that many 7th-level spell slots per battle, aside from one or two major boss fights 3 is ample.

Of the choice between Berserker/Cleric and Berserker/Druid I'd go for Berserker/Druid, if only because everyone does B/C and B/D would make for a more interesting game IMO - role-playing a berserk bear would be pretty cool.

Ranger/Cleric multi is generally seen to be the best because
1: you get all Cleric and Druid spells,
2: free ** dual-wielding
3: Weapon Specialisation (there's not that much difference between ** and *****, especially if you don't have the Tweakpack Un-Nerfed Grandmastery tweak) and only the usual Cleric weapon restrictions (which you'd get as any Cleric dual/multi anyway),
4: better THAC0 and hit points,
5: no dual-classing downtime,
6: Racial Enemy AND Turn Undead (which works through spell protections and can be used without breaking Sanctuary)
and last but not least
7: both Fighter and Cleric HLAs. This last one is really useful - a well-targeted Fire Seeds + Greater Deathblow will get rid of most groups of SoA enemies in a single blow (great for most Mind Flayer battles), and provided you can strip a (non-undead) enemy of it's spell protections first Harm + Critical Strike makes bosses a breeze. Another nice combo is Hardiness+Armor of Faith+Defender of Easthaven as an offhand weapon for crazy levels of damage reduction.

The short answer is R/C multis are considered more powerful because they get all Divine spells and Fighter and Cleric HLAs, with negligible drawbacks.

Thanks for the replies guys

So I chosen R/C just for the fun of kicking my brother's ass for most of the time we'll be playing XD

Good thread, and when some of the bigger boys get their teeth into this I'm sure you'll have all your answers. Just for the hell of it, why not play a thief/cleric, just so that your party covers fighter/mage/cleric/thief?

Actualy we thought about that, and it's a really great idea but I came out with a funier one, my brother is gonna take a cat as blink having a thief cat is going to be pretty fun hehe.
I usually really love stealth and sneak gameplay, but not in BG. By stealth and sneaking I mean REAL ones, like splinter cell or Thief 2 and 3 for example. I don't really find hiting a button to become transparent really fun.



I'll go for Berserker/druid for my next game, as I find it pretty cool RP speaking. B/C also is great, if we are speaking a Talos cleric for example.
hmmm that would be even more awesome than a druid... hmmm

ok so I'm going to make another thread "which one is best rp speaking???"

Iomg, your comparison between R/C and B/C seems more a comparison of dual vs multi. R/C is better than B/C, no question. You only have to ask yourself what do you want to be, better fighter or better caster?

The multi R/C is a better fighter than dual R/C. It gets fighter HLA's and lower thaco.

The dual is a better caster, as you have already seen in your B/C. Has 6 or 7 7th level spells depending on when you dual. However, this character misses out on ww and hardiness. The hardiness is not so bad because of iron skins but when all your other guys are hittin 10 times per round you are gonna be left behind somewhat in melee.

Another factor in the dual classes favor is turn undead level. You will be exploding liches in no time with a dual. This also affects caster level in the few spells that take into account levels over 20 (such as dispel magic I think).

The last thing I think pushing you towards the dual is kits. For some reason TOB made dual classing out of a Stalker impossible. I don't see the point in this and it was always one of my favorite dual classes. If you want to dual class a Stalker just open dualclas.2da and put a 1 next to stalker in the cleric column. While your at it you can add a line for Archer and enable the Archer/Cleric combo (I think, not sure on this one).

Some people may not like the Stalker/Cleric because you are pretty much forced to use staves or clubs when backstabbing. I think clubs are the best option so that you can dual wield (to help out your low attacks per round). Remember that you don't have to finish the fight with the weapon you backstab with, thats what the extra weapon slots are for.

Ok, all in all I am a fan of R/C dual class. It just seemed to me that all the things you liked about your B/C were because it was a dual class not because it was a Berserker.

Edit: Adding Archer to the dualclas.2da doesn't work. It seems the Archer class is referred to as Ferelan in this file so if you want Archers to be able to dual put a 1 next to Ferelan under Cleric.

Man, Thief 2 rocks so much.

iomg wrote:Thanks for the replies guys

So I chosen R/C just for the fun of kicking my brother's ass for most of the time we'll be playing XD

Actualy we thought about that, and it's a really great idea but I came out with a funier one, my brother is gonna take a cat as blink having a thief cat is going to be pretty fun hehe.
I usually really love stealth and sneak gameplay, but not in BG. By stealth and sneaking I mean REAL ones, like splinter cell or Thief 2 and 3 for example. I don't really find hiting a button to become transparent really fun.



I'll go for Berserker/druid for my next game, as I find it pretty cool RP speaking. B/C also is great, if we are speaking a Talos cleric for example.
hmmm that would be even more awesome than a druid... hmmm

If you want to really tick him off, point out that your [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/showshot.php?/baldursgateii/spells/images/righteousmagic.jpg"]Righteous Magic[/url] is basically [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgateii/classes/kensai.php"]his Kai ability[/url] except longer lasting and with a strength bonus to boot...

You can't dual into a kit or have two kits so you won't be able to dual to a Priest of Talos without Shadowkeeper, and even then you'll lose the Berserker kit (though as a practical matter I assume you'd keep the berserker rages so all that should mean is you won't have the * ranged weapon restriction - haven't tried this so I can't say for sure).

Final suggestion: the pickpocket cat is cool and all, but you'll probably still be wanting a Thief with a good Find Traps and Open Lock for at least some parts of the game - Imoen or Jan will do fine. I suggest taking Jan along for his banter, Spike Traps, Bruiser Mates, and having someone who can use those sick Kuo-Toa bolts - give him the Light Crossbow of Speed and the Kuo-Toa bolts (2d6 damage ) and he's basically firing 2 2-handed swords with a possible stun effect per round. Better yet there's heaps of them in the Underdark, if you take out the Kuo-Toa archers quickly you get hundreds of the things (I got just under 1000).
A custom Wizard Slayer/Thief dual would work just as well or possibly better, and eventually be able to use Carsomyr to boot (extra nice for Wizard Slayers with the 50% Magic Resistance and auto-Dispel Magic upon hit, with the added bonus that the best backstab weapon is the Staff of the Ram so 2-handed weapon style is still useful), but then you couldn't pull off the uber-cheesy unlimited-backstab-as-an-iron-golem trick - once Jan gets Mislead and can use Shapechange to become an Iron Golem with unlimited backstabs it all gets a bit silly...
Even with 3 characters you'll still level up really quickly, especially if you do Watcher's Keep in SoA.

The ranger aspect of the cleric ranger multiclass should not be under-valued. Being able to choose 'golem' as a racial enemy is huge in BG2/ToB. There are tons of golems and those suckers are hard to hit and they hit back...hard!

The cleric aspect of the cleric ranger multiclass should not be underestimated because of 3 spells: Armor of Faith (LVL 1), Draw Upon Holy Might (LVL 2) and Chaotic commands (LVL5). At higher levels the cleric ranger can walk around with permanent STR = 25 (give Crom Faeyer to someone else), CON = 25, DEX = 25, DR25% slash/pierce/bludgeon and complete immunity to mind effecting spells for basically...24-7.

Not to mention, when you dual at LVL 13, you have to spend the next 13 levels being a useless douche which is avoided with the multiclass build.

Cleric ranger was mind-boggling powerful when I played it. It was too powerful. Will never play it again. It breaks the game unmodded.