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In response to the anti-cleric sentiment which has run rampant on the board in recent weeks, I will be creating the all-cleric party (I am including druids and cleric multi classes in the party).

The party will consist of:

Jaheira
Aerie
Anomen
Viconia
Player Character: Cleric/Thief

(possibility of including Cernd, but I don't like to have 6 people in party)

The biggest problem I see with running this party is the weapon selection will be a bit limited, because there are many good maces and flails in the game, but not this many.
At least Jaheira can use spear, dart, scimitar.

In short, there will be a lot of sling bullets flying! My prediction is that the party will be very well healed and have no shortage of chaotic commands spells.

Note: I have changed the name of the party to "The Holy Rollers", I think it might be too easy to confuse "The All Cleric All Stars" with "The All Evil All Stars", a great group in their own right.

Note: I have once again changed the name of the group. Speedball has posted a party which he referred to as the holy rollers. The Holy Rollah$ are not affiliated with that group, or the bowling team from the Simpsons comprised of Ned and Maude Flanders and Rev. and Mrs. Lovejoy

[ 08-14-2001: Message edited by: THE JAKER ]

And I predict you will endure a "romantic" nightmare. (if youre a male)

I'm running a heavy cl;eric party myself,
Sorceress
aerie
jaheira
viccy
savarok
imoen.

Lots of people, including myslef, have a really good knowlege and appreciation of mage spells, becasue we love destruction and mass slaughter of everything. My uber sorc, for example, can handle ten liches by herself.

I am beginning to appreciate the clerical side, and I am a big aerie fan becasue she can sequence cleric spells , like a triple bolt of glory for demon whomping

My current party is pretty cleric heavy too.

My main character is a Fighter/Thief I imported from BG1. I just have to see the pantaloons quest through, and I don't want to resort to cheats.

Anyway...I tend to favor smaller parties, so I have Jaheira, Anomen, and Aerie to round out my group. So that's what - an 'Almost Holy Rollers' or would it be 'The Faithful and the Infidel' or some such? Dunno.

I wouldn't dream of ever using a PC that cannot cast spells. Even Idiot NPCs (Korgan, Sarevok, Yoshimo) don't appeal to me.

my party isvery balanced (i must say) but clerics do have the upper hand.
me Ranger/Cleric
Viccy
Jan
Edwin
Korgan
Hear'dalis

(ok so maybe mages are on the upper hand )
but since i played Ranger/cleric i think a whole lot different about them:
i think they are one of the best classes and very balanced: they're good ad: fighting and healing/battle magic.
being half ranger reallly makes this char. an (almost) unstoppeble killer .

Hey, Dude -
I sortof wish I could go with a ranger/cleric for the Holy Rollers PC, but I just have this horrible mental block against having a party where no one can remove traps/pick locks. People post threads with parties or solo with no thief, but I just can't do it...

So I am stuck with Cleric/Thief.

I WANT TO ASK EVERYONE FOR SOME HELP IN DESIGNING THE PC CHARACTER I need to decide on race, alignment and roleplay strategy for him, how he is going to lead this mixed alignment/weird group. I think on the one hand he could be a sort of evil, everything for me type, but why would he put THIS party together?

I was thinking instead of a true or lawful neutral character whose thief skills are limited to: lockpick, detect traps, detect illusions - sort of a "Helm sees all" type who can see through the trickery of thieves and wizards to protect his group.

It's true about the romance angle being kind of tangled - It seems the developers saw a hidden side to priests - an amorous side.

If I'm not mistaken, there are only three options for a cleric/thief: (1) human dual-class; (2) gnome multi-class; and (3) half-orc multi-class.

Of these three, the human dual-class strikes me as the most likely roleplay for the story of Baldur's Gate. The PC would be like Cadderly in the first book of the Canticle series (didn't get around to reading the rest of the series) -- inventive, curious and always managing to get himself in trouble, not exactly the exemplar of a pious cleric. I can see the PC wandering around in Candlekeep, developing his thief skills as a child, and then being tossed into the clergy for his own good by Gorion.

As for alignment, I think he would be chaotic good, or maybe neutral, rather than neutral good, given his knack for getting himself into trouble (although he's not the type to start trouble, bad things seem to happen to him).

In terms of the particular thief kit before dualing, I think the PC would be just a regular thief, or maybe a swashbuckler, and probably not an assassin or bounty hunter.

The PC would have high intelligence and dexterity, but even though he's a cleric, probably not superior wisdom. He would also be very charismatic -- which will help with having a mixed-alignment party. His high charisma would also explain why all three females in his party want to get it on with him.

I guess the reason he has clerics in his party rather than other class types is that, while he does have a fascination with magical toys not quite proper for a priest, he has instilled in him a deep-rooted belief in spirituality/religion, and he feels more comfortable with people who have the same belief.

As for tactics, he'd serve as the scout since he can cast Find Traps and then go scout in stealth mode, and also the diplomat when dealing with strangers. He probably wouldn't backstab too much, but he'd set traps if the occasion arose.

Anyway, just my two cents.

The taxi driver was speeding along in the parking lot, and I said "watch out for that bump!"

Hah!

Thanks for your input and the driving advice, Crassus!

I've been mulling and investigating some points you made - you're right BTW, the only options for cleric/thief are gnome, half-orc, or human dual class (It is the only multi class that half-elves CANNOT take - seems unfair )

Human dual class does seem like the way to go, considering those options, although I do like the gnome and half-orc races, human seems to make more sense (and they speak the language...of love). I also really liked your idea about a young rogue forced into the priesthood - I think that's great! The problem with having a low wisdom, though, is of course that you need a 17 score in the prime requisite of the class you want to dual into...

I also totally agree about a high Charisma score for player characters, so it means that the stats will be difficult to roll - probably end up with something like

12 / 17 / 15 / 13 / 17 / 16 = 90

I still have to figure out what to do with thief ability points, because I don't like to min/max it too much, you know, I think it's silly that a thief would be totally good at one thing and no good at another.

(I'll be sad if I have to go with dual-class, because I really like developing thief skills, and if I had a multiclass, he will get "use any item" which would be VERY useful in this party...Oh what to do, what to do <wrings hands> )

So anyway, the process is underway, the Rollah$ will be rolling into Amn this weekend, and we'll just see how tough a party of clerics can be!

[ 08-15-2001: Message edited by: THE JAKER ]

I thought about it some more, and I think the thief-forced-into-priesthood story could work for a multi-class, with a slight twist. It would go something like this:

The PC was raised by Gorion to be a priest, and he learned the intricacies of the clergy in the Temple of Oghma in Candlekeep. However, he was turned off by the rituals of religion, and spent a good deal of time sneaking out of the temple and learning thief skills from the likes of Carbos and Shank (the two guys from the prologue chapter of BG1).

So ultimately he grew up to be a multi-class cleric/thief. Although without any allegiance to any particular deity, his time in the Temple of Oghma in Candlekeep fostered an affinity for knowledge and invention.

As between a gnome or half-orc, the gnome seems more likely within the confines of the Candlekeep story, but unfortunately, his maximum initial wisdom would be 17. The half-orc would also be able to have superior physical attributes, if so desired when allocating stat points.

Oops, I forgot about the 17 wisdom requirement for a thief dualling into a cleric. On the multi-class side, I think "use any item" would be wonderful -- you could use Hrothgar's Axe, which increases wisdom by 1. You could also use the Robe of Vecna for the faster casting time (although Aerie could use it also).

On a side note, I was thinking if it'd be possible to obtain 25 wisdom without using SK. Unfortunately, I don't think so. If you ran a gnome multi-class cleric/thief through BG1, he could have 20 wisdom by the end (after using the three tomes of wisdom).


*SPOILER ALERT*


Then in SoA, he could pick up one more point in Hell, and in Watcher's Keep, he could pick up two more from the Deck of Cards and Lum's machine, bringing the total to 23. Then using Hrothgar's Axe, he would have 24.

A half-orc multi-class could get 25 wisdom this way since his maximum initial wisdom would be 18 instead of 17, but alas, the half-orc was not available in BG1, so you couldn't get the three tomes.

A human thief dualled into a cleric could get up to 24 wisdom this way, but wouldn't be able to use Hrothgar's Axe for the 25th point.

I suppose that a cleric dualled into a thief could achieve 25 wisdom, but I'm not sure if that particular dual is available.

Anyway, I obviously find this topic fascinating, so good luck with the Holy Rollers and please keep us posted!

Some info on Clerics Using Any Item...

Clerics don't use bladed weapons because of their ethos, not because they don't know how to. A Cleric/Fighter still can't use 'em, even though he should know how to.

The designers were probably very lazy when coding Use Any Item. Hundreds of item files would probably have to be changed to restrict blades to Clerics, metal to Druids and armor to Kensai.

D&D3 Clerics, as opposed to BG's AD&D Clerics, can't use blades because they don't know how to. Their deities have favored weapons which they consider an honor to use, but they are not restricted to those.

If you insist on going the Clerical Axeman way with heavy roleplaying, you might want to come up with a bit of background on this aspect.

Excellent point, Xyx. I will try to think of a story.

I think that i would be interested in my cleric/thief getting "Use any Item" for the use of scrolls and class-specific items like rings or helms, and especially for WANDS, not so much for swords/axes - as many have pointed out, being able to use a weapon and being able to use it WELL are two very different things. Actually it's funny - if I equip everyone in the group with a Wand of the Heavens, they'll be able to simultaneously Flamestrike 6 trolls - take THAT you stupid trolls!

Anyway, the two best weapons in BGII (FOA, Crom Faer) are both cleric compatible. One nice weapon that I will want to take advantage of with Use Any Item will be the Dwarven Thrower, which is a very nice weapon, cleric compatible, and will be handy in the ranged attack of the group (since no bows)

Gotcha, Jaker. I couldn't resist coming up with a story, though, for the cleric/thief using Hrothgar's Axe.

The description of Hrothgar's Axe is:

"This axe was wielded by an adventurer who lived within the town of Easthaven in Icewind Dale. He died about a century ago trying to rescue his town from the ancient demon Balhifet."

- begin story -

(Watcher's Keep spoilers below.)

So while on level 2 of Watcher's Keep, the party encounters the chromatic demon, which warns of foul demons trapped in the levels below. After the party does what it needs to do to get the chromatic demon to give them passage to level 3, they decide the chromatic demon can't be set free, and goes to battle against it. They manage to prevail, but not without suffering massive injuries in the process.

They need to rest before venturing below, and before going to bed, the cleric/thief asks Helm to aid him so that his party may reach the Imprisoned One. He prays for Helm's permission to wield this powerful axe, the axe once used against the powerful demon Balhifet, against the demons of Watcher's Keep.

When the PC wakes up in the morning, he finds that Helm has answered his prayer (although Helm forbids him to use it against the Imprisoned One), and the party proceeds further.

- end story -

The story's a little corny, I realize, but I couldn't resist.

Well... Helm does hand out swords to his faithful in the form of Seeking Sword. Maybe he wouldn't mind if you dual wielded Blackrazor and Purifier (nice, balanced black & white combo) or something.