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Ahh, one of the big debates.

We have the Cavaleir, who gets bonuses against dragons and demons, and also has some good resistances and immunities. The ability to cast Resist Fear is extremely powerful.

There's the Undead Hunter, who is immune to level drains (very common in this game) and gets some bonuses to hit and damage against undead baddies.

And lastly, there's the good old Inquisitor. The Inquisitor can Dispel Magic better than any Wizard or Sorcerer who will be in your party. True Sight is also really great.

PS: When voting, please do not consider that Keldorn is an Inquisitor. I don't plan on adding him into my party. TIA

It's a tough cookie

Since I usually have a pure arcane-spellcaster (true sight/remove magic) and a thief (detect illusions), the Inquisitor's special abilities are not that indispensable. The fear/poison immunity of the Cavalier are not that vital, IMHO (get through items), so I would most probably go for Undead Hunter. Fighting tough undead easily gets you level-drained so that immunity is the most useful.

Still, though with improved Mace of Destruction, Inquisitor is a worthy choice to consider...

-kaitsuburi

Not even close, IMAO

If you must have one of those insufferable creatures, my money is on the undead hunter. Minsc makes a good Paladin, with a little SK help

Re: Not even close, IMAO

Originally posted by nephtu
If you must have one of those insufferable creatures, my money is on the undead hunter. Minsc makes a good Paladin, with a little SK help

He does have vampire as his racial enemy

-kaitsuburi

Re: Not even close, IMAO

Originally posted by nephtu
If you must have one of those insufferable creatures, my money is on the undead hunter. Minsc makes a good Paladin, with a little SK help

he makes an even better archer...

ok inquisitor has true sight, which your clerics/mages have, and you can precast before battle, since it lasts a while...

dispell magic is useful, however a spell sequenced remove magic imho is better, since it won't dispell your party buffs...

also, inquisitor can't get draw on holy might, which turns a pally into a pure killing machine...

chavalier cannot use crossbows and longbows, which eliminates some rather useful weapons, like gesen bow and firetooth crossbow...

so both inquisitor and chavalier have rather glaring flaws...the undead hunter has no flaws, and the immunity to level drain allows you to give amulet of power to your mage/sorc, who has the robe of vecna...

and the undead hunter rocks before chapter 3, when you get the amulet...

Yes, True Sight can be cast by other spellcasters as effectively, but the Dispel Magic cast at double the Inquisitors level is a very convincing argument IMO... My vote is for the Inquisitor, but I must confess the immunity to level drain is an equally convincing argument for the Undead Hunter. Only the Cavalier doesn't quite satisfy me... partially because of the restriction of "no ranged weapons"... and Remove Fear can also be cast by other spellcasters.

Cavaliers can use hurled weapons though namely axes, daggers and spears (throwing spears only through item upgrade mod). But sadly not darts...

We have the Cavaleir, who gets bonuses against dragons and demons, and also has some good resistances and immunities. The ability to cast Resist Fear is extremely powerful.

The bonus against dragons and demons is good, no doubt about it. Anyway, there are only four dragons in SOA (plus other four in TOB, if I remeber correctly) and not too many demons. Is it really worth having bonuses which apply to such a small number of enemies?
Immunity to poison is very good, but it is nothing a good cleric spell won't deal. As far as I remember I had problems with poison damage only against spiders and there aren't too many of them in the game (same story with dragons).
Resist Fear is very, very good, a must against dragons, but there are similar mage and cleric spells that do the trick (not even of very high level, so you won't be wasting precious high-level slots).
Don't get me wrong: I believe the Cavalier is an extremely powerful kit and lots of fun in terms of roleplaying (the shiny gentleman warrior battling evil, cool!), but it is a very specialized kit whose bonuses shine only in particular circumstances, and there aren't too many of them, at least in SOA.
The inability of using ranged weapons isn't really a problem: I envision the typical Cavalier as a front line fighter taking on powerful enemies close and personally. Bows and crossbows? No, thanks: I will keep my Carsomyr.

There's the Undead Hunter, who is immune to level drains (very common in this game) and gets some bonuses to hit and damage against undead baddies.

The kit I voted for. Immunity against level drain is priceless and so is immunity to charm spells vampires are so fond of. Just send an undead hunter and Anomen with the Mace of Disruption and the amulet of power and watch the show...

I remember this funny situation from one of my games. I was exploring Firkraag's dungeon when I was ambushed by this pack of undead complete with vampires. In less than a nano-second, Minsc was charmed and started making damage to my party; Jaheira was severely level-drained and the same happened to my Cavalier. It was a very close call. Since then, I have come to appreciate the bonuses of the undead hunter.

And lastly, there's the good old Inquisitor. The Inquisitor can Dispel Magic better than any Wizard or Sorcerer who will be in your party. True Sight is also really great.

Never used it. I somehow find repulsing the negative connotation of the term.

The Undead Hunter. You can compensate easily in a party for the qualities associated with the other kits, such as Dispel Magic. But immunity from level drain...? Protection from Undead will do this, but it never seems to last long enough, and those bonuses come in very handy.

Originally posted by fable
The Undead Hunter. You can compensate easily in a party for the qualities associated with the other kits, such as Dispel Magic. But immunity from level drain...? Protection from Undead will do this, but it never seems to last long enough, and those bonuses come in very handy.

exactly...

a triple remove magic in spell sequencer in my experience is far more useful, and equally likely to remove combat protections due to rolling 3 times than a single high level inquisitor dispell.

also you WON'T lose your remove fear, chaotic commands, and most importantly for pallys, draw on holy might..

and it frees up amulet of power for your mages...

Originally posted by UserUnfriendly
exactly...

a triple remove magic in spell sequencer in my experience is far more useful

Wow, that's a gem indeed! I usually put remove magic with other things in a trigger, but this is indeed rather nice (practically failproof)

I'll have to try it out!

Thanks @User!

-kaitsuburi

i like cavalier the best cuz he gets immunity to charm morale failure etc.

but undead hunter is ghreat for immune to hold and level drain wich is the most common

inquisitor just plain sux imo



btw nice sig

Est Sularus oth Mithas, My Honor Is My Life

i was tryin to find in the dragonlance books how exactly to spell that but cudnt get the right one from my friends. imma use that as part of my sig too

A monor point to keep in mind

The remove magic option is great if you're of equal or higher level than your target, because of the relative level effect.

For a triple triggered remove magic:
Equal level target: 1 chance in 8 of all 3 failing to stick (.5^3)
Caster two levels below target: ~ 1/3 fail (.7^3)
three levels below ~ 1/2 fail (.8^3)
two levels above 6.4% failure (.4^3)
And so on...

So, inquisitor dispel is mostly only for when you need to dispel (a) creature(s) of higher level.

Originally posted by Raumoheru
i like cavalier the best cuz he gets immunity to charm morale failure etc.

but undead hunter is ghreat for immune to hold and level drain wich is the most common

helm of charm protection can be had WAY early in chapter 2, part of jaheira harper quest, and remove fear is a 2nd level mage and 1st level cleric spell...

you can't get immunity to level drain until end of chapter 2, and the amulet is better given to primary mage...

thanks nephtu, for clearing up about the remove magic levels..unless you plan on attacking liches with a low level party, in which case you SHOULD recruit keldorn, most mage encounters will be with fairly comparable level wise mages, and a triple remove magic should be enough...or just breach them...

of course if you plan on lich hunting, you need keldorn..

Originally posted by Raumoheru
btw nice sig

Est Sularus oth Mithas, My Honor Is My Life

i was tryin to find in the dragonlance books how exactly to spell that but cudnt get the right one from my friends. imma use that as part of my sig too

Copycat! Hehe, just kidding, there are a lot of Knights.

Don't just talk the talk, walk the walk (seriously).

Hmmm, I've never played a paladin other than Keldorn untill my current game which I've just started as a Cavalier. The discussion as to which is the best kit seems like a circular one though as all three seem to over excellent immunities (especially when compared to the different ranger kits for example).

I guess it comes down to what you're more worried about encountering in the game: level drain, charm & fear or heavy mage defences, each one being a trade off -- undead hunter enables someone else to use the amulet of power, cavalier can where the Helm of Balduran instead of charm protection and so on. Personally level drain isn't usually a problem for me as you don't really face it as a threat untill you have the amulet and I don't really like the clumsiness of the inquisitor's dispell magic (even though it is very powerful) and removing mage defences is something I enjoy ('right, he's just cast that, so I can counter it with such & such'). Having lost many characters to a certain level of Watcher's Keep, I personally always fill up either cleric level one or mage level two slots with remove fear -- hence my choice in this poll and my game being the cavalier.

I agree that all the kits are very good.
That said I would point that the Cavalier become more usefull in ToB where you'll face lots of demons and a coupple of very nasty Dragons, the UH is more effective in SoA with the many undead tough encounters, while the Inquisitor usefullness seems more evenly spread.
Regarding benefit and immunities, the Cav. elemental resistances are nice, while the immunitiy to fear and poison aren't that great (never got dangerously poisoned feared in BGII) and the resist fear is a spell available at very low lev. to clerics (and mages too);
regarding the UH the immunity to hold is great, while the immunity to lev. drain isn't that much because, for a melee fighter the lev. drain is less crucial than a spellcaster (if you lose a coupple of lev. you will still hit hard), so is mainly annoyng for the need to go to a priest for restoration.
Finally the Inquisitor, imm. to hold and charm are both great, true sight is very good (free a lev. 5 (!!!) mage spell) and his dispell magic is awesome, although you need some practice to use it effectively; I know that a triple rem.magic in Sequencer is effective too, but only if you are of the same lev. or higher, but I prefer to have a triple skull trap/flame arrow for offensive use or stoneskin/M.I./imp.inv for defensive pourpose on my mages. The only drawback of the inquisitor is the lack of spell (DuHM and AoF).
So my vote is for the Inquisitor.

Originally posted by UserUnfriendly
unless you plan on attacking liches with a low level party, in which case you SHOULD recruit keldorn, most mage encounters will be with fairly comparable level wise mages, and a triple remove magic should be enough...or just breach them...

of course if you plan on lich hunting, you need keldorn..

Er? Aren't liches immune to spells <level 5?

Originally posted by Mr.Waesel
Er? Aren't liches immune to spells <level 5?

yes, but remove/dispell magic are the exceptions to the rule...

i'd have to admit, inquisitor would be my second choice as pally kit...but with keldorn in the game, what is the point???

I'd say Cavalier, they have the best stats if you're a "Hero" kind of role player. Since they do kill all the "classic" monsters.