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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ย. 2024
- Class selection in a Dungeons & Dragons CRPG is important, and if we learned anything from the first Baldur's Gate, you'll end up pretty powerful no matter what. But what class should you play in Baldur's Gate 2? Are there any that stand out?
For me, I'm a huge fan of the thief, the mage, and the ranger. I pretty much always play those combos through any CRPG I play. But with AD&D in particular, I love the way the pros and cons are on full display with all of the classes, and the various class kits that you can pick which really allow you to focus down on the specializations of classes in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.
What about you? Do you have a favorite class you play in Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition?
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First time through, make a good/neutral character and keep the party you meet in the dungeon. The story is much more compelling that way.
Enjoy! That's how I did my first playthrough.
This is a hard question to answer, but I recommend Paladin or Fighter if you like meele. Wizard is very fun for a spellcaster. Think about what role you want first, and then whatever fits that and sounds the most fun, go with it. Fun over anything else.
Fun FTW
I love this game!
And I have some advice, but first a caveat.
There are builds that are a lot stronger than others, that makes Hard feel like Easy Mode, at least once they start coming into their own. It is also possible to make dysfunctional builds, that will severely stunt your growth and force you to play on Story Mode to even survive. In between those extremes, there are a lot of builds that are immensely fun, even if they don't minmax the hella out of the game mechanics.
So your first choice is: will you make a single protagonist, or will you make a well-rounded team? You can do either.
However, a very large part of the game is hanging out with the in-game provided companions, going on quests with them, listening to their banter and maybe participate in their character growth. So I recommend that you only make a protagonist, or perhaps a protagonist and a rogue assistant.
When you go out adventuring you will do so with a team, not a single character. The team balance and synergy is going to carry you through the hard fights. But before you have met everyone, you don't know who you'll enjoy bringing with you, or what they are good at, so it is hard to give advice for your first play-through. It will matter if you're evil or not, but not so much whether you're good or neutral. Evil protagonists get to recruit an evil team, while non-evil protagonists can recruit a mostly good team. Take a guess at what you'll prefer and maybe be prepared for a second playthrough.
Magic is very strong in this game, both offensively and even more defensively. If you try to brute force your way through the game with only melee, you're asking for a lot of grief and frustration. Magic is also very rich. You will have to learn about how all that gunk works, and this will take some time and effort, but it is also great fun. Don't deny your primary protagonist this, even if you can get by with only companion spellcasters. It's just more fun when "you" is the one doing most of the heavy lifting. So my second advice is to play some kind of cleric, bard, druid, wizard or multiclass.
Third advice. If you want to minmax you'll probably want to multiclass or dualclass. Humans can level up one class a little bit, reset to zero and start a new class from lvl 1, regaining the abilities (but never advancing further) from the original class when their second class surpasses the first one in lvl and exp. Starting as a fighter and switching to wizard is one of those cookie-cutter OP builds. Non-humans can start with two classes and split all their exp between them, levelling up both classes simultaneously, at the price of always being slightly underlevelled in both. (There's a bunch of specific race restrictions, but you can explore that for yourself.) These options are lots of fun.
Fourth advice. Reroll stats until you get a sum over 90 and then redistribute. For most use cases, values between 8 and 15 are identical: they don't do jack, and stats that doesn't actively help your class don't do anything either. But the difference between for example Int or Str 16, 17 or 18 is really big if, you specialize that stat. So make sure to get the maximum possible in that stat you need. Making a "well-rounded" character with 13 and 14 across the board is not a road to victory (as it can be in other games). I said there are builds that are harder, more challenging, and still fun, but this is not that, this will just take your fun away without giving you anything in return. Melee fighters have no use for Int, unless they are planning to dual-class into mage, and no use for Wis unless they want to dual into cleric. Casters only use Str for carrying capacity. Dex and Con is good for everyone but crucial for fighters. Multi-classers needs higher values in several stats: you will need to pick one dump stat and tank it. You can use your Char as dump stat, but that will cause problems down the road, and besides you might want to think of your protagonist as at least "cute". There will be magic items that can raise your stats, but they will be in limited supply and you will have to make hard decisions as to who will wear what. If you mismatch your stats and class completely your protagonist will suck: only do this if you're a Jackass-level masochist.
Final advice. You need a good thief class on your team. Lockpicking and trap detection is not optional, and late game there are other things besides. However, the thief companions the game provides you with are either inherently insufficient, tends to go awol, or are intolerably annoying. (Or a combination; your mileage may vary.) Making a fighter/thief protagonist or deuteragonist assistant will save you a lot of grief.
Finally, this game is my only real contact with the DnD rules mechanics. Too bad it's edition 3,5 so when people are playing 5E I still don't know what they're talking about 🙂
Rogues FTW
@@Renfail Backstabbing and sneaking and all kinds of fun! But. In _this game_ a pure thief will max out utility and backstab early to mid game and after that the rewards kinda level out. There isn't really any strong reasons to play pure thief, so I say Fighter/Thief or Thief/Mage for all your thieving pleasures, plus a lot more oumph. Or be a human and do fighter-->thief or a thief-->mage. My last protagonist was a Fighter/Mage/Thief named Mouser: tons of fun, but that build is somewhat underpowered due to abysmally low levels in each of the three classes.
What about thief ranger elf?
@@jackrussell3084 Haven't played one, but sure. Multiclasses don't get the mastery weapon skills anyway. You'll get more hit points than a pure thief, and a few low level utility spells. Endgame you have both thief and ranger high level abilities... Ok, that could work. And great for roleplaying too. Real Robin Hood potential.
Game is just an absolute classic. The last time i played this game I was a blackguard and aliented all but the most evil party members
Never played the Blackguard!
Leveling up is more fun for some classes. For example, Inquisitors are very useful against magic using adversaries, but leveling up is just basic. No choices to be made. Same is true for most classes. But for some classes, such as thieves, assassins, and especially sorcerers; leveling up involves important (and fun) role playing decisions.
I find that all of them are quite fun!
The selection of classic IE crpgs (and their descendants) for your latest playthroughs is awesome. The Black Isle/Bioware titles really set a high bar for party-based rpgs.
Thanks! More to come :)
Shame what happened to Bioware as me2 is my favourite of all time
I'm only on my 5th runthrought of the game. Doing a dual Mage/Cleric. Pretty fun. Have done Palladin, Ranger, Kensai/Mage, Cleric of Talos also. Next time i'll go in more specialised/rare classes. Playing in Hard mode.
nice!
NECRO and Sorcerer are both awesome
Let’s play online!
Try Skald (+4 to hit) and Jaheira + Viconia (Touch spells/Harm etc.)
Or Necromancer/Cleric (Slay Living).
But Jan with Strength Belt and 2h-Staff and illu spells is the most fun for me.
Thanks for making this video good sir, it's very informative!
My pleasure!
Love this game, I'm a gen x, so I played this when it was first came out
Level 20 sorcerer is crazy powerful. 3 trigger spells that you can prepair that will trigger three spells instantly, make them all heavy aoe damage. One trigger spell that when character is hit triggers 3 defensive spells. Time stop, 3 free turns, haste for double speed and more turns, similacrim removes time between spell casting, creative a copy of yourself 5 levels lower, create an exact illusion of yourself. Send illusion and copy ahead both have all spells and spell triggers, though one is level 15. Send both out, if anything survives your sorcerer can then go in with his party afterwards.
Good times
for beginners: play as a Berserker (fighter), roll to put 18s in the first 3 stats, and use enrage whenever you encounter a vampire.
for experienced players: anything other than wizard slayer.
Groovy
If you go from BG1 to ToB with the same character go Kensai until level 9 and then wizard all the way. EDIT: if you want to go melee fighter there is no advantage to go standard fighter instead of Berserker.
That's one take!
Actually, fighters are great since they can have 5 prof points in bows/crossbows and 5 in a mellee weapon, which gives you a tremendous flexibility.
@@anferFFmax Absolutly, cannot desagree with that. Non the less Kensai 9 + Wizard is more performing becouse you have almost everything from both aspects renouncing to only one attack each round and some minor epic spells.
If you are refearing to the Berserker point Archer Ranger or Kensai 9 + Rogue can do the same and probably better, specially the later with throwing weapons.
@@kain7759 The Kenzai-Wizard class combination will force you to rely on spells for effectiveness, which is something a pure martial combatant may want to avoid, especially if your party already has enough mages. There is a serious difference in play styles at work there as well.
As for the Kensai-Thief, well, that is easily one of the most fascinating class combos but it has a different niche than the pure fighter, The whole idea of the pure fighter is to use range weapons for the range advantage, while still being able to go face to face with foes when needed and still dominate - a totally different niche than the Kenzai-Thief that would either be backstabbing, or throwing axes/hammers/knives at medium range. I guess an argument could be made that the advantages far outdo the disadvantages, however, one thing is certain, the pure fighter would be awesome in all stages of the game, from beginning to end. While the Kensai-Thief is a late bloomer, as you implied, and not really what I would recommend to a new player.
And on a final note, I always viewed the pure fighter as an alternative to the Archer and nothing else really. You chose a pure fighter if you want an archer wannabe that can kick butts in melee and feel a little frustrated at how the real Archer performs face to face. By going fighter your sacrifice a little range combat performance for the ability to wear heavy armor and max out melee weps. The class is very satisfying to be play and requires minimal micromanagement.
If your first playthrough is going to be Multiplayer, I give very different advice. If you're new to BG2 but very experienced with games of similar complexity and genre (e.g. WoW, MTG, D&D powergaming) I strongly recommend you do NOT choose a basic Fighter as your first character. Fighters are extremely, extremely simple - if that's the only character you are controlling I guarantee you will get bored and start to wonder things like "man games were so simple 20 years ago..." If your first playthrough is single player then a Fighter is a good choice because you will be kept entertained trying to control a party of the various NPCs in the game with their various abilities; the fact that YOUR character is simple won't be an issue.
But for anyone who's very experienced with games I recommend some kind of Mage as your first playthrough regardless of whether it's solo or multiplayer. Mages in this games are super fun, hilarious, and creative. One of my favorite things about BG2 is playing through a multiplayer campaign with someone who has never played the game before and watching them discover all the crazy things you can do with magic.
This video is made for noobs, so yeah...not covering advanced content such as that.
Nice video buddy
Thanks 👍
Paladin undead hunter is nice, for the immunity to level drain
Korgan,Dorn,Viconia,Jan and a Mage I got a 94 role on, playing with good characters is interesting was playing as a Mage got to level 14 to 15 ish went through watchers keep before spellhold,I did everything before watchers keep went through staff of fire plus 2 or whatever it's called you get from the sphere is a must,absolutely spanked everyone playing on the evil side with these characters,Iranicus got his butt whooped so bad,you get staffs keep them,the dragon buff up with speaks cast monsters and a planetar easy dragon kill buff up before putting in the final tear,time stop dragon breath that on powerful death fog iranicus cast,talk about being overpowered on core rules haste is a must mage is best class and after getting out of underdark and getting all goodies go to adventures mart pay 50 go for special wares buy all the spell your mage hasn't learned save before memorizing base mage is best if you've played this game several times you know what to do fireball is kinda of crappy to me.meh also in watchers keep go over to the portal to next area cast cloudkill in the demons direction it will draw him over easy kill.Timestop,dragon breath that one one spell and wish are a must for beating iranicus he got crushed so bad.
Lol enjoy
Fantastic video
Thanks! 😃
As clunky as it is to play on switch it is such an engrossing game to this day.
It still plays great on the original platform it was designed for :)
I am a 39yo the King of this game, ask me if you have any questions.
I am Tiax and the day comes when I will point and click, and one time - BOOM, me RULE!
?
@@Renfail nothing, just TIAX,ehm,Me, RUUULES.
So I’m new to baldurs gate don’t know a thing about it, prolly gonna start a melee frontline mega tank I’m assuming it’s a d&d style game?
Yes, it's D&D
@@Renfail thanks for the follow up just making sure I’m looking at it right cuz I don’t play d&d either
i feel like everything in this video could have been learned from reading the class descritions xD
so go read them and stop complaining
For the people who wanna listen to them and not read them... like me.
there ya go @@die4inspiration902
Rule nr1. Dont make powergaming party. Its booooring.
boring for some is fun for others :)
Ascension Mod Melissan: "One of two things will happen. You will play a meta build, or you will set the difficulty slider lower than Core."
Fighter/Thief has been pretty fun since a certain Kara-Turan fellow is the only thief you get for a while
yep :)