I'm in a bit of a rut. I usually play as a fighter type class, but I'm tired of that. I want to play from bg1 onwards though so Im also a bit leery of certain classes like bards which seem horribly weak before they start getting level 4 spells and beyond. I have tutu installed and all my stuff ready to go, so kits are available to me.


I think also that, roleplay reasons aside, I want a completely new party of folks that I never have taken. I tend to take Minsc, Aerie, Viconia, Edwin and of course Imoen fairly often. Since, of course, the pc is so very important for party-balance, it's hard to even decide who to take before I go through the game. I guess my only thing is I do not want to be evil (not taking Imoen with me is evil enough :( ) and I most certaintly do not want to be any kind of fighter-type class, nor take any of the above people I mentioned. Theres just sooo many kits to choose from, I keep finding myself picking one and doing a few zones and saying, "well what if i tried this..im not sure if I should do that.." Its just infuriating. I cant settle on a damn character or party of characters to take.

You could try a Bounty Hunter. Definitedly not a fighter class, but not dependant on spells either. The traps give a new dimension to the game, because they allow you to try completely new strategies.

i would do a Sorcerer, or maybe a Mage/theif.

an grap Jaheria for her fighter and druid skills, Jan jansen is also a very funny addition. what about some of the downloadeable npc's? i like tashia very much, neh'taniel is also okay

In fact a Bard would be a great choice, they are not weak if you know how to handle them (the Blade kit is so powerful...).
If you have played a Stalker you might like an Assassin (frustrating at the start due to the lack of abilities although the poison can make fights a lot easier).
And finally why not try a Wild Mage? Especially if you are bored! Though it will be quite hard to play one in Tutu (can be done though) sure you will need more micro management than with a Sorcerer but in the end it is a much more rewarding gameplay experience (and eventually the Wild Mage is even more powerful because of Nahal's Reckless Dweomer which allows to potentially turn every first level spells into the most powerful spells known by the mage something a Sorcerer can't even dream about).

You can also try a cleric/thief, useful from the beginning (healing, lockpicking) until the end (UAI,spike traps).

Is a Monk too close to the Fighter archetype you're trying to avoid? If not, that might be a good choice, although I've never played BG1 with one, and I don't know whether a Monk would be able to survive at low levels.

Sorceror.

You'll be weak as a kitten for all of bg1 thanks to a lack of ac/hp boosting items but thats why you've got a group of tanks and healers ;) .

theres no worries about gathering scrolls and you can cast magic missle all day long :p

1) Assassin - his poison and backstab will be extremely powerful in BG1.Proficiency in daggers (Venom),crossbows and sh.swords.Maximize Hide in shadows skill and have a second thief in your party for locks,traps.

2) Wild Mage - the spell-caster with the greatest potential IMO and very fun to play with,even if you don't like mages.

wild mage sounds like a powerhouse at higher levels, but there surges you encounter at low levels might be fun (at times) and unexpected but only complicate or quickly end the game.

nothing more annoying than casting magic missile and getting a surge which switches gender or gets you crushed by a cow.

True.But if you don't use the NRD spell the chance of a wild surge is quite low (5%).

And in high levels the Wild Mage can protect himself 100% from any wild surge or from some of their nasty effects.Although wild surges are the most funny part of the Wild mage.

5% is indeed low but considering how often you'd be casting spells as a single class mage its tempting fate far too much.

Afterall, Sarevok only has a 5% chance to cause a Deathbringer Assault but almost everytime i have him whirlwind he hits for one.

Actually Sarevok's Deathbringer assault has a chance of only 3% but, in my experience, when he uses his 2-handed sword it seems to happen more often.But probably it's only a coincidence.

I played a Wild Mage in BG1 Tutu and it was entertaining. Using NRD would have been suicide at lower levels but the surges were not always bad, it is a challenge but it's far from being impossible (my mage accidentally summoned a demon in the fight against Daevorn -trying to cast magic missile in fact- luckily the wild mage still had a protection from evil spell left, the rest of the party wasn't so lucky and they all kicked the bucket though). ;)

In the long run the question you've got to ask yourself is would you rather "cast magic missile all day long" or use NRD and cast the most powerful spells in your spellbook instead?

What is not clear is the chance that a Wild Mage has, to successfully cast a spell with the NRD at low levels (Wild surges apart).

But even without the NRD spell,a Wild Mage is still more powerful than a generalist Mage with his +1 spells/level and no opposition school.

thetruth has hit the nail on the head. part of what makes a NRD useless throughout BG1 is that alot of the time it doesn't even cast. You get a surge (normally negative) then nothing, making a bad situation far worse.

Although if you're willing to 'cheat' and put a wild mage into a multiclass. NRD becomes incredibly useful when you get mage hla's, you have the opporunity to cast 2or3 times as many as a pure mage at the same stage in the game, and be a competent fighter/thief/cleric etc.

[ May 29, 2006, 20:26: Message edited by: Pseudospawn ]

Wild Mages also have a variable casting level. This can cause your little level 1 mage cast his magic missile as if he were a level 5 mage and get three magic missiles out of it.

Actually Sarevok's Deathbringer assault has a chance of only 3% but, in my experience, when he uses his 2-handed sword it seems to happen more often.But probably it's only a coincidence.The game actually rounds a lot of it's percentile chances. In most cases, anything that happens more often than 0% gets rounded to 5% by the engine. If you set your spell learning rate to 100% you will actually fail to memorize 5% of the time even though the game says the spell scribing failure rate is just 1%. Incedentally (and off topic), if you set spell learning to 150% you actually never fail to scribe your spells.

Play a solo Wild Mage...you can never go wrong with a Wild Mage...

I have the same problem. I went through BG1/SoA once with a female Paladin (didn't take her through ToB... yet) and then a Bard (BG2 only), which was tons of fun, but not somethng I wanna do again right now. I'd feel like I'm repeating myself when there are a whole lot of fun classes to play.

Problem is, I just can't decide!

I cheated a Fighter/Mage into a Human (yeah... I know, pushing it too far) Fighter/Wild Mage. But I still have a problem with cheating when it's more than a cosmetic change. I think it's a lot easy to upset game balance (a few mods have taught me that) so I ended up giving up on it.

I wanna play a Fighter-type, but not another Paladin. Plain Fighter seems kinda dull to me (and in terms of story, it's SO unlikely that someone raised by a mage wouldn't know a cantrip). And then there's also wizards. Wild Mage and Sorcerers seem a lot of fun to play, but I'd really hate the idea of having my protagonist hiding back while tank NPCs hack away at enemies.

Yeah, I'm preety neurotic about that. Ended up replaying IWD and now IWD2 for the first time. At least there I get to do my whole party! But I digress.