Well- two stupid questions:
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When should I multiclass? For instance: I have a very low level level cleric that I’d like to try a level or two of Druid with. Is there a specific level where I should take a level of Druid, or does it not matter? Do I do it way later, or earlier?
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If I take a level of Druid, can I go back to leveling cleric? Or does cleric stop at that level?
Thanks in advance!
A one lvl dip into Druid is always better than Magic Initiate due to having more spells prepared. If you take it at lvl 6 it doesn’t even delay any important spells.
Magic Initiate Warlock is really the only exception to this since Warlock lvls don’t progress your normal Spell Slots for upcasting. Though Agonizing Blast is super important for basically the only reason someone might want to take it.
And you should never take Magic Initiate Wizard with the current Wizard Spellbook mechanics as a 1 lvl dip can unlock 6th lvl Wizard spells via scrolls on Full Caster multis.
That 1 lvl dip is delaying spells like planar ally (infinite revivifies hello?) and big ones. If you take it at 6 you won’t get wall of fire at 7 (light cleric), fore example, and wall of fire is one of the most cheesiest spell in the game, shsrt did more damage than the tavern thrower karlach or the dual xbow sharpshooter lae’zel, or my warlock lote bard hasted blastspammer, for aoe encounters. Knowing the encounters that happen at lvl 7, wall of fire trivialises them.
Why is your party taking damage with Light Cleric. With the Luminous Armor you get in Act 1 and Warding Flare a Light Cleric can shutdown 90% of incoming damage. Planar Ally isn’t really worth anything at that point. If I’m running a Light Cleric I don’t even keep healing spells prepared.
Also Wall of Fire is a huge no-no for any fight with uncontrolled NPCs ie a ton of Act 2 and 3. Spirit Guardians or a correctly positioned Fireball are way better. I will concede points for Blade Barrier though as it really useful for controlling movement and setting up controlled corridors.
Uhhh, there were several late game combats where enemies used big area of effect spells that did 60+, some even 100 damage. Stuff died. That was not really avoidable with warding flare.
You mention act 2 and 3 so spoilers I guess:
A2 spoilers
In the halsin fight, a well placed wall of fire completely trivialises the fight. Spirit guardians do less damage and is not as wide.
Below moonrise, there’s a big fight against a summoner that is triggered on the door, I just went back a bit, walled it, and just waited until the enemy naturally died.
A3 spoilers
In the Minsc fight, taking your party back the tunnel and doinvg a forward wall of fire ensured 2 turns of free damage minimum, completely trivialised the fight, took minsc out with telekinesis to then knock him our ofc.
In the Temple of Grief, same thing as in A2, back the party to the door, place a wall, trivialise the fight with it and the damage of the ranged party.
I did use the wall in the guild fight, and killed 2-3 enemies with it but then one npc went inside so I had to turn it off. still not a bad use anyway.
I used the wall in the cazador fight, where right as it began I misty stepped with a pre-hasted party memeber to help astarion, and then dimension door both out, then cook them out easily with a well placed wall at the entrance, really easy fight.
In the intelect devourer fight in A3, a wall in the stairs again saved the day, since the big devourers would have exploded in the party.
In the fight against Raphael (amazing ost btw), he does a lost of unavoidable areas, where you need to either save against the effect or you just take damage. He killed several party memebers, but the Deva + being able to shoot with bonus actions really made it so much easier. Also, the spike ground did him so much damage too.
In the Ansur fight, his blast did 100-ish damage and killed all my party but my main (who had the amulet of constitution) and the deva, which really helped with the revivs.
I can’t recall more encounters right now, but I usually position my party so that the enemies have to go though the wall to get to me and usually I don’t really take damage from melee enemies, ever.
One amazing thing with the wall is that it has infinite duration, so even if the enemy takes some turns to be brave enough to go in, you can just pass turns or recover your team slowly on the other side and wait.
In general I felt that spirit guardian has its uses, but that there’s way too many ranged enemies, and melee enemies do way more damage than the ranged ones, making the concentration checks harder if you get closer. Good on the A3 rats fight, but so is the light channel divinity. Same thing for the morphic rats.
I’ve only had 3 fights that lasted longer than 3 rounds outside of Act 1. All but the last (literally) are scripted.
Act 2
The Halsin Fight was solved with Plant Growth and Hunger of Hadar, though Spike growth would have served. No higher lvl spells required.
I don’t know what summoner you are talking about before Moonrise. I haven’t run into an encounter in early to mid Act 2 that has been difficult for like 5 runs on Tactician.
Act 3
The Minsc Fight is a rush beatdown and can be solved in 2 rounds. Also are you not trying to keep Minsc alive? Spells don’t deal non-leathal damage.
Temple of Grief has enemies kill themselves on Spirit Guardians bar 3 enemies and those are easily dispached by striker builds.
Raphael is killable in one round and nothing else in that encounter is a danger.
Same with Ansur.
Why are your combats lasting so long?
You seem to be seeing tactics I just don’t experience cause I don’t let them live that long.
spoiler
The summoner is the one with lots of zombies at the right of the final boss fight. And as stated I used telekinesis to move Minsc out of the fire before dying and used nonlethal with a melee fighter. He and Boo are alive.
In the Raphael fight I kinda ignored him and I didn’t realize that I had to destroy the towers for a while. To do 666 damage in a single turn you had to have several hasted party memebers with action surge and lots of buffs, no? My taven brawler and corssbow sharpshooters usually do around 120-ish damage per round, without haste, the eldritch blast spammer does more or less the same without action surge but hasted. 666 in one turn seems a LOT of damage.
IDK, I’m playing in normal and I don’t really minmax the fight so much, I guess that I like the passive cheese too much
Spoiler
Those are such cool tactics on the Minsc fight. I wouldn’t have thought to use Telekinesis like that. That is really fricken cool.
As to Raphael, he is super easy with Fighter 11 Lae’zel, the Surgeon Amulet, and a few Illithid abilities (She can do over 1000 dmg on a turn with the right setup once per day). On my last Dark Urge Murder Hobo run I almost killed him in one round solo with a Swords Bard. 12 Fricken HP left, but at least he was Paralyzed so he couldn’t draw souls.
Maybe I’m overtuned from Pathfinder WotR.
Those are really cool tactics too, I’m not going out of the basic “OP” comboes for now. Mind you that I tend to not rest so much, using the bards extra short rest and my team’s kit restores in short rests mostly, so maybe the reason I use wall of fire so much is because it’s quite efficient damage to slot wise, and I tended to not use more than 1 to 2 spells on shart per fight.
I have to do the evil murderhoboish Durge playthrough now, so I’ll try to be more melee focused with paralysis auto crits (that’s how you do it, damn), let’s see if I can delete Raphael in 1 turn. (BTW, paralysing him you skipped the whole towers thing, since they add AC to him and while paralysed at melee you skip the AC). Thanks!
If you want to try some late game stupid cheese, place a wall of fire on an enclosed spac, place a wall of stone on the entrance and just wait. Enemy AI breaks and they tend to stand in the fire next to the stonewall and die.
God this convo has really nailed home how much I need to do a multiplayer run.
Every so often I talk with someone and they give me a fun new way to roll the game.
I wanna make a control/delay build now just to see enemy tactics.