31 réponses à ce sujet

[Risax]

Hello everyone!
I'm new to Baldur's Gate (well technically I haven't started yet...), and the only western RPG I've played before is Dragon Age Origins. My question is, how do I build a good Tank? I know they are there to attract the attention of enemies and absorb damage, but I never seem to get it done right...

So some tips of more experienced players would be welcome.

[FrostyThundertrod]

Baldur's gate is a veray old game and it really predates the idea of "tanks". Back then it was called bateing so there is not threat managment sistoms and your enemys don't swich targits. Tanking in balder's gate is simply letteing the enemy see you hardist to kill charater first the enemy will attack that character. then the rest of the party need to kill eneny bofe it can kill the tank.



Fighters paladens rangers all make good tanks. just give them the best armer you can get in balders gate the lower your armer number the better and a large shield. in Balders gate 1 arrow are way more dangrus then melee wepon so defnity have a large shield on your tank.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

As Frosty said, modern tactics only apply in a limited fashion.

Firstly I will say that if you are planning to play BG1, then you should google for BGT or Tutu (because people should know).

Generally, a good tank build for beginners is a dwarven berserker (fighter kit) with 18.XX strength, 17 dexterity and 19 constitution.

This build requires very little effort to reach a relatively high level of protection.



When in battle, pay attention what kind of attack the enemy performs.

In Baldur's Gate 1 even 136 HP (pretty much the highest amount) mean nothing if your opponent is a basilisk, who can turn you into stone no matter what your HP are.

In BG2 there are similar opponents. Beholders which can remove all buffs on a character (and then petrify or do other nasty stuff to them), illithids who drain your intelligence instead of your HP (which kills you just the same), vampires which drain your levels (again, deadly) and most importantly, casters. Whether they take control over your units or just paralyze them, whether they use poison or fire, if you are not prepared, they are very likely to kill you.

[Risax]

Well thanks for the info Taifun...I wouldn't have figured this out so fast myself (I would probably have died a lot before figuring it out) Is there some sort of wikia where I can find more of this information...

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Risax wrote...
Well thanks for the info Taifun...I wouldn't have figured this out so fast myself (I would probably have died a lot before figuring it out) Is there some sort of wikia where I can find more of this information...

I think you will die a lot.

I think there was a BG2 wiki, but I can't find it anymore. There are several DnD wikis, which will probably contain useful information on the creatures you encounter, but the information may be incorrect at times (D&D is now at version 4, while BG2 is based on D&D version 2.5). Your best bet is probably reloading and asking here.

[Moganza]

If this was BG2 i would say Fighter dual classed to a Mage. But as Taifun said the dwarf build is pretty good.

[HolyAvenger]

I really enjoyed taking a paladin through from BG1 to the end of ToB. If you like playing a good character, that class offers some very nice additional abilities. There is a learning curve to BG, but the game does guide you through it pretty well I thought. Pay attention to whats happening in your info screen bit down the bottom. Pause often.



But its well worth it. For the story alone, BG2 remains my favourite game of all time.

[ZombieChow]

Shields dont work the way ud think.

A dual wielding fighter and a shield wielding fighter with the same AC, will 'tank' equally good, but the dual wielder would do more damage.

Get whatever you can to lower ur AC, thats all that matters.

http://mikesrpgcente...or/shields.html

Check that out for items that would be good for a tank.

Modifié par ZombieChow, 19 janvier 2011 - 02:22 .

[Grond0]

ZombieChow wrote...
http://mikesrpgcente...or/shields.html

This list covers BG2 as well - the best shield you can get in BG1 until very near the end of the game is +1.

However, despite this I would suggest using a shield - I would emphasise the importance of armour class in the vanilla (unmodded) game, where it is pretty easy to get all enemies to attack a single character.  Think of it like this - if your AC is sufficiently low many monsters will only hit you by rolling a 20.  If your AC is 1 higher (worse) and, as a result, a particular monster hits you with a 19 that means they will hit you twice as often.  Therefore a shield can be very helpful even if it is not magical and only gives you 1 AC benefit.  In BG1 (though not BG2) I would also say that this shield benefit will outweigh the benefits of increased damage you can get by dual-wielding weapons.

In relation to the build AC is also the problem with using a dwarf as your tank as they have a penalty to dexterity and thus will normally have an AC 1 worse than another race.  Depending on your playstyle this might or might not outweigh the hit point benefit you get from them.

Modifié par Grond0, 19 janvier 2011 - 07:46 .

[FrostyThundertrod]

Difrent amers and shild have difrent bonuses to them. (numbers to fallow are from BGT)

The base Ac is not all there is to the story.

Bucklers have -1ac base -1ac VS missels wepons -1AC vs pircing wepons.

Small shields have -1ac base -1ac vs missel wepons

both of these say thay dont offer missel bonus but if you look at your character sheet thay do

Medum shield have -1Ac base

Large shields have -1 AC base -1 AC vs missel wepons the large shield +1 has -2 AC base -4 AC vs Missiel wepons.



Leather armer: give -2 AC base +2 vs missle wepons +2 AC vs pircing. (you beter off naked the with leather armer if some is shooting at you with a bow)

Studded leather: -3 AC base -1 AC VS missle wepons -1 AC vs Pircing wepons -2 AC vs Slashing wepons.

Chain mail -5 AC base +2 AC vs crussing -2 AC vs slasing

Split mail -6 AC base -2 vs crushing -1 Ac virses missel -1 AC vs pircing

Plate mail -7 AC base -3 vs slashing

Full plate mail -9 AC base -3 AC vs missel -3 Ac vs piercing -4 AC vs Slashing.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Grond0 wrote...
Think of it like this - if your AC is sufficiently low many monsters will only hit you by rolling a 20.  If your AC is 1 higher (worse) and, as a result, a particular monster hits you with a 19 that means they will hit you twice as often.

This is a half lie.
Just as easily somebody could say that a particular monster may be able to hit you only on the roll of 2. With the shield the monster will need to roll a 3 to hit you, so the shield only reduced your damage by about 5%.

This is not to mean that the basic information is wrong though. In BG1 you'll want AC and/or ranged attacks.

In BG2 things are different. Ranged combat becomes rather uninteresting, and the THAC0 of people drops a bit faster than your AC does. Still, AC makes an advantage, just not to the point where you should take a shield instead of a second weapon - once you're proficient in dual-wielding.

[Grond0]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

Grond0 wrote...
Think of it like this - if your AC is sufficiently low many monsters will only hit you by rolling a 20.  If your AC is 1 higher (worse) and, as a result, a particular monster hits you with a 19 that means they will hit you twice as often.

This is a half lie.
Just as easily somebody could say that a particular monster may be able to hit you only on the roll of 2. With the shield the monster will need to roll a 3 to hit you, so the shield only reduced your damage by about 5%.

The point of the discussion is about a tank, i.e. by definition it's the character you are most comfortable with monsters attacking.  If your character has an armour class of, say, -5 (which is easily achievable) there will be very few monsters in BG1 which hit with a 2, but there will be a lot which only hit with a 20.  Thus, while my statement may have been technically misleading, I think it accurately reflects the experience a new player is likely to find in the game.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

I agree (as I said). I just didn't want to leave the half lie (with the very impressive -50% damage from -1 AC) standing unchallenged.

[Bhryaen]

Grond0 wrote...
In relation to the build AC is also the problem with using a dwarf as your tank as they have a penalty to dexterity and thus will normally have an AC 1 worse than another race.  Depending on your playstyle this might or might not outweigh the hit point benefit you get from them.

I'd like to second this part, at least if you're building a tank by min-max'ing stats. Except for some dwarf abilities vs, say, poisons, I am almost not in the least tempted to play a dwarf or halfling simply because I can't get even an 18 STR with a halfling (and thus don't see the point of having a halfling fighter) and lose the one point of AC and ranged attack with a dwarf DEX. STR & DEX are critical to a tank. Of course it's only 1 pt, but it makes a difference that can cost you your life or dwindling healing potions. Attackers always seem to get the lucky hits on me, so I try to keep that vulnerability range as low as possible. If it turns out I didn't need the otherwise minor advantage due to lucky rolls of the die, I'm satisfied that I did all I could to avoid damage anyway.

Then again this is also why I can never seem to commit to playing a barbarian or kensai type of fighter despite the class advantages: the AC is so low for a melee-intensive class that even if you've got twice the HP, with 2 or 3 hits on you per round, you're dead soon anyway. My attack rolls are notoriously lousy in tough situations, so after a couple rounds surrounded in melee I'll have taken out 0 gibberlings (or merely injured one) while they hit me 5 times. There aren't the healing potions or spells available to make that worth it... And then two-handed swords preventing shields... People play those classes all the time successfully, and obviously at higher levels the skills increase, but so does the THAC0 of opponents while AC remains low.

Particularly at lower levels for a tank I'd stick with a heavy armor fighter type using a large shield and maybe an elf for the 19 DEX and minor race benefits, and get an 18 with as high a % as you can manage. If you want to do a single point more damage, use a bastard sword rather than longsword, though I think morningstars do the same. There's a mod that changes shields to reflect PnP values- Item Revisions, I think- which also makes large shields a lot more meaningful (both for your tanks and the enemy's, mind you).

What Frosty_Thundertrod said about the nature of tanks is true- that you can "tank" simply by doing things to hold off or distract melee opponents without directly engaging them in melee yourself- but ultimately the origin of tanks does come to bear. Even when I use my tank to run around while the rest of the party uses ranged or spell attacks on the chasing melee attacker, they can get in an attack when my tank ducks the wrong way or gets "caught" on an NPC or something- or if the attacker is a wolf or NPC on a Speed Potion. And it's just uncanny how in those rare 1-2 attacks they get in on my very-low-AC tank during all that running around they still manage to hit! If they were to hit 50% of the time when in direct melee, I'd never win a battle!

[Dante2377]

the benefits of a dwarf (the "shorty" saving throw bonuses) are far more advantageous than a 1 point AC benefit from going from DEX 17 to 18.



In general, once you start going into the later stages of SOA and into TOB, a plain warrior type without any resistances or spells is just going to be a walking meatshield that dies a lot. Most of the enemies will have a low enough thaco to hit almost any plain warrior AC and do enough damage that regeneration won't be fast enough. That's why as you're planning your party out, things like damage reduction (Armor of Faith spel for high level Paladins and Rangers, the Barbarian class ability, certain weapons which add damage resistance, the HLA Hardiness, etc) and items that give defensive abilities (e.g. a certain short sword activates mirror image x times/day) are critical to not running through your Rod of Resurrections all the time.



In terms of end of SOA/TOB "tanks" - engaging the enemy in melee combat and not dying, nothing is better than any sort of dual or multiclass that includes part mage so you can get Mirror Image, Stoneskin, Protection from Normal/Magic Weapons, Mantle, etc. Not allowing someone to hit you at all makes for the "best" tank.

[Bhryaen]

Dante2377 wrote...
the benefits of a dwarf (the "shorty" saving throw bonuses) are far more advantageous than a 1 point AC benefit from going from DEX 17 to 18.

Well, with an elf instead of a dwarf it's actually a 2 pt advantage in AC (if you max DEX) but given this I've never looked into the actual saving throw bonuses of dwarves. Also I'm attacked with weapons of all sorts far more often than with things that involve saving throws, so I tend to favor the AC bonuses first. But what you say about ToB is worth considering because saves may happen much more often in BG2 than in BG1. Thus much later on the AC advantage of BG1 may be irrelevant.

In general, once you start going into the later stages of SOA and into TOB, a plain warrior type without any resistances or spells is just going to be a walking meatshield that dies a lot.

Not to contradict this at all- particularly given how difficult (even laborious) I vaguely remember the journey being- but I did manage to solo my way through to ToB (with plenty of reloads) with an elven fighter/ rogue. I don't remember it well though, traumatic as it was (traumatic enough not to do it again). So your advice here is a good thing to consider given my intention to go the full way from BG1 for the first time since that first time a decade ago.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Bhryaen wrote...
Well, with an elf instead of a dwarf it's actually a 2 pt advantage in AC (if you max DEX) but given this I've never looked into the actual saving throw bonuses of dwarves. Also I'm attacked with weapons of all sorts far more often than with things that involve saving throws, so I tend to favor the AC bonuses first.

It's 1 point. Dex19 doesn't offer a better AC bonus than Dex18 does. The next step would be Dex21. You could argue longterm however, since there is at least 1 opportunity to lose dexterity and and least 2 to raise it.
For this 1 point AC the dwarf gets 2HP per level extra (until level 9) and his saving throw bonuses. IMO that's a lot.

I did manage to solo my way through to ToB (with plenty of reloads) with an elven fighter/ rogue.

Of course, an FT is everything but a plain fighter.

[Bhryaen]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

Bhryaen wrote...
Well, with an elf instead of a dwarf it's actually a 2 pt advantage in AC (if you max DEX) but given this I've never looked into the actual saving throw bonuses of dwarves. Also I'm attacked with weapons of all sorts far more often than with things that involve saving throws, so I tend to favor the AC bonuses first.

It's 1 point. Dex19 doesn't offer a better AC bonus than Dex18 does. The next step would be Dex21. You could argue longterm however, since there is at least 1 opportunity to lose dexterity and and least 2 to raise it.
For this 1 point AC the dwarf gets 2HP per level extra (until level 9) and his saving throw bonuses. IMO that's a lot.

Ah, I got confused with NWN. The DEX19 advantage is only extra thief points. Well, I'm still not playing a dwarven thief!

[Grond0]

Dex19 also gives you an extra +1 to hit with a missile weapon, which is significant - particularly in BG1 (though I think still doesn't make up for the benefits of 19 con).

[Dante2377]

Bhryaen wrote...
Also I'm attacked with weapons of all sorts far more often than with things that involve saving throws, so I tend to favor the AC bonuses first. But what you say about ToB is worth considering because saves may happen much more often in BG2 than in BG1. Thus much later on the AC advantage of BG1 may be irrelevant.

Right, but in general taking some extra damage from a point or two of lower AC is far easier to mitigate (e.g. heal or run away) than failing a saving throw, which will often lead to being charmed, held, stunned, slowed, etc - all much worse than taking some damage and if you're soloing they all pretty much = death.

I tend to build characters and parties planning for the HARD fights, most of which are hard because of spells and effects, not raw damage.

Modifié par Dante2377, 04 février 2011 - 08:47 .

[Morbidest]

Another advantage to a dwarven fighter is that there is a bug in the vanilla game that allows the proficiency points that should only apply to melee weapons to also be used for throwing axes. Thus an axe (and hammer) armed dwarf will gradually develope into quite an "archer"  

I agree that a two weapon fighter is the best way to go in BG2, but basic survival in BG1 is so tough the first time you play that you might want to use that large shield and wait until BG2 before you add 2 weapon proficiency points.

[The Cow King]

 Swashbuckler is the ultimate non-caster tank, and has a very satisfying power curve (starts off weak/mediocre).

- (-)20 default ac with ease, basically only crits hit (excluding nasty beasties), and they are averted by Vhailor's Helm

- Dual-wielding 9 attacks per round with improved haste

- Can replicate with Vhailor's Helm to cast all sorts of nasty spells (Improved Haste, Black Blade of Disaster, Time Stop etc...), and you can use Vhailor's as many times per day as you'd like with the Bag of Holding trick.

- Access to all sorts of nasty traps, and your simulacrum gets these as well (100 second timestop anyone?).

- Cast regeneration (or two) on your swashy, and it's practically immortal (improved haste doubles regen.)

- Can stack 100% magic res gear against liches etc...

That, or just make a sorc.

Modifié par The Cow King, 10 février 2011 - 06:14 .

[Biotic_Warlock]

Risax wrote...

Hello everyone!
I'm new to Baldur's Gate (well technically I haven't started yet...), and the only western RPG I've played before is Dragon Age Origins. My question is, how do I build a good Tank? I know they are there to attract the attention of enemies and absorb damage, but I never seem to get it done right...

So some tips of more experienced players would be welcome.

Dwaf Fighter.
Str 18, con 19, dex 18
Take points off wisdom and intelligence (about 9 or 10 will do) and charisma not so important.

This dwarf will be a tough nut to crack.
HP per level is about 6-15 (that is the natural 1d10 hit dice and the +5 con bonus)

[Chebby]

Enemies only go for those closest, therefore you'll want some haste boots or the equivalent.

Any multiclass with access to either mage or druid spells. Ranger/Cleric also works very damn well.

If you're itching to go pure melee, barbarian is vastly superior to fighters in endgame content and you'll need TuTu for that.

At the end of the day you'll not feel strong until you get into BG II.

[Biotic_Warlock]

Chebby wrote...

Ranger/Cleric also works very damn well..

UNlike in IWD, one ranger level unlocks all druid spells (i think).
I once had a level 7 ranger and then i dualled to a cleric... i had access to all druid spells

call lightning baybeh!

Modifié par Biotic_Warlock, 14 février 2011 - 05:12 .