Starting Stats for a Paladin/Wizard? Feedback Welcome

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hello all;

 

So, I'm working on a Paladin/Wizard build (You can see the whole thing in my "Knight of Winter" thread - imaginative name, I know) and I'm having a little bit of trouble coming up with a good stat spread. See, I'm wanting to use a solid mix of defensive spells with AoEs for dealing with large/annoying packs of enemies. I'll probably also be using drugs to shore up my martial attributes (Might, Con, Dexterity) as well. Right now, my stats look like this, with buffs factored in...

 

Might: 15 (11+2+1+1)

Constitution: 15 (12+3)

Dexterity: 16 (13+3)

Perception: 20 (16+4)

Intellect: 19 (16+2+1)

Resolve: 12 (10+2)

 

(This is including the Gift of the Machine bonus, Blood Pool bonus, Pale Elf racial bonuses, the White that Wends culture bonus, and Chameleon's Touch bonuses, as well as the +2 bonus from Berath's Blessing)

 

Constitution, in regards to max Health, is effectively 17 with the 5% bonus from GotM and the 5% bonus from sacrificing Durance to the Blood Pool

 

The only real change I've considered is dropping Might down to 10 and putting the extra point into Dexterity. 

 

What are your thoughts on this? This is the biggest hang-up preventing me from starting this character, since you can't reroll attributes once you've started. 

[Marigoldran]

Con is bad.  Drop it to 10.  Raise might or Dex.  

 

Resolve should also be 10.  

Edited July 1, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Con is bad.  Drop it to 10.  Raise might or Dex.  

 

Resolve should also be 10.  

 

Resolve is 10, the +2 is from the Berath's Blessing. 

 

So maybe drop Con and Resolve down to 8 and then put the extra points into Might and/or Dex? 

[Marigoldran]

Yes.

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Alright, so... 

 

Might: 17 (14 + 2 + 1 + 1)

Constitution: 10 (7+3)

Dexterity: 18 (15+3)

Perception: 20 (16+4)

Intellect: 19 (16+2+1)

Resolve: 10 (8+2)

 

Con would be effectively 12 in regards to max health because of GotM and Durance sacrifice. 

 

Thoughts? 

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Basically, this comes down to...

 

1. Should I sacrifice Con/Resolve for higher Might/Dexterity? 

 

2. Are two extra Might and Dexterity each really worth setting Constitution and Resolve to 10? 

[baldurs_gate_2]

Would drop con and res or dex to 8. With Berath they are on 10. Important is PER / INT / MIG. Pala / Wiz is tanky anyway.

[arkane83]

Just putting something out there for you to think about:

 

You can also build an Arcane Knight with super high deflection that is insanely hard to kill, even after all of the nerfs to wizard illusion spells from 1.1. 

 

Every point of deflection is more valuable than the last one.  This is exactly the opposite of accuracy, which has a diminishing return where each point is worth a bit less than the previous point. If you start with 20 resolve, pick up Cadhu Scalth, take athletics and metaphysics, and use illusion spells to boost your deflection, you can get some nice numbers. Just remember that ACTIVE abilities do NOT stack their bonuses with other actives, but passives, inspirations and gear DO. All of these things will add up:

 

• Deflection from resolve (+10 if you go for 20)
• Faith and Conviction
• Deep Faith
• Weapon and Shield Style
• Large Shield (Cadhu Scalth works great for this)
• Entonia Signet Ring
• of X Deflection ring and cloak (which are fairly common)
• Any bonuses your gear give to resolve* or deflection
• Any inspirations you get which boost resolve*

 

*up to 35 total resolve

 

Your illusion defenses will take the highest deflection bonus and suppress the other ones. They also do NOT stack with reinforcing exhortation, since it is an active effect. 

 

Keep in mind, that the value of deflection and accuracy are enemy dependent. The more of the opposite stat your opponent has, the more you need and the more/less valuable they can become. Also, PoTD and scaling will both make it much harder to stack deflection. The difficulty you plan on should effect your build. Furthermore, deflection has some relative breakpoints depending on your opponents accuracy:

• 70 Point Deflection Advantage = Immortality (cannot even be grazed). 
• 50 Point Deflection Advantage = Hit Immune (can only be grazed). The time to kill you is about 6x as long as even deflection/accuracy
• 30 Point Deflection Advantage = My calculations have this lasting about 2x even deflection / accuracy. About 333% effective health
• Even deflection = Critical Strike Immunity (can only be hit or grazed). Your effective health is around 167% just from deflection
• 30 Point Accuracy Advantage = Enemy will never miss. It will take someone about 60% of the time to kill you as even deflection/accuracy 
• 50 Point Accuracy Advantage = Enemy will never miss or graze. My calculations have this at 53.3% TTK
• 100 Point Accuracy Advantage = Automatic crit. My calculations have the TTK at 48%

 

This is all based upon the attack rolls that the game uses, which should be:

0-30 MIss

31-50 Graze

51-100 Hit

101+ Crit

 

Honestly, comparing everything to even deflection and accuracy (the way I did) somewhat understates how amazing deflection can be.

 

-20 Deflection would give the enemy 10% Miss 20% Graze 50% hit and 20% crit. Assuming +25% crit damage that leaves you at:

 

(0.1/1*0)+(0.2/1*0.5)+(0.5/1*1)+(0.2/1*1.25) = 85% reduction in DPS from combat roll 

1/.85 = 117.65% Effective health (from combat roll alone)

 

+20 Deflection would give the enemy 50% Miss 20% Graze 30% Hit and 0% crit. 

 

(0.5/1*0)+(0.2/1*0.5)+(0.3/1*1)+(0.0/1*1.25) = 40% reduction in DPS from combat roll

1/0.4 = 250% Effective health (from combat roll alone)

 

Now when you look at it from an effective health point of view, the 40 deflection swing more than DOUBLES your durability. 

 

Obviously, I am leaving out a ton of other variables, including armor, penetration, and gear/abilities which convert hits to grazes. (By the way, that illusion spell which gives a low amount of deflection and hit to graze conversion is really good...). The idea is  the same though:

 

Just because everyone tells you to dump resolve, doesn't mean that you have to. There are some really amazing build ideas you can work with to make yourself a crazy resolve/deflection tank! Who needs a ton of dexterity or con when you can barely even be hit by enemies?