New player - is there a decent "jack of all trades" type character?

[Conman]

Hi all, recently downloaded on PS4 after being interested for a long time (I used to play Baldur's Gate must be nearly 20 years ago now) and am excited to get stuck in.

 

Unfortunately I don't get much time to play any more and playtime is limited, so I expect I'll probably only get one good playthrough of the game over the next few months. Because of that, I'd like to try and experience a little bit of everything (melee, ranged, magic etc) though I know it won't be optimal or the best at anything. I'll probably play on Normal or Hard, I'm worried that if I find myself stuck on something I'll have to keep coming back to it day after day (sometimes I only get an hour or so to play a day)) so hopefully that difficulty will work for me.

 

Could you suggest a class and maybe some stats/a build that I could use for this? I'm probably asking for too much, but I figured it doesn't hurt to ask!

Cipher looks like my best bet to try some magic and different fighting styles, but I know some of you have a wealth of experience so I'm open to any advice.

 

Apologies if this is too vague and thanks for any advice!

[Boeroer]

There are some classes that can do all three quite well after some leveling (melee, ranged combat and magic):

 

- Wizard: has awesome summoned weapons for ranged as well as melee combat (Kalakoth's Minor Blights, Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Citzal's Spirit Lance...) and is obviously good with magic.

 

- Priest of Magran: can get high accuracy with an arquebus (gun) and a sword and his "magic" is very potent when it comes to buffing

 

- Priest of Wael: same, but with rod and quarterstaff.

 

- Druid: can shift into a sort of were-form that does tremendous melee damage. Can cast powerful spells - and later in the game he gets a very powerful summoned ranged weapon named Rot Skulls.

 

- Rogue: good with melee or ranged weapons alike and can also make good use of so called spellbinding gear. That's items that give you some spells which you can use like a wizard uses his spells. FOr example there's a sabre that gives you 3 Fireballs per rest and so on. A rogue is very good with those spells because his accuracy is high and one of his later damage boosting abilites also works with spells and doubles the damage.

 

- Cipher: doesn't matter if melee or ranged - ciphers do great weapon damage. Their powers (spells) are powerful as well.

 

The rest of the classes will have some shortcomings with one aspect or the other.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Boeroer

[Conman]

Thanks for your answer, it's really informative!

 

What's the difference in a Cipher and a Chanter, they seem similar at first glance?

 

If I was interested in a Wizard, is it hard to manage "At rest" abilities and spells?

 

I think I'm leaning towards a Cipher at the moment. Would it be reasonable to build a Cipher with 1h weapon and a small shield, light (or light-ish) armour to help with more damage, and a ranged (or long range weapon like a quarterstaff) option in my second weapon slots if needed? What would be a good stat line for that sort of character?

 

Thank you

Edited April 12, 2018 by Conman

[Boeroer]

Cipher and Chanter play fundamentally different. The Cipher needs to deal weapon damage actively to fuel his powers. The Chanter sings phrases passively and has to wait until a certain number of phrases have cumulated until he can use those to cast an invocation. His phrases can be powerful as well though. Some players choose to only use phrases and don't use invocations a lot.

 

Because of that (generally said), a cipher needs to be played more actively (more micromanagement) than a chanter. Also a chanter is a bit slow with the development of power over the course of an encounter. This doesn't matter on high difficulties because fights take longer there. But on normal diff. (and below) new players often have the feeling that a chanter is too slow and is often late to the party with his invocations. On higher levels he will get faster and faster though.

Chanters are not particularly great in melee not ranged. Both is ok but nothing special. The whole package is special though.

 

Wizards' spells are hard to manage in the early game because you will only have a few. After some char levels you'll have a lot of spells. Usually you can do 4+ fights easily before having to rest. Good thing with summoned weapons is that they spare you spell uses (you only need one spell use to summon a weapon and hit foes with it - thus you don't need to recast Fireballs over and over to kill them).

 

It's beneficial to have meta knowledge when playing per-rest casters. If you know when which encounter happens you know when it's time to rest. But if you don't hoard your spells too much you can also be successful without any knowledge about the upcoming encounters. Camping supplies for resting are cheap and plentiful. If you're not sure what awaits you and you're low on spells: make a campfire.

 

Wizards have a per-encounter ability called Arcane Assault. It's good and I'd use it a lot in the early game.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Boeroer

[Jaheiras Witness]

I would add that a chanter can be built to be a melee or ranged machine if desired. Chanters have base accuracy and deflection of 25, which is “second best” in both cases. The chants are all passive which means they happen automatically and at the same time as using weapons, and then you can throw in an invocation every 15 seconds or so as well.

 

Think about chanter vs fighter: the chanter sacrifices 5 accuracy and deflection, 2 HP per level and doesn’t get the fighter abilities at odd levels. In return you get chants and invocations. That is a huge difference in power and by selecting the appropriate options, a chanter can be way stronger than a fighter at just about everything other than weapon damage (which the chanter more than offsets through chant/invocation damage).

 

Chanters and Ciphers are both great though. Ciphers have more variety and are better at weapon damage and against single tough targets, Chanters are more indestructible and better against groups of foes.

[mr_raider]

I must say wizard seems exceptionally versatile. You can go ranged with wands, and kalakoths. You can melee with parasitic staff. You can control with blind and confusion spells. You can nuke with aoe damage.

 

You can even disable traps with the right skill investments.