------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Why sorcerers rule and

Berserker/Clerics kick ass

in Baldur's Gate II
version 0.1
Mattias Blennow, aka Eathlon
Anders Halvarsson, aka Mad Mac
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This text is intended as arguments as to why Sorcerers are the
most powerful characters in Baldur's Gate II and why Berserker/
Clerics are among the best (if not the best) dual class
character. Any comments ("I agree"-comments are always welcome,
"I don't agreee"-comments should preferably be accompanied by
some argument), should be sent to Eathlon at:
f99-mbl@f.kth.se
In addition to the above we also once and for all establish the
thesis that dual classing is a good tool in creating powerful
characters.
A question that might be asked is the one about the Baldur's
Gate experience of the authors. To avoid questions about this
we will already here state that the authors have an accumulated
playing time of about thousand hours of gameplay (of course both
have lost count).
You may freely distribute the text of this document as long as
it is not presented in a bad context and is unaltered.
---------------------------------------------------------------Contents
---------------------------------------------------------------Prologue: Setting up the thesis
A. The Sorcerer vs the Mage
B. Sorcerer Tactics
C. The tool of dual classing
D. Enter Berserker/Cleric
E. Berserker/Cleric vs Paladin
F. Return of the Sorcerer
---------------------------------------------------------------Prologue: Setting up the thesis
---------------------------------------------------------------Let us begin by providing a couple of thesis which we will
later try to prove using the contents and references of this
document:
Thesis 1:
"As a class of power, the sorcerer is not met by any other
class throughout the game."
Thesis 2:

"One of the most powerful tools in creating powerful characters

is the dual class tool."
Thesis 3:
"A Berserker/Cleric is (if not the most powerful), among the
most powerful dual classes and can easily match any paladin
kit in any respect."
Disclaimer:
While refering to "powerful" characters we will mean characters
who easily can take on all the battles throughout the game of
Baldur's Gate II. By no means does this imply that you will
have a good time when playing the characters as this is highly
individual and many players (including us), likes to take on
a challenge.
Let us now study some facts of the game, we will begin by
examining the differences and similarities between the mage and
the sorcerer.
---------------------------------------------------------------A. The Sorcerer vs the Mage
---------------------------------------------------------------At first glance, the sorcerer looks like a mage with some
restrictions. He cannot learn spells from scrolls (and thus gets
no experience from doing so), and he is limited to five spells
per spell level. To tell the truth, a first reaction to the
sorcerer class might well be "what a depressingly bad mage".
However, when you start studying the sorcerer class in more
detail, you will discover lots and lots of other aspects.
The first thing to notice is the number of spells that a
sorcerer can cast per day. In general, a sorcerer can cast more
spells on every level early on in the game. A minor setback is
the fact that the mage progresses his spell level a bit quicker
early in the game but after level 10 this effect vanishes. In
the final stages of the game, the mage is limited to five spells
per day on each level (four level 9 spells), while the sorcerer
can cast six spells from each level (including level 9). This
also means that the sorcerer can cast one more spell than a
specialist mage. While this might not seem to be much, it might
well make all the difference in a tough fight. Also, the
sorcerer reaches the maximum number of spells per day at level
20 as opposed to the mage doing the same at level 28, a
difference of 3050000 exp - which is quite a lot.
The second thing to do is to check if the limited amount of
known spells really is such a setback. By now we will soon see
that the sorcerer is not a good class for beginners who do not
yet know their spell books. Obviously for a beginner there is
no really good way of picking spells for a sorcerer, sure you
can look through what spells other and more experienced players
suggest but this is not to be recommended as each player has his
or her own style of playing and each player needs to find this
style by himself/herself (even if some spells seems to be
included by most players). But when considering an experienced
player, this player knows exactly what spells that match his/her
style and this is very rarely more than five per level (and as

good as never more than six in which case there is most often a
surrogate for that spell on another level). If the player at some
instance really needs another spell he can cast it using a scroll
and this hardly occurs more than once or twice per spell (the
obvious example is the Find Familiar spell which only needs to be
cast once). Taking all this into account an experienced player
should well be able to get along with the number of spells
provided to the sorcerer. In addition - mages tend to always
memorize a certain "standard" setup (again it differs between
players), that is practically never changed and rarely contains
more than three spells of each level.
We are now starting to look a little more interested in the
sorcerer class but to tell the truth we have only just started
the argument. Next up is the adaptability of the sorcerer to any
kind of situation.
As the sorcerer does not have to memorize his spells, for each of
his spell castings he can pick any spell that he knows of
(provided he has spells left of the appropriate level). This is
in fact a huge advantage. For example, how many mages spend any
of their precious memory slots for spells like Knock and
Identify? After a small fight the sorcerer can often just waltz
on while the mage has to rest and rememorize some of his better
spells that might be needed later on knowing that he can easily
pick the spells that suits the situation that arises. Add to this
the fictious event of a greater battle coming to a closure where
the wizard has only one spell left. For the mage, the spell left
will most often be the one *least* suited for the occation as it
would otherwise aleready have been cast. The sorcerer will in
this situation be able to pick any spell he knows (of the
appropriate level), and of course he will pick the one that is
*best* suited. This also allows the sorcerer to respond to any
unexpected twist or turn that a fight might take.
Of course, one could continue to argue back and forth with
countless arguments pro and con but we will not do this here and
now. We will however take into account one other major advantage
of the sorcerer, the ability to learn any spell.
While the mage learns spells from scrolls - the sorcerer learns
spells when he progresses to another level and can then learn any
of the spells of the appropriate spell level. The experience a
mage can get from memorizing spells is in the magnitude of some
hundred thousand experience points - compared to the total amount
of experience available in the game this is actually not such a
great amount. You might argue that it is an excellent way to
make level ups on a character just dualed to mage (which it is),
but as you cannot dual to a sorcerer - well it is really not that
interesting. Let us again turn to the sorcerer way of learning
spells. One major advantage the sorcerer has in this case is the
fact that he does not need the scroll and thus can learn *any*
spell. As an example, we can take the Mordenkainen's Sword spell
which is one of our personal favourites. It may take quite a
while to locate a scroll with this spell (at least if you are not
searching every container in every area), and be able to memorize
it with the mage - and you may fail. The sorcerer easily picks
the spell at level up and does not need to bother at all with
finding the scroll - in addition to the fact that he is always
able to learn the picked spell.

---------------------------------------------------------------B. Sorcerer tactics

---------------------------------------------------------------One of the things that make sorcerers superior is the ability to
create an excellent tactic for playing the game thanks to the
adaptability of the class. We will only mention a few of the
tactics available to the sorcerer class.
Don't get hurt:
In common for most wizards is the fact that if you start getting
hurt - you're as good as dead. A major tactic is therefor to
avoid getting hurt at all. The most useful spells in this tactic
is Stoneskin, Protection from magical weapons, Mantle, etc. An
obvious advantage is that the game really does not improve
greatly in difficulty as you increase the difficulty level of
the game as the main effects is that monsters do more damage.
Well, anything multiplied by zero is still zero ...
Kill before sight:
A tactic commonly used by the US Air Force amongst others. The
philosophy implies that if you kill your enemies before they see
you, they cannot hurt you. Unfortunatly, many implementations of
this tactic include what we usually call "non role playing
style", using things that would not really work in "reality"
like getting a dragon to sit still while losing hit points to a
cloud kill.
Power overwhelming:
An impressive tactic for primary use with Throne of Bhaal
installed that is especially effective against dragons and other
powerful enemies. By using Time Stop and Improved Alacrity (the
use of the Amulet of Power and/or Robe of Vecna is also strongly
recommended), the sorcerer may release practically his entire
arsenal of spells in one instance (might need to use multiple
time stops), killing practically everything. One thing to note
is that by varying the distance to the target you can decide in
which order the spells will strike it. Personally, we like to
save one level 9 spell for a finishing Powerword: Kill if the
release of the spell arsenal is not enough - just remember that
some enemies are immune to this - like Abazigal as he talks
before his death.
Of course, many of the tactics available can be combined.
---------------------------------------------------------------C. The tool of dual classing
---------------------------------------------------------------Many beginners seems to think dual classing is not worthwhile.
As a matter of fact, many "middle" experienced players seem to
have this opinion as well. Eathlon (with a couple of thousand
hours of gameplay behind him), was at one instance called
"newbie" when arguing for the use of dual class with such a
player. The argument of those players is most often something to
the likes of "better specialist at one thing than mediocre at
many". What such an argument misses is the fact that the first
levels in general requires very little experience . For example

a Figher/Mage dualed from fighter at level 9 "loses" at most one

mage level. In the end of the game this really does not account
for much, if Throne of Bhaal is installed, it accounts for even
less (you will lose some lore and one hitpoint which is easily
made up by the fighter hit points alone).
As I will demonstrate there are practically two different ways
of constructing a good dual class combination. The first we will
name "Negative merging" and the second we will name "Positive
merging". These will be explained below.
The NEGATIVE MERGING approach:
The main thought of Negative merging is to combine two classes
with practically the same negative effects and thus gain the
advantages of both classes. The typical example of this approach
is the Kensai/Mage. To illustrate we expand this example with
the Negative merging arguments.
The main setback of the Kensai is the inability to use any armor
at all. As mage spells cannot be cast while using armor, the
Negative merging approach tells us we might dual our Kensai to a
Kensai/Mage as the two classes have the same downside - not
being able to use armor.
The POSITIVE MERGING approach:
The Positive merging approach is actually quite similar to the
Negative Merging approach. However, instead of looking at the
likeness of the class disadvantages, one looks at the
dislikeness of the class advantages. In the end one will end up
whith a character whith more advantages than the single classes
and the advantages of one class may even negate the
disadvantages of the other.
As a first example of this we might again look at the
Kensai/Mage to see that it actually might be achieved from this
approach as well. Since the Kensai is unable to wear armor or
cast spells and the Mage is able to wear robes (like the Robe of
Vecna, AC 5), and cast magic but unable to fight well like the
Kensai, we should make ourselves a Kensai/Mage who will be able
to cast magic, use any weapon, fights well and wear robes that
might lower his AC even further.
Our personal favourite amongst those methods is the Positive
merging as this approach tends to enhance the character in a
more powerful way as it "fills in the blanks" rather than
leaving the "same blanks open". Of course, the best thing to do
is to combine Positive and Negative merging as is done in the
example of the Kensai/Mage above. However, we might be able to
overlook some of the negative effects that does not coincide in
favor of positive effects as will be seen in the next chapter.
The above should be enough to establish the second thesis in
the beginning of this text.
---------------------------------------------------------------D. Enter Berserker/Cleric
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By using the merging approaches above (especially the positive,

one clear candidate for a good dual class is the
Berserker/Cleric. To understand why we will have to look at the
advantages and disadvantages of both classes.
To begin, the Berserker is a very powerful fighter indeed, his
Berserker Rage makes him immune to a lot of things. But as he
advances in levels, the only real effect of level ups is those
of the fighter as three or four Berserker Rages should well be
enough for anyone. As a fighter, the Berserker may also put
five slots into any weapon proficiency and recieves a pretty
good THAC0 - not to mention his number of hit points.
We now turn our attention towards the Cleric. Clerics are most
often used as healers but they also have other spells to aid
in combat. Among the most powerful of these we find Chaotic
Commands and Defensive Harmony and Holy Power/Champion s
Strength. Add to this a vast number of other spells that might
come in handy - Slow Poison, Cure Disease and some really nice
combat spells. Another feature of the Cleric is the ability to
cast spells while wearing any armor.
As if this was not enough, the Cleric has the ability to Turn
Undead which comes in very handy at higher levels. The only
real setback of the Cleric is the restriction of the weapons
he is able to use.
When combining the advantages of the Berserker and the Cleric,
we get an incredibly powerful dual class. Let us look at what
we get when we dual class.
The B/C is a good fighter with a respectable THAC0 and AC. The
AC may well be lowered quite a bit by additional priest spells.
In addition to this, the B/C has the ability to heal himself
which is really useful (especially when playing solo, of course
the ability to heal others is also important when playing with
a full party).
As a single character, the Berserker/Cleric can make himself
immune to practically every negative effect that higher level
monsters may induce upon him, in fact, Chaotic Commands
combined with Berserker Rage practically covers it all.
Let us do some case studies for battles in which the B/C is
involved.
The first case is the case of Mind Flayers and the Umber Hulks
that comes with them. In fact, all you need to defeat these
is a good fighter with an ok AC and a cleric who can cast
Chaotic Commands. A B/C is a brilliant combination of the two
and he does really well against them. Of course we can also add
the fact that additional boost spells may be added to make the
B/C an even better fighter.
In the second case we pick Vampires to be our opponents. With
Chaotic Commands, Berserker Rage and Turn Undead, the B/C does
not need to lift a finger to defeat a hoard of vampires. We
should of course also add anything which gives the effect of
immunity to level drain, may it be the priest spell Negative
Plane Protection, the innate Enrage ability, the Amulet of

Power, the Improved Mace of Disruption or any other item. As a

cleric, the B/C is at least guaranteed access to Negative Plane
Protection. At high levels the tactic to use is quite simple.
Cast the needed spells, set Turn Undead to be active and wait,
a Turn Undead level (which is equal to the Cleric level), of 14
is usually more than enough to make Vampires explode. This
tactic naturally also holds against other undead opposition
like all kinds of Wraits, Liches, and even the Vampiric Mind
Flayers in Throne of Bhaal. A main advantage of using Turn
Undead is that it ignores all kinds of magical protections that
the undead may use to protect themselves.
A Berserker/Cleric does well against practically every enemy
available in the game.
We might also wish to explore the "setback" of only being able
to use blunt weapons. In neither Shadows of Amn or Throne of
Bhaal is this setback severe in any way. One of the better (not
to say the best) dual wield combination is the dual wield of
Flail of Ages and Crom Faeyr, both blunt weapons. In SoA one
might argue that Flail of Ages "only" is a +3 weapon but if any
more is needed it is light work to single wield Crom Faeyr. We
also have the Improved Mace of Disruption which is good for
granting the wielder Negative Plane Protection and thus
immunity to level drain (although we would rather use the Amulet
of Power for this purpose if it is not better needed for another
character and the Berserker Rage also gets the job done).
In Throne of Bhaal, the amount of possible weapon combinations
for the B/C increases as well as for any other character as we
get our hands on the Runehammer and improve the Flail of Ages to
+5 status. When improved with Clangeddin's Rune, the Runehammer
effectivly makes a good replacement for the Improved Mace of
Disruption and since you have probably spent some proficiencies
on war hammers because of Crom Faeyr - well, you have already
got the knowledge on how to use it well. You could look into
other combinations of weapons as well but this is the one we
find most appealing.
---------------------------------------------------------------E. Berserker/Cleric vs Paladin
---------------------------------------------------------------By now our claims for the Berserker/Cleric being one of the most
powerful dual classes available should be more or less settled.
In fact, the extensive use of the Positive merging approach
combined with what we know about the actual game makes the B/C
an even better choice than the Kensai/Mage for the majority of
the situations that may arise.
To establish Thesis 3 we must now compare the Berserker/Cleric
to the various Paladins available in the game. Let us first look
at the pure Paladin class and what its real advantages are.
First, the Paladin is a warrior and also get proficiencies and
THAC0 according to this. This is easily made up by the fact that
the Berserker/Cleric can achieve Grand Mastery and that he
initially gains THAC0 at the rate of a Fighter and later at the
rate of a Cleric (which is actually not so bad). Since the
Cleric gains better THAC0 at a rate of 2 per 3 levels and the

Paladin gains it at a rate of one per level - one might come to

the conclusion that the Paladin gains THAC0 at a rate that is
one and a half times the rate of the B/C after the dualling.
This is false as one Cleric level is equivalent to 225000 exp
and one Paladin level is equivalent to 300000 exp. In fact, if
a Berserker is dualled to Cleric at 9th level he will regain the
Berserker abilities at a total of 700000 exp at which point he
will actually have a THAC0 that is better than the one of a
level 10 Paladin with 900000 exp, this effect will in time be
closed by the Paladin due to the slightly higher rate of gaining
THAC0 but the B/C and Paladin will always have THAC0s that are
in parity with each other. Adding the Grand Mastery of the B/C
we conclude that the B/C actually *is* a better warrior.
Second out is the casting of spells. The Paladin can reach a
maximum of spell level four while the B/C, naturally, can
reach spell level seven AND cast more spells per day. In this
aspect, the Berserker/Cleric is obviously superior to the
Paladin.
The third advantage of being a Paladin is the saving throw
bonus. This is easily made up by all of the immunities granted
by the Berserker Rage. With the immunity it does not really
matter if the saving throw is successful or not.
The final Paladin advantage is the ability to Turn Undead. As in
the case with the spell casting, a Cleric, and thus also a B/C,
is far superior in this aspect as he starts gaining Turn Undead
levels at Cleric level 1 and the Paladin starts gaining at level
3, add to this the fact that Clerics level up a lot faster than
Paladins.
We now turn to compare the Berserker/Cleric to the Paladin kits
starting with the Cavallier. We focus only on the advantages the
kits have over the pure Paladin class.
The Cavallier actually gains quite a lot of nice effects. Most
of these effects are however easily met by the Berserker/Cleric.
You really do not need a whole bunch of Remove Fear spells and
two or three is easily fit into the memory of the B/C, the
immunity to fear and morale failiure is met by the ability to
actually cast a Remove Fear spell before any combat and the
ability of the Berserker Rage. Truly, the only things left
unmatched is the immunity to poison and the resistance to fire
and acid. By letting the B/C employ the right equipment and the
right spells we can make this effect practically disappear and
all the other advantages of a B/C remains.
The Inquisitor has only one major good effect, the use of the
innate abilities Dispell Magic and True Sight. The True Sight
is matched by the B/C's ability to cast the priest spell True
Seeing and only the Dispell Magic effect remains as a prime
advantage for the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor also gains
immunity to Hold and Charm but as we've seen before, this is
met by the B/C's abilities to cast Chaotic Commands and to use
his Berserker Rage. In addition to this, the Inquisitor loses
many of the appealing features of the Berserker/Cleric such as
the ability to heal, the ability to Turn Undead and last but
certainly not least the ability to cast any priest spells at
all. Taken together, this makes the B/C superior to the

Inquisitor as well.
The only Paladin kit left is the one we consider to be the best,
namely the Undead Hunter (mainly because of the innate ability
to resist level drain). The immunity to level drain is met by
letting the B/C employ Negative Plane Protection in any form
(again by using a spell or an item giving the protection) or why
not the Berserker Rage. The immunity to Hold is (of course) met
by the ability of Berserker Rage.
Concerning the Berserker Rage many beginners seem to argue that
the loss of the 15 hit points when the Rage runs out may be
fatal to the Berserker. This argument contains a logical error
and a logical response is:
"Sure, but whithout the extra 15 hit points, he would already
be dead."
In addition to this, the Berserker has the chance of being
healed before the Rage runs out. In the case of a B/C he can
actually heal himself to avoid getting killed by the ending of
a Berserker Rage. To restore a dead fighter we require a spell
like Raise Dead which obviously is of a higher level than a
simple Cure Medium Wounds (which is sufficient in most cases)
or just drinking a Potion of Extra Healing.
We conclude that this argument is sufficient to support the
third thesis in the beginning of this text.
---------------------------------------------------------------F. Return of the Sorcerer
---------------------------------------------------------------Yet, the first thesis remains to be settled. Why do we promote
the Sorcerer as being the most powerful character in the game of
Baldur's Gate II?
In the previous parts concerning the Sorcerer, we have seen that
it has major advantages when compared to the Mage. All we need
to make clear is that a magic user is really the most powerful
character to use.
An answer to this lies partly within part B of this text, the
tactics of the Sorcerer. A Sorcerer employing the right spells
at the right time can easily win practically every battle when
equipped in a good way. A "good" way of course includes stuff
like the Staff of the Magi and the Robe of Vecna - as well as
the Amulet of Power. The adaptability of the Sorcerer always
makes him prepared for next to all possible situations. If
Throne of Bhaal is installed, the Sorcerer grows even further
in power and already at level 20 he is practically invincible
when employing the right spells. While constantly keeping ten
layers of Stoneskin and wielding the Staff of the Magi he
always have time to react and surprise his opponents. When all
this is taken into account, the Sorcerer is by far the most
powerful character in the game - which is the content of the
first of the thesis in the beginning of this text.
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