Ultimate Cheese Character

Okay I'm starting SOA with my friend and we are going to play though it and TOB. I'm looking to build an ultimate cheese character that doesn't involve any hacks of any kind.

So I challange you! What do you beleave is the cheeseist character possable without hacks, and why? :laugh:

An Assassin with boots of speed. Give him a proficiency slot in two weapon style, and long sword, equip him with Blackrazor and The Answerer +4. Here comes the best part:Hide in Shadows and run up to the enemy and backstab him. At a high enough level he will do x7 damage. You could also add in poison weapon if you feel like slowing him down and dealing extra damage.And if you repeat the process, the abilities of the answerer are cumulative, so they will stack on and add on. For every time you hit him, -2 AC, -15% MR. Imagine the devastation you could cause and glory you would get seeing yourself take an enemy down in one backstab. On AVERAGE I did 180 damage like this. It almost makes the game TOO easy.

1) A Wizard Slayer dualled to a Mage is cheesy just because it's self-contradictory. Crownhead posted a journal describing the adventures he had with one.

2) A 24th Level Swashbuckler with Use Any Item dualled to a Cleric is my second candidate. It takes a long time to make one, but it's a very powerful character. Again, the cheesiness comes from the fact that it's so artificial. EDIT: I think the TOB experience cap (8,000,000 points) limits this character to 25th Level Cleric. Keep that in mind in case "no hacks" means "no experience cap remover".

When you say the "ultimate cheesing character" I'm guessing that every cheese and exploit available is allowed... and in that case, five casters each equipped with the ram device, 2x pro-magic, 2x Ring of the Ram and a horde of planetars would surely be about the strongest solo character available... ;]

What about the ol' kensai -> thief? Get UAI and nullify all the negatives for the kensai, plus use spells, wands, et al... stick the kensai up to a good, say level 15 or so and "wack-a-mole"...

I have to agree w/Nimety. I'm a big fan of Kensai-> Theif, but they are cheesy.

(In fact, any theif is pretty cheesy because of UAI- that ability is cheese-tacular all by itself)

A Paladin can be immune to damage. If its that what you want.

But, i would install Baldurdash patch immediately, so its not working anymore

I read that one. It was VERY interesting, and it inspired me to play a Wizard Slayer/Mage. Since then the Wizard Slayer/Mage has been my favorite class. Then again, I have only played Assassins, Monks, Archers and Wizard Slayers so I haven't tried that much.

I'd still go for the ol' Ranger/Cleric. The combination of buffing spells and raw melee power makes for an easy game.

Actually, that's a great point too. Because Ranger/Cleric gets access to all Druid and Cleric spells at the Cleric spell progression, things can get a little ridiculous. A Ranger -> Cleric is even worse- tons of profs, fast advancement, access to excellent weaons/armor/equip, and a bunch of spells. By chapter 6 you can be summoning half a dozen fire elementals and then wading into melee w/full plate and Crom, all without cheating at all.

Actually you couldn't wade into battle with half a dozen fire elementals, since you can only have 5 summoned creeps at a time...

Since the r/c has access to druid abilities he'd also have the ability to transform into a fire elemental himself. So it's actually possible. Sort of.

*coughs* Exactly... erm- that's exactly what I was thinking of. You could transform into a fire elemental and then put on the plate mail...

Have either of you ever played a R->Cl? I did once- it was pretty cheesy...

I just finished a solo Ranger / Cleric, and they are quite spectacular. Sure, few thief skills so you deal more with traps and locked chests, but you get the best druid/cleric spells like summon insects and iron skins, plus righteous magic and doom. The puffing ahead of a battle can be as good as a mage with the power of a fighter (righteous magic means all attacks to maximum damage) and hiding in shadows like a thief to get into a good position, and then... wham!

I haven't played a kensai / thief yet, so I guess I'm biased. It did seem awfully cheesy.

I cannot believe that I've missed something as cheesy as a ranger->cleric getting druid spells... whoa Guess that's something to think about for the next playthrough

Just what I was going to say! Ranger/cleric is good fun though

Oie! Ranger cleric is the ultimate cheese machine too! You can dispell, you can disrupt magic, you can... wow! I played one of those, twas very good.

Cleric/Rangers are very powerful indeed, but I think their cheesiness is a bit exaggerated. First of all, from a roleplaying point of view, the class combination is not self-contradictory. Second of all, a Cleric/Ranger isn't much different from a Fighter/Cleric. The main differences are stealth, which a lot of players don't even use when they play a Ranger, a Racial Enemy bonus that rarely comes into play, and the ability to cast Druid spells as well as all Cleric spells. Unless I'm mistaken, I think the High Level Abilities are the same, since the ones that can be cast by Rangers but not by Fighters can be cast by Fighter/Clerics, so Fighter/Clerics are not disadvantaged. If you're talking about a dual-class character instead of a multiclass character, a Berserker dualled to a Cleric has some nice advantages that a Ranger dualled to a Cleric does not possess, namely Rage and more proficiency points.

As implemented in BG2, Cleric/Rangers do violate D&D rules because they get 4th-7th level Druid spells (a total of 10 extra spells) when they should only get 1st-3rd Level Druid spells. Do those spells really make that much difference? You be the judge. In addition to the usual Cleric spells that may be cast by Good characters, Cleric/Rangers are also able to cast the following Druid spells:

1st Level: Entangle
2nd Level: Charm Person or Mammal, Goodberry
3rd Level: Call Lightning, Hold Animal, Summon Insects
4th Level: Call Woodland Beings
5th Level: Insect Plague, Ironskins, Pixie Dust
6th Level: Conjure Fire Elemental, Dolorous Decay, Fire Seeds
7th Level: Conjure Earth Elemental, Creeping Doom, Nature's Beauty

Unless you really play your character to its fullest potential, I don't know if those spells make so much difference. Three of them are probably ysed more than all the rest: Ironskins, Insect Plague, and Nature's Beauty.

I'm not trying to downplay the advantages of a Cleric/Ranger; I'm just saying they aren't as uber-cheesy as some people might think. And maybe Fighter/Clerics are vastly underappreciated.

I... can't help thinking that you're saying that Anomen is underappreciated... *shudder* the self-righteous prick...

Anyway, personally I have never even tried a cheesy character... don't really know why. I'm currently even playing SoA with Tactics and stuff that makes the game WAY harder without a cheesy main character (I have Solaufein, who is a bit cheesy, but I rarely use him to his full potential)

Also, mightn't the Wild Mage have the potential to be cheesy? Or maybe not cheesy, just improbably powerful, what with Nahal's Reckless Dweomer and the 5% Wild Surge chance/risk...

I cast... Magic Missile! Shhooommm!!! Wild Surge! Oooops, I just killed the universe!

Well Vondu, allow me to politely disagree... kind of.

Well, here we can agree. Fighter/Clerics are tremendously powerful, and Berzerker->Clerics are even more so. The combination of extra profs, the Cleric's quik level advancement, and the general dovetailing of the two classes makes them great. One big thing that people often overlook when comparing Fighter->Cleric to Ranger->Cleric is that the fighter advancement is just a little bit faster. However, this means that if you want to max you cleric levels, as a Fighter you can dual at 12th level; as a Ranger you have to dual at 11th (which, for me, is effectively 9th). Basically, dualing as a fighter lets you make better use out of the 8 million XP that you have. Following that logic, if you're interested in power gaming, there is basically no reason to ever be a single-classed cleric, as dualing allows all the benefits of both classes without ever sacrificing XP- tastes great, less filling!

(Note, this is assuming you have TOB installed and don't use an XP cap remover... that is how I play )

Now, with that said...

The reason I think that that Ranger->Cleric is so cheesy isn't because of the comparison to a Fighter->Cleric, but rather in comparison to the Druid, a Fighter/Druid or Fighter->Druid.

Basically, when you give the cleric access to the few spells that a Druid has to hang his hat on, you're totally crippling any reason to ever be a Druid (again, this is only in terms of powergaming; if you want to play a Druid for roleplaying reasons, then more power to you). The roots of this are in the ridiculous PnP XP charts for Druids in 2nd Ed, because Clerics advance about twice as fast as Druids from levels 10-20.

BG II only exacerbates that for many reasons- if you dual from a Warrior class to a Cleric, you get your Warrior levels back quickly but you still cast high level spells faster and have access to the uber-equipment of the game (FoA, Crom, heavy armor, all shields, slings, etc). Because of the increased spell access and higher volume of spells/day, a Ranger->Druid does everything that a Druid or Multi/Dual Figher/Druid can do, but they can do more and do it better. If I want my Ranger-Cleric to be a melee beast, I have two bonus multiple weapon profs, great heavy equipment, and plenty of buff spells. If I want my Ranger->Cleric to be a ranged killer/summoner, I can cast more/better high level level summons than a druid (more Elementals, Animated Dead, etc.), better area of effect/buff spells, and access to better equipment (slings).

At this point I think that I'm beating a dead horse, but I hope I'm making sense. I guess that I could sum up my point by saying that a Ranger->Cleric makes Druids (and maybe even multi/dual class Fighter-Druids) irrelevant. That is what makes them cheesy in my book.

(Of course, if you follow that logic you can apply it to almost any dual-class character combination... but that a debate for another post! )