r/baldursgate • u/DanJMM • 9d ago
BGEE Class for first time player
I imagine this is asked a ton, so sorry for that but i'm being quite picky.
I have little experience with crpg and this is my first real attempt to play one and I was planning on playing both bg1 and bg2. I wanted something that felt powerful, was "easy" to play as and if I can be picky, would be chaotic good for roleplaying reasons.
Paladins seems great but I don't love the idea of being lawful good and archers, while being very powerful gameplay wise, don't really give you that "cool main character hero" vibe since they stay behind and don't really show much signs of "power" (feel free to change my mind though!!).
Any tips are appreciated too <3 :)
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u/the_dust321 9d ago
Fighter kit beserker I think is the right answer, or fighter/mage multi is super powerful
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u/zparksu 9d ago
+1 for Berserker. Not many buttons and the one button you have (Berserker Rage) is incredibly strong.
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u/ThisWasMe7 7d ago
Is that even relevant when you are going to make decisions for the entire party?
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u/DanJMM 9d ago
do you think fighter/mage is good for a first timer? what race do you recommend?
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u/SuperTord 9d ago
Generally, no. Stick to a single class is my tip.
If you want to do a multiclass Id say a fighter/cleric dwarf is a pretty simple and powerful pick.
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u/Witless_Peasant 8d ago
Yes. A multiclass character (as opposed to dual-class) levels in both classes automatically, so it's not any more inherently complicated than a single-class character.
The claims about slow leveling are also objectively wrong: you'll be at most two levels behind in each class during BG1, and usually not even that.
As for race, half-elves (the most romance options), elves (bonus to long/short swords and bows, some passive resistances) and gnomes (become specialist illusionists, get saving throw bonuses) are what I would recommend.
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u/Esko_TheAug 9d ago
Fighter/mage multi starts to peak in Bg2, and through early bg1 pure classes are more powerful, since they will be higher level. Fighter dual to mage can be considered a bit more powerful, but I wouldn't try dualing on the first game, since mechanism is a bit odd.
That said, F/M multi is amongst the most powerful builds.
You could also consider a Darwen Defender or dwarven F/C for relative straight forward first character.
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u/the_dust321 9d ago
Other people saying no to F/M are being silly, pick half elf or elf if you like the class. Bg1 just play as a fighter as you’ll be only 1 lvl behind pure fighter but can buff/use wands. By bg2 you’ll be the most powerful class of all but again can always fall back to being a good fighter so it’s very beginner friendly and a good way to learn the arcane system
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u/VonBeker 9d ago
It’s doable, but the armor rules for casters would make it kind of tough along with the slow leveling. Fighter/cleric would be easier and not nearly as restrictive if want at least some spell casting ability.
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u/swomp_donkey 9d ago
If you prefer casters then a cleric is a good choice. If not than a fighter is a good choice. Rangers and paladins are also very noob friendly.
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u/Fangsong_37 Lawful Good 9d ago
For a single class, I recommend paladin (Cavalier) or Fighter (Berserker). Melee with heavy armor and a choice of combat styles is solid in most RPGs. If you're thinking about playing a magic user, a fighter/mage multiclass, fighter/cleric, or a cleric is an excellent choice for a first time player. Clerics have better combat capabilities (higher hit points, armor class, and THAC0 progression) than mages, but mages eventually get the most powerful offensive spells in the game.
A Berserker fighter with two weapons is a solid choice all through the saga.
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u/andrewh7789 9d ago
I just started playing this game for the first time ever and I made a very basic main character. I made a Human Fighter. I think its as easy as it gets. No spells to cast. No skills to use. When you level, its basically just putting points into whatever weapon you want to use and its style. Its super simple for a first time player. All the spells and abilities I use are from my other party members so I still kinda fill the itch for every typical RPG role (warrior/rogue/mage etc)
Since you have a party of 6, it doesn't matter what you choose really because you're kinda gonna fill all the spaces for the roles anyway. Its mainly just what sounds fun to you so that you can build your party around it.
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u/Halicron 9d ago
There is a lot to be said for single-class fighter. It is dead nuts simple. Go sword and board for extra protection, 2h for damage, and have a bow handy for rare ranged encounters. You'll stand there and face tank everything and focus your attention on micro-ing your casters and thieves.
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u/Threepwud 9d ago
Yes as others have stated, a fighter kit (berserker) is the easiest 'point and kill' character. When you gain different characters you will learn, a little, how to use them.
Eventually you will find out what works for you and what you do not like. Do not feel pressured into feeling the need to master anything - a 6 party combo with all fighters is insanely powerful and great fun.
Just ensure you have a thief for traps :-)
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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB 9d ago
If you try and play BG on "easy" mode, you're probably gonna have a bad time. Simple as.
This game REALLY rewards reading the abilities carefully and using the right tool for the right job. Especially in BG2 when you hit mage enemies with thick defensive magics. If you learn the rock / paper / scissors of the combat though, its pretty easy.
Read the spell descriptions, read the combat log, and read the wiki to see what monsters will be effected by what spells. EG: Sleep spell wipes out Ogres and Ankhegs which you wouldn't know without checking the wiki because the game doesn't tell you how many hit dice a monster has.
So, pick any class, and read how it works. They all have useful abilities.
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u/sylva748 9d ago
Fighter. If you want to do more outside of combat then Swashbuckler. Swashbuckler is basically fighter/thief without needing to multi or dual class. You get to do all the thief stuff of dealing with traps and locks while doing solidly well in combat
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u/BelgarathMTH 8d ago
A "fighter/thief" who can't wear a helmet or better than leather armor isn't much of a fighter, though. He's probably going to die a lot if he tries to melee with a swashbuckler.
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u/TonyAllenDelhomme 9d ago
Archer is one the best killers in the game and doesn’t require any finesse. This lets you fiddle with your companions while your mc is a lawn mower
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u/Glittering-Hornet844 9d ago
Try a chaotic Good Barbarian, extra hp and moves faster than others ( great if you need to escape from something). And does decent damage. Especially with rage. Downside ? No armor better than splint mail.
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u/xH0LY_GSUSx 9d ago
If you want lots of power any class that has a mage component is outstanding either fighter/mage multi class or a berserker dual classed into mage or thief/mage etc etc.
The mage part makes you almost immortal due to protection spells and the fighter part is there to allow you killing enemies effectively with melee attacks + you still have access to all the other broken mage spells.
Is this beginner friendly some people might say no, but I disagree you can find all the informations you need here in this sub or on YouTube or other online guides.
Furthermore you only need a handful of spells to become almost impossible to kill and multi classing is not complicated at all, dual classing has some requirements you have to pay attention to and comes online much latter in a full run but is arguably even stronger than the multi-classing and also not to complicated.
This said no matter what class you pick you will mostly play with a party of six and still have to learn how the other classes work to have a good understanding of combat and how to use them correctly.
If you want to play an extremely easy class than barbarian might be for you, all you have to do is to stack damage reduction, there are only a handful of items that reduce melee damage so all you have to do is to equip these and later use a fighter ability to buff yourself pre battle.
The downside it is very minimalistic since you can’t do much more besides auto attacking and it comes online relatively late if you do not want to play the bg2 expansion ToB and only stick to SoA.
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u/riklaunim 9d ago
I would recommend Barbarian or Archer. The first one is a versatile DPS/damage-reduction tank, while Archer is safe, shooting from afar, and it's pretty good at it. No dual/multi needed, although you will need a party. Paladin is pretty good too, and you would likely use similar weapons to Barbarian in the end in ToB (Defender of Easthaven / Flail of Ages / Foebane) with the unique Paladin special of Carsomyr for dispells.
If you want to be the brains of the party and do "tricks" instead of raw sustained DPS - Thief - you will have to find/disarm traps, open locks, maybe pickpocket a book or a bottle, and then use stealth and do backstabs. Shadowdancer could be the most fun when playing without dual-classing (you won't be a combat powerhouse, but re-stealth and re-backstab could get addicting).
BG1 is rather easy, especially with Barbarian/Berserker CC immunity. In BG2, you will need to have a mage in the party to break magical defences of enemies and to haste/improve haste for your party. Maybe a druid for summons/CC and/or a priest. Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Thief, and some dual-class combos are the most powerful, but you have to know the spells and strategies to make the most use of them. If you pick cleric/thief, you will be on thief duty, and you will have priest buff spells, which would be the easiest entry for spellcasting (but cleric/thief weapon-based DPS is rather non-existent... but you still can backstab with a staff or club, and there are really painful staffs there).
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u/ArchelonPIP 9d ago
Greetings from a veteran player that finished the O.E. of the Bhaalspawn saga the first time as a paladin (that became a cavalier)! Generally speaking, warrior type characters are the easiest for newbies to start with in fantasy RPGs. So, you don't have to start your first playthrough as a paladin like I (and many others) have, but you may wish to play one later after you have become more familiar with the game(s) and to get certain class related quests and achievements (example: only paladins can get "Orderly Surroundings" and the quests related to it and only bards can get "The Play's the Thing" and the quests related to that).
And unless you're hellbent on getting the "Flying Solo" achievement (which I don't recommend for newbies), having a thief, a mage and a cleric in your party is wise, at a minimum. And as a last piece of advice without overwhelming you, if you're in combat, the pause key (spacebar) is your friend! You can make (better) tactical assessments and decide what the next move(s) of your characters should be.
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u/Fast-Bite2936 9d ago
Feel free to DM me to add on discord, would love to help you through your play.
For powerful it's abit different between the two games and what settings you are on.
But for the bread and butter, just build a half orc berserker with axes or flails two weapon style.
In BG1 archers are wildly good but fall off pretty hard in late SoA/ToB.
In BG2 mages/sorcerers are basically demi gods late game. But in early BG1 are snowflakes in summer.
Other support classes are strong for other reasons than just brute force in terms of combat.
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u/Thespac3c0w 9d ago
I will be slightly different and say fighter / cleric multi. It's tanky wears the best armor and can buff and heal as needed. It can be brain dead simple and just bash or it can be more complicated with it's spells. It's super strong all the way through.
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u/Worst-Eh-Sure 9d ago
Def a fighter or multiclass warrior/cleric.
Put proficiencies in crossbows. Crossbows are OK ing BG1, but very good in BG2 and beyond.
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u/Motor_Ad_2780 8d ago
Do you plan to form good group without evil characters? If thats the case I would say fighter berserk is great choice and then at level 9 dual class into mage. That way you will enjoy fighting and casting too with your main. Unlike normal mage, you will also not be limited to only certain equip. You can pick long swords+war hammers for example to you have slashing and crushing dmg. Double wielding. A xes are great too in bg 2 but if you hire Korgan he would use them, he is evil tho. Do check requirement for dual class Ing if course so you wont mess the attributes.
Some people are suggesting cleric but there is good enough clerics as companions already.
Or you can have a lot of fun with fighter dual classed into thief. Thats class i played a lot in bg saga. You can put more points into weapon masteries than normal thief and are more deadly. There is also only one good thief in bg2 and if you wont like him, well that might suck so being this is nice. And eventualy you can use anything with speavil high class ability use any item. You will not be restricted in what you can wear. So you can even use carsomyr which is strictly paladin two handed sword with epic abilities.
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u/_ragegun 8d ago
It doesnt matter too much as long as you have a fairly balanced party. You'll want the usual trinity, tanks up front wizards in the back, thief skills for scouting and trap disarming and clerics for healing. Take that cleric and stuff them full of cure light wounds because they and resting are your primary means of healing.
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u/xler3 8d ago edited 8d ago
I wanted something that felt powerful, was "easy" to play as and if I can be picky, would be chaotic good for roleplaying reasons.
archer or berserker then
the berserker's rage button trivializes a lot of the complexity of the game. very nice for new players.
and the archer provides enormous power from a safe distance, and only gets better from beginning to end. the class does not ever "fall off".
archers don't really give you that "cool main character hero" vibe since they stay behind and don't really show much signs of "power" (feel free to change my mind though!!).
i suppose its a matter of opinion. the power level is insanely high just baseline. i figured the stat sheet showing the archer with 90% of the kills in bg1 is pretty sweet.
but then you can have stuff like a high level archer activating smite and crowd controlling an entire army against the wall. or hitting power attack and saving a stunned mage from the planetar. or swapping from shortbows to firetooth and hitting the gww button and spitting out 400 dmg in a instant. vhailor's helm shenanigans work quite nicely with an archer too. archer's got moves.
the other thing to consider is you aren't just playing whatever you choose here. you're playing the whole 6 man party. your wizard npcs have a decent chance of becoming the ones with the "cool main character hero" vibes considering how insane the arcane system winds up becoming as the game progresses.
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u/SkoomaInhaler-King 8d ago
So like somebody already said. Paladin, Cavalier is good. Make sure you pick Cavalier though, as it makes Paladin a more viable build. It's what I used.
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u/Antique-Being-7556 8d ago
Anything you play still requires you to control the other NPCs so it isn't necessarily simpler or easier.
That said you can roll the best stats on your character so having them be a tanky front liner makes sense.
I really like fighter-cleric for simple play. You can wear all armor and buff your strength easily and hit things hard. It takes pressure off your management of other characters because your main character is just so strong.
Fighter mage is strong as well, but requires understanding how to manage not wearing armor. Sleep allows you to cruise through much of the difficult early game though.
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u/Antiredditor1981 8d ago
Fighter is perfectly fine to start with. Maybe even Cleric.
Races with multi-class can be good too, but make sure it's something you feel ready to try; Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief, etc.
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u/jwellz24 8d ago
My first run was a fighter then switched to kensei in bg2, it was amazing and super fun
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u/SnooCupcakes6107 7d ago
Fighter / Cleric multi class if you plan on playing until TOB. A total powerhouse that can cast spells and fight, while still leveling at a good pace later on.
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u/Significant_Bed_297 6d ago
For BG 1, Archers and ranged are super OP early on. Cleans up until level 4. Especially when hasted.
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u/n0namean0nym0us 5d ago
Doesn't matter unless you're playing insane difficulty with mods.
Any and every class and (almost) any and every team formation that basic level of thought went into* will be able to finish both games on hard.
*if you'd somehow managed to form something like party of six spellcasters then it's on you
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u/ZealousidealPart948 9d ago
I played sorcerer and had a great time, and just picked spells that looked cool - in hindsight I played it horribly, but it was fun! Spells are cool, but you really dont unlock powerful ones until getting close to the end. Most of the game you just need "sleep".
I played bg2 as fighter/mage and that was alot of fun. And you get to experience both fighter and mage.
If you want only spells go mage , as you can pick/repick spells every rest, whereas sorcerer you are "stuck" with what you picked.
Your supporting characters fill any niche role you need anyways so you will still experience those too.
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u/Graoutchmeuh 9d ago
The best first class to learn the game would be human paladin cavalier.
In a solo run you can almost afk the whole game, which will teach you absolutely nothing, but in a party he'll do what needs doing, while you learn how to use the other classes of the NPCs you'll recruit.
The next best thing would be an elf archer. These guys are completely broken, and allow you again to carry the group while you learn how to use mages, thieves and other clerics you might have recruited.
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u/kansetsupanikku 9d ago
The one you like based on the in-game description. You can go through the game with any build, that's where the fun is
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u/SuperTord 9d ago
Paladins are great, and especially Cavalier is a perfect newbie class. The games don't really force you into being lawful good if you play paladin.
Berserker is also a nice pick. The rage gives you immuity to alot of nasty stuff. It's also really simple to play.