Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I recently rolled a warrior/knight type character and even with some pretty high-end gear, I'm using an insane amount of gold on heal kits, so I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to decrease the use of gold on healing.

With the soon-to-come removal of evasion for us knights (as I understood at least) we'll be taking a lot more damage from traps and stuff thrown at us (giant/troll boulders etc), though I already take plenty from these.

I'll try to update this post when/if people have advice.

The best way to stay alive is of course AC, damage reduction and spell resistance to some extend.

Useful items:
Boots of the gargoyle (1 x stoneskin per rest)
Pearly White Ioun stone, and lesser version (2/3 x vigor per rest)
Regeneration cloak (1 reg)
Shimmer cloak (32? spell resistance) - Because useless when you increase in level
Ring of the fire brigade: The 10 fire resistance from this ring helps against the many fire spells used by mobs.
Boots of haste,
Cloak of displacement,
Bow with mighty to wound enemies before going melee,
Amulets of elemental resistances, (Swap between them)
Vampiric weapon (HP per hit)

Wands/Potions (for no UMD) that can really help melee characters:
Improved Mage Armor - +6 Armor AC for a long duration (that is +2 AC even if you have +4 Armor)
Shield - +4 AC for 5 minutes if you don't have a +4 Shield or are playing a great weapon fighter
Barkskin/Spider Skin - +4 Natural AC if you don't have an amulet and/or need to switch out energy resistance amulets!
DeathWard - If you have low Will Saves or low Fort Saves or *shudder* both. Decent duration, protects against so many issues such as poison and disease, alongside save or x spells.
Energy Buffer/Prot from Energy/Energy Resistance - Like stoneskins, but for energy... If you get hit with a trap that does acid, then a trap that does electrical you might still have some protection left... Even if it gets stripped on the first trap, Endure Elements is a level 1 spell and can be purchased pretty cheap to reduce the damage a bit.
Feats - Fighters get a lot of friggin feats... If you use a Great Weapon, take Monkey Grip (or buy the Tower Shield that includes the feat if you can afford it). Being able to get your AC to ~50+ will reduce your damage intake a ton. Even in Nashkel Mines where the mobs can hit a 45 AC with relative consistency a 50 AC with mirror images and occasional displacement (when surrounded) will be nearly untouchable.
Also, consider potions of Deez's Repulsive Shadow Barrier... For some reason they are capped at CL15, but that is 15 minutes of +4 AC, 15% Concealment. If uncapped at CL16 it would be 20% concealment, I imagine that was considered OP on a minute per level potion.
Greater Magic Weapon can also be put on potions up to CL19 so you can make any weapon +4 for a long duration. Thus if you find a weapon with +3 Vamp Regen and/or 1d4 bonus damage you can make it in to +4 by using a CL16 potion of GMW.

I try to keep multiple of each, but they can be diffiult to find and/or expensive to buy.

Tactics
Trolls and giants: If you take a lot of damage from the boulders thrown at you, it sometimes help if you force the mobs into combat, so they switch to melee and put away the boulders.

Skill points
Search (for spotting those traps),
Disable device

Build related
- Build to be capable of sustaining AC as close to 50 (or higher) as possible. Even if you build to be optimized toward a lower AC, such as with a Great Weapon, have some way to hit 50 or better when solo/in dangerous areas.
- Build for capability of doing at least ~35 damage / hit, more is better.
- AB should be at least ~41 after all modifiers. If you are building to use ICE or IPA you should try to reach ~47 AB or as close as possible.
- Try to reach saves of 25+ for Fort and Will if possible. Steadfast is a plus.
- If dipping for Evasion/Expose Weakness build for DEX 14 using +4 bracers or 15 using +3 bracers and wear Mithral Chainmail. You lose 1 AC over mithral full plate, but retain evasion.
- If your Reflex Saving throw is lower than ~20, or especially if it is below 15 there is no reason to build for evasion since it only helps when you make your saving throw. May as well save the DEX points and build for heavy/medium armor.

Anyone have any advice for us knightly types that don't have heal spells and damage reduction spells?

Heal Potions. They're about 1k gp a pop, but damn...life savers in a bottle!

run (and soon despair, after the evasion nerf )

Steve wrote:Heal Potions. They're about 1k gp a pop, but damn...life savers in a bottle!

How much does a heal potion heal? Is it more worthwhile than heal kits + high skill in Heal?

Theodore01 wrote:run (and soon despair, after the evasion nerf )

Hahaha! Ain't that the truth. We warriors don't see a lot of love and this sure isn't going to help us, but I'm pretty sure that's a can of worms we don't want to open in here, at least that wasn't the intention of the thread.

heal kits are far less expensive than heal pots. how much gold are you spending on kits? i can blast through about 6 stacks with a warrior build. displacement cloaks are helpful too. try using your gargoyle boots and displacement cloaks and boots of speed. swap displacement cloak out for regen cloak and swap speed boots for your +3/+4 boots putting on your stoneskin boots between battles. those are all free to use. so now you use your heal kits and should make more than 100 times as much in drops and chests than you spend on kits. make your runs count.

aaron22 wrote:heal kits are far less expensive than heal pots. how much gold are you spending on kits? i can blast through about 6 stacks with a warrior build. displacement cloaks are helpful too. try using your gargoyle boots and displacement cloaks and boots of speed. swap displacement cloak out for regen cloak and swap speed boots for your +3/+4 boots putting on your stoneskin boots between battles. those are all free to use. so now you use your heal kits and should make more than 100 times as much in drops and chests than you spend on kits. make your runs count.

It really depends on where I'm going, I just reached the epic levels. But I'd say around 5-7 stacks per run one run being for example (Nashkel mines (excluding pitfiend) or Troll chests). And no appraise so a stack is 650-700 if I remember correctly. If I meet one troll at the time, I can do it fairly easy, but then sometimes four trolls surrond you and you end up using a lot more, so I guess another big factor could be knowing the spawn locations of mobs. For example yesterday I did the troll cave, and the fell trolls are a tough fight for me, kinda, and I met five of them in the cave. Then I went to the Naskhel mines and ALL CHESTS had elec traps doing 70-90 damage, that's about 3 kits per chest for me.

How many uses does a displacement cloak have per rest?
How many uses do boots of haste have?

both 3 uses/day.

that evocation belt helps a bit. as does any gear with damage reduction/ % resistance , even an adamantium plate helps.

depending upon the build, the epic levels can expose the self imposed weakness in your build plan. you could really use a partner in there by the sounds. that can really make the go alot easier. of course that is easier said then done, but sometimes just putting up a "22 F/FB LF partner 4 trolls" on your scry can get you some tells. if you get a low str partner offer to carry the hides and you can split them after. duo's can make such a big difference in those places. no matter if its a cleric/rogue/mage or even another fighter.

Use a bow. High EB with +Mighty.

You'd be surprised how much you can whittle down enemies from afar with a bow before engaging in melee.

Selande wrote:Use a bow. High EB with +Mighty.

You'd be surprised how much you can whittle down enemies from afar with a bow before engaging in melee.

thats true and the widowmaker line longbows grant bow feats and have unlimited arrows. great bow for non archers.

I've found potions of ghostly visage last a while and provide DR and concealment.

When I was leveling Amenthes, a pure fighter build, I relied on high healing and a leech weapon + Regen cloak.

Means each round (If I hit half my hits) I healed for 7. 6 from leech, 1 from regen.

Some times I would hit with everything and that was 12 heal + 1 from regen.

Meant I could go further, harder.

But honestly the heal skill is a great friend. In epic levels if you sit aorud 40-50 heal your doing 50-70 on heal kits. And using heal kits dont give AOO like potions.

Kiran wrote:And using heal kits dont give AOO like potions.

mirror image wands are great, but can get really expensive if you cannot keep the mobs from continuously hitting you. fix your ac first then get the wand.

mirror image wands are excellent for toon with high ac but really low hps. if your ac sucks you need displacement.

could also try using a shield.....