/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3684575
>>3684884
F/M/T's are objectively worse than Bards (especially Blades) in just about every way.

Start with Thief Skills, since that's what most people do. Sure, the Bard is limited to Pick Pockets, but in BG1 you're going to want a strong late-game Thief for all those deadly traps in Durlag's Tower and the final levels. But your F/M/T isn't going to be it. You cut your XP by a third, and even with TotSC, the cap is what? 161,000xp? While a single class Thief would be coming in at 10th level, you're at 7th. Just a level shy (assuming you stacked nothing but Detect Traps and Open Locks) of taking out all the traps yourself and now needing to blow consumables to make up for the deficit. A dual-class Thief would've been able to do that though.

So the Thief skills by themselves... not that hot. Especially when you figure that the Bard can easily Pick Pocket any NPC in the game with minimal trouble. But what about fighting prowess? There wasn't a Blade class to carry the Bard in the first game. Well, again, your multiclassing screwed you. Your Fighter caps out at 6th level, meaning you will only ever have 1 attack per round, just like the Bard. A dual-class Fighter would have multiple attacks a round, sure, but not the F/M/T. Even your THAC0 gets bogged down by those Mage levels operating on a 1:3 ratio, not to mention the slower progression of leveling for those classes while the Bard zips right on by.

And so combat for the F/M/T or the Bard is basically just raw stats plus weaponry. And in BG1, the Bard can use just about anything. Longbows, Two-Handed Swords, whatever.