I mean, when i look at some kits, i just scratch my head and cant figure out why you would want to use it.

For example, look at fighter kits. The berserker seems like a barbarian with better armor. The dwarven defender can only get a max of 4 proficiency but in return gets massive bonuses.

Wizard slayer seems pretty pointless given that most mages will die extremely quickly if they are in melee with a warrior anyway, making the spell failure chance pointless. Not to mention there are low level spells that do pretty much the same thing (miscast magic/summon insects). I played through BG 1 and all the enemy mages died so fast to my warriors that i pretty much never had to bother with debuffing them.

Not being able to use gauntlets means missing out on 18/00 strength from gauntlets of ogre power, which is a huge handicap...not to mention the inability to buff up to 24 strength via potions for boss fights. And to top it off, you can get 50% MR from a potion...and a potion also gives you -50% magic damage and lets you automatically succeed on all saves...

Kensai seems really bad as a straight fighter...trying to level one through BG 1 with no armor and no mage spells is just sucidal since you will have very bad AC...

Ranger/Paladin seems weaker than fighters. A few low level spells is meh, especially since you want your warriors attacking instead of casting low level spells anyway. The ability to go up to 5 proficiency is a huge bonus that is way better than some low level spells (that your cleric can cast anyway) and abilities like charming animals are useless gimmicks (you are going to kill animals for the xp anyway...).

Most ranger kits seem pretty awful with the exception of the archer. Paladin kits seem pretty good however...and argubably, superior to the base paladin.

Dragon disciple is confusing. -1 spell slot per day is not worth a gimmicky breath weapon and some AC bonuses. A specialist mage is way better than a sorcerer as it is...let alone a dragon discipline. You cant dual class from fighter to DD either to make full use of the AC bonuses either. Fire resist is cool, but easily achieved via low level spells/potions anyway.

Druids seem much worse than clerics. I mean, look at Jaheira. Jaheira would be way easier to keep alive if she could wear plate instead of studded leather. I dont see why you would want to shapeshift into a weaker animal form either...and most of the druid kits seem really bad.

Bard song only works with morale...does absolutely nothing against the many other types of disables like confusion. Not worth having a worse thief really. None of the bard kits look good either...i mean, you could use a skald purely for buffing via bard song...or....you can use that party slot for a character that can contribute way more...an extra fighter would easily put out way more damage for one thing.

Shaman : You summon some low level allies that get easily taken out? Whats use is that?

Cleric kits being just flat out superior to standard clerics is just bad design really.

You're talking about kits from the enhanced series, a series developed by mostly ex-modders. Why would you expect them to be balanced?

You say that as if the balance between kits in the original BG2 were any better.

It wasn't meant to sound like that. Sure the originals had their problems but the enhanced editions added new kits and overpowered everything while leaving the balance all askew.

TL;DR - Berserkers and Inquisitors rock.

Kensai just work better as a dual-class into something else. Berserkers can get 5 pips in a weapon, and some of the immunities from their special ability are gamechangers when used properly.

I'd say stalkers are just fine as they are. You're just giving up heavy armor for better stealth and some minor spells, and since rangers can't use stealh while wearing heavy armor anyway, I don't see any reason why you'd pick a straight ranger over a stalker.

Paladin kits are just flat-out superior to the base class, I agree. Inquisitor takes the cake, though. Instant-cast Dispel Magic and True Sight are insanely useful, all the way from the Friendly Arm to the final battle of ToB.

Fighter multiclasses like Jaheira can use any armor that's not class-specific, unless they changed that with EE. Just slap some full plate on her. And yeah, Druid kits are just bad. The Shapeshifter would be cool if you actually got any of the bonuses that werewolves are supposed to get, but you can't get those without mods.

Blades can make amazing tanks by combining the various mage protection spells with Defensive Spin. Other then that, yeah, the inability to do anything else while singing kind of kills the whole class.

Like Hickory said, shamans and RDDs were added by ex-modders, not professional developers.

Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is that not all of the kits are as useless as you seem to think they are, and sometimes even the base classes aren't bad.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text.

Balance is not a concept that really applies to 2nd edition D&D rules - and by extension - Baldur's Gate. A first level mage can get one-shotted by absolutely everything. A first level fighter starts strong and only gets stronger. When you get to the end game, he can take down half the enemies in the game with two or three hits.

Since when can Jaheira not wear Plate armor? Even in BG1, she can reach -12AC which makes her the best tank for me.

BG series generally do not care about balance. Like others mentioned, Mages are pathetic in low levels but become a walking disaster at high levels. Those games are a product of time, when power was not the issue. It was about handling the situations with what's given to you. There were no MMORPGs that has nothing to do with RP. "RP elements" did not mean STRENGTH, getting better gear (loot). It was about being "who" you want to be. Not "what".

And today, unfortunately, all people care about is DPS (damage per second). Which class is the best, which class kills faster etc. Which is the bigger sword, which is the bigger armor, shield. You kill a tiny bug and get 2 handed sword of world fucker. WTH?! Where was it hiding it?

Actually, back in the early days of CRPGs, power was an issue; in fact, in many games, most of the time spent playing was simply getting more powerful. Ultima 1-3, Wizardry 1-5 (excluding 4), Bard's Tale 1-3, Dragon Quest 1, Final Fantasy 1--all of these games require you to spend hours getting strong enough to beat the game. (Well, some of them can be speedran; I've beaten Wizardry 1 (Apple 2 version) quickly with the help of a well-known glitch, and Dragon Warrior (English version of Dragon Quest) can be beaten in under an hour with lots of luck manipulation, and Ultima 3 (NES version at least) can be beaten at low stats, but those aren't typical playthroughs.) What you refer to as RP elements were either not present (Wizardry), or were minimal (Ultima, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy).

So, I would say that power *was* the issue; without power, you'd have no chance of getting through the game.

(By the way, to my understanding, -12 AC is useless in Throne of Bhaal; either enemies are going to hit you reliably anyway, or they attack in ways that ignore AC. At this point, I would argue that a Sorcerer with well-chosen spells would be a better tank than Jaheira, whose only functional tanking options are Ironskins and the Hardiness HLA.) The thing is, however, that Inquisitors lack all the abilities that distinguish Paladin from Fighter, so that class doesn't feel like a Paladin to me.

Personally, I think the Paladin should have been designed as true Fighter/Cleric hybrids. Give them better clerical spell casting capabilities than they have now, and maybe weaken their fighting ability a bit. Also, maybe boost the power of mid-level healing magic so that the Paladin can be a decent healer without having to be given the Heal spell (the gap between 5th and 6th level healing magic is too big); with that said, having cure spells heal maximum and having Mass Cure (neither of which you had in 2nd Edition D&D rules) does help a bit here. (Ignoring the fact that I believe she *can* wear plate armor)

Fun fact: A Fighter/Druid gets access to 6th level spells, and in particular the Heal spell (much stronger than any lower level healing spell), before a single class Cleric does. There's this level range where Druids level faster than other classes (I don't remember for sure, but they might even level faster than Thieves in that level range), though it doesn't last (note the XP requirement for 15th level, in particular).

Shapeshifting can have its uses; you can get more attacks, for example. (Against an enemy with Mirror Image or Stoneskin, the number of attacks you get is more important than the damage you do per attack.)

I disagree. If you know which spells to pick, a sorcerer is really good. You can take all the most useful spells, and you don't need to predict how many of each spell you need in advance. For example, if one of your spells is unexpectedly dispelled, you can just re-cast it, without having to give up a different spell in the case where it isn't dispelled.If you suddenly need access to a spell unexpectedly, if you know the spell and haven't used up its level, you can cast it without issues.

Also, Project Image and Simulacrum are more convenient for Sorcerers. You can have each clone cast a different combination of spells, and Sorcerer Simulacrums have more predictable spell selections than Mage Simulacrums.

There's also the fact that specialists give up entire schools of magic. On the other hand, if there is just one spell of a specific school that you want, a Sorcerer can pick that one spell and have access to it. Sometimes, morale is what you need, particularly if enemies are using fear attacks. (Personally, I don't like fear as a game mechanic, but that's another story.) Also, because bards level up so quickly, a bard will have a higher caster level than a mage at the same XP total (so, more powerful fireballs, or more minute meteors (at better THAC0, for that matter). Once you reach the point where that's no longer a factor, there's the Improved Bard Song HLA, which makes a bard's song no longer weak (and there's the whole trick of having a Mislead clone sing so that the bard herself is free to perform other actions).

As always, you are confusing power with leveling up. You do level up and get more powerful in Baldur's Gate. Enemies that kill you with one hit become a walk on the beach later on. However, that is not the reason you play the game.

I played all the games you listed, none of them is about getting more powerful. They are all about progressing through the story. You do get more powerful along the way and some of them do involve grinding but that was never the main issue. The only game that introduced "power gaming" in that era was Diablo 2, which led to WOW, which led to current culture, people like you.

Three simple reasons come to mind: 1) You want to take on the role of some character concept you have in your head and pick a class that matches it, 2) You want to try something different from your usual fare, or 3) You enjoy some particular style of play, even if it isn't what kills things fastest.

There could be plenty more reasons. It isn't always about picking among the most powerful classes.

Those games aren't really about story. Wizardry 1 has like maybe two bits of story exposition, period; the game was about killing enemies to level up and get good loot (the Muramasa Blade is one of the earliest examples of a powerful rare drop in an RPG), and in Dragon Quest 1 (in its original forma) you spend most of your time fighting enemies for experience and gold. (Case in point: In an old segmented speedrun of Dragon Warrior 1, there is a two hour segment that is just fighting enemies to earn experience and level up.) Granted, DQ1 has a bit more town gameplay than Wizardry 1, but it is still not the main reason for playing the game.

Also, getting powerful can be fun. Case in point: In the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy 1, playing on easy mode (for the level 99 cap), I once got a Monk up to level 99. At that level, they could deal 8000+ damage to most enemies, 6000+ to the final boss (who had "only" 4000 HP in this version), and 3980 (exact) to flans. With a lot of magical damage, I got them to do 50976 damage to a frost wolf. Somethimes it can be fun to see how much damage you can do (and it's one reason I don't like the damage cap of later FF games).

(By the way, in Etrian Odyssey 2 I was able to hit an enemy so hard that the damage overflowed. I have also had damage overflow occur in Final Fantasy 5 (there's a damage cap, but the overflow occurred before the cap).

Also, I haven't played either Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft, and it is unlikely that I ever will.

Uh unless im missing something, Jaheira is a fighter/druid and is limited by druid restrictions which means no plate...except for special ones like the ankheg plate.

Thing is if you want stealth, some kind of fighter/thief combination or just a plain thief is probably better. And stealth is pretty clunky....and you cant use stealth more than once unless you spam invisibility pots (which ceases to work when enemies start casting true sight).

Sorcs are worse because you advance slower in spell level and you dont get anywhere near the spell selection that wizards do, plus you are missing out on the -2 saves bonus that a specialist wizard gets. A wizard also gets bonus xp from scribing scrolls IIRC and can swap spells as necessary...like preparing protection from petrification for basilisks.

Kits weren't in the original version of Baldur's Gate 1. They were introduced in Baldur's Gate 2, and then back-ported into the original -- first via mods like BG1TUTU and BGTrilogy which allowed you to play the original game in the BG2 engine, and then via the Enhanced Editions (which similarly used a common engine across both games).

Some kits front-load their abilities and others don't come into their own until much later. Since many base classes have few abilities at the lowest levels, many kits will either appear very overpowered (any additional ability you get will stand out more) or very underpowered (any penalties from the kit will be felt harder) for a low-level character.

All that being said -- yes, some kits are designed more for flavor and roleplaying than min/max advantages.

Only true at low levels; once you get into the teens, there's no difference in the level at which new spell levels are acquired.

This only occurs if you are aware of the encounter ahead of time (or are reloading a saved game after one of those basilisks triggered a game over) and if you take the time to rest.

A sorcerer who happens to know that spell can cast it while seeing basilisks, and in the more common case when basilisks don't appear, she can just spend those spells on magic missile or identify item.

First, they're potions, not pots. (For the record, I have played a couple games that actually have healing pots as opposed to healing potions.)

Second, True Sight can be countered with Spell Immunity: Divination (which you'll want anyway if you're making use of Project Image). Of course, this means your class will need to include an arcane casting class.

(Fun fact: The AI actually cheats by using ForceSpell() to cast True Sight, making it uninterruptible and allowing enemies to cast it without memorizing it. Do you think that's fair?)