Well, if you want access to every divine spell in the game, a multi-class Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger is the way to go.

Multiclasses are more powerful for soloing the game but with a party specialists who are really good in one profession are more fun than all-rounders.

In BG1 you can start as human fighter or ranger and dualclass at level 3 for 18/.. strength and weapon specialization for almost no XP.
Fighter allows putting more than 2 proficiency points into weapon types, ranger levels grant access to druid spells.

If you stay pure class you can choose a priest kit with additional benefits when importing into BG2.


As for stats: 18s do make the difference, 14 often isn't better than 8.

I'd definitely take 18 str for carrying capacity and doing damage, 18 dex for AC and ranged hit bonus and18 wis for bonus spells.

16+ con grants +2 HP level which makes surviving easier, if con gets up to 20 (e.g. with draw upon holy might) you start regenerating.

Int is useless in BG1 and can be lowered to the minimum, in BG2 you need at at last 9 int for using scrolls but you can do without. More than 10 at the start is definitely wasted.

18 cha is nice to have in BG1 for better quest rewards and shop prices. There are quite some NPCs with 16-17 cha you could put at the top so I'd say take 18 or dump it.

Weapon proficiencies are important. Definitely take sling, a warhammer is the best cleric melee weapon you can find in BG1.

With multi-classes, I find that they are most fun to use if you take advantage of their synergies. Fighter/Thieves should take advantage of good THAC0 when backstabbing, Fighter/Mages can cast defensive spells then go into melee, Fighter/Clerics should take advantage of Draw Upon Holy Might and similar spells, Cleric/Mages (in BG2) should put cleric spells in Sequencers, and Cleric/Thieves should use Draw Upon Holy Might to improve their thief skills.

Thank you to everyone in this thread for your help so far!
I'm thoroughly enjoying Baldur's Gate as a Half-Elf Cleric so far, and am looking forward to the rest of this series.
Please offer any advice you have about the BG series, as I can guarantee you that it will help me in some way.

Alternatively, you can also dual class a Ranger into a Cleric. (Level 7, which is the Baldur's Gate 2 starting level, is a good time to do this in BG2. In the original, doing the dual class at level 2 or 3 makes more sense.) Dual classing is a bit more of an advanced strategy, and you should read up on how it works.

Technically speaking, in Throne of Bhaal, there is one divine spell this combination can't access. (It's also interesting to note that the multi-class version starts learning high level abilities earlier than any other combination because of a mistake the devolopers made.)

This is gonna be my character for my next BG1/2 playthrough. However, I did mess around which this character in BG2 and I noticed if you pick all the cleric HLA spells, one of the symbol spells disappears from the spell book :( I just have this quirk where if I'm playing a spellcaster in BG or IWD, my character must have all available spells, even if I don't use them.

Still, when I get around to this play though, I'm probably just going to skip the mass raise dead HLA spell, pretend it doesn't exist at all. Let's face it. If anyone needs to cast this spell, there is definitely something wrong in the way you're playing the game.

Actually, you are underestimating that particular spell. It is actually an improved version of Mass Cure with a fast casting time; revive effects like Mass Raise Dead will actually heal living characters.

For that reason, Resurrection is also a useful spell, except that its casting time is long.

Of course, Greater Restoration is a more powerful healing spell, but it fatigues the caster and was nerfed in the Enhanced Edition.

... all of your points are gimmicky exploits.

How are those exploits? As I see it, Resurrection and Mass Raise Dead are healing spells that just happen to cure the Dead condition; no exploit about it. There's nothing unbalanced about being able to quickly heal an average of 36.5 hitpoints to the party with a 7th level spell, and there isn't anything about that use of the spell that screams "broken". (Remember, all the usual spellcasting rules apply, including the "one spell per round rule".) (Also, keep in mind that that figure assumes a cleric or druid of at least 20th level.)

They are exploits because the way you suggest using them is entirely out of their intended use. A patient would not be sent to a neuro surgeon for surgery when they are suffering minor burns. What you propose is gimmicky exploits -- there are potions and spells specifically meant for healing wounds, and Raise Dead or Resurrection are absolutely not in that category.

I disagree. The developers made an explicit choice to allow revival spells to be used to heal those who aren't dead. If they wanted to, they could have disallowed this use.

In a sense, I see Resurrection as an upgraded form of the Heal spell, and Mass Raise Dead as an upgraded form of the Mass Cure spell. (Notice that there isn't any other healing cleric HLA?)

Hide behind unproven developer mindsets and semantics if you wish, but resurrections spells healing wounded people are exploits, plain and simple.

The way I see it, death is just a severe case of being wounded, so why shouldn't a spell capable of curing death (and healing the character in the process) also be capable of healing lesser injuries?

Riiiiiight. And therein lies the problem...

The problem with healing spells (even the least ineffective ones) is that damage incurred greatly outweighs how many HPs can be healed (of the shallow HP pools of AD&D); so, if your tactics are... not so good... then a few rounds after healing the party you're probably gonna find that you need to cast it again.

The best way is just to not take damage in the first place (illusions, stone/ironskins, PfMW) or absorb as much as possible with damage reduction (which can overflow in a couple instances, so dmg actually heals you). Prevention is the best cure etc.

BG1 is a lil different, since you don't have access to many high level buffing and protective spells. But you have Mirror Image, which in BG1 fully mitigates damage until all (six or so) images are dispersed (which is OP in BG1, it's one reason why fighter/mages are the best tanks, another being their insane ACs). Still, most of the time you're only taking damage as a result of poor tactics, even in BG1 (ie, enemies should be asleep, webbed, blinded, held, kited, baited and switched etc).