What do you mean when are you talking about "stat lines"? This is not like other games (JRPG's mostly) where stat growth is automatic and different characters gain power in different stats at different rates, so Bob's auto-stat-growth leads him to being a fighter and Mary's auto-stat-growth leads her to being a mage. We're talking about a one-time +2.
When I say that line,I mean the stats you wind up with after you add the stats gained from the preset with the stats gained from the racial.
I also fail to understand how Lizards are poor spellcasters despite having +2 INT. I can only assume that your position is that +2 Wit from humans is the single most important thing.
Actualy the most important thing for me when comparing lizzards with human was the fact that lizzards get fire breath and human's get encourage. If you also take into consideration just how far back human spellcasters are sent during combat you will see it all boils down to range and effect of the activatable racial (lizzard breath creates a small obstacle in front of caster and deals damage to whoever is in front of cast,while encourage has larger range than lizzard breath and gives +1 in all damage stats).
Also I give weight to the +2 racial because the stats gained from racials can help you turn around bad presets at early levels, while if you ignore your starting stats it will take longer for your chosen character to behave within a party the way you want it to.
One instance is lizzard with fighter,where you could buff inteligence to gain most benefits from using geomancy, hidrosophy and staves in combat, while another instance is Shadowblade and dwarf racial, where by level 2 you gain 1 point in warfare and ditch dagger and that free backlash spell for something more befiting a Marauder (bandit who relies on brute strenght rahter than finesse).
If I were to chose an elf instead of a lizzard to host the fighter preset, I would have to wait until level 3,to be able to do as much damage as a lizzard could with the staff and as fast as that lizzard could.
potential stats level 3 lizzard fighter,with staff in mind as main weapon,no use of polymorh bonus
11 str
10 fin
14 int
12 con
10 memory
12 wits
potential stats level 3 elf fighter,with staff in mind as main weapon,no use of polymorh bonus
11 str
12 fin
12 int or 14 int to deal as much damage as the lizzard,but would lose 2 points in wits,which would make the elf slower than the lizzard
12 con
10 memory
12 wits
Lizzard hits earlier than elf and for more damage.
Yes you can outgrow these situations, but the more delayed you are in having a party member fill a specific role,the worse he is for your party, because you have to fight whilist taking care of an incompetent member.
If you don't care about what is writen in spoiler,I will say this,my reviews are made to help people to chose the best tool (companion+preset) for their party. And while most, simple choices can be straightfoward, there are 2 presets who feature missleading descriptions (Inquisitor and Fighter) and the fact that Larian has put throw away skill in some (maybe most) of the presets to mess with us during the first levels just so our choices of companions,presets and character/party development have more weight behind them.
Skills that are included in presets for the sole purpose of annoying us during the first levels when our memory slots are so small, giving more weight to our choice of developing our characters. Even at higher there are some skills in the presets made by Larian,which I refuse to keep memorised due to either how bad they are or how easy they are to be replaced.
Fighter - battlestomp and contamination. I believe that the sole point of the fighter preset is to give us sword+shield and fortify skill,from there we can chose to build our character in such a way that he can use warfare skills (which require melee weapon) or ignore it completly and that the only reason Contamination is in this preset is for us to replace ASAP with something THAT IS ACTUALY USEFULL. If I wanted a fighter that uses wand and shield to hold agro,I would definetly take polymorph because I know you can bullrush with either bow or wand+shield.
Shadowblade - chloroform and mosquito swarm. I strongly believe the sole purpose of this preset is to highlight just how good chloroform is, but if you want to centralize your character on that skill,then you would have to put 1 point in Aero and swap out mosquito swarm for electric discharge or shocking touch and then you have to consider if you want to keep using daggers. But if you wanted for some reason to get rid of chloroform,that would mean investments in either warfare or necromancy during the first levels,just to have both latter down the line.
Conjurer - dimensional bolt....need I discuss this?
I refuse to mention the Witch preset here,as I believe that preset is aimed to serve as a party healer for a full zombie party!
