The quarterstaff thief

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:37 am

Hello everyone,

As I was replaying BG2 again, I noticed how rediculous Staff of the Magi is. Invisibility(although, somewhat bugged) and my personal favorite, dispel on hit.

It honestly makes for a good melee weapon, if only the damage output wouldn't be so low. So I wonder how it'll fare if you crank up the strength and specialize in Quarterstaff proficiency, perhaps with 2H weapon style.

Point is, only mages can use it. Aside from thieves ofcourse, which get one of those HLA abilities that give them the freedom to use whatever they want. But, that still doesn't allow for quarterstaff mastery. So I thought about creating a human fighter, dual class it after 1 lvlup(+- lvl9, perhaps 10) for another proficiency point towards the thief. Of course, it will take awhile to get to the level were you can get the HLA abilities, but you can build the character as a normal thief. Meanwhile collecting some awesome items.

So, what do you guys think? Only hardship I see right now are those characters that have improved invisibility.

EDIT: As I expected, damage output is really low. But aside from that it's quite usable.

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:49 am

Well, even without grandmastery in staves, they are great weapons for a thief in terms of backstab. Staff of Striking for example is available for purchase right at the start of the game, and can be recharged, doing 1d6 +9 damage. Staff of The Ram is the best backstab weapon there is (next to the Iron Golem fist of course), but it's available at the fourth level of Watcher's Keep and can't be upgraded until ToB.

The with with the Staff of the Magi is that it's great for hit and run tactics, allowing you to turn invisible after a backstab and run away to re-stealth. As a bonus, it gives you Spell Trap, to protect you from harmful spells. It is however unfortunate that you can't backstab with it, though you can easily change that through the Near Infinity editor.

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 10:02 am

Thanks for the tip, was trying to make it work for solo'ing BG2. Although the character can/could hold out pretty long it gets harder because the invisibility gets dispelled pretty quickly. Since all they need is to get a True sight spell up, which isn't that hard.

I play vanilla BG2:SoA/ToB btw. And the bonus merchants

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 11:32 am

Invisibility pales in comparison to Stealth. The reason for this is that any spell that dispels invisibility, doesn't affect it. Use the Cloak of Non-Detection to protect yourself from scrying spells.

I do not mod my game either, so I can just toss out there that a Thief type class is one of the easiest (and funnest) solo characters.

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:43 pm

Your sure? Because I mostly get detected whenever I hide in shadows, even with stats close to 240 or so, guess I'll have to try it with that cloak then

Guess that's another character on my to-solo list.. Still wanna try the Kensai/Mage combo and the Sorcerer as well.

Daynov · Post by **Daynov** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 2:36 pm

Seeing how close you are to the skill cap something you may or may not already know is that if you exceed it, it will reset.

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 3:37 pm

Didn't know that, seems a bit strange though.. I don't edit the values, why would the game reset it itself?

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:35 pm

Because it doesn't properly handle high values. I usually have my Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills at 200.

Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but standing in shadows DOES make a difference when trying to hide or when trying to avoid being noticed.

Ode to a Grasshopper · Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:46 pm

Staff of the Magi is kinda munchkin-y, I mostly give it to Imoen or Jan for trap detection. If you want to use it in a solo melee build I'd suggest a staff-focused Kensai/Mage (or a kensai/mage/thief if you're alright with abusing Shadowkeeper), alternating between SoM and Staff of the Ram.

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:56 am

@Crenshinibon: thnx! Seems like some sort of overflow error, then :/

@Ode to a Grasshopper: Should try that when I try out the Kensai/Mage

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:31 am

Now, I'm not sure about this, but it's worth a try... what if you have your stealth skill at 0 or so, have a low dexterity and wear an item that reduces your stealth skill further, such as the hide armor or one of the cursed items. In theory, it should overflow in the other direction. I know that it works in that way with stats, as was shown to us by Wise Grimwald's experiments.

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:39 am

Could you show me a link to those experiments/results? As a fellow programmer I'm quite interested

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:18 pm

They way he did it didn't involve any coding, just finding a way to lower the stats. One such example was to wear the Ring of Human Influence (which sets your Charisma to 18) and hit something repeatedly with the Rod of Terror (which has a chance to drain 1 Charisma on hit). After some time, where the Charisma should go below zero (which means death), it loops back to 25.

I was just saying that the same thing should apply to thief skills.

You might want to look at [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn-9/crazy-high-stats-92625.html"]this[/url] thread.

Zain · Post by **Zain** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 5:44 am

Hmm, sounds like faulty coding to me to be honest. Thnx for the information!