Advice needed on my main PC (slight spoilers)

mr_sir · Post by **mr_sir** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:37 pm

I'm playing BG2 SOA+TOB as an evil character for the first time ever (I've done it loads of times as a good character) and need a little advice. I have Ascension installed, but not the options that make boss battles harder, and I'm playing on core rules. I also have the virtue mod installed and unfinished business.

My PC is Alexia, a neutral evil human who only takes on companions when she needs them for something, or if they will be of benefit to her goals, as she is pretty much a loner. The exception to this is Imoen because she is the only friend she has ever truly had.

Stats:
Strength 18
Constitution 18
Dexterity 18
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 10
Charisma 17

She has 2 points in single weapon style, one in short sword and one in bow.
Her initial class is assassin and she is putting all her points (at the moment) into pickpocket, move silently and hide.

I am thinking about dual classing her to fighter but I have no idea which level would be best to do this or if it would be more beneficial and enjoyable to stay as an assassin. I'm very much into roleplaying and her stats reflect the many years she has spent developing her skills and fitness, as well as her ability to use people for her own goals through charm and personality etc.

Any advice on what would be the best option for this character would be greatly appreciated. I'm currently just finishing the first level of the initial dungeon and true to her personality the only person she has taken with her to aid her escape is Imoen. She will probably let Yoshimo tag along too simply because he may know of a way out so she will use him to aid her escape.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:56 am

Logically, the best time to dual-class would be after she's gained a level that brings a specific skill or important upgrade (such as a new weapons point), but since you roleplay, you'd have to find a justification for the change of career at a moment of triumph.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:04 pm

I'm somewhat puzzled as to why you're thinking of going from Assassin to Fighter, and not the 0ther way around. The 18 Constitution is curious as well (anything above 16 gains nothing if you're not a fighter).

I'm not trying to criticize, you obviously have reasons for how you're doing it, just wondering what they are.

As I doubt you intend staying as an assassin until you get HLAs, I'd say DC when you've got your thieving skills to where you want the, presumably 100% in HIS and MS (I'd suggest decent trap setting abilities too), the weapon skill aren't really relevant as you'll pick up all you need as a fighter.

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:08 pm

Well, I can understand the roleplay addition of the Fighter class and perhaps, as she's an Assassin you could give her some trap skills, maybe avoid death or assassination. Then again, I think the class is good enough without them. I'm imagining that your character is more of a physical type person rather than one that tinkers with traps so you do have justification for skills like evasion, assassination and avoid death. If you do not need them you should probably change classes at level 21, when you have a multiplier of x7.

mr_sir · Post by **mr_sir** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:02 pm

galraen wrote:I'm somewhat puzzled as to why you're thinking of going from Assassin to Fighter, and not the 0ther way around. The 18 Constitution is curious as well (anything above 16 gains nothing if you're not a fighter).

Originally I wanted to play a thief as I've never played as one before, then I decided to go evil so Assassin was the logical choice in my mind. I then started thinking about the stats and decided I wanted a character who has developed exceptional levels of fitness (hence the 3 18s) as a result of her godly blood and her training. Then it just seemed like the logical step would be to dual as a fighter once she had developed her assassin skills, to reflect her movement towards being the perfect killing machine that would make her dad proud.

Crenshinibon wrote:Well, I can understand the roleplay addition of the Fighter class and perhaps, as she's an Assassin you could give her some trap skills, maybe avoid death or assassination. Then again, I think the class is good enough without them. I'm imagining that your character is more of a physical type person rather than one that tinkers with traps so you do have justification for skills like evasion, assassination and avoid death. If you do not need them you should probably change classes at level 21, when you have a multiplier of x7.

This is what I was thinking but having never played a thief class before I was unsure about how beneficial it would be to stay as an assassin in terms of abilities and enjoyment. It would fit the roleplaying whether i dual or not so its really down to which would be the most fun and interesting to play without making it too difficult seeing as she will only ever have a small party and will often go it alone.

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:31 pm

why not go the other way around ?? Fighter (no kit) > Assasin you'd have to use SK but you'll only have 1 class that's a kit so it will remain quite balanced.

To me it makes more roleplaying sense that first you start with the straight-foreward stuff such as basic combat training (fighter) and then move on to complexities of combat such as poisoning your weapon with increasingly potent poisons or learning how to strike the critical areas of a target (backstab)

You can run Solo or with Edwin seems like those make a perfect pairing

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 4:35 pm

Hmm... well, the FRighter class, while it may improve your combat capabilities and can be validated from a roleplaying point of view, however, in my opinion the abilities gained aren't too fun. They enhance the moves without giving you a strategic point. Oh sure, backstab the guy to death with a Greater Whirlwind mixed with Assassination or what not but that's not too fun. For enjoyment it's probably best to stay with the Assassin although I worry about your ability to hit and actually backstab the foes towards the end of ToB. Maybe stick with the physical aspect, perhaps add some traps, like the time trap for example. Make her a survivalist and add alchemy. I don't really see a validation for Use Any Item so perhaps you should stay away from that eventhough it is a great skill to have. Possibly get Assassination, Avoid Death, Evasion, Greater Evasion and Time Trap, possibly Exploding Trap. Stay away from Spike Trap... it's a bit too powerful and unnecessary in the case of your character.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 6:32 pm

Crenshinibon wrote:Hmm... well, the FRighter class, while it may improve your combat capabilities and can be validated from a roleplaying point of view, however, in my opinion the abilities gained aren't too fun. They enhance the moves without giving you a strategic point. Oh sure, backstab the guy to death with a Greater Whirlwind mixed with Assassination or what not but that's not too fun. For enjoyment it's probably best to stay with the Assassin although I worry about your ability to hit and actually backstab the foes towards the end of ToB. Maybe stick with the physical aspect, perhaps add some traps, like the time trap for example. Make her a survivalist and add alchemy. I don't really see a validation for Use Any Item so perhaps you should stay away from that eventhough it is a great skill to have. Possibly get Assassination, Avoid Death, Evasion, Greater Evasion and Time Trap, possibly Exploding Trap. Stay away from Spike Trap... it's a bit too powerful and unnecessary in the case of your character.

Your idea of 'fun' seems to be get killed as often as possible!

I really don't get this validation stuff either, you suggest making her a survivalist which is a good concept, which is all the 'validation' you need for use any item. A survivalist uses whatever's to hand and hang trhe 'rules' so to speak.

What's not fun about utilising whatever skills you have to take down the enemy as fast as possible with as little risk as you can get away with? Just steamed through the Mind Flayer complex with an evil party as it happens, taking down Ilithids with death blows and greater deathblows so quick that their brain eating attacks didn't have time to work. Never had it so easy before, I don't usually have more than one tank, got three this time. Now that was fun after the grief those SoB's have given me in the past.:laugh:

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:15 pm

you do however get a higher sense of satisfaction if you don't use cheese. Death blows on a tank is one thing, but relying exclusively on a thieves HLA's, specifically the traps and assasination, strips away the fun if you overcheese it. Roleplaying a thief is alot more fun, however that being said, if he plays an assasin the roleplaying prevents him from utilizing spike traps and exploding traps. UAI, time traps, alchemy, and assasination are fair game for an assasin. You have to have a balance because like Galraen said, getting killed is no fun

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 5:58 am

True, things like surrounding the red dragon with traps when he's still neutral is pure gorganzola, but so is giving dragons multiple, undisruptable, heal spells. The game uses a darn sight more cheese than I ever do that's for sure.

The assassination HLA is also 'over the top', I rarely use it myself, it's something I usually only resort to when death is imminent.

Another 'engine abuse' cheese is taking advantage of the bad way the engine handles hide in shadows. Theres the enemy, in the centre of a brightly lit area, but you can sneak up on them in the non-existent shadows, backstab them, run away, sneak back on the still unexpecting foe, backstab again, rinse and repeat. Rancid mozzarella or what?!

I guess there's different aspects to engine abuse that stinks to us all, and abuse by the engines (unkillable NPCs etc.) that annoy the hell out of us. Difficult to strike a balance, and we'll all have different opinions on what is 'fair' and what is abuse.

Personally I'm most likely to cheese it just after the game has wound me up by blatantly 'cheating', sometimes I feel 'guilty' and reload and do it again, others I sorta think 'That'll teach you to rip me off you .....'.

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:05 pm

I know what you mean, things like Ascension really annoy the hell out of me simply because the computer cheats. In those cases I have no moral qualms using my considerable knowledge of Arcane magic to show Irenicus, the 5 Amelissan and co. the true meaning of cheese

In fair situations I have have no trouble using legal combinations like timestop + harm + mindflayer + Improved Alcracity or chain contingencies.

I Don't however blind a thief and then use him to set traps in front of an enemy, trap spawn points, backstab in the plain light, stack bard songs, summon more than the limit, faketalk, ignore magic resistance or anything else that doesn't make sense.

All that being said, I can't think of any non Ascension fight that would force me to cheat. Ascension is fun for the better story and the improved Yaga Shura and Abazigal fights but that final fight ought to be toned down so that someone can beat it without extensive knowledge of the arcane system

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:55 pm

Never heard about the blinding the thief trick, that really is an outrageous cheat!

If you want a rigged fight, try attacking Renal Bloodscalp (after the underdark obviously). I actually checked out Arkanis Gath, the guy who appears miraculously behind you. He has 4.5 attacks a round, wears a permanent Improved Haste Ring (so actually 9 attacks), and wields a sword that slays everything it hits (no save), and his THACO is 0. IMHO, that's an even bigger cheat than blinding your thief. Oh, and he also is unkillable even with ctrl+Y! Why do they build such idiotic cheats into the game?

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:59 pm

Well I guess he's hard coded into that area. Yes it is a cheat but otherwise some n00b could go on a killing spree and break the story without realizing it.

Arkanis Gath unkillable ?? nay just cast timestop and shapechange into a mindflayer

- mages do own so badly in 2E rules

too bad they got toned down for IWD2
Edit: (haste your pc before trying and summon up some fodder some NPC's may die in your attempt to kill him)

Blinding the thief - Can't claim credit for that one, I've read it somewhere probably in UU's cheese guide. Have not tested but it ought to work since if you blind the thief the enemy is not on screen.

My guess is it works only against bigger enemies like dragons since their vision is centered in the middle of their body and not the head itself if you understand what I'm trying to get across. I mean the distance from the center of their circle to the center of yours is above the critical distance that a blinded person see's (not so if your enemy has a small circle)

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:31 am

Nope, he's unkillable, he's wearing one of those darned min1hp items.

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:14 am

really ?? I'll have to test that out. I'm 99% sure that I've read he is killable by mind flayer stat drain (if you can pull of a TS before he kills your PC) Or maybe one of the fix packs or patches fixed that up to make him unkillable.
Either way I'll find out

As soon as my copy of BGI + ToSC finally arrives in the mail I'm starting another run-through sigh....... Airmail from the UK to Canada shouldn't take more than 2 weeks ought to have it by wednesday in that case

Adieu · Post by **Adieu** » Sun Jun 20, 2010 7:17 pm

Jedi_Sauraus wrote:really ?? I'll have to test that out. I'm 99% sure that I've read he is killable by mind flayer stat drain (if you can pull of a TS before he kills your PC) Or maybe one of the fix packs or patches fixed that up to make him unkillable.

Oh, he's very killable. Unbuffed Edwin bludgeoned him to death accidentally with a +1 quarterstaff (no spells) after expending all his MMMs on another target and going into autoattack mode.

What's the trick? SIDE WITH BODHI.

FleaBag · Post by **FleaBag** » Fri Jun 25, 2010 11:06 pm

Adieu, are you using ToB and the last patched version? I swear Renal always disappears when i side with Bodhi and the unkillable Arkanis never shows up.

Unless if you're talking about the killable version of Arkanis... who shows up during the first quest with Bodhi. Then yeah that one is killable.

Daynov · Post by **Daynov** » Sat Jun 26, 2010 1:27 am

Pretty much what sums it up is that you can kill Renal ( and get his boots of speed ) and flee from Arkanis using stuff like Time Stop. Or you can kill him too by stat drain. Then you can side with Bodhi. If you don't bother with the above and side with Bodhi than Renal disappears forever but you can still kill Arkanis the normal way later because he wont be wearing his "special" belt...