Cheesey Custom Character?

[seefree]

So I have been struggling to pick a character to run through the whole series. I wanted a thief, but though I like the idea of an plain human assassin, I realize that a F/M/T, F/T, or Swashbuckler are much better in terms of powergaming, or juts plain getting through the game. So I compromised and created a custom character using Shadowskeeper.
Basically, I gave him a once a day invisibility special ability for that first de-trapping and scouting run through an area. I upped his Dex to 20, something along the lines of "Bhaal's gift" to his roguish non-demihuman offspring. Since assassin THAC0 will always be so low, I upped his Str to 19 to give a little extra boost there since I will be running a small squad light on the muscle. Last, I gave him a Chr of 24 because I always liked the idea of mind control for a Bhaalspawn, but charm spells are so ineffective and so this is something of another compromise.
So a masterfully witted and but pumped up human assassin. How high on the cheese factor would you rate him?

[Vicsun]

That depends on how you use him. The single cheesiest class you can play with is the thief if you abuse traps. However if you avoid using traps, a thief is just a weaker fighter - in later stages of the game Imoen's or even Nalia's thieving skills would be enough to disarm traps (that's all you really need a thief for), so unless you use traps having a thief who is a higher level than, say 5, would be an overkill.
If you plan on playing a pure thief, and not extensively using traps, I wouldn't say your character is overly cheesy. If you do use traps your thief would be overpowered and will quickly become boring (been there, done that), regardless of whether you've bumped his dex str and char.

[Ian Kognitow]

I'm partial to rogues, having completely played through on different occasions with a swashbuckler, skald, kensai-thief, and assassin-mage. But I wouldn't necessarily say that traps are inherently cheesy so much as their implementation - and that implementation involves knowing particular spawn points from previous games. Secondly, the traps still aren't *that* overpowered until you get to the spike traps from ToB. But if you're talking about high-level abilities, the real difference maker, and much cheesier facet of rogues is Use Any Item. With that you can make your thief virtually into a thief-fighter or thief-mage by way of equipment and scrolls. While I think that it's somewhat true that at lower levels, the thief can often seem like a weak-fighter with the useful benefits of lockpicking and trap disarming, the swashbuckler is quite formidable, and the assassin, while not my favorite thing to play single-class is still good for scouting/backstabbing and for mage disruption due to its poison.

As far as the original question - I don't think the hack-job is that overpowered. It really just bypasses the need to acquire rather basic equipment that's available early in the game - strength belt, invisibility ring, and human influence ring. And I forget the table offhand, but the dex bonus would add, what, an extra point off ac? Anyhow, I don't see these changes really allowing your character to be played much differently then it would otherwise, so no, not too overpowered.

[Ekental]

this is almost pointless... if you don't think it's cheesy, then use the character, if you do think it's cheesy don't use him

anyone can make a super cheesy character with shadowkeeper, even the game itself inherently has some "stronger" classes. Sorcerors a bit overpowered compared to wizzies, I haven't found a real good use for the Jester yet, and the assasin class is downright cheap with appropriate equipment

[Luis Antonio]

Well, I dont think it is pointless...

I had never played wizards nor bards nor sorcerers in a solo game just three months ago. I was really a fighter, an archer or a F/T.

Then I soloed a Fighter mage. Awesome.

Then I soloed a Sorcerer. A lil bit weak, but nice.

Then I soloed a Blade. WOW!!!
Then a skald, and a plain, and a jester. My favourite class, now.

And for those who think bards and rogues are unbalanced, try the Rogue Balance Kit mod... it applies a lot of changes.