GameBanshee Forums

Hello all, I'm just starting off a new game using BGTutu(I have played through bg1/bg2 before), going through all of bg1 and bg2, and i'm trying to decide what kind of character I want. Seeing as I played through bg1 with a good fighter, soa with a good mage, and tob as an evil fighter, i figured i actually have very little experience with the various classes. I've never been a fan of clerics, and I know i'll use viconia all the way through, paladins/rangers are off limits since i intend an evil/neutral party, and lastly, I simply dont like Monks.

As such, I was wondering about trying Thief, possibly Assassin, and use invisibility from another mage to backstab(I've never liked stealth, I keep thinking i might miss something if i stealthkill people before walking up to the normally, the idea being that they might have said something).

Unfortunately it seemed a little inconvenient to rely on another character which brought Thief/Mage to mind. I dont have a whole lot of experience with multi class characters though, and i'm afraid it will never be as strong as a pure class(which isnt all-important to me, but i dont want a mainchar not pulling his/her weight). Thoughts?

On top of that, I want the character to be human, so I was wondering if rolling up a thief or a mage, and then using shadowkeeper to turn it into a thief/mage might somehow tell the game I am a different class/race than I am(such as, just as an example, being unable to gain the mage stronghold because the game see's me as a thief).

Then of course, last but not least, there is the issue of Thieves as a class. In my previous parties, they have all been lockpicking archers, which isnt how i want my main character to be, and the little I tried using Yoshimo backstabbing didnt really go too well(running far away from the battle, hitting stealth, coming back and then missing backstab - repeatedly - wasnt very fun). Am I missing something? Maybe a Bard would be better?

I removed your other thread, Thief/Multiclass questions, because it was identical to this one aside from the title. Please don't put up duplicate posts or threads.

It wasnt intended, when I posted the first thread, it said I wasnt logged on, so i copied/pasted my thread, logged on again and submitted it again, I wasnt aware that there was two threads until I saw your reply.

Edit: The reason the title was different is that I saw a few things appropriate to change.

Have you considered dual classing?

Starting out as a theif and playing (possibly the majority of BG1) for a while as a theif then switching out to mage? This would give you a better THACO and more HP when you start and by the time you need to up the 'can of whoop ass' supply you add in the mage. - Curdis !

A multiclass F/M/T might be the best choice. You can sneak to the enemy and backstab.
The fighter levels allow to switch to pretty deadly melee fighting afterwards with more than 1 attack/round.
The mage levels help the defense. You can cast stoneskin, mirror image and other protection spells and you can cast invisibility and backstab again if you want.


About Assassin:

Assassins can do the most backstab damage and can very deadly using poison. They get a +1 thac0 and damage bonus compared to other thieves and if you use the hill giant strength girdle or two strength spells you'll get another +3 thac0, which should be enough to hit nearly every backstab save a critical miss with a proper weapon.
If you use a ring of invisibility you can backstab more than once per battle without help from your spellcasters and I guess an assassin with improved invisibility cast upon him before battle can be really scary.

You can try SK a dualcalssed human fighter 7or9/assassin for twice as many attacks and specialization bonusses.

If you want to play legal just create a human fighter 7or9/thief. You can take a kensai for more damage but you'll need spells like barkskin for proper AC.

Another legal option is a human illusionist10/thief. You'll be missing 20 HP but you'll gain stoneskin, mirror image and invisibility and the ability to use robes. The dualing period will only be 220,000 XP long.

Yes I considered dual classing, but then it struck me that as soon as my character starts off as a mage, the thief part of me would be useless beyond lockpicking and finding traps, and besides, it would just become another Imoen/Nalia. It irritates me greatly that I cant start off as a Mage and then dual class to Assassin around 10 or so when I feel i have a reasonable amount of protective/invis spells.

As for the second post - I am not really looking for a powerhouse like that, I know enough about DnD rules to create an invincible killing machine if I really wanted to, what I am after though is feedback and ideas to help me make up my mind As for "legit", I have my own "code" for what is legit and what isnt(in fact, there are so many so-called legit things you can do in games that I consider outright cheating) and multiclassing as human doesnt strike me as something that would endanger the balance of the game. Number crunching and being as strong as possible isnt my idea of fun in these kind of games though, in fact, if my character kicks too much ass i'll feel like im not playing the game as intended

[QUOTE=restless]Unfortunately it seemed a little inconvenient to rely on another character which brought Thief/Mage to mind. I dont have a whole lot of experience with multi class characters though, and i'm afraid it will never be as strong as a pure class(which isnt all-important to me, but i dont want a mainchar not pulling his/her weight). Thoughts?[/QUOTE]
If you play Throne of Bhaal, which has a higher experience cap and High Level Abilities, then multi-class characters are just as worthy and fun to play as dual-class characters. Personally, I prefer to play multi-class characters in Throne of Bhaal. However, dual-class characters have the advantage if you play Shadows of Amn but not Throne of Bhaal. If you search for previous message threads, you can find a couple of messages from me in which I made comparisons between a Berserker dualled to a Cleric and a multi-class Fighter/Cleric, and that should illustrate the difference for you.


[QUOTE=restless]On top of that, I want the character to be human, so I was wondering if rolling up a thief or a mage, and then using shadowkeeper to turn it into a thief/mage might somehow tell the game I am a different class/race than I am(such as, just as an example, being unable to gain the mage stronghold because the game see's me as a thief).[/QUOTE]
Dual-class characters have a special flag than cannot be altered with Shadowkeeper, as far as I know. It can be altered with Near Infinity, but I can't remember the process well enough to give you instructions. If you do a search in these forums, you might be able to find some instructions.

If you'd rather not use Near Infinity and you're willing to experiment, you might try rolling up a multi-class character and then changing it to a human and see if it continues to be a multi-class human character. There's a way to do it, but I can't remember exactly how I did it. Again, I once posted some instructions, and you might be able to find them if you do a search.


[QUOTE=restless]Then of course, last but not least, there is the issue of Thieves as a class. In my previous parties, they have all been lockpicking archers, which isnt how i want my main character to be, and the little I tried using Yoshimo backstabbing didnt really go too well(running far away from the battle, hitting stealth, coming back and then missing backstab - repeatedly - wasnt very fun). Am I missing something? Maybe a Bard would be better? [/QUOTE]
Thieves have a poor THAC0, so even with an invisibility bonus, they can hardly ever hit their targets. A multi-class Fighter/Thief is much better at backstabbing. Thieves have high Dexterity, which confers a nice missile attack bonus, so they tend to better with ranged weapons than with melee weapons.

Bards cannot backstab, so I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but they have the THAC0 of a Thief so they too have trouble hitting things, at least at lower levels. On the other hand, an 8th Level Blade can cast Melf's Minute Meteors, which is devastating (relatively speaking) when you combine it with Offensive Spin, and a 15th Level Blade is not too shabby.

Unfortunately, this game is mostly concerned with using swords, spells, and missile weapons to kill monsters, so there isn't really much for a Thief to do besides wield bows and pick locks, as you say. That's just the way it is. If you want to play a more interesting character, I suggest you play some sort of spellcaster.

Another advantage of the F/M/T compared to the M/T multiclass is that you get less mage cheese slower while the thief advancement isn't considerably slowed.

It irritates me greatly that I cant start off as a Mage and then dual class to Assassin around 10 or so when I feel i have a reasonable amount of protective/invis spells.

You can start with a specialist mage and dual to thief.
A normal thief doesn't get the assassin's x7 backstab multiplier, but x5 isn't bad either and he gains skill points faster which allows effective sneaking and trapsetting earlier. Starting with an illusionist or conjurer gives better stats at creation and more spells. It's not much worse than a mage/assassin.

If you want to use a thief properly you should take a smaller party, maybe just your character and Viconia and eventually a third character like Montaron or Safana.
With a big party you can just overrun your enemies and if you have a high level mage in your party the powerful spells will eliminate the need of thinking.

The best method to learn the abilities of a class is soloing, an asassin solo is possible. A F/T, F/M/T or C/T solo might also be fun.

Reply

Swashbuckler/Mage maybe the way to go - good AC, good theiving abilities, good fighting abilities and good spellcasting power - all whilst being able to wear Aslefyrund Chain +5 !!

Either that or, Wizard Slayer/Thief.

Note: In the BG2 Strategies section of Gamebanshee there is a strategy about the Wizard Slayer/Thief. Whilst it is true that the user only went up to level 15 and a level 38 theif - I took this a bit further for the higher magic resistance and found out that you could still achieve the UAI ability and others whilst having 37% Magic resistance rather than 15% and a whole lot more hp and proficencies.

Note: In the BG2 Strategies section of Gamebanshee there is a strategy about the Wizard Slayer/Thief. Whilst it is true that the user only went up to level 15 and a level 38 theif - I took this a bit further for the higher magic resistance and found out that you could still achieve the UAI ability and others whilst having 37% Magic resistance rather than 15% and a whole lot more hp and proficencies.

You must have used a cheat program. Within the XPcap you loose at least 1 HP for each additional fighter level after level 15 and you actually loose profiency points compared to a 15/38 F/T.
I doubt that wizard slayers ar fun in BG Tutu.

Another idea for restless:
You can also try an all stealth party. SK Viconia to cleric/thief. Having your whole party turn invisible and backstab together can be fun.

Another option is to reroll your multi-class char as a half elf then shadowkeeper him back to human.
Some people do this to have impossibillities such as a dwarf paladin or halfing ranger.

Don't listen to VOnDondu The thief class IS the most intressting class in the whole game, and serteinly the most versatile. If anyone doubt me on this one I gladly recomend you to read Chris Lee's "Thief guide" on gamefaqs.com.

Anyway, I've done most of the thief combinations, and most of them soloing.
Look, you sould ask yourself why you want to be a mage.

If it is solely for the possibility of casting invisibility then I suggest you play a plain thief, or a fighter dualed to a thief. There's plenty of invisibility-items in the game; ring of air control, ring of invisibility, potions and ring of Kangaxx to name a couple of them.

And you say you don't like a lockpicking archer-thief; I take it you're a bit hungry for meele and backstabbing with your thief? Well don't despaire, to the contrary to what the others have said you can make a thief quite good at meele.
For example:
A berserker lvl9 dualed to a thief (whatever kit you like). 9lvl in berserker gives you 3 rages/day, witch means extra meele and backstabbing damage. And beeing partly a fighter you can get grandmaster specialization in... say scimitar and shortsword. And three points in two weapon fighting.

I've done this character, soloed the game with him. I promise you, he is good.

The thing is, if you're a multiclassed mage/thief, or even a dualed mage-thief, you're pretty much rosted in meele combat. So then you kind of have a lockpicking archer-thief, accept you throw spells instead of arrows.

But the berserker/thief is more of a backstabber then a meele guy. But the fighter/mage/thief is an EXELENT tank and killer. The only bad thing is the exp cap for the guy. And another but is that you can't really play with a big party and think he will grow strong. (But here I can't help ya, cause I've only soloed the F/M/T so the xp cap wasn't a problem)

But another alternative is a cleric/thief. The cleric is almost like a mage/fighter, exept with buffing magics insted of blowing-up spells. The clerics magic makes the thief a lot more sturdy; like Righteus Magic, Drawn Upon Holy Might, Blade Barrier. And the Hold Person, Greater Command and Symbol Stun spells is just great. Stun em' and then you'll have all the time in the world to hide and backstabb. And you got an 8 hours duration meatshield, Animate Dead.

You could try a cleric/swashbuckler if you want to dual, say... Crom Faeyr and Flail of Ages. Should say that the only weapons that cleric/thiefs can backstabb with is some of the staves and the clubs.

I personally have beaten the game with an Assassin. I never really liked dual classing, though doing something with Kensai/Thief might get you some fun.

About Assassins...If you choose to follow in my footsteps, follow these simple rules. Have points in Dual-Wield, Katanas and Longswords. Once you gain extras just put them on any other weapon. Buy many potions of invisibility. Why? Because the Assassin's backstab goes up to x7. As long as you have decent Thac0, you should be drinking them and backstabbing A LOT. Potentially, you could do over 280 with a Critical Hit.

Soloing Assassns is fun, but very hard, as if you get dominated/charmed etc. it's over. You should have at least 1 backup Fighter and 1 Mage. Get the weapons like Celestial Fury and Daystar as early as possible, as they will get you through most situations. Give whatever weapons you want for your partners, but keep all Long Swords and Katanas for yourself.

When getting skill points to put towards thief skills, spread it evenly between Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, Pick Locks, Detect Traps. Don't get Detect Illusions, it's not all that useful. Save Set traps for later, perhaps onlya couple of levels before level 24 so you can be prepared for Set Spike Trap. These will be essential for killing things, especially Dragons and Stationary enemies.