Tips for a beginner (swashbuckler)?
SpacemanSpiff
Member Posts: 23
Hey guys, quick intro. I got BG1 in 1998, but was only 9 years old and didn't have the attention span for high fantasy. I never finished the game (made it about 3 chapters in on a few different playthroughs, iirc), but I just got the EE and am looking forward to my first full playthrough.
I have a couple of ?'s, and would be very grateful for any answers/tips...
1. I will be playing as a swashbuckler. What should my proficiencies be? Please keep in mind I want to be realistic, i.e. I probably shouldn't be dual wielding longswords, right? Should I drop one in a ranged weapon, or as a SB simply throw one in ss and one in two weapon fighting?
2. If I plan on keeping Imoen in my party (and NOT dc'ing her to mage), which thief skills do you think I should focus on? I know most people max. pick lock and detect traps on Imoen, but the other skills (hide in shadows, move silently) don't seem to make as much sense for a melee thief with no backstab multiplier like my PC. Thoughts?
2. Is the most realistic PC race human? I mean from a story perspective, what makes the most sense? I'm aware of the general story (I'm a bhaalspawn, badassery ensues, etc.), but not specifically enough to know the answer to this question. I know elves and half-elves get bonuses, and that humans get none, but I'd prefer to "fit in" with the story (please no major spoilers!).
Thanks for your help guys!
I have a couple of ?'s, and would be very grateful for any answers/tips...
1. I will be playing as a swashbuckler. What should my proficiencies be? Please keep in mind I want to be realistic, i.e. I probably shouldn't be dual wielding longswords, right? Should I drop one in a ranged weapon, or as a SB simply throw one in ss and one in two weapon fighting?
2. If I plan on keeping Imoen in my party (and NOT dc'ing her to mage), which thief skills do you think I should focus on? I know most people max. pick lock and detect traps on Imoen, but the other skills (hide in shadows, move silently) don't seem to make as much sense for a melee thief with no backstab multiplier like my PC. Thoughts?
2. Is the most realistic PC race human? I mean from a story perspective, what makes the most sense? I'm aware of the general story (I'm a bhaalspawn, badassery ensues, etc.), but not specifically enough to know the answer to this question. I know elves and half-elves get bonuses, and that humans get none, but I'd prefer to "fit in" with the story (please no major spoilers!).
Thanks for your help guys!
0
Comments
I'd still give Imoen points in detect traps at least so you can both keep an eye out for them.
You could try dual-wielding with a sword in the main hand and a dagger in the offhand for a more "realistic" combination, but it would take several levels to get enough proficiency for this to work.
2. Having two thieves means you'll have plenty of extra points to throw around. I'm not sure if keeping Imoen in the party and not dual-classing her is the best idea, but I'll let you decide. Stealth skills for your swashie will still allow you to scout and get sneak attacks (no backstab multiplier, but you'll get a nice THAC0 boost), so you could consider having Imoen as a trap/lockpicker, while focusing on, say, stealth and traps with your swashie. You could also find a different, more melee-oriented NPC thief to replace Imoen with and have them focus on a stealth/backstab strategy while your PC takes support skills.
3. I view human as the most realistic choice for the story. Gorion raising a half-orc or something in Candlekeep would raise a few eyebrows, after all.
According to the PC realism thread on these forums, Elves apparently take several decades to reach physical maturity, making them not quite work as a starting race since it would throw the whole timeline off. Not sure about half-elves.
2. You could put a lot of points in Set Traps on one of your thieves. It can make a fight a lot simpler if you have a trap or five spring first thing as it starts. You can also max both lockpicking and find traps really fast if you focus on one with each character, but.... Pickpocket! There's -a lot- of really good things you can steal from stores and just about anyone in this game. So your less mechanical thief could max that one for some nice profits and great gear.
3. All the races arguably work though some say Elf doesn't really work since they, according to some sources, physically doesn't mature to roughly human proportions within the roughly 20 years old you start out as. However, the game mentions those 20 years one single time during the opening prologue, so you can easily ignore it imo. Or just go with that not all the sources on Elves agree on how fast they mature and it seems to vary between the sub-species even.
Any other comments/tips are welcome, thanks again guys. :-)
The advantage to playing a swashbuckler is that they can specialize in duel-wielding (two-weapon fighting) upto 3 points, other thieves are limited to 1 point in it. They can also put 2 points in any weapon a thief can use, other thieves are limited to 1 point.
Duel-wielding is what swashbucklers are designed to do.
Swashbucklers gain additional damage, Thaco and AC every 5 levels starting at level 1 making them the most melee friendly of any of the thief pure classes, it also gives them great duel-class synergy with any other melee class.
(You wont get enough proficiency points in BG:EE to have 2 in a weapon and 3 in duel-wield though. If your going to duel-wield, sink 1 point into a weapon of choice and then your next 3 into duel-wield, fleshing it out at level 12 in BG2:EE when its released)
2. If I plan on keeping Imoen in my party (and NOT dc'ing her to mage), which thief skills do you think I should focus on?
I would focus my swashy on open lockes and detect traps, sinking spare points into either pickpockets or detect illusion or alternatively traps (i don't like traps personally, just a play style thing, nothing wrong with em)
This would allow Imoen to focus on an assassin play style, something she will be much better at then your PC. Keep in mind that she has only 9 STR, if you want her to play like an assassin have a mage in your group memories the spell 'Strength' and buff her str to 18/00 - it lasts from rest to rest most of the time even at low levels.
3. Is the most realistic PC race human?
Any sentient race is realistic story wise.
If you plan on playing a pure swashbuckler though i would recommend either a Half-Orc with 19 str (STR effects thaco) or an Elf for the bonus damage and thaco with swords, Thieves need all the Thaco buffs they can get.
Thaco is "to hit ac 0"
Read: Chance to hit, the lower the number you have the better.
Also, don't you suffer a penalty for dual-wielding a longsword, like 4 to thaco instead of 2 like a short sword?
As a swash will only get 4 prof points in the whole game, I would never be able to dual-wield 2 different weapons (i.e. ls/ss). Also, I would think that would look weird. Remember, I'm trying to be kind of realistic here (not necessarily RP'ing, but just immersion).
I also thought that I might start ss in BG1, then add katana in BG2 for Belm and Kundane together. What do you guys think?
Belm's a scimitar, remember. Not a Katana. I once played a F/T multiclass in BG2 that made extremely good use of dual-wielding Celesital Fury and Belm, though, so that's worth some consideration.
Socially elves are often considered children until they are almost a century old, this has nothing to do with physical maturity and is a social construct of a society where individuals can sometime live for over a millenium, however this would not apply to an elf raised by a human.
Another thing, since I probably won't be dual-wielding anytime soon... maybe it makes sense to start off prof. in longsword, and just use main hand for a while? I just thought that adding a SS without the prof would cause a penalty.
If the size still bothers you, go with short sword. It is also a good melee weapon and found in abundance.
By BG2 you'll have more proficiencies and can mix and match. Sword and dagger is very common and a historically accurate combination. Any kind of sword and mace or sword and flail would also be reasonable. I don't believe sword and axe would be out of bounds either. Adding katana is a little weird, mixing eastern and western weaponry. I would have any given character only using one or the other. Although the Realms is such a melting pot you can really justify anything you like.
I would definitely not bother with missile weapons on a swashbuckler. That's what Imoen is for. And there are other excellent archers you can recruit. Remember, a jack-of-all-trades is a master of none. Focus all your attention on doing one thing well.
Instead, you can use daggers
'Sides, dual wielding daggers looks kinda cool
2. Stealth would be a bit pointless, and you wouldn't be able to get it at high levels. Perhaps detect illusion?
3. I think Human is the most fitting race.
(I played a swashbucker at times and liked it. I missed the backstab multiplier-but that can be mitigated*)
-race : depends on you and doesn't really matter, unless you want to min-max a lot. halfling (min-maxing), human (if you think you might want to dualclass to a mage or similar later. don't need to though), otherwise half-orc or helf/half-elf for the bonuses to strength or longswords.
-attributes : str18, dex 18, con 16-17, int-wis mediocre (if planning to dual to mage/cleric at high levels on in BG2 - get one of them to 17), charisma - dump all other points here as you will be leading the party.
-proficiencies : you will get only 4 points in BG1. To efficiently dual-wield 2 weapons, you need 5. This is what I did : get Scimitar ++ to get bonus to THAC0 and buy a scimitar+buckler at start. When you get more prof. points, dump them into dual-wielding. After putting 2nd point into dualwielding, you can actually start using 2 weapons. you will have a THAC0 penalty to offhand, but it's not that bad. (Drizzt's scimitars +3 ftw ;-) )
-later I'd maybe put prof points to short swords/katanas or daggers.
-thieving skills - let Imoen concentrate on Open locks+find traps and get traps+hide in shadows&move silently up. You can be the party's scout then.
..enjoy
* swashbucklers do not have a backstab multiplier, so you won't see a hit for huge damage. But to disable casters, you can do it too. Get a weapon that poisons (dagger of poison) and deliver the first hit. If they get poisoned, they won't cast anyway... :-)
Scimitars are actually a very good choice for a 1h weapon. There are now 2 +1 and 2 +2 (and 2 +3 if you pickpocket Drizzt) scimitars ingame so they're well represented. There are multiple threads on this forum that can point you in the right direction. If you carry on to bg2 there are some very good ones, too.
It's a hard call..in BG1 you'll only get 4 weapon points...so..1 in a weapon (recommend scimitar), and 1 in two weapon style, then the next point in two weapon style, then the last point you can either specialize or broaden out.
I personally would do * short sword (easily acquired +2 SS), * two weapon (don't dual-wield till you have the 2nd point), * two weapon at lvl 4, and * scimitar (easily acquired +2 scimitar around the time you're hitting 8 in a full party, or 1-2 +3's if you can get them off Drizzt) at lvl 8. This would set you up well for the sequel, where you can then use your next point at 12 for specialization in scimitars, 16 for specialization in SS, and 20 for that 3rd point in two-weapon style if you want. At 24 you can get Use any item and use the other speed scimitar which is +3 and poisons on hit.
Never get the 3rd point in two-weapon fighting, until you've got ** in both Scimitars and short-swords
In the sequel however, there are 3 weapons that grant an extra attack each (2 scimitar, 1 short sword, though one of the scimitars requires an epic ability to wield, meaning for a large chunk of the game you'd be using the other scimitar and short sword). Dual-wielding them, you get 4 attacks per round, and under improved haste, you'd have 8. (9 if you equip the normally warrior-only gauntlets that grant an extra 1/2 attack, among other things (requires UAI)). This at higher levels allows a swashbuckler to actually out damage a GM fighter using the same gear (and a full 10 attacks), and eventually surpassing them in AC, even if wearing leather armors. The fighter would have a bit more thac0 at the end, but their thac0 is overkill anyway..so not really an advantage per say.
As for thief skills, if you use another thief, let them handle locks and traps for the time being (you can take over in the sequel when you have skill points to burn and give more xp for taking care of them your self (the xp granted is based on thief level)).
Definitely go for Detect illusions and set traps to 100. The rest is up to you...I personally see no reason to not work on traps/locks as hide/MS is almost worthless without backstab. Sure +4 thac0 for 1 attack, but that's hardly worth getting killed by traps for (a scout is most likely going to be setting off traps way ahead of the party trap detector if they're not the scout), so just using invisibility from a mage/ring and scouting ahead that way would work better. You can search for traps while invisible, but not while stealthed. And trap/lock xp in the sequel is based on thief level so having your highest thief do the locks/traps is best. The extra xp becomes quite high after lvl 16.(though you'll have plenty points to spare by then so it doesn't matter ultimately the order you get them in).
As for races...Half-orcs have a massive advantage in early BG1 (starting 19 str, and can get 19 starting con for natural regen after a con manual). Though by the end, any non-halfing could be just as good. And the other non-humans would have better thief skill spreads (gnomes are about the best in regard to skills...they're tied with dwarves and halflings for the most racial skill points, but with no penalties (though the dwarf's 17 max dex is actually a VERY minor penalty since they get the best overall saves period of any race, and like the half-orc can potentially get natural regen), and like all shorties have extra save bonus from high con.)
young adulthood for a 2nd edition elf is 75 years (dusted off the ye olde players handbook). Though your information is accurate for 3rd edition and beyond.
Fighter/Thieves have a similar playstyle to Swashbucklers, get access to backstab and start with 4 weapon proficiency points. This negates a lot of the early-game headaches around the Swashbuckler, as they can specialise in a weapon and get 2 pips in 2-weapon style at character creation. You also get flexibility in armour choices at an early stage, and can pop on some plate if you're going in swinging and not needing your thief skills at the moment, or just using proper shields early on instead of bucklers.
You'd get a few less thief skill points compared to Swashbucklers but not by much, ending up as a Fighter 7/Thief 8 as opposed to a Swashbuckler 10. Multiclass also requires a non-human CHARNAME which could be a problem if you only want to play as a human. From a story point of view it doesn't make a huge difference apart from the supposed starting age of 20 and a few NPCs referring to you as your race in dialogues. Notably there are some romances in BG2 that do not occur for some species. Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Halflings have no romance options at all with the Vanilla NPCs. Gnomes can only romance Aerie and Viconia hates Elves (but is okay with half-elves).
Someone with 18 Strength and 18 dex would be according to rules sitting about at the maximum of what a human being could be.
Thanks,
SS
Also, I find the mechanics of switching between dual wielding and a bow really awkward so using only one weapon is very attractive. Anyone else have thoughts on the trade-offs involved in a single-weapon style swashbuckler?
Take my advice: start with scimitars 2. Play a human. Dual-class at level 2 to fighter. Choose two weapon style 2 and longbow 2. Steal Drizzt's scimitars. Get to level 3 fighter and choose the 3r level in two weapon style. You have now an extremely efficient fighter.
Don't want to spoil it for you, but the swashbuckler was just made to be dual-classed to fighter.