Imoen Planning ahead for dualing to Mage

Rahlik

Hey guys soooooo I have Imoen just about to level up to level 4. I'll be hitting 100 on lock picking so all good on that front. However as I have a new weapon proficiency to attach i was wondering what you guys generally do at trhis stage.

I was considering going for quarterstaff in an attempt to plan ahead for the switch to mage but im concerned it may be too early. the other option was single weapon style for the times she is in melee (I currently keep her back as an archer at present may switch to melee now i have the +2 whistling short sword off of basillus [I think that's where i got it at least]). Possibly even two weapon style while dual wielding 2 short swords even.

Any sugestions?

Zutti

Imoen has poor strength, thief(then mage) thac0, and would only have 1 pip in two-weapon fighting. She is not good in melee.

Single weapon style is probably your best bet for the extra AC shoudl she get caught in melee.

Rahlik

Yeah I was wavering between single weapon and quarter staff. I guess the single weapon would be more useful for me right now unless i want to save specialization points later on by going with stave now (i mean for bg 2 also of course).

Debaser

@Rahlik - I dual her like this:

LVL 6 Thief / LVL 9 Mage

When she's a Thief she gets:

+Short Sword
+Short Bow
+Single Weapon Style OR +Two-Weapon Style.

At LVL 1 Mage I give her

+Dagger OR +Darts

At LVL 6 Mage I give her

+Quarterstaff Or +Darts

She gets the Golem Heart Dagger (+2) as a mage pretty quickly and for free with some exploring in the south and it's pretty easy to afford good darts if you're doing well. So this way she has a good weapon while you're gaining your thief levels back.

If she's my only thief she gets 100 Thief Points in Find Traps and 100 points in Open Locks for Durlag's tower, etc. (But I wind up Shadowkeeper-ing 15 points from Hide in Shadows to do this)

If she's a secondary thief I put 100 points in Hide in Shadows and 100 points in Move Silently.

Here's why.

You go single weapon style when she's the only thief to give her an AC boost when she has to melee, keeping her more defensive.

If you have another thief you can spare otherwise going with Two-Weapon style for back stabs with Quarter staff is way more aggressive, and later on she can be given the staff of the Magi in BG2 which will turn her invisible as an instant use for more backstabs.

if she's more defensive, Dagger of the Stars or The Short Sword of the Mask make great weapons.

And there's a great throwing dagger in BG2. And a cloak that makes +5 darts which can hurt Kangaxx early.

So~

DEFENSIVE IMMY looks like this:

6/9 Thief/Mage (Making use of her XP cap in such a way that she gets 5th Level Mage Spell Access in BG1)

+Short Sword
+Short Bow
+Single Weapon Style
+Dagger
+Darts

100 Find Traps
100 Open Locks (With a slight nudge from SK, 15 points moved)

OFFENSIVE IMMY

6/9 Thief/Mage

+Short Sword
+Short Bow
+Two-Weapon Style
+Darts
+Quarterstaff

100 Hide in Shadows
100 Move Silently

If you want to make her really flexible offensively...you can SK the Short Sword to Single Weapon Style...Skip darts and pick Dagger too...it'd look like this.

+Single Weapon Style
+Short Bow
+Two-Weapon Style
+Dagger
+Quarterstaff

100 Hide in Shadows
100 Move Silently

She loses short sword but gets optimized for Backstabbing with Daggers and Staves this way.

I feel OK about altering Prof's and Thief Points...some people don't. But I usually like to take her...so I tailor her to the party I'm making depending the role.

I much prefer having another thief in BG1 and really making her deadly though. But usually...because there aren't many good NPC's to replace her in the thief department I go with the defensive build.

Her back-stabs will never be high level either way. (Only X3 Unless you play her as a straight thief to LVL 10 and transfer a character file that auto-saves from beating the game)

If you do that though, you lose out on one of the best Mages in BG1.

(Power-gaming wise she gets stronger as a thief base with X4 back-stab though throughout BG2 if you keep her straight with more flexible thief points, she can take 100 in Detect illusions to become better at Melee, or 100 in Pick Pocket for Stealing if she's the only thief in the party)

BG2 will dual her to a Mage automatically...so...if you take her to LVL10 kill Sarevok and import your game...she will start BG2 as a 10/11 Thief/Mage.

If you do take her to Level ten I would definitely take both Single Weapon Style AND Two-Weapon style so you can back-stab with Short Swords, Daggers and Staves in BG2 with the max bonus.

I know it's tempting to give her a Katana, or even a Longsword but it's not worth it Vs getting her optimized for backstabbing with the weapon classes she'll be able to pick up naturally. (Short Sword, Dagger and Staff rule the day with her anyway, deal way more damage and have better abilities as weapon classes than Katana for her since she's not a Warrior class.)

Those are the smart ways to look at her to my mind. But I'm big on numbers and I've been making a database of weapons and Mean Average Damage for them...so it's been kind of a fun thing for me to look at her very closely lately.

Lastly, I typically give her the Int Tomb...but Neera and Edwin are also contenders.

If she's the highest Charisma in the group I tend to give her the Charisma Tomb for dealing with Merchants and the Friends Spell.

Erg

I also recommend Single Weapon Style.

Also I wouldn't give her a quarterstaff proficiency when she levels as thief. Keep that eventually for level 6 as mage.

However imho is even better to give her dagger at level 6 as mage (I usually use staves for my second mage) both because I feel it is a more appropriate choice for a mage/thief from a roleplaying standpoint and there are several good daggers in the game (e.g. dagger of venom and all the nice daggers in BG2).

I normally give her sling (or dart) at level 1 as mage because she will not be able to use bows for a while and should be kept at range until she gets back her thief levels.

Just my two cents, feel free to try a different build if it better suits your play style.

Debaser

@Rahlik - Sorry for the novel, but I feel pretty strongly that she profits highly from getting critical hits with 19's and 20's in melee very highly since she only gets one base attack.

Rahlik

@Debaser -The indepth review is much appreciated! I've not had to make the choices with BG2 in mind previously hence my want to plan ahead. I am going to have a good think before levelling her with regards to whether to choose single weapon or 2 weapon style at this point also.

btw I'm levelling her to have 100 lock pick and my secondary was going to be find traps as she is my only thief in the party also. Regarding the charisma issue I have a main char paladin so thats not a problem for me

Debaser

@Erg - I give her darts over slings since everyone in my party tends to hog slings. =P And she'll get more attacks...but I like the way you think.

Rahlik

@Erg - You could be right about the quarterstaff; I seem to remember giving the staff of the magi to another mage in bg2 when i last played it.

Debaser

@Rahlik (You are totally welcome dude!) - I'd go with the first build if she's the only thief, (Defensive / Single Weapon, keep the AC bonus and use her more for spells and ranged support) and at 6 dual class her, you'll be 15 points short of 100 in Open locks and Find Traps. You can ShadowKeeper (there's threads here on getting it working for BGEE) and transfer the remaining 15 points very smoothly to whatever is leftover (She starts with 15 points put into Hide In Shadows, just move them) She won't back-stab ever but she'll get you through obstacles.

Even if you don't edit that...you can use potions to make up for whatever few locks or traps you can't figure out. The real bonus is getting her to 9th level as a mage. She uses very nearly all of 161K EXP...and gets essentially 6 levels as a thief free...since no other mage can gain levels in excess of 9.

Rahlik

I had a think and indeed did go for the single weapon specialization. I couldn't remember whether it was 6 or 7 best to dual but thanks for the help there also!

Debaser

NP! 7 is OK too, you get some extra Thief points, but you lose access to 5th level spells...it's not worth the trade...plus it takes FOREVER to level up to 7/8. Holy Toledo.

Rahlik

Yeah it would take a looooong time. I do hope however when we get bg2 ee that the levels and choices associated with npc's will remain as with those made in your bg ee playthrough. It would be interesting to go higher levels then dual later without sk ofc. :-)

Erg

Rahlik said:

@Erg - You could be right about the quarterstaff; I seem to remember giving the staff of the magi to another mage in bg2 when i last played it.

Also consider that if you choose a quarterstaff proficiency at level 4 as thief, she will not be able to use staves without penalty until she gets back her thief levels (you could eventually choose a second time quarterstaff at level 1 or 6 as mage, but that would waste a proficiency in the long run)

Rahlik said:

I do hope however when we get bg2 ee that the levels and choices associated with npc's will remain as with those made in your bg ee playthrough. It would be interesting to go higher levels then dual later without sk ofc. :-)

BG2 did not take in account user choices for NPCs, so Imoen would have her default proficiencies irrespective of your picks in BG1. In theory it was possible to have two different builds in BG1 and BG2, but I liked to use a modding tool (e.g. ShadowKeeper) to change her in whatever she was in BG1.

I don't know if EE will change that.

Rahlik

@Erg yep good point stave this early would not be the best choice. Yep shadowkeeper is good to get your original stats back for npcs, it would be nice if bg2 ee takes the npc as it is in the save game imported from bg ee though. Fingers crossed.

mlnevese

Yeap. I'd really like it if BG2EE could work as BGT does, offering full continuity from BG1, keeping stats, levels and xp for all the NPCs in your group when you import them from BG1.