Bounty Hunter Help
coryivm
Member Posts: 27
I'm interested in playing the thief class and the Bounty Hunter seems interesting to me. Is it viable as a bounty hunter to stealth and back stab and then spread traps around in BG:EE? If it is viable how should I allocate my thief skills?
Thanks!
Thanks!
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However from personal experience I can tell you that killing enemies primarily with traps can be somehow tiring gameplaywise. The traps are rarely ever enough meaning that you have to rest again and again. But if you are willing to do so then even dragons can fall easily (in BG2).
Also I should warn you that some undead take reduced damage from slashing and piercing weapons. Which means that backstab might be effective on undead but the restrictions on damage still apply.
Not sure if it can lead you to a more powerful build but maybe the most experienced players can help you with a better Bounty Hunter/Fighter dual class.
Here is my M.O.: Stealth-scout to reveal a boss. Walk back to a place where you can kite the boss and set your traps. Stealth back up to boss and backstab him. Kite boss into traps you set and you have often done a significant amount of damage before the enemy has landed a single blow.
Since setting traps are the Bounty Hunter's main thing, allocate a few more points to traps.
It's hard to tell someone how to spend their points, since it depends on your race and dex score where you need to stick things.
Don't put points in Hide ever, until every other skill is 100. Move silently gives you all the stealth you need, just wear boots of stealth (free and easy to get) and the shadow armor (fairly pricy, but it's your best armor, so wear it anyway) as soon as you're able.
Also, I have always heard that you should level Hide and Move Silently together. Is that not the case?
If it helps I'm planning on either playing a dwarf( I see that they get +10 to locks, +15 to disarm traps, and +10 to set traps) or human/half-orc for fun.
Put one dot in Quarterstaff so you can participate in melee without standing entirely up front, put one dot in a missile weapon (crossbow? shortbow?), and later on put a dot in two-handed style for more HUGE crits.
Can you backstab the undead with a Quarterstaff?
The dwarf is my fav for bounty hunters (they also can get natural regen and have the best saves of all the shortys). The gnome is pretty decent too, and his 1 point higher dex offsets his rather thin stat spread. Unfortunately, the halfling is the worst of the bunch due to poor str, otherwise they'd be a contender (though the fact dwarves and gnomes get free racial points in Detect illusion can't be overlooked), though their stat spread is a little meh.
The half-orc is only good at the beginning, but by the end, it's the worst race by far (they have no racial thief skills, so they're at a major deficient compared to the shorties, or even the elves/half Elves...hell..with that cursed giant str belt they added, the half-orc has no real benefit anymore, and the halfling, becomes...a little better. Still not fond of their stat spread, but they overall get slightly more thief points (5 more then a gnome, and 10 more then a dwarf) then the rest, even if they lack any other really outstanding abilities perks, and are equipment dependent until later in the sequel.
Thanks for the insight guys.
The half-orcs only advantage is his high starting str...they're inferior in every way to other classes (even humans, who can at least dual-class to something else at 11 or 13), especially if you don't power game since you'll likely NOT have 19 str in the first place.
That said, you can do ok, but your thief skill will be gimp'd until level 12 or so, compared to a shorty who get 40+ racial thief points, or Elves who get ~25, or even half-elves who get 20 and some charm resistance.
Basically, you trade early versatility for a stronger melee presence at the cost of a boat load of racial bonuses, both of which become about the same once you reach BG2 (aside from the bonuses which continue to be valuable all the way to the end), as by 12 a half-orc can still max every skill, and other races can have acquired the str manual and become just as strong, except halflings, who still can use the plethora of str belts.
@coryvim Shorties make the best thieves, both from a power-gaming AND role-playing standpoint. The reason they get awesome bonuses to their abilities from the very beginning is *because* the peepz who wrote DnD understood that someone small and evasive would be naturally better at thieving than humans.
The other thing I would say is that due to how many thieving stats there are, get another thief in your party. Level that Thief in the boring stuff (Find Traps and Open Locks first and foremost), so that you don't have to worry about leveling your own Thief with that stuff, just level them in fun stuff like Set Traps and Move Silently and such.
whereas shorty thieves aren't overpowered, but definitely the best choice for first rate rogues
i played a half-orc assassin once and without the super high dex of halflings and elves, or the thief stat bonuses of all shorties, even up to lvl 15 in bg2 i didn't feel like he enough points in his thief abilities
but the backstabs and use of poison was superb
I have Shar-Teel dualed to thief, and put all points in locks and disarming; she depends on the casters for invisiblity. Works great, even if there is a limit on spells. (I have 3 casters, but my jester also uses most of the spells and has the ring. Should be doable with 1 caster if you don't share the spells.)
A bunch of gibberlings needs no trapping or backstabbing, and for the battles where it does count, it's enough. So this can free up the skill points.
i'm thinking through a run where i have as many backstabbing possibilities as i can and use invisibility to lay down major damage. so far i'm thinking like this:
charname stalker
coran
shar teel f>t
imoen t>m
tiax
*NPC B*
the idea being to have char name, coran, tiax and share-teel stealth behind an opponent, with imoen casting invisibility on herself and *NPC B*. have everyone except *NPC B* attempt a backstab and then with *NPC B* having learnt Area Invisiblity, cast, become invisible again and repeat as necessary!
could be slightly overkill...