Shadow Dancer Kit!!!

qwert_44643

I love the shadow dancer kit,thats what i play in neverwinter nights series.Im still downloading the update but cant wait to read about it.

Wowo

Yeah that one sounds fun particularly for a solo play through but you'd want perfect stealth as soon as possible so you'd basically need a second thief for BG1.

Anyone considered different scenarios for minimum level for perfect stealth? (Perfect stealth: combined 200 points in hide/move silently though more is good I think due to some environmental influences).

Halfling with 19 dex:
35/35 base
50/50 level 1
70/65 boots
70/80 armour
100/95 level 4
103/98 dex tome

So that leaves 90 points to distribute after level 4.

Human with 18 dex and no armour (for dualing):
20/15 base
35/30 level 1
55/45 boots
95/95 level 7
98/98 dex tome

I think the only worthwhile shadowdancer build in Bg1 will be the pure variety with bg2 opening up some more interesting possibilities with x3 backstab before dualing.

I've not tried a pure class play through yet ...

toanwrath

Interestingly enough, my Half-Orc Shadow Dancer that is level 5 in the black pits currently has a x3 multiplier on backstabs. Glitch or error, possibly with Black pits? I think I'll file a bug report on this one...

Corvino

It's worth remembering that hide in shadows is far worse than move silently on a point-for-point basis. You can get a 100% chance to stealth and stay hidden without any hide in shadows points.

Initial stealth check uses an average of HiS & MS, so a high MS offsets low HiS.

Staying stealthed only checks MS, no HiS check at all.

With a shadowdancer's limited thief skill progression it's worth bearing this in mind.

Fenghoang

Corvino said:

It's worth remembering that hide in shadows is far worse than move silently on a point-for-point basis. You can get a 100% chance to stealth and stay hidden without any hide in shadows points.

Initial stealth check uses an average of HiS & MS, so a high MS offsets low HiS.

Staying stealthed only checks MS, no HiS check at all.

With a shadowdancer's limited thief skill progression it's worth bearing this in mind.

I never knew this. I just assumed it just took the average for all of the checks. Good to know =D

Debaser

Corvino said:

It's worth remembering that hide in shadows is far worse than move silently on a point-for-point basis. You can get a 100% chance to stealth and stay hidden without any hide in shadows points.

Initial stealth check uses an average of HiS & MS, so a high MS offsets low HiS.

Staying stealthed only checks MS, no HiS check at all.

With a shadowdancer's limited thief skill progression it's worth bearing this in mind.

@Corvino

So what does Hide In Shadows do that's any different from Move Silently in terms of game mechanics?

Corvino

Hide in Shadows does affect your initial attempt at stealth, but exactly the same amount as Move Silently. It does not affect checks to stay in stealth.

The way it's implemented seems a bit daft. Move silently is a better use of points in all situations currently.

_N8_

Does anyone know if shadowdancers can be dual classed? It might be a overpowered but it sounds like a really fun class. Especially if it can dual to illusionist or something.

Corvino

I'm not convinced shadowdancer would be the best dual. They get few thieving abilities so you could only really max out HiS & MS before dualling at 10ish.

Hide in plain sight is nice, and useful early on but you can achieve similar results with multiple invisibility potions. In BG2 you can get an invisibility ring & the ring of air control (which gives improved invis once a day) before leaving Waukeen's promenade letting you get multiple backstabs in one combat too.

That said, I've given thought to optimising a shadowdancer. Elf is a solid choice due to racial bonuses in MS & HiS. They also get the +1 THAC0 with swords to offset fairly horrible thief progression, and can start with 18 strength. If you use the Str Tome on them and end up with THAC0 3 better than a halfling. Dwarves can be useful if you intend to use them as a general-purpose thief due to find traps & open locks bonuses but suffer with low Dex, and halflings have better stealth bonuses.

Going long sword/single weapon style at the outset is probably optimal for the AC bonus and high crit chance. You could go scimitar for similar results, or shortsword. Dual wield will never be great due to inability to put in more than 1 point. You could use staffs, but the early AC bonus will be useful.

_N8_

@Corvino Yeah you bring up a lot of good points. They would need high levels of shadowdancer to make a viable dual character.

I was thinking that fighter/sd or mage/sd would be decent because stealth is essentially a free action. Casting invis, quaffing a potion or using a ring requires an action and there's some delay when using them. Also, their uses are limited.

I was thinking a mage/sd or cleric/sd would be decent because the insta-stealth and shadowtep would allow the character to vanish if in danger, or to gain some distance after casting a spell. And Black Blade of Disaster + backstab would be nice, if it's possible to hit anything with (assumedly) mediocre thaco. But would ~15 max levels of spellcaster be enough to make a decent character? Not sure.

Madhax

Shadowdancer seems like a pretty powerful dual option, provided there's another thief in the party to provide support skills. A shadowdancer would have to reach a very high level to have both good stealth AND all the thief support you'd need.

But apparently, among the many bugs associated with the kit, a shadowdancer is considered to have several "prime attributes" that makes dualling prohibitively difficult, even if the kit was operating properly. So this is purely theory for now.

Fenghoang

@Corvino Yeah, for a human with 19 Dex (Tome or other source), you'll need 10 levels in order to hit 100 HiS/MS. Although you can get by dualing at lvl 9 if you don't care about Shadowstep.

However, a lvl 9 SD -> Fighter is 610K XP (910K if @ 10) which is pretty reasonable. You get amazing THAC0 gain, Fighter HLAs, GM, etc. but lose out on the awesome Thief HLAs and totally useless in other thief fields.

TBH, I think a Fighter -> Thief or M/C is still as good, if not better, because Boots of Speed (or invis pots) allows you to restealth pretty easily anyway - at a much higher skill too (you will pass the check even in daylight). You can HiPS with a SD, but you suffer major stealth penalties (50% in the daylight and 30% inside) if you don't run to the shadows. You're sacrificing BS multiplier, thief utility skills, and amazing Thief HLAs for the benefit of HiPS and Fighter HLAs you probably won't utilize if you're HiPS/backstabbing most of the time.

Still... it's like almost having a Staff of Magi built into the class... You get a reveal time buffer, but you need shadows in order to vanish at a reliable rate.

Fardragon

Madhax said:

a shadowdancer is considered to have several "prime attributes" that makes dualling prohibitively difficult, even if the kit was operating properly. So this is purely theory for now.

It's not "prohibitivly" difficult to dual to fighter. It's just 15 Str, dex and cha. If you intend to dual to a fighter you need 17 Str anyway, so it's only the charisma you need to bother about. Clerics and Mages are a bit harder.

Wowo

Corvino said:

I'm not convinced shadowdancer would be the best dual. They get few thieving abilities so you could only really max out HiS & MS before dualling at 10ish.

Hide in plain sight is nice, and useful early on but you can achieve similar results with multiple invisibility potions. In BG2 you can get an invisibility ring & the ring of air control (which gives improved invis once a day) before leaving Waukeen's promenade letting you get multiple backstabs in one combat too.

That said, I've given thought to optimising a shadowdancer. Elf is a solid choice due to racial bonuses in MS & HiS. They also get the +1 THAC0 with swords to offset fairly horrible thief progression, and can start with 18 strength. If you use the Str Tome on them and end up with THAC0 3 better than a halfling. Dwarves can be useful if you intend to use them as a general-purpose thief due to find traps & open locks bonuses but suffer with low Dex, and halflings have better stealth bonuses.

Going long sword/single weapon style at the outset is probably optimal for the AC bonus and high crit chance. You could go scimitar for similar results, or shortsword. Dual wield will never be great due to inability to put in more than 1 point. You could use staffs, but the early AC bonus will be useful.

Halflings get more bonus thief points than elf. The best backstabbing weapon is a staff which also helps keep some distance from enemies which is more important than 1 AC IMO.

For strength just equip the belt, bracers or use DUHM (eventually). With longsword for thac0 it's a +2 vs +3 weapon comparison. For backstab damage looking at (4.5+2+2)*3+7+1=26.5 for long sword vs (3.5+3+6+1+2)*3+1=46.5 for staff of striking which is a massive difference (that is with 19 vs 17 strength too). Incidentally even if you just use the plain +3 staff available for purchase you still do more damage.

The best thing about halfling is that you can equip the claw of kazgaroth without penalty or using important items like the tome to compensate which eventually offsets any AC bonus the elf has.

Wowo

It also occurs to me that in general melee:
Staff +3 does more damage than Varscona (due to the +1 cold damage not being multiplied on crits)
Staff +3 has same thac0 as elf with sword (until comparing strength)

The conclusion there is that staff is always a better choice than sword even without the staff of striking so best to choose a race on other factors.

The +1 cold damage is a nice ability for interrupting mages but the +6 damage is a nicer special ability for the weapon class.

Corvino

The staff +3 does d6+3 damage to Varscona's d8+2+1(cold). The average damage of the two is 6.5. The sword has a higher maximum damage but a lower minimum. The two are pretty equivalent to an elf with the racial THAC0 bonus. If they're equivalent for damage then other factors e.g. Offhand use/SWF AC bonus come into play.

The staff of striking is a limited change weapon only available at the bottom of Durlag's Tower and thus very late-game. It may be the "best" backstab weapon but if you're backstabbing with it every round it'll get used up very quickly. I don't really consider it vecause just about the only foes you'll get to use it on are Sarevok & Aec.

As for halflings, the halfling does get better skills, but only by 5 points in stealth skills. I think the midgame strength difference with the tome is pretty significant, given that pure thieves cannot use the gauntlets of ogre strength, and the cursed belt is a limited commodity that makes a lot of NPCs far better.

Wowo

Corvino said:

The staff +3 does d6+3 damage to Varscona's d8+2+1(cold). The average damage of the two is 6.5. The sword has a higher maximum damage but a lower minimum. The two are pretty equivalent to an elf with the racial THAC0 bonus. If they're equivalent for damage then other factors e.g. Offhand use/SWF AC bonus come into play.

The staff of striking is a limited change weapon only available at the bottom of Durlag's Tower and thus very late-game. It may be the "best" backstab weapon but if you're backstabbing with it every round it'll get used up very quickly. I don't really consider it vecause just about the only foes you'll get to use it on are Sarevok & Aec.

As for halflings, the halfling does get better skills, but only by 5 points in stealth skills. I think the midgame strength difference with the tome is pretty significant, given that pure thieves cannot use the gauntlets of ogre strength, and the cursed belt is a limited commodity that makes a lot of NPCs far better.

You're forgetting the +1 damage from THF'ing style. The average damage of d8+2+1 is 7.5 which matches the staff when including the +1 from THF. However, when you include that the cold damage isn't multiplied on crits and backstabs the staff is in front.

Staff has 25 charges and doesn't cost much to recharge. Certainly the loot from Durlags will fund it for a long, long time. Considering that each hit will probably kill an enemy you can complete most quests without needing to recharge it.

Durlag's is certainly completable before the end of the game, just depends on when you want to do it. Personally I go there before I do the quests in BG usually but after I've cleared out wilderness areas. Now that I'm getting the hang of it I might try it sooner or at least parts of it sooner.

Halfling gets +5 hide and +5 MS for a total of +10. Overall they get +25 points over elves making them much more capable of becoming an actual thief in BG1 rather than just a backstab machine. Honestly I'd take dwarf or gnome over elf probably.

Break down of bonus points in total per race:
40 for halfling
40 for dwarf (35 if you don't care about detect illusion)
40 for gnome (30 if you don't care about detect illusion)
15 for elf (20 if you don't care about the penalty to open locks)
15 for half-elf (5 if you don't care about pick pockets)

Seems pretty clear to me. If strength is important (and it is, don't get me wrong!) then dwarf or gnome is the obvious choice, otherwise halfling.

When you include variations in dex it becomes:
start -> tome
50 -> 56 for halfling
30 -> 40 for dwarf
40 -> 50 for gnome
25 -> 31 for elf
15 -> 25 for half-elf

I guess it's much of a muchness overall, particularly if you remove detect illusion. I think on balance that halfling still takes it as the bonus points will translate to a level or 2 sooner that you can be a thief and the thac0 bonus to darts might be handy too.

Fenghoang

Wowo said:

Break down of bonus points in total per race:
40 for halfling
40 for dwarf (35 if you don't care about detect illusion)
40 for gnome (30 if you don't care about detect illusion)
15 for elf (20 if you don't care about the penalty to open locks)
15 for half-elf (5 if you don't care about pick pockets)

Just nitpicking here, but you forgot to factor in the effects of max Dex on thief skill points.

A more accurate representation would be like this (not including stat boosters):
125 for Halfling
100 for Elf
95 for Gnome
65 for Dwarf
55 For Half-Elf
45 for Humans

Also, note that each point of Dex above 17 adds +5% to each thieving skill (excluding Detect Illusion), except HiS/MS after 19 Dex (which adds +3%).

EDIT: Also, being able to boost from 18 Str -> 19 Str is HUGE for a Thief (especially a pure-class). You can work around this with Str belts, but you'll deprive one of your other party members in the process.

Corvino

Realistically the only way you're going to have a useable find traps skill is with both racial bonuses and using gear to avoid maxing stealth skills. Boots of stealth and the shadow armour mean that you can free up 40 skill points for other stuff.

So by level 10 you will have just about enough points as a halfling to scout for traps in Durlag's tower if you use potions of perception, and can stealth reliably with shadow armour and boots of stealth, provided you use the Dex tome yourself.

When their backstab multiplier gets fixed I doubt shadowdancers will be worth it compared to Assassins, Fighter/Thieves or even vanilla Thieves. You get a unique ability that can be replicated effectively with potions and trade off almost all of your thieving utility to get it. They might be fun but will demand a lot of micromanagement to be effective in combat and cannot be a functioning party thief until SOA levels.

Wowo

Corvino said:

Realistically the only way you're going to have a useable find traps skill is with both racial bonuses and using gear to avoid maxing stealth skills. Boots of stealth and the shadow armour mean that you can free up 40 skill points for other stuff.

So by level 10 you will have just about enough points as a halfling to scout for traps in Durlag's tower if you use potions of perception, and can stealth reliably with shadow armour and boots of stealth, provided you use the Dex tome yourself.

When their backstab multiplier gets fixed I doubt shadowdancers will be worth it compared to Assassins, Fighter/Thieves or even vanilla Thieves. You get a unique ability that can be replicated effectively with potions and trade off almost all of your thieving utility to get it. They might be fun but will demand a lot of micromanagement to be effective in combat and cannot be a functioning party thief until SOA levels.

Above it is demonstrated that a level 4 halfling shadowdancer an get 201 points in stealth (however you distribute them between hide and MS). Assuming this is enough then the left over points can be distributed as follows:
PP: 35 base +5 tome +10 DUHM =50
Open Locks: 35 base +5 tome +10 DUHM +10 points +40 potion of MT = 100
Find Traps: 20 base +5 tome +10 DUHM +20 potion of perception +45 points =100
Set Traps: 10 base +5 tome +10 DUHM +35 points =60

So, can do Durlags tower at level 7?

Corvino

I had literally never considered DUHM as a find traps booster. That thinking is genius but slightly unsettling. You would need to rest a lot in order to use it repeatedly though, and thus would need many potions of perception.

I will admit that you can use a shadowdancer as your party thief if you use a halfling, use the dex tome, and use DUHM and potions of perception all the time. But this is a lot of effort to duplicate the effect of a regular thief with a couple of potions of invisibility.

Wowo

Corvino said:

I had literally never considered DUHM as a find traps booster. That thinking is genius but slightly unsettling. You would need to rest a lot in order to use it repeatedly though, and thus would need many potions of perception.

I will admit that you can use a shadowdancer as your party thief if you use a halfling, use the dex tome, and use DUHM and potions of perception all the time. But this is a lot of effort to duplicate the effect of a regular thief with a couple of potions of invisibility.

The extra 10 points from DUHM isn't needed very often so just use as appropriate. You can add or substitute bard song and luck spell there as you like.

Both of my game completions have relied on potions of perception and mastery thievery for the hardest traps and locks in the game and I never had an issue with it as there's so many and they can be purchased easily. On the flip side there aren't many invisibility potions and they are a precious commodity, recharging the sand thief ring is expensive too iirc.

Also, such invisibility isn't instant so you can't backstab 1/round like a shadowdancer.