Assassin/ Mage

Jagged

What do you guys think of the dual assasassin / mage? I'm planning on taking the assassin through bgee and dualing around level 10 or maybe 15. I was going to drop points into locks and traps and use invis for backstabbing.

So, is this a decent combo? I like the poison weapon so far in bgee. Does the poison effect work with melf's?


Thanks!

Nifft

Poison Weapon + MMM is solid gold, yes.

It's even nicer with Energy Blades, of course.

bill_zagoudis

imo assassin is the 'endgame thief'

you will have limited thieving skills,backstab like a normal thief,some uses of poison weapon,and the +1hit/damage

i don't think he can be your only thief,you'll probably have only pick locks/find traps skills

it's not bad ofc,the combos mentioned above are nasty for sure,it depends on what you're looking for in your character,personally i consider traps to be gamebreaking in many important fights,so i'd prefer a thief that can set them.

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Copastetic1985

If I were you, I'd forgo putting points in Traps, Locks and Detect Traps. Instead, scroll down to Detect Illusion and Hide/Move.

The reason is pretty simple. At level 10, you'd only have around 86 in each for Traps and Locks. Not exactly stellar, but not bad. Plus you can just use Imoen or a potion if neither of you can normally pick a lock or disarm a trap.

But with Detect Illusion, you can dispel illusions every round. It's a free True Sight. You can even do it after you attack and keep it up while attacking so that Mage can't put up illusionary defenses. This obviously has other incentives, like not having to waste a slot for True Seeing. Invisibility+Detect Illusions to keep you safe until the illusions are gone.

Hide and Move are no brainers for an Assassin. Even with Invisibility, its still good to have for when you're out of spells, and have no way to rest safely. I wouldn't invest too heavily in either, because of items that help the stats like Boots of Elven Kind, Shadow Armor, Cloak of Elven Kind etc.

Just my take. I'd put 100-110 in Detect, and the rest in Hide and Move, favoring Hide for BG1.

Lord_Tansheron

Dual at 5, 9, 13, 17 or 21, the breakpoints for BS multiplier. Choose whichever you feel most comfortable with for your party size/setup.

Don't fret too much about traps and locks. You can detect traps with a cleric, you don't need a lot of spells at that level anyway so you have slots to spare for Detect Traps. Locks you can pop with Knock.

Going for Detect Illusion is not a bad call (unless you are running with an Inquisitor). Never put points into Hide in Shadows, it's useless; dump it all into Move Silently. There's several items that increase it, and you can also use Invisibility or, to make things even more unfair, Mislead (cheese alert!). You can also (ab)use Staff of the Magi to get silly backstab-action.

Poison works well against many enemies. Interrupting mages through poison ticks is strong! Provided they even survive your initial backstab... Dual at 21, use Staff of the Ram, see them chunks fly!

AHF

Dual at 21 and you need to get 4.5 million experience before using your Assassin abilities. I would focus on the poison ability of the assassin and end up dualing at 10 (the next increment for the poison to increase). 750K is more manageable than 4.5M as a wait period during early BG2.