Best Thief Build for Backstabbing/Melee?
shylaman
Member Posts: 173
I know this a BG:EE forum, but I am playing BGT. This forums seems more active than the ones I use to frequent for BG2.
Anyhow, my favorite class is a Fighter -> Druid (Kensai or Berserker). I am playing the game again and I have been trying a Gnome F/I (Lvl 4/4 right now or thereabouts). I was getting kind of bored and thinking of trying athief build. This would be for a BGT run through the whole series.
I remember a lot of buzz about Kensai -> Thief. However, how much would Kensai suck in BG1 portion? I'd probably dual at lvl9. How are they at melee? Great at backstabbing no doubt, but after that . . . I am sure with UAI much better, but that is way off.
So, what would be a good dual class build for a thief strong in backstabbing but still able to hold his own in melee?
Anyhow, my favorite class is a Fighter -> Druid (Kensai or Berserker). I am playing the game again and I have been trying a Gnome F/I (Lvl 4/4 right now or thereabouts). I was getting kind of bored and thinking of trying athief build. This would be for a BGT run through the whole series.
I remember a lot of buzz about Kensai -> Thief. However, how much would Kensai suck in BG1 portion? I'd probably dual at lvl9. How are they at melee? Great at backstabbing no doubt, but after that . . . I am sure with UAI much better, but that is way off.
So, what would be a good dual class build for a thief strong in backstabbing but still able to hold his own in melee?
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The benefit of Fighter->Thief is that you get better THAC0, better weapon proficiencies, and you can chug potions of strength for better backstabs.
So you could roll up a Quarterstaff Kensai, take some levels of that (9 or 13 depending on what you wanna do I think) then dual class to thief and you'll be good to go. You may want to focus more on hiding at first so you can backstab easier without using invisibility spells so you'll need a real thief to handle the thief bits.
@shylaman
fighter 7-> thief is fine. That way you at least have some backstabbing in BG1, and in BG2 you're rocking from the get go.
9+ if you want to maximum your damage. Or if you're playing Tutu or EE, you can just not level up until you have enough xp to hit 8 thief and GM on the level 7 dual as well. You miss a little bit of HP, but since you'll primarily be hit/fade any way, it's unnecessary.
13+ isn't really worth it, due to the downtime. The extra 1/2 attack doesn't do much for most of the game due to the large amount of situations you could and should be backstabbing, and is barely noticeable, due to being able to chunk things largely effortlessly in straight melee once you get your hands on some +5-ish weapons.
And extreme builds (anything dualing beyond 13) are utterly worthless, except as a proof of concept. Does this build produce truly ridiculous backstabs? Sure. Is it in anyway practical? Hell no, cause even solo (and you can forget party play) by the time you get high enough to pull it off, enemies are immune to backstab or not worth the effort vs just meleeing them into bloody chunks, and you just spent 95% of your adventure getting there so you can hit a 46 hp enemy with a 1,280 damage backstab, congrats...a 7/8 M/T can deal 146-ish at the start of BG2....which is over half hp the anything short of the Ravager or Demogorgon, 1 one hit. Hell most fighters will die in 1 hit or being near death (One-shotted Mencar Pebblecrusher with one of those).
If you go by overall viability, Kensai 13->Thief or Fighter/Thief.
These things are difficult to decide in a vacuum because of the many factors involved and the fairly small differences between the choices.
It's not all upside of course, but depending on your party setup and long-term viability, you're likely to gain more than you lose.
My concern is:
1) How is the Kensai going to be effective in BG1 portion of the game with no armor and no ranged weapons (except for throwing daggers)? He isn't going to be tanking without get chunked fast.
2) When he does dual and regains his Kensai abilities, I get that he rocks at backstab, but what does he do after that? I know once he gets UAI he is awesome, but what about the 40 hours of gameplay before that happens. How does he hold up in melee, again with no armor and no spells for ironskin/stoneskin?
Also, what weapons? Dual wield? Daggers sound like a must for ranged. And dual wield since you can't wear armor, you need the extra attack to kill things faster.
Other combos that I was thinking about are:
1) The WS -> T. With UAI, like the K->T, sounds awesome and should hold up better in melee earlier though missing out some magical goodies (I am not a heavy potion user, but girdles, rings, etc. would be missed). They cause spell failure on hit even through stoneskin and mirror image, cool.
2) Priest of Lathander -> T. Two instance of Boon of Lathander per day, self buffs like Draw Upon Holy Might and Righteous Magic, and backstab with a staff. Sounds like he could hold his own in melee, awesome at backstabs, and support with spells. The UI is clunky for this though, the limited weapon choice could be boring, and loses out on priest spells by dualing early.
I am playing with BGT and SCS/SCSii. Damn improved mages are a PITA.
1) Kensai require more micro to survive. Obviously they can't tank, but their damage output is okay. They aren't a very good class for BG1 however, where ranged damage dominates all...
2) Kensai are very good at melee combat. It's the whole reason for their existence, so to speak. That being said, 1) still applies before UAI - they can be squishy, but they also dish out.
As for weapons, dual-wield with any of the +APR offhands is an obvious choice, but you can also choose to maximize backstab damage and go for staff. Staff of the Ram does some pretty silly backstabs...
@elminster
"Quickly" is relative in every which way; relative your party size of course, but also relative in comparison to other dual-class choices. Obviously blanket statements make little sense in a game where almost all the variables are miles apart from person to person.
That being said, your reasoning is a bit off in my opinion. I agree that BS is strongest early on, but that is in fact more of an argument for a later dual. Why? Simply because with the diminished efficacy of BS later in the game, you want to have the non-BS melee power of a later dual. And think about it: even if you dual at 13, you'll still be a thief for quite a while and can backstab. The only time where you can't is 9-13 of your fighter levels, and trading that for added end-game viability can definitely be a worthy trade-off.
You do get UAI more quickly though, that is completely true. I suppose this adds a bit to the hassle of having to micro a Kensai for longer, but again, you can't decide this with a blanket statement; you can only present options, and have people decide for themselves.
But for my money, to play a character able to backstab and melee well throught the saga then you cannot beat a standard Fighter/Thief multi. Sure, you don't get the THAC0 and damage bonuses of the Kensai or Grandmastery, but you play the way you want to pretty much as soon as you leave Candlekeep. Plus, no downtime, minimal cheese and both fighter and thief HLAs. Not bad, all in all.
Though unless you get high enough in thief levels you'd miss out on Use Any Item.
7x backstab, 3 level 9 spells.
I prefer my build and going ham on everyone. Add in the 9 hells bonuses with the rest of my gear and my dude is nearly untouchable. Also he's the prettiest thing on the screen hahaha.
I made Yoshimo into a Kensai/Thief in one game, but I didn't get to a high enough level with him to get the full feel of the class. He was a beast at backstabbing though!
A level 13 Kensai/Thief using the staff of striking, gauntlets of weapon specialisation, with grandmastery in quarterstaffs is already going to do 21-26 damage prior to the backstab multiplier (meaning 105-130 damage with a x5 multiplier in BG2EE and 100 - 125 damage using the BG2 weapon proficiency table).
I'm thinking about a Long Sword/Dagger wielding two weapon fighting assassin for a full run through BG series. I'm not a great player and really don't care to be one, but I don't want to nerf myself. The following are non-negotiable in terms of proficiency:
Long Sword
Dagger
Dart
Two Weapon fighting (probably multiples)
I'd also like some blunt weapon just baseline proficiency. Since fighters get 4 at level 1, I'd probably go those four to start off with. I suppose I could do specialization in Sword thereafter at 3 and 6 but that pushes off blunt weapons for quite a while. Do I lose proficiencies when I switch over to Assassin? Specifically the Two weapon fighting?
Hmmm. Might have to think this through.
Any thoughts?
Since a thief can only become 'proficient' (1 pip) in any weapon or weapon style, you'll have to spread your 3 thief pips in 3 different categories. For that reason I would not spread your proficiency points so much as a fighter if I were you. That way you won't be wasting your 3 thief pips on useless proficiencies just because you don't want to place them in proficiencies already picked during your fighter levels. Instead you place them in clean proficiency slots you're actually going to use and possibly further develop once you're a fighter again.
For example you could start with 3 pips in dual wield and 1 in longsword. Or 2 pips in dual wield, 1 in longsword, 1 in dagger if you think you're going to want a ranged weapon proficiency - note that dagger proficiency also covers throwing daggers. At level 3 and 6 you could enhance one of the three aformentioned proficiencies, i.e. dual wield (if you only put 2 in there at level 1), longsword and/or dagger.
Your 3 thief pips could go to single weapon style (gets you a 10% single weapon critical chance, instead of 5%, nice with backstabbing), perhaps clubs (the only singlehanded blunt weapon with which you can backstab, and the mighty oak isn't bad), and one other weapon of choice (such as darts as you mentioned above, or shortswords).
You could also leave daggers untouched as long as you're a fighter (and pick clubs or maces or whatever instead, so that you have your blunt weapon earlier on). That way you can become proficient in daggers as an assassin while your fighter levels are inactive, and further develop your skill with daggers when you have your fighter levels back. You would then have for example, 3 dualwield, 2 longsword and 1 club/mace/hammer before dualling. In this scenario you would have no ranged proficiency while you're a fighter though.