Need help with Swashbuckler (bug or my mistake)
Torin
Member Posts: 229
I just made an Elf Swashbuckler. Str 18, Dex 19, Con 16. I put 2 points into Scimitar/Ninja-to/Wakizashi proficiency. When I equip Ninja-to or Scimitar (non-magical), on char sheet it says my to hit is 17 and I only get 1 attack per round. It says I do 5 to 12 damage.
It seems like my 2nd point into weapon proficiency is not giving me any bonuses.
Did I do some math wrong or is this a bug? Is this a known bug?
It seems like my 2nd point into weapon proficiency is not giving me any bonuses.
Did I do some math wrong or is this a bug? Is this a known bug?
0
Comments
Edit: For the record its not a bug. If you look in the manual or in-game at the descriptions for weapon specialization it states so.
Warrior classes (Fighter, Ranger, and Paladin) and their respective kits gain +1 THAC0, +2 damage, and +1/2 APR.
Anyways, the point is that the swashbuckler is far from useless. Aside from the lack of backstab, its thieving is as good as that of a vanilla thief. Its bonuses also make it a very good melee fighter. All this while leveling as a single class thief.
That said, as I've argued before, I wouldn't mind see the bonus progression sped up, but capped sooner. Speeding it up to +1 per 3 levels, but capping at 15, would make the swashbuckler's bonuses more tangibly useful while also making them only comparable to a fighter by ToB, rather then flatout superior. Though I'd also recommend dropped the thief skill points to 20 instead of 25 if that change was applied and changing the hit/damage bonus to only affect melee attacks (which is also supposed to apply to the kensai's bonuses as well).
If you can stick it all the way to BG2:EE it'll even out. You can still use them as a competent party thief, or consider putting a point in crossbows/shortbows in the short term to make them more useful at low levels. You won't be wading into melee with a sword in each hand before level 4 minimum, 8-10 recommended though.
I agree that swashbuckler is a decent choice for a thief, certainly one that is very easy to live with as you don't need to micromanage so much. It's still nowhere near a fighter in melee power, and AC becomes almost irrelevant halfway through BG2 anyway as enemy THAC0 progression is insane in the later stages of the game. -10 or -15 isn't really a noticeable difference...
Because swashy can get WWA, they can out damage a non-kensai fighter, which while Spike trap is definitely superior damage, it's also situational and can't be used if you can't get enough room to drop one). 10 attacks, is 10 attacks, and the swashy gets +5 more per hit, and can use spells to easily pump their thac0 so high they can't miss except on a 1, and can easily use any weapon a fighter can, even if they can't specialize in it, but it reduces the advantage to +3 damage per hit (on par with a berserker/thief and slightly under a 13 dual Kensief). And even without WWA, they deal enough damage with dual-speed weapons under IH to compete with a fighter, while not out-rightly surpassing them, but again, have no downtime, penalties, and get a bunch of extra frills and is effective vs 95% of enemies in the game.
We've covered this in depth before in the other argument. They're superior to anything but a 15+ dualed Kensief, and don't require any downtime at all to achieve it, while having no penalties either and a lot of benefits.
And as for hit... do remember that thief base THAC0 caps out at 10 (lvl 21+), while fighters go to 0. Even at lvl40 a swashbuckler only gets +8 bonus, leaving them 2 behind.
Using WWA doesn't really help that either. A fighter can use GWW or, even better, use IH in conjunction with Critical Strike (which swashbucklers don't get at all).
As for AC: I'm not too well versed in the actual numbers; a quick glance over the creature files for my (modded) game showed me several enemies in ToB with ridiculous THAC0s though, -10 and lower. That makes even -20 AC a 50% hit, doesn't it? Not terribly effective. There's also the fact that the bulk of dangerous damage is magical and/or unavoidable; AC just isn't very good in late BG2/ToB. That might just be my mods, though, it could be better in the vanilla game. Still... even there I'd wager you aren't making your swashbuckler with "tanking" in mind.
Just to clarify: I totally agree that swashbucklers make for great thieves, and are a good addition to most parties. I just disagree with the apparent perception that they are in any way comparable or "competitive", as you put it, with fighters (not to mention fighter dual/multi combinations). It's important to keep that in mind.
WWA is just as good as GWW, because they have options to eliminate the miss chance, via casting from scrolls. A F/T can do it too, but then the swashy has hit/damage/ac over what a fighter can POSSIBLY have. They are better. Only a Kensai, as mentioned several times can do better, and spends most of the game with hefty penalties until they can get UAI, and requires a 15+ dual, which requires pretty much all of SoA in solo play to realize, while utterly lacking in utility over all prior to dual-ing, for only a MARGINAL benefit over what a swashy could've provided for much less effort and time wasted not playing the class you intended to play.
Overall fighter's cant touch swashy's. And even at the end-game, swashys are simply better then a fighter can EVER be..this is without contest and is factually backed up.
Fighter's do a tiny bit more damage compared to the Dual-speed/IH route, but here's the thing...It's all overkill. And it doesn't matter, because you physically cannot benefit from the 2 potential attacks a fighter has because there's not enough time to move to a new enemy and begin attacking.
I mean $%#^, anything over 4 attacks is wasted unless it's a dragon or some other high hp enemy that can actually withstand 6-7 attacks in a round, the ravager or Ascension Yaga-shura are the only enemies can survive 2 rounds of 10 attacks with a FoA. A swashy can drop demogorgon in 1 round. A swashy can drop the ravager in 2 rounds....just like a fighter can using the same weapons (and does so with 2.5 attacks worth of damage to spare so even if they miss their projected 5% of the time, they can afford it). Even a pure Kensai still requires the same amount of time to drop them, 1 round and 2 rounds respectively.
In regards to what's a helpful discussion, I don't think a blanket assumption of "chunking everything" is of much informational value. Your construct your line of argument in a way that is biased towards your position, but that's based on a premise that is not shared by everyone (i.e. playing the game in a very easy state).
It's true that vanilla is a fallback position that could be used as common ground, but I think it's more fruitful to expand the discussion to a broader audience instead of finding a small denominator. As such, "theorycrafting", as you put it, is quite important; nonetheless I agree that a practical aspect has to be given due consideration.
Let's go through your arguments one by one, and see how they hold up in such a scenario. Both paragraphs are connected, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean by them. Do you assume an infinite supply of Tenser's Transformation/Time Stop scrolls? I don't recall anything else influencing hit chance. I agree that swashbucklers have an advantage when using WWA, at least in terms of raw damage; however, I do not agree with your position of viewing everything as incredibly small chunks of combat that last mere seconds. While it may be true in some setups, those are situations that specifically favor swashbuckler-style combat; you cannot generalize from such a scenario. For me, combat often lasts minutes, not seconds; considerations beyond a window of half a WWA are of considerable importance to me. Other people will have different experiences still, and basing your entire position on your particular situation does not really help them.
You must not forget that a swashbuckler with WWA is *only* better if the fight really does last just one round, and *only* if the THAC0 penalty is not overly relevant or compensated through (limited) scroll use. In practice, even if you do defeat an enemy that quickly, there will be other enemies around most of the time. Moving around, the one who actually loses the most in damage efficiency is the swashbuckler, not the fighter; simply because outside of the tiny burst window you are looking at, their sustained APR drop off considerably (or their damage does, in a dual-APR-weapon setup). Fighters on the other hand have no trouble maintaining constantly high APR *and* high damage. You list WWA for swashbucklers, but you conveniently omit Critical Strike, which a fighter can use in conjunction with IH to gain either ludicrous amounts of damage (against "regular" mobs), or high sustain (against crit-immune mobs).
As you can see, your entire argument hinges on whether all your fights last <6 seconds or not. While you can certainly craft some portions of the game towards that scenario, I seriously doubt that this constitutes the bulk of your game play. And do keep in mind: the swashbuckler's damage advantage only comes into play at higher levels; a warrior's APR cap at lvl13. At that point a swashbuckler will have +3 damage (lvl15), not to mention that HLAs don't play a role at all at these levels.
<blockquote class="UserQuote">
Only a Kensai, as mentioned several times can do better, and spends most of the game with hefty penalties until they can get UAI, and requires a 15+ dual, which requires pretty much all of SoA in solo play to realize, while utterly lacking in utility over all prior to dual-ing, for only a MARGINAL benefit over what a swashy could've provided for much less effort and time wasted not playing the class you intended to play.
While not part of the original discussion per se, I think it merits mention that you are misrepresenting Kensai->Thief a bit. While it's arguable how "hefty" a penalty the AC loss is, you certainly do not require 15+ to dual; in fact, you should do it at 13. That means you need 880.000xp to regain the class, which is fairly easy to do with proper planning - certainly a far cry from "pretty much all of SoA in solo play". You are throwing gross hyperbole out there to back your point, without any actual consideration for the facts. This continues on: the benefits of a kensai are far from "marginal"; the innate damage/hit bonuses you gain are equal to a lvl20+ swashbuckler, and you conveniently forget Kai completely. Kai is a *major* source of damage for a kensai, and a big part of why they are so good (especially with weapons like katanas, that have a large damage range). As to effort and what class you want to play... well, these things are subjective. If you want to play it this way, do it; if you don't, don't. Not a real discussion, personal preference is personal. If however you go by objective power... then the argument becomes more complicated, and goes well beyond mere combat performance. You keep saying things like that, but all the "facts" you present are biased examples of what is basically anecdotal evidence. Your *entire* argument pretty much hinges on this: You mention Ascension, yet you claim that you kill everything in 2 rounds. I haven't played Ascension without SCSII in a long while, but I do seem to recall that there's plenty of enemies requiring more than 12 seconds to beat. I think you are grossly misrepresenting the numbers here, and going off of constructed ideal scenarios designed to favor your side of the argument. I do not doubt that it may be possible to do what you claim; I simply do not think that these scenarios have any application value to other people, and are artificially created examples.
It seems to me that you should try upping the difficulty of your game first, before making wild and hyperbolic claims.
I've hopefully provided a structured argument here, and if you disagree I'd like you to respond in kind. I'm anxious to hear how you justify your choice of example and circumstances, and how you think these are valuable information beyond your specific personal setup.
The key though is experience, there are windows between defenses when you can smash an enemy to chunks. And to be honest I actually don't feel that WWA is needed AT ALL, except vs the +4 req enemies. They still deal enough damage with 9 attacks under IH with speed weapons to chunk anything but dragons in a round.
The main issue is, there's too much overkill. None of the arguments matter, because it's going to take the same amount number of rounds to kill the enemy, and it doesn't matter what class you are as long as you can get about 8 or so attacks per round that can hit the enemy.
The Shakti figurine also boosts Thac0 to that of a fighter's with a few buffs on top and is once per day (and is acquired right at the beginning of ToB). The reason though it works is because there aren't all that many enemies where it actually matters so there are PLENTY of tenser scrolls to go around, party depending of course. Nalia/Imeon/aerie/edwin/Jan don't need them ever, and Har'daelis needs dual-speed weapons himself to not be worthless so there's no point in bringing him if you're a swashy yourself. And that's assume you actually WANT to kill them in Melee....The swash is better at 10 attacks...this fact. But they don't even NEED it. You only need like 4 WWA uses per day to clear Ascension (and keep in mind my rest restrictions), with the rest devoted to UAI and Spike traps, since while the swashy is better, that doesn't mean it's more efficient then just dropping and leading the enemy into a spike trap or 2 or even the regular thief snares become absolute monsters after 21.
Just go re-read the swashbuckler argument from the apr topic. I really don't wanna have to type all that again.
Swashbucklers get good enough over time that in Throne of Bhaal people will have arguments over who is best in melee and they're arguably a contender. They start weak in melee, develop to be good in melee at about level 10 and then get very good later on. They are a competent thief throughout, and seeing as no-one in their right mind plays any other pure thief to TOB they get the most points to spare for Traps, Locks, Illusions, Stealth and whatever else takes your fancy.
Also, at ToB, even the Assassin will have enough thief points to cover almost everything (And Swashbuckler will have more points he can reasonably use)
I love playing as various thief Kits and multis and have completed TOB with swashbucklers and fighter/thief multis and duals, but playing a pure thief (or bounty hunter) to the endgame does seem underpowered in combat and superfluous in terms of thief skills quite rapidly.
Only good thing to do with him would be to start as fighter and then dual him to swashbuckler, but can you dual to kits? Can you dual from one kit (lets say Blade) to another kit (Swashbuckler) ?
So Swashy -> fighter is fine, fighter -> swashy isn't.
I tried Swashbuckler->Fighter before, and found it decent. A little low on HP, but of all the thieves I've played I liked that one the best. I've since stopped using thieves altogether and never miss them, but if you do want one I can heartily recommend that combination, especially for harder, modded games (where backstabs aren't very useful).
By the time you hit levels 15+ in BG2, the mages will take over as the leading "Powerhouse" and keep it till ToB (where -arguably- the thieves take over with their Spike traps and UAI cheesiness)
I took a fighter to lvl 7 in BG1EE and dualed him to Swashbuckler (thanks to keeper magic!) this let him have grand mastery and the swashy bonuses turning him into a living Cuisinart. He basically stayed the same frontliner he was as a fighter only better and he has thief skills that progress into bg2/tob. And while some may poo poo that as useless I like that I can have super stealth and pickpocketing despite penalties from environment/lighting/perception. I also like this character getting Use Any Item.
Still technically it IS cheating. If you wanted to be legal you'd go Swashy as far as you felt necessary then swap to fighter.