@Torin - that's the problem with "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards". In BG1/BGEE, nothing beats a good warrior and warriors rule with their superior attack power. (Or Archers). No thief, wizard or cleric can really match their survivability and damage potential. 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)
Actually, note that in ToB, fighters are still power houses. Improved Haste + Autocrit = I eat drugons fur brekfest LULZ
@SharGuidesMyHand - Assassin dualled to a Fighter? As a Thief (and Monk) player, I of course have pondered this. However...I don't think it's a good combination (and noone else does too).
Why NO : - low HP. Depends on how late you dual to Fighter, but still you will get lower HP by a large margin (1d6 as opposed to 1d10) - can't get Fighter's 18/xx strength +Thac0/dmg bonuses - Thieves have maximum 18 str on creation (Not counting the Strength Tome at the end of BG1 - that'll even things out in BG2) - Low thieving skills - VERY low thieving skills. Assassins need many levels and magical items to start being useful as a Thief and get on par with vanilla Thieves/Swashbucklers/F-T dualclasses. - Backstab multiplier stays low (one of the biggest Assassin's virtues only hits on high levels) - no Thief HLAs (which are arguably the best ones - Spike Trap (yeah...probably no traps either) and UAI)
Why YES : - "some" thieving skills, albeit low. - weak poison ability (afaik, Assassins poison ability scales with levels. Won't scale much if you dual on low levels.) - Fighter's HLAs (WhirlWind Attack anyone?)
This is the reason, why the common F-T dualclass is to dual Fighter to Thief and not vice-versa. Keeps fighting abilities and APR of the Fighter and gets lots of useful Thieves' skills. (You can dual Fighter on lvl 7 and still get to lvl 8 in BGEE. Or lvl 9 in BG2. to maximize APR - lvl 13)
If you'd like, I can propose 3 other options (save from the aforementioned F->T):
Blackguard - Gets a very useful Poison ability that scales with his levels. Plus the other funny Blackguard stuff. You won't even disarm a trap or stalk the shadows, but you won't need it and just steamroll thru everything. Can get a bit boring though.
Stalker - A warrior with Thieves' backstab and Stalking. Plus some minor spellcasting. I quite like this kit as you can backstab (one-hit-kill) the main mage of the group and stay in the fray and continue killing. (While the Thieves must beat it and retreat.)
Swashbuckler->Fighter - an AC/Thac0 powerhouse. Will get lessHP than a pure fighter, but gets better Thac0 and AC + quite lot of useful Thief skills. You'd usually switch to Fighter at level 10 which will get you +2Thac0/+2dmg and -2AC bonus. (can be done on lvl 5-7 in BGEE, but it means you'll only get +1 and -1 bonus). Only in case you don't care much about backstabbing.
I've tried pretty much all conceivable Fighter/Thief combinations now.
Assassin->Fighter is a tricky one. If you want to catch the Assassin backstab breakpoints, you'd have to dual at lvl 17 (x6) or 21 (x7). High-level duals come with a load of problems on their own. Also, as someone mentioned earlier there is a reason everyone duals FROM fighters: they have high base HP for levels 1-9. Dualing INTO fighter at higher levels than 9 completely negates that bonus.
If you just want poison on your weapon, let me just tell you it is not worth the sacrifice. It's a great thing to have sure, but you are better off going with a more "traditional" route of fighter/thief combo. That's not to say it's IMPOSSIBLE to go Assassin->Fighter, though; it definitely is. Just be aware and prepared that it'll be a headache to pull off!
Note on high level thief duals: if you dual at lvl 24 or higher and pick UAI, you will *keep it* throughout your dualled class progression, even if the thief levels are inactive. I believe this is an unintended feature caused by the way UAI works, but it's a handy thing to know if you do plan on doing some crazy high level dualing.
You can get more casts/uses of poison weapon with higher levels but the ability itself doesn't increase in damage or duration with higher levels.
I think I saw somewhere that it scales a bit (not much, but it does). But you are maybe right.
Unfortunately not. You can check it in Near Infinity itself or view the description (for Blackguard or Assassin) in-game but the only thing that additional levels does concerning it is give you more uses of it.
In BG2 poison use scales. It scales at 10 and 15. Roughly doubling in damage each time, with the 15+ version adds a save or be slowed for 4 rounds in addition to the damage.
I have checked the EE version and no it doesn't scale. But the BG2 version does.
Also the vanilla thief is the only thief kit that doesn't really benefit much beyond 13. By 13 they've maxed pretty much everything except PP, got their max BS, and their only further benefit is their theif snares getting a little more powerful at 16 and 21 and a few more uses. And earning roughly 60% more xp from traps/locks at 16 vs 11, and about 120% at 21 vs 11. And 11 is roughly double what you get at 6, and 6 is about 50% more then you get at 1.
BHs become God at 21+ (though 16-20 SUCKS, thankfully the regular snares get a huge power-up from the 11 version at 16) and Swashy get their large amount of stacking bonuses.
Assassin's are mixed bag. BS is worthless by the time they get x6 (forget x7) (x5 could already chunk anything short of a warrior at 13 already), but higher levels do mean they can finally start spairing points to utility skills. Their poison upgrades in damage at 10, and again at 15 (also gains a save or be slowed effect), and they continue getting daily uses every 4 levels. Which is where 95% of your damage will be coming from in late SoA and ToB. (I still argue that they should just remove the BS progression entirely, raise skill points to 20 and call it done......the +1 hit/damage and poison use is already plenty of benefit, especially since BS becomes worthless later on, before you even get the x6, unless solo/duoing. Assassin's are poison specialists, not backstabbers).
I've got a character rolled-up and stored for an Assassin->Fighter run, but I haven't started that playthrough yet. Nor have I ever tried this combination before, so I've no experience to go on.
Nevertheless, it looks interesting to me in theory. My plan is quite early dualling, at level 5 - i.e. as soon as the Assassin gets his 2nd use of Poison Weapon (and x3 backstab at the same time). That's only 10,000 XP, so I'll still be a level 8 Fighter by the end of BGee (same as if I hadn't dualled) and at the end of ToB I'll max at level 39 instead of 40, and that last level gains you nothing except 1 extra HLA (of which I'll have plenty by then anyway).
The cost is at most 5x15 - 5x8 = 35HP, which is non-trivial but survivable, while the main gain is a couple of uses per day of Poison Weapon (which is good for disrupting spellcasting as well as doing decent additional damage, especially considering that I'll have a Fighter's THAC0 so that I won't miss many shots), and the secondary gain is that when necessary I'll be able to go into Stealth (to do it reliably will mean switching into Thief equipment) and backstab at x3 - which isn't a huge backstab multiplier, but with a Fighter's THAC0 (and Grandmastery in his weapon) I can rely on the backstab hitting much more reliably than a Thief could manage. In the later stages, most significant opponents will have immunity to backstab so that'll cease to be very useful, but the Poison Weapon ability will remain useful throughout. (I'm not intending for this character to invest points in any Thief skills except stealth, so his other Thief abilities will be worthless and ignored.)
Thus it seems to me that the benefits of this combination might outweigh the cost ... although, as I've already said, I haven't yet tested this build in practice.
It seems like a solid plan. In truth I'm not sure the poison is worse the loss of HP and whatever other bonuses you'd have if you went with a different combo, but if you do want to play around with poison it's certainly one of the better ways to do it.
Honestly, I'd just go with a blackguard personally (once BG2:EE comes), if that's your main focus, since you'll be worthless for group utility dualing that low, which is the only reason thieves exist. And would get undead commanding and a bunch of powerful self-buffs once you got high enough for spell-casting.
If you just wanna kill stuff with poison, pure assassin is fine (to maximize daily uses and potency). Tuigan bow or darts can supply all the attacks you'd ever need, and if it's not enough, you can always IH for 6.
I'll side with @ZanathKariashi - if you like to poison things, an Assassin is still a good pick. My first BGEE playthrough was an Assassin (named Venom), who did not go the usual route of others = hide in shadows and backstab away, but instead focused on Snare Setting and ranged combat. With my snares, a bow/crossbow of speed, the poison, 19 Dexterity (after the Tome) and some +Thac0 items...my Assassin was mowing enemies down quickly.
The beauty of that route is that you can get locks/disarm/traps while still killing the hell out of stuff. And while not great, boots of stealth + shadowed armor and high dex can let you hide reasonably well if you still want to BS something (just make sure you're shadowed, you can't afford any penalties)..and in BG2, there's tons of options for invisibility from items (which unlike spell-based invisibility IS protected by the cloak of non-detection just like stealth).
BS just isn't worth it IMO for an assassin...that skill point penalty is absolutely crippling. At 20 per level a BH can do their thing, and stealth, AND still handle utility, while the assassin gets penalized for a bonus that is useless before they even earn it.
Honestly, I'd just go with a blackguard personally (once BG2:EE comes), if that's your main focus, since you'll be worthless for group utility dualing that low ...
My intention for the character is that he's mostly going to work as the main melee tank and party leader, but I'm sacrificing some HP in order to give him a special ability which I reckon might be useful in quite a few situations. Whether that's a worthwhile exchange is the point of the experiment.
No, he won't be entirely worthless for group utility even though he duals early. Putting all his Thief points into stealth, and carrying around a Shadow Armor and Boots of Stealth to change into when necessary, he'll actually have good enough stealth (100% Move Silently and 95% Hide in Shadows) to be a reliable scout throughout the series and a good enough backstabber when appropriate (x3 with a +4 weapon, and with an unbuffed THAC0 of -10 so that he's pretty likely to hit, is a decent backstab!) For a character who's primarily the chief tank, that's not too shabby an amount of side-benefit to contribute to group utility.
Yes, I could get the Poison Weapon ability automatically by using a Blackguard instead, BUT my Assassin->Fighter build is suitable for a Good-aligned party (which a Blackguard obviously isn't), and he'll achieve Grandmastery with his melee weapons (which a Blackguard obviously can't), so I reckon this might be an interesting alternative.
If you just wanna kill stuff with poison, pure assassin is fine (to maximize daily uses and potency). Tuigan bow or darts can supply all the attacks you'd ever need, and if it's not enough, you can always IH for 6.
Sure, in fact my current run is with a pure Assassin and that's exactly what I'm doing with him. It's working very well so far, although I'm not sure how well he'll do when he gets to ToB.
For the Assassin->Fighter build, though, I'm actually giving him Crossbow even though that'll be one less APR than he could get with Shortbow, because the party composition I'm planning will have other characters using Shortbows and the Assassin->Fighter will be mostly in melee rather than using his ranged weapon. I did consider Dart as his ranged weapon, and that'd be excellent for the first half of the series, but in the later stages a Dart-thrower can run short of darts which are good enough (in +THAC0 terms) to hit reliably (and the strength of Poison Weapon as a mage-stopper is to hit immediately to disrupt casting, but one poisoned hit is enough), so I reckon Crossbow might be a more reliable bet.
I'll try it and see how it goes, but first I'll finish my current run and then I've a different one in the pipeline, so the Assassin->Fighter experiment will have to wait a little while.
There's a +3 returning dart on the first floor of the watcher's Keep. Can easily stealth in to get it immediately out of the prelude if you want to. (has a nasty trap though on it though).
Or the boomerang dagger is pretty nice. 1 less attack then darts, but gets a str bonus. (can be upgraded to the Firetooth (dagger) in the Underdark).
In BG1, only a tiny handful of enemies have any hit requirements at all, and regular darts are fine for most of the game. Just stock any magic darts you find just in case (where mages are concerned, one hit is all you need).
@ZanathKariashi - yes, I know. The Crimson Dart and the Cloak of the Star are the only things which make it even worth considering Dart for the ranged weapon in the later stages, and I did consider it, but I decided that the better ranged THAC0 from a Crossbow and magic bolts was probably more useful for this build. (I agree that a Throwing Dagger is also a plausible option, but I'm planning on another party member who can use those pretty well.)
@Southpaw - thanks. I'll do so in due course, but it'll probably be a couple of months before I get around to actually taking this build out for a run.
@Southpaw - yes, that's exactly the plan. Of course that still gives one less APR than I could get with a Shortbow (in BG2) by using the Tuigan Bow, but I've explained my reasons for that choice.
Comments
Improved Haste + Autocrit = I eat drugons fur brekfest LULZ
As a Thief (and Monk) player, I of course have pondered this. However...I don't think it's a good combination (and noone else does too).
Why NO :
- low HP. Depends on how late you dual to Fighter, but still you will get lower HP by a large margin (1d6 as opposed to 1d10)
- can't get Fighter's 18/xx strength +Thac0/dmg bonuses - Thieves have maximum 18 str on creation (Not counting the Strength Tome at the end of BG1 - that'll even things out in BG2)
- Low thieving skills - VERY low thieving skills. Assassins need many levels and magical items to start being useful as a Thief and get on par with vanilla Thieves/Swashbucklers/F-T dualclasses.
- Backstab multiplier stays low (one of the biggest Assassin's virtues only hits on high levels)
- no Thief HLAs (which are arguably the best ones - Spike Trap (yeah...probably no traps either) and UAI)
Why YES :
- "some" thieving skills, albeit low.
- weak poison ability (afaik, Assassins poison ability scales with levels. Won't scale much if you dual on low levels.)
- Fighter's HLAs (WhirlWind Attack anyone?)
This is the reason, why the common F-T dualclass is to dual Fighter to Thief and not vice-versa. Keeps fighting abilities and APR of the Fighter and gets lots of useful Thieves' skills. (You can dual Fighter on lvl 7 and still get to lvl 8 in BGEE. Or lvl 9 in BG2. to maximize APR - lvl 13)
If you'd like, I can propose 3 other options (save from the aforementioned F->T):
Blackguard - Gets a very useful Poison ability that scales with his levels. Plus the other funny Blackguard stuff. You won't even disarm a trap or stalk the shadows, but you won't need it and just steamroll thru everything. Can get a bit boring though.
Stalker - A warrior with Thieves' backstab and Stalking. Plus some minor spellcasting. I quite like this kit as you can backstab (one-hit-kill) the main mage of the group and stay in the fray and continue killing. (While the Thieves must beat it and retreat.)
Swashbuckler->Fighter - an AC/Thac0 powerhouse. Will get lessHP than a pure fighter, but gets better Thac0 and AC + quite lot of useful Thief skills. You'd usually switch to Fighter at level 10 which will get you +2Thac0/+2dmg and -2AC bonus. (can be done on lvl 5-7 in BGEE, but it means you'll only get +1 and -1 bonus). Only in case you don't care much about backstabbing.
Assassin->Fighter is a tricky one. If you want to catch the Assassin backstab breakpoints, you'd have to dual at lvl 17 (x6) or 21 (x7). High-level duals come with a load of problems on their own. Also, as someone mentioned earlier there is a reason everyone duals FROM fighters: they have high base HP for levels 1-9. Dualing INTO fighter at higher levels than 9 completely negates that bonus.
If you just want poison on your weapon, let me just tell you it is not worth the sacrifice. It's a great thing to have sure, but you are better off going with a more "traditional" route of fighter/thief combo. That's not to say it's IMPOSSIBLE to go Assassin->Fighter, though; it definitely is. Just be aware and prepared that it'll be a headache to pull off!
Note on high level thief duals: if you dual at lvl 24 or higher and pick UAI, you will *keep it* throughout your dualled class progression, even if the thief levels are inactive. I believe this is an unintended feature caused by the way UAI works, but it's a handy thing to know if you do plan on doing some crazy high level dualing.
I have checked the EE version and no it doesn't scale. But the BG2 version does.
Also the vanilla thief is the only thief kit that doesn't really benefit much beyond 13. By 13 they've maxed pretty much everything except PP, got their max BS, and their only further benefit is their theif snares getting a little more powerful at 16 and 21 and a few more uses. And earning roughly 60% more xp from traps/locks at 16 vs 11, and about 120% at 21 vs 11. And 11 is roughly double what you get at 6, and 6 is about 50% more then you get at 1.
BHs become God at 21+ (though 16-20 SUCKS, thankfully the regular snares get a huge power-up from the 11 version at 16) and Swashy get their large amount of stacking bonuses.
Assassin's are mixed bag. BS is worthless by the time they get x6 (forget x7) (x5 could already chunk anything short of a warrior at 13 already), but higher levels do mean they can finally start spairing points to utility skills. Their poison upgrades in damage at 10, and again at 15 (also gains a save or be slowed effect), and they continue getting daily uses every 4 levels. Which is where 95% of your damage will be coming from in late SoA and ToB. (I still argue that they should just remove the BS progression entirely, raise skill points to 20 and call it done......the +1 hit/damage and poison use is already plenty of benefit, especially since BS becomes worthless later on, before you even get the x6, unless solo/duoing. Assassin's are poison specialists, not backstabbers).
Nevertheless, it looks interesting to me in theory. My plan is quite early dualling, at level 5 - i.e. as soon as the Assassin gets his 2nd use of Poison Weapon (and x3 backstab at the same time). That's only 10,000 XP, so I'll still be a level 8 Fighter by the end of BGee (same as if I hadn't dualled) and at the end of ToB I'll max at level 39 instead of 40, and that last level gains you nothing except 1 extra HLA (of which I'll have plenty by then anyway).
The cost is at most 5x15 - 5x8 = 35HP, which is non-trivial but survivable, while the main gain is a couple of uses per day of Poison Weapon (which is good for disrupting spellcasting as well as doing decent additional damage, especially considering that I'll have a Fighter's THAC0 so that I won't miss many shots), and the secondary gain is that when necessary I'll be able to go into Stealth (to do it reliably will mean switching into Thief equipment) and backstab at x3 - which isn't a huge backstab multiplier, but with a Fighter's THAC0 (and Grandmastery in his weapon) I can rely on the backstab hitting much more reliably than a Thief could manage. In the later stages, most significant opponents will have immunity to backstab so that'll cease to be very useful, but the Poison Weapon ability will remain useful throughout. (I'm not intending for this character to invest points in any Thief skills except stealth, so his other Thief abilities will be worthless and ignored.)
Thus it seems to me that the benefits of this combination might outweigh the cost ... although, as I've already said, I haven't yet tested this build in practice.
If you just wanna kill stuff with poison, pure assassin is fine (to maximize daily uses and potency). Tuigan bow or darts can supply all the attacks you'd ever need, and if it's not enough, you can always IH for 6.
My first BGEE playthrough was an Assassin (named Venom), who did not go the usual route of others = hide in shadows and backstab away, but instead focused on Snare Setting and ranged combat.
With my snares, a bow/crossbow of speed, the poison, 19 Dexterity (after the Tome) and some +Thac0 items...my Assassin was mowing enemies down quickly.
BS just isn't worth it IMO for an assassin...that skill point penalty is absolutely crippling. At 20 per level a BH can do their thing, and stealth, AND still handle utility, while the assassin gets penalized for a bonus that is useless before they even earn it.
It was pretty sweet.
No, he won't be entirely worthless for group utility even though he duals early. Putting all his Thief points into stealth, and carrying around a Shadow Armor and Boots of Stealth to change into when necessary, he'll actually have good enough stealth (100% Move Silently and 95% Hide in Shadows) to be a reliable scout throughout the series and a good enough backstabber when appropriate (x3 with a +4 weapon, and with an unbuffed THAC0 of -10 so that he's pretty likely to hit, is a decent backstab!) For a character who's primarily the chief tank, that's not too shabby an amount of side-benefit to contribute to group utility.
Yes, I could get the Poison Weapon ability automatically by using a Blackguard instead, BUT my Assassin->Fighter build is suitable for a Good-aligned party (which a Blackguard obviously isn't), and he'll achieve Grandmastery with his melee weapons (which a Blackguard obviously can't), so I reckon this might be an interesting alternative. Sure, in fact my current run is with a pure Assassin and that's exactly what I'm doing with him. It's working very well so far, although I'm not sure how well he'll do when he gets to ToB.
For the Assassin->Fighter build, though, I'm actually giving him Crossbow even though that'll be one less APR than he could get with Shortbow, because the party composition I'm planning will have other characters using Shortbows and the Assassin->Fighter will be mostly in melee rather than using his ranged weapon. I did consider Dart as his ranged weapon, and that'd be excellent for the first half of the series, but in the later stages a Dart-thrower can run short of darts which are good enough (in +THAC0 terms) to hit reliably (and the strength of Poison Weapon as a mage-stopper is to hit immediately to disrupt casting, but one poisoned hit is enough), so I reckon Crossbow might be a more reliable bet.
I'll try it and see how it goes, but first I'll finish my current run and then I've a different one in the pipeline, so the Assassin->Fighter experiment will have to wait a little while.
Or the boomerang dagger is pretty nice. 1 less attack then darts, but gets a str bonus. (can be upgraded to the Firetooth (dagger) in the Underdark).
In BG1, only a tiny handful of enemies have any hit requirements at all, and regular darts are fine for most of the game. Just stock any magic darts you find just in case (where mages are concerned, one hit is all you need).
BOLD MOVE COTTON. LET'S SEE HOW THAT PAYS OUT
@Gallowglass - Let us hear how that panned out (at least at the end of BGEE). I am actually genuinely interrested.
@Southpaw - thanks. I'll do so in due course, but it'll probably be a couple of months before I get around to actually taking this build out for a run.