A Shadowdancer's Endeavor

[Deleted User]

I decided to start a new playthrough of BGEE after seeing all of the sturm und drang regarding the changes to the Shadowdancer. I could see tactical potential in the kit even without backstabbing, but wanted to test things out instead of theorizing.

General character build:

I made use of Freche's auto-roller to get a nice 90+ roll and made a Human, because when BG2EE rolls out I want the option to dual-class into Mage. I would also like this character to be capable of serving as the only party thief in BG2EE even if dual-classed at 10 (though I'd use Yoshimo until I got my Thief levels back at least), even if I end up using Imoen or Nalia anyway. This is going to require some sacrifices and planning; first, I had to give up the idea of having a 99% chance of entering stealth at all times, even in broad daylight. Even an unkitted human thief would have trouble reaching that point by level 10. Instead, I'll aim for 99% chance to hide in darkness, aided by stealth items. Likewise, Open Locks will have to fall by the wayside a bit; during BGEE I can easily fill that with a second thief (practically all the NPCs will boost Open Locks on their own anyway), and Open Locks can be boosted 40% by potions of mastery thievery or replaced by Knock if need be. Find Traps I'll aim to have at 80 after using the Dex Tome, which will let me potion of perception my way to success in BGEE, and use the Ring of Danger Sense for the same in BG2EE. So my base goal for skills looks something like this (pre Dex-tome):

Open Locks: 55
Find Traps: 75
Move Silently: 75
Hide in Shadows: 75

This should be achievable by level 9, which will give me an extra 20 points to play around with, either to improve Open Locks to the point that I can open any lock with the Ring of Lock picks, or to shore up MS/HiS, which would let me replace the Boots of Stealth with Boots of Speed.

Originally my proficiency plan was to start out with Long Sword and Crossbow proficiency, but that was before I decided I was going to drop Imoen, to solo early on for faster leveling, and add Shar-Teel. So I switched to Short Sword and Shortbow, which is just as well because light crossbows are lousy kiting weapons. At level 4 I'll add dagger proficiency for the dagger of venom, and at level 8 I'll add a pip in single weapon style (though in late BGEE I may just use Kiel's Buckler.

Strategy:

As mentioned above, I plan to solo for a bit at first in order to get some levels (and skills) under my belt. So far for my party I've determined that I want to recruit Branwen, Shar-teel, and Coran. I'm undecided as to who else to use, although obviously I'm missing some magery, and it wouldn't hurt to add another front line character. I could pick up Minsc and Dynaheir and kill two birds with one stone, or I could pick up one of the free agent mages (or even two, Branwen and Shar-teel might be enough of a front line). Kagain is out, because he annoys me.

Game so far:

I've only just started, so I've merely made my way to the Friendly Arm Inn. No mishaps so far, although it took me quite a while to finally kill the fetish ogre thanks to my lousy starting THAC0. On the other hand, I didn't take a scratch, despite also running into a gibberling and a wolf in the process of kiting him around, because if anyone started getting too close, I could just focus on running until I successfully stealthed and then reposition to maximum range before resuming the attack with my bow. I hit level 2 after arriving at FAI and retrieving Jaia's flamedance ring, and Tarnesh didn't give me any trouble, as when he went to cast Horror I stealthed and then hung about until the nearby guards took care of his mirror images for me.

My next stop will probably be the basilisk garden by way of Beregost. I'm thinking about recruiting Shar-teel early so I can control her proficiencies, but I might not worry about it. As long as I can get her 2 pips in Long Sword I'll be satisfied.

sarevok57

if you want two other team mates what about dorn and Edwin/baeloth? dorn is a great front liner, and either Edwin or baeloth have some great arcane casting power

[Deleted User]

Alright, so I made my way to Beregost without incident and hit level 3 when I talked Marl down in Feldepost's Inn. Next was the Silke fight, which was educational. The best way to approach spellcasters seems to be to leave the shadows just outside their field of vision, wait for the cooldown on hiding, then edge into view. It is possible to get spellcasters to waste high speed spells like Magic Missile, but you have to be quick, as once the spell is in the air it will hit you (and you don't want to be taking Magic Missiles to the face on your low level thief). It took me a couple tries to realize this, but once I had the timing down Silke was pretty easy to take out. Karlat was basically the fetish ogre all over again; between stealthing and running around tables, I was in no danger of getting attacked, but his high AC and shield against my poor THAC0 and low damage meant it took a while to finally kill him.

After picking up quests in Beregost, I decided to postpone my trip to the basilisk gardens to retrieve Zhurlong's Boots, as I knew the hobgoblins would be pushovers and the stealth bonus from the shoes would be very handy. Killed the ogrillions on the way and retrieved the shoes (avoiding the Flaming Fist patrol for now). Took the shoes back to Zhurlong and then promptly killed him, getting me to level 4. I decided that was as good a time as any to recruit Shar-teel and so I picked up Kagain and headed East (picking up a couple of stone to flesh scrolls on the way). I recruited Shar-teel, laid off Kagain, and proceeded to use Korax to clear out the basilisks and Mutamin, getting to level 5 in the process.

Next came the fight against Kirian's group. By sneaking and skirting around the edge, I managed to waste Peter's spells and drew him away from the group, with Lindin in tow. This led to me discovered one of the Shadowdancer's strengths: Normally when kiting having two enemies in play is tricky because you have to have two party members running around, neither of which are getting many opportunities to attack. With the Shadowdancer, it is trivially easy to lead one of the enemies off and hide to shake them, allowing you to concentrate on the other. Once those two were down, I could sap Kirian's spells and draw her off for Shar-teel and myself to kill, leaving Baerin. Baerin being an archer meant that kiting wasn't an option, so I stealthed into melee range to force him to switch to melee, then brought in Shar-teel, who was now dual-wielding long swords +1 from his comrades, to tank him. He switched over to Shar-teel of his own accord, but if he hadn't, I could have easily stealthed for a moment to aggro dump.

After that, I took care of some shopping in Beregost, picked up the potion case from High Hedge, then headed down to the Carnival to recruit Branwen. Once I had her in the party, I killed Zordal, which got me to level 6. At this point I should probably set about recruiting the rest of my party, but I still haven't settled on who I'm going to take besides Coran.

Current skills at level 6:

Open Locks: 35
Find Traps: 35
Move Silently: 75 (95)
Hide in Shadows: 75 (90)

[Deleted User]

sarevok57 said:

if you want two other team mates what about dorn and Edwin/baeloth? dorn is a great front liner, and either Edwin or baeloth have some great arcane casting power

Believe me, Edwin and Baeloth are on my short list. Dorn I'm not sure if I want to take again. He's not going to be any better at taking hits than Shar-teel, and I've been using him quite a bit in my other playthroughs.

sarevok57

what about kivan and xan? they aren't power houses per say, but they could add some flavor

[Deleted User]

I decided to pick up Minsc and Dynaheir after all, despite how much I like enchantment spells. I trundled off to rescue Dynaheir. Once you start to assemble a full party around a shadowdancer, you don't get as much opportunity to really leverage HiPS (defensively, at least). It still came in handy for dealing with Borda in a safe manner, and shadowstep was handy for keeping those hobgoblins with the poison arrows busy in the zone north of the stronghold. In a couple of levels I'll have backstabbing, which will give me some new uses for it. Next up is the Nashkel Mines; I plan to push through the main plot until Cloakwood so that I can recruit Coran and add yet another ranged damage dealer to the party.