Magical Invisibility vs Stealth question

Magnus87

So i made an assassin who will dual to mage. I decided not to put any points in MS/HiS and rely on invisibility spells later on. Will i miss anything from the skills? Are they better than the spell in some way i dont know of? Like not being detectable by means that would detect the invisibility spell?

Heindrich

Not that I am aware of. I much prefer magical invisibility cos you can detect and disarm traps whilst staying invisible. Imoen was my only party thief, and I pretty much never used her innate stealth skills since she could cast invisibility, there's a ring of invisibility and there's also loads of invisibility potions in th game.

Oh and another advantage. You can chug an invis potion in sight of an enemy, or cast a invis spell. You cannot HiS within sight of a hostile.

Corvino

I think that if you combine the cloak of non-detection with thief stealth you're not revealed by detect invisbility and possibly true sight as well, while they will see through invis + cloak on non-detection. That used to be how it worked back in vanilla, not so sure now though.

Aristillius

@Corvino
That would be nice to find out about! The possibility to avoid True Sight could a have huge potential.

KidCarnival

In BG1, you won't have any issues. You can stealth with invisbility spells/scrolls from your second caster and there is no shortness of potions, plus the Sandthief Ring. There's also Shadow Armor and Worn Whispers. I tested that once on Montaron; all his points went into traps/locks, and he still stealthed relatively reliably with those 2 items. (Had him on the script to see how often he suceeds.)

In BG2, you'll be able to cast yourself and can take a couple of lower level spells like Non Detection plus the various invisibilities, and later spell immunity to render yourself immune to Detect Invisibility. It's been ages since I took my assassin through the saga though, so maybe I'm overlooking something. I was the only party thief and therefore started with crappy stealth because I had to focus on traps and locks for most of BG1.

the_spyder

Heindrich1988 said:

You cannot HiS within sight of a hostile.

Thank the lords of Kobol on this one. I get why HiPs was created, but it was always (in my opinion) a really incredibly poor mechanic and hopelessly abused in NWN/2. That could simply be the really poor way it was implemented, but on many a PW, it was either banned, horribly abused or gimped mechanically by the server owners. On the worlds were it was not banned (even the ones where it was gimped), you HAD to put insane amounts of points into perception skills or you were hosed.

Personally, I like to stock up Jan (in BG2) with loads of invis spells and potions and that works pretty OK. However.....

No matter how many Invisible spells and potions that you have available, you will ultimately come down to one issue. You will run out. I personally ended up having to choose between 'Invisible trap remover' or combatant. Because I could never keep enough spells/potions in stock to do both. I usually found myself keeping Jan (or whoever my thief happened to be) out of combat entirely unless I NEEDED them. Once the thief attacks, they break the invisibility spell and become visible until another one gets cast. That can get horribly expensive (in terms of spells, not coin) very quickly.

Another factor to consider. Yoshimo is an EXCELLENT back-stabber. Early/mid game BG2, he will do as much as or more damage than any tank, merely by Hiding in shadows and backstabbing. And quite frankly, at that early stage, no caster can keep him fully "Invis'd" to make up for skimping on HiS/MS.

kryptix

I would think the only advantage is that HIS doesn't count as your spell/potion for the round so you can still do those after you HIS. Also you get unlimited HIS. With an Assassin mage, you won't have to worry about losing out multiple attacks per round by running around a corner with haste + boots of speed though so if you have high HIS it can allow you to do things like breach, run around a corner, HIS, then come back and hit the thing all in one round if you micromanage a lot. Using magical invis that would be two rounds.

Anduin

Presuming you are dualing at level 13 to mage. You will have 325 points to use.

Again presuming you putting everything into Dex... And you use the tome of dex to get it up to 19.

Then you will have this as your starting skill points... And I would boost your key thief skills.

Pick pockets --> 15 + 80 = 95 You need a base score of 95 to pick pocket all items from a NPC. You can boost exponentially with potions that stack.

Open locks --> 20 + 55 = 75 Again you can boost with potions, plus ring of lock picking.

Disarm Traps --> 10 + 65 = Ring of danger sense boosts this to 100... Really don't need more.

This leaves you with 125 points to spend on the rest...

Set trap? You will only be able to set 3 a day. I wouldn't bother.

Detect Illusion? A very underrated skill. All or nothing though. If you boost to 100 you will have scant points for anything else. But as a mage you will have access to the spell True sight... So...

This means YOU will most likely put points in HiS and MS.

If you chuck points into here you could boost it too...

HiS --> 15 + 60 = 75

MS --> 15 + 65 = 80

Wearing other equipment that give boosts to this will mean you will gain a non to shabby ability... Although during daylight it may not be 100% reliable.

The choice young padowan is yours...

Magnus87

Reached level 15 about to dual and learn a heck lot of spells to level up. Ended up with 100 on find traps and open locks and 95 detect illusion. Thanks for your feedback, prety much what i expected.

Onestep

Magnus87 said:

So i made an assassin who will dual to mage. I decided not to put any points in MS/HiS and rely on invisibility spells later on. Will i miss anything from the skills? Are they better than the spell in some way i dont know of? Like not being detectable by means that would detect the invisibility spell?

Honestly, I prefer stealth over invisibility as a general rule.

mumumomo

I share the view of Anduin but i would add that investingin picklock pickpocket is totally useless (just use 2 master thief potions before pickpocketing. Use bash or knock for locks)

Therefore, you save 135 points, which you can invest in set snares or HiS MS