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The Adventures of Dart Girl (iPad series playthrough)

Lil2WkdLil2Wkd Member Posts: 50
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
The Adventures of Dart Girl exists but for one reason only: I find the idea of Grandmastery in Darts amusing. However, due to the fact that strength doesn't get added to Darts damage (sigh), means the damage is never going to be fantastic. Heck, Grandmastery in Darts in SOA with normal darts is dealing 6-8 damage a dart and 9/2 attacks per round, which is pretty abysmal. There are also problems in that Dart Girl is redundant against certain creatures, or at least severely limited as outside the Cloak of the Stars and it's low output of +5 Darts, the best Thac0 bonus is at +3. Therefore, damage output needs to be increased somehow. The only option I can see here is to dual-class, and the only option I can see that increases the damage output? Assassin.
However, with this being an iPad run, I'm not in a position to fiddle around with things like Shadowkeeper, so the intent is to play through BGEE with an Assassin, then to Dual Class into Fighter in SOA. This raises the question of when to Dual class.
10 increases the potency of my poison
11 gives me slightly better traps
12 gives me an additional use of poison
At present, I'm going with 10, however there is the chance that this might change, depending on how many poison uses I want to use, and as I want to become a Poison Dart Thrower ASAP.

In terms of thief skills, I'm putting all my points in HiS and MS, as it should hopefully make my BGEE playthrough a bit quicker as I'm now tired of it, with the rest of my party covering Find Traps and Open Locks.

I actually rolled really well with my stats and the only stat not at 18 is my Wisdom which is sitting at 3. My party is made up of
Charname-proficient in Quarterstaff and Longsword
Imoen-dualling to Mage when Thief Skills are high enough
Ajantus-Tanking
Minsc-Battering all the things
Branwen-healing
And a mysterious final slot that I don't know who to use as my Thief or Mage, as Xan doesn't have decent damage spells-I love Magic Missile to stop spellcasting and Dynaheir can't cast sleep which makes farming Ankheggs a lot harder.


Any advice greatly appreciated!
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Comments

  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    Nice idea. I'm not a big fan of dual classing, especially at higher levels. It's quite a big gap between level 11 and 12 (220k XP whereas the gap between levels 10 and 11 is only 60k XP). So I would be inclined to dual at level 10 as well.
    I'm aware though that you'll probably want to use the poison weapon ability for most of the duration of your battles, which may be more than once per battle, and that you may be fighting more than one battle per day. So I reckon that a third poison weapon use would come in handy. If you have a clever strategy for the downtime it could be worth it to wait for level 12. E.g. dismiss al party members but one mage who's going to copy scrolls to his spellbook, collect XP rewards for already completed quests, do a number of non-violent quests such as Sir Sarles, and Wellin and the orphan at the Graveyard district.

    As to who to use as a mage for BG1, I find Quayle a lot of fun (he's a multi, but in BG1 multis are only one level behind single classed mages). Edwin and Baeloth are of course very powerful but might not fit well with you neutral/good-aligned group. Neera is risky but could be fun, and is a well-written NPC imo.
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    It is a shame you are not able to play BGEE as the dart chucker, as that is probably where most of the fun lies. I played a halfling dart specialist (low strength, bonus dex) and had a blast playing the all-shorty party. The other bonus in BGEE is the gauntlets of weapon mastery, for an additional +1 hit/+2 damage, but I hear the equivalent item in BG2EE may not affect darts - and is certainly much deeper into the game from my perspective. The other reason BGEE was more fun is that darters are fast, so make great mage-killers, but the protections they throw up in BG2EE negate much of this. You will strip stone skins quickly, but protection against various weapons is frustrating to deal with.

    Best of luck, and I look forward to following your play through.
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    Using darts and GM you will get to 5 APR as soon as you reach level 13 (4.5 from level 7)
    At 5 APR (10 with improved haste) you will kill anything (even dragons) within the duration of 1 poison weapon. Therefore 2 uses could be enough (level 6).

    Are you sure of your levels regarding the poison efficiency and additionnal use?

    My understanding ( i could be competely wrong) was that :
    - potency increases at the same level as traps : ie level 11
    - extra use at level 1/5/9/13 (like backstab)

    If you also take thieving skills into account :
    - forget HIS/MS (too expensive, useless for a dart specialist)
    - level 6 allows you to master one skill (find traps, set snare, detect illusion, open lock)
    - level 11 allows you to master 2 skills

    Dualling at 10 or 11 you would need to wait half of SOA to be able to use your character fully, unless you play solo

    Therefore, my advice would be to dual at 6, which gives you 2 uses of poison weapon and 2 snares.
    The dualling will be completed very eatly in BG1 especially if you solo the basilisks area to speed up the process.

    Also darts are very strong in BGEE :
    - no fantastic magical weapons like in BG2
    - no 19+ str for everyone like in BG2
    - very good selection of elemental damage, poison, stuns
    - with 4 pips and gauntlets you will to 7-9 damage at 4 APR (not including elemental damage) which is actually very good in BG1
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    Then level 6 all the way IMO
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited April 2014
    @Lil2Wkd‌ , I love the character idea; it reminds me of Jubilee (or Gambit for a male version) from X-Men.

    What I don't understand is why you would pick quarterstaff and longsword for level one proficiencies, if a dart grandmaster is your goal. I can get it if you want to give her one backstabbing weapon, but not two. As for BG1 and darts, since this isn't a solo run, why not just let your front-liners, mages and clerics keep you free of aggro through BG1? You can do an enormous amount of damage with darts throughout the game as long as you are part of a team.

    So why wouldn't you take at least one proficiency pip in darts at character creation, if your whole character concept is based on darts?
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    BelgarathMTH said:


    So why wouldn't you take at least one proficiency pip in darts at character creation, if your whole character concept is based on darts?

    Because that would be wasting points and not being able to use the fighter's profs there.
    Long sword is a good melee weapon for thieves and staves are good for backstab.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Sorry, my playstyle vs. powergaming to the endgame is showing. I have a total disconnect mentally with playing all of BG1 towards a character idea that doesn't even start until middle or late BG2.
  • Lil2WkdLil2Wkd Member Posts: 50
    Rerolling later, starting to agree with the distribution of my skill points, just gonna try and work out my backup weapon to the Darts and what I'm gonna arm Ajantis with due to the limited selection of Bastard Swords in the BGEE...
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    I would also say 6, 9 at the highest, but the former allows you to play your concept through a good portion of BGEE.
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    jackjack said:

    I would also say 69 at the highest

    Why don't know why I read it that way.
  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    I agree with @mumumomo and @jackjack here. Getting your Assassin all the way up to level 13 and then having to wait till your charname gains 1.5 million as a fighter to get her skills as a thief back, would leave only a limited portion of the game to play Dart Girl the way you actually desire to play her.

    One thing you might want to keep in mind should you allow Dart Girl to melee-attack time and again, is that the backstab multiplier reaches x4 at level 9.
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    The problem with allowing melee attack is that it will basically kill the character concept.
    She will end up with GM in scimitars and will slaughter everything in 1 round.

    Furthermore to be use backstab consistentlym you need to invest lots of points in HIS/MS. Given the assassin low skill point progression, you will be basically prevented to raise another skil to efficient levels.
  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    edited April 2014
    I agree about the skillpoints issue, though that could be tackled with invisibility items/potions (at least in BG2 where they abound), without investing in HiS/MS.
    I'm not sure whether allowing occasional melee attacks (or at least backstabs) would kill the character concept as you say. One doesn't have to dualwield and grandmaster scimitars. Why not use a buckler and daggers instead? I think most people equip even their Archers with a melee weapon in case they have no choice but to melee. This doesn't necessarily spoil the Archer concept IMO. An option could also be to allow only one proficiency point in any weapon other than darts (similar to the Archer's limitation re: melee weapons, stricter even).

    Anyhow I considered the x4 backstab multiplier at level 9 worth mentioning.
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    The issue is that meleeing would so much more powerful than using darts in BG2, that the risk to go to the dark side would be very strong (i know i could not resist).

    Limiting proficiency to 1 PIP could be a solution
  • Lil2WkdLil2Wkd Member Posts: 50
    It took four episodes of Futurama, but I finally rolled a score above 90. Yes, this is a bit of a silly playthrough, but I do have a bit of a power gamer in me, giving me stats of 18 in everything other than wisdom. I would have settled for less in Intelligence, but I have issues with Mindflayers from pen and paper DnD. Skill points have gone into Find Traps, as from my solo Bounty Hunter run (I'll finish it eventually), I found myself meta-gaming the system a bit too much with Set Traps to the point where freeing the Gladiator in the Copper Coronet killed all the guards. That said, I will give it another roll in the morning and consider switching.

    I'm going to need a backup melee weapon regardless, as I know there's going to be some issues with Demi-Liches and so on as the most +5 Darts I'll ever have is 10 I believe, so it's likely going to be something blunt-possibly even Sticking with quarter staffs and praying that this time round, Watcher's Keep doesn't bug on me in the Maze.
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    edited April 2014
    @SCARY_WIZARD‌ just with throwing daggers. Not with darts ;)
  • Lil2WkdLil2Wkd Member Posts: 50
    I'll edit this doing something more storylike if I can find a tone I like, but for now, our heroine, despite being Neutral Good, is farming Plate Armor in Candlekeep with traps and poison. She's statted at 18, 18, 18, 18, 3, 15, with all her skill points in Set Traps, proficient in Longsword and Quarterstaff. I'm gonna farm enough Armor to get my rep back up to a decent level and a couple of thousand in the bank, then start the story proper.
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    All the wisdom of a tree stump - I love it!
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    Love it - NG assassin with a low wisdom, clearly does not understand that turning guardians into gold is a bad thing, because the church says giving gold makes you good! Perhaps reading a few good books would give her wisdom to see the error in her ways (and redemption through darts? Need to work that in somehow…)
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    Interesting that Imoen is ahead of CharName on XP. Is that because she joined at a higher level than usual after your leveling up in Candlekeep?
  • Lil2WkdLil2Wkd Member Posts: 50
    Yeah, I think Dart Girl came out of Candlekeep around the tail end of level 3, Imoen came in as a level 4. There's only around 2000 xp between them. I'm contemplating leaving her out whilst I do the mines, as all I usually do is head straight to the boss, but Sleep is really convenient, especially when he summons his swarm.
  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    Lil2Wkd said:


    using +1 Darts she's dealing an average 40 damage a round pre-poison

    That's huge!! I've always loved (and used) darts for their 3APR and their usefulness in interrupting spellcasting. My compliments on trying something new and turning into something great.
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