Shadowdancer Proficiencies

true_shinken

Hello, guys.
For my second run through BGEE and BG2EE, I want to try a female Shadow Dancer->Fighter. I have a few doubts:
1) Which level should I dual her to Fighter?
2) Which weapon proficiencies should I take?

CrevsDaak

1) depends in you playing style. If you like going solo and farming, right after you get your first HLA and pick Use any item.

2) the ones you like the best. My recommendations are: Long swords, short bows, daggers and then axes and dual-wielding after you dual-class to fighter.

true_shinken

I want to dual while I'm in BG1. I'm thinking level 5, probably.

Gotural

Unfortunately, Shadowdancers are pretty bad low level dual because their main strenght is their Hide in Plain Sight ability, but for it to become reliable enough, you need at least 100 in both Hide in Shadow and Move Silently which is impossible to reach as a Human at level 5.

elminster

At level 5 as a human you can get up to 100 in Hide in Shadows (105 when you get the dexterity tome) and 115 in Move Silently (120 with tome). You just need the boots of stealth and shadow armor (especially the boots of stealth).

I still wouldn't dual at level 5. You can still do it but you'd be a sucky thief in every other category. But dualing at level 5 does have its advantages (which I suppose would mostly be more health).

deltago

Hey I am doing the same playthrough although dualing to a cleric. I decided on dualling at lvl 9 so I could get x3 backstab and enough points to pass as my main thief.

Dualling at 5 works with gear as @elminster said however, you're probably just going to be a one trick pony and having to rely on a second thief for traps, locks and illusions. Which is ok, if that is what you want to roll with.

Shadowdancers only start with 30 points and only get 20 per level unlike the other thief classes, so 9 would be a better switching point

With an 18 dex level progression can look like:
ability base, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
PP 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25
OL 25, 30, 30, 35, 35, 35, 45, 55, 60, 60
FT 10, 10, 20, 25, 35, 35, 45, 55, 60, 70
MS* 20, 30, 35, 40, 45, 55, 55, 55, 60, 65
HS* 15, 30, 35, 40, 45, 55, 55, 55, 60, 65
DI 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

*add 10 for shadow dancer ability. The Mercykiller ring will get your ms/his up to 100% with the dex tome this way.

Pots of perception and master thievery will bring your other thieving skills into the 90% which will cover the majority of locks and traps throughout the game (not all though).

Gotural

But it's sad to rely on boots of stealth. Shadow Armor is neat, especially if you dual to Fighter, but it would be better to get this backstab x3 or x4 at level 9 or 13 and to have boots of speed.

Gallowglass

@true_shinken‌ - If your objective is to build a Fighter who can do Stealth to scout (and occasionally backstab), but who will rely on another Thief in the party for all other Thief skills, then yes, level 5 is the right time to dual. You obviously start him at 18 DEX, you put all his skill points at creation and every level-up into HiS and MS, you give him the Boots of Stealth when you get them, and you end up with HiS 100 and MS 100 at level 5 when you dual. A little later when you get it, you give him the DEX Tome and this becomes 105/105. He'll also have a x2 backstab (and x2 isn't too bad when you're striking with the reliability of a Fighter's THAC0!), and one use of Shadowstep per day (which a front-liner might find mainly useful as a get-out-of-jail-free card, for use when a fight is going badly). The cost (at max HP/level and assuming 18 CON -> 19 Tomed-CON) is 5 x 7 = 35 HP, which is significant for a Fighter but not crippling. Hmm, yes, this actually sounds like quite an interesting build, it's not an absurd idea.

That's without relying on the Shadowmaster's Armor, so you can wear heavier armour when appropriate. Eventually, in ToB, you'll end up wearing the Grandmaster's Armor +6, because that gives you the effect of the Boots of Speed while you're actually still wearing the Boots of Stealth, and a ToB Fighter needs that speed. It's just-about adequate armour for front-row work in ToB, provided that you give him the best of other stackable defensive items (i.e. helms, cloaks, etc.)

If you want your Fighter to have any other Thief skill, then of course you have to leave him as a Shadowdancer for longer and pay a higher HP price. The next logical dualling-point is level 10, by which time you've got a x3 backstab (from level 9) and a second use of Shadowstep (at level 10), and you'll have a further 100 skill points to distribute. You'll presumably still be relying on another Thief in the party for other Thief skills, so you ought to put all of that 100 points into one place so that you've got another well-developed skill (rather than splitting it to have two inadequate skills). I'd suggest either Detect Illusion (which maxes its power at DI 100, more is wasted), because being able to reveal your enemies when they try to hide (etc.) is a very useful ability for a warrior (as Keldorn's True Sight ability demonstrates, although there'd be less point if Keldorn himself will be with you in BG2), or Pick Pockets (ending up with PP 130), which is enough to be moderately good at it. To build this one, of course, you play the whole of BG1ee as a Shadowdancer (taking you to level 10 and then just 1,000 XP more to the XP cap), then dual immediately upon starting BG2ee (which throws away the spare 1,000 XP, but that's a trivial amount by then), at a total cost (on the same basis as before) of 9 x 7 - (8 - 3) = 58 HP, which is getting dangerously expensive for a front-liner IMO. On the other hand, if you're going to play him as second-row, perhaps more of an archer than a tank, then that HP cost is still not unworkable.

You'd still end up in the Grandmaster's Armor +6 and the Boots of Stealth for ToB ... but if you're using him in a second-row-sniper capacity, that's perfectly good armour. (I've used it that way on Valygar as an archer, and it was very effective.)

So, in summary: I'd go for the level 5 option, as you originally suggested.

Proficiencies: if you dual at level 5, you're building a front-row tank, but you want proficiencies which allow for backstabbing, i.e. Thief-enabled weapons. I'd build towards dual-wielding, with throwing daggers for ranged attack. As always, it will depend somewhat upon who you intend to take in your party and what they're best at using, but guessing in isolation I'd think along these lines:
Sd5 - Dggr1 Smtr1 1WS1; Sd5/F39 - Dggr5 Smtr5 Whmr5 1WS2 2WS3.
The reasons are that dagger and scimitar are both backstabbing weapons, dagger is both ranged and melee, scimitar allows for dual-wielding with Belm (extra attack), and warhammer is so that you have a blunt option (often useful) and can dual-wield with Crom Feyr (always useful!)

true_shinken

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I wanted Hide/Move Silently and maybe Detect Illusion - I'm going to keep Hexxat and all. I think I'm going to dual at 5 and then I'm going with both Keldorn and Hexxat in my party. Banter should be good. ^^

As a Shadowdancer, I think I'm going for Single weapon style, Dagger and Longsword. I can use the throwing daggers for ranged attacks and longsword for backstabs. I want Single weapon style so that I don't have to keep pausing the game, removing my off-hand weapon and so. I might bring Haer'Dalis along and that also creates some diversity.
After I dual to Fighter, I'm going for Katana (Celestial Fury!) and Scimitar (extra attacks!).

Gallowglass

Er ... I fear not, I think you'll find that Keldorn and Hexxat are incompatible after a while, IIRC.

Wowo

true_shinken said:

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I wanted Hide/Move Silently and maybe Detect Illusion - I'm going to keep Hexxat and all. I think I'm going to dual at 5 and then I'm going with both Keldorn and Hexxat in my party. Banter should be good. ^^

As a Shadowdancer, I think I'm going for Single weapon style, Dagger and Longsword. I can use the throwing daggers for ranged attacks and longsword for backstabs. I want Single weapon style so that I don't have to keep pausing the game, removing my off-hand weapon and so. I might bring Haer'Dalis along and that also creates some diversity.
After I dual to Fighter, I'm going for Katana (Celestial Fury!) and Scimitar (extra attacks!).

Maybe skip Katana in favour of maxing out Scimitar, Longsword and TWF'ing like this:
SD1: Longsword*, Ranged weapon of choice*
SD4: TWF'ing*
F1: Scimitar****
F3: Scimitar*****
F6: TWF'ing**
F9-F18: Longsword*****
F21: TWF'ing***

My thinking here is that you could grab Valygar and give him Celestial Fury instead (or give it to Hexxat even).

If you don't want to pause to swap weapons when using ranged weapons then don't - but I think it's a good idea to get the TWF'ing proficiences anyway so in BG2 you have them ready when you don't need ranged weapons anymore (pretty early IMO but ymmv).

Gallowglass

@true_shinken‌ - I agree with @wowo about dropping katanas, they're a one-trick pony. CF is a good weapon from whenever-you-get-it to the end of SoA, but it's obsolete in ToB, and ToB is not replete with better katanas, so you'll then be left with a load of proficiency points in katana which you'll quite likely never use again. There's a couple of scimitars which are better.

I'll stick to my original recommendation: daggers, scimitars and warhammers. It's almost always useful having a blunt proficiency, both because some of the best weapons in the game are blunt, and because you'll meet quite a lot of enemies who are highly resistant to everything except blunt, and even some who are entirely immune to any damage except blunt. Blunt is actually the most versatile damage in the game - there are fewer enemies who resist blunt than any other type of damage. If you really want to go with longswords, then it's actually more sensible to drop the scimitars and keep the warhammers - having two different slashing weapons is not as versatile as having weapons which can do different damage.