Need some opinions.
Yannir
Member Posts: 595
So I started a run of BG2 with a Shadowdancer which I'm looking to dual into a fighter. A few questions have come to mind.
When should I dual?
I'm currently on lvl 10, just finished Chateau Irenicus. Thief stats currently: Pick Pockets 25, Pick Locks 65, Find Traps 90, HIS 80, MS 75, Detect Illusions 0. And it's 20 points per lvl.
When are the thieving skills at their best, and where should I invest?
I havent REALLY played a thief before.
I'd like to wait until lvl 13 before dualing to get the most out of backstabbing but is that too late? Is it a pain dragging a fighter to lvl 14?
When should I dual?
I'm currently on lvl 10, just finished Chateau Irenicus. Thief stats currently: Pick Pockets 25, Pick Locks 65, Find Traps 90, HIS 80, MS 75, Detect Illusions 0. And it's 20 points per lvl.
When are the thieving skills at their best, and where should I invest?
I havent REALLY played a thief before.
I'd like to wait until lvl 13 before dualing to get the most out of backstabbing but is that too late? Is it a pain dragging a fighter to lvl 14?
1
Comments
As for your thief stats, your most important ones at Pick Locks, Find Traps, HIS, and MS. Obviously putting points into all of those together would be worthless late game, so pick 2 or 3. I usually go with either HIS and MS or Pick Locks and Find Traps. If you want to split it into three, and you want to do as much backstabbing as possible, I'd go with HIS, MS and Pick Locks/Find Traps.
If I were you, I would not dual at all and keep levelling until you get killer traps and UAI...and have versatility.
Anyway to the question directly - what is your set trap score? Wait until lvl11 when their damage should improve. Also your lockpick score needs more points. And yes, levelling the fighter to get your skills back would be painful
I wasn't really looking for advice on what I'm doing wrong. This is what I'm running now, help me on how to move forward, and I am really having fun with the Shadowdancer's hiding in plain sight ability.
Ok, I'm set on the skills I'm gonna go with. How about the other things?
Because you are playing party then I suppose you have a backup thief to do the traps and locks for you. In any case most thief skills are maxed at 100 value - and any points above will benefit you only in case there are some penalties to the skill checks - like some armors and enemies/situations impose. Thus wasting points above 100 is only advisable when you have nowhere to spend really.
I would say if you're taking another thief, put everything in your stealth skills to make it reliable, and make them do locks and traps.
As for your Pick Locks and Find Traps skills, you'll be fine. There're rings enhancing these skills in the game.
The Luck spell/effect will also give you a temporary extra 5% in all skills.
Also, if your alignment/reputation is good and you have the Draw Upon Holy Might innate Bhaalpower will boost your Dexterity, which also gives a boost to most thieving skills.
Ideally, I'd have said dual right now at level 10, but I reckon you want one more level, allocating 5/20 to Move Silently and 15/20 to Open Locks, then immediately dual. That way, you can max out Open Locks to 100 by wearing the Ring of Lock Picking without needing potions, and you can get Hide in Shadows and Move Silently to 100 by wearing the Mercykiller Ring without needing potions. Find Traps, Open Locks, Detect Illusions and (when applicable) Set Traps all reach their maximum power at 100. None of these are penalised by external conditions, so there's no benefit in increasing them any further, except when you plan to use certain armours which penalise FT and OL by a few points, in which case you might want to increase FT and OL past 100 by just enough so that they're 100 after deducting the penalty.
Pick Pockets, Hide in Shadows and Move Silently go on getting better up to 255, because they're subject to external penalties. Hide in Shadows and Move Silently are penalised by ambient light (so 100 works reliably if you're in a shadow during the night, but less reliably near to a lamp, and even less reliably in daylight - you need to get them both up to more like 200 to have a good chance of stealth working well in bright daylight). Pick Pockets is used for both picking pockets and stealing from shops, and is penalised by the "theft resistance" of the target (so 100 works reliably against random commoners, except for a fixed 5% "critical fail" risk, but you usually need more to get away with picking the pockets of another thief or of many named characters, and various shops have various levels of resistance - I believe Bernard's shop is the toughest shop from which to steal, and you need at least 180 to stand a chance of stealing from him).
Bear in mind also that all Thieving skills except Detect Illusion are affected by DEX, so if your character gains (or loses) a point of DEX then he'll gain (or lose) a few points in each Thieving skill.
I'm inclined to dual right away and rely on items and potions if I need a boost. I'm mostly going to focus on stealth items. I will probably have Yoshimo and then Imoen tag along, they have the complementary skills I need. I wish I hadn't put any points on OL or FT but what's done is done.
A follow-up question though: What is the best melee weapon proficiency? Keep in mind I'm limited to thief weapons.
I'd hold off dualing until you max our your backstab multiplier. Just take Imoen along to do the locks and traps.
Therefore pick a couple of decent non-Thief weapons (or Thief weapons which you haven't previously used) and put your Fighter proficiencies into those until you regain Thief abilities. After regaining your Thief abilities, then (but not until then) you can (if you wish) start putting additional points into the Thief weapons which you previously used.
Backstabbing power is maximised by Mastery (3 points) in a Thief weapon. There's little advantage (for backstabbing purposes) in going on to High Mastery or Grandmastery, because backstab is only one shot and doesn't benefit from the extra APR. Therefore it's worth putting more than 3 points in your backstabbing weapon only if the same weapon is also going to be the weapon you use for ordinary melee. As a Fighter after dualling, it's quite likely that after attempting a backstab, you'll then switch to a different weapon for the rest of the battle, so it's that other weapon which would benefit more from Grandmastery.
You're only limited for the backstab, otherwise you can use any fighter weapon can't you?
So, I'm going with a longsword, Varscona to be more precise. Shortbow is my ranged choice. Later on, I might put some points into katanas.