Compare:Swashbuckler, Fighter/Thief, Bounty Hunter, Shadowdancer, Assassin, Cleric/Thief, Mage/Thief
vladpen
Member Posts: 88
Every party needs a thief, and the question of which thief to include is interesting. The choice depends on how you intend to use your thief.
1. Swashbuckler. I find him useful as a baseline for comparison. He gets no penalties to thief skills; he merely sacrifices the ability to backstab in order to become a better fighter. He can be a stealthy scout who handles traps and locks and can also contribute in battle. He is the least tactical kit (no special abilities, loses backstab), but can handle all the environmental obstacles as well as a regular thief.
2. Fighter/Thief. If you want a Swashbuckler that doesn't lose backstab but instead sacrifices some thief skills.
3. Regular Thief. If you want to both retain backstab and maximize thief skills, then you remain a squishy plain Thief. 25 skill points per level (40 at level 1).
With the other three kits, you remain a squishy Thief while emphasizing a particular play style at the cost of some thief skills:
4. Bounty Hunter. If you love traps.
5. Shadowdancer. If you like to solo enemies with stealth and backstab combos. He can't do anything else though--he loses the ability to set traps, and his thief skills need to go into stealth since Hide in Plain Sight has a huge penalty (correction: no, it doesn't, thanks @Gotural), and two different skills contribute to hiding. He's not a party thief.
6. Assassin. If you like to do a lot of surprise damage to start off a fight (including disabling Mages with poison) before your allies charge in. He gets the least number of thief skills (15 per level).
7 & 8. The Cleric/Thief and the Mage/Thief. These feel closer to being Cleric and Mage than Thief. What are some interesting synergies? Buffs that merely compensate for not being Fighter/Thief aren't interesting.
1. Swashbuckler. I find him useful as a baseline for comparison. He gets no penalties to thief skills; he merely sacrifices the ability to backstab in order to become a better fighter. He can be a stealthy scout who handles traps and locks and can also contribute in battle. He is the least tactical kit (no special abilities, loses backstab), but can handle all the environmental obstacles as well as a regular thief.
2. Fighter/Thief. If you want a Swashbuckler that doesn't lose backstab but instead sacrifices some thief skills.
3. Regular Thief. If you want to both retain backstab and maximize thief skills, then you remain a squishy plain Thief. 25 skill points per level (40 at level 1).
With the other three kits, you remain a squishy Thief while emphasizing a particular play style at the cost of some thief skills:
4. Bounty Hunter. If you love traps.
5. Shadowdancer. If you like to solo enemies with stealth and backstab combos. He can't do anything else though--he loses the ability to set traps, and his thief skills need to go into stealth since Hide in Plain Sight has a huge penalty (correction: no, it doesn't, thanks @Gotural), and two different skills contribute to hiding. He's not a party thief.
6. Assassin. If you like to do a lot of surprise damage to start off a fight (including disabling Mages with poison) before your allies charge in. He gets the least number of thief skills (15 per level).
7 & 8. The Cleric/Thief and the Mage/Thief. These feel closer to being Cleric and Mage than Thief. What are some interesting synergies? Buffs that merely compensate for not being Fighter/Thief aren't interesting.
Post edited by vladpen on
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Comments
A viable option in small parties and can also serve well as a backstabber even in a full party.
Also, regarding an Assassin, the Poison Weapon should be mentioned. It's one of the strongest abilities in both games and works wonders agains spellcasters.
IMO the strongest Thief in a party is the F/M/T. Even with the triple class progression, you will soon enough have more skill points than you can spend (especially if Elf with 19 Dex). He can be a strong archer, a total beast in melee and he is by far the best backstabber.
The 2E AD&D rules are a bit misleading, the Assassin for example is a bad backstabber because he cannot specialize in any weapons, he will have a poor THAC0 aswell, but Poison Weapon is so powerful it compensates.
The Swashbuckler is still a bad Fighter until HLA (UAI) levels.
Assassin is a particular kind of backstabber. His role is that of a disabler, he can start the fight with a tactical advantage by poisoning your target of choice with a poison that interrupts spellcasting.
The Shadowdancer is also a backstabber, even though his backstab is penalized; his method is to repeatedly strike and vanish. This doesn't help a party as much as what the Assassin does, but this tactic makes it easier to solo.
Assassin and Shadowdancer don't do the most backstab damage, but their job relies on surprise attack. This is why I think of them as professional backstabbers.
By contrast, the Bounty Hunter wouldn't lose much by losing backstab.
Can one buy affordable poisons to apply to one's weapons that do similar things as the Assassin poison?
Let's break it down:
Thief skills:
- 25/level (compared to kits)
- gnome race (40 bonus points compared to 50 for elf after +1 dex is included)
- 2 class multi (compared to 3 class)
Backstabbing:
- Project Image 750k sooner than triple class
- x5 backstab 1.54m sooner than triple class
- Mage spells for invisibility type spells
Melee offense:
- Polymorph self (sword spider) and later Shapechange gives powerful forms which overcome APR limitations of non-fighter multis
- minor sequencer: shocking grasp removes natural weapon so you can use equipped weapon (celestial fury or staff of the ram)
Spell offense:
- illusionist specialty gives almost as many spells as a pure class Mage while maintaining access to thief HLAs (one less 9th level spell at xp cap)
Defense:
- spell defenses give the best defense in the game with appropriate application
- gnome saves can eventually give blanket immunity to many effects
There's really nothing the class combination doesn't do very well if not the best out of the available options.
Anyways, you left out the Stalker... its the opposite of the swashbuckler, very limited thief skills, but gets some backstab, and will have better THAC0.
Gnome I/T is very solid, and is more versatile imho than any other build.
Shadowdancer 's abilities are primarily defensive; you have a get out of jail free card for any situation.
But F/T gets 1.5 APR more when reaches lev 13.
The F/T will do a lot more damage, will be a much better mlee fighter. Even with HLA, when the swashie can perform 10apr, he can do it only for a limited number of rounds/day, way before that level the F/T can have 9apr for long periods of time if there is a mage that cast IH on him. But probably the swashie will have better AC, as he gets a bonus every 5 levels. But he has to wait HLA level to equip the shields and armors that the F/T can equip from the start, when defense is better than backstabbing according to the tactical situation (ie fighting enemies immune to backstab), so probably the F/T is the more resilient for a great part of the game.
There is much more difference than sacrificing backstab to have a faster skills increase.
The F/T does get a big benefit from APR - at level 13 there's +1 from fighter levels 7 & 13 and also there's likely to be a 0.5 from weapon proficiency (swashies can specialise in thief weapons, but still don't get the bonus APR from that). That advantage will be partly countered by the higher damage of the swashie and there is the possibility of using whirlwind at higher levels (though that worsens THAC0). However, other than at the highest levels a F/T has a clear offensive fighting advantage (and at the highest levels benefits from more HLAs - both in number and choice). Whether the defensive benefits of a swashie and better thief skills offset that will depend on your gameplay style.
@vladpen fighter lev 13 is at 1.25M xp so a F/T needs 2.5M xp that is quite a lot, at the same xp a rogue is lev 20, but at 128K xp a F/T is lev 7 fighter so has 1 apr more than the Swashbuckler, and that is early.
And as ThacoBell pointed out swashie's thac0 is worst, and as rogue he gets less proficiency points, so he has to wait more to dual weld efficiently, the F/M can DW a +1apr weapon in off hand very early, probably at the moment he get his first +1apr weapon. The Swashie needs 1.32M xp to have enough pips to have specialization for the main hand, proficiency in the off hand, 2 pips in DW and 1 pip for a ranged weapon.
If you don't like to use backstab (I personally like it a lot, but is perfectly possible to play a strong thief without backstabbing) the Swasbuckler is certainly a very good fighting thief, that can fight well and add a lot to the party, setting traps, detecting illusions and pickpoketing.
But in mlee the F/T is simply better, more apr, better thac0 and DW earlier. There is a trade off, he gets thieving points slower so has to focus on few thieving abilities, find traps, open locks and then spend the rest of the points to hide successfully, better fighter but worst thief. The more damage is all in the better apr, 2 against 1 when he reach lev7, 4 against 1 when he finds the first +apr weapon, 4 against 3 when finally the Swashie can DW, 4.5 against 3 at ToB levels, and in the better thac0, as he will miss less often.
I am not saying that F/T is better than Swashbuckler, they are booth good, I just say that as mlee fighter he is better.
But also single class is really good, my point is only that, mlee wise, a fighter is better, even a multi fighter.
In BG1 the equipment don't add so much to the damage, and the 1 damage every 5 levels is more important, in ToB the swashie gets UAI on top of his bonus AC. I don't understand what you mean. I was assuming that to DW successfully is required to have at least 2 points in DW, to avoid penalization in the main hand, and I gave specialization in the main hand weapon for granted. I was also assuming that proficiency in a ranged weapon is needed, but this is a playstyle choice, the choice to don't use ranged weapons is perfectly viable. That is a total of 5 pips, and is good if a +1apr weapon is used in off hand, but the OH penalization is strong, it will not hit often. Getting the 3rd pip in DW and/or proficiency in the OH weapon that weapon will hit better, but that is 6 or 7 proficiency points, a rogue has to reach a quite high level to have them, a F/T gets them earlier. That is why I say that a F/T can DW effectively earlier. But I play mainly BG2 and don't own SOD, is possible that importing from SOD the SoA level is boosted enough that a swashie can have enough pips earlier and be ready as soon as a +1apr weapon is available.
M/T is not the melee powerhouse of a F/T or Swashbuckler or Blade, nor is it a super-OP pairing in general, but it's still really fun. Lots of ways to play, but to me, they're more of a supportive tactical ranged attacker, clearing out traps and opening locks, buffing up, then hurling damage from the shadows of the back line.
- Knock and Invisibility naturally support your Thief abilities, affording you the opportunity to spend your skill points differently, or just give you a boost when they're failing.
- Your weapon choices open up a bit from single Mage, allowing combos like Elf + bow for Thac0 bonuses. I think it's best suited to ranged weapons, but...
- If you prefer backstabbing, there's plenty of spells and summons to distract the enemy and set yourself up. Again, Invisibility is great here, and in BG2 you'll get Mislead, allowing multiple backstabs. Also, Polymorph forms can backstab.
- If you like traps, luring enemies into a thief trap + Skull Trap = win.
- If the M/T is your protagonist, there's Find Familiar (you can get it as a scroll shortly after Nashkel mine). Half of the familiar's HP gets added to your own, giving a nice little boost to a class group with otherwise pitiful health (not counting F/T).
- Plus (albeit not a big plus) with careful alignment selection, you can get a Familiar who further supports your abilities. (For example, Fairy Dragon, the CG familiar, gets Invisibility 10' and can even tank tough spells like petrify thanks to immunities. A couple of the pets can pickpocket and sneak, allowing them to scout etc. if you don't want your Thief PC to bother with it. Or just pick one that looks cool.)
Like I said, not the omgwtf strongest in the game, but Mage/Thief has its place.