Backstabbing Weapon Choice
MMMMK
Member Posts: 30
Just a quick question for you guys:
Is there any reason to use a short sword (or a dagger) over a Katana for backstabbing? What role does weapon speed play in backstabbing?
I'm aware that staff is actually the best backstabbing weapon but that always seemed pretty wonky to me from a role playing perspective.
Thanks
Is there any reason to use a short sword (or a dagger) over a Katana for backstabbing? What role does weapon speed play in backstabbing?
I'm aware that staff is actually the best backstabbing weapon but that always seemed pretty wonky to me from a role playing perspective.
Thanks
1
Comments
For base damage, the best weapon type is katana (1d10). Staff is the same as short sword there (1d6).
In general, the more static damage bonuses the better. Backstab is a multiplier after all, so naturally you get the most out of stats that actually get multiplied.
That's a shame, backstabbing with a big sword like a Katana always seemed out of place to me.
But most thief weapons are fairly quick, so the difference would be relatively minimal.
Daggers and short swords do piercing damage, katanas slashing and staves/clubs crushing.
Certain armours have differing AC values vs various damage types, whilst some enemies have a percentile resistance against certain types of damage.
Admittedly these distinctions are situational, and rely on knowing what an enemy is wearing. But in the early game when THAC0s are poor, that extra 1 or 2 points can be vital.
It can be a proper stab, but also cutting his throat, and a katana is not well suited for the pospose, or hitting his neck with a staff and breaking his spine. A trained rogue or a commando know where and how to hit to kill a sentinel with a surprise attack, and actually he can also do it with bare hands. And having to choose he will never choose a slashing weapon like a long sword or katana, but a short piercing and slashing one, a dagger. Or a mace, that in BG can not backstab.
So imo there are RP reasons to use a staff as much as a katana. And from a RP prospective a multiplier has no sense, a kill on hit, with a save to negate is a much better approximation of what happens in RL.
When talking of backstabbing weapons are always named ram and striking (charge item), there is an other good one with high THACO so good static damage and chance to hit. As minimum damage is often more important then maximum is a very interesting alternative to katana until ram is available.
I agree with what has been told for speed factor, an other advantage of a high speed staff is that the backstab can be performed from a longer distance with a better chance to avoid retaliation and a little more chance to succeed in hiding behind a corner if the enemy follow.
There's a short sword +2 available right at the very start of BG1, and closer to the final of the story you'll get a short sword +3 - and there are not many +3 weapons in BG1, even less are available if you follow the main quest line and don't do the TotSC content. And there're no +2 katanas in BG1 at all. Both short sword +2 and +3 have excellent speed factor.
Another thing to consider is that there're no mage robes protecting enemy mages from piercing damage in particular - there're robes against slashing damage, but not against piercing damage. So maybe your thief in BG1 cuts wizards better with a piercing damage.
And after you import your thief to BG2, you can go to the Watcher's Keep and buy a short sword +4 without even entering the dungeon. This way you have again, like in BG1, an excellent THAC0 for your backstabs, a lot earlier than with a katana. I've learned that for a backstabbing thief THAC0 is better than damage - the main thing for you is actually to hit an enemy.
Knowing all this, I find solid in-game justifications to add to my RP love for short swords as backstabbing weapons.
The fact that a weapon of higher enchantment get a higher static damage, that get multiplied, so often is also more damaging, as minimum dmg and in the case of the same weapon type also maximum damage, is an other thing.
I only know of one good katana in BG2, Celestial Fury, and to me it seems a bit of a waste because backstabbing is a one hit and retreat thing, whereas Celestial Fury seems to me a weapon that benefits from being used by a fighter swinging repeatedly, to increase the chance of it's hit-effect.
Don't forget longswords. Longswords are awesome too, and damage-wise sit in the middle of short swords and katanas. Some of them have truly excellent abilities, either for specific use or as passive enhancements.
Non-damage bonuses are worth considering.
And while daggers do less damage, dual wielding them will turn your thief into a regular Daniel-Day-Lewis from Gangs of New York. Sometimes you have to think about style points.
Come BG2, Suna Seni's shortsword is easy to acquire and is very useful throughout SoA's initial stages. Longsword and katana are the next weapons to focus on, longswords are plenty and strong while katana is primarily for Celestial Fury. Come ToB you can focus on staves and two handed style for the excellent Staff of the Ram for the end game. It is a surpirisingly destructive weapon that wrecks most anything.
Hold/stun effects are nice to immobilise the target and chance to go invisible is very useful for another backstab.
For backstabbing thieves I always go with either daggers or short swords as the primary early backstabbing weapon as a habit from my P&P 1ed AD&D days. I have come around to staves also after watching some quarterstaff versus sword fighting videos on youtube.
I am playing another dwarven bounty hunter run now and am using throwing daggers with high strength, so with daggers and a high strength build I have melee, ranged, and backstabbing all with one proficiency, can use a buckler, and in BG2 can melee/throw with 2 APR the +3 Firetooth and the +2 Boomerang dagger.
That is an added advantage, that become even more relevant with the rifle, at the extent that the ranged combat become more important then mlee. Before firearms the bulk of the armies was mlee solders and cavalry, only few ranged. Also usually mlee solders didn't carry ranged weapons (few exceptions in the history, like the roman legionary who had the pilum, a javelin, and a short sword) and there was plenty of hunters semi trained for bow.
At the particular time when xbow was invented there had been a shift and the cavalry had become too powerful. The heavy armored knight with his horse armored in his vital points was just unstoppable. Few knights, people from noble families trained the whole life for war, could defeat large groups of untrained mlee fighters, people from lower classes who was stolen from their usual occupations and sent to the war.
And the bow was just not effective against the heavy armor of the knight, so heavy that he could not dress it or get up on the horse without helpers.
The xbow was invented because was not possible to give enough tension to the bow rope to have enough power to perforate the armor. As the rope of the xbow is put in tension with a lever or in some heavy ones even with a winch is possible to give much more tension, at the price of a much slower rate of fire. Few ammunition shot, but ammunition that could penetrate that heavy armor.
The xbow, was the only chance to damage enemy Knights before they could close the distance.
Well, not the only one, also the composite longbow could do it, but a hunter can not use it, in real life only very strong people with a long training can put is rope to tension and use it.
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Personally I prefer katanas, but longswords are also good. The weapon effect doesn't matter so much since you soon get to a stage where backstab = death. IIRC, the weapon bonus and weaponmastery bonus both get multiplied but STR bonus doesn't. So all else being equal, go with weapons with the highest + and which you have most proficiency in. And think about average damage rather than max damage - eg if dagger +3 vs katana +1, the katana is better if you have no concerns in hitting (average damage 5.5 vs 6.5). But if you are a specialist in daggers but only proficient in katana, go with dagger.
Plan B: Quarterstaff
Best of both worlds: Assassin poisoning a quarterstaff.
You'll never see a spell user casting anything if you follow this trail.
For a plain thief or a M/T like Jan the things are a little different.
The Thief Thaco is lower, so the weapon THACO bonus is more relevant, is better to improve che chance to hit than the damage. Also there will be non damage bonuses from proficiences, so the static damage of the enchanted weapon is the only one multiplied. And the roll damage can sometimes be only 1, the plain thief get to a stage where backstab = death only with low HP enemies or if he use a certain staff with a lot of static damage added or an other with charges.
So for him the weapon effect is more relevant, a weapon that can stun, entangle, make the welder invisible and so on is a real bonus.
The OP told that he use a K/T, so for him what you say is 100% good, 110% since the kensai add some static damage and THACO from the kit bonus, I just posted for plain thief users that can read and be misleaded.
And last but not least only very few enemies have crushing resistance, some are immune to not crushing damage at all. Putting the pips in a crushing weapon is a wise investment.
If you impose a rule against staves, it seems like katana or longsword are the best runner ups. Katanas may have the best base but poorer enchantment bonuses. Overall, I think longsword beats katana. If you weren't already aware, strength is only added and not multiplied by backstab.
But I like the idea of backstabbing with a staff. And it looks much better to chunk something with a staff than with a dagger.
The chunking mentioned by @semiticgod was the final decider on a recent assassin run. It became utterly ridiculous once the staff of striking became available, so much that I almost felt dirty from the damage totals...well, almost...