I'd like to play a Thief/Mage. Dual-Class, Multi-Class?

Feilakas

Hey, I am finally deciding to jump back into BG again after MANY years of absence.
As such I would love it if you guys could suggest me a build for maximum enjoyment.

I am pretty set in my ways, I like Neutral/Chaotic Good spellcasters with basic rogue abilities (mainly lockpicking and trap-disarming). I basically choose Mages since the high INT also means plenty of extra skill points.
Also, I love dual-wielding, especially since it allows me to tackle as many kinds of damage as I can.
After the initial build-up I focus almost all skills and attributes in a pure mage and use gear to build a decent melee fighter out of him for trash-mobs.

My original BG playthrough was with a human Thief-lvl8/Mage dual class. At the time I was advised against multiclassing as it felt too slow to level up.
With E3.x games (mainly NWN 1&2) I switched to a Half-Elf & Drow respectively (for RP reasons) pure Mage using cross-class skills to give me the rogue abilities I wanted.

Based on the above, which build (kit?) would you suggest me?

Thank you in advance and happy playin'

JumboWheat01

Imoen is pretty much designed to be a Thief/Mage dual. And if you're playing good, why wouldn't you want Imoen in your party? She's the only thief you can tool right from the beginning to have Find Traps and Open Locks to 100.

And I would like to say, an elf Mage/Thief multiclass is potentially fairly powerful. The -1 CON elves get isn't that big of a bother since 16 CON is all that's effectively useful for them, and with the THAC0 and damage bonus to bows and long swords (both of which are available to a thief character,) you can have some good ranged power or backstab power. And an elf's +1 DEX makes their thieving abilities better from the get-go and lets them reach a very impressive AC, something a Mage really lacks. Plus, going Mage/Thief multi rather than dualing will let you continue to improve your Thief abilities, and potentially grab the "Use Any Item" high-level ability, which, if I'm thinking about it right, would let you slap on some Elven Chain Mail, improving your already fairly good AC to better levels while still letting you use your thieving AND spell casting abilities. Definitely give it a good thought.

toromos

Another multi you should consider is a gnome thief/illusionist. The illusionist part will get you an extra spell per level. Gnomes get "shorty" saves if your Con is high enough. What I mean by that is normally there would be no reason for a thief or mage to have a Con higher than 16, but a gnome with an 18 gets something like +4 to their saves vs. spells.

You can have a 19 in intelligence right off the bat with a gnome, thus giving you unlimited spells in your spell book.

Feilakas

Definitely good food for thought, especially the chainmail idea.

Last time I remember rolling some thousand(!) times until I finally got a perfect 108 (STR 18/0) and by the time I began ToB I had already completely maxed out everything I could possibly give him and would simply click Next>Next>OK during leveling-up.
Maybe that'll help.

This time I rolled a couple hundred times and got a very respectable 93 (18/18/16/18/11/12) so I definitely got to a good start!

Another question, I used debug mode to run a couple of builds and every time I could only choose one point at a proficiency.

It's been ages since I last dabbled with AD&D rules (I was actually one of those that appreciated E3 rules, although I don't remember much the differences between 3.0 and 3.5), could you tell me what I need to do to gain Mastery levels in Longsword and two-weapon fighting using a Thief/Mage? Or is that reserved for fighters alone?

Thanks!

JumboWheat01

Only pure class fighters can put three or more pips in a weapon. Though in a way, an elf's bonus to longsword and bows is about equal to an extra pip. That's one reason why I recommended them.

Lore

Elf does not seem to fit the whole lore/Story tho in my opinion , i made a half elf theif/mage multiclass just yesterday. I Choose the multiclass due to ,more backstabs 2, you will be a bit more effective as a melee attacker , the mage side of things will not level as fast but it will keep up just fine , more backstab (love backstabds ) It also gives you some mage abilities from the very beginning meaning you dont have to wait , and finally for the high level abilities you get to use both thief and mage ones (love use all items)

Feilakas

Yeah, seeing as Gorion was a human and so was Imoen who he took in 10 years later than Charname, Elves, Dwarfs and other long-living races bugged me as far as the backstory was concerned.

The added bonuses are indeed enticing though.

Yeah, I am all-but settled in using Multiclass this time around, if anything else to spice up things a bit.

JumboWheat01

I think I've been reading 5e stuff way too much then. There, the long lived races PHYSICALLY mature at the same rate as humans, it's just in their culture that they're not consider adults into much later (like 100s for elves.)

mysterymeep

Even in older sources there's conflicting information on whether that's the case?? But I tend to think of it pretty much that way, the idea of an elf being a literal infant for five years seems silly to me.

therdre

+1 to the gnome illusionist thief. Also there are no skill points, you might be thinking of neverwinter nights

Feilakas

I though that's what I said, in E3.x I used cross-class skill points to get what I wanted and built a pure Mage but here in 2.x I need to multiclass to do so.

Anyway, I settled in a (Keeper-hacked) Half-Elf Swashbuckler/Mage purely for RP reasons but an Elf would have been sweet.

Ilinca

I'd also toss out the idea of a bard, especially if you're playing with a party they're a great supplemental character. A little bit of spell casting, a little bit of weapon variety. unique magic items no one else gets access to. They never get access to level 8 and 9 spells, and they only get pickpocketing. But they can still get use any item in BG2 which can allow them to fulfill just about any niche in a party.

Also for what it's worth, without getting into spoilers. Gorion is your adopted father not biological father.

Southpaw

I'd toss in the quite common and very strong Swashbuckler->Mage dual class.
I am not really a big friend of multiclassing ... it's fine in BG1, but in BG2 you'll fall slightly behind in experience and levels and in ToB it is even worse. Dual-classing removes the experience split and you level ... fast.

A thief/Swashbuckler can get to 100 lockpicking and 100 traps around level 6-7 in BGEE which should make enough experience space to get a mage lvl 7-8 and get your thief levels back in BGEE. Or hold off and dual in BG2 at level 10, when the Swashie gets another AC/hit/dmg bonus.
Summary:
- Swashbuckler->Mage dual class makes a very powerful mage, that can also be a good Thief.
- in BGEE only - dual at level 7 of thief, you'll get to level 8 of mage (exp cap 161000)
- in BGEE+SoD - dual at level 8, but you'll regain your thief levels only in SoD
- in BG2EE - dual at level 10 to get another AC/dmg/hit bonus


...or don't dual at all, stay a Swashbuckler. Later in BG2, you'll be able to cast spells via scrolls anyway - and a lot of other shit. (I like my thieves)

Feilakas

@Southpaw. Actually that was my first reaction, my original charname was a lvl8 Human Thief that went on to a level 20-sth Mage by ToB (I did LITERALLY every singe side quest allowed to my class and alignment) and by then the game had become very boring, primarily because I couldn't find a single fight that challenged me but also because there hadn't been anything to level-up to in a while.
I actually installed the Ascension mod just for a challenging end-game.

Also, like you said, I had already confirmed that I'd want to take the SB to level 10 before dual-classing which meant no arcane magic for the entirety of the pre-BG2 content.

Yeah, multi-classing in pre-E3.x rules is a pretty serious drag but I guess it'll at least offer some challenge.


So I cheated. I created a level 8 Half-Elf Swashbuckler and then edited him in EE Keeper to a lvl 0 Mage / lvl 8 Thief multi-class and removed all his XP points.

First time I loaded him, the game leveled him up to level 1 but without actually adding anything new to him.
(I confirmed this by leveling him up again to lvls 7/8 and comparing him to an identical legit lvls 7/8 Half-Elf Mage/Thief).
The downside is that I won't be receiving any new spells per level-up meaning I'll have to rely more heavily on learning scrolls but the upside is that I'll actually have some leveling up to do regardless.


Also, since he still acts basically as a lvl 8 character, I set the difficulty to the (buggy) Legacy of Bhaal which let me tell you, more than balances things out.

joluv

I second Swashbuckler -> Mage for your stated playing preferences.

Feilakas said:

Last time I remember rolling some thousand(!) times until I finally got a perfect 108 (STR 18/0)

I am extremely skeptical that you are remembering correctly.

Feilakas

I remember spending hours clicking the re-roll button (I was young and care-free... ) and I remember playing a character with all 18s.
Since I still have my old save I loaded it up in EE Keeper and found that by the end he now had all 19s (I guess there was a tome for every stat) and the STR+ was 0 (so I didn't use the Shft+8, doubt I knew it otherwise I would have used it ).

joluv

Ctrl+8 gives you 18/00 STR.

Feilakas

Exactly, 00 meaning 100. I had a 0

joluv

So your STR was 18? The character wasn't a warrior? I don't know how STR is displayed in EE Keeper.

Anyway, the point is that a thousand rolls shouldn't even come close to being enough. The chance of rolling 108 on 18d6 is less than 1 in 100 trillion. The odds get a little bit better because of minimum stats for race and class and because rolls below 75 are automatically discarded, but it's still exceedingly unlikely to ever happen for anyone (assuming actual randomness).

Feilakas

I didn't literally count them, I know it took me about 600 tries to get a 93 this time and that was a few minutes so I believe several hours-worth of re-rolling might be closer to (a) million(s).
However I couldn't go too fast in the re-rolling cause I might accidentally click the re-roll once I got 108 (happened to me a few times this time around).

Yeah. the Ctrl+8 (I could have sworn it was shift in the original) gives all stats an 18 and to the additional "Strength +" attribute a 00 (which stands for 100) regardless of class.
Any class can have a STR of 18 but only a warrior can have a STR+ over 0 without a cheat. In fact I do believe Minsk's 18/93 IS a canonical cheat (but could be wrong on that so don't quote me).

EE Keeper shows the Strength + as a separate stat bellow Strength and displays 00 as "100"

JumboWheat01

Feilakas said:

Any class can have a STR of 18 but only a warrior can have a STR+ over 0 without a cheat. In fact I do believe Minsk's 18/93 IS a canonical cheat (but could be wrong on that so don't quote me).

Minsc is a Ranger, which is a Warrior class, and can in fact have percentile strength, along with getting a bonus from having more than 16 constitution. His Berserk thing is totally a cheat though. That belongs to a different class AND kit.

joluv

Feilakas said:

However I couldn't go too fast in the re-rolling cause I might accidentally click the re-roll once I got 108 (happened to me a few times this time around).

You got and passed 108 a few times this time around?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but the numbers just don't work out. If you rolled three times per second for 9 hours straight, that's still less than 100,000 rolls. So your chances would be on the order of one in a billion of getting a single 108 over that entire time.

Feilakas

No , I meant that this time around when I went faster I would miss on good rolls, luckily I didn't skim the 93 but I did skip a couple of 90s and an 89. That's what I meant.

Don't know what else to tell you man, I still have the old savefile and it's now at 19 for everything (20 for CHA, dunno why) which means my memory serves me well that I started with all 18s. However that was back in 2000-2001 so it's not exactly recent. What I DO know for sure is that I only learned about the old Keeper app AFTER I had started SoA, DEFINITELY after I left Irenicus' prison 'cause I also remember using the "pause" exploit to drop all my gear on the ground which took me several tries and I wouldn't have bothered if I could just add them back in (also didn't know I could canonically keep the golden pantaloons).