Thief / Assassin Dual Class

RobertMcDuck

I have been wondering how well a Assassin9/Mage would turn out. I don't care about backstabbing, all I want is lockpick/Find traps and the ability to poison my weapons, I'm going to use ranged weapons. True sight, Breach and Poison weapon to wipe out any mage in the game.

Some of you might suggest standard thief/mage but I want to try something new.

Will the class turn out good? Any ideas? I want to dual at level 9 so that I can get level 9 spells, and I don't think that the APR will develop as much for assassins as it does for fighters so dualing at a later point would just be a waste I suppose.

Queegon

Assassin/mage makes little sense as your mage will miss more than hit. Poison weapon will go to waste and at the expense of 90 thief points. Assassin/Fighter seems better. Just as does simple Mage/Thief. And for that there is Imoen/Nalia/Jan already.

Skatan

APR doesn't develop at all for thieves, so when going for assassin you should just calculate the skill points you need to get the to a good level (if any, though you don't seem to care for the thief skills) and/or just go for a level where you get the number of poison weapon per day that you want.

Southpaw

I am not really exactly sure, but I think the Assassin can use poison weapon + Melf's minute meteors to a devastating effect. I've never honestly tried it, but I've heard this strategy around on the forums. (I don't like Thief/Mages all too much).

Thief does not have APR. It has 1. That's it. Unless you use Haste or Oil of Speed or are a Swashbuckler, who can have APR 2 when dual-wielding melee. (Yes, only 2). Dual-class as soon as you get happy with the Thieving skills.
Still - in BGEE, you can get to lvl 6 of Thief to get to lvl 7 of Mage if I'm not mistaken. In BG2EE - 8th or 9th level is fine.

RobertMcDuck

Figured it would be a hard class to play but didn't know it would be useless.. heh.

FinneousPJ

On the contrary, it is a great class. As a mage you can apply poison in quite inventive ways.

Gotural

But Poison Weapon has been nerfed so much.

Honestly Assassin/Mage are just really bad now, and counter-intuitive to play.

Diomedes33

Just make a Fighter/Mage/Thief like everyone else and win.

Skatan

RobertMcDuck said:

Figured it would be a hard class to play but didn't know it would be useless.. heh.

It's most definetely not useless just because it doesn't get APR bonus from levels or prof's. It sounded like you wanted to play a mage with some added poison, and that's exactly what you get if you add a few levels of assassin before dualing to mage. You don't get some FMT character of course.

There are plenty of ways to cheese out poison, or at least there were before 2.0, but since I haven't upgraded yet myself I'm not sure which of these are still applicable. MMM's, like @southpaw mentions, was/is one, arrows of detonation another. But there's also plenty of regular ways for applying poison, ie with darts, throwing knives or bow and arrow. Both darts and bow (tuigans) give 3 APR unbuffed.

Personally I prefer to cheat in a kit in a multiclass, so I prefer to play assassin/mages that way rather than dualing them.

jackjack

Poisoned Melf's Minute Meteors. That is all.

RobertMcDuck

Diomedes33 said:

Just make a Fighter/Mage/Thief like everyone else and win.

Already Done that, Both solo and with party. Have you even read the thread? I want to try something new, not play an old Classic.

dunbar

In 1.3 (pre nerfed PW) I've got a solo Assassin/Mage that I dualed at level 2 and is great fun to play. He's now in SoA having just escaped from The Asylum and I'm having second thoughts about having removed the XP cap as he's at level 2/22 (and basically slaughtering anything that gets in his way)!

On reflection I would play this build again (dualing from Assassin at 2) as my party's mage-killer (Breach + any kind of missile weapon + PW).

Gotural

jackjack said:

Poisoned Melf's Minute Meteors. That is all.

Sadly this is over, Poison Weapon has been destroyed.

RobertMcDuck

@dunbar Would you mind copy and paste your save file here so that i might explore the class?

Diomedes33

RobertMcDuck said:

Diomedes33 said:

Just make a Fighter/Mage/Thief like everyone else and win.

Already Done that, Both solo and with party. Have you even read the thread? I want to try something new, not play an old Classic.

How am I supposed to know you've done that already? There is nothing "new", everything has been done, the games been out 16 some odd years. If you want something gimped play a Thief/Cleric.

dunbar

@RobertMcDuck For some reason I can't Paste or Attach the file (but then I am a complete moron when it comes to computers) - which particular aspect of it were you interested in?

RobertMcDuck

You could just send the character file otherwise, just so I can "test" it. @dunbar

squiros

the versatility of a mage can really overcome the mentioned disadvantages. simply use polymorph self to get the 5 apr you want, use tenser's to get the thaco. both spells are unlocked at a reasonable pace. improved haste for copying whirlwind feat. then of course, use simulacrums and projected images to do it all for you. stoneskin, mirror image and mustard jelly will have less apr but be immune to a lot. casting after transforming won't be possible, so use sequemcers which are faster anyway. i play vanilla, but these should still work.