How do you play ure Swash/mage?
Souplesse
Member Posts: 131
Hi everyone!
I want to know how do you play with ure S/M? I take SOD in count.
I red some interesting stuff about S(10)/mage dual. Playing Swashbuckler in bg1 and maybe dual at the beginning of SoD?
And about weapons? Some people play two weapons fighting with Katana?! Even with Roguerebalancing S/M tac0 must be very high.. and Swash not seems to be a backstabber by the way! I may use Zerth Blade without pip in Katana for extra spells?!
I see S/M dual more like a arcane dude with thief skills so more ranged weapons like short bow or throwing dagger?!
Do you play with trap when you dual 10?!
What do you think?
I want to know how do you play with ure S/M? I take SOD in count.
I red some interesting stuff about S(10)/mage dual. Playing Swashbuckler in bg1 and maybe dual at the beginning of SoD?
And about weapons? Some people play two weapons fighting with Katana?! Even with Roguerebalancing S/M tac0 must be very high.. and Swash not seems to be a backstabber by the way! I may use Zerth Blade without pip in Katana for extra spells?!
I see S/M dual more like a arcane dude with thief skills so more ranged weapons like short bow or throwing dagger?!
Do you play with trap when you dual 10?!
What do you think?
Post edited by Souplesse on
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Comments
If you create a multiclass (multi, not dual) thief/mage and then enter eekeeper and set kit to swashbuckler, you will get swashy goodness AND backstab - but you can only put one PiP in each weapon, so you must enter eekeeper again every four levels to pick PiP you want. You also need to add kiteffect:swashbuckler for lvl 1 or lose some AC bonuses. This way, you also dont need to worry about at which level to dual.
You can also roll a bard:blade. They gets spells, two weapons, and some fighting bonuses. But they get less spells and cannot sneak around, disarm traps and pick locks like a swashy mage can.
No one play S/M more like a T/M multi?
If you have at least 19 STR after finishing BG1, damage and THAC0 should be fine, since most of it will come from that, and you have your spells as well anyway, so there's that as well. Defensive-wise you have to resort to items sometimes, but having an already good melee offensive lets you focus on defensive spells, like a F/M does.
If you do this, it plays like a F/M/T that progresses as a single-class Mage and has no Fighter/Thief HLAs (which considering what you gain, aren't a real loss).
I'm assuming you're going to level 16 instead of 15 just for the trap upgrade? According to CLE's FAQ, At level 15 thief traps do an average of 14 damage + 21 poison damage (spread over three rounds). At level 16, they do 18.5 damage + 20 fire damage. It's a net gain of 3.5 damage assuming no fire or poison resistances, but my impression is that fire resistance is more common than poison resistance.
Either way, by the time you unlock the dual (3.35m XP if you dual at 15, 3.94m if you dual at 16), you're going to be in ToB where the damage of a single trap isn't quite so impressive, so it seems like the level 15 trap would actually be better because at least it retains some potential utility in the form of interrupting casters. (If you really want better traps, dualing at level 11 gets you the same traps as dualing at level 15 and still completes in under 1m XP.)
Going from level 10 to level 16 gains you +3 base THACO, +1 to your saves vs. Death/Poly/Breath, and +2 to your saves vs. Wand and Spell. Plus it gives you one more +1 bonus to AC/THACO/Damage. But crucially, all of these bonuses will eventually be met or surpassed on the mage side, anyway, other than the additional +1 AC/THACO/Damage.
Comparing a S(10)>M and S(16)>M at 3.94m experience, when the latter first unlocks his dual, both classes will have identical saves. The S(16) will have +1 AC, +2 THACO, and +1 damage. (In two levels, the S(10) will get another +1 THACO bonus, while the S(16) is already maxed.)
The S(16) will have 150 extra thief points to spend, which will let him save a few extra level 2 spell slots. The S(10), on the other hand, will have +1 level 6 spell, +1 level 8 spell, 2 level 9 spells (the S(16) still doesn't have any), and three mage HLAs, (again, the S(16) doesn't have any yet.)
Even counting his kit bonuses, a S(16)>M tops out at 10 base THACO, which is as much as a pure-class thief end-game. It's terrible. With 22 strength and Fire Tooth / Belm, that's 2 THACO main-hand, 5 THACO off-hand. You're going to be around 50% to hit end-game. And you can't wear a helm, and your HP is poor, which means unless you're spamming PFMW you're going to get eaten alive in melee. (And the S(10)>M is going to get a lot more castings of PFMW throughout the game owing to the substantially faster mage progression.)
Hell, a case can be made that a M/T is actually better in melee than a Swash(16)>M. At 4m XP you're looking at one worse base THACO, 1 less THACO from proficiencies, and 5 fewer damage per attack (3 from kit, 2 from proficiency). But the M/T can get Use Any Item, which means Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, Scarlet Ninja-To, Helm of the Balduran, etc. Plus stuff like Mislead backstabs, Assassination, Time Traps (which render THACO irrelevant), etc.
In terms of proficiencies, if your goal is Daggers / Scimitars / TWF, the S(16)>M can get two stars in each as soon as he unlocks (3.94m XP), plus the third pip in TWF at 4.69m XP. The S(10)>M combo can get the same two pips in Scimitars / Daggers / TWF as early as 910,000k XP, and gets the third pip in TWF at 3.16m XP. But regardless of proficiencies, both are going to suck in melee. Again, you're really just spending an extra 3m XP to get +1 AC / THACO / Damage.
If you're soloing and XP is no object, and you want to make the absolute best melee SwashMage possible, you could do a level 21 dual. You wouldn't unlock it until nearly 7m XP, but like I said, we're assuming XP is no object. This gives you a 4-point THACO improvement compared to the level 16 dual (including your kit bonus), plus an extra +1 damage / +1 AC. When dual-wielding, you're suddenly at -2 / 1 THACO, which is more respectable, but still not great.
By comparison, a F/M/T with similar XP would have a base THACO of -4 / -1 with the same weapon setup, and while he'd deal 4 less damage per attack, he'd get 1.5 more attacks per round. (Actually, with dual speed weapons he'd hit the cap and only get +1 APR; on the other hand, he could replace Fire Tooth in his mainhand with any weapon at all and still get +0.5 APR over the S(21)>M).
The F/M/T would also have better HP, the ability to wear helmets and equip shields, fighter and thief HLAs (including UAI and Greater Whirlwind), and much better traps (again, Thief HLAs). If you want a Swash>Mage that can fight in melee and use traps, then just roll a F/M/T and you don't have to worry about downtime. Or if you don't want to lose out on level 9 spells, like I said, roll a M/T-- he's about as good in melee combat anyway once you give him the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization.
And yeah, a M/T's spell progression is slow. But so is a Swash(16)>Mage's.
(You could always use Tenser's to fix the S>M's THACO problems, but in that case, the mage level matters a lot more than the thief level and the S(10)>M comes out ahead.)
From an optimization standpoint, I just don't really see any argument at all for taking Swashbuckler past level 10 (or 11 if you really want the upgraded traps) before dualing to Mage. Dual low or roll a multiclass.
So what weapon do you choose for S10/M ?
(The best argument for equipping a ranged weapon, IMO, is if you use the button to select your entire party and order them to attack an enemy, you won't accidentally send your mage running into melee range.)
Long Swords and Short Swords can be useful for some immunities and usable abilities, (Daystar's Sunray, Ras's summon). Of course, you don't need proficiency points in either weapon to take advantage of that. For Katanas, Dakkon Zerth can be useful for the +1 spell at levels 1-4, but again, you don't need proficiencies to take advantage. Ideally you're not spending much time actually swinging it.
Oh, and one last point about the Swash(10) dual: you get 265 skill points to spend. A human with 18 dexterity has a base value of 25 open locks, 10 find traps, and 0 detect illusions. Maxing out those three skills takes... exactly 265 points. The game really is doing everything in its power to make sure you dual-class at level 10.