Yet another Kensai/Thief... What off-hand?

Durmir

Hi folks!

I don't even know how many toons I have played so far, sometimes just for the craic, sometimes RP, sometimes powergaming...
After a game with an underwhelming avenger, I think I just want something to wreak havoc, and surprisingly I have never tried yet the fabled kensai/thief...

Here's the thing: I want a full run BG-BG2-ToB, from lvl1 to capped lvl. No mod (I play EE versions though), no cheat, no cheese (no starting over BG 10 times to have all stats at 25 for instance). Them are the rules

I am looking at my toon's weaponry for BG2+ToB. Here is where I am:
- Staff of the Ram for backstab
- K'logarath for range
- Axe of the unyielding + ???? = profit

These are obvious choices, however what would ??? be?
I have thought of a few contenders:
- Runehammer for goodies
- Crom Faeyr (though my "natural" strength is gonna be 23, so that defeats most of the purpose here)
- Flail of Ages (pain in the backdoor to switch weapons to buff haste but that's fine) for pure damage
- Belm for extra APR
- Spectral Brand for insane TACH0 bonus
- Storm Star for mass disruption
- Blackrazor for insane bonuses (but only +3 so many things are immune)
- The Answerer to soften big baddies
- Defender of Easthaven for major defense boost
- Dagger of the star for more backstabbing
- Foebane (then Purifier with UAI) because it is sick

What do you think? In terms of pure power, what would be the best option? It's so hard to make up my mind...

Cheers mates

Borek

Scarlet ninja-to for offhand most of the time, switch in specific others for certain encounters.

Durmir

Thanks for the reply. I am really not a fan of the scarlet ninja-to. To use it, I need the UAI, which means that when I can use it I will be wearing the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, bringing me naturally to 4.5 APR. APR is capped at 5, so the ninja-to will bring me very little...

Hence Belm instead, although it suffers the same problem, at least I can reap full benefits in the meantime.

Raduziel

Defender of Easthaven

WarChiefZeke

I like Firetooth myself. Daggers are a solid choice for a thief in BG1 and BG2. Before you get it use Poisoned Throwing Daggers.

Borek

Durmir said:

Thanks for the reply. I am really not a fan of the scarlet ninja-to. To use it, I need the UAI, which means that when I can use it I will be wearing the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, bringing me naturally to 4.5 APR. APR is capped at 5, so the ninja-to will bring me very little...

Hence Belm instead, although it suffers the same problem, at least I can reap full benefits in the meantime.

Even 0.5 APR is quite a lot, the basic question is does any other weapon offer a better choice than +3, +1(0.5 in this case) APR, poison on hit? Considering your using Axe of Unyielding which has a save or die attack there's nothing better than capping APR. You asked what is the best, for an offhand weapon you cannot do better than +3, poison, +1 apr, especially when you are picking the class combo that actually allows access to it (w/o mods).

Anything else you put in the offhand has to perform better with each hit than +3, poison, PLUS do at least half the damage of an average AotU hit, just to break even, and for vorpal hits cannot compete unless it also has a destroy on hit attack, of which the Axe is the only option that isn't enemy specific plus 1 handed.

Durmir

Actually I just did the maths and the results are interesting.

The scarlet ninja-to gives +0.5APR. Assuming a vorpal hit is the equivalent of 100 damage on average (slightly overassessed on purpose). The gain per round would be 19 damage (assuming if not vorpal I still get an extra 1/2 attack with the axe), counting the damage of the ninja-to + poison.

Now if I use the flail of ages, for instance, the extra damage alone would be 19.5 per round. On top of it I get 5% magic resistance, a slow effect and increased movement speed.

Therefore, focusing solely on raw power, FoA >> scarlet ninja-to.

This is not true anymore if I get the full benefit of 1APR rather than 0.5. Which would make the ninja-to far superior (hence its reputation). But this is not the case here.

The other answers gave me much to think about. I chose the axe of the unyielding on the basis I wanted a defensive weapon with strong offense, and to save weapon proficiency by using similar type of weapons (here, my ranged weapon is an axe).

However (and I'm thinking out loud here, so feel free to correct me / add your own thoughts), I just realised (I know, I am blind) that I can get a similar effect with FoA in main hand and the defender of easthaven as off-hand, thus leaving me with the choice I prefer for range with the remaining weapon proficiencies... FoA being by far the best offensive weapon of the game and the defender the best defensive one...

The defender and the ninja-to have roughly a similar damage output. Now the question would become: do I prefer strong defensive boons or 0.5 bonus APR with FoA? If I take the ninja-to, I also have to choose proficiencies between ninja-to or axe/dagger (ranged). Which plays in favor of the defender...

I love it when there is no straight answer

Skatan

I think the answer to some degree also relies on if you will play solo or in a party. If you play solo (though I am far from experienced with that in ToB) there's a need to focus on good defense since everyone will attack you whilst in a party you can take the striker roles and sacrifice a bit of def for better offense since other party members will take their share of the attacks.

Then you also have the 5 APR and IH with Crit.strikes HLA setup vs the <10 APR using GWW comparison. I don't see in your text which one you will go for, but using a Kai as a kensai max weapon damag, so it's better on average I guess to use a weapon with a large hit die (ie the katana striking for 10 DMG). But maybe you already added that in your calculation.

I dunno, I don't really have any good answers. I like the classic setup of FoA/DoE but that's also something I like to give an NPC, so again, it's solo vs party.