Assassin in ToB some question

Helmino

Hey guys like thread title i want to ask you if in the long run assassins kit worth it or not, i finished the original BG 2 with other classes and i want to try something new. Is this kit capable of backstab at high level too? (i know there are enemy immune to it, but want to know if they are the majority), and if someone can explain me better the poison, with a gesen bow it stacks 3 time a round for the duration?
Last question, with cloack of non identification you can pass near enemy that detect invisible right?
Im indecided because people keep say that this kit sucks and outside backstab he can't do anithing in combat...thank you for your answer and sorry for my bad english

MurrayConfederacy

1. Assassin goes up to x7 backstab, not *that* many High-Level enemies are immune to it.
2. The poison ability... I dunno, I do know that the first attack (that hits) with that weapon removes the poison.
3. Right. Cloak of non-detection is a permanent, non-detection spell on you that can't be dispelled.
4. No one really ever says that this kit sucks, if it is a human fighter class dulled to assassin - in which case it is quite powerful.

Oxford_Guy

MurrayConfederacy said:

1. Assassin goes up to x7 backstab, not *that* many High-Level enemies are immune to it.
2. The poison ability... I dunno, I do know that the first attack (that hits) with that weapon removes the poison.
3. Right. Cloak of non-detection is a permanent, non-detection spell on you that can't be dispelled.
4. No one really ever says that this kit sucks, if it is a human fighter class dulled to assassin - in which case it is quite powerful.

You can't (legally) dual to a kit

Helmino

Edit, havent read well xD, your opinion on this class?

Helmino

No one with answer and some suggestion?

Foune

Assassin kit is really powerful and it's my personal favorite as I love backstabbing. You can play the kit many ways, most people like to play safe, initiating a fight with a backstab then running away and attack with ranged weapons and poison weapon. The poison ability coats your current weapon in poison for awhile, so it dosn't disapear if the attack misses, but I don't remember if the poison stacks, it's very powerful to get at a cleric or magic, interupting their spells.

I've also tried to run with cloak of non-detection, I'm not sure if it only affects invisibility and not stealth because I've gotten seen with true sight while wearing the cloak as stealthed.

There are some enemies immune to backstab, some dragons and golems, dosn't mean that backstab sucks. If you could backstab Firkraag with a 7x multiplier then you've oneshotted him basicly, it would make backstab just ridiculously OP if you could backstab anything. I remember the dragons in watchers keep not being immune to backstab if I pulled on assasination, which is just ridiculous.

I play my assassin pure elf with dex boost, dualwielding celestial fury and belm mid-game, not sure what to equip late game as there are many choices, many people like to run with a single melee weapon since early game your thac0 is a bit too high to stand toe-to-toe with fighters in combat. I also don't use ranged weapons since I prefer running around and hacking down anything I see after backstab, you can get your AC low enough to not have any problems in close combat and your thac0 low enough to stomp down anything. I havn't tried in Insanity mode though.

Helmino

Thanks Foune for your suggestion, at certain level can assassins scout for trap too?

mjs

i played a half-orc assassin and finished ToB, it was fantastic. Assassination is an awesome HLA when you have x7 back-stab multiplier and the poison ability is great at all levels especially against mages. plus stock up on potions of invisibility etc. also when you have a very strong assassin like mine (str: 19, dec: 18, con: 18) then with use every item HLA plate up & use tenser's for a decent frontline fighter

highly recommended

cbarchuk

Hey mjs, what did you name your half-orc assassin? I'm going to play either a half-orc fighter/thief or assassin in BGEE. But I'm still trying to come up with a good name. Also I'm surprised you enjoyed the assassin experience in later parts of BG2 and ToB. During my assassin run through, he gradually felt more and more useless as backstab immune opponents became more frequent and even poison didn't seem to work as well. Now granted I kept my assassin as an assassin. What I mean is I didn't turn him into a pseudo-mage or fighter with UAI. I just felt that if I did that, then I was no longer really playing an assassin. I dunno. Just my take.

Helmino

cbarchuk said:

Hey mjs, what did you name your half-orc assassin? I'm going to play either a half-orc fighter/thief or assassin in BGEE. But I'm still trying to come up with a good name. Also I'm surprised you enjoyed the assassin experience in later parts of BG2 and ToB. During my assassin run through, he gradually felt more and more useless as backstab immune opponents became more frequent and even poison didn't seem to work as well. Now granted I kept my assassin as an assassin. What I mean is I didn't turn him into a pseudo-mage or fighter with UAI. I just felt that if I did that, then I was no longer really playing an assassin. I dunno. Just my take.

I like cbarchuk wiev of assassins too, i prefer the stealthy style, but whit lower thaco assassination hits?

mjs

@cbarchuk Harak'Dar...sounded guttural

Foune

Helmino said:

Thanks Foune for your suggestion, at certain level can assassins scout for trap too?

Sure it's possible, you can focus on 3 thief skills as an assassin decently without losing much, I personally just leveled move silently and hide in shadows and kept a secondary thief/mage for getting the traps, like Imoen or Jan.

Helmino

Thank you for the answer

mallz

The X7 multiplier is nice and so is the poison, but the lack of thief distribution points combined with horrid thief THACO make the assassin way too weak if you want a backstabber.

If your fine playing a human, I'd suggest taking levels in fighter first, then dual classing to a thief down the road. You'll be able to hit a LOT more, have much more points to distribute (so you can search for traps at later levels which isn't really viable for assassins since most the points are going to hide and move silently).

Kensai/thief, beserker/thief or straight up fighter/thief I think are the best 'assassin' builds.

If you want to play a different race, I'd suggest multi classing fighter/thief. Sure you level up slower, but you'll be able to use both classes right away, start the backstabbing and actually hit what you're trying to backstab.

Assassins are one hit wonders, worthless for the rest of a battle and can't be relied on to hit.

Also, in BG2, the majority of high level baddies I run across are immune to backstab.

Helmino

Mallz if i do elf fighter thief what are your suggestions for weapon choice?

mallz

Longsword (single or dual wielding). Elves get -1 THACO to longsword and longbow.
Dual wield if you want to focus on non-backstab DPS.
Single wield if you want bonus AC and to easily switch between longsword and longbow. Oh, and single wield gives you 10% crit chance with 2 proficiency points.

Shortswords are a little faster, and I think there are more magical ones in BG1 than BG2 compared to longswords.

Daggers are even faster, and there are some nice ones made for assassins, but they put out such little damage I've found compared to their bigger brothers ^_^. Especially after they've been backstabbed

edit: Forgot about quarterstaves. The most damage a backstab can dish out is actually from staff of the RAM. But I could never justify my thief having a stave. It just looks weird O.o

Helmino

What about scimitar? there are some nice one that give extra attack, elves bonus apply to them?

mallz

nope, no bonus to scimitars with elves.

It doesn't matter too much what you go unless your trying to get the best damage. fighter/thieves will get enough proficiency slots and thaco to kick ass with any weapon ^.^

Helmino

thank you Mallz

mallz

Happy gaming! ^_^

Foune

With dualwield you'll be able to to fight a longtime outside of stealth, even with a high thac0 the thac0 is enough to kill most stuff. I played through whole SoA with celestial fury and belm, the crit from single weapon profiency is so rare that I never find it worth it to use it.

Staff of the Ram is amazing and alot of fun, solves all your problems, you can backstab for alot and do a good amount of dps mid-combat.

cbarchuk

I once again advocate going with either an elf or half-orc fighter/thief. Thieves already level extremely fast so you won't level as slow as you might think. If you want to backstab, go with a half-orc. Can start with a 19 strength right outta the box along with a 19 constitution for good starting hitpoints. With an elf you'll get slightly lower strength and constitution but get slightly better dexterity and bonus to thief skills. You really can't go wrong with either.

But I wouldn't disregard the assassin kit either. The kit does get a +1 to hit and damage and stealth adds an additional +4 to hit. Add in any strength bonus and you'll hit more often than not. Now you won't be able to fight toe to toe which, if you're roleplaying, assassins don't really do anyways. Put a shortsword or longsword in one slot and darts, a crossbow, or longbow (if your an elf) in the 2nd slot. Your primary job will be to assassinate. You're not a thief. You kill things and you do it with impunity. I wouldn't worry about the backstab immune opponents in BG2. You're playing BG1 EE. The great thing about the first game is backstab is viable against every enemy in the game including the final boss Sarevok and his cronies. Poison will be useful throughout the whole game against almost all opponents. This is why I like the first game better. All classes are viable. BG2 and ToB, to a greater extent, bottleneck you into playing with certain classes as others become less and less useful. I think that is a massive design error.

Conclusion: Go with what you want. I think your best choices will be between a multi-class fighter/thief and straight up assassin.

Fighter/Thief

PROS: Better THACO, Better starting strength (unless your a half-orc), Better APR, Able to specialize in a weapon, more thief points, more hit points.

CONS: Will level up slower

Assassin

PROS: Will level up extremely fast, and poison.

CONS: THACO won't be as good but will be plenty good enough for backstabs. Less APR, can only be proficient in a weapon or weapon style, less hitpoints, can only start with a 18 strength unless your a half-orc, less thief points to spend.

I think the advantage goes to the fighter/thief personally but the assassin will be just as good, though he'll be more specialized.

mallz

http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Progression_Charts

This might help you out in determining what you want to do. They're tables of class level progressions.

I got to keep disagreeing with Assassin though. It might take less XP per level for thieves, but your still getting a lot less bonuses per same XP compared to fighters. What're you gettin for the XPs?

Also, Assassins THACO naturally never gets better than 10 (might be 9), no matter the level, and it takes forever to get there to begin with. I'd argue they aren't a viable build even in early levels (although hes asking about TOB). All they have going for them is poison.

Helmino

cbarchunk i really appreciate your analysis, really helpful, now i'm deciding thanks again!

wissenschaft

Go Assassin and you can load up on thief HLAs in TOB which is all kinds of LoL. But BG2 EE is a while off. In BG1, you will level up faster as an Assassin though you will need a secondary mage. Use Invisibility spells, potion, ring in order to get multiple backstabs in a fight. At a low level you'll be focusing on using your bow w/ poison which will be plenty accurate with 19 dex of an Elf.

Don't worry about the THACO of an Assassin, there are so many ways to lower it. Get your STR 19+ and with the +4 bonus from stealth, your going to have no problem hitting enemies.

I think I might go Assassin instead of Stalker this time around. Murder is fun for everyone!

Krypteia

I did an Assassin solo through SoA to ToB and I found it plenty capable as a class.

The main weaknesses are the low thief skill progression and thief-class thac0, which there are workarounds for. At lower levels, a potion of haste and a couple of potions of invisibility can turn you into a nightmare in combat quite easily.

An an Assassin, your combat role is quite easy - backstab all the things. When this fails, return to a support role if you're with a party, using a ranged weapon and/or traps, depending on how high your skill is in that (obviously as a solo player, I pretty much maxed every skill out barring pickpocket by the end of the game). Hit and run is your bread and butter, you have huge damage spikes, followed by plenty of running away.

As an aside, I quite enjoy playing an Assassin given the storyline, it is quite apt from a roleplaying POV.

Foune

cbarchuk said:

I once again advocate going with either an elf or half-orc fighter/thief. Thieves already level extremely fast so you won't level as slow as you might think. If you want to backstab, go with a half-orc. Can start with a 19 strength right outta the box along with a 19 constitution for good starting hitpoints. With an elf you'll get slightly lower strength and constitution but get slightly better dexterity and bonus to thief skills. You really can't go wrong with either.

But I wouldn't disregard the assassin kit either. The kit does get a +1 to hit and damage and stealth adds an additional +4 to hit. Add in any strength bonus and you'll hit more often than not. Now you won't be able to fight toe to toe which, if you're roleplaying, assassins don't really do anyways. Put a shortsword or longsword in one slot and darts, a crossbow, or longbow (if your an elf) in the 2nd slot. Your primary job will be to assassinate. You're not a thief. You kill things and you do it with impunity. I wouldn't worry about the backstab immune opponents in BG2. You're playing BG1 EE. The great thing about the first game is backstab is viable against every enemy in the game including the final boss Sarevok and his cronies. Poison will be useful throughout the whole game against almost all opponents. This is why I like the first game better. All classes are viable. BG2 and ToB, to a greater extent, bottleneck you into playing with certain classes as others become less and less useful. I think that is a massive design error.

Conclusion: Go with what you want. I think your best choices will be between a multi-class fighter/thief and straight up assassin.

Fighter/Thief

PROS: Better THACO, Better starting strength (unless your a half-orc), Better APR, Able to specialize in a weapon, more thief points, more hit points.

CONS: Will level up slower

Assassin

PROS: Will level up extremely fast, and poison.

CONS: THACO won't be as good but will be plenty good enough for backstabs. Less APR, can only be proficient in a weapon or weapon style, less hitpoints, can only start with a 18 strength unless your a half-orc, less thief points to spend.

I think the advantage goes to the fighter/thief personally but the assassin will be just as good, though he'll be more specialized.

I just go for a strength girdle and all yours thac0 problems are gone for the most part. But I believe the pro's goes to an assassin in BG1 because there's no backstab immunity like you said, I just remember backstabbing Sarevok with a theif in vanilla BG1 and the fight was 70% over.

I played through SoA with both assassin and fighter/thief, I never found it useful to backstab with the fighter/thief as the damage wasn't as high to be worth the trouble, and it was basiclly just a dualwielding fighter that could perform all the utility support as Jan, Imoen or Nalia could, it was a pretty much boring jack of two-trades, you could pretty much just go pure fighter and make something out of your character and leave the pesky traps and lockpicking for your support.

cbarchuk

What weapon style did your assassin have? Dual-wielding or Single weapon? Assassin's backstab will not exceed a fighter/thief's until his multiplier hits 6x and 7x. Even then, the difference isn't huge. If you run with a half-orc assassin you can start with a 19 strength. That's the only way you can start with a high strength that is comparable to a fighter/thief. Fighter/thieves can specialized in a weapon as well. They both should be about neck and neck with backstabs until the assassin get his higher backstab multipliers. If you want a dedicated backstabber you really can't go wrong with either. The question is do you want more utility or not.