"By Valkur's sneaky blade!"

BelacRLJ

Has anyone ever given Branwen the Manual of Quickness of Action and multiclassed her to thief?

This would be very out of character for her, but would be potentially quite powerful when she recovered her spellcasting.

jmerry

The flaw with it? A cleric-thief dual class has very few advantages over a cleric/thief multiclass. It's a nice combination, if a bit awkward - but you're probably better off just taking Tiax. His lower wisdom means he gets fewer spells (two fewer level 2 slots, and no kit spells), but he doesn't suffer downtime, he gets a +4 bonus to saves versus spells, and he gets substantial racial skill bonuses. Dual-classing gets you a few more proficiency points, but they're not worth much because you can't specialize.
Sure, Tiax isn't available until you reach BG city - but you can't dual-class Branwen until you reach BG city, either.

Within the 161K cap of BGEE (without SoD), you can dual-class cleric 7-thief 8 or cleric 6-thief 9. Reaching thief level 10 is impossible with the dual. The multiclass ends up at cleric 7/thief 8.

BelacRLJ

I am aware that it is flawed, it's an exercise in wacky party-building. This came out of plans for a party which would have another long-term dual-class away from thief, so there'd already be wandering around, and my trying to figure out who the best temp thief would be.

I just find the idea of stealthy!Branwen funny, almost as much as stealthy!Minsc, and curious if people have done it.

sarevok57

the only real problem i see with this is that if you do so legitimately, you have to wait until chapter 5 before you can even give branwen the tome ( since the tome is in chapter 5 )

although i guess it *might* be convenient because she sure could be closer for that cleric level you want her to be at, but if you are one of those completionist types, you might be wasting value xp time if she is way pass the 55000 xp threshold, making it much more difficult for her to hit the 161000 xp cap

but other than that, i do agree that it would indeed be an interesting thing to do with branwen, at least she would be the only joinable companion who would have perfectly placed thief points for where you want them to be

ilduderino

By Valkur’s strapping buttocks I have always thought she would be a great utility character this way.

As Sarevok57 says you have to wait for chapter 5 but you can therefore raise her cleric levels nicely and then sub in Yeslick, Quayle or Tiax to cover your cleric needs until she regains her cleric abilities.

My only reservation is that it feels out of character. If you have the NPC mod, she grills you about why you ran from Sarevok and didn’t fight with Gorion, so being a sneaky thief seems to go against her core beliefs.

jmerry

The characterization is right there in her kit - she's a priest of Tempus, a god of battle. Of course, surprise attacks and clever stratagems are very much a part of battle; her god doesn't demand that you mindlessly charge the enemy.

Focusing on stealth (for scouting and backstabs) and traps would seem to be most in character, skill-wise. You're going to fight, but you'll make every advantage possible to start that fight.

DJKajuru

jmerry wrote: »

The characterization is right there in her kit - she's a priest of Tempus, a god of battle. Of course, surprise attacks and clever stratagems are very much a part of battle; her god doesn't demand that you mindlessly charge the enemy.

Focusing on stealth (for scouting and backstabs) and traps would seem to be most in character, skill-wise. You're going to fight, but you'll make every advantage possible to start that fight.

It would for a priest of tempus in general, but Branwen seems a bit more straightforward , specially her BG/BG2 npc mod who strongly emphasises being honorable in battle and such.

BelacRLJ

Perhaps her best skill would be finding/disarming traps and illusions, thus foiling opponents' attempts at dishonorable combat trickery.

The party would likely be knocking over Durlag's Tower at the time (level 7 and needing a bunch of XP to complete a couple dual-classes), so Branwen finding traps and a mage using Knock would be an efficient combo.