HEXXAT vs other thief type chars
mysta6767
Unconfirmed, Member Posts: 2
I have seen this as a prominent post who is better etc.... people fail to see where others don't point out the fact that Hexxat is immune to level drain, most other mind spells. She's a great undead killer. This is a huge advantage over, per se, Yoshimo (I don't want to have to cast negative energy and death resistance on him too; it kills my spell slots and takes my clerics time. She has 20str 20dex (vs yoshimo 17str 18dex natrually) when not in daylight (I will discuss that later) She has regenerate innate ability as well. So she's a better assassin, better marksmen and she is immune to death spells/effects, Negative energy, and poison.
Now to the cloak and day light. Soooo most fights in this game are done in dungeons / castles or caves / underdark. This means the about 10% of your fights (unless you are traveling to pick up gold or exp farming) is not so much a drawback, as much as it is a "OOOOOpppps I forgot to put the cloak back on poof dead vampire" The fact that she is innately immune to so many things I am going to have to place her over Yoshimo. This obviously is not an RP choice unless you are playing an evil character, but she is still a good choice overall.
Now to the cloak and day light. Soooo most fights in this game are done in dungeons / castles or caves / underdark. This means the about 10% of your fights (unless you are traveling to pick up gold or exp farming) is not so much a drawback, as much as it is a "OOOOOpppps I forgot to put the cloak back on poof dead vampire" The fact that she is innately immune to so many things I am going to have to place her over Yoshimo. This obviously is not an RP choice unless you are playing an evil character, but she is still a good choice overall.
Post edited by NaturalBornKieler on
1
Comments
It is not the 20 20, as there is plenty of str items in BG2 and a thief does not need 20 dex to hit ranged and any way will never be a tank (at least it is how I play thieves).
It is her immunity to certain effects and also her active special abilities that make her special, probably better then every thief charname that you can roll.
Compared to a dual from thief or a multi thief it is different, I would say that a not too late dual is somehow a crippled thief, even if having in the party the tandem Nalia-Imoen to deal with traps and locks there are enough thieving points to focus on at least some of the other thief skills, hiding, stabbing, setting traps and detecting illusions, even pick pocketing if the player does not like to stack potions, but most of the dual lack of the very useful thief HLA, just to get UAI means a long long down time.
About the multi MT (better if gnome and you have the combo with Jan), CT and FT are really strong, each one on his own, they have access to 2 HLA pools and have very good synergy between the classes, the F one gets thac0, very useful to stab well armored opponents, APR and end game a super HLA setup, with CS and GWW, but also UAI and the very good protective thief hla, some spike traps as cherry on top, the C one can buff himself for outstanding stabs (RM grants every time the maximum damage roll), can buff for mlee at will, even if is stuck to 1 base APR, so 4 if DW and improved hasted, and gives outstanding utility to the party both as a well played T and a well played C, about the M one everybody that has explored Jan's potential should know by himself.
But we all know that in this game dual and multi are more powerful of single class, so Hexxatt is probably OP as thief, and also the only single class thief NPC
After having my solo thieves clear the Tactics mod Chateau Irenicus and after having them clear alone so many dungeons let me disagree with that. They are not the ones that can do the work in the quickest way, like let's say a powerful kensai would do, but they can be extremely versatile and powerful in their own, setting traps and luring the enemy into them, performing multiple stabs without any retaliation, running away and hiding behind a suitable corner each time, depleting full mage spell books disappearing as the mage is casting so every on target spell fizzles and so on.
you just send your thief in advance, he soften most of the enemies, even with dragons and without setting traps right in front of him as he is still blue, lame tactic and blatant exploit of a poor AI, he can prepare the traps ambush and then the party can lure the dragon into them, then you can send the full party, but 50% or even more of the work has been already done by your thief.
I have a recent evil playthrough right now with her and there's a lot to like about her. The problem for single class thieves is specifically SoA and ToB as modules. Because they were balanced for Imoen as your main thief, there are simply diminishing returns on thief levels. There aren't too many chests or traps that require a high skill investment. More enemy types are immune to backstab as the game progresses. It's a shame they did not give her the assassin kit, which would have worked with her character and would have made her a little more interesting build imo. It would have made the point distribution more interesting for a longer period of time and added fun combat prowess.
One overlooked part Hexxat are her many immunities. Immune to level drain, immune to poison. Immunity to all sorts of death related magic. Pretty much unkillable, you just have to wait a short period. So she has some strong advantages for folks trying no reload or limited reload runs.
All that being said, as Rik says above, Jan is simply the best from a power gaming standpoint. But he's one of the best NPC's in the game in that regard.
So then, if you want a thief to match up to other characters in combat as the game goes on, that thief also needs to be something else. For most of the SoA thief companions, that "something else" is being a mage. For Hexxat, it's being a vampire - nice, but nowhere near the same power level. You can't really leverage that 20 strength when you only get one attack per round in melee, and the damage boost doesn't multiply in a backstab.
The immunities are nice, at least. One that you didn't note in there - she doesn't die to illithid brain-sucking.
Incidentally, if I were to give her a kit, I'd go with Shadowdancer. It fits very well with the vampire theme.
A thief that starts the battle with a stab, thing that in itself can be really useful if he takes out a mage, then tries to mimic a fighter, ranged or mlee does not matter, is a thief used only at a fraction of its true potential, and this is true in SoA, where you can stab a lot, and also in ToB, where more enemies are immune, but at that point the thief has other weapons, detect illusions and the HLA traps.
If you want to use effectively a thief, get all you can from him, you have to somewhat plan the battle around the thief, send him to weaken the enemy, run away and repeat, never remaining to fight after a stab, you have to lay traps carpets and lure the enemy into them and so on.
Even draconis, that being a giant creature is immune to stabs, will get huge damage from spike traps, and detect illusions is really useful as he goes invisible at will and does it often, a well played thief can make that battle noticeably easier. Somehow Jan can also do it, as he has some special equipment that boost some of his thief skills letting him reach good values compared to a charname MT, his main problem is that in SoA needs more XP to rise the stab multiplier, but being also a mage, specialist, he is indeed one of the most powerful and versatile NPCs, from a pure PG perspective is stronger then any single class thief, I don't argue with it. by the way also Nalia and Imoen are stronger, they are single class mages that can deal with doors and traps, and the mages are super strong in this game.
But a thief is much more then opening doors, disabling traps and stabbing at the beginning of a battle, both when he goes solo to clear areas and when he works in synergy with the rest of the party he can be deadly and really effective, combat wise, as long as the party does not use static tactics, but has a real control of the battle ground, making the enemies move in the area as needed.
Multi and dual rule in this game, only wild mage, sorcerer and maybe inquisitor can compare to them.
My point was only that deciding to play a single class thief, as it is a fun to play class for those that like to adopt not conventional tactics, plan the battles and win because they are tactically superior, not because they build a super optimized for power party, there is much more their thief can do beyond opening doors, finding and disabling traps and preemptive stabs.
It is true that the thief after a stab has to run away and keeping him near the enemy is not so effective, he lacks of armor apr and thac0 to do it well, but it can be his strength as well as a weak point.
If you send him to stab before the battle and not during the battle some enemies will follow him, to stop behind some corner where he has hidden in shadows the split second the enemy loose his line of sight, this can be used to stab again, but also to place the enemies where you want instead of having them all packed together, often only the fighters or some fighter will follow him leaving the enemy casters without cover, or the party can dispatch the enemies that have followed the thief, without finding him, then take care of the casters. Add some well placed trap in the mix and what seems to be a weak point becomes the key to an easy victory. Such tactics work wonders vs parties like the ones in the temple sewers, the magic resisting drows in the underdark, almost every beholder nest and so on. I have already explained how the thief can be super useful even when he can not stab, in the example vs draconis.
This is true but the big difference is that a FMT is going to have a tough time being effective at lockpicking, traps detection, trap setting and backstabs until say ToB. Which brings me back to my point above, the single class thief is a problem specifically because of the balance within the module, especially BG2.
A multi classed thief is still going to be unlocking some key abilities even late into the saga. But a single class thief can come close to maxing everything out midway through SoA.
If the FMT has to put pips only in hide in shadows, set traps and move silently he can reach a good value in them pretty fast, even as triple class, then he has probably to focus on detecting illusions.
If also Haer Dalis is in the party it is a perfect synergy as he covers the pick pocketing, but drinking enough potions every thief can pick pocket or is even possible to drop temporarily someone and use him or Jan to steal, if you don't fight as you are doing it you don't even loose xp for the dropped toon.
Finding the bard when charname is between 1.5 and 2M xp also Haer Dalis will have a high level so enough stealing skill to be effective even without abusing of stacked potions, one of each kind and he can steal from every shop but the one in the CC reliably.
For 6 people parties without Nalia or Imoen the delayed thieving skills of the triple class are indeed a problem.
But with synergies I would argue they aren't all that much of an issue. Take thief points for example, with FMT you can substitute invisibility for stealth skills and skull trap for thief traps. Putting 0 points in those skills allows you to focus solely on traps/locks in BG1 and then throw remaining points in pickpocket to prepare for a potion-aided clean-out of the Copper Coronet in early BG2. You can even later substitute true sight for detect illusion if desired.
The bigger problem I usually have is hitting 3 million xp and watching Imoen or Nalia cast time stop before my FMT can even cast Mordenkainen's sword. But that is the price you pay for versatility.
Oddly, my second favourite class is paladin, which is ironic, considering.