NWN:EE - First ever playthrough. What ability scores to focus on for dual wield Rogue?

Vanch3

I'm just starting up NWN:EE for the first time ever, and would like to make a half orc Rogue who dual wields daggers. This may not be the most optimal race or even the most optimal of weapons, but I'm only playing on Normal difficulty and it helps me to get immersed more instead of min maxing the best race/weapon combos.

That being said, in terms of ability score, I kind of DO want to min max as best I can. I've no idea what to focus on... For example, is strength needed for a Rogue? I can see that dexterity is massively needed of course, but when hovering over strength it tells me that it basically increases my melee damage, so wouldn't that be needed as well? I remember in Baldurs Gate (I think it was BG), you could get a certain perk which based your weapon damage off of your dexterity instead of strength. Does NWN have this? If so, I could just drop strength altogether I suppose.

Then comes the other ability scores such as intelligence etc... Apparently anything under 9 intelligence means my character won't be able to speak properly haha. Well, I'm not looking to make a genius, but I don't want him to be an absolute moron, so I'll probably have to put it up to at least 9 won't I?

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

Cerabelus

15 Dexterity is needed for 3 feats.

Two Weapon Fighting, Improved TWF.
Ambidexterity.

Don't worry about min-maxing, as long as your having fun and successful that's what matters.

Strength for any character using Melee is good for more damage per hit.

Taking the Weapon Fitness Feat will help if your DEX is always higher than STR.

9 Intelligence will reduce you skill points per LVL by 1 so maybe 10.

An Orc has +2 STR so maybe Start with.

STR = 16
DEX = 15 or 16
CON = 14

And the rest doesn't matter too much.

sarevok57

just to add to Cerabelus ability score choice i would go with this;

STR 16 ( 14 +2 racial )
DEX 15
CON 14
INT 12 ( 14 -2 racial )
WIS 10
CHA 8 ( 10 -2 racial )

and then on every ability score improvement i would put it in dexterity

here is why i would use these ability scores;

16 str is a nice score to have, not only in terms of hitting at low levels, but also being able to carry items, if you can you will want your thief to be sneak attacking for it's serious damage, so strength becomes meh at that point

as Cerabelus said, 15 dex gets you the feats you need to effectively wield 2 weapons, plus also it will affect some of your important thief skills like; open lock, hiding, moving silently, plus once your DEX surpasses your STR then you will want to get weapon finesse to increase your to hit

14 con is good for more HP and also giving you a +2 bonus to fort saves, since that will be one of your weaker saves, so always good to have a bonus there, also if you feel that your HP are still a bit weak, the toughness feat ( if you have room ) gives you an extra HP/level

12 INT, even though rogues get 8 skills, INT also goes towards how effectively you can disarm traps so it would be nice to have a bonus there, plus with 12 INT now you get 9 skills which is never a bad thing

having 10 WIS is good because then you will not have a penalty to your will saving throw, plus WIS also goes towards spot and listen checks, so having at least 10 there is good

and for your last 2 points CHA can be good because A ) for any dialogue skills you may choose; bluff, intimidate, diplomacy, but also for use magic device. With UMD you can eventually wear the monk boots and there is a pair that gives you a +4 or +5 dodge bonus to AC while giving you a +3 to DEX at the same time, very good item for a thief to have