Dual Mage -> Thief
Xanadoo
Member Posts: 17
I'm a *long* time player and recently rediscovered the game. I'm planning on doing a full play through (BG, SOD, BG2) with a character.
I've got my Assassin through to Chapter 7 of BG and then got to thinking, wouldn't it be great if he could do *some* magic as well? A few spells here and there to support his thieving skills.
I don't like the idea of a multi-class Thief / Mage which plays the two parts equally, so wondered about doing a Human dual class Mage -> Thief (and then shamelessly cheat and give him the Assassin kit). I think this works from a role-play perspective - the studious mage is thrown into the big, bad world, his arcane capabilities aren't enough so becomes a "thief" (essentially the opposite direction to Imoen, but with a VERY different skill set).
I suspect this won't be too powerful - the types of spells I'd want are largely non-combat (I can think of Knock, Friends, Identify etc) and to be used only when safe to take armour off, although does give early access to scrolls and wands. By being an Assassin rather than general thief the advancement in skills is much slower, but obviously more capable in combat (and poisoning enemy mages is lots of fun).
I'm guessing that dual-classing quite early (level 3 or 4, giving him access to second level spells?) means he doesn't get too many spells and will quickly level back up with the low XP requirements for the Thief class. Any later and he's probably too invested in the magic path and will be starting to become more powerful.
I would have considered starting out as a specialist mage (probably an Illusionist, which kind of supports the character idea), but whilst adding a kit to a dual character is possible I don't think two kits would work.
Aside from CHARNAME, I'm likely to use a fairly canonical party for the majority of the game with the occasional switch out to do specific quests.
Anything I'm forgetting, or any comments, especially about how this might play out in the later games and at higher levels?
I've got my Assassin through to Chapter 7 of BG and then got to thinking, wouldn't it be great if he could do *some* magic as well? A few spells here and there to support his thieving skills.
I don't like the idea of a multi-class Thief / Mage which plays the two parts equally, so wondered about doing a Human dual class Mage -> Thief (and then shamelessly cheat and give him the Assassin kit). I think this works from a role-play perspective - the studious mage is thrown into the big, bad world, his arcane capabilities aren't enough so becomes a "thief" (essentially the opposite direction to Imoen, but with a VERY different skill set).
I suspect this won't be too powerful - the types of spells I'd want are largely non-combat (I can think of Knock, Friends, Identify etc) and to be used only when safe to take armour off, although does give early access to scrolls and wands. By being an Assassin rather than general thief the advancement in skills is much slower, but obviously more capable in combat (and poisoning enemy mages is lots of fun).
I'm guessing that dual-classing quite early (level 3 or 4, giving him access to second level spells?) means he doesn't get too many spells and will quickly level back up with the low XP requirements for the Thief class. Any later and he's probably too invested in the magic path and will be starting to become more powerful.
I would have considered starting out as a specialist mage (probably an Illusionist, which kind of supports the character idea), but whilst adding a kit to a dual character is possible I don't think two kits would work.
Aside from CHARNAME, I'm likely to use a fairly canonical party for the majority of the game with the occasional switch out to do specific quests.
Anything I'm forgetting, or any comments, especially about how this might play out in the later games and at higher levels?
4
Comments
One spell I would probably use with this character would be invisibility. The low skill points for an assassin make it difficult to get good stealth in early levels - particularly if you want to be able to disarm traps. A would-be assassin who wanted to be able to make himself invisible in order to scout and backstab would make RP sense to me.
Cheers.
"I'm a 5 year grandmaster of longswords!" -> dual-class -> "I don't know how to swing a sword."
Right at the start of BG2 is a good time to dual if you're going with that story. The tortures you experienced in Ironicus's dungeon could easily have left you impaired for a while.
On the RP aspect f dual classing I always figured it to with the learning process, until something becomes instinctive it takes more cognitive effort so other skills are not as available. Not entirely accurate, but then I guess it's a simple game balance point more than anything.
I've started the game. A couple of thoughts.
Low level un-kitted mages suck. Even worse, I gave CHARNAME proficiency in daggers to start, but throwing daggers are (more) difficult to acquire, expensive and use up a ton of inventory slots, so he's actually using a sling for now. I've got Xzar in the party (who's actually better than I've previously given him credit for). Xzar is wearing the Ring of Wizardry - the doubling of level 1 spells makes more sense when he gets more to begin with due to his specialisation. Monty unfortunately died in Beregost
CHARNAME is currently level 3, I plan to dual class at 4. By that time Xzar will have been replaced by Dynaheir who will become the primary spell caster. I'm sticking to the rules, with the exception of dual classing to a kit as stated. The downtime will be pretty short as it will only take 10000 xp to recover and the skills lost temporarily won't really be missed.
One interesting thing I need to think about is the potential extra requirement for a thief once I dual class Imoen at level 7. Those 15 points per level are not going to stretch well amongst the thieving skills CHARNAME needs. Almost tempting from a meta gaming perspective to not apply the kit!
Also love the flavor of the thing, and I can imagine the headlines in the cowled wizards paper: “budding apprentice mage turns to petty theft and murder for profit after flunking classes. Any with information on a certain CHARNAME, please see the cowled wizards for a hefty reward.”
I thought having a Specialist Mage and a Kit was a hard coded issue in the game itself. Which is why you cannot have other things inside EEKeeper like say have a dual class X-Kit/Y-Kit
edit: @Dragonspear
1) Wands, especially fire, are (over)powerful when combined with stealth. Either for killing large numbers of mooks, or for spamming against more powerful villains. Since stealth is infinitely reusable (compared to invisibility methods) this is a very effective strategy. On a few occasions I then switched to Agannazar's scorcher mode to finish off someone who wasn't backstabbed in one hit. Obviously this fails in areas with large numbers of civilians
2) I made better balanced choices of thief skill on this play through and made sure CHARNAME could detect/remove traps (Imoen never recovered her thief capabilities - she hit the required XP for that level up when Sarevok died) which got me through, in particular, cloak wood mines and the thief maze at the end.
3) The addition of Friends spell made a big difference to buying stuff (I've never really used it before, preferring to keep my character as party lead in most situations and not making use of that spell), allowing cash flow to be managed more easily, especially in the mid game and allowing the buying of certain expensive items (shadow armor, mage robes etc) a bit easier.
4) I'm almost tempted to try and solo this character
5) I'm also tempted to actually play a mage for the first time in nearly 20 years of having this game.
I’m still using wands of fire, but increasingly seeing the value of potions of explosions etc, and love Arrows of Detonation, especially combined with poison (even the nerfed modern version!) having just learned that particular trick.
Overall, I’m not sure at this stage that the disadvantages of being human make up for the advantage of carrying wands, especially when using NPCs who can carry them and target areas scouted by a thief.