What level should an Assassin dual class?
Riolathel
Member Posts: 330
Basically I am on my evil playthrough of BG:EE and decided an assassin would be a fun choice for evil-doing.
I'm level 3 and already i'm beginning to notice how Thac0 could be an issue in my combat effectiveness.. I have the right abilities to dual-class to fighter, but nothing else. I plan on playing this character through BG2 as well so i was wondering exactly when the best time would be for me to dual. If i dual to fighter will i be able to increase proficiencies above 1 point, and will those points carry over when i regain my assassin class?"
I'm level 3 and already i'm beginning to notice how Thac0 could be an issue in my combat effectiveness.. I have the right abilities to dual-class to fighter, but nothing else. I plan on playing this character through BG2 as well so i was wondering exactly when the best time would be for me to dual. If i dual to fighter will i be able to increase proficiencies above 1 point, and will those points carry over when i regain my assassin class?"
- What level should an Assassin dual class?118 votes
- level 1-54.24%
- level 5-9 (near the end of BG)11.02%
- level 10-15 (bg2)13.56%
- level 15-205.08%
- level 21+11.86%
- Don't dual class54.24%
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Comments
BTW don't forget you can only backstab with melee weapons thieves can use.
Personally I don't like the idea of dualing an assassin, do it too low and you're wasting one of the best things about the assassin - the high backstab modifier, do it too late and you take *ages* to regain your assassin levels and by the late game you start encountering enemies that are immune to backstab.
Perhaps worth dualing at low-level, if you just want the assassin's poison weapon ability, but I'd rather take a blackguard (though the posion isn't as good)
Yeah, that +4 helps A LOT for hitting. Thac0+1+4+other gear+weapon, you'll only miss mages and thieves on a 1, hit clerics most of the time, assuming they're wearing pretty heavy armor, and hit high AC sometimes...though given that they tend to have a boatload of health anyway, you're probably better off just gunning them down with a hail of poisoned darts/arrows.
And that's just at the start of SoA. By the time you get to 22, you'll only miss the REALLY hard to hit enemies, and most of them can't be backstabbed anyway.
OH and the assassin's poison gets better at 10 and 15. Basically doubling damage each time. Or rather, the minimum damage doubles, and the damage dealt increases slightly, but happens over a shorter duration, so roughly doubled.
And like all thieves, their snares get more powerful at 11 (more damage, adds a dot), 16 (Even more damage, stronger dot), 21 (Even more damage, even stronger dot, save or DIE).
From what i've read the best way to utilize it with Dualing is to get to 21 and then go fighter but im not interested in leveling 22 times till i get my abilities back.. If there's any game left to play by then.
so far i took single weapon style and prof in daggers and scimitars/etc.
The Assassin kit is really good enough by itself as everyone else has stated.
I have been thinking (I realise this is misguided & time consuming) of perhaps playing an Assassin & dualing at 21 (backstab limit & max poison), even though it'd take forever to surpass the Thief levels. I'd play the smallest possible party until I reach 21st level then dual - hopefully arround that time I'd be in Watchers Keep - & have the Deck of Many Things - boot my party & then use the deck to spam a huge amount of XP. Then probably solo for a while (the deck would take me to level 13 Fighter), it's just a meger 2250000 XP more to regain my Assassin skills haha. No doubt I'd get too bored &/or frustrated before that point & quit. But should I not I'll have my PC using the Staff of Ram & probably Darts.
Jango!
BTW Does anyone know if this is true for the Blackguard's poison too?
Indeed! :-)
You can backstab from invisibilty, I've used it lots of times with my illusionist/thief, very effective.
I hardly use invis as it is, and this is my first time running a character who backstabs
It's very usefull when you can't run around corners to re-hide
Of course the Sequel is just ridiculous, since you can buy unlimted rings of air control...they're pretty pricy, but if you're solo, you can easily afford several (I usually grab 2 right out the prelude, and drop by periodically to grab a couple more as money as allows). They cast improved invisiblity 1/day each. So you get invisibility, and improved ac for several rounds, and most caster's can't target you till the fading wears out.
I suppose if you were going to do it, I would at least wait until level 8 as you have your 2nd poison by then. Also as this character would not make a great thief (overall) Since you don't have many points to spread I would choose 1 or 2 things to be good at and put all of your points up to 8 in that. I like the idea of an Assassin that is good at detecting illusions and setting traps, though the usefulness in BG is probably small.
I've completed most of SoA/ToB as a solo assassin and it's very powerful, if somewhat tricky in some fights. The thief HLAs are extremely powerful even as a single classed thief as you can get 6 attacks with improved haste if using a +1 attack offhand(such as the +2 short sword from the planar prison) for when you use the assassination HLA. Not to mention time trap or use any item HLAs.
If you're really intent on dual classing, I'd go with Kensai first and then dual classing to a plain thief instead of assassin -> fighter. Like someone said, if you just want a fighter with poison weapon, blackguard is where it's at.
Final note though, theoretically, you *can* do an assassin -> fighter dual class while still getting a few thief HLAs without having to remove the XP cap. If you dual at assassin 25, you will be able to pick up two high level abilities(I'd go with assassination and time trap, use any item is unfortunately a luxury you can't afford) before dual classing at 3,3 million XP. A fighter reaches level 26 at 4,5 million XP which would mean that you would regain your thief abilities at 7,8 million XP(200k below the ToB cap). However, that's an absolutely massive amount of XP, something which you'd only realistically see at the very end of ToB or if you were playing completely solo through SoA.
So yea, moral of the story, go kensai -> thief or don't dual at all. Pure assassin is very playable and quite fun(you learn a lot of how "tricky" the game will let you be through having only a single attack per round but that attack being very powerful).
Cleric xp progression is almost as swift as thief so much so that you can take epic level abilities for both classes and still unlock them before the end of ToB.
If you want to take the thief High Level Ability "Use any item" from your assassin levels you will have to wait until level 24 as a pure assassin and then make the switch to cleric if you do this you should hit level 25cleric before the end of ToB (at roughly 6.8million xp).
An average play through of SoA+ToB nets roughly 5.5mil xp with a full 6man party, so if you want to go down this road you will need to play with a smaller 4man party instead. (while your an assassin take a fighter mage and cleric and while a cleric run with a thief fighter and mage).
(the game is actually a hell of a lot of fun with a 4man group, just sayin).
Advantages:
Cleric Buffs...Cleric Buffs and more Cleric buffs
clerics can make them selves highly resistant to or even outright immune to almost every negative effect in the game with the exception of Maze and Imprisonment.
At higher cleric levels casting Holy power -> Draw Apon Holy Might -> Righteous Magic you will raise your STR/DEX/CON all to 25 for max health/damage/thaco and armor as well increase your thaco to that of an un-specialized fighter.
Righteous Magic also causes you to inflict maximum damage on all your attacks for the duration (including your 7x backstab) and any weapon procs that happen to activate.
Use Any Item allows you to continue using your thief weapons despite the change to cleric.
Disadvantages:
Epic amount of play time required to unlock both classes.
Requires a small party (recommend 4 or less including charname)
(on a side note you can back stab with all of the cleric summoned weapons for some pretty interesting options, this includes spirit hammer oddly enough. If this sounds like something you will do you should note that these weapons actually DO use proficiency points, Flaming sword is a short sword and spirit hammer is a war hammer, Shillelagh is a club. If you sink a point into short swords while leveling your assassin level you will maintain the short sword proficiency when summoning Flaming Sword, though you wont be able to equip normal shorts swords still).
STR: whatever your comfortable playing with, there are so many +str options in the game that it doesn't really matter.
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 10+ would be nice but not required
Wisdom: 17+ keep in mind that you will gain 3 from books in BG1, 1 from the machine of Lum the Mad and 1 more if your cleric levels are active before you finish SOA (eye door).
Charisma: whatever you want really.
I have a feeling I've forgotten something really important....
You'd basicly be a fighter... thac0 gets meaningless and a few HP won't matter. And then you'd get:
- +1 to THAC0 and Damage
- Can coat weapon in poison once/day for every 4 levels (next hit injects poison, dealing 1 damage/second for 24 seconds [3 damage for first 6 seconds], Save vs. Poison limits damage to 12 maximum)
- Backstab
If you want more stealth take the minimum level to hit your stealth goals with considering gear. You would normally wear heavy armor unless you want to start a battle with mages with a backstab.
So then look and compare all of the choices. Less assassin means you will be gimped for less of the game. It's not always how powerful you are at the ending battle, sometimes it is nice to be strong relative to the monsters at a lower level, thus peaking at different timing from 17/21 assassins.
I remembered that thing that i forgot, forget that bit about weapons, Use any item allows you to use all your thief weapons again despite now being a cleric, this is persistant even while still leveling the cleric levels before your assassin level re-unlock.
so ya, clerics with a katana...broke the game!
Just haxed one of these up to level to double check everything, editing original post.
Regarding your point about it being tedious, yes. As I remarked earlier it would be. I'm more of a Fighter/Thief Multi person myself. But I've played that through far to many times.
Regarding traps on the lower level dual: I'd have another thief in the party, for locks, disarming, setting trap etc. The 5/8 dual (that I don't recommend) isn't keyed towards play-through as a Thief, more as a character who has limited access to a couple of abilities to enhance his combat skills. Think evil Stalker without the spells but with GM, weak poison weapon & a slight bonus to THAC0 & damage.
As I said it's a stray thought. I'm just trying to spitball new approaches to a game I've played since it's inital release. What better place to share my idle thoughts than the BGEE forums? This particular one was bought on by the topic at hand. I personally think that the Assassin class shouldn't be dualed but unconventional thinking & approaches can lead to (if nothing else) a fresh take. So why not try it once? BG isn't going anywhere & hopefully neither are we!
Otherwise, you can do a straight assassin, of course.
The reason i started this topic was because im unsure of how assassin does at high levels, and whether or not they can gain grand mastery prof if they DC to fighter