Help me choose...
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I am a chronic reroller and I need some help choosing a class that I'm going to bring through the entire BG series. I've pretty much narrowed it down to an assassin->mage or a dragon disciple. The assassin wouldn't dual until BG2.
So, I'm looking for some input from you all. Which do you think is going to offer the best experience through the series.
My BG party will most likely be Dorn, Yeslick, Rasaad, And Neera. The 6th would either be Baeloth (sp?) or Coran depending on my class.
Thanks!
So, I'm looking for some input from you all. Which do you think is going to offer the best experience through the series.
My BG party will most likely be Dorn, Yeslick, Rasaad, And Neera. The 6th would either be Baeloth (sp?) or Coran depending on my class.
Thanks!
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I'm assuming you' re going to dual the assassin at a high level right? A full party of 6 will leave you with much "downtime" in your assassin class. If you decide to dual at lvl 21 for the 7x backstab, you're probarly only going to be a true assassin mage in the last chapters of ToB...
Dragon Disciples are fun, a sort of more hardy spellcaster who can get near the front of the battle when they need to and they can change what spells they cast on the fly. And at mid-to-high levels, they can become a firebombing terror. However, once they run out of spells, they are relegated to staying near the back and throwing darts/whatever. This won't be as much of an issue at mid-to-high levels, though, because they get so many spell slots by then.
Assassin/Mage gives you more variety of action, where they can set traps, stealth / backstab, do ranged attacks, or hurl spells. However, doing the dual class thing is kind of a pain until you regain your levels in the new class—you'd be a gimped Mage until then. Also, depending on when you dual, your thief skills may be gimped in some areas. You'll likely have to focus on only 2-3 areas of expertise.
If it were me picking between the two, I'd probably opt for the DD, simply because my fun factor is likely to be more sustained with that role, and because dual classing that many levels up is not something I enjoy.
Caveat: I've actually never actually played an Assassin, so a lot of this is me going by what I've read, and from my own experiences playing other types of rogues.
Well, if you aren't dualing until BG2, then you'll be a straight Assassin through BG1, yeah?
Assassins work best in stealth, so you'd focus a lot on that. With an Assassin, your points are so low that you won't be able to stealth reliably until mid levels, so in the early game you'll likely spend most of your time chunking missile weapons at opponents, with an occasional round of poison thrown in.
As you get to level 5-6 or so, you should be able to start stealthing in for the initial backstab, which increases their utility and fun factor (atleast in night-time or indoor settings--do keep in mind that a LOT of this game takes place outdoors though.) Also, you'll have 2 poisons/day by then, which increases your deadliness overall.
I don't know, it really depends on what kind of playstyle appeals to you more. I've personally played a DD, and I can tell you they are quite fun for me. I think if I were going to play an Assassin, I'd plan on playing them as a straight class (no dual).
Basically, having an assassin as your only thief means you won't be able to do very much until quite late game. By Max level (10), you'll only have 185 points, which will be enough to max just two skills with the DEX bonus added in (19 Dex after tome gives +10% Find Traps and +15 HiS/MS).
I like the assassin, but I would run another thief alongside him/her.
Just a little info. You'll have a total of 175 skill points at level 10 ( 40@lvl1 and 15x9 levels ). As I said in that thread, I'd go with 100 in Detect Illusions to get rid of Mage defenses for free, and split the other 75 in Hide and Move, boosted with Shadow Armor and the Boots of Stealth to effectively hide to backstab.
Once you're Assassin is level 10, you could take the exp. cap off, dual him, and run him through BG1 again while you're waiting for BG2. This obviously would help with the cooldown in BG2. If you do a solo or duo run, you should be level 11 by end-game barring the TotSC content. Higher if you manage that.
I personally chose to dual my Assassin at 6 to get to level 9 Mage in BG1. Dualing at 7 would get you to 8, but have no access to 5th level spells.
Just thought I'd share.
When BG2EE comes around, you can always roll up an Assassin and proceed from there. Less powerful than if you grind through BG1 and get 19 Str, of course, but possibly more fun. I certainly prefer higher-level play with an Assassin.
On a (very slightly) more serious note, isn't Dragon Disciple supposed to be descended from Dragons? kind of makes your Charname quite the mutt? Descended from Gods, dragons AND some humanoid class? Makes for some really REALLY messed up genetics, don'tcha think?