Stalkers get spells remember? T to F cant use buffing from scrolls, so its not as good as F to T at higher levels for buffing, and your HP will be MUCH lower, and high level rangers can cast AoF, so the Stalker can tank vs tough enemies easily. I still prefer the stalker as the melee specialist.
I mentioned spells in my post. If you go from F to T, then yes, HP will be much lower, but not the other way around, which I've also already addressed. Also, Stalkers are limited to studded leather. T to F can wear pretty much any armor. If a battle doesn't suit backstabbing, they have the versatility to switch to heavy armor beforehand.
At this point, you're also ignoring all the other advantages of the T to F that I mentioned before. The faster (eventual) level progression, higher end level, and Grandmastery. All that trumps being able to cast a few spells in my opinion.
I actually mentioned grandmastery. Shrug. F to T will likely be nearly identical HP, but T to F is probably at least 40 hp behind. You cant have that much more functionality as a thief if you duelled in BG1, and if you duelled latter, you have progressively more downtime, and are almost never as good a fighter in SoA as the Stalker. If you dual early, you are sitting on what, 250 points if you are pure thief? That will leave you hard choices as to how you spend those points... probably either way you arent as good at hiding in nonideal situations, even if you dumped everything into HiS/MS vs an SoA stalker. If you want utility or traps, you're going to be item dependent, which means he Stalker has better gear choices.
As for your armour point, nope, Stalker can be about as good at hard fights warranting heavy armour, he can drink a potion of invulnerability. Tons in game of these by the time fights are hard. AC0 is +1 FP, can still use a +2 ring or cloak. In BG2, you can wear good armour anyways.
I really enjoyed running assassin and bountyhunter to fighter in BG1 as solos, they are solid if you dont mind being somewhat gear dependant. They are better than a Stalker right when you get your thief kit back, but slow down relative as the Stalker keeps getting better at both. Vanilla thief doesnt have much going for it vs the kits, not as bad as cleric kits though.
Yes, you already mentioned Grandmastery, but I think having permanent +2 THAC0 and an extra APR is better than having to rely on buffs. Having to cast spells before every fight and resting more often to get them back would get old fast. I guess you could, but I would find that annoying.
You would only be correct about the HP thing if you were playing with Max HP on level up and/or min/maxing stats and have max CON. Which is a legitimate point. But if you were playing only average rolls on level up and have a reasonable score for CON instead of maxing it out (lets say 16 for example), HP difference is negligible by late game, like less than 10HP difference between Stalker, T to F, and F to T.
If we are comparing F/T or T/F to Stalker, then thief skills other than HiS and MS aren't even a point of discussion, because a Stalker can't get those anyway. And 125 in both of those skills is already more than adequate most of the time. If we are comparing a T/F to a Stalker, then the only thief abilities we care about are stealth and backstab. I assume that there will be another Thief in the party, because a Stalker would need another Thief in the party as well. And if you so choose, in a pinch you can use potions to increase thief skills, but that's not an option for a Stalker.
If you want to talk about potions, then there are plenty of potions that can buff as well, instead of having to cast spells.
I've tried playing a Stalker before, but I found him to be opposite of what you said. I thought his abilities tapered off as he got to higher level compared to a T to F. As I said before, a T to F's fighter levels catch up and pass a Stalker's at level 12. The main thing I liked about the Stalker over the T to F is only that there is no downtime compared to dualclassing.
Permanent THAC0 vs bless for example? An extra 1/2 attack is barely statistically significant, the entire time you are a thief you have max 18 str and worse THAC0, and no specialization leaves you pretty soft on combat for the first 9 or 10 levels. But okay, lets say you're a support archer at that point. You know, when the Stalker already has TWF, and specialization in say Longswords, and spec in Longbows. Right out the door of Candlekeep remember, at lvl 1. If you went elf, which your T F can't, you have +1 THAC0 on two pretty solid weapon types. If you took 19 dex, you'll have a shot at hiding in shadows as soon as you get the boots. Thief can yoo, but elves sre stealthy, and stalkers are stealthier. Like the Stalker, you probably need to either metagame or rely on a support thief. But unlike the Stalker, you're vulnerable in combat, as you'll take too long to kill stuff. Long story short, your thief is either spending BG1 as a bad archer, or a backstabber prone to missing while the Stalker spends it as a versatile damage dealer. As for HD rolls, its sneaky and questionable that you're stopping at 16, the exact turning point when your class gets squat beyond. You also are ignoring the many Potions of Fortitude kicking around most players rarely bother with. Thry set cons to 18 for any fight worthy of mention. I'll meet you halfway though, the elf ranger starts with 17. You'd get 9d6+18, averages ~50. Stalker gets 9d10+36 (18 w/tome), averages ~86. Huh, about 40 points even without max HD rolls, and there have certainly been many, many players on here that lower the difficulty for leveling. If you did, its 72 vs 126 So yeah. Not buying what you're selling. While lvl 9 Stalker is more XP than lvl 9 Thief, you wont get any more HP until the Stalker is at least at 9th. So unquestionably, the Stalker is much easier to play through BG1.
In BG2, you would quickly dc to Fighter. While this wont take very long (10 fighter isnt bad for downtime, 500k), you'll be as dangerous as a kitten... Stalker? Still mopping the floor. He doesnt bother taking names, the dead HAVE NO NAMES BUT BLOOD AND SCREAMS! *ahem* By the time your catching up, the THAC0 advantage of Grandmastery is offset by the Elf bonus to Longswords and bows combined with bless. 3 damage is out there, but the versatilitymof the Stalker is a big bonus. He'll have specialized in situationally appropriate weapons. 3 ranks to play with at lvl 10, Stalker either took Staff and 2h for backstabs later, or even took something like Flails for bludgeoning. By end of ToB, both builds will have tons of pips to spend, but GM ests up all your versatility. You'll have to fight with your chosen weapon. No GM means better damage dealing overall.
So, at lvl 12 you finally are catching up for THAC0. This is the level Rangers get 3rd level spells, btw. Not that most druid spells are great, but he's also got his extra spells. Haste imho is better than Grandmastery by itself. The other spells are gravey, but haste, bless, and armour of faith will significantly boost your melee abilities. At this point, the Stalker would still be a bit better, but you'd have to make use of his abilities. He'll still have vastly more staying power, including an extra 9 hp from Lum's Machine. AoF and Defender of Easthaven even will make the Stalker massively tougher. I like not getting dropped by 1 ADHW personally, and you need HP for that.
I would say by ToB its probably close, but the Stalker will be much tougher, and better at hiding, and have some spells that will help if you use them properly. T to F will be a better Thief, though not at sneaking, but will have a couple HLAs more.
That said, this is looking like agree to disagree territory.
I've already said that not having to wait for the downtime of dualclassing is an advantage of Stalker, so that large first part is moot. The entire BG saga has a cap of 8,000,000XP, and you're quibbling about the first 610,000 of that. Sure it's slower to gain XP in the beginning, but still.
As for stopping at 16 CON, it's not being sneaky. A CON of 16 is already pretty high. Kivan only has 14. You're taking having a high CON bonus for granted. I'm simply splitting the difference between not having a CON bonus and having max CON bonus. With 16 CON and getting average rolls with a Stalker you'd have 143HP by level 34, a T to F would have an identical 143HP by F level 39, and a F to T would have 131HP by T level 39. Sure the Stalker would be tougher early in the game, I never disputed that. But T to F would also reach the Stalker's max backstab multiplier with less than 1/4 of the XP required. Then you go on to say that a thief maxes out at 18 STR, taking high STR for granted again. For a typical character 15 or 16 STR is already considered decently high, so that 18/XX STR bonus shouldn't always come into play.
Sure, all those buffs are better than Grandmastery, but you have to cast them over and over again, battle after battle, then rest more often to regain them. If you think that hassle is worth it, well good for you.
If you cant see why declaring arbitrarily that 16 cons is 'ideal' when THIS JUST HAPPENS TO BE IDEAL FOR YOUR BUILD is having a bad argument, this is pointless. You know why? I just declared your Thief can only start with 15 strength. Thats high for a thief! Cant dual to fighter though, too bad. Thus the Stalker is better at melee, as you're a single class thief. This is an obviously underhanded debate tactic, so dont use it Awong124. Btw, 18 is only 1 point above the minimum for dualing to fighter, and thus with metagaming its only 2 higher than the lowest you CAN take. As to 18/xx, one of the biggest perks of playing a warrior class in BG is percent strength. In BG, you have the option of making it 18 if you wish, its neither cheating, cheesey or dishonest for a warrior to use an 18/xx. Elf Ranger cant dump any stat very low, so you'd hardly be building a stumpbrained moron with a superman's body. Just because your thief cant start with percent strength doesnt mean the Stalker cant start with it. If you are going to set stats to your advantage, so will I.
Right, so in a 2 game, 2 expansion the xp cap is all that counts. By that logic most of the game happens in ToB... not many will agree with you around here. Most non solos wont hit 8m anyways without very cheesey spawn farming, which most consider painfully boring and kinda cheesey.
Difficulty of Baldur's Gate is not based on how easy your character can kill mooks he could just bypass. The Stalker will steamroll mooks without buffs from Candlekeep to ToB. When you're in a battle worthy of it, you buff. Besides, the Elf bonus isnt insignificant... unless you declare elven Stalkers to be cheating because your DC cant be an elf. :I
I still dont agree with you other than 'pretty equal in ToB', but I still think the Stalker has an edge due to increased durability and buffs. Btw, even if we started with 16 cons (your arbitrarily self serving ideal value), you'd end up with 18. Still advantage Stalker, by 18 HP. You could even use a cons boosting item (axe, ioun stone) to get 9 more.
You only have a problem with 16 because it's not ideal for you, whereas objectively it is perfectly fair. For a Human warrior class you get a CON bonus anywhere from 15-18 inclusive, 16 is average. If you can't see why that is fair then there's nothing more I can say. Even Ajantis only starts with 16. Some warrior NPCs start with higher, some lower. You're the one being underhanded by deliberately arguing for a higher score than average because it suits your argument. If you seriously think CON of 17 and higher are typical, then you're just taking that for granted because most people seem to like min/maxing stats for this game instead of using some reasonable numbers. For STR, it doesn't actually matter what you start with, as it makes no difference by the time you use the STR tome. You want to compare a Thief with 18 STR vs Stalker with 18/00? Fine. By the time they use the STR tome, 19 is 19. You want it at 17? Fine. As the Stalker using the tome at 17 to reach 18 doesn't grant the /XX bonus anyway. Now that you brought it up, I don't like having a minimum of 17 to dual to Fighter because I think it's too high. But the game is what it is. Obviously I'm going to metagame as I am obviously planning this out to endgame.
It's not that the XP cap is all that counts, but you're touting the period of waiting for dualclassing to finish as the be all end all of the game. There's still plenty of game to play after that. And you can reach 8,000,000XP playing through the game with a full party way before the end of TOB even without grinding, just by doing every quest there is to do.
The advantage of having Grandmastery is that it makes those easy battles even less of an issue, not that it's particularly necessary. Just because you don't HAVE to buff for those battles as a Stalker doesn't mean it's not easier if you do. Grandmastery means that the advantage is there all the time, and the gap in ability widens when a Stalker doesn't use buff spells. Maybe I wasn't clear before, but the main advantage of Grandmastery is ease of use and less hassle and annoyance. That might not be an issue for you, but less constant micromanagement is definitely an advantage to me.
If we're comparing apples to apples, then no, you can't use Elf in your example precisely because they can't dualclass. If I'm using an Elf, I'd choose Stalker over F/T too. I don't see multiclass F/T to be particularly good other than having two sets of HLAs. The Thief class has significantly diminishing returns, and I don't see any reason to have one at very high levels.
I personally wouldn't consider 18HP at endgame to be terribly significant, but sure, Stalkers have advantage there.
I'm done with this discussion. You cant dual thief to fighter, your max strength by decree is 12. A perfectly average and normal ability score to have.
Your other stats? 2 more 12s and 3 11s. No dual classing, thus no discussion.
(Mildly more polite: I am not going to change my opinions here. We're discussing 'which is better at melee and general adventuring. You cant have a powergame based discussion and then insist that the builds you compare yours to NOT be built as is clearly best. This is akin to challenging me to a football match and declaring that because you're better with your left foot both of us must kick using only our left foot. Good day sir.)
I'm clearly not having a power game discussion. If I was, I would have min/maxed every stat. You're the one talking about a purely power gamed character by manipulating stats to be above average to suit you. If we are talking about power gaming with min/max stats for both, then the Stalker would have more HP, that's pretty much it. I am merely planning a character out to the end of the game. And we are comparing a dual classed T to F, so clearly the condition that it's possible be a given. It has to already have happened to be able to compare them. I have given reasons why the T to F build is better for melee and general adventuring, ease of Grandmastery, faster progression after dual classing period, and versatility of equipment.
Personally I've tried an archer but its not something I could really get into. Its a shame that they didn't keep the damage bonus for arrows (in bg2 I mean). Considering the kind of melee weapons you get its never seemed like that extra bit of damage was likely to be too much of an issue to me. Not saying the kit doesn't have its uses (particularly from called shot), but its one I've personally never really preferred.
What's up with the Fighter/Thief talk in a Ranger thread?
It's because I dared to remark that a Thief->Fighter is a better alternative to the Stalker when playing a Human. Which is the only reason I chose Archer.
It's difficult to say that duals are really bad. It depends on the player's priorities. If you really don't like the downtime, then it's bad. But there are enough people out there who like to use it, so it can't be that big of an issue. If you pick a reasonable level to dual, it doesn't take that long in SoA to regain the abilities.
I just took the average of all the CON scores of warrior (or at least multiclass part warrior) NPCs throughout the BG saga, and it turned out to be almost exactly 16, like 16.05. Even Valygar who actually is a Stalker has 16. If you only look at BG1, the average is only 15.5, and that's including the 19 of Dorn, and the illegal 20 of Kagain. So Dreadkhan accusing me of being underhanded in my arguments and manipulating stats to suit me when actually it's the other way around. Funny guy.
I once rolled a Beast Master once and well she used a bow so I'm think she was a beast master who was a wanna be Archer. She was kind of fun to play I guess. I just play bad at Ranger's and Druids because I love killing bears for experience points.
This is the funny thing. I cavort around the sword coast as a druid slaughtering all the wild life I can find and no one cares. . . Wolves, dogs, cats, bears, Seth Rogan. . . not a care is given . . .
They make a perfect CHARNAME, a more urban ranger makes sense growing up in Candlekeep. The kit itself is well done with a nice improvement over the stock class.
Comments
At this point, you're also ignoring all the other advantages of the T to F that I mentioned before. The faster (eventual) level progression, higher end level, and Grandmastery. All that trumps being able to cast a few spells in my opinion.
As for your armour point, nope, Stalker can be about as good at hard fights warranting heavy armour, he can drink a potion of invulnerability. Tons in game of these by the time fights are hard. AC0 is +1 FP, can still use a +2 ring or cloak. In BG2, you can wear good armour anyways.
I really enjoyed running assassin and bountyhunter to fighter in BG1 as solos, they are solid if you dont mind being somewhat gear dependant. They are better than a Stalker right when you get your thief kit back, but slow down relative as the Stalker keeps getting better at both. Vanilla thief doesnt have much going for it vs the kits, not as bad as cleric kits though.
You would only be correct about the HP thing if you were playing with Max HP on level up and/or min/maxing stats and have max CON. Which is a legitimate point. But if you were playing only average rolls on level up and have a reasonable score for CON instead of maxing it out (lets say 16 for example), HP difference is negligible by late game, like less than 10HP difference between Stalker, T to F, and F to T.
If we are comparing F/T or T/F to Stalker, then thief skills other than HiS and MS aren't even a point of discussion, because a Stalker can't get those anyway. And 125 in both of those skills is already more than adequate most of the time. If we are comparing a T/F to a Stalker, then the only thief abilities we care about are stealth and backstab. I assume that there will be another Thief in the party, because a Stalker would need another Thief in the party as well. And if you so choose, in a pinch you can use potions to increase thief skills, but that's not an option for a Stalker.
If you want to talk about potions, then there are plenty of potions that can buff as well, instead of having to cast spells.
I've tried playing a Stalker before, but I found him to be opposite of what you said. I thought his abilities tapered off as he got to higher level compared to a T to F. As I said before, a T to F's fighter levels catch up and pass a Stalker's at level 12. The main thing I liked about the Stalker over the T to F is only that there is no downtime compared to dualclassing.
In BG2, you would quickly dc to Fighter. While this wont take very long (10 fighter isnt bad for downtime, 500k), you'll be as dangerous as a kitten... Stalker? Still mopping the floor. He doesnt bother taking names, the dead HAVE NO NAMES BUT BLOOD AND SCREAMS! *ahem* By the time your catching up, the THAC0 advantage of Grandmastery is offset by the Elf bonus to Longswords and bows combined with bless. 3 damage is out there, but the versatilitymof the Stalker is a big bonus. He'll have specialized in situationally appropriate weapons. 3 ranks to play with at lvl 10, Stalker either took Staff and 2h for backstabs later, or even took something like Flails for bludgeoning. By end of ToB, both builds will have tons of pips to spend, but GM ests up all your versatility. You'll have to fight with your chosen weapon. No GM means better damage dealing overall.
So, at lvl 12 you finally are catching up for THAC0. This is the level Rangers get 3rd level spells, btw. Not that most druid spells are great, but he's also got his extra spells. Haste imho is better than Grandmastery by itself. The other spells are gravey, but haste, bless, and armour of faith will significantly boost your melee abilities. At this point, the Stalker would still be a bit better, but you'd have to make use of his abilities. He'll still have vastly more staying power, including an extra 9 hp from Lum's Machine. AoF and Defender of Easthaven even will make the Stalker massively tougher. I like not getting dropped by 1 ADHW personally, and you need HP for that.
I would say by ToB its probably close, but the Stalker will be much tougher, and better at hiding, and have some spells that will help if you use them properly. T to F will be a better Thief, though not at sneaking, but will have a couple HLAs more.
That said, this is looking like agree to disagree territory.
As for stopping at 16 CON, it's not being sneaky. A CON of 16 is already pretty high. Kivan only has 14. You're taking having a high CON bonus for granted. I'm simply splitting the difference between not having a CON bonus and having max CON bonus. With 16 CON and getting average rolls with a Stalker you'd have 143HP by level 34, a T to F would have an identical 143HP by F level 39, and a F to T would have 131HP by T level 39. Sure the Stalker would be tougher early in the game, I never disputed that. But T to F would also reach the Stalker's max backstab multiplier with less than 1/4 of the XP required. Then you go on to say that a thief maxes out at 18 STR, taking high STR for granted again. For a typical character 15 or 16 STR is already considered decently high, so that 18/XX STR bonus shouldn't always come into play.
Sure, all those buffs are better than Grandmastery, but you have to cast them over and over again, battle after battle, then rest more often to regain them. If you think that hassle is worth it, well good for you.
Right, so in a 2 game, 2 expansion the xp cap is all that counts. By that logic most of the game happens in ToB... not many will agree with you around here. Most non solos wont hit 8m anyways without very cheesey spawn farming, which most consider painfully boring and kinda cheesey.
Difficulty of Baldur's Gate is not based on how easy your character can kill mooks he could just bypass. The Stalker will steamroll mooks without buffs from Candlekeep to ToB. When you're in a battle worthy of it, you buff. Besides, the Elf bonus isnt insignificant... unless you declare elven Stalkers to be cheating because your DC cant be an elf. :I
I still dont agree with you other than 'pretty equal in ToB', but I still think the Stalker has an edge due to increased durability and buffs. Btw, even if we started with 16 cons (your arbitrarily self serving ideal value), you'd end up with 18. Still advantage Stalker, by 18 HP. You could even use a cons boosting item (axe, ioun stone) to get 9 more.
Let this end!
It's not that the XP cap is all that counts, but you're touting the period of waiting for dualclassing to finish as the be all end all of the game. There's still plenty of game to play after that. And you can reach 8,000,000XP playing through the game with a full party way before the end of TOB even without grinding, just by doing every quest there is to do.
The advantage of having Grandmastery is that it makes those easy battles even less of an issue, not that it's particularly necessary. Just because you don't HAVE to buff for those battles as a Stalker doesn't mean it's not easier if you do. Grandmastery means that the advantage is there all the time, and the gap in ability widens when a Stalker doesn't use buff spells. Maybe I wasn't clear before, but the main advantage of Grandmastery is ease of use and less hassle and annoyance. That might not be an issue for you, but less constant micromanagement is definitely an advantage to me.
If we're comparing apples to apples, then no, you can't use Elf in your example precisely because they can't dualclass. If I'm using an Elf, I'd choose Stalker over F/T too. I don't see multiclass F/T to be particularly good other than having two sets of HLAs. The Thief class has significantly diminishing returns, and I don't see any reason to have one at very high levels.
I personally wouldn't consider 18HP at endgame to be terribly significant, but sure, Stalkers have advantage there.
Your other stats? 2 more 12s and 3 11s. No dual classing, thus no discussion.
(Mildly more polite: I am not going to change my opinions here. We're discussing 'which is better at melee and general adventuring. You cant have a powergame based discussion and then insist that the builds you compare yours to NOT be built as is clearly best. This is akin to challenging me to a football match and declaring that because you're better with your left foot both of us must kick using only our left foot. Good day sir.)
But the Stalker can use AoF, increasing his damage reduction by 25% to reach a total of 85% damage reduction.
Going from 60% to 85% damage reduction is effectively reducing damage by 62.5% more, which no Grandmastery or whatever will ever outshine.
Plus BG1 is about half of the entire saga, so duals are really bad if you consider the trilogy as a whole. ToB is really short.
Stalker are definitely better.
I just took the average of all the CON scores of warrior (or at least multiclass part warrior) NPCs throughout the BG saga, and it turned out to be almost exactly 16, like 16.05. Even Valygar who actually is a Stalker has 16. If you only look at BG1, the average is only 15.5, and that's including the 19 of Dorn, and the illegal 20 of Kagain. So Dreadkhan accusing me of being underhanded in my arguments and manipulating stats to suit me when actually it's the other way around. Funny guy.
They make a perfect CHARNAME, a more urban ranger makes sense growing up in Candlekeep. The kit itself is well done with a nice improvement over the stock class.