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Hexxat (SPOILERS)

FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
Well, having already freed Hexxat from her captivity, I figured I might as well recruit her for a while and see what she brought to the table. I figured I could replace Anomen with Viconia as the party cleric, and if I recruited Neera as a mage, she was such an airhead she wouldn't object either.

I was startled to find out that Hexxat was basically just a thief. Ok, I presume that at night she can function without her cloak, and at that point she gets some superhuman stats, but ... shouldn't she get some sort of vampire abilities? I was expecting stuff like dire charm, summon wolves/rats, regeneration, maybe a special blood draining attack ... I grabbed her cloak, but no such things showed up, just some stat increases. OK, a strength of 20 is nice, but anyone who can use potions of giant strength can do as well or better, and during the daylight no less.

Or am I overlooking something?

Comments

  • YannirYannir Member Posts: 595
    edited April 2015
    She has special abilities. They are found from the menu where your Bhaalspawn would have his abilities, or a druid his shapeshift-forms. She should have Domination, Children of the Night, Blood Drain(or whatever..) and a 4th ability I don't remember. She also has a passive regeneration of 1 hp per turn while not wearing the cloak.

    Btw, you can also remove the cloak while you are inside a building. Only direct sunlight will harm her.
    HeindrichJuliusBorisovNonnahswriter
  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    Well hell, I missed it then, and badly. OK, thanks!
    JuliusBorisov
  • YannirYannir Member Posts: 595
    Looks like @bengoshi is more on the spot than I am. Got that regeneration wrong.. :smiley: It always felt so slow..
    JuliusBorisov
  • IronfistIronfist Member Posts: 4
    So is she worth it? Im planning on bringing Dorn, Edwin, Jaheira, Hexxat and Viconia. Im a fighter/mage, and considering other thiefs.. are her thief stats better than say; jan or are there other thiefs that might become better?
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    She is good at what a thief does but she is a one trick pony, with thief abilities only, meaning she falls off lategame compared to a multi/dualclassed thief. Her strong stats are huge early but not so big lategame.
    I keepered her class to shadowdancer so that she has more consistency lategame, plus I feel it is much better roleplay-wise.
    Ironfist
  • IronfistIronfist Member Posts: 4
    edited October 2015
    exactly the answer i was looking for! Thanks! im playing an evil party tho.. obviously.. any suggestion on who i should bring if not Hexxat?
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    edited October 2015
    Mmh it depends on your PC, but she gets along pretty well with Viconia, Dorn and Sarevok, will be fine with Neera. She cannot be in the same party as Keldorn or Anomen for a long time, and if you do any wrong action involving lowering reputation with Mazzy it'll break ( you'll be able to re-recruit her just aftet though).
    The first 4 I mentioned should make a rather balanced team with Hexxat with about every class for your Charname. You may choose to replace Neera for Edwin but I prefer Neera, she is more interesting.
    Post edited by Arunsun on
  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    edited October 2015
    Hexxat worked out fine for my evil party. (I left out Jaheira as she wasn't evil enough, same for Neera).

    I had Charname (berserker), Edwin, Viconia, Hexxat, Dorn and Sarevok ... dualed to mage ... no snickering, he was the meanest mage ever. 324 HP after casting Tenser's. We breezed through ToB. Hexxat's traps vaporized fire giants by the score, and HLA Use Any Item let her use wizard wands, any scroll, weapon, armor etc. etc.

    Oh, and she is immune to stuff like level drain and poison and a whole bunch of other stuff, and can't be killed. Other NPCs can be "chunked", she just goes gaseous and pops back in 24 hours. (I have yet to see any villains running around armed with wooden stakes). Needless to say, this is particularly useful if you are going on an evil party no reload run.

    Admittedly, in early SoA when she doesn't have HLAs or spike traps yet, you might get more mileage out of someone like Jan, but she's still good due to her vampire abilities/stats/immunities.
    Post edited by FrdNwsm on
    SkatanJuliusBorisovelminster
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    As there are very few traps and locks in ToB, you can do a full party, do her quest in ToB, and let her die. Then add Sarevok to replace her, as he is much better in ToB.
    JuliusBorisovDragonspearNonnahswriter
  • IronfistIronfist Member Posts: 4
    great suggestions! this is my 2. playthrough. My first was with a fighter just bc i love 2 handed swords, but now i went with, what i presume is the strongest class, the fighter/mage. I really enjoyed having Jaheira in last time since she has her spells and becomes a decent tank, but i kind of dont want her taking up Korgans spot. But Ive got Dorn tho. Ahh.. the choices.. I guess im just gonna have to do several runs to get through them all. Thanks for the feedback!
    JuliusBorisov
  • RedWizardRedWizard Member Posts: 242
    Hexxat isn't bad, it's just that Jan is better at anything she does. Also the fact pure thieves are awful, and there ain't no super stats or abilities that will make up for that.
    The undead immunities and regen are nice, and she can do decent with that +2 throwing dagger you can get early. The cloak micromanaging is a pain.
    The special abilities are pretty average...
  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    RedWizard said:

    Hexxat isn't bad, it's just that Jan is better at anything she does. Also the fact pure thieves are awful, and there ain't no super stats or abilities that will make up for that.
    The undead immunities and regen are nice, and she can do decent with that +2 throwing dagger you can get early. The cloak micromanaging is a pain.
    The special abilities are pretty average...


    Sorry, but if you think pure thief kits are awful you haven't been using them correctly. They aren't front line melee folks. They are admittedly less useful than a thief/mage dual/multi, but there are precious few of those available as NPCs. Imoen, who vanishes at the start of Ch2 of SoA and doesn't return for quite some time, Nalia, whose thief abilities are feeble and need supplementing with the rings of danger sense and lockpicking, and Jan are your choices there. And of those three, neither Imoen nor Nalia can set traps worth a damn. Yoshimo can be trained to be a decent thief, but we all know what happens to him, so why bother?

    What cloak micromanaging? You put it on if it's daylight and you're outdoors, otherwise you don't need it.

  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    edited October 2015
    Let's see ... I have her using white dragon scale armor (cone of cold 3x/day), a helmet, girdle of inertial barrier, has wand of spell striking and scrolls of Black Blade and chain lightning in her ready slots, and using Agurvadal +5 as a weapon. Oh, and a ring of regeneration to augment her own. Sounds pretty good.


    image

    There is an element of RP here also; if you look, this party is BAD. Bad to the bone. An unredeemed Sarevok and Dorn vying for the title of Bad Boy of the Year, with the others cheering them on. I wouldn't dare put Imoen or Jaheira or Jan in with this crew. But still, Hexxat's looking mean.
    semiticgoddess
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Hexxat's vampire abilities constitute a thief kit.
    Dragonspear
  • DregothofTyrDregothofTyr Member Posts: 229
    Why does she just have a normal helmet? She can use Ioun Stones even without UAI, and anything in that slot protects from critical hits.
  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    edited October 2015

    Why does she just have a normal helmet? She can use Ioun Stones even without UAI, and anything in that slot protects from critical hits.

    That was just a random capture. If you want a later one, a bit afterwards I did an item inventory and swapped some stuff around. I gave her Wong Fei's Ioun stone, Paws of the Cheetah, Bracers of Specialization and some more scrolls. With Wong Fei, ring of regeneration and her own vampire healing, she gets health back rather fast.

    I should also mention that at this point, she can set 7 regular snares, 3 spike snares, 1 exploding trap and one time trap. We'd set a minefield, have one character with boots of speed run ahead and attract the foe's attention, then lead them back into the killing ground. We must have killed 100+ fire giants that way.

    IMO, the main use for a pure thief type in ToB is not for locks/trap detection; Imoen, Jan or even Nalia (with a bit of help from items) can suffice for that. Nor is backstabbing a prime tactic for me; too iffy. Traps are where I feel that a thief kit shines, but Imoen and Nalia have basically zero trap ability, Yoshimo dies long before getting any HLAs, and as a multi class character, Jan rises more slowly and will never hit that high a level.

    I'll be the first to admit that getting a pure thief type through SoA and into ToB is a long term project. At early stages, they will indeed be pretty much relegated to dealing with traps and locks. If you want to omit that type of character from your core group and go for all arcane/spiritual casters and heavy melee hitters, that is certainly an excellent alternative.



    image
    Post edited by FrdNwsm on
    Grum
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    What is the best weapon Hexxat can do backstab with?
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @brus: The most damaging backstab weapon is the Staff of the Ram. Before that, it's the Staff of Striking. Some prefer on-hit effects to raw damage output, which might include Celestial Fury or the Pixie Prick.
    brus
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    FrdNwsm said:

    Jan rises more slowly and will never hit that high a level.

    Obviously it's true that Jan gains Thief levels more slowly than Hexxat, but nevertheless he's fast enough to keep up with all the thieving abilities you ever need at each stage of the game. It's equally true that Jan never rises to such a high Thief level as Hexxat, but nevertheless he gets to a high enough Thief level that you've got all the Thief HLAs (including multiple Spike Traps by end-ToB), so he can do everything an unkitted Thief can ever do. And since he also brings to the table all that extra Mage power, he's a far stronger character than Hexxat could ever be.

    In my experience, there just isn't any real need for a single-class unkitted Thief, it's much more useful to have a half-Thief half-something-else.

    On the other hand, a single-class kitted Thief seems to me a little more justifiable, since s/he brings things to the table which Jan can't do. Okay, yes, Hexxat has some unique special abilities which Jan doesn't have (nor anyone else), but I haven't found her special abilities to be game-changingly strong, they're fairly minor benefits - not nearly as useful as an Assassin's poisoned weapons, or a Bounty Hunter's extra traps, and so on. If Hexxat were a kitted Thief, she'd offer a more credible alternative to Jan ... but she's not.

    All that said, that's just looking at it in a power-gaming way. Of course you can take along Hexxat for role-playing reasons (and yes, I have done so, in spite of finding her underwhelming and implausible), and still win the game in a satisfying manner ... and of course it's perfectly reasonable to argue that that's sufficient.
  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    edited November 2015
    Yes, Jan has spells; nothing unique there. You can get a fair number of NPCs with arcane spells. Aside from her HLAs/traps, which she gets more of and earlier than Jan, Hexxat is also useful defensively due to her nature. As someone else mentioned in this thread, her vampire abilities can be considered varied enough to constitute a "kit". Quoting one of the various NPC guides:

    "Hexxat's amulet grants her immunity to Charm, Panic, Sleep, Level drain, Hold, Poison, Poison damage (for instance Cloudkill), fatigue, break morale, and Disease. It also gives her 1hp/round of regeneration"

    Also, her uncloaked dex and str make her a natural candidate for using slings in combat, while Use Any Item lets her use arcane wands and scrolls, including the ever popular wand of spell strike, making her a mini-mage.

    Lastly, Jan is neutral; he doesn't get to play with my Bad Boyz, he goes into my neutral group. (CharName, Jaheira, Cernd, Haer'Daelis, Neera and ... don't laugh ... Wilson).

    semiticgoddessDragonspear
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    edited November 2015
    FrdNwsm said:

    Yes, Jan has spells; nothing unique there. You can get a fair number of NPCs with arcane spells. Aside from her HLAs/traps, which she gets more of and earlier than Jan,

    Just going to point out that Jan starts getting HLA's when he hits a total of 3 million xp (his first level would be technically as a result of his mage level hitting level 14 but he could still use that for a thief ability). They basically are going to get their first HLA at the same time (there would only be an 8,000 xp difference). They are also going to be pretty much equal in terms of when they get access to HLA's between 3 million and 4.5 million xp. Hexxat will technically get slightly more HLA's (13 vs 16) between the 3 million and 6.38 million experience mark compared to Jan. But because Jan generally can't choose his mage HLA's (with the exception of the bonus spell granting ones) prior to him hitting level 18 (6 million total xp) I don't think he'd be disadvantaged by this.

    You are correct though in stating that she gets access to more non-HLA traps (and she would gain access to the higher level non-hla traps much quicker).
    Post edited by elminster on
    semiticgoddessJuliusBorisovSkatan
  • ameliabogginsameliaboggins Member Posts: 287
    edited May 2016
    Thinking of playing with her as a shadowdancer, which seems to fit her as a vampire.

    might use her to throw darts of stunning and other specialist throwing weapons.

    am too lazy to set snares and things, prefer other types of cheesetainment....
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited May 2016
    Her starting proficiencies in SoA are rather bad. Club? And she does not touch that anti undead club. No shortbow? Ugh.
    Sometimes she gets stuck as a mist and enemies keep attacking her to no effect, she serves as a good if cheesy distraction.
    Her quests are OK, loot is nice, final tob quest lich was a bit bugged in 1.3, but hopefully fixed in 2.0
    With her special abilities, she is a nice enough character, I suppose.
    Jan is better at everything, though.
    Grum
  • FrdNwsmFrdNwsm Member Posts: 1,069
    Amelia Boggins said:

    "am too lazy to set snares and things,"


    Too lazy to set snares?? But ... But ... you have no idea how many entire squads of Fire Giants fell over dead after falling into one of Hexxat's spike traps. Or any thief character's ... other than retarded Imoen who can't set a trap for anything. Your thieves can kill a lot more things with spike traps than with backstabs.
  • ameliabogginsameliaboggins Member Posts: 287
    edited June 2016
    once a rogue gets the ability to `use any item` I assume you still cant backstab withthe full choice of weapons?

    I note that silver swrd (vorpal blade) can be used to .....nm, been misinformed!
    Post edited by ameliaboggins on
  • ameliabogginsameliaboggins Member Posts: 287
    think i found a decent offhander...well marginal upgrade to belm?

    Scarlet Ninja-To +3: 'of the Scarlet Brotherhood'

    Equipped Ability: one extra attack per round
    Combat Ability: Poison damage of 6 hit-points per round, for two rounds, if target fails a saving throw versus poison
    THAC0: +3 bonus
    Damage: 1D8 +3
    Damage type: slashing
    Weight: 2
    Speed Factor: 1

    atmo thinking of dual weilding with Belm.(primary) for 3 APR. However by time she can weild this, putting her in melee, will be of marginal use!

    any ideas on better offhand? partly interested in making her look good....
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592

    think i found a decent offhander...well marginal upgrade to belm?

    Scarlet Ninja-To +3: 'of the Scarlet Brotherhood'

    Equipped Ability: one extra attack per round
    Combat Ability: Poison damage of 6 hit-points per round, for two rounds, if target fails a saving throw versus poison
    THAC0: +3 bonus
    Damage: 1D8 +3
    Damage type: slashing
    Weight: 2
    Speed Factor: 1

    atmo thinking of dual weilding with Belm.(primary) for 3 APR. However by time she can weild this, putting her in melee, will be of marginal use!

    any ideas on better offhand? partly interested in making her look good....

    You cannot backstab with Scarlet Ninja-to. Besides that it's straigh-off better than Belm.
  • ameliabogginsameliaboggins Member Posts: 287
    I see its been modded in this....

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/56567/bgii-ee-unofficial-item-pack

    tempting to go for that tbh, so i could then use it in primary (and backstab) ,aybe belm in offhand; cant think of better atmo.....am sure theres something out there!
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