Cleric / Thief appreciation thread
DrakeICN
Member Posts: 623
There seems to be very little love for the cleric / thief multiclass out there. I am here to convince you it is not a bad choice at all. I start with cons, since that is a short list;
1. Intelligence will be your dump stat. I think it has some kind of relevance to at least some conversations, not sure though. However, thats not really what bothers me, it is that for me it ruins immersion a bit. I think a knucklehead would not have survived as long as the canon Gorions ward actually does.
(More hate I dont get; charisma. It often gives you better rewards for quests, come on! Many tiny springs becomes a wide river as we say in Sweden, and that way you can purchase premium goods earlier.)
2. Because of point 1 (wisdom cant be dump stat, or, well, as far as I know spell level restriction rules are not implemented, so if you dont care about extra spells you can make it 9) you will roll stats till kingdom come if you want a legit char.
3. No familiar.
Pros;
1. I have played a lot of BG, and in my experince, you always want a thief, and you always want healing. By letting your main be a Cleric / Thief, you have much more freedom in whom you chose for the rest of the party.
2. More THACO and HP than mage / thief.
3. Half-orcs can be cleric / thiefs. That means a major boost to damage and THACO already at level 1, and should you come across (w/o spoiling to much in case noobs read this) certain items that increase con, you can get 20 con which gives you regeneration - not fast enough to be useful in combat, but still useful.
4. Sanctuary - fast cast, lets you escape a dangerous situation
and
draw upon holy might, which already at level 9 cleric gives your halforc 23 str and 22 dex (assuming you found certain ability boosting items). Do you even need the slayer ability? You cant get lvl 9 in bgee though, you neg bg2ee for that.
Best dual class;
Swashbuckler, despite no backstabbing. At lvl 12 you get three points in dualwield and two points in club (only dualwield weapon you will not lose) as well as +1 dmg and THACO and +2 AC. You can then use morningstar or mace as your offhand weapon once you get 13 levels cleric - of course, that means that for roughly 1/2 of the game, you cannot you char fully. I never really liked dualclassing...
...which is why I use gatekeeper to make multiclass swashbuckler / cleric. That way, you mysteriously also get to keep backstabbing but unfotunately you have to use gatekeeper again every four levels because you cannot get the two and three points respectively in clubs and dualwield this way. In theory, the weapon with the fastest speed will be used for backstabbing, so you can have two maces, switching only firsthand weapon to club when you backstab, but in practice this is iffy as f... coitus, and you may want to always use two clubs for that reason. First, make a swashbuckler, then use gatekeeper to chose multiclass cleric thief and chose as your specialisation swashbuckler. This way, there will be no glitches, your AC, THACO and dmg bonuses will be added automatically at appropriate levels.
There you go folks, try this build at your next run!
1. Intelligence will be your dump stat. I think it has some kind of relevance to at least some conversations, not sure though. However, thats not really what bothers me, it is that for me it ruins immersion a bit. I think a knucklehead would not have survived as long as the canon Gorions ward actually does.
(More hate I dont get; charisma. It often gives you better rewards for quests, come on! Many tiny springs becomes a wide river as we say in Sweden, and that way you can purchase premium goods earlier.)
2. Because of point 1 (wisdom cant be dump stat, or, well, as far as I know spell level restriction rules are not implemented, so if you dont care about extra spells you can make it 9) you will roll stats till kingdom come if you want a legit char.
3. No familiar.
Pros;
1. I have played a lot of BG, and in my experince, you always want a thief, and you always want healing. By letting your main be a Cleric / Thief, you have much more freedom in whom you chose for the rest of the party.
2. More THACO and HP than mage / thief.
3. Half-orcs can be cleric / thiefs. That means a major boost to damage and THACO already at level 1, and should you come across (w/o spoiling to much in case noobs read this) certain items that increase con, you can get 20 con which gives you regeneration - not fast enough to be useful in combat, but still useful.
4. Sanctuary - fast cast, lets you escape a dangerous situation
and
draw upon holy might, which already at level 9 cleric gives your halforc 23 str and 22 dex (assuming you found certain ability boosting items). Do you even need the slayer ability? You cant get lvl 9 in bgee though, you neg bg2ee for that.
Best dual class;
Swashbuckler, despite no backstabbing. At lvl 12 you get three points in dualwield and two points in club (only dualwield weapon you will not lose) as well as +1 dmg and THACO and +2 AC. You can then use morningstar or mace as your offhand weapon once you get 13 levels cleric - of course, that means that for roughly 1/2 of the game, you cannot you char fully. I never really liked dualclassing...
...which is why I use gatekeeper to make multiclass swashbuckler / cleric. That way, you mysteriously also get to keep backstabbing but unfotunately you have to use gatekeeper again every four levels because you cannot get the two and three points respectively in clubs and dualwield this way. In theory, the weapon with the fastest speed will be used for backstabbing, so you can have two maces, switching only firsthand weapon to club when you backstab, but in practice this is iffy as f... coitus, and you may want to always use two clubs for that reason. First, make a swashbuckler, then use gatekeeper to chose multiclass cleric thief and chose as your specialisation swashbuckler. This way, there will be no glitches, your AC, THACO and dmg bonuses will be added automatically at appropriate levels.
There you go folks, try this build at your next run!
8
Comments
For another take one the dual class options, try Watcher of Helm --> thief at level 9. Gets up to 2 level 5 cleric spells (when WIS get to 21), has a free True Sight, use a Seeking sword with which you can backstab and also puts your APR at 3 for 9 rounds even with a shield on (which means you can fight very decently when needed). Oh, and you will also be able to damage everything in SOA (Golems, Liches, ...) because it's a +4 weapon. Very, very flexible build.
It can be hard to justify in a RP sense, but it is one of my favorite build. Buff up, backstab (real hard) and fight !! Plus, because those two classes level up quickly, the down time isn't too long. You can also dual earlier at level 7 to be fully operational in BGEE.
Max set trap, find trap, detect illusion and 70-80 open lock, then dual you'll a very versitile character for the last half of So A and into RoB.
I've been playing for years, yet this is actually the first time I've ever tried a Cleric/Thief protagonist, but it won't be the last. I've already rolled up some other characters to experiment with various dual-classed Cleric/Thief combinations, although I haven't yet taken them out for a run. I'm looking forward to that, when I can get around to it.
So yes, I agree, it's a darn good combination, the classes have useful synergies. No 'keepered-in kits for me, though - I'll stick to what the game officially allows, which is enough to keep me busy for years.
Incidentally, @DrakeICN, you list "No familiar" as a disadvantage ... but even this isn't so forever, since you get UAI as a Thief HLA and can then cast a scroll of Find Familiar.
I don't favour a Club for backstabbing, though. I don't actually use backstab very often, but when I find it worth the effort to set up for a backstab, then I want to get the best out of it, so I've been using a Staff of Striking - a much bigger hit than a Club. (And now, I've just obtained the Staff of the Ram +6, so henceforth it'll be that, although I'm also now arriving at the point in the game where a lot of opponents are immune to backstabs anyway).
I remember in past threads complaints on the thieving skills location on the action bar. Has this been solved in 2.0?
Thieving skills are best mapped to a hotkey near the space bar. I use 'V', but you could pick a number of different keys. Useful for any thief, not just the cleric-thief.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/60717/mod-eeuitweaks-mod-collection-all-ee-platforms/p1
Fighters get more attacks per round and HP though.
I just made a new swashy / cleric for my Android BGEE (I hope to finish just in time for Siege of Dragonsphere to be released for android) and I found out I remembered wrongly. You do need some tweaking;
Remove swashy AC bonus, set both cleric and thief level to 0, start game, level up to lvl 1, open ee keeper again, remove surplus HP (base should be 7) and surplus thief skills (should have 40 in total) and remove empty AC bonus (the one with weird numbers and symbols, not the other one).
To use EE keeper, you must copy the obb files (game + patch) from android-obb-beamdog to a windows machine, rename them .zip, unzip, move data folder into the same folder as lang etc, then copy save game and char folder from android-data-beamdog. Its a bit of a hassle, I know, so I tried uploading my chr file for the persistance challenged players out there, but this file type wasnt allowed.
Take your pick.
In keeping with your gods wishes you promote suffering among others by stealing their wealth and precious heirlooms.
I think Hoar is oddly appropriate for the Bhaalspawn, especially after Gorion is murdered (You can switch Gods, no?). I mean, considering Gorions Wards happy upbringing the starter god would probably be a happy deity, like Sune, or, of course, Oghma, since that is what everyone else in Candlekeep worships, but after Gorions fall...
Hoar also speaks to the bloodlust inherent in all Bhaalspawn.
The only problem is that Hoar is lawful, which does not really suit a thief, but other than that, Hoar perfectly fits the bill.