[Party building] Fear my team of thieves!
Yann1989
Member Posts: 92
Currently in a new run with a swashbuckler called Henri de Baldur (just reached level 2).
-> I'm planning to make an evil team of thieves !
- We will defeat Tazok's bandits (these competitors must be taken care of).
- We will be feared in the world of shadows...
- We'll be a legend in the Sword Coast !
- ... and basically we'll just try to burgle every house and rob everybody.
My planned team:
Henri de Baldur - Swashbuckler - Lockpicking and Find traps, Longswords, any idea for other proficiencies?
Montaron - F/T - He's gonna be my scout (Move Silently, Hide in Shadows) and backstabber, Short Swords, Slings
Xzar - Necromancer - arcane magic, fun, crazyness
Eldoth - Pickpockets, Scimitar/Wakizashi/Ninjato or Spear ?? + Longbow with poison arrows
Skie - well, I don't know what she can be useful for... any ideas? maybe set traps
Tiax - coz he's a priest AND thief, and I could benefit from a priest
, I don't know how to use him though
Please share any comments/ideas, how would you build this team/develop these PCs? Thanks a lot!
-> I'm planning to make an evil team of thieves !
- We will defeat Tazok's bandits (these competitors must be taken care of).
- We will be feared in the world of shadows...
- We'll be a legend in the Sword Coast !
- ... and basically we'll just try to burgle every house and rob everybody.
My planned team:
Henri de Baldur - Swashbuckler - Lockpicking and Find traps, Longswords, any idea for other proficiencies?
Montaron - F/T - He's gonna be my scout (Move Silently, Hide in Shadows) and backstabber, Short Swords, Slings
Xzar - Necromancer - arcane magic, fun, crazyness
Eldoth - Pickpockets, Scimitar/Wakizashi/Ninjato or Spear ?? + Longbow with poison arrows
Skie - well, I don't know what she can be useful for... any ideas? maybe set traps
Tiax - coz he's a priest AND thief, and I could benefit from a priest
, I don't know how to use him thoughPlease share any comments/ideas, how would you build this team/develop these PCs? Thanks a lot!
4
Comments
Go and sow chaos my brother.
For Montaron, give him proficiencies in Bastard Swords (because that'll be important when you reach a certain island, and you've got no-one else who'll be any good with Bastard Swords).
For Xzar, well weapon proficiencies aren't what he's for, but when he eventually gets another point it might as well be in Quarterstaves. Fine caster, obvious role.
For Eldoth, he's not really tough enough for close combat, so go Spears rather than Scimitars - but mainly keep him back and using a Longbow, his Poisoned Arrows are really pretty good. After a few levels, he's also a pretty decent caster. He'll level faster than Xzar, so have Eldoth concentrate on level-dependent spells.
For Skie, she's usually best using her Shortbow from range. Yes, Set Traps is a good skill. When that's up to a high level, start building her Stealth skills and give her a proficiency in Daggers (because backstabbing with the Dagger of Venom - briefly borrowed from your protagonist - shuts down casters even if they survive the stab).
For Tiax, give him proficiency in Clubs, so that he can carry a Shield in the offhand to improve his durability. Probably also the Gauntlets of Ogre Power (when you get that far), so that he can don heavy armour and become a secondary front-liner beside Montaron. Build his Thief skills in Detect Illusion, since you've got no-one else doing that, and it saves him from needing to memorise illusion-dispelling spells. Before then, however, keep him back using his Sling when he's not casting.
Or do some trick to keep Xzar but get rid of Montaron.
I love playing Swashbucklers, I find it very hard not to always play them. Set traps is a must, that ability makes up for lacking backstabs.
Why katanas?
First off they don't break and do a lot of damage early game.
You can buy one from Winthrop in Candlekeep, put all your points in lockpick and get the sapphire from the chest.
There's only one +1 katana and it's in Cloakwood Mines, so not that late in the game if you leave out some questing beforehand.
Secondly, if you are going onto BG2, Celestial Fury will take you through until TOB.
Although it doesn't go above +3, the booming thunder paralyse effect hits most things. It's ridiculously op.
And it suits a Swashbuckler, dual wielding, fancy footwork, very thematic.
@TrentOster I guess the F/T is as powerful as the swashbuckler. I heard they were more or less the same at fight, however it's true the F/T has crazy backstabs, which the Swashbuckler doesn't have!
@Arctodus Exactly! I find thieves fun because you steal powerful items, scout the ennemy, set a trap and backstab. All these little tips make it feel like the ennemy group falls into your ambush. That feels good and turns the fight into your favour, wheras the fight would have been very difficult otherwise.
@Southpaw Thanks!
@Gallowglass Thank you for your very helpful answer, that's very kind of you and exactly the information I was looking for.
For Xzar: why not a ranged weapon, since I won't have him on the frontline anyway?
For the protagonist: I took longswords for the sword of Varscona +2 and then I was thinking about longbows maybe, but your suggestion seems to be better. It is indeed clever to take profit from the swashbuckler's possibility to put 3 pips at dual-wielding and the dagger of venom. Even if daggers are not the first weapon I had thought about, it may very well prove to be worthy due to damage over time, let alone the anti-caster advantage. Just out of curiosity, is this choice of weapons as good for SoD/BG2?
@Raduziel @PentiumD I understand your suggestions from a powergaming standpoint, but Xzar and Montaron fit to the theme so well, are crazy funny and I don't like to split couples. I have already finished the game once so I'm looking for characters that I have not played yet.
@UnderstandMouseMagic Katanas seem to be a very viable option indeed. I don't know how many proficiency points I'll get but maybe it is better to wait until I am in BG2 before investing in katanas?
You start with two points, so one in katanas, one in shortbows. You will get more in BG so can have two in katanas, just checked a playthrough, had 2 points before Cloakwood.
You are only allowed two for any weapon with a Swashbuckler.
Admitedly, that's annoying.
The same tactic works very well in SoD ... except that for the Final Battle of SoD, you need +3 weapons (and you've only got +2 Daggers available). You can fix that with the Enchanted Weapon spell, or otherwise you'll have gained a new proficiency point just before the Final Battle and could use that for some weapon which you have in a +3 version. In BG2:SoA, dual-wielding Daggers remains viable for about the first half of the game, but for later in SoA and all of ToB, you'll be better off with other weapons ... but by then you'll have more proficiency points to spend, so no problem. Yes, wait - there's no need to decide that yet. There are no impressive magical Katanas in BG1 (a single Katana +1 with no bonus effects, no other magical Katanas at all), there's one fairly good one in SoD, and there's one outstandingly good one (and a couple of other okay ones) in BG2.
As preparation for using your Swashbuckler in BG2, you're better off getting some points into dual-wielding (to be ready to hit the ground running in BG2), and then getting proficiency in a +APR weapon (which means either Shortswords or Scimitars - which to choose depends upon who else in your party, but more often Scimitars would be the better choice). After getting all that in place (and IMO only after all that), it's worth investing proficiencies in other weapons ... but by that time, you'll be half-way through BG2:SoA.
The extra APR kicks in whether you have a profeciency point or not, so dual wielding is more important than a pip for the actual weapon.
And rather than a pip for Belm (which is only a +2) I go for long swords for Daystar.
However, off-handing a weapon in which you have no proficiency is (for a Rogue class) an additional -3 penalty to off-hand THAC0 (on top of the off-hand THAC0 penalty you always get for dual-wielding). Given that a Rogue's THAC0 (even if a Swashbuckler, until very late in the game) is already pretty weak, you'll hardly ever hit anything with the off-hand except when you score a critical. Thus it's well worth having a proficiency in your off-hand weapon to get back that 3 points of THAC0, else you're crippling the chance of an off-hand hit.
Before being nerfed a couple of patches ago, it was ridiculously over-powered and easily the very best weapon in the whole game, which made no sense for something available so early and for free ... so in this case, I agree with the devs that change was desirable. Either toning down the stun effect (as they did), or otherwise moving it to later in the game and obtainable only after a tough battle or for a very high price.
Now install item revision, spell revision, rogue rebalancing, npc project and scs. Bg1 will be a big fun
Question is bg2, there arent any good rogue npcs, i mean haer is only bard npc, hexxat and yoshi is only pure thieves, no cleric/thief. Maybe haer, nalia, hexxat for core team, yoshi for rp(maybe use a mod) but i need cleric and some 6th member. Imoen so late, i pick sarevok in tob alltime, but jan ? Its a difficult choose.
I'm playing on vanilla bg:ee. As I won't get Tiax until late in the game, I guess I'll pick Viconia in the meantime.