soloing: mage kits

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OK then, you can choose a thief kit when you finish BG one. Good luck! Have fun!

 

Would you prefer taking a thief kit and then dualing to a mage? Or taking a mage kit and dualling to a thief?

I'm guessing sarevok would choose the former because he really wants a powerful mage in the end huh.

 

well i ve just said in my previous post how i loath dualclassing so... neither

anyway once imported im kitting him to assassin.... x7 backstab hmmmmm

 

Indeed it sounds lovely doesn't it

 

Be sure you are not of good alignment then, assasins can not be good aligned IIRC. Assasination is serious and dirty bussines, no happy-go-lucky wanna be rogue.

 

Personaly, I find that irritating. If there can be good drows, why can't we have good aligned assassins? Sure, both of them are rare as white flies, but they exist.

 

Umm because an Assassin kills as a job. Doesn't matter who it is or for whatever reason, if he gets paid, he kills.

 

Again I'm going to give example from the 3.5 edition(boy, somebody is going to kick my ass if I use this too much ). In the Book of exalted deeds, there is a prestige class, which is very close to assassin and it's called slayer of Dormiel, iirc. It's the very same as assassin, but he fights for the cause of good.

Besides, who says that assassins have to be killers? Sure, it's their primary role, but their ability in stealth makes them very good spies. Think of Sam Fisher. I think he is pretty close to an assassin, and I don't see him as evil. And their is always a possibility for a redemption. Roleplaying a good assassin would be great imo.

 

Then use Shadow Keeper to change your assasin's alignment to CG and RP it. :good

But seriously, I agree about alignment restrictions. There are 'rogue's who are charming, happy-go lucky people who do their job for their personal fun or ideals (Immy and Nalia), then there are those who do the job for their profit and continuing existence (Jan/Yoshimo) and then...there are cold-blooded murderers who also enjoy honing their skills exclusively for killing! (no NPCs I know, but Artemis Entereri might be the epitome of such alignment/class)

 

dont worry i never created even once a good character

always chaotic evil, except the monk since hes gotta be lawful

 

And I'm the first to agree with that there needs to be restrictions. But world of D&D also stands for diversibility. I'm not saying that all of a sudden all assassins need to be goody two shoes. After all, if I get back to drow comparison, there are only two good aligned drows that I'm aware of(Sola and Drizzt, and possibly Vicky if you choose to redeem her). Maybe your character is the only good aligned assassin? After all, he fights for the "right thing", and most of the enemies you kill in the game are evil. Would you call Osama bin Laden assassination an act of evil? Assassins don't even need to be good, but at least true neutral option would be nice. Again I say, think of Sam Fisher. There are many as him out there, and the cause they are fighting for is righteous.

To be at least little on topic: sarevok, think about before you take assassin. You only have 15 thieving points per level to distribute, and that's going to hurt you. My bounty hunter had 20 point per level to distribute, and on the end of ToB he was pretty weaker thief than vanilla thief. I was level 39 with 21 DEX, and I believe the stats were following: pick pocket 165, open locks and find traps both 140, move silenty 145, hide in shadows 195, detect illusion 150 and set traps 120. Were I regular thief, I would have 150 points more to distribute. Besides, I got 15 points in trap setting on start(bounty hunter class feature). You'll be 300 points short from vanilla thief. Consider it if the 7X bacstab is worth that much, since your going solo. Believe me, it's going to hurt you.

 

Then you take the Spy kit instead. Yes, that's a PnP kit not available in this game, but it does serve to help point out that assassins only have one purpose: killing. It's the entire point of the assassin kit.

There's an old saying: "When you take someone's life, you lose a piece of your own." Killing in battle is only the slightest bit excusable because they're probably trying to kill you too, but killing in cold blood as your victim stands unaware, plus the use of poison... Fighting for the right thing the wrong way still ends up wrong.

The arguments you make are good ones, but in the end they're the reason assassins weren't limited to only evil alignments, as opposed to just non-good.

Wow, that's a lot of wasted points. OL, FT, DI, and ST being over 100 mean zilch. PP likely as well, and I kind of doubt that the in-light penalty to your stealth skills is over 50. In total, that's about 150 to 250 completely unnecessary points on that build. The point of that analysis being that assassins do just fine, especially when gaining rapid levels from soloing.

The backstab isn't worth it, but the poison is. Poison that can be applied even to missile weapons, which will disrupt spellcasters' spells, is the true power of the kit.

 

well the thing is that you raised pickpocketting to 165; im leaving it at the initial 25. no npcs carry vital stuff so that i go to the trouble of searching their pockets, but if so id just backstab them and loot their body, easier and more fun!

plus actually my straight thief only gets 20 to distribute when leveling up (its 30 just when you create him lvl 1), so 15 is still ok

last, bounty hunter is reputedly the kit to avoid in most walkthroughs and aids, as their special traps are said to be real bad and outdistanced by the tob higher abilities available to other thiefs so....(ive tried yoshi s and to be blunt they stink)

 

@Felinoid: guess you're right. Can't help myself if I'm an idealist Plus a daydreamer It's like that old saying, fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity Didn't know about a spy kit thou, thanks for pointing that out.

Bingo again. I wanted OL and FT a little over 100, just to be sure. Same with DI. And about ST, 100 is enought, but once in a while trap sprungs in your arms, and when it happens it hurts. PP was the last thing I raised, when I didn't know where else to put points All in all, you're right.

See my reply to Felinoid. My startin PP was 35(I had elf bounty hunter), and it was the last skill to raise. And if you think you get all of people possesion when you kill them, think again. Pick pocket can be very useful, especialy in ToB portion of the game, when you have UAI HLA. Ohm that reminds me, make sure you have at least 9 in INT if you want to use UAI in it's full power.

They are not so bad once you get to level 21 and get maze as a special effect of a target. Maze a dragon, set more traps, and when he comes back he'll be down to injured in a second

I'll admit that lack of thieving points maybe isn't as bad as I thought, but I'm willing to bet you anything you want that you're not going to make to an end of a game with assassin, and that I would do it easier with my bounty hunter.

 

To be blunt, those are wasted points- you don't need more than 100. There isn't anything wrong with doing it if that's what you prefer, but it shouldn't be something that you advise.

Assassins do fine with their points in a 6 person party (yes I have tried it) so there would be absolutely no problem soloing.

On the alignment debate:
I can see no problem with an Assassin starting off as Good- even Paladins kill. They could be someone trained to take out Evil leaders before they can cause too much damage. They could also use the least painful poison they can find, or even forego the stuff entirely. Over time, I could see their alignment change towards Neutral but that is no reason why they couldn't start as Good. Just because the majority are non-Good should totally prevent a few being Good.

 

Glad to see someone agrees with me And yes, that was excatly my point.

Maybe you can have an assassin anti hero. He knows that was he is doing is wrong, but he just doesn't have a chance to do it otherwise. But enought of this, before I start rambling again

Btw, congratulation on your "promotion"

 

Promotion? Was this at me? I've been promoted?

This means more money right?

 

boy you really want to talk me out of it dont you?

bounty hunter haha... nice try you almost had me going for a while... anyway, assassin it was intended, assassin it shall be

 

Just don't come crying back here when it will be too late I really hate those people that keep saying, "I told you so", and I would hate to become one of them.

 

Those are BG1 numbers, rather than BG2 or Tutu numbers. Vanilla thieves using the BG2 engine gain 40 at 1st level and 25 for further levels.

I don't think I've ever seen a walkthrough that advised avoiding Bounty Hunters. Their traps are fairly good at all levels, and in addition, they're extra traps, so they don't take away the normal traps which you would be proficient in as well. But the icing on the cake is that you can throw them to any spot within sight range, meaning that they can be used offensively against foes off-screen, whereas normal traps you have to lure enemies to.