Sense or nonsense... how about a darter?

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Whenever I was playing mages and pure thiefs I found that darts are pretty effective weapons - especially the high number of attacks - 3 attacks even with just beeing proficient * - made it interesting.

I wondered how a fighter, with grandmstery in darts would perform in a game. So I built a lvl-18 fighter with grandmastery in darts and dex-19. So I made one and started ToB to ind out how he would perform on high level.

He had a stunning 9/2 attacks per round *unhasted* and a THACO of -4 using +1 darts! In terms of power he certainly was relatively weak: about 6 to 7 damage each hit ... but this resulted in 27 to 32.4 damage per round ... not quite a powergaming char, but nontheless interesting ... just imagine him using darts of wounding:

Of course there were drawbacks:

(a) the low weapon type damage of darts: 1d3 + 1 .......

(b) the notably shorter combat distance compared to a bow

Despite these two disadvantages I think that a darter would be a well playable char, especially when equipped with darts of wounding or darts of stunning, these poisoned darts (viper's nest or so) - or the darts from this cloak (not to mention a certain weapon from ToB).

-darts of wounding: 1d3 + 20 poison damage within 20 sec
-darts of stunning: 1d3 + victim is stunned for 7 rounds when save fails ...
-viper's nest: 1d3+1 + 1 poison damage every 3 sec until 40 damage have been caused

Any opinions - of course with arguments to allow a discussion?

 

Nice!

I'll just add some details...

First, ordinary darts do not provide 3 attacks per round. This is not so important - your darter wouldn't use those often.

But certain Cloak you mention is a pure jewel for a darter, the darts it creates have:
+5 enchantment
THAC0+5
Damage 1d3+5

Die Gaxx!!!

Too bad that the darts can't be used by any cleric class...

 

I had one once. It is cool. It just got boring to carry and buy all these darts . He is really hard to keep up with. It is like drinking with sir Bel

 

Darts? Maybe not powergaming but err.. whenever I make chars I make them like "must-be-able-to-kill-all-golem-types". So that means that I must not rely on magic, my weapon has to be strong so I won't get that "I hit to no effect"-shit.

"I hit to no effect" IS THE MOST ANNOYING THING IN BG2.
That is the only thing that keeps me away from playing certain classes:
thief (bows get "no effect" and backstabbing an iron golem is suicide)
mage (magic resistant monsters kill mages)
archer (bows get "no effect" very often)
longswordsman (+2 or +3 longsword can hit to no effect!!)
...

So what is left: flail of ages, dragonbreath and holy avenger... there might be others but these are the only weapons I know that do not get "hit to no effect"-shit..
I would play a mage or an archer if the weapons and spells just made at least some dmg.. but immune monsters are too hard and unbalanced.. why am I not immune?

[This message has been edited by Lukki (edited January 14, 2002).]

 

Lukki, that is a way off topic. Not that it isn't ok, but in Darts thread...

For enchanted weapons list peek here: http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002772.html

Also, you'll definetly find interesting observations and some new purpose for weapons that kill with one stroke here: http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003088.html

 

A non-multiclass fighter going all out for darts is very cool, weak, but cool.
You'll go through your stock of darts so fast I think you might get supply problems.

Could you make a dc Assassin/Fighter and coat the darts in poison perhaps? I have no personal experience with assassins so have to ask.

@Extremist
Darts have a rate of fire (rof) of 3. Please explain if you made a mistake or under what circumstance darts would have less basic rof than 3.

 

Earl Grey, under this circumstance:
Patch not installed.

Sorry, I should have checked if the flawed ordinary dart version is with or without the patch.

[This message has been edited by Extremist (edited January 14, 2002).]

 

Hmm, I'm soloing an Assassin/Mage dualed at level 13 right now. I have + in darts so I'll try it out. It'll probably work just like any other weapon.

If I poisoned those darts from the Cloak of Stars the posion wouldn't work against Kangaxx, since the Ring of Gaxx makes him immune to it.

Posioning a dart of wounding seems like overkill though, no pun intended .

[This message has been edited by Lord Sarevok (edited January 15, 2002).]

 

Who is Kangaxx?

 

A Lich I Belive

 

Who is kangaxx .... good question - I made a little search with the search engine and found a few links with that name

Be warned, the threads are full of spoilers - if you want to have more fun, just ask where to find him .... maybe in a new topic.
http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000163.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000404.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000456.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000612.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000619.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001023.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001126.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001576.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001509.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001367.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001700.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002072.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002267.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002286.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002592.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002764.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002768.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002841.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002936.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003076.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003433.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003484.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003533.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003774.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/004093.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/004256.html http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/004382.html

Good fun, Kangaxx is one of the toughest opponents in BG-2 SoA

 

Hmm, what type should he be?? Wizard slayer?

Oops.. +5 I never knew that. I always thought the cloak was useless.

@Lukki:
1) Does holy avenger kill trolls too?
2) try gesenbow it even hits mages with lightning when they are protected by stoneskin
3) sling of everard hits golems too (bonus merchs)

In my opinion Kangaxx is NOT the most difficult opponent... I prefer kangaxx over dragons especially at high difficulty levels (although you need to have the proper equipment 1st)

uhh.. what was the topic again? lol
right darts. I prefer giving them to characters who do not have a high rof.

 

Aaaaargh! No more Kangaxx please!
As you can see, Ragusa has shown us that there are already too many topics about this creature.
Stay to the topic, oke?
(the daggerthingy with Kangie was not off topic)
thanks...

 

Back to topic then. I would prefer using throwing daggers, especially fire-tooth +3(Underdark). It deals out 2d4+3 +proficency bonuses; damage, and has an attack rate of 7/2 per round. But in the expansion, there is a +3 dart that makes the dart weapon class worth taking even for fighters. It would suite halflings well I think, ain't it Ragusa?

 

Let's call him Raymond van Barneveld (famous dutch darter)

I think playing such character would be funny.

 

I was kinda surprised when I used this returning dart from ToB on my swashbuckler, de did 12 to 18 damage each hit with it - at 3 attacks per round - very effective to wear off protections.

I think I found another underestimated weapon I think I'll try one in one of my next games ... sometime

 

A Wizard Slayer would be a great kit for a Darter, IMO. With the Darts you could quickly go through stoneskins, and you'd totally ruin their chances for casting a spells with only a few hits.

! I just thought of something. You could make some darts +5 hit kangaxx 5 times with them, and give him a 50% spell casting failure!

[This message has been edited by Lord Sarevok (edited January 16, 2002).]

 

The main advantage is the use of darts of wounding - their delayed damage prevents spellcasting effectively, just like arrows of biting, bolts of biting and the splendid bastard sword jhor the bleeder. So I'd use darts +1 to break the stoneskin and darts of wounding for the damage, and for efficiency (darts are a finite resource) melee for finishing them off.

As for delayed poison damage: When I used the jhor the bleeder one in underdark when I was fighting 5 drow, I hit each of them about two times and soon they panicked from bleeding and some of them dropped dead suddenly

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited January 16, 2002).]

 

This is really odd. About a month ago the was a post in the ToB forum which was called "A solo challenge", I believe. The person asked if anyone could solo a fighter or fighter kit with specializing in Dart and Bastard Swords. Seems neither of them are very bad, eh?

 

I think you should try the throwing dagger next time. Fire tooth +3 is just worth it!!!