Thief questions

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So... even after backstabbing my way to to 3 million Experience I still don't fully understand how Hide In Shadows works. More specifically, the Leaving Shadows bit.

This is what I figured out:

• Attack: Instantly revealed.
• Talk to someone: Instantly revealed. (Good for stepping out of the shadows to receive healing.)
• Pick up an item: Instantly revealed.
• Open a door: Leaving Shadows.
• Turn off stealth mode: Leaving Shadows.

The part I don't get is that this "Leaving Shadows" business seems to take anywhere between 3 and 30 seconds. What gives?

 

have no direct proof but I have a hunch that the time spent "leaving shadows" (where you are still hidden but will become visible soon) is the remaining time in that round which is 6 seconds in game if I recall correctly. So if you start leaving shadows and it has you set on the 5th second of a round then you would quickly appear but if you did it on the first second then it would take longer (and believe me in the middle of a fight 5 seconds can feel like forever especially if you pause the game a lot).

 

There might be some of that going on, but that's not all. It can easily take 20 seconds. Just try it.

 

Truth be told, I have noticed this, but I thought the mechanic at work was due to my main stealth character wearing the cloak of non-detection.

 

So, I got Use Any Item. Currently using it for:

• Grandmaster Armor (Kensai)
• Helm of Balduran
• Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise (Kensai)
• Harper Pin (upgrade to the Cloak of Non-Detection, though I've yet to find a cloak to replace it...)
• Staff of the Magi
• Wand of Spell Striking

Any other non-Thief goodies I should keep an eye out for?

 

You can wield Carsomyr, so yes you can use it, but you won't be able to backstab with it.

 

Yea and you would be non-proficient to add insult to injury. If you really want a dispel use the staff of the magi.

 

Finding a familiar was the second thing I did (after equipping the Staff of the Magi). Hello, 28 hit points!

Carsomyr would be decent on a Wizard Slayer/Thief, but not on a backstabber.

I must say I'm quite impressed with the way my character turned out. He's a real terror now that he has Use Any Item. Disgustingly effective, clears out most dungeons all by himself. I'm glad I went the extra mile and got to Kensai 13, though it helped that I had Yoshimo to give me a taste of the early game backstabbing experience (which wasn't that great.) I'm also glad he finally has decent AC so that he won't be a wallflower anymore in fights with backstab-immune critters.

Incidentally, I'm about to get the Staff of the Ram, too. And then it's time to set some backstab records.

 

Now that I'm fully tooled-up with the Staff of the Ram, the Kensai 13/Thief is really awesome. I realized that I even have an edge in the fights where I can't backstab; many of those critters can't see invisible people, so I can just use the Staff of the Magi and take my time clobbering them, and in the boss fights I'll have the distinct advantage of a pile of Spike Traps.

I am now convinced that, once most of the hard work is done, a proper Fighter/Thief build can contend with Fighter/Mage and Ranger/Cleric for the most uber character possible.

 

Speaking of the thief experience, if you plan on going stealthy during your early levels (i.e. have someone else take care of locks and traps for you early on), dualwielding seems such a natural choice. You can't shoot anything from stealth without becoming visible anyway, so no biggie that you lack the ranged option.

If you also play TuTu or BGT, you're more than set once you.. ehum.. acquire Drizzt's weapons in the BG1 part of it. However, since they're scimitars, it seems to create a resource conflict once you get to BG2 - only Belm +2 sticks out as noteworthy replacement for what you had before. That is, UNTIL you realize you can take a detour via Watcher's Keep to get Usuno's Blade.

However, you need to go through an intensive battle to get that. Any old-time veterans around to assess whether that fight is doable with a low-level party - say, around 10-12 tops? I wouldn't even dare trying that straight out of Chateau Irenicus, but somewhere during early Chapter two? Suicide or "just" tricky?

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The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to figure out how to best put early weapon proficiency points to use.

Grandmastery with shortbows (with exp cap remover to reach lvl 9 fighter and even more so if you have the unnerfed grandmastery installed) looks promising early on and keeps going strong once you get Tuigan's in BG2. But unless you play an Archer, you're usually better off with melee of some sort, with the low availability and enchantment level of projectiles in general. Also, stealth + ranged is just an awkward mismatch to begin with.

Drizzt's weapons are by far the best BG1 has to offer, both damagewise and in extra benefits. However, maxing dualwield takes a whopping EIGHT proficiency points with just a single weapon type, although you only need four to start out properly. If you want to mix weapon types (to use, say, Celestial Fury), you're up to THIRTEEN points if you want the whole hog, six bare minimum.

This suggests that dualwielding with scimitars is the way to go.. but the plan is foiled unless you can get your hands on decent scimitars early on in BG2. I know you can buy Kachiko's Wakisashi +3 and Belm +2 isn't really that hard to acquire, so you get the basics. The question is whether Usuno+4 can be classified as an early fetch?

 

What's the use of going stealthy (and dare I say Thieves at all) if you aren't backstabbing? And it's hard to beat the Staff of the Ram for that.

I suppose maybe some Fighter/Thief mix trying to abuse the Assassinate ability could do some OK stuff with dual-wielding.

 

While Staff of the Ram sure is powerful, you get it so late. Prior to that, there are several other weapons that beat a quarterstaff in damage.

Also, not dualwielding with someone that gets free passage to melee range via stealth seems a bit backwards.

 

I think dual-wielding is an awesome strategy, but its synergies with stealth aren't selling points. It only takes a few seconds to get into melee anyway, and you need to leave the rest of the party behind if you wish to get some use out of those seconds.

In the game I played, 99% of the time I'd just run around backstabbing entire dungeons to death. Part of that strategy was not standing around long enough for dual-wielding to be relevant.

 

You do not need dual wielding for a backstab demon. Going the staff route; the Staff of Rynn is quite sufficient until you get the Staff of the Ram for backstabbing.

 

Also, dual-wielding precludes quick access to the Staff of the Magi. That not only lets you get in the next backstab without enemies moving around, it also dispels stoneskins, which are otherwise really annoying against backstabbing.

 

I'm currently trying out the staff route with my half-orcish F/T, just thinking of the what-ifs.

I took Montaron along for the Tutu ride, so I have two backstabbers. Monty goes all the way into stealth to give me a picture what sort of skill levels produce which results, while the protagonist took a detour for locks & traps first since I figured his shortbow would go to waste otherwise. Monty sits currently at 110 Hide & Move Silently and hides pretty reliably even in broad daylight, wearing Drizzt's elven chain, while the protagonist wears Boots of Stealth and Shadow Armor (plus a few skillpoints of his own) so that he can assist in double backstabs with a little patience.

Double backstab pretty much takes care of all the toughest monsters straight away. Ogre Berserkers, Flesh Golems and Doomsayer never crumbled so fast in my previous playthroughs - and I've boosted all monsters to max HP since! However, in larger crowds of lesser monsters, there's usually no time to rehide for another round of backstabs before the rest of the party has mopped up the opposition.

But I guess that'll change again once I acquire Boots of Speed and the mobs start enduring hits better?

 

Am I the only one insane enough to try an assasin /fighter, I think so...

You know it is a pretty bad idea in the beginning, but you see once I was in Yagashura's Lair I achieved The level 22 of the fighter. I had a true GM patch installed, and was having a grandmastery in Staves. I backstabbed a fire giant and it was a critical hit.........

I had my hit rolls activated, I am not bluffing the damage dealt was 416. From there on if there was an opponent that could be backstabbed, it would have been as good as dead for me.

I personally think theives are the best class to solo, did it with a level 13 kensai/theif, assasin/ fighter, bounty hunter/ fighter and a berserker/theif. Thanks to Chris lee and his guide, I realised the true potential of this class.

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Oh, by the way I forgot to tell you I was using a staff of ram +6 (though it is obvious), I also used staff of magi for the quick hides.

 

Single classed thieves aren't so hot, but when you dual or multiclass the addition of thief levels REALLY makes a difference. I've tried using shadowkeeper to make multiclassed thief kits and the assassin kit rocks on a multiclassed character. It's not quite as powerful on a dual classed character however.

If you start as an assassin, you have to dual before you get the extra backstab multipliers, which kinda removes one of the two main benefits of the assassin, the other being the poison. If you start as a fighter and use shadowkeeper to make an assassin, you lose the extra THAC0 at high levels, or you have to wait until you max out your THAC0 (which I did once and it was painful until I got my figher levels back, then it was one of the most powerful characters I've used).

Kensai/Thief when you wait until level 21 to duel is also incredibly powerful once you get your kensai levels back.

Thanks to his low stats, Jan Jansen makes a bad example, but a mage/thief is nothing to sneeze at either. Mislead+backstab=mega damage. I keep meaning to give Tenser's a go with mislead. Even Jan can be good if you give him the belt of strength.

The ultimate solo character is an uncapped Fighter/Magic User/Thief.