Multi class? worth it or not?

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Sorry to resurrect the thread, but,

While Faraaz makes some excellent points with regard to the virtues of single weapon style, I feel he has neglected to mention the advantages that dual wielding brings to the fighter thief. In addition to which he makes no mention of the power of two handed weapon style.

Dealing with last things first.

Two Handed Weapon Style.

Two handed weapon style is, IMO, the best way to make a single strike count.
If we compare weapon styles we see that,

-SINGLE-WEAPON-STYLE gives you
* -1 AC and a critical hit on 19
** increases AC to -2

-TWO-HANDED-WEAPON-STYLE gives you
* +1 on damage and a -2 on weapons speed factor
** increases speed factor by -2 again and a critical hit on 19

For a fighter thief it’s a choice between better attack ( more damage and lower speed factor) or better defence ( 2 points to your AC).
In my experience the improved defence is not that valuable because
a) If soloing, my F/T WILL be almost constantly hidden in shadows until I’ve got such good equipment and so many fighter levels that I can take a brute force approach to the majority of encounters.
a) In a group, well, taking hits is what tanks are for.
Whereas that extra +1 to damage gets multiplied by my backstab modifier, and the +4 to weapon speed makes a whole lot of quaterstaffs realy fast.

If we consider the progression staffs in the game we get,

Quaterstaff +1: 1D6+1, speed factor 3
Only of interest because it’s in the first dungeon, at which point it’s a damn fine weapon.

Staff Spear +2: 1D8+3, speed factor 4
If , for some reason, you’re not the kind of thief who nicks everything that isn’t nailed down ( and comes back with a crowbar for the stuff that is), then this is probably the first improvement to the above that you’ll come across. ( you get one at the end of the poisoned man quest).

Staff of Rhynn+4: 1D6+4, Speed factor 1
Lower maximum damage than the above, but better minimum and better enchantment make this well worth having.

Elemental Staffs (Earth, Air and Fire (If only it was the staff of wind)).
All 1D6+2. All speed factor 1. All insta-killing elementals of their type.
And, if you have the Item upgrade mod, making
Staff of Elemental Mastery+5: 1D6+5, speed factor 0.
Kills all known elementals dead . As well as having some other useful abilities.

Staff of Striking+3: 1D6+9, SF 1
These can be found in Trademeet,the Temple of Lathander and From the cleric in the fighter stronghold.
Reason enough to choose the fighter stronghold over the thief. When fully charged these sticks give you 25 instances of more or less guaranteed one shot killing.

Rod of Smiting: 1d8+3: +10 vs. Golems: SF 1
Once you get UAI, this is how you deal with Golems. Who will also have to save vs. death or die.
(Incidentally, Stone and Bone Golems can be backstabed ).

Speaking of UAI,
Staff of the Magi+5: 1D6+1, SF 4
To a solo thief this is stoneskin, breach and timestop rolled into one. THE best thing you can do with your second weapon slot. If, by some slim chance, you don’t allready know what it does I shan’t spoil the surprise. Surfice it to say that even if you have no proficiencies in staffs or two handed weapon style you still want this. Badly.

Moving into TOB

Staff of the Ram+4: 1D6+10: SF 1
A staff of striking that doesn’t need recharging.

Staff of the Ram+6: 1D6+12 crushing, 1D4 piercing, SF 1
As above, but so much better. (I’m far too lazy to calculate the minimum, maximum and mean damages for a backstab with this thing, let alone the inter-quartile range, lets just say that, as Rolls Royce used to, performance is “adequate for any reasonable demand”).

As either a fighter thief or a single class thief you will get a total of twelve proficiency points (unmodified).
For an F/T with two in staffs and two in two handed weapon style that leaves eight to play with.
Two of them should go into a ranged weapon. (I’d go with shortbows.)
The other six can be used to abuse UAI.

Consider the contribution to minimum damage from the weapon, style and racial bonus for an elven assassin.
With celestial fury,
BSM*1(min you can roll on a 10 sided die)+3(enchantment bonus)+1 (for being an elf with a sword)
=BSM*5

With Staff of Rhynn
BSM* 1+4+1(for two handed weapon style)
+BSM*6

With a staff of striking
BSM* 1+9+1
=BSM*11

Where BSM = backstab multiplier

In short, If you want your thief to have the best possible chance of killing his/her opponent with the first blow, you want to be backstabbing with a staff.


Dual Wielding.

First off let me reiterate what has been said many times before.

IF YOU CAN’T DO IT PROPPERLY, DON’T DO IT AT ALL.
In practice this means that,
1. You need at least two points in dual wielding,. (to eliminate the main hand THACO penalty)
2. When deciding what to put in your off hand, assume it will always miss.

As Faraaz rightly states the principle reason for dual wielding is to get lots of attacks per round, which can be achieved by other means. In addition to which, if you don’t do it right, you will miss.

But, for a fighter thief.

1. Your basic THACO will end up at 0, compared to a single class thief’s’ 10.
2. At level 13 you will have 2 attacks per round plus whatever specialisation and equipment give you, compared to a single class thief, who has one basic attack and can’t specialise.
3. You can use non thief weapons as well as shields.

The effect of this is that, if you chose to put 2 stars in dual wielding then you could, for example,

Use celestial fury, the improved mace of disruption or the flail of ages in your’ main hand.
Whilst using Belm, Kundane, Arbanes sword, the Equaliser, the Defender of Easthaven, the Shield of Harmony, the Shield of reflection or the shield of Balduran in your off hand.
Depending on which combination is most appropriate for a given situation.

Many of the off hand options above are listed because they provide immunity to something nasty. Which is fantastically useful in the early stages of the game. After a while you will become effectively immune to many of those things anyway (through a combination of saving throws, HP and rings and the like). At that point Belm, Kundane and the Scarlet Ninja Toe come into there own. For though it’s possible to get three, four of more attacks per round using only these weapons. Only warriors can use them to get 3.5 (or 4 once you’ve got the gauntlets of extraordinary specialisation) attacks with the better one handed weapons in the game.

Add Improved Haste to the mix, and you can have up to 8 attacks per round with your favourite one handed weapon as well as two with the off hand.
Add Improved Haste and Assassination, and you’ll quickly find out why so many people like fighter thieves so very much.