Your two duallig options of course opens up two completly different aspects of the game. But I would not favour one to the other. They are both very capable in their own way. So as I see it, all it comes down to is what you like. The sneeky, brutal and extremly deadly weapons of the cloaked fighter/thief. Or the equally sneeky, as times as brutal, and unique possibilities of the stealthy mage/thief.
I've beat the game with both and found them both very fun, in their own respective ways. It's not an easy choice, so maybe a F/M/T is the best candidate;)

Note: Druids can only dual with Fighters. No Druid->Thief or Thief->Druid.

A F/M/T is versatile, yes... but lacks certain skills that an Assassin dual can have. One of the factors for choosing an Assassin is that they have Poison Weapon( and I don't just mean arrows ;) ) and a much better backstab.

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An Assassin->Fighter will have a better base backstab than the Assassin->Mage due to one reason. Grandmastery. An A->F can wear leather armour with impunity as well. An A->M will have to stick to Elven Chainmail or Robes if he/she wants to cast spells. An A-F levels up faster too, and Poison Weapon used in conjunction with Greater Whirlwind is just sick.

Personally, I would choose the A->M, but that is due to personal bias, as I like to cast spells. The A-F is not without its' advantages though.

<font color=plum>Another good example of a "good" assassin would be the <font color=white>Punisher</font> from Marvel comics. He is considered an "anti-hero" because he just kills the bad guys instead of trying to catch them.

<font color=yellow>Wolverine</font> is another example. The writers have toned him down a bit over the years, but when he first joined the X-Men, he gave them fits because he was willing to kill anybody they went after instead of just capturing them. They had a hard time controlling him. He also got his initial training as a member of the Canadian Covert Operations. He was trained to infiltrate and kill the enemy single-handedly. So that kinda ties back in to the Special Forces theme.</font>

[ 12-13-2004, 01:47 AM: Message edited by: Cerek ]

<font color=plum>I have another quick question about allocating my Thief Abilities. I've seen other threads stating that the game basically takes the average between your HiS and M/S scores, so you don't need to build BOTH of them up. Just raise M/S to a certain low level and then pump the rest into HiS. Since I will be relying heavily on my ability to blend into the shadows, would somebody mind repeating how these points should be divided and how much should be put into each one.

BTW, I know that many members also say Pick Pockets is a useless score, but I plan on using that to aquire a lot of my items early on. The rest of my points will be going into Set Traps, since I will be setting up as many ambushes as possible.

I have Ease of Use installed, and that eliminates a LOT of the traps in the game...so I won't have to worry about those - at least not early in the game.</font>

Why did you install "No traps" component? I mean it takes all the fun out of the game. Put more points into M/S then in HiS.

<font color=plum>For one thing, I didn't realize it turned off ALL the traps in the game. I thought it just turned off the ones in the Chateau. But when I re-installed BG2 and all the Mods on my primary PC, I saw that particular component and considered turning it "off". Since I'm planning to play another assassin, I may go ahead and do that. All of my other games are advanced enough that the traps shouldn't be a problem.</font>

<font color=plum>I've always liked a healthy dose of <font color=yellow>cheese</font> in my games. My first BG2 character was a Wizard Slayer and I found a wonderful item for him at Arundor's Abode. It was an item called <font color=red>Charon's Claw</font> and consisted of a sword coupled with a pair of guantlets. The sword could cause disease with each hit, but I actually didn't use it very much. The guantlets were the real treasure. They automatically turned ANY spell below 6th level back onto the caster. So - not only did this make my Wizard Slayer basically immune to all spells below 6th level - it also threw the spells back on the caster. I had the best time watching the drow clerics in the Underdark fry themselves with their <font color=yellow>Flamestrikes</font>. Now, most people (including myself) would say that item is WAY too powerful for the game. I agree for most classes, but I felt it was PERFECT for the Wizard Slayer class - because of what the guantlets did AND the fact that Wizard Slayers are so restricted in the items they can use to begin with. I would not use the item for any other class.

Another thing I've seen members tell newer players is that they should play through the game WITHOUT <font color=yellow>cheese</font> first - then add cheesy items to their second or third games if they really want too. BULLOCKS!!! You want to increase the difficulty of the game AFTER you become familiar with it - NOT on your first run. Heck, you might as well tell them they should play their character solo FIRST, THEN add NPC's in their second and third game if they need to.

I find I use a lot LESS cheese as I play more. I created the typical kensai (with multiple stars in katana to dual Celestial Fury and Sanchu) and planned to dual her to a mage. But then I added Kelsey as a Romance option. Since he is a sorcerer, I've decided to leave the kensai in her original class. The katana still "fits" the class since they are both oriental in origin. But since then, I've created a male kensai that I plan to dual to mage, and I've given him grand mastery in the staff (which also fits the kensai class - since the bo staff was originally a martial arts weapon).

As for the <font color=palegreen>Mislead/multiple Backstab</font> combo - I don't know if I will use it or not, since I haven't even decided if I'm going to dual to a mage or a fighter. The idea of being able to cast <font color=cyan>invisibility</font> on my assassin is very appealing. But like <font color=red>Dundee</font> pointed out, Greater Whirlwind with Poison Weapon is just INSANE!!! So both class options offer a lot of appeal. However, since I will be going solo, if I DO decide to dual to mage, I most likely WILL use the <font color=palegreen>Mislead/multiple Backstab</font>. I do not feel that <font color=palegreen>Mislead</font> is <font color=yellow>cheesy</font> when playing solo.</font>

i say it's not cheesy if you leave the clone in sight of the bad guys - otherwise it's not 'mislead' it's 'undispellable re-newable invisibility'

I am currently running a Assasin->Cleric. A little vigilante justice. It is so far a lot of fun, slightly restrictive. But fun to rp, and is making Tactics all the much tougher.
Considering the two choices I would choose the A->M. Just personal preference.
However it is your game and therefore your choice, go with what sounds best to you.

<font color=plum>hehe....Assassin/Cleric...sounds fun. Since I'm planning to take him to a fairly high level before dualing, I'm sure I'll have a better idea of which class I want to choose once the time actually comes. I will have a better feel for his personality and which path he would want to pursue. I do like the possibilities offered by the different spells available to the mage, but I also like the better THAC0 offered by the fighter - which means my backstab will strike more often.

I finally decided on a name for my assassin last night. His name will be <font color=silver>Talon</font> and I'm seriously considering either a CG or CN alignment instead of the standard evil one. I might pattern him after the <font color=white>Punisher</font> - an assassin dealing out retribution to evil-doers. [img]graemlins/blownup.gif[/img] </font>