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Originally posted by Ivelliis:
Then she pops backstab and poof, most times the mage is gone.
She's using a longsword+1 in her main hand, with a dagger+1 in her off. I'm not too sure how backstabs work, but a harder hitting weapon would be best, right?
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As mentioned, never use anything in your offhand for backstab. Go for single-handed style to get more critical hits. In general what matters for a backstab weapon is the enchantment. A +3 dagger does the same damage (on average) as a +1 long sword. But:
-Your THAC0 is 1 better with the dagger. This means that you in 10% of all backstabs the dagger will hit and the long sword will miss. Missing is the worst thing that can happen in a backstab.
-The damage from the sword (ignoring various modifications that will affect both the sword and the dagger) is 2-9. The damage from the dagger is 4-7. If you have a quadruple damage backstab the sword will do 8-36 damage, while the dagger will do 16-28. And it is true that 36 damage is a big improvement over 28 damage, getting 8 damage is a real problem. In my opinion is much beter to have reliable damage inflicted than to be hopign to get lucky.
-The dagger has speed 0, while the sword has speed 4. This means that, for the sword, there will be a delay between when you order the backstab and when the attack happens. If the enemy happens to move away in that interval you can lose the backstab.
In my opinion you want the following characteristics (in order) for backstab weapons:
-Speed, because it is incredibly annoying if the enemy wanders off and you end up without the backstab multiplier
-Enchantment, because you must maximize you chance to hit.
-Any nice secondary effect that disables or cripples your enemy.
I think that daggers are probably the best choice - they are all very fast, and you can get very good ones early on. Stiletto of Demarchess with 20% stunning is great, Neb's dagger is nice and the Pixie Prick is lovely. You can buy a +2 dagger immediately and it's pretty cheap.
Plus I like the rpg of an assasin with a dagger.
Of course there are plenty of fast short swords, and later in the game there are several very fast long swords, so those are good choices too. I think that you can do better than a +1 long sword though.
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Also Viconia. At the moment she debuffs and she heals, occasionally buffs but not much attacking unless it's with her sling. Does she, or clerics in general, have another use I don't know of?
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I think sanctuary is often underestimated. You can cast some decent spells out of it, and it allows you to position a second character next to a weaker baddie. As I'm sure you know, Hold Person and Silence 15' radius are both very useful early on in the game. Glyph of Warding is a halfway decent blasting area attack. But generally clerics are best for buffs.
I wouldn't bother with Mauler's arm myself. If I'm going to use Viconia in combat I'll have all the following going before fighting (and probably use sanctuary to get up close to the baddies)
-Righteous Magic (if I've got level 5 spells [img]smile.gif[/img] )
-Holy Power
-Draw Upon Holy Might
-Protection from Evil
-Armor of Faith (every little bit helps)
With those in place Viconia will chew enemies up. Especially if you give her the FoA.
[ 08-16-2006, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: ister ]