Solo Assasin Proficiencies, equipment?

[Deaths Touch]

that is a very good point my friend, or should i say points my friends? anyways, yeah i will take a pt in staves to take out some golems... also, spoiler me, but i cannot remember where the earliest boots of speed are... i will need them fairly early on, so could you spoil me and tell me.. its not like i havent played through before... Also, no i do not have TOB istalled, but i plan on getting it very soon... if i start this game, will it get ToB stuff added, or will I have to start again? One more thing... besides hide in shadows and move silently, what should i focus my theif pts in? thanks

[Servii]

Yes, i agree there are more(in numbers and abilities) enchanted long swords in the game then katanas. You can read it in weapon descriptions and in the manual. But i wrote "for backstabing" Katanas are really better for this! They have 2 points of damage more then long sword so 2x7(assassin's backstab modifier)=14 points of damage over long sword! You are right for Q.staves but you can't backstab with 2-handed weapon as well! Better put a * on Clubs, there is very good one in Trademeet-Blackblood+3;+3poison damage. That is the problem with Kachicko's wakizasi-it is unsuitable for backstab even with "Use any items" and Kortala's Family Blade has the same problem. In general you are able to Backstab ONLY with wepons acceptable for you from the very beginning. And no 2-handed wepons(imagine backstab with Impaler-Spear 1d6+3:+10 additional damage). From my point of wiev the main ability of Assassin is to interrupt spellcasting and to eliminate Mages/Sor. BEFORE the start of the battle. Of Fighting sort is Swashbuckler, not the Assassin. In Cop.Cor, among loot from Beastmaster you find Tuigian Bow=3 atack per round. Again an important weapon for Assassin till Shor Bow of Geesen. With 3 atack/round you will be able to poison great number of bad gays.

[PeeWee]

quote:

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Originally posted by Servii:
Again an important weapon for Assassin till Shor Bow of Geesen. With 3 atack/round you will be able to poison great number of bad gays.

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Yup, a great bow. Do you know how speed changes up the attacks per round any? I probably haven't looked hard enough but so far I found nothing on speed vs how many attacks you get per round. I just read the manual and it didn't give enough info except that the speed ranges from 1-10 with 10 being once per round in case you do get multiple attacks. Still seems cloudy here.

I've used the tuegan bow at the troll mound in the groves. Made soloing fun. Poison a few while my snares were set by me and watch them run into the snares and then I bail. Then see the exp hit the text screen and laugh my silly head off til a giant troll aggroes me.

The tuegan bow is fast but if I get information on speed, then I may change over to the dagger that can be thrown if it has more attacks per round. I picked it up somewhere and was amazed at it til I needed either poison or fire arrows.

Oh by the way, I'm lvl 12 on my bounty hunter and the speed of the boomerang dagger is 1. thaco+2 dmg 2d4+2. So far my attacks per round is one but I was wondering if this goes up any and like when? I can't make any assumptions here. will create another post for this.

[Lord Ludtke]

quote:

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Originally posted by Deaths Touch:
also, spoiler me, but i cannot remember where the earliest boots of speed are... i will need them fairly early on, so could you spoil me and tell me.. its not like i havent played through before... Also, no i do not have TOB istalled, but i plan on getting it very soon... if i start this game, will it get ToB stuff added, or will I have to start again? One more thing... besides hide in shadows and move silently, what should i focus my theif pts in? thanks

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The earliest boots of speed that I have found are in that outer plane prison that Haerdalis takes you to. It has some very tough battles, so bring a ring of regen and set lots of traps. Sleeping 4-5 days should get you out of that one.

Without Tob installed, and with the xp cap remover my solo assassin got up to his x7 backstab, gained a few levels and then, bam, it was at *x5*. Yeah, it actually went down. Watch out for that. I wouldn't go over level 22 without ToB installed.

Last question, set traps. Since your Thaco sucks so much, you will rely on traps to get you through some battles and there is nothing worse then getting whacked by your own trap.

One final thing, get the Mercy killing ring from the bonus merchants, very nice to have.

[Nifft the Nimble]

Hi again,

I have to disagree about the clubs. Even if you can't backstab with quarterstaves, you get a long-reach weapon and a blunt weapon all in one. Also, you will find many +2/+3 quarterstaves. There are very few clubs in the game.

You will only use quarterstaves to fight clay golems and adamantite golems (through doorways). You can't backstab a golem, so that's not an issue.

However, I'm not convinced that you can't backstab with quarterstaves. I know that you can't backstab with non-thief weapons, like two-handed swords... I'll have to try with Jan, who can back stab and use quarterstaves.

Okay, now about skills: PICK POCKETING! and Find/Remove Traps.

Open Locks and Set Traps ought to come next, and finally Hide in Shadows and Move Silently.

Why this order? Because: If you can pick pockets well, you can steal potions and items to make up for the other deficiencies. Potions of Invisibility are better than Hide in Shadows, because you can use them in the middle of a battle and they always work.

There are some shops where you can't simply steal, so you'll have to make lots of money before going to them. Picking pockets is your friend, again. Take all the wands you stole from Irenicus' dungeon and keep selling them and stealing them back. WIth this "technique" you can easily have over GP 100,000 before leaving the Promenade. (My favorite Prominade merchant is "Jayce". Find him on the left side of the map ... out of the way, in the shadows, and only at night.)

Find/Remove Traps before Open Locks: there are a *lot* of traps in Irenicus' dungeon. There are no containers or doors which *must* be lock-picked, though. Potions of Master Thievery will help with opening locks later in the game while there are no potions which are similarly focused on Finding Traps.


Watcher's Keep is in ToB (Throne of Bhaal), the add-on for BGII-SoA (Shadows of Amn). This add-on also has an "add-in" section called "Watcher's Keep". It appears near the bottom of the Amn world map. If you don't yet have ToB, GET IT! It's got some nice fixes and great new items, and continues the Bhaalspawn story to a satisfying conclusion.


Katanas vs. Long Swords: remember that a magic weapon's bonus is added to the backstab damage before multiplication. So a +1 long sword will do the same average backstab damage as a +0 katana. Long Swords go up to +6 damage in SoA (the Equalizer vs. some foes); Katanas only go up to +3.

Short swords are great, too, and there's a short sword +2 that gives you an extra attack. The short sword which lets you cast Mirror Image might be very helpful when fighting Beholders! The short sword which gives you Free Action (protection from hold and paralyze) is pretty sweet, too.


IMHO the Trademeet bow (Tasheron's Bow) is better than the Gessen Bow, because the Gessen Bow's missiles travel very slowly across the screen. Did some patch fix this? It's been a while since I bothered with it, due to the aforestated slooooooowness.

If you get ToB and then pick the high-level ability Use Any Item, be sure to find out of you can backstab with the Staff of the Magi

-- Nifft

[Arathor]

Is it best to go 2 weapon style, or single weapon, or even sword and shield?

[Nifft the Nimble]

quote:

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Originally posted by Arathor:
Is it best to go 2 weapon style, or single weapon, or even sword and shield?

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If you're going to rely on backstabbing, Single Weapon could be very good. Double critical hits is nothing to sneeze at!

Sword and Shield style is interesting, because the only shields you're able to use for the start of the game provide no missile protection. In my opinion it's not worth losing the bonus of +1 AC and double critical hits, though.

Since an assassin can't put 3 points in Two-Weapon Style, don't bother with it at all. You'll still have -2/-6 to-hit.

Single Weapon Style looks like the way to go!

-- Nifft

[Nifft the Nimble]

Last reply on this topic: you CAN backstab with Quarterstaves. So that's the choice I'd make:

Long Sword +
Quarterstaff +
Short Bow +

-- Nifft