Decision making is hard...

[Pyrenk]

Sorry about the annoyance. Anyway, I am trying to choose between Swashbuckler, Assassin, and Fighter/Thief. Can somebody compare them, and give suggestions? This is for solo SoA and ToB.

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Pyrenk: Sorry about the annoyance. Anyway, I am trying to choose between Swashbuckler, Assassin, and Fighter/Thief. Can somebody compare them, and give suggestions? This is for solo SoA and ToB.

The Assassin is very cool and quite simply owns anything that can be backstabbed, though I remember him being quite weak vs mages. Combine with Boots and Oil of Speed and very high Stealth values to be able to continually backstab anywhere.
Though he is honestly quite screwed vs foes that can see the Invisible. He is a horrible fighter compared to the Swashbuckler and is generally a quite poor thief, it will take a long time before you get enough points to have decent values in all necessary thief skills.

The Swashbuckler is awesome, I'm playing one now on Insane mode with the Tactics Mod, easily the most powerful soloist I've played to date. The combat bonuses really start to shine at lvl 15-20, when he will begin to outclass the regular fighters in every field. You'll have lower AC than a Berserker and be more accurate and damaging in melee combat than anyone besides the Kensai. Your APR will also be quite acceptable if you dual-wield with Belm.
Later on, Use Any Item, Whirlwind, and Spike and Time Stop traps will pretty much make you Godlike, while your normal combat bonuses will continue to elevate you even further apart from any other fighter.
Of course, he's rather fragile physically, that is really the only downside to this class I can think of at the moment [img]smile.gif[/img] Besides him being a tad weak in the beginning, before his combat bonuses really start to show and you're restricted to poor Leather armors.

Fighter/Thief is pretty similar to the Swashbuckler, in that he combines the best from both worlds, he will also get Use any Item, traps, Whirlwind, thief abilities and the ability to use spells via scrolls. Though F/T's will be stronger early on and have access to some useful Fighter abilities that the Swashie cannot get, he will still ultimately be a weaker fighter due to lacking any additional combat bonuses.

[ 01-05-2003, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Pyrenk]

Did you beat Imp Illyich? If yes, mind sharing how?

I guess I will go with Swashy. Two questions:
1). What weapon should I aim for, other than Belm (Kundane? Twinkle?)
2). What weapons, besides Belm and Kundane, have a 0 speed factor/add an attack?

[Butterfingers]

Something I have on the drawing board is an Assassin dualed to a Cleric. I have a human Thief I took through BG1 just for this purpose. I see great cheesy potential here for some really sick and fun stuff.

Or, I could dust off my Gnomish Cleric/Thief so I can get HLAs from both classes once I get ToB.

I got to thinking that Draw Upon Holy Might and Rightious Magic to boost all of the important combat skills to 25 would really crank up the thief skills, not to mention that with a 25 str, a backstab would really frigging HURT like HECK. Not to mention that with Rightious Magic, you would get maximum possible damage.

Can you say OUCH!

[Rataxes]

I did beat Imp Ilyich, it isn't that hard for a rouge if you got good stealth skills. Take out the demon with traps, lure out Ilyich and isolate him from his gang. Then just Hit and run, hiding in shadows in between charges. I took out his remaining goons with the aid of the summons the magical acorns provide. A combination of traps and Hold Person spells took care of Rasputin and Kamazarov (can never get that name right), while Zhivago fell quite easily in a straight face to face combat.

The advantages of being able to go invisible at will in the first dungeon are many and great, you can for instance rest without fearing retaliation from the Thief/dog packs, since you can hide and escape from them before they appear.

My Swashbuckler specialized in Katanas and acquired the Celestial Fury to be used together with Belm at lvl 11, it really made the game a lot easier there for a while. I had to exploit a bug that allowed me to exit the 2nd floor to actually beat the Guarded compund though ( the 2nd floor is a quite big place with lots of walls to hide behind, so it should be doable without exploiting that bug I think)
Sanchuudoku replaced CF at lvl 16, and will probably be my end weapon. I've also always kept the Tuigan Bow in my backpack and arrows of dispelling and piercing in my quiver.
I'm not aware of any 1-handed melee weapon other than Belm that adds attacks...

[Rataxes]

25 STR wont really increase Backstab damage that much. Since STR bonuses aren't multiplied by the backstab.

[Baros]

Assassins are cool - the important thing about any solo game is stick to what you can do. The problem is at the start - a level 10 Assassin does not get enough skill points to do everything well - you've got to sacrifice something (normally the stealth). Any thief type levels up so quickly that it becomes irrelevant.

Don't become too reliant on backstab! Stoneskin or immunity put paid to that.

Poison is very useful against magicians - backstab that mage with poison and he'll not be able to cast anything (if he even survives). Poisoned arrows are even more useful (use the Tuigan bow in preference to "better" ones for 3 chances of poison/round!). Arrows of Dispelling also cannot be overrated for a solo assassin - use in conjunction with Arrows of Venom for true magekilling.

Traps have to be the solo thief's best weapon - especially the ones from the HLAs from TOB - spike trap for 20d6 with a time trap and a few "normal" traps will do for Firkraag no problem (or forget the time trap, add a couple more spike traps and watch demogorgon go down...)

[Alson]

This post contains some ToB High Level Abilities spoilers.

Originally posted by Rataxes: The Assassin is very cool and quite simply owns anything that can be backstabbed, though I remember him being quite weak vs mages. Combine with Boots and Oil of Speed and very high Stealth values to be able to continually backstab anywhere. Though he is honestly quite screwed vs foes that can see the Invisible. He is a horrible fighter compared to the Swashbuckler and is generally a quite poor thief, it will take a long time before you get enough points to have decent values in all necessary thief skills.

With Weimer's Smarter Mages component installed, all Mages casts Stoneskin when you enter their area and/or when they are out of skins. Obviously, this will make the Assassin's life much, much tougher.

The Swashbuckler is awesome, I'm playing one now on Insane mode with the Tactics Mod, easily the most powerful soloist I've played to date. The combat bonuses really start to shine at lvl 15-20, when he will begin to outclass the regular fighters in every field. You'll have lower AC than a Berserker and be more accurate and damaging in melee combat than anyone besides the Kensai. Your APR will also be quite acceptable if you dual-wield with Belm. Later on, Use Any Item, Whirlwind, and Spike and Time Stop traps will pretty much make you Godlike, while your normal combat bonuses will continue to elevate you even further apart from any other fighter. Of course, he's rather fragile physically, that is really the only downside to this class I can think of at the moment [img]smile.gif[/img] Besides him being a tad weak in the beginning, before his combat bonuses really start to show and you're restricted to poor Leather armors.

I agree - Swashbucklers are amazing fighters. And as if Use Any Item was not enough, BioWare went ahead and gave them Whirlwinds!

I doubt that Swashy's bonuses will "outclass the regular fighters in every field", though - Kensais and Barbarian (two extreme examples) are still much better fighters than the Swashy. You just can't argue with 80% physical resistance or with the Kensai's bonuses...

In the end, though, the best thief type in my opinion is the ...

Fighter/Thief is pretty similar to the Swashbuckler, in that he combines the best from both worlds, he will also get Use any Item, traps, Whirlwind, thief abilities and the ability to use spells via scrolls. Though F/T's will be stronger early on and have access to some useful Fighter abilities that the Swashie cannot get, he will still ultimately be a weaker fighter due to lacking any additional combat bonuses.

With 19 CON, amazing Saves (for being a Dwarf) and two pools of picks, to boot!

I also wouldn't say that the F/T is a weaker fighter than the Swashy. The opposite, actually. Improved Haste and Critical Strike trumps Whirlwind, in my opinion. In addition, the F/T can backstab, which turns the tide to his favor. Again, this is my personal opinion. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 01-06-2003, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: Alson ]

[Alson]

Originally posted by Butterfingers: Something I have on the drawing board is an Assassin dualed to a Cleric. I have a human Thief I took through BG1 just for this purpose. I see great cheesy potential here for some really sick and fun stuff.

The Assassin/Cleric can poison his Sol's Searing Orbs, his traps, and his Flail of Ages!

Can you say OUCH!

Yep!

[Rataxes]

With Weimer's Smarter Mages component installed, all Mages casts Stoneskin when you enter their area and/or when they are out of skins. Obviously, this will make the Assassin's life much, much tougher.

Indeed, I played my Assassin before installing the Tactics Mod so I didn't have that particular problem. Wont their poison pierce the stoneskins though?

I agree - Swashbucklers are amazing fighters. And as if Use Any Item was not enough, BioWare went ahead and gave them Whirlwinds! I doubt that Swashy's bonuses will "outclass the regular fighters in every field", though - Kensais and Barbarian (two extreme examples) are still much better fighters than the Swashy. You just can't argue with 80% physical resistance or with the Kensai's bonuses... In the end, though, the best thief type in my opinion is the ...

Ok, not every field, but they will have better THAC0 and Damage than *any* fighter bar the Kensai, and their potential AC is unsurpassed. Too bad that AC seems to be capped at -25, but it's still enough to make just about anyone miss on everything but a critical.

Swashbucklers are second only to Kensais when it comes to packing a punch in combat, and they're far superior tanks compared to them. They might not get wicked physical resistances, but they'll get hit a lot less than Barbarians.

With 19 CON, amazing Saves (for being a Dwarf) and two pools of picks, to boot! I also wouldn't say that the F/T is a weaker fighter than the Swashy. The opposite, actually. Improved Haste and Critical Strike trumps Whirlwind, in my opinion. In addition, the F/T can backstab, which turns the tide to his favor. Again, this is my personal opinion. [img]smile.gif[/img] [/QB]

Doesn't a lot of enemies have helms? Besides, Improved Haste can only be gotten through scrolls that don't exactly grow on trees, or through some items which have very short durations, it's not a very reliable way of upping the APR IMHO. Now if you were a F/M/T it would be a wholly different matter [img]smile.gif[/img] True that Swashies don't get backstab, and I really love to backstab. But I don't think it really hurts them that much. Later on, the only really dangerous enemies you can use it against are enemy NPC's.