Assassin vs Thief

[BeautifulFlowerField]

At level 4 on tactician and my assassin Astarion is definitely the star of the party doing the most damage and kills by far but I can't help but feel I messed up going for assassin. Two bonus actions every turn over the course of the game just seems OP as ♥♥♥♥. How are people feeling about how the two subclasses rate against eachother? And can someone explain the assassin's alacrity? It just means I get my action back if I attack out of combat hidden and then enter the combat?

[Black Rose]

Went Assassin and it's trash. Assassins alacrity only works if you start the fight with your rogue, if you hide your rogue and start the fight with your tank, then sneak in and attack with your rogue you don't get back your actions.
Considering that the harder fights in the game you are either getting surprised or there's a cutscene before it happens it's absolute useless, they either need to change how it works or the class is absolute trash.

[soul like that be capable of]

i think thief fits him the most also at level 5 you get huge boost so it not worth it . at least for me

[AsianGirlLover]

It’s better to make Astarion a shadow monk or gloomstalker (or both)

[Darkwing†Duck]

Really situational subclass. For assassin to be shine have to do a lot of preparations.

[katzenkrimis]

Assassins are deadly in every video game.

In Valhalla you can assassinate all of England without breaking a sweat.

Hitler had over 40 assassination attempts on him and all of them failed.

Best thing to do is handicap yourself and not play that subclass.

If being overpowered bothers you that much.

[Theinvoker]

Originally posted by Black Rose:

Went Assassin and it's trash. Assassins alacrity only works if you start the fight with your rogue, if you hide your rogue and start the fight with your tank, then sneak in and attack with your rogue you don't get back your actions.
Considering that the harder fights in the game you are either getting surprised or there's a cutscene before it happens it's absolute useless, they either need to change how it works or the class is absolute trash.

i agree. it's a very big disappontment. i hope to have the same bonus assassin had in BG2 (more damage for backstabs, depending on level) with crazy oneshots in late game
Assassin can use critical strike at beginning of a fight but also thief can, since he can use 2 bonus action he can both use speed and stealth (after positioning where enemies can't see him)
The positioning is the only downside for the thief but after first round where he only move and hide, he can strike and hide and move fast (with second bonus actions) or he can attack 2 times (dual wield or bonus attack) and then hide again. and he will always have the advantage

[Actalo]

Both Assassin and Thief are pretty good - but with Assassin Black Rose makes an important observation:

Originally posted by Black Rose:

Went Assassin and it's trash. Assassins alacrity only works if you start the fight with your rogue, if you hide your rogue and start the fight with your tank, then sneak in and attack with your rogue you don't get back your actions.
Considering that the harder fights in the game you are either getting surprised or there's a cutscene before it happens it's absolute useless, they either need to change how it works or the class is absolute trash.

All the big, most important fights, prevent the Rogue's opening salvo. So Assassin is great for grinding along normal fights that you can perfectly coordinate beforehand, but otherwise, I think Astarion would be better suited re-classed into a Ranged fighter. There's nothing canonical in the game about him being a Rogue... and in my opinion, Rogues are rather underwhelming. Everything they can do, another class can do almost as well with better defenses.

[RhodosGuard]

Assassin is good for engagements you have control over, that dont trigger out of dialogue and are hostile by default (like the Gnolls)

Or for when you metagame and know which people you wanna fight anyway (like Gith Patrol)

Thief is generally better because of Action Economy.

But that's grounded in a mechanical change to Thief Rogues.
It's a common misconception that Fast Hands gives you a second Bonus Action per round, but according to Jeremy Crawford, in RAW, it just adds it's Bonus Actions to your set of potential Bonus actions. But since those actions are not really represented in BG3 (even though they could be) they chose to use the unintentionally Homebrew, that just adds a second Bonus Action to your Turn.

So you can shove+hide, or hide+attack+hide, or dip+hide+attack or Dash+Jump+Attack

That's generally more flexible and therefore usually more effective, when you dont control the battlefield.

[RhodosGuard]

Originally posted by Actalo:

Both Assassin and Thief are pretty good - but with Assassin Black Rose makes an important observation:

Originally posted by Black Rose:

Went Assassin and it's trash. Assassins alacrity only works if you start the fight with your rogue, if you hide your rogue and start the fight with your tank, then sneak in and attack with your rogue you don't get back your actions.
Considering that the harder fights in the game you are either getting surprised or there's a cutscene before it happens it's absolute useless, they either need to change how it works or the class is absolute trash.

All the big, most important fights, prevent the Rogue's opening salvo. So Assassin is great for grinding along normal fights that you can perfectly coordinate beforehand, but otherwise, I think Astarion would be better suited re-classed into a Ranged fighter. There's nothing canonical in the game about him being a Rogue... and in my opinion, Rogues are rather underwhelming. Everything they can do, another class can do almost as well with better defenses.

Not really.
Rogue+Paladin is one of the most powerful multiclasses, simply because of Sneak Divine Smites.

I haven't watched closely, but also Sneak Attack on it's own is supposed to scale up to 6d6 at level 12. That's 3 Greatsword attacks, just by someone else being close to the target you are attacking. With a good magic weapon, Rogues can be the best bursters in the game even without multiclass.

Let's say you Rapier + Sneak attack, that's on it's own an average of 30.5 Damage at 20 Dex.

[Torpex]

Originally posted by Actalo:

...Everything they can do, another class can do almost as well with better defenses.

It's because trap and lock DCs are too low. Like the bridge of traps in grimforge is difficult because of spot checks, not trap checks. While it should the other way around.

I think I only encountered DC30 traps once in Act1.

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

It’s better to make Astarion a shadow monk or gloomstalker (or both)

What's so good about gloomstalker?

[wendigo211]

Thief is the best Rogue spec, by a wide margin. Basically, Thief Astarion with a Bow can attack, dash away and hide to clear most of Act 1 by himself. That extra bonus action is just handy (also an interesting option for a Berserker or Monk since they've got lots of stuff they can do with a bonus action).

However, Rogues don't get bonus attacks so look to multiclass Astarion at level 4 to a martial like Ranger or Monk and respec him to have better ability scores (something like 10 STR, 17 DEX, 14 CON, 8 INT, 14 WIS, 8 CHA or swap the CON and WIS scores). You can always go back to Rogue once you've got an extra APR. It's kind of hard to justify more than 4 levels of Rogue/Thief on a character.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Rogues are trash tier. Their dpr is terrible, their alpha is middling, and you don't need them for stealth or lockpicking, anyone can do that.

Only Thief is ok because of the extra bonus action, but you have to multiclass it with something that can really use it, like Sorcerer.

[moysha]

the extra bonus action of thief is just too OP, dash to get lightning charges, backstab, hit again.

[Locklave]

Originally posted by Black Rose:

Went Assassin and it's trash.

Assassin is great if you know how to use it. Your playstyle isn't compatible seems more likely the problem.