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?

[TheBlueFox]

Assassin is actually really powerful... When it's usable.

If you cannot get surprise, It's the weakest of the rogue subclasses because after turn 1, none of your assassin abilities take effect.

Assassin's Initiative + Alert (Feat) makes me go first almost always, so I can choose anyone to assassinate and even when the enemy gets the drop on me I go before they do.

Ambush Only works on surprised enemies, so only on turn 1.

Assassin's Alacrity allows me to Poison my weapon AND attack to start combat. Enter Turn based mode, walk up to where you want to attack from. Use a bonus action to apply a poison, use an action to attack. When combat starts you get your action and bonus action back, so you can attack again. When the enemy's turn happens, they're probably surprised. This means you get THREE TURNS before the enemy can even take their first turn.

My recommendation is probably to go ONLY 3 levels of Assassin, and the rest probably Gloom stalker ranger. They synergize well

Gloom Stalker has a special attack on turn 1 that does 1d8 more damage. With Assassin's Ambush, this 1d8 will crit to 2d8 extra damage.

Gloom stalkers also get an invisibility action to help them get into position.

Gloom stalkers get enhanced darkvision so even humans and halflings which can't normally see in the dark can make good assassins. And they even get Disguise Self at level 3 before assassins do.

[PølseJuice]

Publicado originalmente por 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.

You clearly didn't even play the game, or have any d&d knowledge at all

[Mullins052392]

Assassin is trash because BG3 doesn't let you stack damage dice.

[Disil]

Publicado originalmente por RhodosGuard:

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.

That's not really that great tbh. I just did 258 damage in a single round with Karlach as a 9Barb/3Fighter with haste, Action Surge and a certain legendary greatsword. But even with Great Weapon Fighting and the extra attack at lvl5, rogue damage isn't particularly impressive anymore, especially considering you can just have 27str permanently thanks to Cloudhill Giant Elixirs.

[L3wt]

Publicado originalmente por 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.

Aaaaabsolutely ....this ^.

[Myrden]

Publicado originalmente por Baldurs_Gate_2:

Publicado originalmente por AsianGirlLover:

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

What's so good about gloomstalker?

The opening attacks. Along with assassin and the durge first reward, the gloomstalker assassin can destroy groups without being seen. Good fun all round, really.

[Ekelak]

Publicado originalmente por TheBlueFox:

Assassin .....

All this mess when with [3] Thief levels you're the happiest Multiclass in the world.

At least the Bonus Action isn't as boring as opening up combat for the entire game in the same way. Someone who chooses it for damage means he doesn't know how to play.

[XGear]

Thief in Baldurs gate shine when you play without companions. You simple could use alot of hide and run tatics, bombs, venons and alot of strategis to kill the entire field without being noticed. You dont need party when you play thief, but you will lost alot of npc interactions if you go lone wolf. I chosed play thief alone in my second playtrough, and i felt like i was playing a mini game of Tenchu assassination and it was so cool. But in party i didnt like thief, party somehow make thief less efficient than it should be,.