Should I ditch my thief Astarion?

[Whale hunter]

Hey guys, I’ve been enjoying using Astarion but find him a little lacklustre in combat with him only having one base attack per round. I accidentally tried to open a chest with my Pally and he aced it, so I tried it a few times and hasn’t failed yet using gloves of dex and guidance. So my question is, if my pally can do my thief’s main role, should I not just pick bring someone like Gale with who will dish out 100 times more damage with more utility? I’m 100 hours in and just about to hit Baldurs gate at level 9. Am I using my thief wrong?

[dustin1280]

Best Astarian IMO:
Rogue Thief 4/Fighter 5/Sword Bard 3
dual wield hand crossbows
It gives dual wield fighting style AND archery fighting style as well as the ability to attack two targets at the same time (X times per long rest)
Allows Astarian to make 4 attacks each turn without buffs.

To make it even stronger
Feed all tadpoles to astarian (after you max your main) making sure to get the auto-kill when hp are equal to or less then tadpoles used.
Equip all pure damage bonus items you can on astarian
Add Haste

My astarian 1 shots anything with 50 HP or less, and if he crits up to 70 HP can be one shot.

https://i.imgur.com/faQJUhh.jpeg

[Midas]

Publicado originalmente por Seswatha:

Publicado originalmente por Midas:

No, but it's one of the easiest and most consistent ways to get advantage, and aside from archery combat style, stuff like bless can go on a rogue too.

It can, but the point it, using sharphooter will be optimal for a ranged build to do max dpr in the majority of cases. And in context of using sharpshooter, sneak attack is worth like 1 extra attack at most, with good gear even less. This may be ok-ish in 5e where there's not that many sources of extra damage (like magic items) to add even more damage per hit and Haste just adds +1 attack per round. In BG3 there's plenty of items to add an extra 1d4 here and +2 there, plus Haste adds as many attacks per round as you can do per full action. So if you spam Haste (which is a good idea with physical damage dealers especially), on mid levels a Rogue will be behind other classes by 2 attacks and not 1 (Thief still by 1) if we don't consider fighter's action surge turns. By the lategame (lvl 11+) fighter will be ahead by 4 attacks hasted and whooping 7 with action surge. Then there's the ranged swords bard bug/feature where they can use slashing flourish to attack the same target instead of 2 different ones, resulting in 9 attacks in a turn with dual crossbows at level 6 when Hasted (even if it wasn't bugged you'd still get 9 attacks, but would have to spread out the damage). A hasted thief Rogue is having 4 at this point.

Wouldn't Haste on a thief mean you could hide twice and sneak attack twice for full damage?

[Seswatha]

Publicado originalmente por dustin1280:

Best Astarian IMO:
Rogue Thief 4/Fighter 5/Sword Bard 3
dual wield hand crossbows
It gives dual wield fighting style AND archery fighting style as well as the ability to attack two targets at the same time (X times per long rest)
Allows Astarian to make 4 attacks each turn without buffs.

To make it even stronger
Feed all tadpoles to astarian (after you max your main) making sure to get the auto-kill when hp are equal to or less then tadpoles used.
Equip all pure damage bonus items you can on astarian
Add Haste

Thief 4/Sword Bard 6/Fighter 2 is better imo, you get more inspiration dice and recover it on short rest, and more spell slots for whenever you need them. With SB 3 you don't get a ton of flourishes and they're per long rest.

[Seswatha]

Publicado originalmente por Midas:

Publicado originalmente por Seswatha:

It can, but the point it, using sharphooter will be optimal for a ranged build to do max dpr in the majority of cases. And in context of using sharpshooter, sneak attack is worth like 1 extra attack at most, with good gear even less. This may be ok-ish in 5e where there's not that many sources of extra damage (like magic items) to add even more damage per hit and Haste just adds +1 attack per round. In BG3 there's plenty of items to add an extra 1d4 here and +2 there, plus Haste adds as many attacks per round as you can do per full action. So if you spam Haste (which is a good idea with physical damage dealers especially), on mid levels a Rogue will be behind other classes by 2 attacks and not 1 (Thief still by 1) if we don't consider fighter's action surge turns. By the lategame (lvl 11+) fighter will be ahead by 4 attacks hasted and whooping 7 with action surge. Then there's the ranged swords bard bug/feature where they can use slashing flourish to attack the same target instead of 2 different ones, resulting in 9 attacks in a turn with dual crossbows at level 6 when Hasted (even if it wasn't bugged you'd still get 9 attacks, but would have to spread out the damage). A hasted thief Rogue is having 4 at this point.

Wouldn't Haste on a thief mean you could hide twice and sneak attack twice for full damage?

No, sneak attack is once per turn rather than per action. If you can attack as a reaction, you may be able to do it more times.

[Midas]

Publicado originalmente por Seswatha:

Publicado originalmente por Midas:

Wouldn't Haste on a thief mean you could hide twice and sneak attack twice for full damage?

No, sneak attack is once per turn rather than per action.

Fair. Maybe at higher levels it will become inefficient. The sneak attack dice keep going up, though, so we'll see.

[dustin1280]

Publicado originalmente por Seswatha:

Thief 4/Sword Bard 6/Fighter 2 is better imo, you get more inspiration dice and recover it on short rest, and more spell slots for whenever you need them. With SB 3 you don't get a ton of flourishes and they're per long rest.

My Astarian is strictly a physical attacker, so I wanted the extra crit range from champion while keeping the extra attack.
https://i.imgur.com/faQJUhh.jpeg

I'm happy with him 1 shotting 50hps or less per attack. He also has a 48% chance to crit at least ONCE per round (without buffs)

[Seswatha]

Publicado originalmente por dustin1280:

Publicado originalmente por Seswatha:

Thief 4/Sword Bard 6/Fighter 2 is better imo, you get more inspiration dice and recover it on short rest, and more spell slots for whenever you need them. With SB 3 you don't get a ton of flourishes and they're per long rest.

My Astarian is strictly a physical attacker, so I wanted the extra crit range from champion while keeping the extra attack.
https://i.imgur.com/faQJUhh.jpeg

+5% crit chance (or even a bit more with advantage) is really not worth it compared to what you lose imo. Especially since you're not really rolling a ton of dice, with Thief 4 you only have 2d6 sneak, most of the damage is from DEX, sharpshooter and other flat damage bonuses and doesn't crit. If you actually run the math I doubt Champion increases your average dpr by more than 3%.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Publicado originalmente por Whale hunter:

Hey guys, I’ve been enjoying using Astarion but find him a little lacklustre in combat with him only having one base attack per round. I accidentally tried to open a chest with my Pally and he aced it, so I tried it a few times and hasn’t failed yet using gloves of dex and guidance. So my question is, if my pally can do my thief’s main role, should I not just pick bring someone like Gale with who will dish out 100 times more damage with more utility? I’m 100 hours in and just about to hit Baldurs gate at level 9. Am I using my thief wrong?

Astarion has been my top damage dealer, 5 Gloomstalker 3 rogue and 4 Swords Bard. Even before sword bard he was pumping out damage, the happy buff you get from the vampire feeding really helps and Gloomstalker is a top class.

But if you do not want him in your party then you can spec another character to do the thief skills or use magic to overcome the problem instead.

[dustin1280]

Publicado originalmente por Seswatha:

+5% crit chance (or even a bit more with advantage) is really not worth it compared to what you lose imo. Especially since you're not really rolling a ton of dice, with Thief 4 you only have 2d6 sneak, most of the damage is from DEX, sharpshooter and other flat damage bonuses and doesn't crit.

All damage dice get rolled twice on crit, and your base damage bonus doubles
With 4 attacks per round that is roughly a 48% chance to crit once without advantage and no buffs.

[Allisonlj]

If you got the gold i'd recommend you just pick your party based on personality traits you like, then respec everyone as needed. Astarion is a polarizing character for a lot of people for various reasons but if you LIKE him, but not his rogue abilities, then just respec him.

[Simpson3k]

Publicado originalmente por lephro:

Publicado originalmente por Simpson3k:

Without spoilering to much, there is a certain part in the game with many locked celldoors inside a pressurized environment, with only very few rounds before everybody dies. At that point you lick your ten fingers for every decend lockpicker.

I think youre talking about the iron throne? You dont need to lockpick anything in there.

Yeah as you dont need to help any tiefling in the game and neither help anyone in the game, actually you can walk straight through the world ignore all sidequest kill everything, let the rest die by doing nothing and then clap your own shoulder for your big acomplishment.

[Non-binary Tiddies]

3 Rogue Assassin/6 Gloomstalker Ranger/1 War Domain Cleric/2 Fighter

He can sneak attack to start the fight then attack three times, action surge, attack twice more, and then use war cleric's power to turn his bonus action into a regular attack. That's 6 attacks in one move at the start of battle (because he's often the one with the highest initiative). It often makes bosses and higher level enemies trivial at the end of the game.

[dustin1280]

Publicado originalmente por Non-binary Tiddies:

3 Rogue Assassin/6 Gloomstalker Ranger/1 War Domain Cleric/2 Fighter

He can sneak attack to start the fight then attack three times, action surge, attack twice more, and then use war cleric's power to turn his bonus action into a regular attack. That's 6 attacks in one move at the start of battle (because he's often the one with the highest initiative). It often makes bosses and higher level enemies trivial at the end of the game.

Sword Bard 6, Fighter 2, Rogue Thief 4
or
Sword Bard 3, Fighter 5, Rogue Thief 4
Is better for standard play,
You get 4 guaranteed full damage attacks per round (without buffs or action surge)

If you just want to make sure ONE THING is definitely dead at the start of combat, Your assassin build works, but I prefer the utility and general killing ability of the thief. That doesn't rely on surprise or sneak attacks.

You also only get 1 Feat with that build (probably sharpshooter), as opposed to two with the above build(ability improvement + Sharpshooter).

[Non-binary Tiddies]

Publicado originalmente por dustin1280:

Publicado originalmente por Non-binary Tiddies:

3 Rogue Assassin/6 Gloomstalker Ranger/1 War Domain Cleric/2 Fighter

He can sneak attack to start the fight then attack three times, action surge, attack twice more, and then use war cleric's power to turn his bonus action into a regular attack. That's 6 attacks in one move at the start of battle (because he's often the one with the highest initiative). It often makes bosses and higher level enemies trivial at the end of the game.

Sword Bard 6, Fighter 2, Rogue Thief 4
or
Sword Bard 3, Fighter 5, Rogue Thief 4
Is better for standard play,
You get 4 guaranteed full damage attacks per round (without buffs or action surge)

If you just want to make sure ONE THING is definitely dead at the start of combat, Your assassin build works, but I prefer the utility and general killing ability of the thief. That doesn't rely on surprise or sneak attacks.

I get that thief works better for standard play, but I am still a filthy sneaky ranged player from Skyrim to my core, and the assassin build just satisfies that for me.

[dustin1280]

Publicado originalmente por Non-binary Tiddies:

I get that thief works better for standard play, but I am still a filthy sneaky ranged player from Skyrim to my core, and the assassin build just satisfies that for me.

Right on, that definitely will guarantee the kill of your primary target each battle.
So you only have to clean up trash...