Dual wielding thief?

[DeHart_NRG]

I am going to create a Thief that dual wields weopons. Will the game be diificult?

[wendigo211]

If you're playing a thief the game will be difficult. Thieves are the weakest class in the game, and you generally count on your main character being a bit tougher than the other characters in his party.

[Hamtata]

you'll have difficulty hitting things. try multi class with fighter, you can easier thing to hit things as well as bonus attack per round and finally the ability to put more proficiency points in ur dual wield weapon

[voehringer_nitron]

Thieves, except for the Swashbuckler kit, cannot place more than one point in any weapon or fighting style. With only one point in two weapon fighting, you will have -2 to hit with your main hand, and -6 with your off hand (which only makes one attack per round regardless of class, proficency points or spells). Thieves also have the second slowest THAC0 progression, beating out only Wizards/Sorcerers. A thief is a utility/support character. Aside from the occassional backstab, they should stick to bows, or setting traps ahead of time and drawing enemies into triggering them. A swashbuckler can put two proficency points into any thief-usable weapons and three into two weapon fighting. But, unlike warriros, they will not gain any additional attacks per round based on level or proficency points. They do get some bonuses to hit/damage based on level, though. On the other hand, they do not get a backstab multiplier.

You want a front line dual wielder? Go with a Fighter/Thief. The playthrough I'm concentrating on now (and I seriously need to finish it and stop hopping between characters) is one. I'm dual wielding longswords/katanas with Belm in my off hand for an extra attack per round. It's a lot of fun and I'm leading the party in terms of XP from kills.

[Armanz]

Thieves are not the weakest class, that is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You do have to know the game a bit to properly use them though. Trap placement is important, scouting ahead and backstabbing the right opponents as well. Dual-wielding won't be an issue as well, just use weapons you can backstab with (I never use thieves I think they can only backstab with specific weapons). Just don't use it as your tank or anything, get at least 2 Fighters into that team and you'll be fine. If you want to go for some damage on it, definitely pick the Swashbuckler kit and don't take Vanilla Thief.

[House of Rahl]

if you wanta dual weild a thief, please, please, please pick a swash, unless you absolutely cannot give up that backstab. swash is an outstanding dual weirld thief, and no it wont be hard. swash suffer in bg1 from a lack of a helmet, so criticals will be dangerous. but other than a crit youll do just fine on the front lines with the shadow armor. longswords are a good option given that +2 cold sword greywolf carries, the +1 anti undead longsword after the naskel mines, and the burning earth sword inside durlags tower. scimitars might even be a better option but require you to wait alot longer before you get some good weapons, belm will give you +1 attacks per round, and drizzt's twinkle will give you an extra 2 ac. making you a much better front line fighter. either are good options i normally go with longswords, since i dont like waiting as long to get a decent sword, and you can get the +2 cold sword before entering the mine and the +1 undead one right after leaving that mine. gets me useable enchanted weapons early and eventually i replace the undead sword for the burning earth, but that takes awhile, storming durlags tower is not something i wanta attempt at lv 2-3 on legacy of bhaal mode.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Armanz:

Thieves are not the weakest class, that is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Without going into a several page diatribe on why Thieves are weakest class, just look at the XP tables. There's a reason they level faster than any other class. That reason being they were not balanced for a combat heavy CRPG. If BG2 didn't include extra attack weapons (note that every extra attack weapon is a thief weapon), they would be unplayable trash. Particularly in ToB when all the backstab immune, and true seeing enemies start showing up. I'll grant that traps are strong, but other than traps they have nothing going for them.

[Armanz]

Backstab and regular traps can do wonders in SoA and in ToB when everyones immune to backstab you have those beast HLAs and completely broken out of proportion traps (Spike Trap, I'm looking at you, mate). I personally heavily dislike Thieves and try to avoid them but there's no denying of their potential. They do tend to be way better multi- and dualclassed but the same thing goes for clerics (who imo are the weakest single class in the game). For True Seeing you also have the cape from early SoA.

[House of Rahl]

@wendigo

i disagree, swash can make better front line fighters than most fighter classes. their save rolls are worse, as is their hp, but they do MASSIVE dmg per hit, and the thaco is roughly on par with a fighter. thier ac, despite only using studded leather will be on par or even at times beating a fighter, and once they get use any item, their ac goes nut when u put some plate on.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Richard Rahl:

@wendigo

i disagree, swash can make better front line fighters than most fighter classes. their save rolls are worse, as is their hp, but they do MASSIVE dmg per hit, and the thaco is roughly on par with a fighter. thier ac, despite only using studded leather will be on par or even at times beating a fighter, and once they get use any item, their ac goes nut when u put some plate on.

I'll agree they can get better ACs (note there's a hard -20 cap). Although they can't get Hardiness which can shift things towards the Fighter on Insane or higher.

My main problem with them is the lack of extra attacks. You can remedy this by equipping a throwing knife or extra APR weapon in the main hand, an extra APR weapon in the off-hand and the gauntlets of extraordinary weapon specialization for a total of 4.5 APR. However you're limited in your enhancement bonuses and extra effects (I think Firetooth in the main hand and the Ninjato of the Scarlet Brotherhood in the offhand is the best weapon set you can get for them). That's the same number of attacks that a dual wielding Fighter gets with the extraordinary gauntlets of weapon specializaton and any weapon they want.

While the Swashbuckler does get a +8 to damage, a Fighter will have Grand Mastery for a +3 to damage, the extra enhancement bonus on their weapons (say +2 to damage), which brings the damage gap down to 3. There can also be extra damage effects the Fighter can avail himself of (like Argurvadal's +1d4+1 fire damage, Crom Faeyr's +5 electrical, Flail of Ages +10 points of elemental damage from various sources) which erase the damage gap or shift it in favor of the Fighter. So really the Swashbuckler eventually gets similar damage to the Fighter (since he doesn't really have a lot of options to boost APR until he gets to BG2) and that's only against opponents who can be damaged by +3 or lower weapons (that is most enemies, but there are exceptions).

In terms of THAC0, the Swashbuckler gets down to 1 (10 Base, -8 Swash Bonus, -1 Specialization) before we start factoring in equipment and attributes. The Fighter gets down to -3 (0 Base, -3 Grand Mastery) before we do the same. So the Fighter will have a better THAC0, but you won't see a difference unless you're playing on LoB.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Armanz:

Backstab and regular traps can do wonders in SoA and in ToB when everyones immune to backstab you have those beast HLAs and completely broken out of proportion traps (Spike Trap, I'm looking at you, mate). I personally heavily dislike Thieves and try to avoid them but there's no denying of their potential. They do tend to be way better multi- and dualclassed but the same thing goes for clerics (who imo are the weakest single class in the game). For True Seeing you also have the cape from early SoA.

Clerics the weakest? I'd rank them 3rd best after Mages and Druids. Sure they don't have the CC of the Mage or the Damage spells of the Druid but they still have enough offensive magic to be dangerous (Hold Person, Holy Smite, Cloak of Fear, Harm, Blade Barrier, etc.) and with all those extra wisdom spells they can pack a lot of them.

[Armanz]

Mind you, weakest single class, not overall. They start out very strong but once you get to higher levels they fall off - hard. Dualed-and multiclassed they rank way way higher ofc. For me single class it's Mage, Druid, Thief, Bard, Fighter, Cleric. If you talk BG1 then Clerics are actually the best class except maybe for fighters, but for BG2 that's my personal ranking (despite my very severe dislike of thieves).

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Thieves are stronger than fighters in BG.

As is the golden rule, Spell-casting > Not Spell Casting.


Early game they're stronger than fighters late game they're MUCH stronger than fighters.


Early on they're merely stronger with powerful openers, lots of nice utility, and powerful traps for dealing with things that can't be backstabbed. They're about as strong as mages at this point if used proper and to their fullest.

Late game they've become essentially full blown spell-casters and thus are stronger than anything that isn't. The only reason they don't rate higher is due to backstab having become unreliable. And Assassination can only be taken once, as opposed to multiple times like WWA/GWW can. And most of their actual spell-casting is consumable based outside of their HLA picks. Essentially a slightly worse bard in terms of spell casting but with stronger offensive power outside of spell casting.


Swashys are terrible early on but by the end game are the strongest of the thieves due to back-stab becoming unreliable, while being able to combine WWA, FoA or Staff of the Ram, and Time-Stop traps to kill anything except Demogorgon and the Ravager in 1 round.

Assassins also make a strong showing due to their poison giving them some options vs unbackstable targets and the certainty of killing ANYTHING with a backstab that isn't immune.

Bounty hunters get an extra 8th level spell equivilent while being just as strong as a regular thief on top.

Shadow Dancers and Vanilla are about the same overall, SD has a little more utility, Vanilla has strong hits vs BSable things.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by kaiyl_kariashi:

Thieves are stronger than fighters in BG.

As is the golden rule, Spell-casting > Not Spell Casting.

You can't call thieves spell casters, they can't use scrolls until epic levels when they get use any device, even then the scrolls are cast with a flat caster level of 10 and there aren't enough scrolls available to use them as spellcasters. The scrolls are just another form of consumable that are open to them. You can use them for tough fights, but you can't throw them around around like a spell caster can for general encounters. Calling a Thief a spell caster, is like calling a Cleric a melee class.

Early game they're stronger than fighters late game they're MUCH stronger than fighters.

Huh? Early game they're the weakest class there is, even mages can put stuff to sleep and whack it with a staff. Thieves can't even set a trap at level 1 because their skills are too low. They don't become remotely playable until level 6 or 7.

End of the game, they have traps. Yeah the epic traps are really good, but 20D6 from a Spike Trap is 70 points of damage, that's about 2 attacks from an epic Fighter. Now you can set a bunch of traps before hand and lure an enemy into them (a tactic that works on quite a few boss enemy types) and they also bypass DR which is handy. But they are something you have to set before hand, they aren't really something you can use in combat, which limits their effectiveness in some of the big fights of the game.

Late game they've become essentially full blown spell-casters and thus are stronger than anything that isn't. The only reason they don't rate higher is due to backstab having become unreliable. And Assassination can only be taken once, as opposed to multiple times like WWA/GWW can. And most of their actual spell-casting is consumable based outside of their HLA picks. Essentially a slightly worse bard in terms of spell casting but with stronger offensive power outside of spell casting.

Please, their spell casting is a hell of a lot worse than a Bard.

1. Bards have a really a high caster level, making them the best dispellers in the game after Inquisitors. Until they hit the caps they also do better than mages with spells that scale with level.
   
2. Bards can still use scrolls.

Against anything immune to backstabs they don't have the offensive edge over Bards outside of spell casting and they definitely can't hold a candle to Bards defensively.

Bounty hunters get an extra 8th level spell equivilent while being just as strong as a regular thief on top.

Most people don't like the changes to a Bounty Hunter's traps past level 16, a disabled enemy isn't as good as a dead enemy, and the special traps can prevent damage from other traps depending on the order of detonation.

Shadow Dancers and Vanilla are about the same overall, SD has a little more utility, Vanilla has strong hits vs BSable things.

Once you max their Hide and Move Silently, Shadowdancers are gods in BG, because there isn't a single enemy in the game that can detect stealthed enemies, and you can abuse Hide in Plain sight to restealth right after attacking. That tactic doesn't work in SoD or BG2.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Most people also play like newbs so that isn't even remotely relavent. The BH's maze traps are one of the strongest class effects in the game. Weaker than they used to be, since you can't throw them anymore, but still extremely potent to utterly trivalize nearly any group fight in the game.


Spike Traps are for killing large numbers of enemies, that's 20d6 per every enemy in range. Time Stop traps are for killing single targets, since they're more efficient.



You make it sound like you're casting scrolls willynilly? You aren't. You, just like any other caster, use them when they're most efficient to do so. And due to most of the best spells NOT being level based (you make it seem like level is important when VERY few spells actually have noticable scaling. Most of it is only duration and 10 levels worth is more than you will ever need, not to mention most damage spells having a cap at around 10-15 or a completely static effect), it doesn't matter that they only cast at a max of 10. (Illusionists are denied both Skull Trap and Horrid Wilting and they do just fine despite most of their other spells not be noticable affected by level....and it's not like you NEED to dispel. I certainly don't. Hard-counters auto-succeed unlike dispel magic and even then there's only a tiny handful of spells you actually NEED to remove).

A blinded enemy is still blinded and helpless, that hold spell is still garunteeing every hit lands for way longer than the enemy will live, that VT is still nailing them for ~36-50 damage and giving it to you as bonus HP for 20-30 minutes. Etc.

in BG1 it's entirely possible to be able to backstab with gear alone without having to spend points in stealth, and due to the lower hp for most enemies, you're still one-shot shotting or almost 1-shotting them once you grab one of the myriad of good +2 backstabing weapons (especially early on when that +2 hit from stealth is actually enough to compensate for quite a bit of hit for half the game, and at x2 you're still dealing more damage than the 1.5 attacks per round a warrior gets...and when they finally get 2 apr, you get x3 and later x4). (Of course BG1 is also the heyday of bows and darts which thieves can use just as well as anyone else since they don't get str bonuses, for once you've murdered/soften up whatever needed to be backstabbed).


Thieves are stronger than bards non-magically because they get traps and can backstab. Bards are stronger spell-wise because their spell casting isn't completely consumable dependant. (of course if you're willing to spare a HLA or two, you could just make some random scrolls on each rest since it's unlikely most fights will need 1 if any scrolls), though given the sheer amounts of money saved/made by theives even without cheesing exploits, you can easily afford to buy every single scroll in the game (most of which you probably won't even use up unless you just waste them on completely trival crap), not to mention all the others you can stack up by 1-shotting mages before they can use any of the ones they spawned with).



For BHs I generally just forget their special traps exist until 21 after 16. Their normal traps have become so strong, and you're in the golden age of backstabbing to the point that you don't need orb traps since they're unreliable. Maze on other hand, NOTHING stops, and it's all on you as a the player to use it properly. The player being bad doesn't make a class bad, it just means they need to learn to use that class properly.



Traps are entirely usable in combat (even during the ToB Finale which for a long time even I thought had no safe spots for setting traps once the event kicked off), just like backstabbing is usable in the middle of combat. It simply requires practice.

[Hamtata]

actually......we need to ask him. Does he intend to solo or with a party? if he's solo-ing with a thief without dual/multi fighter. In the final fight in TOB, he's not going to hit the target due to the target insane AC. It's going to take a long long time before you land a hit. Flail of ages slowness can turn the tide, the elemental damage from 4 sources can interrupt spell casting. To use flails you need dual/multi into fighter class as well as thief's Use any item ability