Rogue Class Rankings in Baldur's Gate EE
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- For this video, I rank the Rogue characters in Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition based on how much fun I have in playing them, their particular abilities, and their usefulness with or without a party.
Leave your comments below as to how much you disagree with my rankings and tell me how much of a twit I am!
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always nice to see guides for the classic BGs, specifically nowadays that BG3 is hogging all the attention.
have a comment for the algo 👍
Hahahahaha! Many thanks for the comment and the algo boost!
I need to do a commentary run of BG3 eventually, but I love the Enhanced Edition series so much and it's easy for me to make silly comments.
I made my own thief class. It has the backstab multiplier and psn wepon from assassin class, it has some ar/thaco and ac bonus each 4th or 5th level. And it has shadowstep and Invisibility. For hla it has double durations assassination, real wirlwind and normal thief hla. Kinda a class to enyoy thief to the Max. I did playtrue on legacy of baal and it was still hard xD anyway, always backstab mages with psn wepon live. Cause on that difficulty it may not kill them, and the psn will prevent them for casting so u can do another easy backstab. Called it Ninja assassion.
But i dont know how bards work, can they backstab? Never tried bard xD
Unfortunately, Bards do not get backstab. I would say that Bards are mostly an arcane caster class with a few rouge-like abilities (weapon proficiencies, pick pockets, and HLAs).
Edited for further clarification: that being said, Bards get the advantage of potentially casting arcane spells with much more power than Mages due to being on the Thief experience tables. They do get spells slower than Mages and they only get up to Level 6, but it means that when they get Mirror Image and Stoneskin, they will have them stay up longer than a Mage with the same amount of XP.
Also I totally agree re shadow dancer… especially in BG1 where enemies don’t have detect invis most the time (even with SCS) this is huge.
The thing I struggle with overall with thief is that no matter the kit, thief dual to mage or thief/mage multiclass is just always so much better. With the dual class you are giving up use any item and the high level traps, but you more than make up for that with high level magic. I guess maybe I shouldn’t always go for power gaming but it is really hard to value what the thief gets at high levels versus mage or even fighter or cleric.
Yeah, I really love Shadowdancers but I also really enjoy the idea of Thief multi-classes or dual classing into Thief is great for Use Any Item alone. I feel like Mage/Thieves are a great idea and fulfill so many utility and damage functions of the game.
I'm happy that I'm not crazy in setting Shadowdancers as high as they are, but if I were to redo this video I might not rank Assassins so highly since they can be pretty one-note, but they're still good.
"The thing I struggle with overall with thief is that no matter the kit, thief dual to mage or thief/mage multiclass is just always so much better."
Shadowdancer and bounty hunter > thief/mage.
There are only very few spells that make thief/mage viable but thats about it.
Bounty hunter has insane traps that can be thrown acting as a very very potent fireball spell that inflict further "spells" like slow or at the high end a NO SAVE MAZE.
The fact that you can maze the entire room with no save which gives you enough time to plant HLA spike traps and regular traps is CHEESE.
Shadowdancer has stealth in plane sight and combining that with time stop and detect illusion means you can dispell all illusion spells from spellcasters during time stop lol.
They also get amazing unique HLA's.
I always found mage/thieves to be kinda obsolete and lackluster TBH...
In vanilla BG1 base thief has access to wand of sleep, fireball (lost item amulet), "scorcher" (ring of energy/victor), powerful charm spell (nymph cloak, algernon cloak) etc...
And in BG:EE is kinda the same + two kits give you even better abilities.
What makes mage/thief good?
Invis and improved invis... ok... thats kinda pointless spell for shadowdancer due to stealth in plane sight and for bounty hunter who kills enemies off screen and engages enemies in indirect combat.
Skull trap? Its awesome spell... you really need to be a high level mage to dish out good damage...
Sleep? Wand?
Blind?
Web?
Good spells but again... compared to what cheese you get from bounty and shadowdancer kit its not that amazing.
I can understand fighter/thief because for one its better then overrated swashbuckler and improves your backstabs and combat in general better thac0, better damage, better AC, better HP etc...
Overall mage/thieves are overrated in my opinion and obsolete...
You have two styles of play you either play them as a... shadowdancer or as a... bounty hunter.
Even people who really really love m/T will say how great they are due to invis, improved invis, tenser, mislead etc...
Which boils down to a SHADOWANCER...
or
Stealth + AOE spells which boils down to BOUNTY HUNTER...
Maybe thats just me but I really hated M/T since vanilla days I spent hours grinding m/t and was like "woah this class is amazing" but once I became good at the game I found out that base thief by getting the right items is just as good if not better then m/t due to faster progression and more thieving points.
@@greatdude7279 Im trying the half orc cleric thief - no idea if it works well
Hey man thank you for making these I’m a 5e dungeon master trying to make sense of old systems. They weren’t kidding when they called it Advanced lol
Absolutely! I feel like the older systems are a bit more restrictive on the rules for classes BUT rely on the player to describe their customization, which I much prefer to having rules that are overly loose (not that 5th edition is overly loose, but I do worry that it can become that way eventually).
It's funny, your comments about the swashbuckler got be curious about how bad they are and I've been playing with all kinds of dual class and multiclass options. Eventually I became curious about how they are as a pure class and I've been surprised by how fun and effective the various swashbucklers have been in mostly solo play.
I've been largely sticking with BG 1 EE but I can get to level 9 before finishing cloakwood. The elf swashbuckler with longsword and short bow was noticeably strong but the dual wield human dagger swashbuckler was plenty good as well. The main thing I've noticed is that the swashbuckler is strangely great in ranged combat and pulling foes into piles of traps.
I essentially play them as a trapper who can fight a little after the traps have all gone off.
One of the things that I find most fun is that they can use a variety of weapons well, due to the +x to hit and damage they get to all attacks, base don level.
I’m still not a fan of Swashbucklers. Yes, they do get the very nice combat bonuses (which does stack well) but I’m very nervous about engaging them in melee without any safety against critical hits (I believe Rogue Rebalancing fixes this). I can absolutely see the advantage of trapping and shooting with the Swashbuckler, but losing backstabbing kinda sucks.
If you’re rocking it, then that’s awesome! I’m open to giving it another shot sometime but I do have my doubts. If I do give another shot, I’m definitely using Rogue Rebalancing.
@@Redjoy123 I'm currently trying to push a human dagger swashbuckler into a fighter dual class. I know it's bad on so many levels but it's also kind of awesome. You get helmets, for instance and my goal is to wait until at least lvl 16 to switch to fighter. That will give me 6 extra weapon proficiency, including dual wield rank 3. She will also gain -5 to ac and -4 to hit and plus 4 to damage. Also I get rather strong traps.
It also feels like it gets better with waiting to switch later. I've even considered waiting until 25 to switch, to try to get some Rogue HLAs.
You can probably tell that I haven't played late game much and that I play on normal difficulty. lol. I also try to keep my party size small or solo as much as I can. In fact I waited until level 10 to add any party members for BG 1.
""It's funny, your comments about the swashbuckler got be curious about how bad they are."
They are not bad but they tend to be overrated on forums.
Swashbucklers are mostly equipment dependent class and require specific builds to make them viable.
"The elf swashbuckler with longsword and short bow"
Dont ever use bow or longsword on swashie his thac0 is inferior to fighter and most enemies get better protection against slashing and missile.
So even with his + to hit bonus you will not break even.
"but the dual wield human dagger"
Excellent choice daggers not only do they deal piercing damage (which sadly falls off in later BG installments) that many armors offer poor resistance even in starting chapters of BG2 but they also have low speed factor which means you can strike enemies and run away before they can attack if they dont have daggers themselves. Oh and in BG2 you get TWO daggers that give you 2 APR.
"One of the things that I find most fun is that they can use a variety of weapons well, due to the +x to hit and damage they get to all attacks, base don level."
Even then you should stick with weapons that deal crushing or piercing in BG1 and even BG2.
Putting points in Scimitars is great because Ninjato and Scimitars give you Slashing while Wakhazashi gives piercing.
So one weapon skill gives you access to two different damage types.
Dagger, short swords and even clubs are great.
Crushing damage for example just a standard club already gives you + 15% better to hit then slashing weapons since most enemies wear armor that offers additional protection against slashing.
11 thac0 with +1 long sword is actually 13 thac0 against enemies with plate armor and on top of that speed factor is higher so you will strike after three seconds.
11 thac0 with + 1 dagger is is 10 thac0 against Plate since plate doesnt offer any bonus against piercing and speed factor is 1 which means you will strike at the start of the round.
Enjoyed this! I think your ranking is pretty spot on so far (I’m halfway thru). I play mostly solo so always really struggle to use bard class. It has versatility but is worse than every other option and worse than almost every dual class. Even a self buffed mage wielding the dagger of venom is not THAT much worse a fighter than a bard and of course the mage scales way better into late BG1 and BG2.
One thing you did not mention but that I think is critical about bards in BG1 is that they can use wands. Wand of fire and pretty much all the wands are super powerful in BG1 and you can steal them back to refresh them for no GP. Since wand of fire has no cast time and the aganazzars inside it goes for 2 rounds and can hit tons of enemies, I am almost always using wand of fire every round in tough fights. Wand of paralyzing also makes early bg1 fights against tough individual enemies (Meilum, Greywolf) totally trivial.
Bards do have a nice amount of utility functions (wands, as you mentioned, but also high Lore scores, nice Charisma, etc.) that lead me to an interesting revelation...
Soloing them, as you mentioned, is very hard until higher levels. Even then, their soloing abilities really do rely on their magic vs their combat skills (even for Blades). However, when Bards are part of a group, because they aren't essential for any one thing in particular, they have a lot of leeway with their stats. You can have a Bard with all 14s and they'll be fine.
"One thing you did not mention but that I think is critical about bards in BG1 is that they can use wands."
Wands are meh to be honest.
There are 3 wands that are good to use and that is wand of fire which is kinda obsolete since everybody can buy lost gift amulet which also has a fireball spell which is weaker but also cheaper in the terms of initial buy and charges which makes thief very cheesy to play since money for them is a non-issue and with their stealth they can locate enemies and kill them off screen.
Fire Wand also gives you scorcher which is negated by ring of victor/energy which has no save.
wand of Monster summoning which is nice but also kinda negated by nymph cloak and algernon cloak.
Wand of cloudkill is the only reason why bard is good if we go for wands.
Wand of sleep is also amazing but everybody can use them so...
Lightning is unpredictable, frost destroys loot unless you exploit the game with turn off gore, fear is bad since enemies will scatter around etc...
@@greatdude7279 Wand of Paralyzing is good against targets with crummy saves and can be good as an "Oh crap!" option. It doesn't always work, but when it does then the bacon is saved.
For the Wand of Monster Summoning, this can also seriously save a team's bacon against enemy parties with casters at just about any level of difficulty. Whether on SCS or on vanilla, casters will use at least some of their spells on the raging monsters coming at them.
I agree with you on Wand of Fire, lots of other avenues for AOE damage and fireball is among the weakest.
@@Redjoy123
"Wand of Paralyzing is good against targets with crummy saves and can be good as an "Oh crap!" option. It doesn't always work, but when it does then the bacon is saved. "
True but in the terms of cost/benefits...
I mean do wands in BG really justify the usage of mage/thief over shadowdancer or bounty hunter?
My point is that in the game there are plenty of items that can be used by anyone that give you similar effects which makes those wands/spells obsolete.
One gift lost = fireball
Explosive potions = fireball
Victor (Ring of power) = scorcher
Algernon cloak/nymph cloak = kinda monster summoning since you can charm alot of monster since charm creature is what 8 tier spell?
And then you also get abilities bounty hunter gets AOE traps that are thrown with additional effects like no save maze.
Shadowdancer has hide in plain sight, time stop he also gets unique HLA's like shadow form, shadow clone etc...
Overall I would say that the benefits you get from mage/thief are not that big compared to lets say fighter/thief which gives you better thac0 which translates to more reliable backstab, more damage which means more damage during backstab, more hit points, better gear.
Invis and improv invis is kinda pointless because if you wanna play it like that hide in plain sight is better on top of that you get time stop that last 7 seconds which is enough to go into another round so you can stealth again and backstab again and with more levels you get more time stops per day.
Stealth, backstab, timestop, stealth, backstab, timestop etc...
Dunno mage/thief is not to my liking sacrificing your leveling for few benefits that are not even that significant like being able to use wands which again in the end all thieves will be able to use the due to use any item, same goes for scrolls by the time you get improv invis you already have maxed stealth and 2 time stops.
By the time you get skull trap you already have 4 traps.
@@greatdude7279 Cool! 👍
The main problem I have with assassin is: At the point he finaly reaches his bonus damage from backstab most of your opponents are immun to backstab and see invisible.
Sad, but true. I am starting to like Bounty Hunters more and more.
is it possible to see a guide: maybe for Bg2 or for Icewinddale on the Stalker?
I definitely encourage you to check out my Ranger Kit Review and my Warrior Class Rankings to get a glimpse of what I've seen from the Stalker. I like the Stalker (especially compared to the main Ranger), I think it has promise if the character's stats are good. They can stick around in combat after they use backstab and they can work as a damage dealer as needed. I would say that they are limited in the amount of damage compared to a Fighter or a Fighter/Thief, but the Stalker gets a few bonuses at the start of the game that make them fun to play.
The bounty hunter is my favorite thief class. The specialty traps can trivialize medium encounters and can easily break harder ones, though I prefer not to cheese. The fact that they can be thrown is insane! Skald is fun if you have summons from totemic druids or shaman that you can buff with your song.
I like both Bounty Hunters and Shadow Dancers. They each take away a little bit of the skill spread to specialize in their specific ability but doesn't cripple the other other abilities. There's no reason why a Bounty Hunter couldn't also put points into stealth or Detect Illusion, unlike Assassins which are pretty much ONLY a stealth thief.
More and more I'm thinking I need to redo some of these older videos based on my changing experiences. Assassins are great but I think Bounty Hunters are a bit better.
@@Redjoy123 Yeah Assassins are good on paper but they a not as great because the poison is nerfed, x7 backstab is late game, stronger enemies see through invisibility, and their points are spread too thin to be a main thief. Shadowdancers are actually not bad because they can backstab infinitely if you time the hide in plain sight correctly. I want to experiment with a Shadowdancer dual to fighter! I wouldn't put Bounty Hunter as the top dog but I have a lot of fun with them because of superior traps and they can still be a thief (backstab, HiS, pick/locks, etc). Blades are insane at high level. UAI, High Level Traps, stoneskin, the list goes on.
@@JohnSmith-qe6fb
"Yeah Assassins are good on paper but they a not as great because the poison is nerfed, x7 backstab is late game, stronger enemies see through invisibility, and their points are spread too thin to be a main thief."
Yep... its the damn points Swashbuckler and vanilla thief have 2 skills maxed already.
"Blades are insane at high level. UAI, High Level Traps, stoneskin, the list goes on."
Swashbucklers are better then blades at high levels they get + to hit and + damage, they can specialize in any thief weapon and due to UAI swashies can use scrolls which again will make you cast weaker spells then blade but popping up whirlwind will make life of your enemies really short.
Staff of magi on a swashie doing whirlwind just deletes mages.
I never liked blades their class is so miss...
Because reality is for the most part you will use your blade as a spell caster which you can do as a regular bard too.
He is able to dual wield but his thac0 is so bad unless you want to use tenser which is risky since you cannot cast any spells and if your protection spells go out well... you are f'ed.
Swashbuckler on the other hand just drop two pips into dagger and voila you can hit and run with your daggers and throw them for range and will have superior thac0 to blade.
At the start of BG2 you can get boomerang dagger which gives you 2 APR in melee and considering most enemies at first chapters have enemies wearing armor that dont give any significant bonuses to piercing attacks compared to slashing means you can hit them almost all the time.
personally i feel like all thieves are kinda bad until like level8 onward. by that point, youve already put 50 hours into baldurs gate 1(especially if it's your first time through the game).
Assassins are kind of fun. But i feel like they should be a bit lower on the list. Still have high chance of missing ur backstab, and likely wont even one shot (in bg1)
sure you can run away and hide again, but you'd need the boots that speed up movement. And with a party, They just feel kinda useless since the party will likely slay them before you get that second or 3rd backstab
i think part of my issue is, i also like to think of the baldurs gate games the same way i'd think of the d&d table top. Most people dont play over level 11-14. Most players play at around level 5-9. So if a class still aint doing much around those levels, They are pretty bad 😅
im pretty sure that's also why baldurs gate 1 stops around level 7-9. To keep true to the table top.
i think it's funny that most build videos for the games and even for the table top, talk about how good a class is, but they are thinking of like level 18-30 characters. Totally forgetting that it takes tens of hours to get there. And in the case of the table top, that could be a couple years by the time ur even level 11 😓. For the video games, thats 50 hours 😅
So, for me, a Thief (as well as most Rogues) is a utility character. They aren't meant to solo for a super long time, even though they can, and they aren't meant to be in main combat, just shooting or backstabbing. You nail it that, in combat, Thieves aren't great until Level 8 or so, but I feel like that's the point. They're supposed to be that quiet joe who slips away when the going gets tough.
@@Redjoy123 yeah it just sucks that a character that likely gets into a lot of bar fights or whatever, has less fighting capability than a priest. It’s so strange to me. I know not all clerics are necessarily just a preaching priest and are more like war priests. But still
@@sonic-bb I get that, but in the modern context (and at Level 1), it’s a bit like comparing a private who’s completed basic training (the Fighter) and a novice carjacker or burglar (the Thief). In a fight, my money would definitely be on the private (being a somewhat trained soldier), but if I needed to get an item without having everybody pissed with me, the carjacker or burglar might be a better option.
10:47 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)