Worthless Protagonist?

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I've been playing BGII for a while now, but due to indecision over my character class/race/alignment/weapon/etc. etc., I've never gotten out of Athkatla. Well, this morning I finally rolled up a character I -thought- I could live with-- A fairly basic Swashbuckler, specializing in longswords and dual wielding and not planning to dual-class into anything. Well, I started the game, sat for the hundredth time through that damned formerly-interesting opening sequence, and freed Minsc and Jaheira. Proceeding on into combat with the ogre mage and the first few mephits, I realized something. I was attacking very infrequently. And so I checked my score-sheet, only to find that I was getting -one- attack per round, despite my specialization. Now, I hadn't picked up a second longsword to Dual Wield yet, but I still found this to be extremely odd, given that Swashbucklers are supposed to be -Warrior Thieves-. Will my character be improving? Or did I give up my Backstab Multiplier for nothing? Thanks in advance...

 

Don't worry. I tell you swashbucklers are amazing I played a SB once up to level 25 or so.

Yes he gets only one attack per round and that won't increase. But you can place 3 slots in two weapon fighting proficiency which gives you 2 attacks per round. I later picked up a scimitar that gives you an extra attack per round. So I had 3

Besides SB's get +1 to hit, +1 to damage, +1 to AC every 5 levels. And the specialization also gives +1 to hit & +2 to damage. Of course they're not as deadly as a fighter or a kensai, but sure do hold their ground in the frontlines. I think that's a very good deal just for giving up backstabbing. Although, I must admit, backstabbing is fun

 

Hmph. While I'm on the topic of the seeming ickiness of my Swashbuckler, I've heard many bad things about the Thief stronghold. Mainly that it -costs you money-, you have to return to it once a week and that it only has two quests. Given that Jan has Uberskill in everything but stealth and traps, I'm beginning to question the wisdom of playing a Thief at all.

 

I'm making like 300 profit every 5 days on my thieves stronhold.
I am a fighter thief and because of a bug I have two strongholds. The fighter and the thief one

 

if you are on time every week, the theif stronghold doesn't cost you anything, you just have to pay Renal his cut, for me this has never made me lose money from my guild. average income around 1000gp, average cut for Renal 300-500gp, profit of 500gp minimum - for doing nothing! just showing up

 

I personally hated the thieves stronghold. If you don't have your thieves take crazy risks you can make some money, but returning to the guildhouse every 5 days is a major pain in the butt. Despite that I love playing thieves, especially assassins. Yes, Jan is also a good thief, but he is sooooooo weak he breaks if you look at him wrong. I am sure you will enjoy yourself immensely if you stick it out with your swashbuckler.

 

the lack of good thief npcs (yoshimo doesnt count for obvious reasons)means that your thief character is potentially one of the best in the game

take time and develop him/her and you wont be disappointed

i almost always play a thief character now be it multi/dual or straight

 

My game is kinda buggy. When I go to the stronghold I get my money approx. 1300, then I don't see the guy that asks for the money. I go away and after a while I hear he's waiting for me. He then says ahh so you decided to pay me after all. Kinda sucks considering I can't pay him if he's not there and he does blame me for not doing it

 

I'm not even sure if that's buggy since it happens to me all the time. Obnoxious little bugger, that one. Either way, you are not penalised so it is no big deal.

 

What I always hated about the thief stronghold in BG-2 was that, unlike the great thief quests in BG-1, you were actually just managing your herd of thiefs and not doing anything yourself.
It would have been so cool, when one of your thieves would have just gathered infos about valuable items to steal .... (only the thief, without the party) - resulting in little, demanding subquests - *sigh*