backstab.....with an axe

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Once I found the BG series was getting stale from too much playing, I put them aside for a year or so. Now I feel I can play them again, so I ran a human berserker through BG1 (with tutu), and now I have ported over the character to BG2.

I am converting him to a thief once he gets to a L9 beserker. Trouble is, his portrait (modded) is of a guy in leather armour with a chunky axe in his hand. Therefore I want him to use an axe as a primary weapon, but you cannot backstab with an axe.

What I ended up doing was going into a savegame using 'Shadowkeeper'. I selected my character, went to 'proficiences' and gave him one proficiency with an axe on the thief side (he already had four on the fighter side).

This doesn't help until the thief has a higher thief level than beserker level, because despite an added proficiency on the thief side in axes, he cannot use them yet. Once his thief side is higher he can use his fighter abilities again, so he can use axes.

The interesting part of this whole post is that once I get to that point (level 10 thief), when I backstab someone I am told I cannot use an axe as a backstab weapon, but since the axe (a +1 axe) did about 40 damage in one hit, it clearly is getting the backstab multipliers. I seem to have achieved my goal of trucking around with axe in hand. Eat your heart out Korgan.......

 

I did not think backstabbing with an axe is possible, even with SKing...Isn't it hard-coded and all?

 

Only weapons usable by single class thief can be used for backstabbing.

 

To OP, maybe you just happened to land a good critical hit on that backstab?

Another option is to have him dual wield, and just place the axe in his off hand, and something suitable for backstabs in the primary hand. At least the picture will still be relevant to the character.

Or, just go through the game without that character getting backstab multipliers.

 

The AoE mod found at PPG lets you backstab with axes and so on

 

Excellent advce shaitan. If Marceror was right and I just got a critical hit, then I need another solution.

I have just loaded Ashes of Embers, so I shall install it immediately.

**Later**
I have installed A of E and tested the results. If I backstab with an axe now, the information bar tells me it is working.

[ June 25, 2007, 12:08: Message edited by: Gilden ]

 

Cool - how much damage are you doing now?

 

I switched from beserker at 9th and am at 9th thief now. That means depending on which save I use, I either have 1 expertise point in axes as a thief (added with shadowkeeper) or none.

In two tries with no (thief) expertise, and using a +1 axe, I did x4 damage of 15 and 19, pretty puny since I am 19 strength after going through BG1.

With one (thief) expertise in axes, I managed 31/27/31/86 in four tries.

When I advance one more level, my thief level will exceed my beserker level, and so I will then get the benefit of the 4 expertise in axes from the fighters side. Who knows what damage that will do ?

 

1 point or 0 points in axes should make no difference in damage output.

 

I believe the proper term for such an attack is "backhacking" not "backstabbing"