Reliable, useful, and easy backstabs? Turns out it's possible

[suy]

Sorry for the wall of text, but I just feel like writing and sharing something today. I'll try to focus, though.

A few years ago, my time spent playing the game plummeted: I started to make a mod called Glass Cannon to redesign some classes that fit (or should fit) this theme of being glass cannons, like the Monk, Swashbuckler, Kensai, etc. I discovered that the running joke about modders never playing the game because making the mod takes too much time turned out to be true after all, and you did not tell me!   I want to publish this mod eventually, but it's not close enough to be in a releasable state.

But some months ago I started a second mod called All Things Revised which should be just very small components to tweak this and that. I finished the first 4 components some weeks ago, and I started to play again to test them in BG1. After fixing a couple of bugs, I've been super happy with how well this 4 very small things synergize together. Two of them are directly related to backstabs, and the other two just happen to help.

And yesterday this happened:

This is such a good outcome that I did not even expect I would see in BG1. I wanted backstabs to be reliable, and this is as reliable as it can get. Maximum damage, and no failure despite rolling a 1 for the attack roll!

But let me elaborate. This is what the components are and what they do:

1. A party AI script. This is very humble, and it's just something suited to my needs by blending the existing AI scripts that come from the game and some patterns I've seen in other mods. The script is configured to make Alora and Kivan attempt to hide in shadows constantly. Doing this manually would be tedium, so without an AI script, one would attempt it only when planning ahead, so a few times only. Automating it multiplies your chances of having a random chance during the playthrough to give it a shot. Try this with some of the built-in scripts that come with the game. I micromanage a lot, but this is something I can delegate to automation as it has very low chance of downsides.
2. Backstab from any angle, a.k.a. "facestab". The title says it all: forget about positioning, just hit while hidden, and it'll be an attempt to backstab. IIRC, you can't backstab unconscious enemies, but with this, you can, which makes even more sense. The implementation is a bit simple (as suggested by semiticgoddess, I just give the assassination effect via an script), but works well enough.
3. Rogue's luck: improve attacks after invisibility. If you are familiar with the "luck" stat you'll know that it increases the chances of higher rolls, while negating the lower ones. It's not like a flat bonus, so the maximums are still the same. Both a bonus and an increase in luck make the average higher, but only luck reduces the variance. There is an effect that increases just "damage luck", and abilities like Kai or Offensive Spin work by giving +20 to it to ensure you deal the maximum with any weapon. This component on my mod just gives +2 luck at level 1, and increases by 1 every 3 levels. It also reduces the chance of a critical miss from 5% to 0%. That's why in the screenshot Alora made the hit, even with a roll of 1. So this means early game Imoen with a Short Sword and 2x multiplier will do 6 and 12 as minimum and maximum damage respectively (assuming no buffs), instead of 2 to 12. That's an awesome improvement to me, because rolling such a low number always feels such a waste of your time, effort (and risk of putting a squishy Thief on the front lines). So far this only affects pure Thieves, as I did not want hyper-broken multi/dual combinations doing even crazier backstabs. I wanted Thieves to at least feel useful and "special" in their own way. Note that this "damage luck" applies also if your Thief comes out of stealth to do a ranged attack, or if the backstab fails due to weapon or enemy immunity. It won't be a backstab, but it'll make sure your first attack of an encounter (if it hits), won't be a 1. This also increases (very, very moderately) the power of crossbows with respect to bows, given that they do 1d8 instead of 1d6, so they get more benefit of this lucky roll. That's a nice side effect.
4. Worthwhile proficiency points. This makes that the 1st and 4th proficiency point feel a bit more valuable. The first point will give +1 to hit instead of nothing. That's it. This helps a bit in making early combat a bit less tedious, as there will be less failures. It also reduces the gap between classes that can get the 2nd point, and the ones that don't. And, for the title of the topic, backstabbing, makes it less likely to fail, of course. Every bonus counts.

So that's basically it. For Alora's backstab in the image, she's using a non-magical ninjato, so just 1d8 damage. She's hitting an enemy using a bow, that gives +4 to hit and damage, which is multiplied by the 3x backstab. Her luck is huge, though. She has her amulet giving her +2. A bard is giving her +1, and the 3rd component mentioned above gives her +4 more. So basically the 36 damage is guaranteed, given the circumstances. A "less lucky" thief with 3x multiplier and the same weapon, but without the Bard and Alora's ring, would do 27 minimum damage (33.75 on average, though). I think that's fair for my goal of buffing a pure Thief, but surely more play testing is needed.

Let me wrap up by saying thanks to all the modders, as in this playthrough I could not be enjoying this so much if it weren't because I've recruited Eldoth and Alora ahead of time (thanks to Tweaks Anthology), I've made Kivan a Stalker to try backstabbing with him (thanks to SCS's customization component), and I'm trying new Bard songs that increase luck *and* stealth stats thanks to IWDification. I'm enjoying other things as well, but that would be a longer detour.

Cheers.

[Morgoth]

hello, why don't you release these tweaks? 

[subtledoctor]

On 3/6/2024 at 10:19 AM, suy said:

Backstab from any angle, a.k.a. "facestab". The title says it all: forget about positioning, just hit while hidden, and it'll be an attempt to backstab. ... The implementation is a bit simple (as suggested by semiticgoddess, I just give the assassination effect via an script), but works well enough.

Cripes, I never thought of this, it's genius!. I never really put much thought at all into backstabs, because I barely ever bother to backstab, because... well you get it. I put a small amount of effort into this in one mod, adding custom op340 backstab effects for select kits. But a larger overhaul of the whole system may be worth doing.

In fact, my current 'Revised Invisibility' mod has a slight problem with backstabbing, due to a bit of swapping between proper invisibility and the Sanctuary state (and IIRC Sanctuary does not allow backstabs). This facestab mechanism is just the thing to fix it! I miiight have to borrow this concept...

[InKal]

oohhhh, you fecking cheaters, your time will come soon, very soon...

 

facestab with cucumber!!! OMG !! Mummy help he facestabbed me with cucumber aaaaaahhhh, heeeeeeeeeeelp! STFU and go throw out the garbage useless moron i na zakuopy kurwa idź chociaż chleba suchego i pasztetu sobie kup żebyś miał co żreć bo żadnego obiadu dzisiaj nie robię o nie, dosyć tego, całe życie służąca ale koniec z tym szajsem, siodłam konia bierę miecz i zbroję i jadę do Fejrunu na przygodę, słyszałam że jest tam fajnie.

[CrevsDaak]

On 3/6/2024 at 3:19 PM, suy said:

I discovered that the running joke about modders never playing the game because making the mod takes too much time turned out to be true after all, and you did not tell me!

The delicate balance between playing too much and modding too much is hard to achieve, but it is definitely doable. Can't say I achieve True balance very often though.

The Bigg's tweaks did something similar with letting you facestab, either always or when under Non-Detection, though your idea of making backstabs reliable by applying luck to force maximum damage is very good, definitely makes stabbing earlier on a lot more powerful, which is a fantastic change, since in most cases it's something that I don't even consider worth spending time on till much later on.

[megrimlock]

Will definitely use this.

[polytope]

My own efforts to make single class thieves a bit more useful in straight combat were similar, but not the same:

A repeating ability under the special abilities tab with a four round cooldown which gives the equivalent of Assassination via #303 backstab every hit and a +2 bonus to THAC0 but sets attacks per round to zero for one round after a hit connects (to ensure it isn't disproportionately powerful for dual and multi-class thieves who've ways to maximize their attacks per round), called skirmishing, to distinguish from swashbuckling (swashbucklers obviously don't get it).

Also, allowing the Assassination HLA to be chosen multiple times, but the backstab multiplier during an assassination reduced to X3 for normal thieves/multiclass thieves and stalkers (extended as a HLA choice for them), X4 for assassin kit (making it in someways better, someways worse than warrior Critical Strike which guarantees hits and doubles the strength bonus).

Balancing thieves in combat also means balancing traps though, which get more than a bit silly in the late game, that's one of the mechanics which most modders leave alone, like priestly turning of undead because it's unbalanced but also substantially hardcoded.

[suy]

On 3/6/2024 at 4:29 PM, Morgoth said:

hello, why don't you release these tweaks? 

Yes, of course. I've asked to make it part of G3, so eventually it will be in a more "conventional" location, but for now, here is attached. I've not tried it much on Windows, so let me know if I broke something on the packaging.

all-the-things-revised-0.1.1.zip

[suy]

On 3/8/2024 at 4:45 AM, subtledoctor said:

Cripes, I never thought of this, it's genius!. I never really put much thought at all into backstabs, because I barely ever bother to backstab, because... well you get it. I put a small amount of effort into this in one mod, adding custom op340 backstab effects for select kits. But a larger overhaul of the whole system may be worth doing

Well, the idea is definitely not mine, but from semiticgoddess. Funnily enough, I delved into reverse engineering the game, and starting to learn Ghidra, and tons of other complex stuff, mostly spurred by Bubb's awesome work, but having the facestab as a goal, given that I thought it would be easy to do. Well, heck, no. But this little "cheat" with scripting is something I can understand and implement. I think a fancier mechanism would be necessary to allow 7th party members to have the same feature, or maybe some other corner case.

I'll leave that to someone who knows more than me!

But surely, what I can say is that facestabbing is quite liberating. It takes away a lot of the tedium, and it feels like a good trick to teach to an old dog.

Edited March 11 by suy

[suy]

On 3/10/2024 at 10:03 AM, polytope said:

A repeating ability under the special abilities tab with a four round cooldown which gives the equivalent of Assassination via #303 backstab every hit and a +2 bonus to THAC0 but sets attacks per round to zero for one round after a hit connects (to ensure it isn't disproportionately powerful for dual and multi-class thieves who've ways to maximize their attacks per round), called skirmishing, to distinguish from swashbuckling (swashbucklers obviously don't get it).

This sounds good as well!

I like a bit that you have to invest in items, buffs or points in hiding to pull this off, but an special ability to invoke from time to time is something that I've considered as well. Something that would resemble the "sneak attack" of the 3E mode (which I've not tried much beyond a test, not at all in a playthrough).

I tried to set the APR to a lower value, to compensate if you are super hasted, and with speed weapons, etc. I think I've been able to make 2 backstabs in some corner cases out of stealth, so I gave up on setting APR, as it wasn't reliable, or I was failing at setting the right values for the effect.

I've not considered balancing traps, as I rarely end up using them. But it's worth considering, indeed.

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, suy said:

But this little "cheat" with scripting is something I can understand and implement. I think a fancier mechanism would be necessary to allow 7th party members to have the same feature, or maybe some other corner case.

I'll leave that to someone who knows more than me!

But surely, what I can say is that facestabbing is quite liberating. It takes away a lot of the tedium, and it feels like a good trick to teach to an old dog.

Yeah, totally. I think what I am going to do is: I already have a mod that changes the mechanics of invisibility, to make it a bit more straightforward. I will set it such that when hiding a thief or ranger will have to position behind someone to backstab (as usual). But when invisible you can facestab i.e. backstab from any angle. Because invisibility should be better than just hiding!

[DrAzTiK]

Oh, great mod my friend, I was looking a way for thiets to facestab for ages ! 

I will try it asap