Hello all,

Which weapons can backstab?

I have Valygar in my party and I tried backstabbing with his lovely katana - but when I do that there's a message that says his weapon is unsuitable for backstabbing. Which is really disappointing since he has the stalker kit and his katana is probably made of CPM S90V (Valygar was ahead of his time).

What do you think of his katana and katanas in general in the game? What about the ninjato? There aren't many magical variants in the game.

I believe that you can backstab with the following:
1. Any melee weapon that a single class thief can use. (Note that this does include many clubs and staves, which is good to know if you decide to play a Cleric/Thief.)
2. Any melee weapon that is created with a spell. This, in particular, includes natural weapons that can be acquired via polymorph effects. One speedrun strategy is to have Yoshimo turn into an Iron Golem (thanks to a Limited Wish Shapechange effect made permanent by killing and reviving him) and then backstab the final boss. A more reasonable strategy would be to have one of the three recruitable Thief/Mages use a polymorph or shapechange spell.

As noted, any weapon that a single class thief can use. Now I haven't tested it, but Valygar's family blade can NOT be used by a single class thief, since it's only usable by him. So this is likely a special case, and the weapon has other benefits anyway: bleeding on hit, and AC bonus while equipped.

Can only backstab with bladed weapons.

Are you sure about that? I remember you cant backstab with bastard sword. And definetly not with Two handed sword.

EDIT: I checked internet to be sure...

To backstab with a weapon that weapon has to be flagged as usable by a pure class thief. This has to be stated in the description of the item. Forexample a staff of Magi cant be used to backstab by a mage/thief since it is a mage only weapon. The weapons you can backstab with are...

* Long Sword
* Short Sword
* Katana
* Scimitar
* Dagger
* Club
* Quarterstaff

Strictly speaking, whether or not the description mentions that a single class thief can equip the weapon is irrelevant. The descriptions are just text; they are not automatically generated by the game engine. This is especially apparent if you are using a mod, or if you manage to look at the description of a magically created weapon (which could easily be blank).

So you are saying that the creators at Bioware were lying. That the descriptions of the weapons are wrong or flawed. Can you show a single item that proves that?

Baldur's Gate 2's kill sword (CreateItem("killsw01")). Its description is identical to that of a Long Sword +2, but it can actually be used by everyone, even classes that can't normally use swords. Furthermore, it does thousands of damage (literally), gives you incredibly good AC and resistances, and grants permanent improved haste. Of course, you can only get this weapon if you cheat.

Another BG2 example, though not a weapon, is Imoen's Belt. This is an item you will actually see in the game, as the first Imoen who joins you comes with it equipped, and it can't be unequipped. What the game doesn't tell you is that it grants a whole bunch of immunities (including, I believe, to level drain), and it also prevents her HP falling below 1, allowing the script that removes her from the party to work. (It is possible to kill her (at least in Classic, maybe not in Enhanced), but not through HP damage or anything it grants immunity to. (Scroll of Weakness + Contagion is the method I used to kill her once.) Of note, this item ("imoenhp1") is actually found on many other characters who aren't meant to be killable. (Also, this item's description doesn't list what classes are able to equip it, though that's not relevant since the item is "sticky"; it can't be moved in your inventory (so cheating it via the console is useless), and it is not dropped upon death.)

kill sword is not a real weapon.

... Are you serious?

It's a real weapon in the sense that it exists in the game's code, and is an example of how the engine has no requirement that the item description is accurate about who can equip it.

Contrast this with, say, Wizardry 8, where the game (I believe) checks the actual data for the weapon to determine much of the description as well as which races/classes are lit up (to show they can equip it).

This seems to be a bug: http://www.baldurdash.org/buglist.html

The trouble is that BioWare wanted the katana to only be usable by Valygar, but that's apparently a little more complicated in the BG2 engine than it seems on the surface: there doesn't seem to be an actual "only allow equipping by character X" option that can be set. Instead, it's necessary to carefully craft the item's requirements so that only the desired character meets them.

For some items, that's a simple enough matter, e.g., Haer'Dalis's weapons are probably (I haven't checked the actual data to confirm) simply marked as requiring a race of Tiefling - given that he is the only recruitable Tiefling in the game and you cannot create this race for CHARNAME, that's all it takes. Another example is Hexxat's cloak, which again simply needs a racial requirement (and that is all I will say to minimise spoiling about Hexxat).

For others it's not such a simple matter though because the character's template is less unique. Now you have only two solutions: make the item irremovable (which also removes the ability to upgrade that slot and therefore has to be carefully considered - for a relatively minor slot like Amulet, e.g., Edwin and Hexxat, it's not so bad, but for a really major slot like weapon that would be a really really bad idea) or set the item's class and ability requirements as a specific match for the applicable character (now only a specifically built CHARNAME can potentially get around the restriction).

Unfortunately, setting the class requirements this way resulted in this particular glitch as a side effect ...

Killsword is a weapon created by developers for debug purposes. Thats why they used a different weapon's template It has the graphics and story for Long Sword +2: Varscona and it doesnt exist in the game, only database. We developers always create such items to test our games/programs.

Imoen's belt is a special item. Are you surprised it's attributes are hidden? Did you even play the game or are you only interested in cheating?

What you said does not negate my point. The engine does not enforce any relationship between an item and its description. In other words, the descriptions are just text; they are not actually used by the game except as the description when you right click on one.

Also, the way I see it, if a weapon exists in the game data, it is in the game, even if it is unused and has no location.

If Wizardry 8 had something like the killsword and you were to right click on it, it would show up as being usable by everyone. (I believe it would also show the ridiculous damage and other effects the weapon gives.) (Wizardry 8 does have unused items in it, and I am pretty sure all of them have the correct descriptions.)

Yes, I have played the game (BG2) up to the Underdark.

As for Imoen's Belt, again the point is that the description is not derived from the item's actual properties.

The criteria for a weapon being usable to backstab is solely dependent on whether it can actually be equipped by a single-class thief (or would be if it weren't sticky, in the case of magically created weapons). Whether the description actually says it can be used by a single-class thief is irrelevant.

(Also, "are you surprised it is attributes are hidden" is not correct English. Maybe you mean "its" rather than "it's"?)

Your point, as usual, was pedantic fuckwittery.