So, I'm thinking about a sneaking-knife build with added throwing weapons grenades and knives. No PSI, no Guns.
My starting attributes:
5 - Strength
9 - Dexterity
9 - Agility
3 - Constitution
4 - Perception
3 - Will
7 - Intelligence
Am I gimping myself with 3 on con and will? Or will it work fine?
Are grenades enough for bots, or should I increase my strength and use a sledgehammer for such enemies?
SKILLS:
Defense: Should I up both dodge and evasion ?
Subterfuge: Stealth, Lockpicking, Hacking. Are traps worth it?
Technology: I'm thinking of increasing everything except biology. Am I missing something very good here? AFAIK I need biology for poison knives, are they any good?
Social: Maybe put some into intimidation. I don't know, should I dump it completely?
FEATS:
Start:Snooping, Expertise (?)
Then:Opportunist, Recklessness, Crippling Strike, Cheap Shots, Expose Weaknesses, Taste of Blood, Cut Throat, Blitz, Critical Power, Eviscerate.
I chose snooping to find secret areas. I'm not sure if expertise is the best choice for a starting feat. I'm not sure if any of the other feats are crappy, ideas? Maybe I should throw in nimble as well?
You can get 14 feats, so I can get two more feats. Now here is the question. Should I go for Sprint+Hit and Run, for extra movement, or should I replace them with the Fancy Footwork feat (but only if increasing dodge to 40 is a good idea)
If I go for Fancy Footwork, what should be my other feat? Maybe Grenadier? Dirty kick?
Ok, let me answer this as I run a very similar build right now, level 14 currently and doing fine.
Stat wise, I would drop the perception to 3 and put that point in Dex. Dex is the most important stat for your build as it makes your attacks faster, get more critical hits, and helps with lockpick.
Strenght you could drop to 3, as knives get bonus damage only for the points over 5, so right now you are at the border of not getting any bonus yet. On the other hand, strenght gives you a bit of carry weight (Not that much of an issue even with str 3, unless you absolutely need to grab every piece of junk you see). The argument with going str 6 for hammers is not entirely convincing, as you will be able to deal with bots through a combination of EMP grenades, critical hits from knives, and expose weakness feat that reduces their armour. If you drop strenght to 3, put one point in agility and the other to maybe consitution.
The consitution 3 wont fuck you that much, at level 14 I have 222hp, and yes, I get one shotted sometimes from a lucky crossbow crit or sniper crit, but you mittigate that with a shield from mid game on. Also, your high dodge/evasion should help with not getting hit at all, so a big health pool is not necessary. And you should invest in both dodge and evasion, they synergise with each other and are based on the same stat, Agility.
Stealth, lockpicking and hacking are fine and always usefull, traps I would maybe go throwing but later on.
Technology: Definitly Mechanics and tailoring for crafting your knives and armour. Then electronic could be usefull if you want to add the electric damage to your knives, its pretty good and helps with dealing with multiple opponents. I wouldnt go for chemistry as this is mostly usefull for creation of various explosives, but you will find/loot/buy enough of them to not really need to craft that many yourself. Biology is only sensible to increase to the tresholds that let you craft various medicines. I would say 50 biology is enough. And poisoned throwing knives are very situational, and need too much investement for my liking.
Social: Dump completly on first playthrough to have an easier time in combat.
Feats: Snooping is just a decoration, if you drop Perc to 3, drop this feat too as secret passages and doors are cool to find and make use of, but with low perc this feat is a bit of a waste.
Expertise is very fine as it boosts your damage, +1 mechanical damage per your level, so +14 damage on my level, and it affects every hit you make, so in my case 7x14 additional damage each turn. And it will get better as you get levels too!
From the other feats I see that you plan on going the Serrated Knife route of putting a lot of bleeding wounds on enemies. In that case, you could maybe give Vile weaponry a try, works nice with bleeding wounds.
Other than that, consider weaponsmith for the 5% increased base critical chance for your knifes. You want as many criticals with your knives as you can get. And Serrated Knives get the best critical multiplayer so that would work with your build.
Nible is a fine feat that just gives you more of the good defenses of your build and reduces armour penalty, so you are more mobile with it. I like to take it a bit later on.
I would get the fancy footworks instead of the other combo. With 0% armour penalty you get 8 movements points every time you hit a dude so you can run from one enemy to another if you manage to kill them in 2-3 hits.
Also, you will want Dodge/evasion maxed at all times in this build so dont worry about the requirement of this feat.
Finally, I would get Expose weakness as soon as possible. it will help with bots and the occasional heavy armoured guy, and it gets more important later in the game. Its a pain in the ass to not have it when you will need it.
The last thing I could recommend is Uncanny dodge. It lets your autododge melee attacks in this turn. So its great agains hard hitting melee dudes or the ones that like to put a lot of melee status ailments like knife users or unarmed assholes. At level 14 with half decent gear boosting dodge/evasion I can autododge 7 melee attacks, both normal and special attacks like crippling strike and stunning melee crap.
to be found throughout the game?
