i'm quite new to BG2 and was wondering how good the thief is to play. ATM i have a swashbuckler with
STR:18
DEX:18
CON:18
INT:8
WIS:8
CHA:11

he dual wields short swords

what are other people views on a good thief (ie. stats, weapons, single/dual wield, etc)

Swashies are awesome. I love mine. He kicks a lot of arse. [img]smile.gif[/img]

If you want an awesome weapon, try the katana Celestial Fury. It's well worth it.

ok i'll try that katana [img]smile.gif[/img] another thing..if i was going to have a thief/mage using a bow would i be better to dual-class or multi-class, why?

ok, decided to start a new game (And finish it fot the first time) as a swashbuckler, dual wielding katanas and a short bow for group ranged attacks.

Dual wielding katanas isnt too good of an idea, as there is only one good katana in vanilla SoA. if you have ToB, youll get another good one. Instead of dual wielding katanas, try one katana and then something like

a longsword, plenty of good LS's out there
a scimitar, one really fast scimitar out there
a short sword, you wont run out of these

it is, of course, ultimately youre choice

Don't forget to have high INT, if you want to dual to a mage.. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

If you're still planning to dual to a mage, get the bonus merchants add-on. I know you can definately download them as an official mod, they might also come in certain game patches, not sure. In any case, one of the new merchants will sell you The Katana for cross-class mages that dual wield katanas: Dak'kons Zerth Blade. If you want to be part swashy, then you will have to be human and start as a pure thief (swashbuckler). You will then need to dual to a mage at some point. When creating your character, make sure you set it up so it's possible to dual later. Read your manual to check these but from my memory this is what you will need. Human, minimum 15 dexterity, minimum 18 intelligence and NOT be Lawful-Good. I would give stats something like this

str 13
dex 18
con 15
wis 10
int 18
cha 10

That requires 84 stat points when rolling, which is a good average roll. If you want to keep rolling to get more points, put the extras into strength and take con up to 16. For a thief/mage there is no point making con more than 16, you don't need much from charisma or wisdom either. You might also want to drop your charisma to 8 for some extra points on strength, I recomend getting it as high as you can, but intelligence and dexterity are the most important.

For proficiency points, put them in dual-wielding, katanas and long or short swords. Take a bow if you want, but remember you can't have any ranged weapon in a quick weapon slot while you're dual wielding, so you'll have to keep swapping over (and if you have the Zerth Blade I mentioned above, taking it out of your hand means losing all the bonus spells it gives you). As a thief mage, stealth and speed are your best weapons, and use magic missiles etc instead of a bow.

The only other thing to consider is dual-classing. Whenever you choose to change to mage class, you won't ever get higher as a thief. For this reason you might want to consider a different race (half-elf, maybe halfling but I can't think if they can be mages) and being a multiclass Mage/Thief. The advantage is that you will be able to keep advancing in both classes. The disadvantage is that you won't be able to choose the swashy kit you wanted, and levelling up will be a little slower (but dual-classing will put you right back to level 1 mage with thieving disabled for a while, so it's a toss-up).

[ 01-26-2003, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: karlosovic ]

At the moment i'm soloing a level 26 assassin with single weapon, katana and short bow prof's and using the Celestial Fury +5 (with the item upgrade mod) and all i can say is DAMN this guy kicks ass. He took down the shadow dragon and firkaag as easy as pie with his traps (he was about level 14 at the time i think) and with his backstab he can do 150 to 200 damage easy. Thieves are so much fun to play

Since other folks brought up the dual class cheese...

Try a Swashbucker/Cleric. It looks as if it would be a lot of fun. No bladed weapons sure, but, plenty of good things a thief could use besides those. Backstabbing is possible with staves, in ToB there is the Staff of the Ram. There is a staff that's a bit like Celery Fury as well, the Staff of Thunder and Lightning. It stuns nicely. Or, dual wield clubs as a thief and get two *s.

Note to self. I still need to get my Assassin/Cleric Idea off of the drawing board and try it out. So much potential CHEESE!

Do not dual a Swashbuckler to a Mage. In the end, all you will get is a regular mage with some puny Combat bonuses which your mage will rarely ever be able to make use of anyway. A Swashie does not get the Kensage's Grand Mastery, neither does he get his Fighter THAC0 or his ApR, and the AC bonus will be quite pointless since your mage will never otherwise get a decent AC to begin with. Don't get me wrong, a Swashbuckler is an amazing kit, but he only begins to truly shine at higher levels, so you must let him develop in peace. He can later on, if you have ToB, gain the ability to read mage scrolls, so for those really difficult or critical fights, you WILL still be able to use arcane spells, without the need to dual. He also misses out on Backstab, which is usually one of the main reasons to combine a Mage with a Thief.

If you want a Thief/Mage, it'd be better to get a regular Thief, or possibly even an Assassin or Bounty hunter. Those will at least get 5x Backstab and potentially some other abilities you can make use of.

[ 01-26-2003, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

this is a good point, and a problem with most of the npc thieves in SoA. In my opinion you should never dual-class from a thief, only ever dual-class to thief (if you want part thief). The reason for this is that you never want a thief to stop gaining levels. Other classes are useful to have a few low levels in, but thieves are never 'complete'. There are always more skills you will want. with 7 skills that you will want all over 100 to be really effective, and gaining a maximum of 25 skill points per level (plus a few points on creation), you will probably be level ~27 before all your skills are up to the point you want them. if you're part mage, you won't want ring/gauntlet spots taken up with thief enhancing items. Generally I would say keep all thieves pure class, unless you start with a few levels of fighter... or else multiclass, but this will mean no thief kits and slow level-ups with a full party of 6.

Thieves are nice... But, with the exception of traps, their skills really have no use at all in the bigger picture. Locks? Easy. Bash them. There are strength potions aplenty. Need I mention Crom Faer? Also, Knock, level 2 mage spell. Traps? Use the clerical spell Find Traps and either avoid them, or, use mirror image, spell turning, spell trap, or spells like shield of the archons or death ward to avoid their effects.

Now, for the traps alone, I think a thief is worth it. And maybe a bit of pick pocketing. The other skills? Pheh. A waste of time.

Although detecting illusion can be handy... But once again, there are spells and skills that take care of that as well.

also i would download the improved thief stronghold. the thief stronghold kinda sucks otherwise

I don't know.. backstabing with a staff? Im afraid im going to have to vote for him to multiclass to a mage, therefor he can use Celestial Fury but and he can also cast spells.. though it WOULD be cool to have a healer thief.. i don't know though, i would just miss the classic blade backstabbing.

I've been thinking about this a little (requires ToB installed).

Step one: Import figher from BG1 with 19 strength and dex
Step two: Make the fighter a Kensai
Step three: Advance to L25 as a Kensai
Step four: Dual class to a thief
Step five: Advance to L27 as a thief

If you choose your path carefully, you will have grandmastery in two handed swords, use any item, carsomyr +5, +9 hit/dam from kensai

This should make for a character able to do some pretty neat backstabs ;)

*SPOILER*
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With watchers keep, it's also possible to get +1 to primary stat AND +1 to every other stat. So we should have a char with either 21str/20dex or 20str/21dex depending upon when you visit [img]smile.gif[/img]

Also, because of the thief use any item ability, you can do some amazing things [img]smile.gif[/img]

To bad no back stabbing with two handed swords. Major flaw in that plan.

You can only backstab with weapons allowed by the thief kit or weapons usable by thieves. No backstabbing with the Staff of the Magi either.

Eek!

Never actually tried that, but I thought it might just work because of the use any item ability.

I did test that the thief could use carsomyr however, wondered why backstab didnt work :(

I was hoping to get 5*12 backstab multiplier (on max) for carsomyr rather than 5*10 for celestial fury [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Still, with grand mastery in shortswords and the shortsword of backstabbing... still pretty l33t [img]smile.gif[/img]

this might sound stupid, but how do you backstab, and should i pick an assassin instead of a swashbuckler for it?

another thing, how hard would it be to solo (or maybe 2, 3 max) with a pure thief?

You'd actually be best off dualling the character from a Kensai as described above.

Soloing as a thief isnt too bad because of your hide in shadows ability and backstab, this makes it possible to pick and choose your fights. Could be trickier on the tougher enemies, but thats what traps are for [img]smile.gif[/img]

As for the choice between assassin/swashbucklers...

Assassins are THE best at backstabbing because they can multiply the basic damage by *7, rather than the standard thief *5. Swashbucklers cannot backstab at all :(

To backstab, hide in shadows and walk up BEHIND a enemy. Then attack as normal. 'Tis that simple.

Note: Only your first strike gets the damage and hit bonus's of a backstab.

thieves can use their skills all day. and do you really want all your mages spell slots taken up with knock ? or your cleric loaded with find traps ?(well maybe, there's a severe lack of lvl 2 priest spells worth memorising). Do you really want to waste Shield of the Archons avoiding a trap ? Adding in their ability to stealth and scout ahead, or backstab, or lay traps... isn't it worth having a character who can do all that AND infinitely find/disarm traps and pick locks ?

The point is, every job a thief does IS possible by at least 1 other class/kit... but when you have them all-in-one and unlimited use with a thief, why limit your other characters options ?

Thieves are great, and, good fun and all. My point is, thieves are the least needed class. Nalia works just fine for the most part, easily filling the role. Or Imoen. Depending on who I am bringing with me depends on if I memorize Knock or not. If I can bash the lock, so be it. If I have several mages, one of them memorizes a few Knocks. My Cleric's level 2 spell slots are as follows. Slow Poison, Flame Blade, Silence, Find Traps, Resist Fire. (Flame Blade is actually pretty handy for some situations)

I like thieves actually, Bounty Hunters being tops on my list. Assassins are fun. I like Bounty Hunters more from a roleplaying standpoint, although in BG an Assassin fits the bill as well. Swashies are fun, but, if I want to dual wield and make mass kills, I use a Blade :D

Blade as in a Bard kit?

Yes.

actually my thief of choice would be either a fighter->thief dual class or a halfling fighter/thief multiclass. While the thief kits give some nice abilities, thief is a class with the most abilities already and I'd rather keep the standard ones and +25 skill points each level. That being said... I'm currently experimenting with a halfling fighter/thief that I've hacked to give the assassin kit. So far, I'm not overly impressed with poisoned traps. being slightly limited in points by the assassin kit, I've maxed out stealth and now working on setting traps ability. find traps and lockpicks will be next, I've got nalia (and minsc) with me for the meantime.

Swashbuckler's can't backstab, so if you want to backstab pick another kit.

Oddly enough, my view is quite to the contrary: You should only Dual to a Thief if you want Use any Item and the Traps. The Thief is a wonderful class to Dual from, as you can quite easily get 100% (or close to it) in all the skills you want in only a few levels. Look at Imoen: She's got 100% Locks and 95% Traps, the only two Thief skills that are really vital to a party, and she's only Level 7! Give her some Boots of Stealth and the Mercykiller Ring and she can actually Stealth for you, too. (She certainly doesn't need any other equipment.) Now, let's pretend that Imoen didn't Dual until Level 15, and was a Swashbuckler to boot. That's why the Swashbuckler->Mage kicks butt. I know it's been dissed earlier in this thread, but come on: You don't miss out on a single bit of Mage power, you get EXP for all the Locks & Traps you find, plus you get a -4 bonus to AC and a -3 bonus to THAC0, and you can put 2 stars in melee weapons that you couldn't even use as a straight Mage! Sure, you can't Backstab, but you completely own every other Thief skill there is, and you won't even need equipment to do it.

Other considerations:
Assassin->Fighter. Sure, you've got the hitpoints of a Thief.....but the THAC0 of a Fighter. Hoooooo boy!
Swashbuckler->Fighter. Same hitpoint problem, but the AC and THAC0 bonuses might just be worth it. I've never heard of this class being done, but it should be quite interesting.

Well, like I said before. backstab is one of the main reason why you want to dual to a mage, so you can take advantage of the Mislead + Backstab combo. A Swashbuckler completely misses out on this, and for a mage, the rather puny combat bonuses added by a low level Swashbuckler definitely doesn't outweigh that. That's why any other sort of thief is a better choice.

A Swashbuckler/Fighter would be more interesting, though ultimately, I think a pure Swashie or even a multiclassed Fighter/thief would be better off, and that without the pain of playing an extremely low lvl fighter for a while.

I mentioned yesterday that I was trying out the Assassin for the first time, but so far I wasn't impressed with poisoned weapons.
Well now I need to take it back. Right out of Chateau Irenicus my halfling assassin/fighter cleared out all the trolls on level 1 of Nalia's keep on his own with a longsword +1. All on the first hit.

1. poison the blade & drink potion of speed, 2. hide, 3. backstab, 4. run away from other trolls, 5. goto step 2

I never realised poison could kill trolls, thought it was only fire and acid. The bonus of poison and potions of speed is this. You can backstab and run away out of sight before you're spotted. 'leaving shadows' seems to take a while, long enough to get away unseen, and the poison takes effect so you only need 1 hit with a backstab.

Sixofspades, I see what you're saying about dualing from thief, but I guess I'm just lamenting Nalia and Imoen sucking in the roles I want from my thief. I guess you probably could build your own thief->dual character with a particular role in mind, but I like to have ALL the options available to a thief. That's why I now alternate between Jan Janson, and using the multiplayer trick to create my own NPC thieves everytime I play. Jan is the only thief NPC in the game worth spending the time to develop, and he is good but has a few flaws I don't ALWAYS want to deal with.
1. he's a multiclass, so he's levelling slower. to be fair, he has his cool gear to boost all his skills while you wait for them to develop.
2. being part mage makes him a great 2nd spellcaster, pity about his lack of necromancy and again we have him levelling up slowly.
3. you don't always feel like dealing with his personality. like all comedians, it was funny the first time...

What´s the best armour for a thief? Is it the shadowdragon armour?

Yes, though there is a leather armor with -2 AC available early on in ToB if you have it.

If you're gonna hack a kit for your Multiclassed character, why not Swashbuckler instead of Fighter? Talk about ouch.

Jan, like all characters (both yours and BioWare's), has his bonuses and drawbacks. Sure, he's Multiclassed, which slows down his Thief skills and his spell progression, but you don't need a full Thief; half a Thief is plenty, provided you've got Locks and Traps covered early on--which Jan does. Where Multiclassing really pays off is when Jan starts getting High-Level-Abilities every time he blows his nose: All told, he's going to get a total of 19 HLAs, whereas a straight Thief or Bard would get 17. Subtract the 6 or so HLAs you'll want to spend on his Mage abilities, and that means 13 Spike Traps per day, plus 9th-Level spells.

There's nothing wrong with having a backup spellcaster, I've found it works quite well. By the time Nalia can cast Pierce Magic, Jan can finish casting Breach a second afterward, allowing you to demolish Dragons and the like twice as quickly. It is indeed a shame that Jan can't cast Animate Dead or Abi-Dalzim's, but Mordy's Sword and Dragon's Breath should be....(ahem) adequate. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Getting tired of his quips is something common to all NPCs (and, in fact, all games), so listing it as one of his drawbacks is rather unfair. The fact that he's Neutral means he complains when the party hits 20 Rep., but hey, I'd sure rather listen to Jan than Jaheira or Anomen.

An interesting combo I tried a while ago was dual-classing a level 9 Anti-Paladin (new class from the Tactics mod) to a thief. Once he got his Anti-Paladin abilities back, he was a terrifying thing for Mages to face; backstabbing with the ability to dispel effects on hit, which made a mockery of magical protections, and a true sight that worked even while hidden in the shadows. With his fighter background, he could tank too (YAY for a helmet!) and was a fair shot with a crossbow. Nastiest of all, he was a grandmaster in Longswords. All in all, a neat character.

Tanc

I'll vote for having a multi-class Mage/Thief. One of my all-time favorite characters.

The HLA's aside (which are great, btw), you can free up any slots you might have used on Invisibility & True Sight (Detect Illusions is highly underrated, IMO - dispel Invis, Mirror Image, Project Image [not that monsters ever use that, but...], Mislead, etc.).

You have a very good back-up spellcaster who can fight & use shortbows - plus, only "half" a character used up being a Thief.

XP for Disarming Traps & Opening Locks (as opposed to setting them off & bashing) adds up very quickly (not to mention an extra scriber).

Use Any Item overcomes any Mage-equipment handicaps.

OK, I said HLA's aside, but... you can keep adding Traps after all the useful Mage abilities are gone. Plus, the Thief side levels up very quickly, & you can add Mage HLA's even when you level up as a Thief.

Stoneskin... Hide In Shadows... go Backstab... fun, fun, fun! [img]smile.gif[/img]

You won't need to use ring-slots for Thief items since your Thief abilities will keep improving.

Simulacrum... is a source of much enjoyment (hey... let's *both* go backstabbing! then I'll cast FireShield while you Sunfire).

- Imrahil

Mage/Thieves are wickedly fun.

Mislead = Backstab infinately = Tell the mayor I said... OUCH! (A cookie if you know the movie ref)

You can totally ignore hiding in shadows if you wish, just use spells to compensate.

So much fun, so many kidneys, so little time [img]tongue.gif[/img]

hey six, did you mean hack it to have 2 thief kits ? I wanted the assassin half because I've never tried the poison ability, but otherwise I was just after a fighter/thief (for the strongholds) that would keep levelling as a thief. a human dual can't choose a kit for their second class, so either way I was gonna have to hack it.

Speaking of Jan, I wasn't running him down, Jan is a great character. I was just saying I didn't always want to use the same characters, but I do always want to have a thief. I think in a city with the HQ and a sub-branch of large thief guild, there would be more selection of thieves available for hire, so I enjoy making my own sometimes.

Karlosevic - I was about to do the same trick with the halfling f/t (assassin). I like Assassins anyway (my favourite kit by a long way) and I think that by only getting 15 points/level the interest will be kept for a bit longer (I find that due to rapid level ups that even single-class assassins get excellent abilities very quickly) - it might make me appreciate some of those items a bit more.

Ooops--no. When I said, "why not Swashbuckler instead of Fighter," what I meant was "why not Swashbuckler instead of Assassin." A Fighter/Thief with all the Assassin abilities would indeed be formidable, but a Fighter/Swashbuckler would quickly get all the way down to an AC of -25, and be second only to the Kensai and the Archer in terms of THAC0.

You actually can't use Shadowkeeper to hack yourself 2 kits, even 2 kits of the same class, but you can hack yourself a kit for your 2nd (Dual) class instead of your first. Hel-LO, Fighter->Assassin!

I, personally, will never use Mislead to Backstab. Attacking your enemy with a foe that they cannot detect is clearly abuse, and the only time I'll do it is just for kicks, and then I'll Reload and do it right.

And Butterfingers, it's "Main Office," not "Mayor." Hey, watch out, there's an uppity ■■■■■■ who's gonna hit you on the head with a shovel.....

I'm not sure that a Fighter/Assassin is that bad compared to a regular F/T.

The only additional abilities are poison and increased backstab bonus. I think that compares well for the loss in theiving points. I suppose once you start including HLAs things could get messy... (lots of chances to poison!)

I'm going to give it a go - just need to decide on whether it's a human dual-class or a multiclassed Halfling... either way many crossbow bolts will be fired.

Thoughts on the Fighter->Assassin and Fighter/Assassin:

1) Set Time Trap(s)
2) When triggered, Poison Weapon
3) Whirlwind if you've got it
4) Use Darts if you don't
5) All attacks in a Time Stop are Auto-Hits.
6) Bury the thing, I suppose