I was sitting here drowning my sorrows in cordial when I came up with an idea. Thieves can backstab with edged weapons - why can't they blackjack people with blunt weapons? I mean think about it; a thief equips a club or mace, hides in the shadows, runs up behind a mercenary band's mage and clubs him over the head, doing normal damage and knocking him unconcious for 1d(thief's level) rounds. The mage is effectively out of the fight and the thief's companions move in for the kill, confident they won't have some bastard stunning them or making them run around like headless chickens. Comments?

Totally agree with you there, Armisael. Backstab to me really represents a surprise attack by a thief on an unsuspecting opponent, and the damage multiples reflect the victim being taken by surprise.

I believe that this has been addressed in 3rd Ed, where backstab is now called something like "Sneak Attack" or something, and thieves will be able to use any weapon to do it.

I have always been thinking that one main use of a thief's backstab is to kill or disable someone very softly, even in the middle of a crowd. The victim then just falls down silently. Seems to me that a dagger is a much more efficient weapon to do that. Bashing people over the head is much less likely to stay unnoticed.
My AD&D 3 thief is allowed to 'sneak attack' with his dagger, but not with his short sword. I do not know about blunt weapons though.

Moiraine - off topic, I tried to get into this really cool Sydney photos website but my connections really slow tonight, I'll try again tomorrow morning at work and post some photos for you!

Not necessarily true, Moiraine. Stabbing someone in the back tends to produce a lot of blood and screaming. Ever play Thief?

Memnoch, thanks !
The weather is so cold and snowy here that I really need a picture from the other side of the world to keep me from freezing !

Armisael, the thief is my favourite character to play with, maybe I have a 'romantic' image of thieves in my mind (women do that sometimes !), but it seems to me that a real good thief would know exactly the exact point on the body of the victim to aim at in order to perform a instant and silent kill. It seems quite true from the heap of Fantasy books I have read, at least. Then I am not that much of a thief in real life, so ...

Well, think about it realistically.
A third level thief sneaks through a large estate. She's just stolen a priceless piece of jewellery and is about to make her escape when not a meter in front of her, a door opens. Light pours out, and the lady of the house emerges, candle in hand. Luck is on the thief's side, and the woman turns her back to the thief and heads down the corridor. Now, the thief may or may not have the nerve to actually kill someone, but her top priority is escaping the manor undetected. All the estate's windows are barred, and the only exit is the door downstairs. The thief knows that if she trails the noblewoman from a distance there's a chance she'll be able to slip past without being seen, but there's a fairly high risk behind that, so she has two choices - use her dagger and slit the woman's throat, or use her blackjack to knock her unconscious. Consider what could happen. She's third level - there's a good chance she'd miss a critical point with the dagger and the woman would scream, and she can't gag her with a hand, because the woman has a candle in front of her; she'd see the thief in her peripheral vision. In any case, if a body was found, especially the body of a noble, there could be guards all over the city by the next morning, so there's a good chance the thief would have to skip town in the same night. In this scenario, which might be fairly typical for a thief, it'd be easier and far less risky to simply disable the noblewoman rather than kill her.

OK, OK, I give up !

One thing though. As I play a Gnome thief, I would need a very long club or hammer to bash a regular-sized person much higher than on his butt, and as my little Gnomy hasn't got the strength to carry his own rope anyway, the situation you described could be quite tricky for him ...

Well in ADOD 3 ed you can sneak attack with all simple and martial weapons and even with bows and xbows, it is the attack of oppotunity against an enemy letting his guard down for example flatfooted or flanked, if a thief wihish to do so he can use a blunt weapon and even a blackjack or cudgel to deal out subdual damage knocking someone uncunsious.
And yes, it´s annoying not to be able to secretly sneak in and knocking people unconsious and get XP for it, I mean if you are a good thief you might have problem with killing everyone but a gready player wants XP and thus knocking unconsious(beware my mighty spelling ) becomes useless..
I think that a good thief should get more XP´s for not killing an enemy. Every fool can die or kill, but only a master can disarm or take out an opponent with harming him!

Yer kidding me? I don't think you ought to get EP for blackjacking someone, but it should take them out of the entire fight. You'd end up killing them anyway, so EP shouldn't really be an issue... should it? Anyway, thieves are supposed to be more concerned with wealth than power.
And yeah, I can see how that might be a problem, Moiraine... heh. Then again, how would you go about backstabbing? Jab them in the thigh?

Where do you find this 3rd ed rule? I know much about the 2nd, but not the third. Is it going to be in bg3??

And I agree that you should have options in how you backstab. You could either go for a direct kill and slit the victims throat with a dagger, and the victim must save vs death at -4 or be killed. If a saving throw is made, you should make x2 or x3 in damage. Or if you chose to knock the victim with a club, the victim should be unconscious unless the victim wears a helmet.

Just a thought.

I cannot understand why anyone who is invisible or hidden doesn't get some kind of bonus. I often turn a fighter invisible to have him setup ready to strike. If he can walk all around in full plate unnoticed till he becomes visible( attacks etc) then why can he not poke his opponent in the throat with a dagger or what not. This has always been a point of annoyance to me.Well that and critically missing an opponent ive made asleep or unconcious. " OHHHHHH take the sword out of the scabbard and THEN wack him ..... DUHH?!?!?

Well, I think one should get XP for nonkilling confrontations, it´s not the death of an opponent who triggers the learning but the fight, the environment the way its done.
For example, a thief gets experience when picking a lock, shouldn´t he just be satisfied with the treasure inside it? Nope, a task that depending on how difficult it is to break the lock, pick it, smah it for a fighter determines the degree of trouble and XP´s the encounter situation is worth.
In the roleplaying world of DoD all games including CRPG´s it is easier to kill your opponent then to disarm him, knock him unconsious i.e a character has to use more strategies to sneak past seven fire elementals than to bring in all the party to throw icestorms and killing the poor buggers, yep, they don´t stand a chans later on in th games..
But well, it might be really hard to trigger this in BG games.

Oh, I see where yer coming from. But yer last sentence was right, it's very hard to incorporate an experience system based upon loose factors, and even moreso in a CRPG.

Eh? Wahts that suppose to mean? Is it my very nice spelling eh? LOl
Well sorry if I can´t make myself understood but I do try!

No, not putting down your spelling...
...it might be really hard to trigger this in BG games.
I was agreeing with that. It'd be nice to gain experience based on something other than how many corpses you've managed to produce, but tough to implement into a CRPG.

Eh ok, what did you mean with "Oh, I see where yer coming from" then?? Excuse a slow Swede ok?

As in "I understand what you're saying."

Come to think of it Armisael, backstabbing is very serious. In fact, the opponents should be already knocked down unconscious or even, dead. I don't play thief, maybe never, maybe a swahsbuckler. All i know is that the thief should have this setting open on how to backstab? If it is for slitting someone's throat or only knocking them unconscious.

Oh, heh Ok, ..

Well has anyone checked out the 3:rd ed rules yet?
I have and I like them. And well thosse old monsterbooks have been very useful in the game too.. Thats cheating hehe..