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 ]