Pure Thieves useless???

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I've noted several posts stating that a true Thief is a useless character. I of course am in total disagreement. So here's to the Thief!!!

Well, perhaps the statements found on this board are somewhat 'Icewind Dale' game specific. In IWD there aren't a lot of shops or NPC's to 'Steal' from as was the case in BG -which brings extra adventure to ones gaming experience. Either way the best suited for the job is... The Thief. No doubt this will be revived in BG2.

Also only a few true opportunities for 'Back Stabbing' exist in ICD. However there are a large amount of traps to find/disarm and locks to be picked in this game. Saving you party's asses from major damage time and time and time again throughout IWD! Courtesy of yours truly, the Thief!

As just mentiioned, you just cant explain the feeling you get when your high level thief delivers 60+ points of damage from a X5 or X6 BackStab baby! "Here ya go, special delievery..." only administered by a Thief!

How about Higher Lore ability than most classes? The Thief sure can help if you dont have a Bard and do like most by sacrificing the WIS stat points to boost the INT stat for your Mage!

In true AD&D fashion, a Thief is one of the best characters to choose from. Likewise many of the greatest Fantasy Novels written have had a main character as a... Thief. (Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Conan Series, Erlic Series etc.)

In BG do you recall who is partnered up with you first? A Thief, Imoen. Who can pump a boatload of arrows into some poor creature like few could in the entire BG game!

In IWD there are some special items for the Thief. Perhaps you recall a few of these?

Shadow Studded Leath +4,+30% Stealth,+20%
pierce/slash/fire/elect resistance
Thief Warrior Ring, +1 STR, +1 Attack/Round
Stealth Ring, +15% Stealth, Non Dectection
Shadowed Boots, +1 AC, + 15% Stealth
Perhaps you've found other assorted Weapons,
Girdles and the like just for Thieves.

My best Thief in the 3 games of IWD that I've played had the above items as well as a +4 Hammer Short Sword, +2THAC0 Missle Weapons necklace and ended the game with about 24% of the total party kills! Second only to my pure Fighter (nicknamed the 'Brain Killer' or the 'Brainer' for short) who had 48% in the same game.

So folkes, enjoy your pure THIEVES!!!

 

I second that! Thief is probably my favorite class. I even went so far as to play BG as a halfling thief, knowing that Iomen would be along for the ride. They made a ribald duo.

As for IWD, I found a good thief to be extremely valuable. e.g.--Did you notice that the three traps just outside the door of Yxonumei's lair didn't disarm after being tripped? What's more, they had some confusion magic attached. It would certainly be possible to do that fight without a thief around . . . but what a bitch.

 

Still not convinced, you can do all those things in IWD with a fighter/thief and use any weapon and any armour. IWD does not punish you like BG for switching - even in melee; and I never found a trap I couldn't disarm nor a chest I couldn't open - didn't even need a potion of perception or master thievery. BG was much more thief-o-centric.
Still, if thieves are your bag, play 'em - enjoy.

 

I admit to being one of the people on these boards who has been saying that single-classed thieves are useless. When I said that, I did mean in Icewind Dale, and not in all of AD&D.

This is not to say I don't like thieves... I really do. They are some of the most skilled and interesting character types around, but unfortunately Icewind Dale doesn't supply enough reason to have a dedicated thief in your party.

I mean, let's face it, disarming traps and backstabbing are probably the only abilities that can't be duplicated by another character class, so if you focus your skill points in stealth and Find/remove traps, even a multi-class thief will build these abilities quite rapidly.

In a multi-player game, with 3 characters in the party, I play a fighter-thief, who has turned out to be quite a powerful character, able to hit reliably from a distance with a bow, and stealth his way out of trouble when things get thick.

I sincerely hope BG2 will have more uses for the thief, because I do love playing them.

 

A thief is crappy! You can't use most weapons, or armor, and their lore rating is smaller than a bard, mage, cleric, or druid. Why not get a fighter\thief, pick a halfling, that way you get 19 dexterity and lots of skills for your thief area of expertise, and you get complete access to weapons and armor. So in other words, if you fail at thievery, you can always load and try again, or bash in the guys\gals skull! Now that is the way to go, you have choices. If you like pure thieves, thats fine with me, but in my opinion both rogue classes suck! (Especially bards!)

 

Well Taluntain, I share your feelings about powergamers... I don't dual-class my Ranger into a Cleric just so I can get druid spells, or do the same for my fighter into a conjurer to get badass specialist mage who can technically cast from any school of magic in the game.

In Baldur's Gate, I never dual-classed Imoen, because she was awesome as a thief, and her personality really didn't mesh well with a mage-class. When I play a party of adventurers, I always come to care about them, and try to play off their personalities, rather than racing through the game to finish it. When I created a multi-class Mage/Thief, it wasn't to powergame, because at that time I had no idea how useful/useless a thief could would be, I (and probably many others like me) just wanted that type of character class.

That said, I have to add that this isn't really a "role playing" discussion... the topic really focuses on how useful thieves are in Icewind Dale. There's no need to insult anyone's playstyle here, and tell them to "go play Diablo". Take it somewhere else.

 

I'm not saying anything about wether or not you're allowed to express your opinion. What you did, however, was a bit more than that.

Expressing your opinion would be to say something like, "I love pure thieves...and I think alot of people wouldn't play one just because they'd rather have a more powerful character, choosing powergaming over actual role-play-based decisions."

What you did was say, "All you powergamers should quit Icewind Dale and go play Diablo, if you're so interested in powergaming."

Yes, I exaggerated a little, but not much. Do you see the difference? Message boards are about expressing one's opinion.. however, ones that support flaming people who disagree with them, are message boards I (and most mature players) don't frequent for long.

Icewind Dale is a role-playing game, yes. But not everyone role-plays beyond building some characters, enjoying the story, and seeing what kindof cool items they can pick up along the way. Is it your place or mine to tell them not to do that.. that they should play some other game instead? No, absolutely not.

That was really my point in responding to you.

Oh, and by the way.. Diablo can be every bit the role-play experience Icewind Dale was... it just takes a bit more imagination since the dialogue isn't really interactive. It's not such a powergamers haven after all!

 

I rarely do this but, I must agree with Taluntain. You are being to critical, you can say just about anything on this board you want, its the whole point of forums. You don't want Taluntain to tell people what to do, yet you're telling him what to do. Second, I said thieves suck, you don't care when I voice my opinion, but when he voices his, the badgering begins, why is that?

 

thieves in a CRPG and in PnP are two different things. i think pure thieves are very useful in PnP, a good DM can find many interesting things for a thief to do.

with the exception of BG when you do get to the city of Baldurs Gate, there really is no use for a pure thief in a CRPG (i used a F/T for these tasks). i have always used a F/T or M/T, but when i read a post about Themed Parties, i decide to abandon my 4 character adventure and start a themed party after the Company of the Ring with a pure thief named Frodo. i'll post my party under that topic if anybody interested.

 

It's amazing how message board arguments can escalate, isn't it? Especially when people don't bother to actually stop and understand the entirety of the discussion.

I will grant you that I did tell him to "take it somewhere else", which was attempting to tell him what to do. I can't make excuses for that, and I did consider changing it after I posted the message, but I figured it was already up, so I'd leave it.

I don't care if you or Taluntain or anyone else say thieves suck or dual-class characters suck or whatever else. What I had a problem with was insulting someone because of their playstyle, which is an all-too-common practice on message boards.

I'm not trying to flame anyone here, or tell them not to express their opinions.. the platform for my argument is that I find it distasteful to insult people when stating such opinions, especially when it can so easily be avoided.

Now, I don't think insult was completely intended (due to Tal's 2nd post), and my response to him was an attempt to clear up what I was trying to say... this post here appears to be yet another attempt to clear that up. Perhaps one day soon people will understand.

 

Allow me to join your discussion.

What I think is everybody has a point:

- The Wretched is right stating that sometimes the message board can become the place where more experienced gamers (posters if it is not a CRPG forum) start to express their opinion in a very unpleasant manner and sometimes insult the less experienced ones.

- But Taluntain from what I have seen on the board in no way seems to be that type of person. He just expressed his regret on the point that a good roleplaying game turns to a powergame.

- What concerns those less experiences posters, if they get insulted by the type of things Taluntain writes, they are plain stupid and childish, so The Wrethced, don't worry about their poor souls.

- Now my opinion about the issue. I think that IWD is a bit too short to role-play it the whole way. Fallout 2 - yes. BG2 - yes. There was a game called Daggerfall - it was a whole world to live (although the graphics sucked). Those games I can play 5, 6 times without getting bored. IWD is too short and linear for it.

- About pure thieves. In IWD, NOT in AD&D, BG or elsewhere. After playing it for a while, I stopped using pure fighters - I think they are not that much of use. a Fighter/Thief is my primary front line fighter - so go F/T.

Well, that's it.

Cheers

 

Wow... you found pure fighters useless? I don't think I've ever heard anyone on any Icewind Dale message board ever say that.

With their weapon mastery, and just plain badass hitpoint levels, I never thought a fighter could be considered useless. In my party, the fighter was our backbone... without him, we could have lost many fights. Sure, towards the end, spellcasters started carrying alot of the weight, but to be honest, his 5-star Greatsword ability allowed him to chop through masses of monsters no matter the situation.

Perhaps you could talk more about your party, and the strategies you used? (Maybe in a different threat, so not to go too far off-topic with this one... err too late! Hehe).

 

there's nothing like a Dwarven Fighter w/ a Constitution of 19 weilding an axe.

 

Wow.

Thanks for the interesting discussion about our 'Thieving Class' likes/dislikes and other... subjects.

Nevertheless as with all games, from SEGA/Nintendo to 1st Person Shoot-em up to CDROM RPG's (I state this because, well.. the variety of X-Sided dice/paper and a few friends still stands on it’s ‘own’ ) -gaming is a personal experience that all kinds enjoy. Sometimes even together! Sometimes very differently.

Now back to Thieves... I believe the 'consensus' is they have a “GREAT” role in BG. A “FAIR” role in IWD (I of course am one of those (few?) who I.D. more with a class/character/personality and therefore “HIGHLY” enjoyed my Thieves in IWD as well) and hopefully a “GREAT” role in BG2 as well. The game designers for IWD seem to enjoy some classes more than others, Thieves definitely appear to be among them. Otherwise there would in no way be the amount of Traps, Locked Doors, Locked Chests, and areas to Stealthily scout in that we’ve found in IWD.

Yes of course the Thief has limitations. ALL classes do. In fact I can’t even remember anyone ever playing a true Druid or Bard character in the (/my old?) AD&D days. This was due to actual limitations and ‘preconceived’ limitations. But BG deserves some credit for designing highly visible characters around those classes.
For those who don’t value Thieves yet… play a game without one. No dual classing either. Then…. Then… we’ll see just how ‘desired’ a Thief is! After a few traps acid-roast your party you’ll convert to the ‘I LOVE THIEVES LIKE I LOVE MY MOTHER’ group. –you cant do without one!

So with mondo BG & IWD game design for skills called on by the Thief, Thief class Magical Items and a healthy respect of the class in general from a ‘wider’ viewpoint – again I say:

“ Here’s to the Thief!”

 

Hear! hear!

 

Well, what I am doing now is going though IWD as a Fighter/Mage/Cleric. Yes, no Thief.

I will not say anything more until I beat it, which I am fairly sure I will be able to do.

Btw, during my last time through IWD I never used backstab. It's just not my style.

 

First of all, I just wanted to point out that I made it through Baldur's Gate (completing probably 90% of the quests) with NO THIEF. I would usually get Ajanis or my character (18/75 STR) to bash chests open for me. There were a lot that I missed, but I believe I got most of the major items. There aren't THAT many traps in BG, a lot of them are avoidable, and the few that weren't I just sent a single character in to trigger it and suck up the damage.

However, when I got to Durlag's Tower in TOSC, I realized there was no way I could get through without a thief. There's just too many traps (remember the basement level that has like 15 floor traps in one room?). I went back and picked up Coren, but he was pretty low level as far as his skills went, and I had already done almost all the BG quests, so I couldn't build him up any. I eventually got past the tower, but it was tough.

Second, the cool thing about games like IWD and BG is that you can play any way you want to. Create a party of 6 evil dwarves if you like, it's your game, enjoy it however you please.
I have to laugh when I see people ripping on one class or another. I've seen people on this board dissing every class; fighter, thief, cleric, bard, mage, etc and for every one of those, there is another person saying how great that class is. The fact is, there are a lot of different classes, and what you get out of them depends on your style of gaming, and your understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your erstwhile adventurers.
I don't think any classes in BG or IWD are particularily weaker or stronger than any others, it's just how you play them.

Powergaming vs Roleplaying: Who says you have to have one style? In my opinion, if you stop and take your time to explore thoroughly, you will get the best of both worlds. You can find a lot of items and gain a lot of exp, so you will have powerful characters with cool stuff, but you will also have more of an opportunity to "role-play" your character.

I try to get my characters to be as strong as possible, but I put a lot into games, and try to get the most I can from it.
I have had a lot of fun playing Black Isle's masterpieces. And isn't that what it's really all about?

 

I don't really think anyone (okay, most anyone) is saying that thieves are completely useless, and should be left out of a party. The point is... is it worth it to devote an entire character slot to a pure thief?

My opinion is "No". Again, it's not because I hate thieves, in fact I love them... it's just that the game doesn't provide enough reason with it's quest design that you must have someone devoted to the thieving class. A fighter/thief, mage/thief, or other multi-class thief choice that you like is more than adequate to fill the position.

I sincerely hope that in BG2, they give you good reason to have a pure thief... just like I really hope that Imoen shows up to fill the position!