I'm creating a thief - Which one?

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Well, here´s the deal. I want to try a thief this time but I don´t know wich one´s the best.
Assassin can coat his weapons with poison.
Bounty Hunter can set those extreme trap thingies.
Swashbucklers are - if you ask me - kinda equal to fighter/thiefs. And I don´t want to be a Swashbuckler.
Is the ordinary thief better than the thief kits in your oppinion?
And if I make a thief it´s probably gonna be a human, and after a while I´m gonna dual him. To what?
Give me some tips about how you would have done.
thx!

 

I think you should create an assasin, then dual it to a mage at level 12...or so. It will be extremely powerful.

 

I feel tempted to suggest a human dualclassed fighter-thief (lvl-9 fighter (or even 6 )/ *-thief)

But how about a nice multiclassed halfling fighter-thief? A great char - he will be a pretty good fighter in the end, especially with ranged weapons and due to his race boni and hight dex a very good thief as well, though still weaker than a dc char. Additionally he'll have better savingthrowas compared to a human char. Great class to play, I really liked it.

I'm not that much a thief-kit fan - I prefer fighter-thiefs for they better match my playing style

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited July 10, 2001).]

 

ok, then Ragusa. May I ask you why you made that - "Why thieves rule"?

It was that text that made me want to play as a thief.

 

I would choose a Swashbuckler, multicallsed to a mage... But you have to read the kit-descriptions and then choose what fits you most.

 

Game fun for me is also directly connected with my chars survivability - I hate reloads. I am impatient and I tend to play agressive (so probably I'm a powergamer) and an ordinary pure thief isn't made for that. I also like to have my main char at the front line (he's a hero for gods sake )- bad place for a pure thief.

But primarily they *are* thiefs and steal everything that's mobile and loot whole Atkathla I just like to be able to defend myself. I have also played pure thiefs through BG-1 and I really enjoyed it.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited July 10, 2001).]

 

When I first got bg2, I tried playing as a thief. But I gave him up because I wanted him to be more powerful than the others in my party
Will he become - in any way - better than the others?
I´m gonna bring Korgan,Minsc,Edwin,Viconia.
And perhaps someone else...

 

You ask strange questions today Zaragoth ... well: a dc fighter thief just like a mc fighter-thief will, if played carefully, dominate fights. If not in terms of AC and damage caused in open fight he will *rule* by backstabbing and as a bowfighter and trap-disarmer & scout. He can *organise* proper armor for the party tanks early in the game and so on ... a thief is a very *valuable* addition to a party.

 

The character statistics about how many you killed, and how much percent of XP you got for the party don't say anything, look for example at the info of your mage, his percentage of killings/XP isn't high, but without a mage, the game would be very hard.

 

I've played the kits and like the assassin a bit (he just seems cool), but the straight thief rules in my opinion. As has been pointed out, you don't want him just hanging around on the front line trading blows, but if you like the "hit hard and fade" tactics, the straight thief is without equal.

Bounty hunter is ok if you like to dink about with traps - it *is* kind of fun to lay out a string of traps and lure the bad guys into them one at a time. You will need to rest him kind of a lot though. Swashbuckler I just don't get - backstab is our friend so I think I'd go with some sort of f/t dual or multi instead. As mentioned assassin is cool, but I would think you would want to max out the stealth abilities ASAP so you won't have enough points left over for other needed skills. Maybe the assassin would be better to play if you also include Jan in your team to pick up the slack.

The straight thief, though has tons of useful skills and is more than sufficient to take out just about anything BGII can throw at you. My solo thief is thriving with C Fury and Firetooth (and Gesen Bow as backup). He has an assortment of useful staves to summon elemental cannon fodder and all the cool tools he really needs to finish up. Watch out Bhodi - you're next on the list.

 

Break with the crowd, friend.

I've played around with the thief kit and dualing, too. I started with assassin, dualed at 11 (it was just to far to get to 12, not worth it for the 4x vs. 3x backstab) and dualed to, get this, fighter.

You get lower hit points, but a great thac0 after you level out. Mage Menace.

Overall, a good character. With sufficient rings, traps and locks were not a problem, boots or robe to walk in silence, then pour 150 points into hiding in shadows. Or stand back and poison everyone with short bow and poison arrows. I love that jerky poison dance.

Let's say you want a well-rounded character. If I start over, here's my plan.

Dual swashbuckler to priest.

That's right. Pirate gets religion.

I'm seeing a swashbuckler, dual-wielding crom and mace of undead-pudding, running through lines of vampires, golems; the pirate from the rum commercials with a cross around his neck, yo-ho-ho and a Bible to thump.

I'm not sure what level to dual. Immediate dual is not bad, but if you go to 10, then you get the extra AC and Thac0 bonus.

Human Swashbuckler/Priest. That's my call for an interesting thief.

 

Well, why not?
Swashbuckler might well become a priest of Umberlee or Tymora.

Best choice for a thief is pure class thief.
Only disadvantage - being called a thief, thats why people play asassins, name sounds cool.

 

I´m gonna play as a thief anyhow. thx for all the answers.
And by the way - assassin doesn´t sound cool. They are the ones doing the most dirty work of the rouges in the world, right?
Ragusa: Yes, it´s pretty odd questions that I ask - but it´s the sort of question that gives many good answers that , I think, could be good to know of. I got what I needed to know and I thank you people.
thx.

 

well I never tried it but a kensai later dualled to a thief might be interesting, using his kai ability together with a x3 or even a x5 backstab might proove lethal, however that no armor no bracer penalty of a kensai troubles me still...Furthermore, I would not recommend a bounty hunter because his set traps percentage is still very low despite his bonus (unless you buy the mercykiller ring) and there is no other advantage besides his traps, I would not choose a swashbuckler because, since I love backstabbing, he is useless to me (I would choose a fighter instead), but I still have no opinion on the assasin, never tried it actually...nevertheless if you like backstabbing like me try the ranger kit stalker....

 

It kind of seems like there are killer thieves, and utility thieves. A killer thief concentrates on sneaking skills so they can backstab better. In this category, there are the assassin, fighter/thief, and mage/thief types. The utility thief takes care of traps, finds/removes traps, and maybe picks a pocket or two. The swashbuckler is good in this category, or a plain thief. If you want both sets of skills you want a plain thief, or a mage/thief that uses invis for backstabs. A bounty hunter puts lots of points in set traps, and then can be decent in some other skills.

I'm no thief expert, I tend to use my thieves for utility purposes, as these are safe and easy to use. Backstab seems to need a good exit strategy, or you get immediately swarmed. If I was to do a backstab thief, I would probably go with a mage combo for the stoneskin, prot spells, improved invis, etc. or a fighter combo for the extra hitpoints and thaco.

Interesting idea for a game. A friend of mine had a lot of fun in a campaign where they just had a halfling fighter/thief and a gnome illusionist/thief in their party (in PnP game). This could be done by either creating a multi-player game or by doing the single-player and only taking Jan in your party. Might be a fun combination for people into thieving.

 

> cathon:
<snip>
> I'm no thief expert, I tend to use my
> thieves for utility purposes, as these
> are safe and easy to use. Backstab seems
> to need a good exit strategy, or you get
> immediately swarmed.

If you give your thief a good pair of speed-boots, he can usually (95% of the time, maybe) backstab then high-tail it for the shadows out of sight of the remaining bad guys to re-hide. Then he applies another backstab and repeats as needed. For the *few* times that the speed-boots fail to get you out of harm's way quickly enough, I recommend keeping a ring of invisibility and several potions of the same as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

[This message has been edited by Trunculo (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

I have another question about thiefs. If you dual FROM a thief to a fighter, will you gain 5 points in the weapon slots? hm...
What I mean is - First, as a thief, you get to choose some slots. And, if you dual to a fighter can you put more points in weapons and still have them when you regain your thieving abilities?
thx.


[This message has been edited by Zaragoth (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

Yes, if you dual over from a thief to a fighter you can put more points in slots. I'm not totally sure if you are limited to mastery or not. I remember from some where that only a pure fighter can obtain grant mastery (5 stars) in a weapon. I know it's true for multi-class but I'm not sure for dual class.

Try it and let me know.

 

I dualed from swashbuckler to fighter
=superior armour class
and it worked allright with the proficiensies.

 

Bounty Hunters, My Favoritest Characters
by ArtEChoke, kindergarden

I never got into the dual character craze myself, and the bounty hunter was my favorite character that I've played through with. They are sort of interesting in that they are pretty good straightforward thieves, and extremly tactical fighters (I will explain this).

The bounty hunter is great for ambushing enemies early on in the game because his extra "special" traps do straight damage, and interestingly enough he seeminly gets weaker in that respect later on with the strange "otliduke's resilient sphere" traps, etc, which your enemies usually save against. Once he gets to 20th level though he's just unbelievable because you're opponents don't get a save against the maze traps, and apparently no magic resistance check either (I used this to a fantastic advantage against mindflayers, to fight with fewer of the buggers at a time).

Anyway, to the tactical aspect, no he's not a front-line fighter, in the slightest bit. He'll get hacked to bits by just about anything in the game. They are, however, darn stealthy, and when you get the "cloak of non detection" he can't be nailed by those pesky "true sight" spells, etc (ok all this is true for any thief) So you keep him moving ahead (way ahead) of the group constantly, so you always know what's up ahead, you rarely walk into a situation unprepared. Go in, see what the competition is, retreat back to the rest of the group, if the enemies are really serious (like say mind flayers or heck - dragons) set up a skirmish line of traps (the painful ones) outside the site range of the enemy, with your fighters beyond and lure the bad guys through (an arrow is usually good enough). If you do it right they'll get really blown to bits by the traps and your fighters can demolish the now weakened and diminished group with much less difficulty.
Heck just for kicks in all the chaos you can slip in a backstab just to not feel left out of the action.

Setting up the traps staggered down a tight hallway is usually effective, or if its a hallway leading to an open room, laying the traps in a V shape pointing at the door is good. Both these ways, one enemy won't set off all the traps, and as the guys die, the next fellow in line should get nailed by the next couple of traps as he steps past his dead pals.

I have a ton of fun setting up the ambushes.

A hysterical solo tactic I used (I didn't play solo, just every single other character got brain-drained ) was to lure an enemy into a maze trap, and while he was mazed drop normal damage traps where he was going to pop back in... very, very ugly results.

Anyway I see them as a really great flexible survival character.

(SPOILER)

When I ran into the mind flayers beneath the temple district, I tried to set up an ambush using summoned fire elementals to slow down the flayers in a hallway, which was catastrophically miscalculated. They killed the fire elementals unbelievable fast, and quickly paralyzed the whole party (including the bounty hunter, but he was hiding in the shadow... lucky). In about 3 seconds they killed everybody 'cept for the bounty hunter.

Using strike and fade tactics I killed all the flayers, the ullitharids and their umber hulk thugs, without taking a scratch (admitedly he got lucky a bunch of times - for example he got an umber hulk alone and backstabbed it into mush). In the hallway between two rooms I repeatedly set a couple of traps, and would sneak into the room where the flayers were, backstab one and run like hell down the hallway (I was using the boots of speed), usually the whole mob of em would follow and a couple would get tagged by the trap, the backstabbed one almost always dying at that point. Took a half hour but I got all of em (the 5 or 6 from that one room, that is, not the whole flayer dungeon), and he was able to ressurect all the fallen comrades with the rod of ressurection which was on Nalia's corpse.

(er.. END LONG WINDED SPOILER)

Anyway that was my finest bounty hunter moment.