High level thief pointless?

rlterry

At what point is gaining levels as a thief pointless? I mean as far as skills are concerned. A thief and put more than one point into weapon proficiency... so you end up being just normal with a bunch of different weapons... And I would imagine that at a certain point thief abilities would get so high you wouldn't really notice anything.

SO i was thinking about a dual class thief/fighter or fighter/thief. But I can decide one what levels for each class. I tried a Assassin 6(??? i think) then dual-ed to a fighter. But it just seemed like a face palm starting all over again. And I then also noticed I could immediately throw the 4 starting points into 1 weapon versus only 2. So the game recognizes you're a higher level?

Does this work in reverse? I mean before I start all over I figured I could just ask.

So Basically if I rolled a zerker... got about 3 levels then dual-ed to a thief. Once getting a thief to level 4 and above, will the game let me put more than 1 point in weapons at level up since it recognizes "fighter in me"?

Rafael

No, you can only do this while gaining lvls as a fighter/kit
So you need to lvl till 9 as fighter/kit to get grandmaster (*****) in any weapon

bbear

I always think that mid range level thieves simply dont offer much to the party. At lower levels, they can satisfy lock picking and trap disarming. At mid levels, they can do fancy stuffs such as pickpocketing and preemptive backstabing, but they are overshadowed by powerful fighters and rising mages. However, at high levels, they begin to shine again w/ HLA. Use Any Item and Spike Traps are what define the epitome of thieves.

ZanathKariashi

Plain thieves are a bit lack luster once they get x5 BS at 13...by that point they have pretty much all skills at 100, so there's no harm in dual-classing them. All they really miss out on is high damage, save-or-die snares from 21+, UAI, or epic traps.

The kits however are always worth it to just tough it out and stay single...class.

Assassins though don't even get their main perk till 21, and their very low skill point totals make them much less ideal lowbie duals.

Similarly, Bounty Hunter don't get their best specialty trap till 21...but once they do, they're one of the strongest single classes in the game. Even more so since it combines well with their HLA.

Swashbuckler is a perfect, no fuss replacement to a dualed or multi fighter thief, if you don't like the micromanagement of backstabbing. By around level 20, they can't miss any enemy except on a 1 (with exception to Drizzt). They do need dual speed weapons to be at maximum efficiency, but that's not too bad a requirement.

Corvino

I'm a fan of fighter/thief multiclasses to be honest. You gain a lot of survivability, gear flexibility and damage-dealing potential and don't lose that much from a thieving point of view. Fighter/thief is pretty close to the way most modern RPGs imagine the thief - hard-hitting but more fragile than a fighter rather than the more out-of-combat utility character that second edition D&D puts forward.

Blave

Rafael said:

No, you can only do this while gaining lvls as a fighter/kit
So you need to lvl till 9 as fighter/kit to get grandmaster (*****) in any weapon

That's not true. Once you regain your fighter-abilities, you can put up to 5 points in any weapon. A fighter, dual-classed to thief* at level 3 can in fact reach grand mastery in BG1. That's something, even a pure class fighter can't do. There was a similar discussion a few days ago and I did some testing in the game. It works.

*Cleric and Druid work, too. Even mage, but only with a trick: Dual at 6 and don't level your mage until he has enough XP to reach level 7 so you gain all levels at once and can put your level 4 point in your weapon of choice.

Someone said this is not supposed to work accordnign to the PnP rules, but the game totally allows it.

ZanathKariashi

BG1 (original) didn't allow it. And Neither should this version (or BG2 for that matter). I actually wouldn't mind proper PnP specialization rules, to be honest.

PnP allows ONLY single class fighters to specialize (+1 hit, +2 damage, +1/2 attack), there is no GM, and no one else can specialize, not even pallys, rangers or multi-fighters.

Dual-class technically can if fighter is their first class, but once they dual they can't specialize in new weapons ever again, but do retain any specialization they earned previously.

LordRumfish

Yeah, I always scratch my head a bit when I look at the 2nd edition books and try to compare them to the rules used in the game. Does BG1 and 2 make use of the really late system books in 2nd edition that are harder to find? For instance, I found my copy of The Complete Thief's Handbook and swashbuckler (along with other kits) is presented very differently there, mostly you get full fighter THAC0 as your bonus. Granted, the drawback listed was an RP drawback and some things have to change for a video game, but still... I don't know how they arrived at these numbers.

UnknownQuantity

I think fighter/thief is stronger as a multiclass. I guess if you started with a assassin kit or kensei kit dual class could be fairly powerful, but there is no disadvantage to being a multi class fighter/thief. You get both classes HLAs and both classes have great HLAs to take. You never need max level as thief or fighter like you do with other classes to reach your full potential in the class.

claudius

Beware of dual-classing to thief. I had 4 thief levels with imoen and 100 pickpocket. I dualed her to mage and when I exceeded 4 levels of thief ie 5 mage I should have gotten my thieves skills. I did get them, but the 100 pickpocket went down to 25!

Also on topic there are a lot of points to spend on thieves skills and you can't max all of them.

locks and traps take several levels to max and you will want them later in the content. Then you have two stealth skills to max and that takes a lot. And then you have traps which are decent. And you have pick pocket. I haven't tried detect illusion, but that might be good against mages. I'm not sure if you can get true sight in BG1 and if not detect illusion could be nice.

ZanathKariashi

Technically, you have 1 stealth skill to max. There's no real benefit to putting points in hide AND MS vs just sticking everything in MS.

Rafael

ZanathKariashi said:

Technically, you have 1 stealth skill to max. There's no real benefit to putting points in hide AND MS vs just sticking everything in MS.

what? i didnt get it
what is the point of sticking everything in MS if you wont be able to even hide?

Awong124

Rafael said:

ZanathKariashi said:

Technically, you have 1 stealth skill to max. There's no real benefit to putting points in hide AND MS vs just sticking everything in MS.

what? i didnt get it
what is the point of sticking everything in MS if you wont be able to even hide?

Hiding initially supposedly takes the average of those two scores, and MS is used to see how well you maintain being hidden. So if that is correct, there is no point in putting any points in HIS.

claudius

ZanathKariashi, I never heard that about stealth. So you have 25 in HS and 100 in MS and stealth is perfect?

Rafael

So to hide in the shadows chance is based on average HIS+MS? thats is kinda of broken
are you guys sure this is legit?

Awong124

claudius said:

ZanathKariashi, I never heard that about stealth. So you have 25 in HS and 100 in MS and stealth is perfect?

Technically, without taking into consideration factors that affect stealth (like lighting, etc.), having 25 in HS and 175 in MS would make you hiding score essentially 100. But having a higher score in MS is better because you're better at staying hidden. I personally don't know if that is true or not, but I have read a lot of people say that to be the case, it's just never confirmed by the developers. I just put the same amount of points in both.

ShadowWolf

I did an elven multiclass fighter/thief and i gotta say it was freaking powerful, the backstab was brutal

marfig

It's been tested. At some point we need to trust what is being said to us, even when it doesn't come from the developers. Or we risk never getting an answer. We don't get our understand of the universe from the mouth of some Great Architect, but from our own testing.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/Baldur039s-Gate-1-and-2/Baldur039s-Gate-General-Discussion-No-Spoilers-Allowed/Thesis-Hide-in-Shadows-12667733-1.html

In Short:

(Hide in Shadows + Move Silently) / 2 = Chance to Hide In Shadows
Move Silently = Chance to stain hidden every round

rlterry

I made two thief's. They were both identical except one had all points all pumped into hide in shadows and the other was move silently.

I went around testing them both, and the hide in shadow thief hid way more than the other. It was ridiculous actually.

Now obviously I could have just gotten really good rolls on one and bad rolls on the other. But 20 minutes straight of good rolls and bad rolls on each character?

AHF

rlterry said:

At what point is gaining levels as a thief pointless? I mean as far as skills are concerned.

I will just add that there are always useful areas to put your thieving points in until you are well over 20th level. Hide and move silently can suck a ton of points, detect illusion is like a free true seeing ability, set traps is very useful, pick locks, detect traps, pick pocket...all of these are useful areas for skill progression with a level up. Some of them can be replaced by potions (pick pocket, for example) but others can't (set traps, detect illusion, etc.). Even with the XP cap removed, I don't think it will ever be pointless for a BG:EE thief to level up in terms of their thieving skills.

If you run in a party with multiple thieves then some of these skills are duplicative (pick locks, for example) but others aren't (set traps, detect illusion). Whether the additional benefits are worth passing up the chance to dual or multi-class is a legit issue but I would strongly say there is no BG:EE thief that can't get real benefits from additional skill points.

rdarken

I'm in favor of keeping pure Thief. It may be a little rough in BG 1, but once you get into ToB and start gaining epic levels, you'll be glad you did. Use Any Item alone is worth it, in my opinion.

Plus, if you take the Swashbuckler kit, you're great in combat.

ZanathKariashi

You're great in combat even without being a swashbuckler, they just require no micro-management to use, vs using BS effectively.

tyl998

rlterry said:

I made two thief's. They were both identical except one had all points all pumped into hide in shadows and the other was move silently.

I went around testing them both, and the hide in shadow thief hid way more than the other. It was ridiculous actually.

Now obviously I could have just gotten really good rolls on one and bad rolls on the other. But 20 minutes straight of good rolls and bad rolls on each character?

Sure, can but the one with high Hide in Shadows stay hidden while walking long enough to land good backstabs?