How to get around the combat as a thief?
Hi people, so my problem is, i really cant get around combat as a thief.
I am roughly at the start of the game, but i usually cant defeat enemies, and even if i do it is mostly my party and my pc is completly useless. it cant even hit and miss every single attack for the gods sake!
And, minor spoiler, i couldnt kil the ogre, i couldnt kill the "guy who attacks you infront of the inn" (at least not face to face, i sneaked up and backstabed him), and i died while going north of the friendly arm inn, growlers? cant remember the monsters name but they killed my party too.
And just a minute ago, where you face 2 ogrillon while going to mining camps, they just slaughter my party and my pc just sits there missing all his blows.
full strenght and dexterity, 16 cons, 1 handed and short sword profiences. Am i doing something wrong or what?
Edit: And again, i couldnt even clear the spiders in that house at beregoth. am i under leveled or something? i am still level 1, should i have leveled up doing some quest or something i have missed maybe?
I am roughly at the start of the game, but i usually cant defeat enemies, and even if i do it is mostly my party and my pc is completly useless. it cant even hit and miss every single attack for the gods sake!
And, minor spoiler, i couldnt kil the ogre, i couldnt kill the "guy who attacks you infront of the inn" (at least not face to face, i sneaked up and backstabed him), and i died while going north of the friendly arm inn, growlers? cant remember the monsters name but they killed my party too.
And just a minute ago, where you face 2 ogrillon while going to mining camps, they just slaughter my party and my pc just sits there missing all his blows.
full strenght and dexterity, 16 cons, 1 handed and short sword profiences. Am i doing something wrong or what?
Edit: And again, i couldnt even clear the spiders in that house at beregoth. am i under leveled or something? i am still level 1, should i have leveled up doing some quest or something i have missed maybe?
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2.) The ogre, mage at friendly arm inn, spiders at beregost and the ogrillons will destroy your level 1 party unless you're very well geared, this is normal.
3.) Pick up Jaheira and Khalid if you haven't already and give them a good armor (plate mail, full plate) and a good shield and let them stand in the front while you shoot from behind them.
Then can i ask, i am at beregoth right now, took all the quests from friendly arm and i was on my way to mines at south, should i level up before going to mines (i assume yes because i get destroyed even while going there[ogrilles]) and if yes where and how? i mean, basicly, what should i do know>.<?
doing thief staff like backstabing mages is also thief thing so you SHOULD do this
all the rest was posted earlier
Enemies in the early game (like inside Candlekeep) don't wear any armor at all (afaik), so they have 10 armor class (I believe no armor and dex is 10? :P).
Let's say you have 0 proficiency in say, the dagger you use, that means you would have 20 THAC0. Now THAC0 basically means, the chance to hit armor class 0. You roll a dice with 20 sides, if it hits above 10 then you land a hit on the target. 20 is always a hit, 0 is always a loss, so even the smallest goblin have 1/20 chance to hit the most heavily armored character.
What you are probably facing, is that once you meet a, lets say warrior in splint mail or plate, their armor class would probably be around 3-4 AC, and with a bit of dextery they might even go to around 0. So if you have 2 proficiency points in your little dagger, maybe you'd have like 16-17 THAC0? So you would have to roll a dice above 16 in order to land a hit, that is a 20% chance to hit. The problem is in return, that warriors usually have multiple proficiency points in whatever they use, and if you are a thief with leather, you would probably be around 7-8 AC, which makes you an easy target.
So what is the solution? First you need to get your warriors and paladins to stand in the way. I ALWAYS equip my melee characters (not theives) in the highest possible armor you could want, plate to start with, later full plate. A level 1 fighter can be very hard to hit due to it's very high armor class. You can then tank the enemy and eventually you will land enough hits with your thief to kill the enemy.
So where does thieves shine you might ask? Well lets face it, thieves can only put 2 proficiency points in whatever weapon, which means they will never "really" be good at much. At most you can hope for a +2 dagger (which gives +2 THAC0 and damage). So will thieves ever be a good warrior killer? Probably not, because with a THAC0 that rarely goes below the "sweet spot", they will miss a lot. However, against lesser targets that can't wear plate armor, they will be VERY good. Let's say you face off a mage, you can stealth, get behind and land a quick attack. Mages don't have very good armor, meaning that even with a THAC0 of say, 15-16 the chance for you to land an attack on a mage (without armor or shield buff) will be rolled against AC of 10, which means 50% of the time you will land an attack, and if you get behind the target and get a backstab you may even kill the mage in a single hit. However that doesn't happen alone, every mage in the game is scripted to cast some kind of armor spell, so you need your own mage to dispel those effects and then you can pretty much own those mages like little bunnies.
If you read this far, then cudos to you, here are some winner tips:
* Every 2 levels thieves reduce their THAC0 by one.
* Dexterity reduces THAC0, BUT ONLY FOR MISSILE (RANGED) WEAPONS! - Dexterity gives a good early bonus to THAC0, especially around 16-19 dex. I believe it's +1 at 16 & 17, +2 at 18 and +3 at 19?
* Did you know strength reduces THAC0 for melee weapons by a significant amount? If you need to land some hits with a dagger thief using strength potions that gives 21/22 or even more strength can help a lot :P.
* There are many spells that can reduce your THAC0. If you have a mage or cleric fit them for SUPPORT not for damage. A lot of people make the mistake that mages and clerics are "damage". While they can do damage their main job in my opinion is to buff and debuff the enemies :P. Again though it depends on what kind of party you lead, but if your main is a thief you'd be better off with support, gotta remove those buffs and they are toast!
Hope it helps.
Stick to ranged early on. Bows or darts are recommended due to their high volume of fire.
Thieves SUCK in open combat. If you intend to kill some with melee, you must backstab. Attacking from stealth gives a +4 hit chance. Early on it's only a danger to mages, but once you get to x4, you can take a huge chunk out of even fighter types, and one-shot, with reasonably reliability, anything else. The dagger of venom makes an excellent BS weapon, though it's kind of pricy. The front end damage is low, but poison effect is just nasty and the hit reactions it causes will disrupt spells or movement, making it easier to fade to re-hide, prior to getting boots of speed....once you have boots of speed and around 65+ MS/hide, you're basically a back-stabbing machine.
While it's hard to spare the points due to the low level cap, if you can get set trap to 50+, it can help for some of the harder fights to drop a trap to lead enemies into after a backstab.
In the sequel, with dual-speed weapons, they can finally start to straight melee reasonably well, though by that point you have thief points to burn and are basically a non-magical, physical GOD!?. (If you're going single weapon style, using a single speed weapon gives you the benefits of dual-wielding without a thac0 penalty. Handy for enemies immune to backstab, and once you get UAI, the scarlet ninja-to makes an excellent back-up weapon for targets you can't backstab (BG2 lacks all the fancy ammo types that BG1 has, and ranged is just pretty lackluster in general unless you're an archer...so straight melee is basically the way to go if you aren't a mage)).
First, when understanding how things get hit in this game, you need to understand that you'll be invisibly rolling a 20 sided die. This means that every point on that die represents a 5% chance to hit (100% / 20pts = 5% / 1pt). This gets modified by the armor your foe has, strength that you have, and weapon that you use.
Say you have a THAC0 of 20. This means that, without any modifiers, to hit a target that has an AC of 0, you need to roll ABOVE a natural critical (20) to hit. This means that you would have a 5% chance of hitting a target with an AC of 0 (0 * 5% = 0%; but you will always have at least a 5% chance to hit). Every point into AC that is ether above or below the AC of 0 will ether increase or decrease your base percentage chance to hit by 5%. If a target has 1 AC, then add 5 % to your base, if they have -1 AC, then subtract 5% (again: minimum percent chance to hit is 5%, never 0; and maximum is 95%, never 100). This means, with THAC0 of 20, you will have a 50% chance to hit a target with 10 AC (0% + 50% = 50%). In another example where you have a THAC0 of 6, your base chance to hit will be 70% (14 possible chances to hit * 5% = 70%). Then you run into a target with -10 AC, so your overall chance to hit that target will be 20% (70% - 50% = 20%). This is why less AC is always the best AC you can have. So a Mage with 10 AC base, that uses lvl 1 mage armor, is decreasing the chance something will hit them by 20% (10 base AC - 6 Magic Armor = 4 * 5% = 20%).
Modifiers from weapons and strength increase your chances to hit as well. Again, each point increases your chance to hit by 5%. So a +1 sword with a +1 to-hit strength modifier would increase chance to hit in the previous example of a 20 THAC0 against a 10AC target from 50% to 60% chance to hit.
Now a Thief has a base THAC0 of 20 (5% chance to hit). In the beginning of the game, you'll be facing targets that have about 8 to 10 AC. So your base chance to hit something in the beginning of the game will be between 40% to 50% chance to hit - very low. If you've ever played XCOM, you will understand how low this value is. With 18 strength (THAC0 +1 bonus), your Thief's chance to hit will be increased to 45% to 55% - still very low. Compare this with the Thief who has 18 in dex and is using a bow (THAC0 +2 bonus), and you will have increased your chance to hit to 50% to 60% - which is manageable, but not the best (75% chance to hit would be a nice, general percentage chance to have). If you backstab, and the +4 THAC0 bonus is correct (which is a +20% chance to hit), then you will have, with 18 strength mind you, a 65% to 75% chance to hit a target - a lot better, which is probably why thieves can really only hit things in melee reliably when backstabbing.
Overall though, this is also the reason why ranged weapons usually outclass melee weapons in the early game for all classes since all classes start with 20 THAC0.
(Blind is basically a death spell on a mage or archer (and greatly reduces threat of a melee guy), and glitterdust brings enough blindy goodness for the whole family in 1 shot (and is party friendly to boot)...plus a save debuff for the duration for good measure). And haste is a ridiculous force multiplier that can potentially last an entire dungeon with a single spell.
but nothing is as cool as fireballs on enemies!
Apparently this website agrees with me:
http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Classes_and_Kits#Mage
"You can, however, become next to unkillable should you use the right buffing spells, and most wizards carry enough firepower to end worlds."
Bards are the better ones for dealing damage because they're usually higher level (1 to 2 higher then a mage at all levels till you hit the non-epic spell cap at 20).
For jollies, I threw in all my thief points into Hide in Shadows and Move Silently for a 50/50 split at the start of the game. While I was in an occupied room in the inn, I broke into one of the dressers and stole its contents. It alerted the guard (mind you he has platemail which is 3 DC: 50% chance to hit a backstab) and I said, "F you, baldy!" I got into a fight, broke line-of-sight, stealthed up, popped on my poison, and backstabbed him. He was down in seconds.
Overall, at the start, you'd have about an 85% chance backstab with about a 12 to 24 damage chance with shortswords; all depending on the damage being a crit or not. It might be an option for you. You could go with Katana, but they're expensive early game and rare. If you do go Katana, you'd do about 14 to 28 damage.
Another option would be Fighter/Thief to backstab with weapons like Scimitars for more damage early on. Their backstabs completely overpower anything the Assassin class can do early on, but I am uncertain about it's ability to out-damage an Assassin late-game. I am fairly certain they would have a lower THAC0 than the Assassin though (14 THAC0 at level 7 Fighter compared to 12 THAC0 for a level 17 Assassin).