Black Pits 2.. do i need a thief?

KingGhidorah

Im currently planning my BP2 party and im at a loss if i should include a thief or not (i plan to run a 4 man party).
I completed the original Black pits without one... is there any in-game point where skills such as find traps or pick locks are actually required?

AlexT

Not really.

Zarakinthish

There is one skill a thief has that you might find useful: detect illusion. If you have enough points in it, you basically have an on demand permanent True Seeing ability.

Kaltzor

Well, depends on how you wish to go at it I guess, do you want to think of the characters as a group adventuring together that gets dragged into these pits to fight for their lives constantly or do you just want a minmaxed party.

alaundo

Is detect Illusion a passive ability or do i Need to activate it?

Jalily

Activate it via Find Traps mode.

KingGhidorah

Thanks for the feedback. Looks like i dont have to include one after all. Detect illusion is fine and dandy I know, but a well timed True Sight will do as a nice replacement.

@Kaltzor I' m actually all for roleplaying, an im not a min maxer at all. But, in my current party I just dont really see room for a thief at all..

Currently lined up:

Dwarf Fighter/Cleric
Human Beastmaster (plans to dual to cleric at lvl 13)
Half elf blade
Human Dragon disciple

Mungri

Im really enjoying Black Pits 2, just started playing it yesterday. Im using the following line up:

Inquisitor leader (for true seeing + super dispel)
Human 13 ranger / Cleric dual class
Human 13 Kensai / Mage
Helf Blade
Elf Dragon Disciple specced mostly in enchantment CCs and mage shutdown
Elf Archer (sic on mages / priests with GWW after the sorc has breached them them).

So usually I'll charge in with my two front line tanks with a true seeing up while my blade and kensage buff themselves up, time stop > spellstrike > breach > energy blades on the sorc on an enemy mage, and then rip it down fast with energy blades + the archer.

The Blade + Kensage mop up what they can with magic weapon immunity and stoneskins, and the sorc spams greater malison / enchantment hopelessness / hold monster / maze as needed.

Another great utility is loading the mage and blade up with Enchanted Weapon, so I dont need to spend money on weapons. 2 Axes on the Inquisitor, 2 maces on the Ranger / Cleric, 2 Longswords on the Blade, and the Kensage just summons phantom blade and later on BBOD since I made it katana specced. Should just respec it to 5 points in longswords tbh and use enchanted weapons.

I had a lot of difficulty with the drow fight though because I couldnt CC them due to their magic resistance, I ended up having my 3 arcanes and the cleric spam Summon Skeletons and just spammed ranged attacks with everyone that could (melfs meteors x 3 + Archer).

FredB

I have done several runs and here are my best uses for a thief:
-Fighter/thief - UAI, traps, HLA from both classes and great fighter overall
-Kensai/thief - deals a bit more dammage, great thaco, Kai, UAI, traps, smaller pool of HLA
-Smashbuckler - Best AC in the game, traps, decent thac0, great dammage, UAI
-Bounty hunter - Give this guy a pair of boots of cheatah and a way to quickly get invisible and you get yourself the best crowd manager in the game. Half or more of the ennemies get maze which feels almost like cheating.

Traps deal enormous dammage to pretty much anyone. You can also get creative with combos such as time trap, asassination, whirlwind attack, etc.

You will also get the staff of Ram and the staff of Magi which together are evil....

I tried to play an assassin and I had a really hard time to hide & backstab in an arena context. Maybe an half-orc with the SoR and the SoM ...? Sure you get Poison which is a great mage killer with a quick weapon (like darts), but the Blackguard is more fun and useful if poison is your thing!

I know that thiefs feels useless at first because of all the skill points you have to attribute and you will never use, but I now have a hard time to do a run without one.