Need suggestions for a scout!

Frogman

Esteemed colleagues,

This is my first playthrough of BG2 and I could use your collective wisdom! I'm no noob...I downed Sarevok in BG1 about 10 years ago (with the help of about 398 summoned monsters)...but still, this game is tough! And I enter every dungeon legitimately terrified. To combat this, I love to have a character scout through the dungeon, revealing enemies, disarming traps, etc., before i move my full party through.

What are the best characters for scouting? I've planned on using a mix of created characters and NPCs, so suggestions for either are fine with me. I've heard that a gnome thief/illusionist is good because of the ability to disarm traps while magically invisible...cant regular thieves disarm traps while stealthed? Overall, I'm quite perplexed by the thief class and I'm not sure how pure of a thief I will need to complete SOA and TOB.

Tips/advice from you pros is greatly appreciated!!!

iavasechui

If I remember correctly disarming a trap breaks stealth but does not break invisibility. Of course you could just have your mage make him/her invisible first.

jackjack

Is that true for regular invisibility as well, or just improved invisibility?

Edit: Autoincorrect (…)

nano

Gnome thief/illusionist is good but there's an NPC one in the game already. I would pick him up and make your character whatever you want. There are also a couple of mage/thieves who are a bit heavier on the magic but can still disarm traps and open doors, if that's all you need.

Frogman

Excellent advice, thanks so much! I'm hearing good things about this Jan guy, so I'll go check him out.

nano

jackjack said:

Is that true for regular invisibility as well, or just improved invisibility?

Edit: Autoincorrect (…)

Works for all invisibility. I think opening any containers or picking up any loot breaks it, though. Opening doors does not (??)

Pantalion

Cleric/Thief.

Sanctuary does not break when looting, you're tankier than a mage/thief, just in case you run into something that can see through invisibility/sanctuary and get off a few shots. You can turn from Sanctuary to potentially kill enemy undead before your party ever comes across them, and you have a better THAC0, so your x5 Backstab with a Staff of Striking is going to hurt.... And you can cast Animate Dead to walk with you whilst you stealth, giving you a commander's role from safety as you send wave after wave of tortured corpses at your foes, drying out their magical spells before your party comes along and cleans up.

Mitchfork

nano said:

jackjack said:

Is that true for regular invisibility as well, or just improved invisibility?

Edit: Autoincorrect (…)

Works for all invisibility. I think opening any containers or picking up any loot breaks it, though. Opening doors does not (??)

I believe opening doors does break invisibility... I recall that scouting in certain dungeons was very limited because you needed to open doors to proceed.

Imagine how hard it must be to pick a lock or disarm a landmine if you can't see your fingers. You'd have to be pretty darn good to pull that off.