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Improving thief skills beyond 100

Is there any point? Are there any locks that require more than 100 pick locks skill to open? And so on. It seems weird that the game would allow you to build thief skills indefinitely if it does nothing, but I've never failed to open a lock with 100 skill, so... what's the deal?
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  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    edited January 2014
    There are sometimes penalties. For example, hiding outside in daylight incurs a penalty. For lockpicking and traps, I don't think there really is a point. I haven't seen anything that requires more than 100.

    So to me it looks like you want to get most of them to 100 and no more, but Move Silently and Hide in Shadows are worth taking above 100 if you just happen to have some spare points, though it's still not really necessary.

    The only one I'm not entirely sure about is pick pockets. I simply don't know if you need more than 100. So far I've been able to pick pocket everything I wanted with less than 100, so I don't think so but I'm not sure.
    Heindrich
  • NikPrussNikPruss Member Posts: 14
    For lock picking and find traps find illusion(IIRC) and place trap, 100 is the highest check in the game unless you install a mod that changes it.

    For Pickpocket you generally want to dump your stats into this, because free stuff is awesome, It does a check, so say you want to pick pocket a store, the store's check value is 75, you need 75 to have a 50% chance to pickpocket, as you go higher, your chance increases (not to 100% as far as I can tell, but damn close).

    Hide in shadows you want to get to 150, (IIRC), and Move Silently you want at atleast 125 (IIRC) these are also percent based on opponents.
    iAmGoatBoy
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    I did some testing recently. It appears there's no difference between Hide in Shadows and Move Silently and that the game simply takes the average as your final score. Another person has tested the daylight penalties, and they claim you need to get an average of 200 before you get a 100% (well, 99%) chance to hide in daylight. I haven't bothered to verify that last part. I don't think the penalties are that much of a problem anyway.
    iAmGoatBoy
  • SkaffenSkaffen Member Posts: 709
    Cheese warning: you don't really need to put points in pick pockets since potions of master thievery stack. There are enough to go around to drink 3-4 for every shop really worth looting.
    kaffekoppeniAmGoatBoybooinyoureyes
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    You need 200/200 in Hide in Shadows and Move Silently I think before you reach the 1% critical fail stage for all possible penalties. You still have to be out of sight though.

    Some NPCs such as epic level thieves require up to 240 pick pockets to steal from (I only ran into this in Watcher's Keep and the guy didn't have any loot worth stealing).

    Some merchants who are thieves also require Pick Pockets in the 220-250 range.
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    kryptix said:

    You need 200/200 in Hide in Shadows and Move Silently I think before you reach the 1% critical fail stage for all possible penalties. You still have to be out of sight though.

    I certainly fail once in a while with 105/100. I still chose to go for other the other skills before buffing my stealth: Open Locks, Find Traps, Detect Illusion, Set Trap. The thing is that stealth succeeds most of the time, and when it doesn't, it's not really an issue, so I'd rather have a well-rounded thief.
  • PawnSlayerPawnSlayer Member Posts: 295
    There's one trap I've never managed to disarm even with a really high traps score - the one in Nasty Neb's house in the Bridge District (the one at the very bottom of the map near the witch). Can that one actually be disarmed at all or does it always have to be triggered?
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    I have read that it can't be disarmed and I never succeeded in doing so. I just have my meatiest party member open it. It's just a bit of damage anyway.
  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806

    There's one trap I've never managed to disarm even with a really high traps score - the one in Nasty Neb's house in the Bridge District (the one at the very bottom of the map near the witch). Can that one actually be disarmed at all or does it always have to be triggered?

    Some traps, like in durlags tower, simply cannot be disarmed regardless or the thief's skill.
  • booinyoureyesbooinyoureyes Member Posts: 6,164
    the one right b4 some portal in TOB is a pain
  • moody_magemoody_mage Member Posts: 2,054
    There is a lock in the jail house in Saradush in TOB which my 100%+ thief had to drink two potions of Master Thievery to unpick.
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    I don't think it's good design that you never know what your points are really worth.
    booinyoureyeselementryuken87Eadwyn_G8keeper
  • XcidiumXcidium Member Posts: 22
    With some merchants a PP of 200+ can still fail. PP some guards in front of other guards in daylight can yield misunderstandings, hurt feelings and general unpleasantness too, also with PP 200+.
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    meagloth said:

    There's one trap I've never managed to disarm even with a really high traps score - the one in Nasty Neb's house in the Bridge District (the one at the very bottom of the map near the witch). Can that one actually be disarmed at all or does it always have to be triggered?

    Some traps, like in durlags tower, simply cannot be disarmed regardless or the thief's skill.
    I don't remember not being able to disarm this one but I can't be sure...
    Xcidium said:

    With some merchants a PP of 200+ can still fail. PP some guards in front of other guards in daylight can yield misunderstandings, hurt feelings and general unpleasantness too, also with PP 200+.


    The hardest merchant I've run into was Bernard who I failed regularly on with 240 skill even.
    The hardest Pick Pocket I ran into was the rogues in the Deck of Many Things encounter who needed 240+ skill to even get a success.
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Does it still wrap around if you go over 255?
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    It certainly seems that issue has been fixed. Earlier I was playing around with thieving skills out of curiosity I couldn't see any problems with high MS and HIS. By the way, they can be set to > 255 because your race bonus is added. It still works fine.

    There's no reason to set them that high though. No benefit from > 200 in each.
    nano
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    'kay. can they be set over 255 without the race bonus, or is 255 a hard cap for the base value?

    looks like Bernard has a stealing difficulty of 128. so if you guys were having trouble at 240 PP maybe you need to have double his difficulty in PP for a good chance.

    which rogues are we talking about @kryptix, the tieflings or the assassins spawned on one of the draws or something else?
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    nano said:

    'kay. can they be set over 255 without the race bonus, or is 255 a hard cap for the base value?

    looks like Bernard has a stealing difficulty of 128. so if you guys were having trouble at 240 PP maybe you need to have double his difficulty in PP for a good chance.

    which rogues are we talking about @kryptix, the tieflings or the assassins spawned on one of the draws or something else?

    The tieflings, I didn't want them to have potions...
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    edited January 2014
    nano said:

    'kay. can they be set over 255 without the race bonus, or is 255 a hard cap for the base value?

    It appears to be a hard cap for the base value. I didn't look at the code, but the cap seems to correspond to skill + dex adjustment + race bonus.
  • CorvinoCorvino Member Posts: 2,269
    There are a couple of items that give you a penalty to various thieving scores, including Elven Chainmails and Rugged Leathers.

    Elven Chain imposes a 5% find traps and open locks penalty, as well as more severe hide/pickpocket penalties. Given that I use the Aslyferund Chainmail for Jan throughout TOB it seems a good idea to get him to 105% find traps and open locks.
    lelag200
  • YamchaYamcha Member Posts: 486
    meagloth said:


    Some traps, like in durlags tower, simply cannot be disarmed regardless or the thief's skill.

    Thats not true, Neb's trap requires just a skill above 100 and in Durlag's you can disarm every single trap. If you cant, gulp some perception potions. But 100 for Durlag's, and BG1 in general, is more then enough.

    dont invest in pickpocket, Illusion Detection is 1000x better, perma true sight!
    golingarf
  • PawnSlayerPawnSlayer Member Posts: 295
    Yeah I got the trap in Neb's house this time quite easily (it may have been a bug that EE fixed, but could also be me misremembering it being an issue). I always put Lock Pick and Disarm Trap to 150 just to cover the odd really tough ones; I don't bother with hide in shadows, backstabbing or whatever anyway, for me a thief is an experience/loot gainer from locks and traps, and little else. UAI is obviously useful, and depending on their weapons/other classes the thief may make a decent mage or archer, but their primary utility remains.
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    edited January 2014
    I used to think of thieves that way but since I started using multi and dual thieves I can't go back. A thief that barely adds any value in a fight seems like a waste to me. No offense intended of course, just a matter of priorities.

    Of course you're lower on skill points but as it turns out you can survive not being able to deal with the less than a handful traps and locks or so in the whole game that you can't deal with otherwise. You've still got potions to buff you too if you really must.

    A typical example of how much you're missing out on if you don't have super high open locks: There is a locked door requiring really high open locks skill in the prison of Saradush. But you easily walk around it. Silly :)
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    You really don't need much thieves level to get your full utility :
    - pickpocket is useless : money is plentyful anyway and potions do the job nicely
    - lockpick is also useless : just bash or use knock when bashing fails. Furthermore almost no good item is behind an unbashable lock.
    - HIS/MS are ok but can be easily replaced with invisibility spells/potions/items
    - detect illusion is very good. But true sight does the same (and often quicker)
    - set snares is very good (even if HLA traps make it a obsolete)
    - find trap is the only mandatory one. 100 is more than enough though.

    Therefore a level 3 thief with 100 in find trap has all the really useful utility. The rest is purely optionnal.

    That being said pure thieves do not necessarily suck : the swashbuckler scales nicely with experience (although a fighter/thief multi is 100x better). The assassin poison weapon is a VERY nice tool.


    iAmGoatBoy
  • YamchaYamcha Member Posts: 486
    edited January 2014
    mumumomo said:

    You really don't need much thieves level to get your full utility :

    From a power game point of view 80% of the game content is useless.
    Roll a Sorcerer, skip the party, only pick up the 5 items that suit your class, skip all dialogues (they are useless :p ) and earn your first HLA before chapter 3
    Anything else would be useless

    Oddly I find the swashbuckler the weakest thief kit. (low attack rate, weak defense for a "fighter")

    There are some nice opportunities for pick pocketing, ofc you can abuse this with stacking thieving potions.
    Or lockpicking earns some nice EP, mages have better 2th grade magic to memorize.

    Thieves are with mages the most versatile characters, I wouldnt miss one in every group.

    Btw. you forget the rangers/clerics Find Traps spell, and a buffed mage can trigger it without harm.
    So Find Traps obsolete?
    ryuken87elminster
  • kaffekoppenkaffekoppen Member Posts: 377
    edited January 2014
    You don't technically need a thief at all, no. I find it incredibly convenient and fun to have one though, and if it's a multiclass thief then you get a powerful character out of it anyway. A fighter/thief for example is almost as good as a regular fighter at dealing damage, but they get the incredibly useful Use Any Item, they get regular traps (until HLAs kick in, they are super useful) and HLA traps.

    I'm not a big fan of pure thieves because they get more skill points than you need anyway and lack other powers that multiclasses get, but I'd rather have a pure thief with me than settle for a dual such as Imoen or Nalia.
  • CorvinoCorvino Member Posts: 2,269
    Aside from thief HLAs which are hilariously open to abuse thieves don't improve well at mid-levels. This is probably why there are so many mage/thief combos in BG2. Imoen is a competent enough thief and can do whatever you need if you get the skill-boosting rings and potions to help. Jan is pretty fantastic as he not only gets great thieving skills and HLAs (Spike Trap & UAI, mmmm) but he also supplements your casting. Luvverly.

    As @kaffekoppen says, thieves are very convenient. Unfortunately they are just as convenient as dual or multis which rather undermines non multi/dual thieves.
    lelag200iAmGoatBoy
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    Corvino said:

    Aside from thief HLAs which are hilariously open to abuse thieves don't improve well at mid-levels.

    I would say that thats mostly the case but not entirely. 16th and 21st level traps for thieves are both pretty sweet.
  • GawdzillaGawdzilla Member Posts: 86
    I always wondered what the benefit was for >100 thief skill points, thanks for bringing it up!
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    @Yamcha,

    My point was not to say that thieves are useless, my point was that their thieving skills bring very little utility overall, especially because they can be easily boosted/duplicated.

    - lockpick/HIS/MS/detect illusion are done very easily by a mage
    - pickpocket would be fine (nobody else can do it) if it was not made of cheese : either you have to use 2-3 potions (which renders skill points useless) or you have to reload in case of failed attempt (very cheesy). Also, either you are willing to sell stolen goods to a fence (extremely cheesy once more) or the loot you can get from it is not that extraordinary

    Disarm and set traps are interesting because they bring something that no other class in the game can do.

    Don't get me wrong, i love thieves overall because they have a lot of interesting gameplay options (backstab, traps, poison weapon,...) but i find the thieving skills very lackluster and poorly implemented (pickpocket...) for the most part.



    Just a note regarding swashbuckler. They are rather weak at low level.

    But a level 40 swashbuckler has :
    - 9 AC bonus -> they will reach better AC than any fighter.
    - +8 to hit/damage. Even with WW penalty that's still +4/+4. Still better than a fighter for the same number of APR. With improved haste and 2 speed weapons they will reach 9 APR at +8/+8

    Overall we could argue that, at high levels, they are almost better warriors than plain fighters.

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