Evil Run, thief question

nadrathen

Sorry for Double poste this in the Newcomers Forum.

Hi there, i'm planning to do an evil run. My MC is a Blade, the Tanks Are Dorn and kagain, Viconia for Support , Edwin as DD. Now i am looking for a thief to find traps and Open locks.
Imoen is probably the best thief from stat Point but she is a chaotic good. I want to hold my Reputation above 6 , at which Point will she leave? Or are there other thieves who can solve traps and locks? Montaron? Safna? Dual Shar-teel? I want to hear your opinions.

Metalloman

Other discussion in New Members Area deleted.

CrevsDaak

Safana will leave if Reputation gets TOO low, Shar-Teel is a nice option.

Mitchfork

I ran that exact NPC lineup (Dorn, Kagain, Viconia, Edwin, Imoen) with a Fighter/Mage PC and it was very powerful- you won't be disappointed if you run with it. I think Imoen leaves at 2 reputation, which is very hard to hit unless you go around murdering everyone you see, so from a game-mechanic side you won't have any trouble with it either.

Montaron is actually a pretty good Thief though. I forget his starting distribution but he has a good DEX bonus for his skills and since you get him at level 1 he won't have wasted points like other NPC's. He won't level quite as fast and he'll miss 2 thief levels at the cap, but he's more versatile in combat because he's got a good STR/DEX/CON spread.

nadrathen

Ok, Sounds Good. But when montaron will miss two thief levels, will he get enough points in lock pick and finding traps for all chests and traps in the Game?

Mitchfork

He should. You don't need anything more than 100 in both (and you really only need 100 for Durlag's Tower) and Montaron gets +15 open locks and +5 find traps bonuses from his race and DEX score. He won't be consistent for hiding in shadows or any of the other thief skills, but that's true for almost any BG1 thief- even with 10 levels you don't have enough points to really develop all of the skills.

nadrathen

Thanks for the help. Will Take Monty in a few minutes.

stygga

Skie is also very good. ALMOST as good as imoen, she handles herself very well for me so far running a party very similar to yours. I swapped her proficiences from darts to short bows in eekeeper but that's about it.. I never used her before so wanted to give her a try for my evil run. Her thief skills came in all in lock picks and find traps when I picked her up so that was nice. Definitely worth a look at for you, if you want someone similar to imoen.

nadrathen

The Problem is, you get Skie very late in the Game. Maybe i switch Monty with her in BG.

Twani

And don't forget you need to pick up Eldoth (ah, Eldoth) to get Skie, then go off and get him killed somewhere (or locked somewhere) to keep her without him. And Skie will still throw a fit and leave if you get reputation too low.

So I'd go with Monty or dueled Shar-Teel, personally.

stygga

You're right I meant Safana not Skie haha my mistake.

abacus

I'm now into post-Underdark with an evil Blade. Ran with this exact party & dualled Shar-teel... It worked really well, she catches up nice and quickly and makes an excellent thief/ support fighter.
The problem with Monty is having to ditch Xzar somewhere, which to me felt too cheesy.

Corvino

Shar-teel does indeed make a very nice thief. A couple of levels of fighter (I usually dual her at 3) gives a few extra HP and longsword or dagger mastery at thief level 4. With the THAC0 bonuses you get from that she's competent enough to do some damage in melee or just hit backstabs more regularly. You also get to allocate all her thieving points from the outset which lets you build her into whatever kind of thief you need.

Also, being evil your reputation shouldn't bother her.

nano

Yeah, Skie is in my opinion the worst character in the game. Comes really late, is tied to Eldoth, has her thief skills spent all wonky and can't do anything besides that. But I love that useless girl. We're fighting for our lives and she's worried about her hair.

TheZodiak

Imoen will stay until you reach very low reputation (1-2). So don't worry you can keep her if you need a thief and stay at 6. If you want to go to 1 you have to take montaron or dual shar-teel.

Twani

nano said:

Yeah, Skie is in my opinion the worst character in the game. Comes really late, is tied to Eldoth, has her thief skills spent all wonky and can't do anything besides that. But I love that useless girl. We're fighting for our lives and she's worried about her hair.

Skie is a fun character to write for. She's basically useless, utterly dependent on a complete slime, and utterly clueless as to the crush a, well, to put nicely, a moron?, has on her. And Skie? Well, Skie broke a nail. Prepare to be crushed, fool orc, as you have disturbed her beauty routine!

Useless. But fun.

nano

Yeah, I like her because she makes the rest of my characters look like hardened badasses. She reminds me of the hobbits in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit - when Aragorn is out there kicking butts and fighting off Ringwraiths and the hobbits are wondering about second breakfast, or when Bilbo is far from home and has been walking all day and all he can think of is his nice hobbit-hole, or when Frodo and Sam are starving in Mordor and they wonder if they will ever see the Shire again... it really throws the adventure into perspective. Skie is like that for me. She makes the world feel much more real. No one ever talks about all the cold damp nights under the stars or the meagre meals you eat out on the road, but Skie does and I love her for it.