Just a few tips for the novice cleric/thieves out there (may favourite class): Santuary than retreat to hide and land another backstab.
Using DUHM allows you to spread your thief points about more generously as well as pre backstab buffing.
DUHM, tome of dex plus shadow armour and boots of stealth will give you decent stealth levels.
Ring if Invisiblility is invaluable, use it, recharge it, love it!
Staff is a good choice through out the series.
Sanctuary plus find traps spell will make you a very effective scout.
The class isn't OP but is way to underrated and still strong solo (edit: I prefer to play it in a group and use it to initiate than support as required). Spread the word people
P.s Gnome is so much better of a choice than half orc. Better save skill points and DUHM will make up for 1 less str until you get the tome.
There was a Forgotten realms book series out a few years back where the main character was this human assassin who moonlighted as a butler. He had a side-kick that was a halfling cleric/thief who was a former harper. Does anyone remember the character or his name?
The books weren't GREAT, but I quite liked the side character. I want to say it was like Jak Borton or something of that nature.
[Edit: moved note to top from bottom.] NOTE: None of what follows is intended as criticism of anyone who chooses any combination of class and race for role-playing reasons. Whatever you choose, it might be very interesting and lots of fun to play, so good luck to you and enjoy it. This debate is about efficient choices, so it's mainly a power-gaming issue, and what you do for role-playing reasons may well be very different.
Halflings make the best actual thief, which is a bigger boost in BG1 than 2, and a substantial boost for a solo assassin. You'll be a level or more ahead of an elf iirc, and have very good saves (if you dont mind some reloads) are handy. There is a sinificant edge for non-halflings when theymget 19 str, but you can get by with poisoned stunning darts vs very powerful foes, especially since you can kite, as you will have less need of the Worn Whispers.
On the whole I disagree, and partly for the reason you mention: any other race can achieve natural 19 STR during BG1, and the difference between 18 and 19 is a major leap in melee power (+2 THAC0 and +5 damage). However, there are other reasons too, so I'll set out a detailed explanation.
If your Thief protagonist wants to do much back-stabbing (including if you're thinking about a Shadowdancer), then you want to be able to hit (and preferably hit hard) when you attempt it, so the halfling's STR restriction is a severe drawback: assuming full strength, any other race stands more chance of hitting (and doing more damage per hit) in back-stab, so halfling is the worst choice. You also want stealth to backstab, and elves are almost as good as halflings at that, but without the STR restriction, so elf is probably the best choice. (Half-orc can be even stronger, of course, but they have no stealth bonus, and anyway the advantage of 20 STR over 19 STR is minor, unlike the huge advantage of 19 STR over 18 STR.)
If instead you want a Thief who will set a lot of traps (including if you're thinking about a Bounty Hunter), then note that gnomes (and indeed dwarves) get a racial bonus in Set Traps which makes them as good at it as halflings in spite of the halfling having more DEX, yet the gnome (or dwarf) gets this without the STR penalty of a halfling, and both still have the shorty saves, so gnomes (and maybe even dwarves, in spite of the DEX restriction) are generally a better choice for this style of Thief.
If instead you want a Thief who will be competent in melee (so you must surely be thinking about a Swashbuckler), then again the halfling's STR restriction is a severe drawback, so they're the worst choice. However, you presumably want some decent Thief skills (else you'd probably just build a warrior class), and elves have the DEX bonus which boosts thief skills as well as useful racial weapon bonuses, while gnomes have racial thieving bonuses as good as a halfling's and have shorty saves, so either is a good choice. (Dwarves also have good racial thieving bonuses, but in their case almost nullified overall by their DEX restriction.)
If instead you want an Assassin, then he's a back-stabber (see above) and/or a ranged poisoner. DEX is key for a ranged poisoner (for the ranged THAC0 bonus), so either halfling or elf, but the elf's racial bonus with bows is more of an advantage than the halfling's bonus with slings, and anyway you'll probably use darts (for APR, to get more poison into the target) with which elves and halflings are equal. Elf is better for back-stabbing because of better STR and is almost as good at stealth as a halfing. So elf is overall the better Assassin, although a halfling is almost as good if you'll definitely be concentrating on ranged poisoning.
Even for a general-purpose utility Thief, there are good alternatives to a halfling. If your Thief will be mainly there for finding traps, opening locks, picking pockets and maybe scouting (i.e. the standard "utility Thief" job description), plus contributing some ranged attacks during combat, then a halfling's 19 DEX is definitely an advantage ... but you can get the same 19 DEX on an elf, and the elf has a racial bonus (+1 THAC0) with bows and short swords and long swords which is more useful the halfling's racial bonus (+1 THAC0) with slings, and the elf has strong resistances to sleep and (more importantly) charm magics, and again the elf won't have the STR penalty (and can therefore be significantly better whenever they find themselves in melee or if they attempt an occasional back-stab). This slightly more (IMO) than makes up (in all-round utility) for the elf not having "shorty saves" and being 25 skill points (i.e. one level for an unkitted Thief) behind the halfling in racial bonuses to thieving skills. Alternatively, gnomes don't get the handy DEX bonus, but gnomes have exactly as much total racial bonus in thieving skills as halflings (not everyone realises that!), so effectively they're also around one level behind in thieving skills (because of not having the extra DEX), but on the other hand they do still benefit from "shorty saves", and they don't have the STR penalty, which makes them about as good as halflings in all-round utility.
Thus, in summary:-
Shadowdancer (or unkitted Thief doing a lot of back-stabbing) - halfling is the worst choice, elf is best;
Swashbuckler (or unkitted Thief likely to melee) - halfling is the worst choice, gnome or elf is best;
Bounty Hunter (or unkitted Thief setting a lot of traps) - halfling is okay, but gnome is better;
Assassin - halfling is a fairly good choice, but elf is better;
General-purpose Utility Thief (unkitted) - halfling is a fairly good choice, but gnome is about as good and elf is probably slightly better.
All of this is predicated upon the assumption that when you roll up a character, you'll max the abilities which are particularly relevant to the class (i.e. DEX and STR in the case of Thieves), which is surely what most of us do on most occasions when rolling our protagonist. Obviously the comparisons might be quite different if we were imposing some additional restrictions on ourselves as some sort of special challenge, but we can't consider that without knowing what special conditions might apply.
Also, I've ignored the considerations relevant to dual-classing a human Thief, since this is just about comparison with halflings, who can be only a single-class or a F/T.
Halfers are incredibly good multi thieves, since their starting values are so good. Makes up for their multi often, and means full utility and full combat skills (trapping and stealth) pretty early.
No, again I disagree. More strongly disagree when it comes to multi-classing, in fact. The only multi-class a halfling can (legally) do is Fighter/Thief. The general arguments above still apply to whichever style of thieving you'll be asking him to concentrate upon, and the other half of him is a Fighter, so the STR restriction is all the more important in this case, and definitely makes halfling a poor choice for F/T.
I do accept that getting off to a fast start with some good starting values to thieving skills is useful early on for a multi-classed character, because of the slower progression. Nevertheless, in the longer run (i.e. in BG2) it's not such a big deal, because you'll still end up with plenty of skill points for all your needs, regardless of your initial values. (Even a Half-Orc eventually makes a very fine Thief, once he has enough levels to accumulate the skill points!)
To make an easier start, therefore, you do want a race for your Fighter/Thief which has some natural aptitude for thievery, but which doesn't have the Fighter-crippling STR restriction of a halfling. Elf (because of the DEX bonus) or gnome (because of the good thieving bonuses) are the natural choices, both being effectively only one level behind the halfling in Thief skills but substantially better Fighters than the halfling. Elf also has weapon bonuses, but gnome has shorty saves. Since a Fighter/Thief is likely to be at the front of your party more often than a single-class Thief, he's likely to be targetted more often, and will therefore particularly benefit from good saves. Thus, in this case, I reckon the gnome wins as the best choice for F/T, with elf a close second.
To be honest, I prefer the Cleric/Thief to the Mage/Thief. The Mage/Thief is, admittedly, a very versatile character, but it can't really do anything you can't do with a Mage and a Thief as separate characters (aside from Mislead cheese). Most of the Mage spells that are fun on a Thief can simply be cast on it by a friendly Mage. Whereas the Cleric/Thief has access to personal spells like DUHM and Righteous Magic that provide some nice synergy with Thief abilities (and has a little better THAC0 besides). Even if you can't stand the thought of backstabbing with a quarterstaff, clubbing someone on the back of the head with the Club of Detonation while under the effects of Righteous Magic beats a normal backstab with Angurvadal more often than not.
@Gallowglass, I'm afraid I disagree with your line of reasoning. I'm going to take Gnomish and Halfling Bounty Hunters as an example, to explain myself.
If I want to play a Bounty Hunter, I won't invest only in Set Traps, I'll also want him to be stealthy in order to scout and decide where to place those traps. So the+5 in Set Traps the Gnome has on the Halfling is offset by the Halfling's superior Stealth (+15 over the Gnome), making the Halfling the more appealing race in terms of thieving skills. Someone else might not care about stealth and be more interested in detecting traps and illusions besides setting traps, in which case the Gnome will be more appealing, as Gnomes have better scores in those areas. Both races get the same amount of skillpoints at character creation, so deciding which race will make the better Bounty Hunter, will depend largely on what Thieving skills one means to focus on. Gnomes' +5 advantage in Set Traps doesn't necessarily make them superior Bounty Hunters.
Having said that, the Halfling's access to 19 Dex allows them to get +5 in six more skills out of the seven thieving skills. Thus a 19 Dex Halfling will be overall superior to an 18 Dex Gnome, and on par with that Gnome when it comes to trap setting.
Now if you ask me whether a 19 Dex Halfling's headstart of 60 skillpoints over the 18 Dex Gnome is worth the 17 Str, my answer is: most often it is not. Thieves generally need that Str Tome to get to 19 Str more than any other class (Warriors have good Thac0 and damage bonuses anyway, Clerics can buff, and Druids/Wizards have their spells to deal damage, but Thieves have only their physical attacks and lacklustre Thac0 prgression). However, this doesn't make Halflings inferior Thieves, it makes them inferior melee warriors. For a predominantly ranged Bounty Hunter, Halfling > Gnome in terms of both thieving and fighting prowess.
@gallowglass - I am not personally speaking of BG Charname protagonist, but it is an actual quantifiable fact that halfling thieves have the highest point totals in thieving. Throw in shorty saves and "as a thief" the are quantifiably "The best thieves".
As for Charname and combat worthiness, that is an entirely different matter.
@the_spyder - of course, if nothing were relevant except "who has the highest total of thief skill points at each level?", then yes, that's clearly going to be a halfling.
My argument is simply that there's more to being a good Thief than thief skill points alone, and that much of the time the halfling's extra thief skill points come at too high a price to be an optimal choice for a Thief character.
@Blackraven - it doesn't seem to me that you're disagreeing very much. Okay, you can envisage a particular flavour of Bounty Hunter for which you'd favour a halfling, fair enough, but in general you seem to be agreeing with my point that the STR restriction on halflings usually outweighs the benefit of extra thief skill points. Therefore, most of the time, some other race would be a more advantageous choice for a Thief protagonist - which is the point I'm trying to make.
...I love it how every single thread on this forum sooner or later delves into power-gaming discussions about 5% less or more.
Just FYI - I mostly play with humans or dwarves, even if multiclassed. Also, I have a house rule against power-gaming, that a char can not have two 14+ point attributes of the same number - and no more rerolls than about 30-40, so my Thieves usually start around 17/18/15/10/10/16. (With any excessive points going into Wisdom or Intelligence). Yep, the highest number obviously goes to the most important attribute - with Thieves it being Dexterity - and every other important attribute gets a decremented value. (Except my Swashbuckler, who is primarily a fighter, not a lover so he had 18 in Strength and 17 in Dex) And even despite this all, my Thieves are powerful and crafty beings...
...I love it how every single thread on this forum sooner or later delves into power-gaming discussions about 5% less or more.
I'll call it "The Southpaw's Law"...analogically to Godwin's Law and it will say : As a discussion about an RPG game grows longer, the probability of the discussion diverting into argument about munchkin-level power-gaming approaches 1
@Gallowglass sure, Halflings pure thieves are worse at melee. Thats why I pointed out darts synergizing with poison weapon, as darts are ranged, high apr, and derive no bonus from strength. Halfling assassins have substantially more options than a backstab dependent character, and in early bg2, you can just buy the 19 str girdle to use until you reach 19 str.
As for halfling fighter thieves in BG1, ever heard of str potions?? You get so damn many. You can even buy tons more. No excuse for not having at least 19 str for any toughish bsttle. Gnomes dont have as good saves as halfers btw
My argument is simply that there's more to being a good Thief than thief skill points alone, and that much of the time the halfling's extra thief skill points come at too high a price to be an optimal choice for a Thief character.
Now we are in the realm of personal opinion. And you are absolutely entitled to your own personal opinion on the matter.
Now we are in the realm of personal opinion. And you are absolutely entitled to your own personal opinion on the matter.
There are "opinions" which are speculations in a vacuum, and there are "opinions" which are deductions and inferences from demonstrable facts. The two are obviously not of equal weight.
True enough. Yet your "Opinion" that people are contending isn't the demonstrable facts and inferences upon which you want to make your claim (i.e. that STR is useful). It is exclusively that STR is the primary ability of a Thief. That's an opinion and not one that is demonstrably unassailable.
In any event, as I said above, you are very much entitled to your own opinion.
Opinion by definition isnt based strictly on fact, otherwise it wouldnt be opinion.
You can totally play a thief in BG1 without relying on inherent (ie permanent) strength. Ffs, people have soloed clerics, and relying on melee brute force with 1 apr is pretty unwise vs the tougher bosses.
Come ToB, even an Assassin is not going to be very,reliant vs serious enemies on backstab, since they are immune. As @Southpaw pointed out, poison weapon is usually more useful. Halfling fighter thief is very effective whole series.
Agree with @DreadKhan - Thief does not need an inherent high Strength, because - striking from shadows grants a +4 to Thac0 which makes it easier to attack enemies - in BG1, the max 18 Strength (without /XX numbers) won't do as much anyway (unless you get 19 with or without the Tome) - potions of Strength are quite common, also there are spells for that too, if needed. - a low level Thief is better off with a shortbow or darts anyway and that's where the Dexterity helps. - in BG2 it is easy to get items that change your Strength up to 19/22 anyway.
Actually, the only Thief that I try to get high Strength is the Swashbuckler, but even this kit will get many +hit bonuses that will make it almost obsolete.
I like the strength damage bonus for swashies, but it isn't multiplied anymore iirc, making it less key for an Assassin.
I also like strength for swashies for using daggers, as you get great damage for throwing daggers anf you offset the low damage die in BG1, until you can buy the Dag of Ven and find Longtooth. In BG2, you can rely on the Boomerang dagger until you can DW speed weapons (scimitars pips).
@Klorox - I am not saying the Thief should not have highest Str possible, I am just saying it's not as important as for a Fighter and a Thief can stomach lower Strength as Dexterity is more important. Especially, if you are a Halfling (max 17) or a non-power-gamer (like me)
Comments
Santuary than retreat to hide and land another backstab.
Using DUHM allows you to spread your thief points about more generously as well as pre backstab buffing.
DUHM, tome of dex plus shadow armour and boots of stealth will give you decent stealth levels.
Ring if Invisiblility is invaluable, use it, recharge it, love it!
Staff is a good choice through out the series.
Sanctuary plus find traps spell will make you a very effective scout.
The class isn't OP but is way to underrated and still strong solo (edit: I prefer to play it in a group and use it to initiate than support as required). Spread the word people
P.s Gnome is so much better of a choice than half orc. Better save skill points and DUHM will make up for 1 less str until you get the tome.
The books weren't GREAT, but I quite liked the side character. I want to say it was like Jak Borton or something of that nature.
NOTE: None of what follows is intended as criticism of anyone who chooses any combination of class and race for role-playing reasons. Whatever you choose, it might be very interesting and lots of fun to play, so good luck to you and enjoy it. This debate is about efficient choices, so it's mainly a power-gaming issue, and what you do for role-playing reasons may well be very different. On the whole I disagree, and partly for the reason you mention: any other race can achieve natural 19 STR during BG1, and the difference between 18 and 19 is a major leap in melee power (+2 THAC0 and +5 damage). However, there are other reasons too, so I'll set out a detailed explanation.
If your Thief protagonist wants to do much back-stabbing (including if you're thinking about a Shadowdancer), then you want to be able to hit (and preferably hit hard) when you attempt it, so the halfling's STR restriction is a severe drawback: assuming full strength, any other race stands more chance of hitting (and doing more damage per hit) in back-stab, so halfling is the worst choice. You also want stealth to backstab, and elves are almost as good as halflings at that, but without the STR restriction, so elf is probably the best choice. (Half-orc can be even stronger, of course, but they have no stealth bonus, and anyway the advantage of 20 STR over 19 STR is minor, unlike the huge advantage of 19 STR over 18 STR.)
If instead you want a Thief who will set a lot of traps (including if you're thinking about a Bounty Hunter), then note that gnomes (and indeed dwarves) get a racial bonus in Set Traps which makes them as good at it as halflings in spite of the halfling having more DEX, yet the gnome (or dwarf) gets this without the STR penalty of a halfling, and both still have the shorty saves, so gnomes (and maybe even dwarves, in spite of the DEX restriction) are generally a better choice for this style of Thief.
If instead you want a Thief who will be competent in melee (so you must surely be thinking about a Swashbuckler), then again the halfling's STR restriction is a severe drawback, so they're the worst choice. However, you presumably want some decent Thief skills (else you'd probably just build a warrior class), and elves have the DEX bonus which boosts thief skills as well as useful racial weapon bonuses, while gnomes have racial thieving bonuses as good as a halfling's and have shorty saves, so either is a good choice. (Dwarves also have good racial thieving bonuses, but in their case almost nullified overall by their DEX restriction.)
If instead you want an Assassin, then he's a back-stabber (see above) and/or a ranged poisoner. DEX is key for a ranged poisoner (for the ranged THAC0 bonus), so either halfling or elf, but the elf's racial bonus with bows is more of an advantage than the halfling's bonus with slings, and anyway you'll probably use darts (for APR, to get more poison into the target) with which elves and halflings are equal. Elf is better for back-stabbing because of better STR and is almost as good at stealth as a halfing. So elf is overall the better Assassin, although a halfling is almost as good if you'll definitely be concentrating on ranged poisoning.
Even for a general-purpose utility Thief, there are good alternatives to a halfling. If your Thief will be mainly there for finding traps, opening locks, picking pockets and maybe scouting (i.e. the standard "utility Thief" job description), plus contributing some ranged attacks during combat, then a halfling's 19 DEX is definitely an advantage ... but you can get the same 19 DEX on an elf, and the elf has a racial bonus (+1 THAC0) with bows and short swords and long swords which is more useful the halfling's racial bonus (+1 THAC0) with slings, and the elf has strong resistances to sleep and (more importantly) charm magics, and again the elf won't have the STR penalty (and can therefore be significantly better whenever they find themselves in melee or if they attempt an occasional back-stab). This slightly more (IMO) than makes up (in all-round utility) for the elf not having "shorty saves" and being 25 skill points (i.e. one level for an unkitted Thief) behind the halfling in racial bonuses to thieving skills. Alternatively, gnomes don't get the handy DEX bonus, but gnomes have exactly as much total racial bonus in thieving skills as halflings (not everyone realises that!), so effectively they're also around one level behind in thieving skills (because of not having the extra DEX), but on the other hand they do still benefit from "shorty saves", and they don't have the STR penalty, which makes them about as good as halflings in all-round utility.
Thus, in summary:-
Shadowdancer (or unkitted Thief doing a lot of back-stabbing) - halfling is the worst choice, elf is best;
Swashbuckler (or unkitted Thief likely to melee) - halfling is the worst choice, gnome or elf is best;
Bounty Hunter (or unkitted Thief setting a lot of traps) - halfling is okay, but gnome is better;
Assassin - halfling is a fairly good choice, but elf is better;
General-purpose Utility Thief (unkitted) - halfling is a fairly good choice, but gnome is about as good and elf is probably slightly better.
All of this is predicated upon the assumption that when you roll up a character, you'll max the abilities which are particularly relevant to the class (i.e. DEX and STR in the case of Thieves), which is surely what most of us do on most occasions when rolling our protagonist. Obviously the comparisons might be quite different if we were imposing some additional restrictions on ourselves as some sort of special challenge, but we can't consider that without knowing what special conditions might apply.
Also, I've ignored the considerations relevant to dual-classing a human Thief, since this is just about comparison with halflings, who can be only a single-class or a F/T. No, again I disagree. More strongly disagree when it comes to multi-classing, in fact. The only multi-class a halfling can (legally) do is Fighter/Thief. The general arguments above still apply to whichever style of thieving you'll be asking him to concentrate upon, and the other half of him is a Fighter, so the STR restriction is all the more important in this case, and definitely makes halfling a poor choice for F/T.
I do accept that getting off to a fast start with some good starting values to thieving skills is useful early on for a multi-classed character, because of the slower progression. Nevertheless, in the longer run (i.e. in BG2) it's not such a big deal, because you'll still end up with plenty of skill points for all your needs, regardless of your initial values. (Even a Half-Orc eventually makes a very fine Thief, once he has enough levels to accumulate the skill points!)
To make an easier start, therefore, you do want a race for your Fighter/Thief which has some natural aptitude for thievery, but which doesn't have the Fighter-crippling STR restriction of a halfling. Elf (because of the DEX bonus) or gnome (because of the good thieving bonuses) are the natural choices, both being effectively only one level behind the halfling in Thief skills but substantially better Fighters than the halfling. Elf also has weapon bonuses, but gnome has shorty saves. Since a Fighter/Thief is likely to be at the front of your party more often than a single-class Thief, he's likely to be targetted more often, and will therefore particularly benefit from good saves. Thus, in this case, I reckon the gnome wins as the best choice for F/T, with elf a close second.
If I want to play a Bounty Hunter, I won't invest only in Set Traps, I'll also want him to be stealthy in order to scout and decide where to place those traps. So the+5 in Set Traps the Gnome has on the Halfling is offset by the Halfling's superior Stealth (+15 over the Gnome), making the Halfling the more appealing race in terms of thieving skills. Someone else might not care about stealth and be more interested in detecting traps and illusions besides setting traps, in which case the Gnome will be more appealing, as Gnomes have better scores in those areas. Both races get the same amount of skillpoints at character creation, so deciding which race will make the better Bounty Hunter, will depend largely on what Thieving skills one means to focus on. Gnomes' +5 advantage in Set Traps doesn't necessarily make them superior Bounty Hunters.
Having said that, the Halfling's access to 19 Dex allows them to get +5 in six more skills out of the seven thieving skills. Thus a 19 Dex Halfling will be overall superior to an 18 Dex Gnome, and on par with that Gnome when it comes to trap setting.
Now if you ask me whether a 19 Dex Halfling's headstart of 60 skillpoints over the 18 Dex Gnome is worth the 17 Str, my answer is: most often it is not. Thieves generally need that Str Tome to get to 19 Str more than any other class (Warriors have good Thac0 and damage bonuses anyway, Clerics can buff, and Druids/Wizards have their spells to deal damage, but Thieves have only their physical attacks and lacklustre Thac0 prgression). However, this doesn't make Halflings inferior Thieves, it makes them inferior melee warriors. For a predominantly ranged Bounty Hunter, Halfling > Gnome in terms of both thieving and fighting prowess.
As for Charname and combat worthiness, that is an entirely different matter.
My argument is simply that there's more to being a good Thief than thief skill points alone, and that much of the time the halfling's extra thief skill points come at too high a price to be an optimal choice for a Thief character.
@Blackraven - it doesn't seem to me that you're disagreeing very much. Okay, you can envisage a particular flavour of Bounty Hunter for which you'd favour a halfling, fair enough, but in general you seem to be agreeing with my point that the STR restriction on halflings usually outweighs the benefit of extra thief skill points. Therefore, most of the time, some other race would be a more advantageous choice for a Thief protagonist - which is the point I'm trying to make.
Just FYI - I mostly play with humans or dwarves, even if multiclassed. Also, I have a house rule against power-gaming, that a char can not have two 14+ point attributes of the same number - and no more rerolls than about 30-40, so my Thieves usually start around 17/18/15/10/10/16. (With any excessive points going into Wisdom or Intelligence).
Yep, the highest number obviously goes to the most important attribute - with Thieves it being Dexterity - and every other important attribute gets a decremented value.
(Except my Swashbuckler, who is primarily a fighter, not a lover so he had 18 in Strength and 17 in Dex)
And even despite this all, my Thieves are powerful and crafty beings...
As a discussion about an RPG game grows longer, the probability of the discussion diverting into argument about munchkin-level power-gaming approaches 1
As for halfling fighter thieves in BG1, ever heard of str potions?? You get so damn many. You can even buy tons more. No excuse for not having at least 19 str for any toughish bsttle. Gnomes dont have as good saves as halfers btw
In any event, as I said above, you are very much entitled to your own opinion.
You can totally play a thief in BG1 without relying on inherent (ie permanent) strength. Ffs, people have soloed clerics, and relying on melee brute force with 1 apr is pretty unwise vs the tougher bosses.
Come ToB, even an Assassin is not going to be very,reliant vs serious enemies on backstab, since they are immune. As @Southpaw pointed out, poison weapon is usually more useful. Halfling fighter thief is very effective whole series.
- striking from shadows grants a +4 to Thac0 which makes it easier to attack enemies
- in BG1, the max 18 Strength (without /XX numbers) won't do as much anyway (unless you get 19 with or without the Tome)
- potions of Strength are quite common, also there are spells for that too, if needed.
- a low level Thief is better off with a shortbow or darts anyway and that's where the Dexterity helps.
- in BG2 it is easy to get items that change your Strength up to 19/22 anyway.
Actually, the only Thief that I try to get high Strength is the Swashbuckler, but even this kit will get many +hit bonuses that will make it almost obsolete.
I also like strength for swashies for using daggers, as you get great damage for throwing daggers anf you offset the low damage die in BG1, until you can buy the Dag of Ven and find Longtooth. In BG2, you can rely on the Boomerang dagger until you can DW speed weapons (scimitars pips).
Especially, if you are a Halfling (max 17) or a non-power-gamer (like me)
Agree with DreadKhan about the daggers.