Which race is your Fighter/Thief?
Apepalm
Member Posts: 5
We all know Fighter/Thief is one of the most versatile multiclasses available, but which race should you play as, and why? I think an argument could be made for all of them honestly (except human of course).
I chose an elf for the 19 DEX and sword and bow to hit bonuses. The 17 CON can be easily increased with the Manual of Bodily Health, the low racial thief skill bonuses are remedied by the high DEX, the sword to hit bonus makes them deadly dual wielders, and they are simply the best archers in the game.
Which race did you choose?
I chose an elf for the 19 DEX and sword and bow to hit bonuses. The 17 CON can be easily increased with the Manual of Bodily Health, the low racial thief skill bonuses are remedied by the high DEX, the sword to hit bonus makes them deadly dual wielders, and they are simply the best archers in the game.
Which race did you choose?
6
Comments
By the way, in IWDEE a dwarven Fighter/Thief rocks even better because his downside - 17 starting DEX can be overcome with many DEX-enhancing items in this game and the Cat's Grace spell.
When I want to have something easier right off the bat, I go for a half-orc Fighter/Thief. This lad can reap everyone apart with his backstabs from the mere start. 19 STR is very convenient on all your 1-5 levels when you're overall weak. I play this character as an ultimate backstabber and I like it too.
Backstabbed by a ferret
A Ferret!
Can you believe this crap?
I usually go very offensive with them and get ms/hs and set traps high and let some npc do the trap disarming.
Kits + being able to stop leveling once you have enough stats OR enough proficiency in a weapon makes them very powerful.
However, since you've gone and resurrected the thread anyway, I'll mention that my preference for a F/T is Gnome. Shorty saves, and racial thieving bonuses as good (in total) as a Halfling. Giving up the Halfling's DEX bonus, but not suffering the Halfling's STR penalty. As a compromise between Fighter and Thief, I reckon a Gnome is ideal.
Nevertheless, I disagree that either dwarves or halflings are a "stronger option". If you want a distinctly Thief-focused F/T, then the halfling's DEX bonus is useful (but his STR penalty obviously weakens his Fighter side) and it's also worth considering an elf in this case, or if you want a distinctly Fighter-focused F/T, then the dwarf's CON bonus is useful (but his DEX penalty weakens his Thief side) and it's also worth considering a half-orc in this case, but if you want a balanced F/T who is pretty good at both classes, then a gnome is the ideal answer, with neither bonuses nor penalties to relevant stats.
While I agree that it may seem odd, considering you have FMT as an option, sometimes you just don't want the FMT growth rate. Also, being that I'm more of a melee player at heart than a pure caster, that early Thac0 helps a lot in combat.
However I must admit that if you play on insane difficulty with SCS and all of the improved enemies are enabled, then a FMT is the better pick because those extra protective spells are no longer an unnecessary, tedious process. If you go up against 5 dragons at one time and they have 500 hitpoints each, you are going to need some serious protection. In fact I don't know if I could beat the game on insane SCS without a F/M or FMT. Then again I am not the most skilled of players.
For me, the half orc F/T is the best balance of character progression and power when playing the vanilla game or even SCS without all of the improved enemies and tactics battles.
My latest playthrough was with a FMT and I must admit it was an eye opener. The FMT is very powerful but you are dealing with slower character progression and a large loss to thaco in exchange for magic. Since your magic users will have more spells and access to higher level spells at any given point in the game, the FMT usually only benefits from protective spells.
In the vanilla game even on insane difficulty you will not really need these extra protective spells considering you have a -17 armor class and 250 hitpoints. On top of that you could always use the ring of mirroring to cast mirror image on yourself and the boots of gargoyle to cast stoneskin on yourself. You also have the ring of gax to cast improved haste and your other party members could always cast improved haste or improve invisibility on you.
To me, casting these spells is not needed and becomes tedious on all but the absolute hardest of difficulty settings. However the FMT's extra protection outweighs the FT's extra damage abilities and character progression when the chips are truly down. This is something I didn't realize until I played through with the FMT with the difficulty pushed as far as it can go without being impossible. I had always played the game vanilla on insane or SCS on core rules and to me the F/T is the better character. However, Last time I pushed it to the limit with insane SCS and all of the hardest options enabled and it made me appreciate the FMT's protective benefits. Both characters are a joy to play as and I will probably play through the game with each character type at least once more each.
In the vanilla game a warrior that does more damage per round is the more powerful character in my opinion. This makes the Pure class Kensai or Kensai/theif dual very powerful with the fighter/thief multi being a very powerful compromise that is more fun to play as. With SCS on insane, the enemies deal a bunch of damage and have enough hitpoints to last much longer. This makes magical protection more important than raw damage output. So FMT wins in this scenario.
Halfling F/T grew on me a bit later, I like having such a small, sneaky backstabber and halfling fits for me the most. Now that's my almost natural choice when making a F/T. It seems that I like the more dexterous races for that multiclass option. I might experiment with other races in the future, but not for power-gamey reasons.
Though for a backstabber, an elf would be more thematically correct.
This honesty intrigued me. I don’t know if i’m Just retarded, but I wish to learn the ways of the ferret
I've always wondered where those ferrets hide the ankheg shells I have them steal from my party members. Do they have a bag of holding hidden in their derrieres?
it is wonderful that i learn something new almost every time i visit the forums
any way my last F/T was elf. the reason is that elves are cool.
Oh yeah, after reading all of the recommendations, I went dwarf. Deadliest ball of quarterstaff bludgeoning you've never seen.