Thief Skills over 100
unhidemymenus
Member Posts: 39
Which thief skills benefit from being over 100?
0
unhidemymenus
Member Posts: 39
Comments
You also have to remember that there're a couple of items that give you a penalty to various thieving scores, including Elven Chainmails and Rugged Leathers.
For e.g., the Elven Chain imposes a 5% find traps and open locks penalty, as well as more severe hide/pickpocket penalties.
If you use, it (for e.g., the Aslyferund Elven Chainmail in ToB) it would be a good idea to get 105 in both find traps and open locks.
In theory none of the thief skills would benefit from anything over 100 points. The reason that some do and others don't is because of penalties that are applied to the skills. Increasing your thief skills to over 100 is only useful to counteract the effects of any penalties that may be applied to them. The only three skills that are constantly getting huge penalties applied to them are the stealth skills and pick pockets. The stealth skills get huge penalties if you try to use them in brightly lighted or otherwise not-dark areas so it is a good idea to get at least ~150 in each before you can expect to succeed at stealth every single time. Pick pockets can get even bigger penalties because each store that can be stolen from applies a certain penalty to the skill. Bernard, for example, applies a massive 128 point penalty to your pick pockets to steal from him so you you need at least 228 to have the maximum 99% chance success rate for shoplifting from him. Even simply picking a pocket (as opposed to shoplifting from a store) can apply a sizable penalty to your skill. Though I am not 100% certain of the exact mechanic of the penalty for pick pocketing a character outside of a store I do have a theory as to how it works. Keep in mind that this is just a theory and should not be taken as hard fact, but I think that if you try to pick pocket from a thief or bard they will apply their own pick pocket skill as a penalty to yours. Assuming that I am correct about this, that means that trying to pick Renal Bloodscalp's pocket would apply a 100 point penalty to your skill since he has 100 in his own pick pockets skill. The other thief skills rarely, if ever, have a penalty applied to them, and even if they do it is usually a pretty small penalty and can usually be avoided by taking off your elven chain or hide armor while you are using them.
Edit: Come to think of it... That may actually have been fixed quite a while ago... I don't remember...
of all the things that might make this game feel old, this has got to be it
Famous last words.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/370098/#Comment_370098
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/436805/#Comment_436805 (from 2012)
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/106545/#Comment_106545 (from 2013)
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/526285/#Comment_526285 this is the latest post on this subject (2014) by @Blackraven that @Troodon80 has confirmed
Also, this is my view on the subject: 100 point in it guarantees it works in 100% cases. There's no 1% failture chance when your Set Traps skill is at 100
But if others can confirm trap setting failures at 100 Set Traps, then maybe my Thieves have just been very lucky.
If it hasn't been luck, then maybe the EEs apply a different system. (My experience is mostly with the original games, though I've played Thieves in the EEs as well.) I understand that in the EEs thieving skills no longer wrap back to zero when you develop them beyond 255*, while in the original games they do. I also understand that HiS and MS do the same thing in the EEs whereas in the original games MS is better because it makes you remain hidden longer when leaving stealth after a failed attempt at hiding. Maybe the developers could confirm whether a 1% failure regardless of skill is another change to the thieving system introduced by the EE games?
Edit:
* I'm sure I read this somewhere on the forums, but I can't find the source
Apparently it's not the same with pickpocketing NPCs: there the risk of getting caught does seem to exist (regardless of how high your pickpockets score is). I can't confirm this because I generally choose to not risk it in my no-reload runs.
@CamDawg, on the other hand, would probably know for certain and I would not question anything that he would say.
That said, after asking someone much more knowledgeable, he said that Luck has something to do with it. So in the case of Set Traps—if you are fatigued and have 100 points in Set Traps, you are not guaranteed to succeed. I do not know if this also applies to other thief skills.