Most fun PC thief?
aj_
Member Posts: 9
So, now that I'm back to my old BG2 addiction, it's time to do stuff I've never tried before, namely some sort of PC thief. Here are the options:
Multi-class
fighter/thief: crazy backstabbing, but repetitive. Would bore me fairly quickly.
mage/thief: never was much of a Jan fan (except for the banter), because I don't abuse Mislead and felt his backstabbing was poor due to terrible thac0. He was always relegated to archer and backup mage. Also, very weak at the start.
cleric/thief: now this interests me! Perfect scouting and disarming with Sanctuary. Decent base thac0, lots of buffs to lower it and inflict nuts backstab damage with hit and fade. Can switch roles in a pinch and heal the party under Sanctuary or cause havoc with spells. Decent from the get go. RP-wise, could be a Mask-worshipping gnome, kind of like a less loopy Tiax.
fighter/mage/thief: takes too long to develop in a full party.
Kits
bounty hunter: of all the thief kits, this is the only one that might interest me in the long run, as the special traps have many tactical uses. I've always tired of PCs without spellcasting though.
Dual-class
Not a fan of dual-classing due to the downtime. I like my PCs to be fun from start to finish.
Multi-class
fighter/thief: crazy backstabbing, but repetitive. Would bore me fairly quickly.
mage/thief: never was much of a Jan fan (except for the banter), because I don't abuse Mislead and felt his backstabbing was poor due to terrible thac0. He was always relegated to archer and backup mage. Also, very weak at the start.
cleric/thief: now this interests me! Perfect scouting and disarming with Sanctuary. Decent base thac0, lots of buffs to lower it and inflict nuts backstab damage with hit and fade. Can switch roles in a pinch and heal the party under Sanctuary or cause havoc with spells. Decent from the get go. RP-wise, could be a Mask-worshipping gnome, kind of like a less loopy Tiax.
fighter/mage/thief: takes too long to develop in a full party.
Kits
bounty hunter: of all the thief kits, this is the only one that might interest me in the long run, as the special traps have many tactical uses. I've always tired of PCs without spellcasting though.
Dual-class
Not a fan of dual-classing due to the downtime. I like my PCs to be fun from start to finish.
2
Comments
Bounty Hunters are marvelous critters and open up very crazy possibilities with their traps, particularly the Maze versions. I would recommend them for solo runs. Otherwise, a Cleric/Thief sounds like what you want. You might have to map your innate abilities to a hotkey so it doesn't take quite so much time to get to them as a Cleric/Thief.
Mage/thief has heaps of different ways to overcome encounters. Trying to hit high AC targets with a M/T is like using blizzard against a water Pokemon.
Also - Assassin - "lot of fun with traps and poisons"...maybe not for you.
Bounty Hunter - is very, very fun Thief due to his "sneaky-recon + set traps + watch enemies to be blown to bits" nature
T/M - not a particular fan. A slow-advancing mage, who still can't fight. The T in M/T is usually picked for utility, not for being especially Thievish. Unless you'd want to abuse Mislead or Tenser's Transformation as your primal game-mode.
T/C - funny and refreshing class combo as it plays vastly differently than other Thief kits or multicasts.
I'd recommend to go for Bounty Hunter (so far, my most entertaining solo-playthrough and I soloed BG1+nearly all of BG2 with all kits).
A bounty hunting mage or highly trained assassin who actually knows how to use the weapons he trained in for years.
Assassins having only 1 pip kinda really annoys me, the deadly killers of the shadows should at least know more about their knifes than which side is the pointy end.
Oh oh oh or a Shadow dancing cleric of Mask or Shar or Vhaeraun, so many RP possibilities.
(Non-Fighters don't get that +1/2 APR for second pip anyway)
T/C is good, but I like the T/M more, though I don't mind keepering the thief into a kit for different RP reasons. It makes the class funnier to play IMHO, though doesn't make a huge difference.
Jan is good but a charname is always better. His stats are weak for melee but if you create a char with 18 STR you get a THAC0 point. Add in assassin instead of vanilla thief, get another, create him/her as an elf, get another THAC0 with swords/bows. With some items on top of that, you'll get enough THAC0 boosts to be able to melee, shoot with ranged, backstab, etc and you're still just slightly bending the original rules. You can use arcance spells to supplement thief skills while leveling up (knock, invisibility etc). It's a really entertaining charname IMHO. I've got one going from BG1, currently at level 4/5 or something like that.
The good thing about any kind of T/M, T/I, no matter if you kit or not, is that you can choose NPC's based purely on who you want to have since you will be able to do pretty much everything and anything on your own.
An F/M/T levels slowly indeed, but it doesn't matter since you will be just a level behind throughout most of the game and you will have everything you need and more. Of course you don't play a F/M/T as a mage, crying about not reaching level 9 spells. It doesn't matter once you reach level 6 spells and get some good buffs etc. Anything more than that is just gravy. Same with the thief and fighter parts, you don't need that many levels to be effective. A thief has the points he needs at level 7-10, even less with thief gear and spell support, and a fighter is just there for some HP/THAC0/APR boost, along with specialization.
Try to throw a Bounty Hunter into a fray (and squirm as you watch him/her die). No, with single-class Thieves or other combinations, you need to use more complex strategies than the usual "Backstab and then just keep hacking them to pieces"
http://www.gibberlings3.net/sns/
It would seem that the OP has already narrowed it down to either a cleric/thief or a F/M/T. The idea that the FMT is slow to level up is true but it's not as bad as you may think. I would recommend giving it a shot. It will allow for enough melee power to make your thief more useful and it will allow for the use of magic to help protect you or add support in spell battles.
One other suggestion if you get bored down the road would be to open up to dual-class. Dual class will give you the most powerful characters at the end game but they are not about being powerful. The dual class option isn't really about RP decisions or gaining the most abilities. It's about mixing up the gameplay and making the game challenging. Utilizing a kit in a dual class game will give you a single class character that is handicapped in one area and supercharged in another for the first game. Then 1/4th of the way through the second game you will have to start all over again and play a kitless single class until the end of SOA. Then you will be a multiple class character with restrictions. If you dual into a thief kit you can earn UAI and become a completely unhinged dual class character with level 9 spells or grand mastery or both depending on which way you want to go. Dual class doesn't make sense RP wise most of the time and it's not about making a solid character that you play from start to finish. It is a large mix of multiple play styles that are all lopsided for the sake of making the game interesting and challenging to play for those of us that have played this game to death with all of the major character classes.
I won't claim that dual class is the most fun or the most beneficial at all times but it is interesting. For me, if I had to chose a character that I think is the most fun to play from start to finish it would be the fighter/thief multiclass. The F/T multi feels like playing a fighter on steroids or if you are into the thief class it is like a thief on steroids. I like to focus on magic or melee but I am not a huge fan of using both at the same time. To me it feels like wasted potential but only from a technical standpoint. The F/T multi allows me to mix two classes and remain focused purely on melee which is more to my liking. However, In terms of fun, my last play through was with a FMT on insane with SCS pushed to the hilt and it was very fun and rewarding. Your character will have improvements that you look forward to all the way until the very end of the game.
I too was turned off by the slow character progression and I have a thing against mixing magic and melee but I was surprised by how fun it was and the character progression was not that bad at all. In fact, you level up in three different classes that are all on different XP tables so you are constantly leveling up and gaining new and useful abilities. As a FMT you will have enough fighter ability to make your thief backstab reliable and while you may not do as much damage as a fighter you will have magical protection to give you the extra time you need to kill your enemies. The FMT has a worse thaco by 5 or 6 points from a fighter or F/T at the end game and his slower progression will put a burn on your fighting skills but you will still be a competent fighter. With all the improved enemies in SCS I only ran into a handful of battles that my FMT struggled to land hits on and in the end his superior protection allowed him to triumph . The FMT also gets the extra 6,7,8 spell HLA's and the option to choose from the Fighter and thief HLA pools so you get the largest amount of abilities to mess with which will give you great utility and keep things interesting for someone who wants a little of everything.
Blind, sleep, Blur, mirror image, (greater) invisibility, true sight, tenser's trandormation, mislead, etc.
Stick only to buffs, summons and disabling spells. Focus on being magically sneaky.
Ex: summons, mislead, defensive buffs, invisibility. Let the summons get attention, sneak around, and do several high powered poisoned backstabs.
Even better at high levels with time stop!