looking for anything that makes the detect traps and detect illusion skills more valuable

unavailable

Detect illusion isn't effective because nothing in the game is immune to divination.

Traps, I already know where they're located, and I remember that I can easily endure most of them so long as I don't get careless with mirror images and antidotes.

gorgonzola

Is possible to solo the game without a thief, less easy to run certain parties without it, as there are some traps that trigger many times, not only the first one that you step on them, one of those traps is in the slums

inside the slavers boat

and with a low HP party member, like low level viky, that can not use PI he can not survive.
Not detecting and disarming traps you also loose some XP, but you can live without it.
In a vanilla game nothing is immune to divination, modded is a different thing as in some mods spell immunity divination is used. And you can not target someone that is protected by improved invisibility and that spell immunity. In such cases glitterdust or detect illusions from a thief is your only chance. But I agree, in vanilla is not an issue. Still having a thief capable to detect illusions frees slots in your mages spellbook and let your mages do other things. And a mage casting true sight can be disrupted, the thief with enough points in that ability will never fail.

you can live without both, but this does not mean that they are not useful. Maybe they can not be the priority of your thief, but if you don't plan a dual from thief at low level is wise to take points in those abilities.

ThacoBell

Detect illusions lets you dispel illusions without using spell slots to do so. That in itself is hugely useful, it frees up more space for your mages to focus on other things. There are also instant death traps, so yeah might wanna disarm those. Also that sweet sweet trap exp.

Raduziel

Detect Illusion is True Sight "always" active, party friendly and at will.

It's the second more OP ability of the Thief (right behind Set Traps).

I'm running a Thief -> Wizard Slayer with 100% in Detect Illusion and the game was never easier.

Improved Invisibility, Shadow Door, Mislead, all gone in 6 seconds. You make the opponent lose two actions (the illusion to be dispelled and his next spell that will be disrupted for a hit).

The only problem with DI is the AoE in my opinion.

Can't see how this could be more useful.

TheArtisan

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the shadowdancer using Shadowstep + Detect Illusions is some broken stuff especially with SCS where everyone and their mother uses SI:Divination.

PK2748

Artemius_I said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the shadowdancer using Shadowstep + Detect Illusions is some broken stuff especially with SCS where everyone and their mother uses SI:Divination.

I do the same thing with Sanctuary and Detect Illusion on my Cleric/Thief. I'm quite willing to pay cash now to carry Glint over to BG2. Just do it Beamdog!

Nuin

Disarm Traps gives you a TON of XP at early/mid levels.
Not sure what your definition of "valuable" is but to the practical person something that allows us to get levle 5/6/7+ spells faster, get inactive levels working again or get high level NPCs to spawn earlier counts as something -very- valuable, not counting methods which are (for all intents and purposes) exploits (re-scribing spells).

Otherguy

With SCS detect illusion is imho one of the strongest skills/spells in the game. Not only to break down mages but also to get rid of quite dangerous invis potion abusing thieves. I can't speak for vanilla since I haven't played it since ToB was first released though.

gorgonzola

In vanilla that problem is not so frequent. I am running a vanilla run after years of modded game, and I can think of only few encounters where thieves use invisibility potions, and no one when a thief comes out of nowhere invisible and bachstabs you, thing that would have been very logical, is exactly what your thief, if you use him properly, try to do all the time. You always know that there is a thief and that he is gone invisible. A couple of detecting invisibility spells of the lower level memorized solve the problem as you know every time that there is a thief and that he has gone invisible. Only one of the fights in the pocket plane is a problem . And, as the OP mentioned explicitly that he takes metagame in account, and every mage has plenty of lev 2 slots early and is not critical to have many of the other spells memorized there, while MM for disruption and the lev 3 spells , like skull trap and flame arrow, are much more useful if you have many, I see his point.
But I still think that DI is very useful.

Aerakar

Otherguy said:

With SCS detect illusion is imho one of the strongest skills/spells in the game. Not only to break down mages but also to get rid of quite dangerous invis potion abusing thieves. I can't speak for vanilla since I haven't played it since ToB was first released though.

I find this so true. I usually play thieves myself and prefer to take enemy thieves out fast on the chance of getting some of their remaining invisibility potions to add to my stockpile.