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pure thief

DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
So, based on my google research, it seems universally accepted that pure thief is a gimp kit. But most of it only talks about damage and min/maxing. So here is my question, for a rper who wants to make a thief character, not for min maxing, but for its thieving skills (hide in shadows/silence/pick pocketing/lock picking) is a pure rogue really that bad? I have no interest in dual classing but I'm fine with dual wielding.

I was also looking at assassin and shadow dancer kit, I love the shadow dancer's ability to disappear in people's sight, and a assassin would add a more neutral evil minded then lawful evil. Also the idea that my thieving kit will be gimpes if I pick the other two kits over pure thief is also weighing my decision on this.

I'm mostly trying to keep this character out of the publics eye, and the eye of combat. My team mostly will consist of evil aligned characters (viconia, dorn, Edwin, still need to pick two more). I'm also a bit a of a stickler, since I'm not a large fan of characters completely overlapping classes with my main one. Meaning if I go thief then no Imoen allowed.

Comments

  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    The reason it can be considered 'bad' is that as a single class Thief you'll end up with more than enough skill points, so that you might as well pick Bounty Hunter for the special traps, or Shadowdancer for the Hide in Plain Sight ability.

    Nevertheless, plain Thief isn't bad at all. Most of the Thief skills are really useful and the backstab is a powerful weapon throughout the most of the game, so your Thief should be a valuable member of the party both in and out of combat.

    Besides stealth and lockpicking you mention pickpocketing. I must say the latter is a skill I would only invest in for roleplaying purposes; strategically you'd be better off investing skill points in Detect Traps, Set Traps and/or Detect Illusions.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Pure thief is fine in BG1 imho, suited to solo even if you play right.

    However, by mid SoA, you will have more skill points than you probably want/need... unless you pick pockets, which isn't a necessary thing at all, you have more than you need, and this is anathema to a power gamer. Imho, thief HLA are pretty solid, so as long as you can prepare some traps.

    I would say BH, SD and Swashie are all strictly better, but the Thief is actually fine. Assassin is powerful, but requires more planning early imho to function as a thief.
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    DreadKhan said:

    Pure thief is fine in BG1 imho, suited to solo even if you play right.

    However, by mid SoA, you will have more skill points than you probably want/need... unless you pick pockets, which isn't a necessary thing at all, you have more than you need, and this is anathema to a power gamer. Imho, thief HLA are pretty solid, so as long as you can prepare some traps.

    I would say BH, SD and Swashie are all strictly better, but the Thief is actually fine. Assassin is powerful, but requires more planning early imho to function as a thief.

    I'm not really power gaming or min/maxing is not my concern. I was focusing more on the utilities like pickpocketing and lock picking
    Blackraven said:

    The reason it can be considered 'bad' is that as a single class Thief you'll end up with more than enough skill points, so that you might as well pick Bounty Hunter for the special traps, or Shadowdancer for the Hide in Plain Sight ability.

    Nevertheless, plain Thief isn't bad at all. Most of the Thief skills are really useful and the backstab is a powerful weapon throughout the most of the game, so your Thief should be a valuable member of the party both in and out of combat.

    Besides stealth and lockpicking you mention pickpocketing. I must say the latter is a skill I would only invest in for roleplaying purposes; strategically you'd be better off investing skill points in Detect Traps, Set Traps and/or Detect Illusions.

    Only one I wasn't going to put points in was detect illusion. Every other skill I wanted to try to at least put some points into. This is why I was hesitant to go assassin or Shadow dancer over pure thief, because they lost a bit of skill points.
    typo_tilly said:

    I actually prefer the pure class thief. Only pure class and swashbuckler get lots of skill points -- enough to max nice stuff like Detect Illusions and Set Traps while still handling Picking Locks and Disarming Traps. It's more difficult to juggle so many skills with the other thief kits.

    There's something to be said for high thief skills in mid-game rather than late-game. :)

    So a pure thief is more capable of pushing all the skills, obviously still focusing some over others of course.
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  • ArdulArdul Member Posts: 211
    In the first game a pure thief is a perfectly viable character. Going into SoA he becommes progressively worse - on a relative scale - and in ToB he is literally just *dead* weight.
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  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Ardul said:

    In the first game a pure thief is a perfectly viable character. Going into SoA he becommes progressively worse - on a relative scale - and in ToB he is literally just *dead* weight.

    Oh yeah, I hate all those Spike Traps and Use Any Item too! Wait, what??

    Pure Thief has spare skill points late unless you use pickpocketing, sure. So what? Who cares? Do you really think the only use for a character capable of spamming ridiculous damage spike traps and casting from scrolls is to disarm traps and open locks? You must be joking.
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    @DreadKhan - I'm with you in that late game thief is still extremely viable. However, I wonder if the perception of a straight thief being 'dead weight' in late TOB is because of all of the back-stab resistant opponents? Still, there's more to a thief than merely sticking a knife in from behind.
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    typo_tilly said:

    Eh, ToB... I normally play BG1-SoA. Even so, Detect Illusion is helpful in all those magic fights along with tactical use of traps and hiding and such. But non-dual/multi thieves do go slightly downhill in very late game. Nice high end traps!


    @DragonKing‌
    Think of what you want most for the run then choose the thief class.

    Will you have a second thief in party? If you do, they can take on some of the needed locks+traps skills.
    Do you like micro manage my your character for backstabbing? If not, choose Swashbuckler!
    Do you most like the idea of hiding in plain sight? Shadow Dancer!
    Do you use traps a lot? Bounty Hunter!

    Pure Thief and Swashbuckler are great if you have no other thief in party. The other kits need some help - unless all you use are locks+traps with hide+sneak. And some players do only use thieves for that - and that's okay. :)

    If you want to use 6 or 7 thief skills well (before reaching ToB) and you don't want a second thief in party, I'd go with a Pure Thief or Swashbuckler. But your role-play focus may be more important than using all the skills. If a Shadow Dancer really appeals, go for it then focus on fewer skills.

    If you're really interested in playing any thief class to its fullest, check out this thief faq. :)

    Charaname will be the only thief character on the team. In my roleplay focus, a thief should be well rounded in the thieving kit. If yhrbpure thief gets as many skill points as everyone says I think my mind has been made up. A purr thief is definitely the way to go.
    kcwise said:

    You'll be just fine with a pure thief, because the other party members can take up the slack in areas where the class doesn't shine. As far as Throne of Bhaal goes, there isn't enough of it to plan your entire game around in my opinion. Many of the powergamer builds are designed to shred through the final few levels, but often give little consideration to the longer process of getting to that point.

    That's the problem I see wit majority of these guides, it seem majority of the players care more for powergaming and less for the roleplay aspect. I rarely see many themed based build or play throughs and that saddens me a bit.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    Given that you want to roleplay I would avoid the kits and just go with a regular old non-kitted thief. That way you are left with plenty of points to play around with and you can define what kind of thief you want your character to be.
  • SouthpawSouthpaw Member Posts: 2,026
    @DragonKing - Pure Thief is fine, use him/her mainly for ranged combat (deadly with a bow), utility and occasional backstab, though the kits are a bit better.
    Kits are for specialisations.
    If you're interested, I did put together a short guide about Thieving in BG here .
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    @Ardul‌ to be clear, I would totally agree that the kits for thief are mechanically better than vanilla. I came across a bit rude maybe, and a cooler mind suggests you may have been aiming for a different point than I assumed.
  • LateralusLateralus Member Posts: 903
    DragonKing said:

    So, based on my google research, it seems universally accepted that pure thief is a gimp kit. But most of it only talks about damage and min/maxing. So here is my question, for a rper who wants to make a thief character, not for min maxing, but for its thieving skills (hide in shadows/silence/pick pocketing/lock picking) is a pure rogue really that bad? I have no interest in dual classing but I'm fine with dual wielding.

    I was also looking at assassin and shadow dancer kit, I love the shadow dancer's ability to disappear in people's sight, and a assassin would add a more neutral evil minded then lawful evil. Also the idea that my thieving kit will be gimpes if I pick the other two kits over pure thief is also weighing my decision on this.

    I'm mostly trying to keep this character out of the publics eye, and the eye of combat. My team mostly will consist of evil aligned characters (viconia, dorn, Edwin, still need to pick two more). I'm also a bit a of a stickler, since I'm not a large fan of characters completely overlapping classes with my main one. Meaning if I go thief then no Imoen allowed.

    Gee I dunno DK, try them all and see which one sticks. I am a critic when it comes to class kits, but the thief ones are far and away the most compelling.

    A halfling shadow dancer would be epic. With the right gear you could get your stealth skills near 200% each! That would make you a one trick pony for awhile but...that one trick is AWESOME. I'm pretty sure that a 200% in hide in shadows will mean that you will always make your stealth rolls even in broad daylight. Because (and correct me if I am wrong) I think your success chance is halved in daylight, and of course half of 200% is 100%!. So I mean, you always have an ace up your sleeve.

    Bounty hunters are kind of tedious (and cheesey if you let them) but oh so deadly. Throw a rock a Drizz't, stand there with your arms crossed and watch him fall. Heck I even killed Elminster 3 times in one game.

    Swashbucklers are kind of overhyped. I keep hearing about how they rival fighters in combat but the numbers don't back those claims and no backstab? The greatest thing about being a rogue--for me--is backstabbing.

    Then you got the assassan, the king of backstabbing. The sad thing is that in BG2 a lot of really tough fights can't be won through backstabbing, and that's when they get to x7. Still, poison use is so very useful.

    Vanilla is good too.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Swashbucklers really don't compre well to fighters until ~15th lvl, but they start to shine once they are very high level, so a better kit for a solo maybe.
  • NimranNimran Member Posts: 4,875
    kcwise said:

    Someone really should have added a magical buckler named Swash to the game. Swash +5, upgradeable to +6 with Cespenar.

    Only if it came with an extra attack, so I can yell "I'm gonna swish my swash at you!"
  • ArdulArdul Member Posts: 211
    edited October 2014
    Edit: @DreadKhan‌ eh no problem, i did go for dramaticism over precision.

    Ok i forgot to say that i discount spike traps, as i find them incredibly cheesy . They do of course make much of the game extremely easy, but then what is the point? Still, i should have said that.

    Concerning scrolls it is obviously a big boon, but merely transforms the thief into a very inferiror mage imo,
    But yes, running a thief, even in tob, is of course perfectly doable.

    Just very inferior compared to most other choices.
  • WebShamanWebShaman Member Posts: 490
    It is like I have always said :

    Trap, trap, trap your way to Godhood!

    The new Bhaal kills by trapping! Hehe...

    Thief is broken. Badly. Between UAI and Trap skill, there is basically nothing that the Thief cannot defeat in the BG series. And with the various potions just made for thieving...yeah baby, steal everyone blind and build your fortune early!
  • abacusabacus Member Posts: 1,307
    Bounty Hunter is probably a better choice... 5 fewer points per level is a negligible penalty and their traps are really cool.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    abacus said:

    Bounty Hunter is probably a better choice... 5 fewer points per level is a negligible penalty and their traps are really cool.

    I like them RP wise too, all about being tricky... Any Methods Necessary! (No disintegrations, so don't spam Fireball Traps! ;) heh)
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