Is (Near) Maximum Thieving Skills Necessary?

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I would like to know if anyone tried to finish the game without a character that maxes out on Disable Device, Open Lock and Search. The first time I finished the game, I had a Ranger 1/Rogue X, so I maxed out on these theiving skills. I am currently using a Rogue 1/Wizard X and because of my one level of Rogue, I have almost maximum (short by 2) theiving skills. My high Int allows me to put 2 skill points to each of the 3 theiving skills each level.

I was considering using just a straight Wizard, but also spending points on the three theiving skills. Because I have no rogue levels, my theiving skills will only be at one half of max. Will I have difficulties finding and disarming traps or opening locks later in the game if I do not have max theiving skills?

 

Thieving skills aren't necessary at all.
Locks can be bashed or knocked (the spell).
A few of the more powerful traps can be disabled without the skill. Most traps are really weak and you can just walk through them and take the damage. Mirror image is also useful against some traps.
I don't know about search. A few points in that can be useful but much isn't neccerasy.

Remember that a lone wizard has difficulties finding high lvl spells in time. Starting with one rogue-lvl is always useful if you're using a class that can take that without xp-penalties. Some skills can be fun to have access to, although not that necessary.

 

I used a similar strategy to yours by starting with a Rogue 1/Wizard X. My Wizard was going up in levels faster than I anticipated though, and I ended up getting another level in Rogue because he was at a point where he could cast spells of a certain level but hadn't found any scroll yet (this was the case for a good portion mid-game). With that in mind I really wouldn't use a pure Wizard, and one or 2 levels of Rogue are more than enough if you have high INT.

 

It was pickpocket I tried to use but even in playtesting,I mod it up to 40 or 120 and still failure,ie Malvorn and others. So how does this work???? I think as with me,dex bonus -20 is adequate level as a rough guide if using the skill. Search(10 ranks enough) you leave for clerics etc with only 1cost/rank,frees your points,just have them accompany your thief.

 

Yeah. The first time through the game, I had a similar issue with the wizard. Luckily I also had a sorcerer, so I wasn't missing out on arcane spells that much. I found it extremely frustrating that I my wizard had to find scrolls and could not learn spells on my own (like I really should in D&D). About half the game, I could cast higher level spells, but had not found any scrolls yet. Towards the end, I did catch up. This was the reason I had a Rogue 1/Wizard X.

If I do decide to go through the game again, I was thinking of using a Tiefling Wizard. The one level penalty would just slow me down enough to find scrolls. I would like to spend some skill points on thieving skills because I found it rather annoy to have to break open locks and it seems only the early locks can be broken easily. I guess I could just use mirror image and knock for the traps. I do find most traps are rather harmless as I could just rest. Still I just like using the thieving skills.

I would just like to know if half maxed thieving skills are enough, before I waste skill points towards them.

 

Actually my Thief/Wizard was a Tiefling The bonus to both DEX and INT is very good for this particular multiclass.

I did have a Sorcerer as well, so the Wizard was mostly for backup. The way I'd set it up my Sorcerer specialised in raw firepower while my Wizard took care of buffs and more utilitarian spells. It worked quite well.

Even if you go the pure Wizard way and dump your extra points into the thieving skills this should be fine. You will only be behind the Rogue/Wizard multiclass by 3 points, which won't make much of a difference. The traps and locks in IWD2 aren't that big a deal and I think the game was designed so that a non-thief putting points in the thieving skills would still manage to succeed a fair number of times. Pickpocket is another matter entirely though - you need a pretty high score to succeed. Some NPCs may be "immune" to pickpocketing, but I've not tested this very thouroughly.

 

A pure wizard (no rogue levels) will only be able to have half as many ranks as a characters with a level of rogue. At level 1, you will have a max of 2 ranks compared to 4. However, this difference increases as you go up levels. By level 8, a character with a rogue level can have a maximum skill rank of 11 while a non-rogue will have a maximum of 5. That's a difference of 6. By level 16, the max ranks will be 19 to 9 which is a difference of 10. I'm wondering if this disparity will make it not worth putting any skill points to thieving skills if you do not have at least one level of rogue.

 

IWD2 uses real d20 rolls to check if a thieving skill attempt succeeds, so even 10 skill points more or less change the success chance by only 50 percent.

A standard rogue starts with 10 or maybe 12 int while a wizard starts with 18 or 20 and increase it to 22 to 24 at level 16.
So a wizard's int stat provides about 5 extra skill ranks in the int based thieving skills, a low level wizard is usually better for the important skills than a standard rogue of the same level.
The dex based "open locks" skill doesn't have to be high since you can retry for a better d20 roll, pickpocketing isn't that useful and you can succeed as non-thief without many extra reloads because of the d20 rolls.

 

True, but that's not really an issue with a Rogue 1/Wizard X because once you start levelling as a Wizard you need 2 skill points to raise the skill by one anyway. With putting point in Spellcraft and Concentration (and Lore) as well as in the thieving skills you won't have enough points to keep up with the maximum for the thieving skills anyway. Hence why I said it won't be that much of a gap with the the pure Wizard. Once you get past the initial "boost" the first rogue level gives, putting points into the thieving skills is just as expensive for both builds.

 

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!

Spoiler

There is no 'd20' component in most of the IWD2's skill checks - Pick Pocket, Hide and Move silently are the only ones that I know of. (And possibly Disable Device, since I've seen critical failures?) You either have the required skill to do your thing or you don't.

Consequently, the highest skill level required to do ANYTHING is 20, and that's after with all the relevant modifiers. Anything rogue-related has a max skill check of 17. Any half-decent rogue/wizard is bound to have at least 16 in both DEX and INT, so more than 14 actual skill levels in anything rogue-related is definitely overkill.

[Please use the SPOILER tag for spoilers in the future. There's also a spoiler tag button in the post editor. -Tal]

 

Does Search do anything? Anything at all?

Also, doesn't Concentration benefit from being maxed out?

 

Search without Disable Device is kind of pointless, same vice versa. Search enables you to find something to disable (the red overlay on the trap), Disable is used to disable it.

Concentration has always been a quirky skill - I just don't see a point of having a caster without it being maxed at all times, so it kinda doesn't count in my book. Plus you never actively 'use' that skill, so it's easy to forget about. But yes, you're right - it should be maxed.

 

I think both disable device and search has some kind of luck (d20?) component. DD I'm sure has it because sometimes I fail to disable a trap and after a reload It's suddenly possible to do it.
It seems like people with lower search sometimes has to stand in an area for a longer time before they find the traps so it probably has some check every round or so with a dice involved.

 

Is 20 the highest skill level required for HoF mode as well?

 

Great tips, thanks

I knew about un-pickpocketable characters, and I was considering recreating my rogue with only the initial 4 points in pickpocket, effectively giving up on the skill. But now I know how high it has to be to pickpocket those that can be pickpocketed.
I would like to know if Open Locks checks don't go over 20 in HoF mode though; and anyone have any idea about in Icewind Gate 2, HoF mode?
My Deep Gnome 12-20-18-18-5-1 starts as a rogue, focuses on Illusionist, and takes another rogue level later on for more skills and the Evasion ability. A level ranger for dual wielding is added later, allowing for more rogue skills. At very high level it's worth taking a level bard for using bard items, and more rogue skills.