halfling multiclass fighter/thief or halfling assassin?

Assuming that you are insisting on a halfling and not a half-elf (better in my opinion) for role-playing reasons, take the fighter/thief (take that multi-class no matter what your race, BTW). You get to pick from thief and fighter HLA's. Further, the assassinate HLA work much better for a F/T than an assassin due to the number of attacks available per that one magical round of death (makes no logical sense given that the kit is called assassin, but those are the rules of the game.

Plus, TOB is ridiculously weighted towards combat, and you will find that your assassin just doesn't cut it when the monsters are so strong and swift (unless he sits and chugs potions of invisibility and backstabs constantly, all the while wearing the cloak of non-detection like my F/T does). I just don't see the benefit of a single class kit over the multi F/T. My thief levels are all over 100%, so I'm not hurting that area by being multi-class, and I like to mix in the hardiness and whirlwinds. Plus, you can take multiple assassinate HLA's as a F/T and, IIRC, you can only take one as a pure assassin.

Sorry for the long-winded discourse, but those are my thoughts on the topic.

 

I'm not implying anything about your group, as I did not know who was in your group, let alone how you play, what you know about TOB, whether you want to powergame through or role-play, etc.

I was simply making a generic statement that TOB tends to be combat heavy (unlike SOA which, in my opinion, was more magic heavy) and you may be better served with a F/T who can take multiple instances of the assassinate HLA, which, combined with improved haste and dual wielding make the character death on the hoof, so to speak.

From a role-playing standpoint, I can easily see taking a solo NE assassin through the whole game, picking up companions and discarding them as circumstances dictate.

By the way, are you playing TOB straight up or with Ascension? You may want to add Sarevok to the group if the latter.