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I had all 25's at the end of the game with a full complement of companions. You certainly don't need to go solo to get powerful (especially since the game adjusts the final battles based on you level).

I think the companions make the play much more enjoyable. Dak'kon, Nordom, Annah, and Grace all have special cutscenes in the Fortress of Regrets. Morte is simply the best and funniest companion ever devised by the gaming industry.

 

Actually, leveling quickly as a thief at lower levels is ridiculously in the Hive. Normally I'd put some kind of spoiler warning on this tactic, but it isn't really a spoiler, and this is an ancient game.

As a thief, put all your early points into pick pockets, then continuously steal healing charms from the items merchant in the SW Hive area. Get some kind of green steel weapon (talking to enough hivers should eventually get you a green steel dagger). Now go after black abishai, which respawn in the different Hive quadrants. If you're in a party, use Morte's taunt ability to make them hostile. If you're soloing, just go up and talk to them until they attack. Have Morte tank them (or tank them yourself if soloing), pausing periodically to use some of your 99 heart charms to heal yourself. You'll level very quickly at least at the beginning.

Again, to level quickest, having 25 WIS as early as possible is the way to go, and getting the best XP yield over the game while also getting the most sheer character power is best achieved by getting the natural 25 WIS early, then using your tattoo slots for prime requisite tattoos, such as the specialization ones that become available at levels 7 and 12.

 

An easier variation to Killjoy's tactic I've found is to utilize backstabbing with his aforementioned green steel dagger. Backstab, run- rinse and repeat. Three or four backstabs and even a fiend goes down for the count, and if you're solo'ing, 7000 XP is enough to do backstrokes in.

 

Do note that Annah got Fighter levels as well, that makes a huge difference! I tried a thief with no strength (str9) and as thief you get a very low thac0 etc, and no specialisation. Backstab is nice and dandy.... but if you cant hit the enemy, the backstab i wasted. Also they do level up faster, but the start is quite simply as difficult as the game gets since you cant hit anything until you are way up in your levels.

Weakling mage behind morte works nice, becose you just stand there and fling a few spells, and then run out. you are still not really that much worse of than a thief in combat, especially since near all armor items are mage only.

And yeah i know of abishai's and modron cube (did those easy enough as well), its just that i prefer undersigil for leveling past 7-10 level.

Honestly, it just got to boring. And the way i had desided to play the character i wanted to upgrade inteligence last. so in teh end he got 25 str, dex, con, wis and cha, and 9 int. I belive he was chaotic evil or something for hacking and ignoring any quests he found. And well... it just got boring, you didnt even bother to watch the fights in the end, you just made him move near to enemies, and he hacked them down by himself without eed of interaction. very boring.

 

If your thac0 is worse, the hide-backstab-run-hide tactic just takes a little bit longer. The game doesn't get more difficult if you have to use this tactic 3 times instead of 2 times per enemy.

I don't know why you don't accept weapon specialisation for your thief, you can get it without spending a single XP for your fighter class.
I don't think the game designers wanted to restrict thieves to 1 profiency point.
You can't be a pure thief, you always have at least 3 fighter levels.

 

If you're afraid of missing the specialization bonus at level 7 by dual-classing too early, you can get specialization at least up to "++" from Porphiron, the warrior-pacifist of Erit-Agge (whose necklace was stolen). Though to be honest, THAC0 and proficiencies are pretty out of whack in Torment...to say nothing of the Ice Knife bug which can permanently hose your THAC0.

 

You can get the proficiencies becose of those 3 levels of fighter. You even need to be fighter to be able to train proficiencies. So yes and no

Though in my "purest" thief game i actually edited out the fighter levels, and replaced them with thief levels (so i started as level 3 thief and level 1 fighter with thief my main class) and only classed to fighter to train proficiencies and did take specialisation. still not very helpful. A thief in pst is best when combined with fighter. try play te game as fighter level 3 and rest inthief and you will notice he wil lbe much weaker (part of the fun for me).

 

the fighter 3/thief x is also the preferred model for speedruns (which, sadly, I worked on but never completed due to a bug in my game causing the game to hang if I took Ravel out quickly)...

 

SPOILER ALERT!

c&p saved from the olde BIS forums just before they went under = ballsy mage w/a kickass punch

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Here it is, my mage is cleaning up the floor with his enemies, and I'm at a relatively early point in the game (I think). Dakkon and Mort can't compete with the body count that the nameless one is piling up here.

He currently has 3 proficiency points in Fists, so he gets 1.5 attacks per round (I liked the "Fists of Iron" spell). However, as a mage he misses out on all of the nifty magic knuckles and punch daggers out there.

Nice opportunity found: "The Gauntlets of Teeth" (I won't spoil how to find them, unless someone absolutely needs to know.) Nice weapon, +1 weapon, +2 to hit, 2-8 slashing, 1-2 crushing, or something like that. Also its cursed, once you equip it, you cannot unequip it.

So I switched Nameless into a fighter, slapped on the guantlets (got that nice little cursed sound) and switched him back to a mage: sure enough, they stayed equipped.

So now my mage has a nice set of boxing gloves to duke it out with the enemy, then I decided to try it in conjunction with the spell, "Fists of Iron" (+3 to hit, +6 to damage on 'normal' punch attacks). Lo and behold, it added all of that on top of what the gloves already do!

In a combat round where I use that combination, Nameless does on the average about 18 damage per hit.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!

Just one last update on the "Fightin' Mage" style I was going for:
SPOILERS ETC.

Ok, I finished the game (why did this game sell so poorly? Its much better than BG2! But I digress...).

I used the Gauntlets of Teeth in conjunction with Fist of Iron through the entire game, and in fact killed the Transcendant One using that combo (yes I'm proud of that fact).

There were only a couple of points where the strategy got stretched past its limit:

1. Cornugons; they demand a +2 weapon or better to hit, the gloves are only +1, interestingly enough, the bonus damage still came through (even while the Nameless One is saying, "Damn weapon doesn't work!" hehe) so he could still fight them, just not as devastating.

2. The Demon from Moridor's box; This guy is one tough customer! I *ran out of spells* fighting him, and actually had to remove curse myself, and equip Ravel's fingernail to kill him!

Also as a side note, the combination does even more damage than I first reported.
The normal damage is 3-8 slashing + 1-2 crushing. The adition of the spell Fist of Iron adds +6 to *both* types of damage. So everytime he hits, he's dishing out 9-14 + 7-8 damage at +3 to hit, so its really at par with any of the really good magical weapons (or better) that I've encountered in the game, and it really outshines magic missle as an offensive spell as one casting of it can last a long time (I could crush alot more enemies this way, rather than one shot and the spell is gone!)

[This message has been edited by ArtEChoke (edited December 31, 2001).]

This ToHit penalty is caused by getting hit with the spell "Ice Knife." Killing the character then resurrecting him fixes it.

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If you have some fighter levels, your mage musn't hide behind anybody's back, even without cursed weapons. My mage has '+++' with edged weapons and a +3 dagger, and as effective in combat as the gith or Annah. Plus he has a -7 AC (mage gear is the best) and 120 HP so I don't have to worry about loosing him, and still I can use my spells. I only miss the battle axes

 

I'm almost done with a playthrough of TNO as a pure fighter (except for the occassional mage/thief levelups) and as iirc T2 mentioned, as a fighter TNO totally owns. I've just got to Carceri, cant wait until I get Trias' sword. I played as an LG character this time around just so I could try it. I'm generally more of a NG player. I think I may play another round through after this one but as a Mage again. Only this time I'll play evil

 

Yeah, this is my 2nd run-through. On my first, I didn't look at a walkthrough unless I was really stuck so I missed out on tons of stuff, including Vhailor, Nordom and both mazes

But this time I have Grace, Annah, Morte, Dak'kon and Vhailor. I ditched Nordom in Curst in order to get Vhailor. I actually felt Nordom was a better fighter, but Vhailor has more story-content so I wanted to bring him along.

 

Don't be too quick to dismiss Nordom story-wise. He might not have a history with TNO the way most of the other characters do, but he does develop one as the game progresses, and for a comic-relief easter-egg character he has some surprisingly touching lines towards the end of the game. By all means take Vhailor, but if you replay the game do think about taking Nordom all the way through. Besides, not taking Vhailor allows you to have a VERY interesting conversation with him

 

Just finished it again. Pure awesome. I got goosebumps during loads of dialogues even when I knew what was coming sometimes

I have a question as I've never gotten very far as an evil character. At certain points in the game (i.e. when you use the sensory stone and see TPO luring Deionarra to her doom) TNO experiences horror and fear because TPO is such a bastard. When you're an evil character does this change? Does it become admiration or anything? Was just curious.

 

No, sadly. That was one of only two things that majorly disappointed me about the game. Here I am playing a CE bastard through the game on my second (third?) play, and he's horrified by *lying*? Pfft.

 

Do you know of a site where they have the conversation typed up? I'd like to read it but don't fell up to another playthrough just now.

Also, Vhailor was useless in the fortress. I was an LG fighter but he didn't even have a death scene like the others. Also, I've noted that you still fight Ignus if you're a good character even if you don't bring him to the fortress with you, TTO summons him all the same.

 

Thanks Montresor, appreciate it

Man, the dialogue in this game is unbelievable. The one-liners are awesome. I love Dak'kon's stuff particularly.