Solo thief advice

Remove all ads!

For those of you that have done this, how the heck do you get through the game with a straight thief (or thief kit for that matter) solo. I'm not talking about a character dualed from fighter or something or m/c with mage, etc. - just a plain thief.

Do you just stay in the shadows at all times and kill only the critters you can pick off one at a time (running away from groups) or what? It seems like the second I attempt to engage a group of bad dudes, I get toasted pretty quick. It goes against my grain to pass on killing bad guys, but I guess I can be trained to do so, if that is the way of the solo thief.

 

Agreed, fighting is a major weakness for thieves. Only mages have worse THAC0 and HP's. Mages can even be argued to have better armor (Stoneskin etc.) than thieves. So thieves are quite bad off.

They can make good archers so use that and keep running. Buy (or steal) any Potions of Speed you can find. When hasted you're very effective with the old "fire arrows, run and fire again" routine. Later you can get the Boots of Speed so the potions doesn't have to last that long.

Backstabbing is an option but make sure you buy the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength quickly, +3 to Hit and +7 to damage really makes it hurt.

There are some items that are any soloist's (well almost) best friend:
Horn of Valhalla - Not usable by Wizard Slayer
Spider Figurine - Not usable by Wizard Slayer
Vhailor's Helm
Ras (the dancing sword)

 

Thiefs aren´t fighters, that´s clear and if you play a thief like a fighter (or a fighter-thief) ... it´ll hurt. I admit that this is the reason why I prefer fighter-thiefs to pure thiefs. Some ideas:

-Haste and stealth are *good* ideas for a thief. If you´d like to have a better punch you can choose the swashbuckler kit (but then you´ll lack the backstabbing ability).
-Potion of power, rare, expensive and *very* good (keep it for the real baddies).
-bow of the tuigan is nice for it gives your thief 3 ranged attacks per round. High dex, especially 19 (elves/ halflings/ BG-1 veterans ) is a must for a thief and it is a real benefit for using ranged weapons for it gives you +3 on ranged weapon THACO while improving your thieving abilities.
-I found scimitars to be very nice melee and backstabbing weapons; Belm gives you an extra attack either. Scimitars also seem to have a better Initiative than longswords. My fav scimitar-like weapon is kashiko´s wakizashi which has initiative 0 and 1d8+3 damage, +3 on THACO and a nice special ability.
-For a thief the power enhancers (strength girdles) offer good THACO improvements. For my halfling mc fighter-thief with str-17 the gauntlets of ogre power are more valuable than the gauntlets of weapon expertise ... however, since a pure thief can´t use the gaunts of ogre power (iirc), I´d recomment gauntlets of weapon expertise with strength girdle (for the THACO- & damage-boni add up then)

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited June 20, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited June 20, 2001).]

 

Indeed, with a ranged weapon (take short bow) you can do lots of damage. And don't forget, with the Shadow-dragon-armor and dex 19 (a thiefs needs dex 19) and off course some good items that in a full party you would give to your fighters, like ring of protection +2 etc you will reach a comfortable AC. And with a strength-increasing girdle and the Celestrial Fury (and of course the possibility to backstab) you're fighting-skills aren't bad. And then there's also the option Set Traps, not very useful in a a full party but when playing solo it can be very useful.

 

My advice is: Give up!...or...start a new game with a multiclass thief(fighter/thief;thief/mage)

 

Why? This is a challenge, playing with a pure thief/thief kit seems very cool to me, however I doubt if it's possible to kill mages (for how do you get rid of their protections)

 

well, mages should be the easy part with a thief. You backstab them, though you have to know where and when they come.

 

Indeed, mages are not your main problem.

- Use weapons that do additional fire, acid etc damage to disrupt their spellcasting.

- Backstab them.

- Invisibility and stealth. If they can't see you they can't target you with spells (well, most of them can't...)

- Arrows of Dispelling. You can buy some of these babies from one the merchants in Waukeen's Promenade. Use them sparingly! There are not many of these in the game.

- Dispel Illusion is excellent but puts you in danger as you can't attack while using that ability (you're busy detecting traps).

- The ultimate defense against mages (it should be noted that it does not make you immune!) is the Cloak of Mirroring...

 

The key to survive with a thief is to scout ... that´s why I always develop my stealth abilities first. If you scout an area you can find the mages; sneak in position and do your job ... soloing with a thief will most probably result in your char fighting a guerrilla war using hit-and-run tactics (hasted!)

However, it´s also key to survival to know which races/ opponents can detect stealth immediately (to name one: Kua-Toas).

So I don´t share TIN-MAN´s point of view just to give up. Of course it is foolish to try to kill a dragon with a thief SOLO ... the game is made for *parties* so don´t expect to be able to finish every fight successfully with a single char in every class ... with the appropiate party back-up you can win with a thief.
However, get some company if necessary and go on, the thief is a good and versatile class, Trunculo!

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited June 20, 2001).]

 

If I come to close to a mage with my thief in stealth, they automaticly cast detect invisibility or true sight

 

Thanks for the advice, folks. From what I've seen so far, the mages aren't that big of a deal unless, of course they are in large parties. Large parties, on the other hand and very tough for me to deal with. My thief's twin battle cries seem to be "Not in the face!" and "Run away!" (spot the references and win a biscuit).

I think that whoever mentioned using guerilla tactics is right on the money. Sneak around, pick off stragglers and trap like a mad monkey. I've got my halfling thief w/ great stats (ok - so I rolled *lots* to get them) equipped w/ Daystar right now and am dinking around stealing stuff to raise money for strength girdles and so forth. Next (after hitting a couple of simpler tasks) I'll be trying to come up with a coherent plan to get my grubby little mits on Celestial Fury.

 

Maybe to overcome the penalty on combat you can solo with a Swashbuckler or Assasin.

 

I strongly advise against Swashbuckler (unless you want to make it harder) because it can't backstab.

Fighting the Black Dragon will be very tough, quite possibly the hardest thing a solo thief has to do. Do you have a plan for it?

 

Re: fighting the black dragon - the cheesy answer is just to trap the bejaysus out of the thing but that seems silly and cheap. I get that it would notice my junk after a day or two. On the other hand, it might not be stretching the roll-playing too far for me to camp and set a bunch of traps a corner of the room out of sight. Then I can irritate the dragon into chasing me into my little pit o' death.

Alternatively, I could rely on some summoned stuff (spider figurine, etc.) to try to hold its attention while I pincushion the beastie with my bow. Speaking of...
<MINOR SPOILER>
I think there is a staff in the sphere that lets one summon fire elementals - does anyone know if a thief can use this? Problem solved (mostly) if so. I've had it with prior characters and if you sell/rebuy (or steal) it, it has 50 charges.
</MINOR SPOILER>

Another option is to ignore the big lizard and choose some other armour like the +5 shadow armour (or whatever it's called).

Re: swashbuckler / assassin alternative - I have considered (and still do) both. I like both of these kits a good deal, but I'm not sure either kit's advantages (compared to a straight thief) are enough to outway its disadvantages (no backstab for swashbuckler and low thief points for assassin).

Have any of you number crunchers out there come up with the math to support the notion that a swashbucker's better thaco and bonuses outweigh a straight thief's ability to backstab (and run away, hide and repeat as necessary)? Swashbuckler sounds really cool, but something tells me that I'm going to live or die by my ability to inflict mass amounts of quick damage.

By the same token, I love the assassin's poison ability, but none of the stuff I've read suggests he hits any more frequently than a standard thief. Assassins rock in a regular party, but it seems like his relatively low number of thief points is a bigger liability (for a solo character) that his poison asset can offset.


[This message has been edited by Trunculo (edited June 20, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Trunculo (edited June 20, 2001).]

 

you can talk the dragon into giving you the thing (can't remember what it is) if you give the dragon all of your stuff. I would assume you put the stuff you use on the ground and pick it up later, but for a lot of useless magic gadgets I guess it would work too. You have to give up your gold though, but at this time, you dont really need it anyway.

 

You can trade the shadow dragon goodies for his hide?!? Is this correct? Dang - I thought I was hard up for magic weapons.

 

Ah - whoops! He did say "Black Dragon" pretty clearly, didn't he? My mistake!

 

BTA, yep I tried it, the playing experience afterwards was.... damn you feel stupid

lost my 200k gold, all items at all on my 6persons party just for a bloody cup. I reloaded and killed the dragon afterwards, I couldn't imagine how to kill irenicus without my weapons.

But I haven't tried leaving all the stuff you need on the ground to pick it up later or testing if a couple of useless magic items are enough for the trade.

[This message has been edited by Lokken (edited June 20, 2001).]

 

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!

I didn't know that was an option. I had Sarah try that just now and it worked fine. She dumped eveything on the ground first and only lost her gold (about 70,000...) in exchange for the goblet. Nice dragon!

This makes soloing with a single class thief far easier than I feared.

About which kit to choose, I'd say Assassin is good. You get plenty of skill points - since you can reach level 23 - anyway and the poison thing is very helpful.