Thieves and Stalkers.

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1. Why did a plain thief in DSimpsons guide get a grade of only C-? Isnt the thief one of the "must have" classes?

2. Also, how is the assassin kit? It looks good but is the ridiculously small amount of the thieving points a set off? How do you generally find this class? If ones takes an assassin, does that mean you must also have an average thief in your party?

3. Third, what is the point of swashbuckler and how come did it get a B+ in the guide? Whats so special about him?

4. About the stalkers... how do you find them? Basically i want to play a major "killing" role in the party but not as a tank. Do stalkers work for you? How do you find them?

I also want to note out that the old rules used by BG are really annoying and restrictive. Cant wait til the 3.5 rules in NWN 2. Hopefully it will have major strategy, not just hack and slash like in the first NWN.

 

The vanilla thief got such a low score because there's not much reason to use one. One of the thief kits or a dual/multi-class outshines the vanilla thief any day.

I like the Assassin. Poison is very useful, and extra backstab multipliers are cool. Having fewer skill points wasn't ever much of an issue for me, the Assassin seemed to handle everything just fine.

The Swashbuckler is something like a cross between a Thief and a Fighter in that he's much better at frontline combat than the other thieves, and he has a better armor class. This balances out the lack of backstab, IMO. The Swashbuckler also gets the same amount of skill points as the vanilla Thief, so unlike the Assassin he's top-of-the-line in thief skills.

I've never played a Stalker, so I can't say anything there.

 

1. What Jhonka said.

2. Assassins are awesome. Early on, you'll have to neglect Hide/Move Silently in order to keep Lock & Trap skills up to par, so it's probably best to hang back and use a bow (+ poison when necessary). Later you'll have so many skill points anyway that it scarcely matters that you've lost 10% per level. The 7x Backstab makes them pro anti-spellcaster units, as they can takedown the enemy mages & clerics before they've had a chance to utter a cantrip, and poison will almost always interrupt spellcasting.

3. Swashbucklers are ideal for those who either can't be bothered to use Stealth, or who really want a thief with more up-front ability. The loss of backstab is too much of an issue for me to warm to them in any way whatsoever, because a loss of tactical flexibility is just not good for a thief class, who are (after all) all about the tactical flexibility. They are the most useful kit to dual to a mage, though, as without backstab they're the most "front-loaded" of the Thieves.

Personally, I like to think of the Assassin -vs- Swashbuckler debates as analagous to that age old question "Ninja or Pirate?" to which my answer has always emphatically been Ninja.

4.

Oh my, yes. My favourite character was easily my Human Male Stalker, who ruled the school (I'm taking him through Tutu at the moment, as well). Backstab is slow to progress, but the increased up-front ability and HPs are nice, as you know you can land a backstab and not die before your party arrives to bail you out. They're not the best tanks (although thay can still have plenty of HPs, so that role isn't entirely redundant for them), but as their backstab multiplier grows you'll find them very capable of taking out enemy spellcasters, who are (after all) the most dangerous opponents. Spells help boost their abilities, and they're probably as close as a human can get to being an FMT (Swashbuckler/Mage doesn't count, btw, because they don't get backstab). And I'd recommend human rather than elf, because then you can filch Valygar's armour & sword, with enough in your other stats (which doesn't take much!) and they're very useful in the early game, especially so since they're basically free!

Hit & Fade tactics are de rigeur, but you will need a genuine thief to back up your own abilities (the spell Detect Traps is mighty useful and doesn't rule out any especially good spells, but relying on Knock I find more troublesome). Nalia will only suffice with plenty of magic potions, so you may be forced to either rush to Spellhold or take Jan or Yoshi along. If you have Minsc in your party, I'd recommend Jan.

 

1. Pretty much what others have said - if you're going to play a vanilla thief, you may as well multi-class him with something else.

2. The lesser skill points are only an issue in the early going, because you pretty much have to buff up PL and FT early, so it takes a while to get your stealth skills up. Bascially, as soon as you get out of Irenicus' dungeon, if you do the Mae'Var quest, you will get boots of Stealth and Shadow Armor, both of which help immensely in the early going. You'll probably trade in the armor eventually once your skill points get higher, but it helps you compensate for those skills in the early going. By the time you finish Chapter 2, you should have more than enough skill points to have PL, FT, HS, and MS maxed out. Plus, think ahead. You know you can find a ring of lockpicks very early in the game if you pay Galen off quickly, so that means you only really need 75% in PL, getting the other 25% from the ring.

3. The two main selling points of the swashbuckler are 1.) Can specialize in a weapon, giving him an extra 1/2 attack per round in addition to hit and damage bonuses. Therefore, he's much more of a frontline character than any other non-fighter type. 2.) Gets a bonus of 1 to AC for every five levels. That means by the time you get to late SoA, you're looking at a big bonus to AC, which means the swashbuckler will likely have to lowest armor class in the party, which further improves his frontline worthiness.

4. Stalkers never did it for me. They aren't thieves and don't eliminate the need for a thief. Also, he's not really a frontliner either. To me, it a very specialized character class that is restrictive in a lot of ways. I know some people love 'em, but I'd recommend taking Valygar along if you want a stalker, and play something else for your PC.

 

No. Specialisation only adds attacks for fighter classes; non-fighters only get the +1 THAC0 and +2 damage bonuses. Which makes the ability to specialise less worthwhile than it seems, though still a bonus. The real plus of the Swashbuckler is the permitted +++ in dual-wielding, as that does allow an extra attack, not to mention all those tasty THAC0, damage and AC bonuses. But I still can't bring myself to rate them as thieves when backstab is lacking.

As a sidenote to point 1. I should add that any thief dual or multiclass is well worth considering. Even a fairly basic Fighter (7)>Thief (8) imported from BG1 has a stack of useful advantages over the vanilla thief. For SoA, I find Kensai (9)>Thief (x) to be both powerful and easy to create (only requires 160,000 XP to get your fighter skills back), but Berserker>Thieves aren't to be ignored either, owing to their simply obscene amount of immunities when raging. Mage/Thief is a useful combo, but this probably veers toward being a dual-class for the sake of spell power. The FMT is a more worthy multi, owing to increased fighting abilities and, hence, versatility (+ better backstabs). The 3-way multiclassing does leave you weak in a party of 6, however.

 

If you are going to play a thief, I suggest downloading the Improved Thief Stronghold...


SPOILER:


if you play your cards right, you can get a guy who makes some kickass thieving potions, which will boost the hell out of your stats, so if you plan on pickpocketing, you're covered.


Assassin all the way, baby!

 

A plain thief is practically useless, get either a dual or multi class one.

The problem with Assasins will always remain their lack of skills. The over abundance of thief skills that some talk of wont be manifest till ToB. So, for the SoA part of BG II you will need to have another Thief NPC. Jan followed by Imoen are the best ofcourse.

The Stalker is a Ranger kit. The NPC Valygar is a Stalker.

 

What? Your assassin will quickly pass off Imoen in terms of ability points. Imoen is only a level 8 thief IIRC, which means she was a total of 205 points to spread across her skills (30 at start up and +25 per level up). An assassin will exceed 200 skill points as soon as you get to level 13 (+30 at start up + 12*15 = 210) - easily obtainable in SoA. Plus, you'll probably pick a race other than human, and have a dexterity of at least 18 if not 19, which further adds to your thieving skills. With a ring of lockpicking and danger sense adding +25 to your OL and FT skills respectively, you can get away with 75% in those skills. If you use boots of stealth and/or shadow armor you can save yourself some point in HS and MS as well. Assassins need a few more levels than other thieves, but become fully functional usually before you go to Spellhold, even if you only do a few quests in Chapter 2. By the time you get to the Underdark they also have worthy ST abilities, so I can't see why you could possibly need another thief.

 

Just like the others have said, the Swashbuckler just seems too good to be true ... untill you get to the backstabbing point of view. Without it, it's pretty much a BIG no for me because backstabbing is THE thing for me in BG! So without it I can't bare to take the Swashie, even with his delicious ablities

Yes yes, the assassin will take awhile to develop his skills, but after awhile he'll become a powerhouse! Good things come to those who wait!