Thieving Skills

Remove all ads!

I can't argue with that, I was just disputing the fact that you need two thieves in order to do any thief stuff.

 

Are you talking BG1 or BG2? Because in BG1 thief points are at a premium, but by Throne of Bhaal a normal thief with the full number of thief points per level will easily have lots of points to sink into everything.

Too many people focus on end-game in Throne of Bhaal, and ignore the first 90% of the game when you spend 90% of the time playing. This is exasperated when they are thinking of ToB builds in BG1. That's a whole game's worth of playing they are ignoring. This isn't limited to Baldur's Gate, it tends to pop up all over the place where people focus only on the end-game builds and come up with powergaming options that actually aren't that great until 3/4 of the way through the game when what you've been building up for finally pays off. Those builds work if you start at level 15, but not if you're playing through from level 1, although that's more of an issue with games like Neverwinter Nights where many builds are very good if you start in Hordes of the Underdark at level 15, but not so great if you're starting in the OC or SoU at level 1.

In BG1, you really need Find Traps and Open Locks, so if you only have one thief they are going to have to focus on that to the exclusion of all else.
If you want someone to do backstabbing or pick pockets, you need a second thief (or a bard for pick pockets).

Keep in mind that usually you are only level 2 or 3 when going through the Nasekel Mines and there are a lot of traps in the mines, and usually no higher than four when finishing them. If your thief doesn't have a lot of points in find traps, you're going to be in a world of hurt.

 

Thieves get 40 starting skill points and another 25 per level. Plus each race has some base values for each thief skill. Thieves reach level 10 in BG1 (not counting SoD), which nets 265 points + racial. Yes, you'll want to focus on OL and FT, but getting those to 80-ish or even a bit lower is enough for BG1, which leaves you with a ton of points to play with. With some decent thief items, you should have no issues having one thief be good at locks and traps as well as stealthing and pickpocketing. You can leave set traps and detect illusions for BG2 or spread the points out a bit more and be decent at everything. Like I said, I've never felt the need to have more than one thief, it just makes it slightly easier to diversify early on.

 

In BG2, yes, sure, and true even if your Thief is a multi-classed half-Thief.

In BG1, you may find that you have just enough skill points by the end to have adequate FT and OL plus get one other skill to a useful level ... if your Thief is of a race which gets a lot of starting-bonuses in Thief skills (i.e. a shorty), then you might just about get two other skills up to a worthwhile level, but if your Thief is from any of the taller races, then no, one additional skill is all you can build to a high enough score to be effective by the time you hit the XP-cap. And furthermore, if your Thief is not only tall but kitted (therefore gaining fewer skill-points-per-level - except for a Swashbuckler, which gets the full 25-points-per-level like an unkitted Thief), then even one additional skill can reach only marginal utility. If you want to make more use of a variety of Thief skills during BG1, then you need a second Thief to do it.

Even in BG2, if you're using a human Thief who has dualled to another class and thereby lost the chance to advance in Thief skills (such as Imoen), then if you want to be able to use other Thief skills then you'll need another party member to do it. Thus if your protagonist is also a Thief->(something else) dual-class, you might have your protagonist specialising in "optional" Thief skills before dualling, then include Imoen in BG2 to cover the basic FT and OL requirements.

 

I don't know what games you guys are playing, but it's perfectly feasible to have a thief in BG1 that can stealth, open every single lock, remove every single trap, and pick every worthwhile pocket. Sure, you'll probably have to give up set traps and detect illusions until BG2 unless you wanna spread yourself thin, but BG1 was never made with those in mind anyway.

 

Unless they've changed it to compensate for the BG2 style splitting of stealth into two separate skills, I can see the enhanced edition being worse than the original in this, as I never seemed to have enough thief points to have a jack of all skills thief in the 5-cd version. Something had to give, usually pick pockets which I'd leave to a Bard. Keep in mind that Detect Illusions and Set Traps wasn't even included in BG1 originally, although it would have come in handy if it was usable at low levels when fighting foes that used mirror image like Silkie.
Keep in mind that at level 3 your warriors don't yet get multiple attacks per round, your clerics, druids, and magic users can't cast dispell magic (3rd level spell, 5th level minimum), let alone True Sight (5th level, 9th level minimum), so the usual ways of dealing with it aren't as easy.

 

No, it's the same in BG1ee, stealth is a two-part skill.

 

Well, if you take Alora with you, with her "shorty" racial advantage plus her amazingly-powerful Alora-only "Lucky Rabbit's Foot" to give a large boost to her Thief skills, then yes, that's feasible. But no, you can't build a Thief protagonist who can be that good by end-BG1, especially not if you're using a taller race or a kit.

 

WoW, I love when I create debates like this. I wonder what Trump and Harris have to say on the subject

 

Can I get a third option? (sighs and heads to the alley).