Tips for a cleric/thief

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Hey everyone. I was thinking about taking a cleric/thief all the way from BG1 to ToB.

What race, stats, proficiencies, equipment, npcs, etc. would you recommend? Only restrictions: she has to be female because I want to do the Solaufein romance, which I've never tried before.

So 1) female and 2) Solaufein has to join in SoA and stay all the way to the end. The rest is all up in the air.

Send in your thoughts!

 

I would definitely recommend an elf (assuming Sol can romance elves) because you get the bonus of one to dexterity, and only lose a point in constitution, and since you're playing a thief/cleric, having a constitution above 16 is meaningless. As for proficiencies, they will take care of themselves. As a thief/cleric, you're going to be very limited in weapon selection. You will have only clubs and quarterstaves available for backstab, so I would recommend putting your first two proficiencies (in BG1) in blunt weapons and missile weapons (for slings). Other than that, you could start working on cleric-only weapons, while noting you cannot backstab with them. Probably either maces, flails or war hammers. Honestly, since you can only put one proficiency point in each weapon, by the time you get a little bit into SoA, you're going to have much of what you need.

For a party - go evil, especially if you're already accepting the fact that you're taking in a drow. Take Viconia, Edwin, Korgan, and probably Jan for theiving purposes.

 

With a cleric/thief, you have to go for staves or clubs as a weapon. They're the only weapons allowed for clerics that will also backstab. Staff of the Ram is the best bet, but you won't get that until much later. For stats I would emphasize Dex, Wis, Con, Str, Cha, Int in that order.

I find party choice tends to be fairly personal, so you should go with NPCs you like that also balance the party.

 

Aldeth: if I'm not mistaken, Solaufein can romance anyone, including guys!

You guys pretty much confirmed my original thoughts. As far as alignment is concerned, I don't think I'm going to go down the evil path this time. I play evil more often than not, so a change will do me good (insert Sheryl Crow song here). And since Sola already displays neutral-->goodish tendencies, I'm gonna go for that too.

Any and all thoughts/ideas/comments welcome!

 

There's one problem: only gnomes can be multiclass cleric/thieves. So, you need to use GateKeeper or similar program to change your race, if you want an elf. But, Solaufein romance is available also for gnomes, so that doesn't matter all.

 

Half-orcs can also be cleric/thieves, but I don't know if these are available in BG1 (because I don't have that game).

 

Just curious, has anybody EVER played a female Half-Orc?

 

A Female Half-Orc Cleric Thief through SoA.
But the strength bonus only helps before you get the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength... which should roughly be around 2 hours of gameplay.

Go for an Elf, Halflings lose 1 point of WIS.
Some advice... Cleric Thieves become powerful only very late in the game , so get your patience ready in case.

 

Gnomes lose a point of Wisdom, not Halflings. And as pointed out above, only Gnomes and Half-Orcs can be Cleric/Thieves, not Elves.

The best option is to dual class the character. Play her as a straight Thief in BGI, and dual class the character shortly after starting BGII (8th or 9th level should give you a ton of skill points).

 

Sorry, my bad. Go for Half-Orc.
There's a serious bug (I have to find a fix to this yet) that applies the gnome's WIS penalty to halflings as well. Then again, I don't know if this was intentional.

Multi-class is a better option than dual-class because it allows you to take advantage of both classes. Cleric-Thieves also have higher level ratios compared to other multi-classes.

 

Since only Gnome and Half-Orc can be it and you want to start in BGI then you have no choice then to take Gnome, since I agree with Scythesong that multiclass will be better. On the other hand you could install Tutu and use Half-Orc from the start. (haven't tried it though but somebody on these boards said you could import from a Tutu modded game)

 

I would play BG1 as a thief and dual-class very early on in BG2. Though I must say that I don't think a Cleric/Thief is as... efficient, shall we say, as a Fighter/Cleric, for instance.

 

Dayum, boy, you sure know how to pimp your own threads.

 

Cleric-Thieves are able to gain the UAI ability, which makes it a really deadly class given the Clerical buffing spells. (ie, there's a cleric spell roughly like Tenser's that grants the cleric the prowess of a fighter of the same level)

When fully buffed up, a Cleric-Thief can actually become more powerful than a Fighter-Cleric, if not for the Fighter-Cleric's fighter HLA's.
This matter is easily settled if there's a mage in the party (Improved Haste), which when coupled with Assassination will pretty much shame the Fighter/Cleric.
Whatever arguement is left is settled by Traps -Ordinary Traps, Timestop Traps and Spike Traps, and other thief abilities (steal, find/remove traps, hide in the shadows/move silently, etc.).
There are many instances when a Fighter/Cleric can be more useful though. Cleric/Thieves also need as much micromanagement as a Bard, so people who prefer raw power should skip them.