Posted October 27, 2013
pi4t: Ok, if you're taking a pure thief (or multiclassed thief), then getting the hide skill up early is possibly the most important thing after detect traps, as there aren't many (any?) really tough locks early on.
Hickory: One of the hardest locks in the entire game is in the tutorial, believe it or not (it can't even be bashed with 18/00 strength) -- it is possible to open it and get (relatively) rich before you even set out. But that lock is special, and entirely out of place... cheese. On the other hand, even locks that have hard difficulty don't necessarily hold anything worthwhile, or even anything at all. Don't tell me you haven't come across numerous trapped and locked chests, salivating, only to find them empty? On the other hand, if you're planning to dual class the thief into something more squishy like a mage, then you don't really want them out in front of everyone if battles start, and scouting will therefore be less useful anyway. As I say, unless its importance rises later in BG2, it's not a vital requirement anyway, in the same way find traps is.
You also have to consider that, yes, you've cunningly positioned your thief/mage at the other side of the group of enemies to everybody else. You've also cast a spell, and are now visible. Enemies are now targeting you, and you've lost the protection of your tanks. Hide in shadows and run somewhere else? That'll waste time which you could otherwise have spent casting another spell. I haven't tried, I admit, so it may be that the ai, having chosen your big stompy fighters as targets, will now ignore the squishy mage right behind them. That, though, I'd consider a fault of the AI and very cheesy to exploit. That's especially true of ranged enemies, who would suffer no penalties for switching targets (although, come to think of it, did 2e dnd have any equivalent of the attacks of opportunity to prevent melee fighters from moving round each other and attacking the mages, other than physically blocking the space?)
All in all, though, Auro, I think you've gathered from this that having a thief with find traps high is essential (80+ sound about right to you, Hickory?), and that you shouldn't bother with pickpocket. If you choose to focus in open locks, you'll want some invisibilities prepared at all times, and if you focus on hide in shadows, you'll want some knock spells ready.
One further tip which I discovered to my cost: don't sell a weapon which has a higher + value than you're currently using, until you have enough to equip everyone who fights with weapons with one if you need to. This even applies if no one is proficient with the weapon type. For instance, I recently sold a quite nice +3 spear, when all my party was using +2 weapons, as no one had proficiency in spear. I then came across an enemy which was immune to weapons below +3...fortunately, I'd since acquired a cursed +3 spear, and I had another +3 weapon I couldn't sell anyway, so I was able to kill it.
That tip obviously applies more to BG2, but there are enemies in BG1 which are immune to unenchanted weapons.