Hello everyone!

I've always tried to get to 100% find traps first. In my opinion it's the first skill a thief has to master. You can't really burgle houses and sneak around if you are iced by some simple trap.

If I give my thief a military background, my reasoning is the company he was in needed someone who can safely find and disarm traps, as well as some reconnaissance.

My current playthrough is the first time I've deviated from this logic and I'm beginning to regret it. How do you distribute and rationalize your thieving skills?

Most importantly, it depends on which version of the game you are playing and your party makeup. For example, if you take Imoen with you, there is absolutely no reason to waste points (**) in Find Traps, nor, to some extent, Pick Locks. There is never a reason to go above 75 in Pick Locks, and going above that in Find Traps only helps to find them slightly quicker. There is never a reason to waste points in Pickpocket, unless your character is a consumate kleptomaniac. Stealth is most important for scouts and backstabbers; much more important than Open Locks or any other skill.

[Edit]
(**) On your main character

In BG1 I favor Open Locks first cause I like looting things early and I'm never lucky enough to get a Knock scroll until much later on. Most of the game is wilderness so you don't really run into traps until you go into some dungeon areas. Even then, the traps don't require very high skill to disarm until you get to Cloakwood mines.

In BG2 I just balance them out until they're both 100. It doesn't matter as much with so many potions of Master Thievery/Perception available immediately.

If I use Imoen as the primary thief I typically try to push open locks to around 70-75% before I reach Cloakswood. The spare points I distribute to find traps and stealth. There are not that many traps overall in BG1 and it does not seem you really need that high level for find traps. By the time I reach Durlag's Tower which is probably the most trapped part of the game my thief is pretty much maxed out. I never put any skill points into stealing in my primary thief (though there are a few wands that you could steal from people in Candlekeep if I remember correctly so a secondary thief may come handy there).

First, I would listen to Hickory. He has a PHD on Baldur's Gate (cos he answers all my questions here)

I can tell you what i did in my last playthrough for BG1. I used a mage/thief and I had imoen. I used imeon for only pickpocketing and asigned points on my character only on pick lock and find traps so that pick lock would be 10 points higher than find traps. I never had a problem with picking locks or finding traps and dualclassing Imoen at level 5 wasnt a problem.

I dont use backstabbing so i left stealth out. In BG when you try to disarm traps you leave shadows and enemy see you and I didnt want my mage/thief to be in the middle of enemies while rest of my party is away. Or simply, i cant make good use of stealth and i suck :))

I go for detect illusions first because it always works, doesn't care that you have armour and makes hunting stealth targets MUCH quicker.

Do you mind explaining what you mean? I have my own beefs with low-level AD&D, and I'm curious if they're the same as yours.

Here is what I can think of right now:
* Physical attacks miss too often. A 1st level fighter with no strength or specialization bonus will miss half the time against a target with 10 AC. Those misses can quickly get annoying. (Also note that fighter-types don't even get any advantage (aside from specialization or the possibility of exceptional strength) relative to other classes in this regard.
* When an attack does hit, it is often a 1 hit KO, essentially making the gameplay close to that of opposite sides flinging instant death attacks at one another. (There is a rule that characters don't die until -10 HP that helps, but it is unfortunately not implemented in Baldur's Gate.)
* Mages get only one spell between rests, and most of the spells are rather weak (though at least Magic Missle always *hits*). Clerics with 14+ Wisdom at least get 3 spells.
* The sleep spell is too powerful for a 1st level spell. Not only does it deny the affected their turns (not fun for a player whose PC is affected), but it also makes them extremely vulnerable to physical attacks. I think having this one spell do both these things is too much, especially for a 1st level spell. (Spells like Hold Person suffer this issue, but that at least allows a saving throw, not that that helps much at low levels.)
* Healing is too weak. Not as bad as the other issues, but it persists a lot longer than the others. At 6th level, the only healing spell a cleric has is Cure Light Wounds, which heals at most 8 points (and has a chance of healing only 1), which is almost nothing to a fighter with 45 HP (33 average + 12 for 16 CON). Cure Serious/Critical Wounds help a bit, but are still too weak. (Also Cure Serious Wounds should have been 3rd level; many Japanese Wizardrylikes (including the NES version of Wizardry 2) put the equivalent spell (DIAL) there.) (Note that Baldur's Gate 2 automatically maximizes healing and includes the Cure Medium Wounds spell, which helps. Also, AD&D 2e did get the 2nd level spell Cure Moderate Wounds late in its lifetime, which also helps a bit.) Note that this issue abruptly disappears when the player gets access to Heal.

Yep, you nailed it. I don't see some things as bad as you do (especially the Sleep spell -- there's a reason I play an elven character most of the time), but on the whole I just can't help but agree.

I like to give my PC Thief max points in Pickpocketing at character creation. An Elf with 19 DEX gets 65% to start if done this way, IIRC.

This allows me to steal an extra healing potion from the priest (?) in that infirmary (?) at the bottom of Candlekeep, the +1 Dagger from Fuller, and Phlydia's gem. I often can't get the latter two as quest rewards, as I tend to dump Charisma. The potion is a nice, possibly lifesaving, bonus, but the other two give me much needed early gold as soon as I can ID them.

The next thing I do is rob Algernon of his cloak, again to save $ by adding Charisma. Also, I can now charm people if need be.

After that, I go to the FAI and score all the green potions of curing that I can from that stubby little lady upstairs with the spider killing quest. Again, low Charisma prevents me from getting the freebies from her.

Next up is to pilfer Drizzt's dandy scimitar, "Frostbrand", which is most safely done after leveling up once.

Obviously this involves metagaming, but I don't really care. Also, from what I can tell, the EE version doesn't allow Drizzt to be pickpocketed, which actually makes sense (he would have one in each hand, I would think).

You can get a much better gem, worth far more, inside the inn by maxing your open lock skills. Imoen is quite capable of doing this. This should not be possible in vanilla BG1 -- I've never tried it. Drizzt has no items in his inventory. If it is possible, then it's a bug. Likely his Frostbrand is not in his sword hand slot. They obviously fixed it.

On my final playthrough of BG1, I didn't take Algernon's cloak to save money. I used it to charm 1/2 the map and create an army that went with me wherever I go. It was a beautiful thing. I was never able to get it with Imoen. I nabbed the bard NPC briefly to get it.

I'm currently playing BG2 with a bard as my main and I've been happy with his PP load. All that said, IMHO, that's a party-benefit to using a bard. My thieves go all stealth-find trap-open lock.

I go open lock first, b/c there are few traps early-game. Once I get it up to 75ish, I work on find trap and get it up to that range, then I up my stealth to 100ish. Then I tend to up everything bit by bit as I level. That's what I do and I survive fine, but I don't know what is optimal.

This is always one of the first things I do in BG1. It is weird tho. Even if you pickpocket him, he still stays dualwield.

In vanilla BG1 there is no dual wielding, but Drizzt is famous for doing so and thus he has both swords on him. You can pickpocket the one he doesn't have equipped. Not really a bug but a consequence of the missing feature.