I've seen people mentioning lockpicking skill, but I assume they mean 'thieving.' I'm wondering if I should put points into these skills

thieving
ambush
stealing
stealth

I'm playing as a thief. Which of these are useful and/or a waste of time? Do you need a high stealth to 'ambush' someone? When does thieving start to unlock doors?

I was also wondering about those. Ambush seems to be just a passive critical hit skill and stealth is a typical hide-in-the-shadows, that one shouldn't have any side effects increasing aside from losing points in others.

Thieving is very, very useful because otherwise you will have to bash open doors and chests (takes quite a while and can be annoying). The others really just depend on play-style but the bonuses are definitely substantial enough.

The one exception might be stealth - it doesn't work for your party members and you will probably want to kill your enemies anyway. All it seems to be good for is stealing from the chests in various NPCs' houses, which is hardly worthwhile.

It does say that at high levels, you can remain hidden even after attacking enemies with Stealth. But I suppose it would get annoying constantly telling your party members to wait while you go ahead and kill a monster or two.

I don't bother hiding when pilfering the houses of NPCs. They don't wig out and try to kill me, so it isn't a problem.

Thieving is arguably worth it as it disarms traps as well picks locks. Otherwise it would be overshadowed by the shatter spell. Stealing, from my limited experience on the second tier, is not worth it. Perhaps it's good if you invest in it till master but I've never really seen a CRPG make pickpocketing worthwhile.

I'm assuming ambush is only active from stealth and probably only good for the first hit. Otherwise staying stealthed (at master) while attacking would break the game.

Magic attack seems... not so great? I dunno. I have a few points in it but tbh stuff dies too quick as it is. I'd rather save my mana for buffs, etc. Agility seems like it would be a must if your party members fail at being meat shields but thus far I'm not really getting any mileage out of it.

I'm having fun with the game but I can't help but feel like my thief is more like a ranger. I really wish the game had more feedback as well. I wouldn't really know if I got an ambush off or avoided an attack with agility. /shrug.

hmm.. wonder if there's a way to turn something like that on with the console...

if there is, the dev with who I've worked with had no knowledge of such a thing

In my experience, well .. it also depends on what you do with the skill points you get besides leveling up (shrines and magical boxes)
I for one, have massed skill points over attribute points .. and found out you can max out alot of them

Also, stealth is great as I like avoiding those monstrous fights. I know that even when I played with cheats It took 30seconds to 1minute to kill one AI .. that was just in the way as he respawned

I am still low level but when I lock pick I have the guards all over me. Is there some other stat or something that I should be investing points in?

Hm. Maybe it is the Eloquence? Apparently it affects reputation changes so that you get better boosts and less penalties.

Hmmm.. I'm going to have to experiment more with lock picking then. The one chest I did pick (on the second floor of the pub) didn't call the guards on me. It was when I took something from the chest. I assumed it was because I hadn't raised my stealth to the next rank?

I haven't bothered putting points into eloquence either as you can't rank it until lvl 23? iirc. It was a long way off anyways.

If I am understanding the skill system right, it is divided into Points and Ranks. Points just add a straight up bonus for some calculations, probably +1 per point. For example, most spells get one additional point of damage for calculating the size of damage rolls. However, Ranks are different in that they add features like increasing duration or enabling continued stealth after attacking. I don't recall any actual ranks, so here is a non-existent example.


THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR!?!

Rank 1 - Gibbering (roll for a chance to cause confusion for each attack.)
Rank 2 - Ignorant Skin (roll for chance to confuse and poison for each attack.)
Rank 3 - Foke! (With every attack, have a chance to confuse, poison, and paralyze)
Rank 4 - Hoke Hogan! (Cause death, paralysis, confusion, and poison with all attacks.)

You probably got the idea now. Some skills like Eloquence probably change the multipliers instead of adding features. In the case of locks, I am certain that Rank imposes a limit on the effect of skill points, as my NG+ savefile had the thief start out with LV20 in Lockpick, but I couldn't open the chests in the Inn and Mayor's building until I achieved Student rank.

no, lockpicking has the same mechanics. It checks the level of the skill, not the mastery from my experience. Not sure if the mastery adds something extra

So, is ambush effective only when hidden?
And regarding thieving skill, i have added 6 points to it, but i could open only few boxes and doors with it, so it doeasn't seem very useful, since i could bash them anyway.

Oops eloquence rank 2 is lvl 16. Anyways after reading the description of ambush again it seems they simply have to be unaware of you. That is not attacking you or your mates I presume? I'm not sure if stealthing/inviso is possible when you're in battle (haven't tried). So in practice stealth merely helps you get in range or in line of sight with your victim without being noticed. So while stealth might not be technically a requirement for an ambush it would make it easier to pull off. I'll have to test to see if restealthing is possible.. I'm guessing not.. at least before master rank. I know at master rank it's possible to *stay* hidden after attacking.

Ranks in thieving seem to only effect the stam cost and time according to the description? Seems odd since I haven't noticed any sort of delay to begin with.

Still need to figure out how to remove things from a picked npc chest. Is it based on stealth or your skill in stealing since you are in fact reaching into the proverbial cookie jar. The skill descriptions aren't exactly clear on these points. I'm leaning towards the later though.

Oh, can traps on switches and unconventional containers (such as rocks, floor tiles, tree stumps, etc) be destroying with bashing.. err ranged attacks so that you don't trigger them in your face? If they can then I'd have to agree that thieving is a very situational thing. I imagine you'd get the guards called on you for bashing an NPC container.

Lockpicked a chest in the inn, and then a guard came to arrest/kill me.