Thief-less?

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I'm considering (yet) another run through of IWD and I'm wondering if I should even bother with a thief this time. Thinking about dualing a human fighter/thief, but maybe not. I don't recall any major traps or locked chests/doors, so is it do-able with no thief?

 

No problem. There's only one chest in HoW my solo fighter/druid couldn't bash (but "knock" works) and traps can be handled by save and reload.

I doubt it's more fun that way but it's easily doable without a thief.

 

I have to agree with Kmonster. I don't remember the chest Kmonster is refering to, but the game is do-able without one. My only concern would be the heavy amount of traps in certain areas. It would be very tedious to have to continually cast find trap (^_^)

 

Didn't even have to. With a high CON and a Fighter class there shouldn't be any problems.
I soloed the game with a Ranger (before my HoW CD died) and it wasn't hard at all.
Soloing with a thief can be done but can be a real pain sometimes, I tried but got bored after clearing the Dragon's Eye.

 

Well what does the thief really offer to the party? It seems that a thief isn't really needed to open locks (bashing and knock apparently do the job), and it also looks like traps can be avoided with power word: reload. I suppose a thief is good for backstabbing then...and pickpokets...

 

Trap-reload-trap-reload, not the way I imagine roleplaying.

The reason for creating a powerful party is to avoid having to use "powerword reload" as often as possible.

And a thief helps a lot with this. He can disarm deadly traps, he can hide in shadows and scout to avoid unpleasant surprises. His backstab can harm the enemies seriously, he can wipe out whole armies with hide-backstab-hide tactics. With HoW he gains evasion and with the 3e thieving rules you can even get in sneak attacks without hiding. If two thieves attack an enemy monster from two sides at least one will get in a sneak attack including a crippling strike.
You should be able solo the game with a thief easily. I even managed to solo a halfling fighter/thief through IwD+HoW starting from scratch without maior problems.

Taking a pure thief is of course a waste, he benefits greatly from the thac0, specialisation bonusses and armor allowances he gains from multiclassing with fighter. You can even add mage levels as third class and still have enough thieving abilities.

 

In response to your post kmonster: I suppose it is a lot more true to the roleplaying spirit (And a lot more fun) to not have to reload everytime you hit a trap. And I forgot about the bonuses HoW adds to the class.

 

Evasion is a very cool bonus, and it gets better as the thief gains levels, right? (he gains additional bonuses to save vs breath weapon in terms of checking it for evasion, IIRC.)

You can lure all the monsters by your thief, and as he circles gracefully to avoid them, launch all your fireballs and flame strikes AND (this is where it gets better) Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings! A high level thief with semi-good equipment will always evade the area effects, and the enemies shall suffer instead!

 

There's always at least a 5 percent chance to fail the save and get the full damage.

BTW: I forgot to mention in my prior post that my fighter/thief soloed HoF mode.

 

Well, in BG2 liches do save vs spells even when they roll a 1, so I guess in 2nd edition AD&D games, rolling a 1 on a saving throw is not an automatic failure? (if your saving throw is already 1 or better!)

 

AFAIK the direct result of a d20 saving throw isn't displayed , only something modified in the 2e games.
Else the common displays of successful saves higher than 20 or lower than 1 wouldn't make sense.

 

I casted a Disintegrate spell on a Lich back in BG2, and it said:save vs spells:1. Ofcourse I am not sure if the liches are immune to disintegration or not, but the text clearly said that it saved even though it rolled an unmodified 1 on d20 (or so it seems) I checked its CRE file via SK and yes, liches had a natural and cheesy save vs spells of 1.

So I guess if you have a saving throw of 1 or even better, you can not fail under normal circumstances. Ever. Unless there is a huge penalty ofcourse. (like, Greater Malison and Chaos combo back in BG2, that would net a huge -8 penalty to your saving throw!)

You fail when you roll a 1 in IWD2, even though your saving throw bonus is something godly like +30-40s. It has happened to me more than once. Summon a Festering Drowned Dead, my paladin rolls a 1 on his fortitude save and gets a 35 (1+34=35!, more than enough to resist anything thrown at you normally) but since it is critical failure he fails and dies. Such a shame.

 

*Buzz* Nope, a 1 is always an automatic failure and a 20 is always an automatic success. (With the exception of some rolls like stat checks where it's reversed.) Whether it's implemented, though...well, it would hardly be alone in being left out.

 

Well, Felinoid, you know how I respect your knowledge about 2nd edition P&P AD&D rules. It is just what other guys in another site told me:1 is not an auto-failure, and 20 is not a success when rolling saving throws in 2nd edition. Don't know how they know this, but still...makes sense to me so that it is different than spiffy 3 or 3,5 e or whatever!