Thief or Fighter which is stronger?

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:27 am

[QUOTE=darkraven]A well prepared mage can just about defeat any class despite what items that they have on them.[/QUOTE]The phrase 'wel prepared' is essential here. The fun of playing a thief is that the opposition isn't prepared for him.
Also, what we've ignored in this discussion is level. I figure a fighter is more powerful than a thief and a mage (and a cleric) at lower levels, thieves and especially mages rule at higher levels.

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 11:13 am

This thread was meant to deal the power levels of theives and warriors in TOB so that means that all class are at pretty high levels and the class really don't improve that much this game and that is a disappointment but they do get high level abililties and those can fun and boring as can be at sometimes.

I am going to have to agree that the Fighter is stronger at lower and mid levels then some of the other class but the mage starts to get more powerfully then other class mid level in the game because one spell and ruin an entire party.I would like to know one enemy in TOB that was prepared to deal with anything.The warriors come out swinging and the mage would cast there spells and everything was pretty much was predictable.If enemies in the game had come prepared them would have there thieves have traps prepared for you and spellcaster would that had a wider array of spells and all enemies would ton of healing potions.You should try that mode that make all the enemies in the game tougher and they use tactic that will counter youe spells.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:39 am

A thief has the ability to cast mislead and stoneskin... that would hurt very insanely, considering the instant he goes visible he'll turn invisible without any command from the player.

With a potion of haste a thief can backstab non stop.

~

Although this is a fighter vs Thief, a mage is absolute - Imprison, my most abused spell.

Thrifalas · Post by **Thrifalas** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 11:33 am

Well, any thief/fighter with access to a Protection from Magic-scroll have the upper hand against a mage... I would call it an instant win, actually.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:59 pm

[QUOTE=Phantom Lord]You did say "True Sight" indeed. True sight also counters the Spell "Non-Detection" but I'm not sure if it counters the cloak of the same name.

Cloak of Non-Detection
Statistics: Non-detectable by magical means such as scrying and detect invisibility.
Weight: 3

"Non-detectable by magical means" sounds pretty much True Sight would not work.[/QUOTE]

I can't remember the exact details off the top of my head...so bear with me...

cloak of non-detection+staff of the magi is i think vulnerable to true sight.
cloak of non-detection+hide in shadows is NOT vulnerable, (i think) to true sight.
spell immunity divination+any invisibility is totally not vulnerable to true sight.

some people have done some testing with the cloak and some handy liches, and i think hiding in shadows and the cloak blocks true sight.

i frankly only have thieves who are also mages, so i always use spell immunity anyway.

fighter/thieves seriously are the best...the low thief thaco, their biggest problem is balanced by the fighter's good thaco..the fighter's lack of ability to use really powerful non-fighter items is balanced by eventually getting use any item.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 8:58 pm

Using hide in Shadows and the Cloak of Non Detection creates a divination immune thief, the same applies to a Cloak of Non Detection and Staff of Magi.
My most recent games with my solo Sorceror has been using the Staff and Cloak combination to almost unbeatable proportions.

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 9:05 pm

What good is stone skin and haste going to do when the thief can't touch mage.The mage is going to get up his defense first which mean that thief won't be able to touch him so he can backstab away and while the thief is doing that the mage just needs to get off one good spell and that pretty much spells doom for the thief.

Well this is the fighter vs thief debate but I am blue in the face about that since no seems to agree with me on the fact that good tactic can even take down a thief.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 11:33 pm

[QUOTE=darkraven]Well this is the fighter vs thief debate but I am blue in the face about that since no seems to agree with me on the fact that good tactic can even take down a thief.[/QUOTE]Of course a good tactic can take down the thief. The first thing that I would point out if I would defend the mage was that the mage can obviously become invisible as well, but so far no one did.

But the thief is more fun.

Sononara · Post by **Sononara** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:27 am

I disagree entirely. Do we all agree that cleric is the worst class? I hate playing clerics...dont know why.

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:11 am

There is no such thing as the worse class to me.There are just those classes that I can do without playing however the cleric isn't one of them.The cleric is a class that is a little harder to play for some people since the most of there spells are defensive and don't outright wreck and entire party like a mages spells.Cleric are good for healing and for dealing with undead creature but if you use there spell to buff them up a little then they can be rather deadly.Cleric have one of the most powerfully spells in the game which is harm.If the cleric can hit it target then that person is done and I used this spells to defeat alot of the tougher enemies so I know that is works.Slay living is another deadly spell that the cleric has and flame strike is deadly as well just to name a few.

A Cleric is one of those classes that really improves when you add another class to go along with it like the fighter.With buff spell that a cleric has being added to fighter skills then you can easily become one of the most deadliest foes around.It is all about how you use the cleric that make them a strong or weak class and that is true about any class.

Well now for the debate about the mage.............Well a mage is just to much a thief that doesn't have any traps laid down because they have to many resource at hand even if the thief use some tactics said here because all the mage needs to do is use gate and summon a demon.Correct me if I wrong but I believe that the demon will be able to see the thief in the shadows if he isn't protect from evil.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:54 am

[QUOTE=darkraven]Correct me if I wrong but I believe that the demon will be able to see the thief in the shadows if he isn't protect from evil.[/QUOTE]The demon wouldn't touch a thief that has SoM equipped - SoM gives Protection From Evil. Besides that, a demon can't see what a lich can't see.

Thrifalas · Post by **Thrifalas** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:45 am

I actually doesn't see any way for a mage to win against a hidden theif despite either massing AoE or boring him to death - if the mage has 7 stone skins, and each last... what is it? 10 hours? tee-hee...

Despite that, if the thief doesn't kill the mage in a single backstab, he can time stop and have a hunch of where the thief is - a triggered triple sunfire just hurts. Or a tripple triggered Abi-Dalzhim...

I'd say it's a no-win fight. Much depends on patiance and luck, and how both of them are controlled.

And yes, the mage can become invisible, but the thieves "Detect Invisible" shouldn't count as a "magical mean", and therefore a thief should win a fight of the invisibles. I think so anyway, I don't think there's any thief in the game that resorts to detect invisible though, so I'm not sure if cloak of non-detection protects against it.

Though it shouldn't. -_-

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 11:24 am

The thief is no longer hidden when he backstabs and that mean he can be hit with a spell then like power word stun.This a quick cast spell and I used it on thieves the second that they backstab and it has never failed me once.The mage has alot of resource that would just outlast the thief in the long run because the thief would have to use potions to hide again.The mage can summon some help in the fight againist the thief while can't.He could use some scroll to do so but wouldn't be smart on the thief's part to try to match a mage in the spell department.Wail of the banshee is another spell that can affect the thief even when hidden.While it is possible for the thief to win againist a mage in a fight it just isn't going to be easy.And if all else fails for the mage then he can cast Wish and just call it a day.

I think that there are some other summon creatures that can see invisible creature but I am not sure.I am going to have play TOB and do trial and error to see if I am correct.

Berethor · Post by **Berethor** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:11 pm

Definatly thief!!!! Fighters can hit hard and take beatings, but they can do normai damage and the occasional critical hit(unless you have critical strike), but thieves(I have a level 35 assassin) can hide in shadow and backstab for MAJOR damage, or they can set traps for good damage(unless you have the HLA set spike trap which does a max of 120 damage!). The max I did with backstab was like 137 which was AMAZING! Sure, fighters can Use more items(until thieves get UAI) and do more damage in one on one combat, but thieves hold all the cards when it comes to surprise...

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:12 pm

There are items that can defend againist backstab and if the fighter has that on him then he can take down the thief if there aren't any traps set but I agree that the thief can take a down a fighter down with ease with there traps.I didn't know that one spike trap could do that much damage.Then again I hardly ever use traps.

Thrifalas · Post by **Thrifalas** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:02 am

[QUOTE=darkraven]The thief is no longer hidden when he backstabs and that mean he can be hit with a spell then like power word stun.This a quick cast spell and I used it on thieves the second that they backstab and it has never failed me once.The mage has alot of resource that would just outlast the thief in the long run because the thief would have to use potions to hide again.The mage can summon some help in the fight againist the thief while can't.He could use some scroll to do so but wouldn't be smart on the thief's part to try to match a mage in the spell department.Wail of the banshee is another spell that can affect the thief even when hidden.While it is possible for the thief to win againist a mage in a fight it just isn't going to be easy.And if all else fails for the mage then he can cast Wish and just call it a day.

I think that there are some other summon creatures that can see invisible creature but I am not sure.I am going to have play TOB and do trial and error to see if I am correct.[/QUOTE]

Well, the theif can have granted himself 100% MR and some reflective items... just to make it worse. And if he's using SotR, there's no way that you'll have time to cast a power word: stun spell on him; in fact you won't have time to cast anything.

But i'd forgotten all about Wish - if the mage never depletes his defenses, the theif cannot backstab and thus, they're both unable to kill each other. ^^

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:09 am

If I was a thief, I'd sneak with the Robe of Non Detection and then cast Protection From Magic... on the mage.

It cancels all his protections and stops all his spells from working... stoneskin that.

Then I'd punch the mage to unconcious death for good measure.

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:13 am

I think that we should just agree to disagree on this because there are items out there that can be used by the thief or mage that can change this whole battle.When I first created this thread I wasn't thinking about items that can be used which can change everything.It just make this discussion so pointless because there is an item out there that can counter just about anything.

In the defense of the mage you do know that they can summon creatures to help them out so the mage could summon a planetar which can see invisible creatures I do believe and the planetar won't have a problem defeating thief.Another thing to keep in mind is that enemy thieves in the game don't have to be behind you to backstab while we players have to be and that can be hard to do when you have a party to control while in the heart of combat.To me it is easier to have a few fighters to tear down tougher emenies because the mage has to first remove magic resistance and defenses before be able to do something offensive.The thief needs to hide and then sneak around to backstab the emeny which take a few second.In this game a few seconds is alot because there are emenies that can rip you apart in a few second.Fighters thaco are so low in this game that they hardly miss but the thief on the other hand misses alot more often when not backstabbing.While assassination is a great it doesn't last long enough and there is still the chance that you will miss but it darn right nasty if you hit.I was playing one time with the thief and took a pack of fire giant alone and used assassination and let just say that I will never do that again.

Spectator · Post by **Spectator** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:59 am

Someone posted a link to this site on the Bioware forums, and I seen this topic, so I just had to post myself.

Mage vs Thief

A mage will win this battle if, and only if they use a chain contingency: abi dalzims x3 on hit, with the target being last hit by. 3 flame arrows might do it too. For either spell, the mage better hope that they inflict as much damage as possible, and that the thief doesn't make any saves and hope that he's not wearing the girdle of inertial barrier. Otherwise a thief even without HLA's will have no problems at all. If a mage gates a demon, thief runs away until it's unsummoned. If the mage goes invisible, thief drinks a potion of invisibility, and detects illusions without coming out of invisibility. As soon as a mage starts casting true sight, the thief runs away, then comes back hiding in shadows while already wearing the cloak of non-detection naturally. To get the stoneskins down, every thief will be carrying a few arrows of dispelling on them, and will be just barely in range, so that they can run away before the mage gets a power word stun off. Once all the stoneskins are down, thief makes a backstab and the game is over.

Fighter vs Thief

No contest, even if the fighter is wearing something that makes them immune to backstab. All the thief has to do is keep drinking invisibility potions until the fighter is dead, and there's more than enough of those in ToB. Invisibility potions work so quickly after an attack, that the fighter will never get a chance to make a swing. The fighter can easily drink invisibility potions, but they're just as quickly dispelled with the thief's detect illusions.

And that's all without a thief using a single HLA. If you want to use HLA cheese, a thief can just summon nishruus or hakeashars and eat all of the mages spells.

darkraven · Post by **darkraven** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 3:09 pm

I think that you misunderstood the augment.In this battle we assumed like the characters were intelligent and so mage wouldn't just let the thief run out site not follow him.Have you forgotten about spell trigger which is cast instant.That will kill the thief before he is even about to drink another potion.There are also spells like wail of the banshee that can kill the thief if he doesn't make save.There is also wish and there is no defense againist that.