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Okay, people routinely complain about the thief NPC selection in BG2, but I'm really beginning to doubt it's necessity. If you're satisfied to find and remove traps, Nalia and Imoen are just fine (esp. if you have the ring of danger sense). Knock spells or anybody toting Crom Faeyr can open any chests you find. Scouting, if necessary, can be done by Valygar (who's a MUCH better fighter than any thief could ever be). Only thing missing is picking pockets...c'est la vie.

But I expect a Roleplaying game such as Baldur's Gate II have a larger variety of classes. There are a lot of powerful mages, and only one *real* thief (Jan is not a real thief!)

A good thief is needed in every adventurer party. Their is only 1 good thief...and that can be frustating. When I play as an evil character I like to pickpocket everbody without having to reload every sec. Imoen is a fine thief expet for her pickpockting skills (ofcourse this can be solved by potions and rings). And there is the fact that after completing the game that I had 130000 gp left (there is really no need to steal...ring of regeneration!!!!!!!)

oh and of course the possibility to posses 2 rings-of-gaxx is a reason to always have a good thief around for those ones in a bg2life opportunities

I agree with the original statement, you don't really need a thief. Imoen does just fine at detecting traps and opening locks (there's a ring for that too). As for pick pocketing, that dudes right, you can use potions. There are very few things worth stealing. Personally, I would view getting two rings of Gaxx as sort of cheating...

i agree as well, the only reason i bring imoen or jan along is for the detect traps ability. I would not have a true thief with me as it seems a waste or a slot therefore i think dual or multi class theifs are good as you solve detect traps and dont have to sacrafice a mage or fighter

i was a bit dissapointed with the npc selection in bg 2 though especially the number considering bg had 25 npcs. They should have at least one half orc npc. It seems silly that they give you a new class and then donT put them in the game I am sure i went through the whole game without seeing a single half orc. also having three mage/thiefs npcs was a bit excessive. Mazzy was dissapointing as well, only 15 strength for a fighter seems stupid to me.

Perhaps a future expansion pack will give us a couple more, a monk and a half orc of some sort spring to mind

It's off topic, but to respond to the above post, I like that the NPC's in BG2 are both spare and not min/maxed on their abilities. Makes the roleplaying more realistic, I think. To use Mazzy as an example, people always complain about her 15 st. and proficiency in short sword. BUT, the game also has plenty of magic items that seem conspicuously designed to overcome such things. How about giving her one of the giant-strength belts and the gauntlets of weapon mastery? Or, learn to love short swords. With their fast speed factors, a fighter dual-wielding two great short swords (and there are plenty in the game) makes an excellent mage-killer. Plus, her 5 points in bow practically set her up to be your group's stellar archer. Giver her the Gesen or Tuigan Bow and stand back. In short, part of the fun of the game for me is finding the particular strengths of the NPCs, even if they may seem weak on the surface. (Keldorn is another example. His base stats aren't particularly impressive, but if you give him the right equipment, he's practically a god.)

Ìsnot Mazzy a halfling???? Halflings wariors are never as strong as their ord or human counterparts. So its realistic to give her a 15 strenght

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beer-for-love

I personally LOVE the backstab ability of Thieves ... they can quickly deal out some real damage to a tough opponent before the fight really starts.

Because of this, and because I don't want to waste spell slots to spells like Knock and Detect Traps, having a Thief in my party is an absolute priority, along with at least one good mage, one good cleric and one good fighter. The other two slots can be taken by whatever suits my needs at that point.

Giving every fighter class a 18+ strength, every priest class a 18+ wisdom, every mage a 18+ intelligence is, for a lack of better word, Gump-tier retarded. Diversity is a good thing, particularly that each character has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. If I wanted to have the bomb team, I might as well just download hacks and make a all 25 stat party with +5 Holy Avengers for everybody.

I, too, found thieves kind of unnecessary in the game as you don't use much of their skills in the game. In regards to their backstabbing ability, it's only good if your main character is a thief and you get to control their backstabs. Otherwise the NPC thieves are weak in the game and not worth a slot. I completed the game without a competant thief, sorry Jan, and it went well.

[This message has been edited by bullions27 (edited 11-20-2000).]

The thief gains a lot of experience from doing theiving things so it can be an advantage to use a theif and not the alterante spells

The only weird NPC is Anomen.
He is dual-classed to cleric and should therefor have a 17 in wisdom.
He only got 11 or 12.

It is 12. But once he solves this thing with his father,

SPOILER
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he gets knighted, and that will not only change his alignment to LG, but he will also gain 4 points in his Wisdom.

Yea, that was a mistake I think in their programming. There would have been no way for Anomen to dual-class to a cleric without a 17 wisdom score as it's a prerequisite.

Maurice

Which still doesn't explain how he could have gotten that cleric class without at least a 17 wisdom score though. I could see him become a cleric after that quest.

[This message has been edited by bullions27 (edited 11-20-2000).]

That is absolutely true. Divine intervention? Well, if the folks at BI have done it this way, it kind of is like that ... I mean, in this game, they are God of course