Thief build?

Just for reference's sake, the guide I started out following is on Gamefaqs.

However, that particular guide just provides some bare-bones advice on playing a thief-type character in this game. What I'm looking for are more specific builds, since all I've gathered build-wise are:

1. Prowling, Pick Pockets and Pick Locks are the bread-and-butter skills.
2. For easy leveling in the early game you need a combat skill (i.e. melee, thrown, etc.)
3. The trap-related skills are forgettable.
4. A thief can go for either magic OR tech.

Any advice? Right now for the combat skill I'm picking between melee + backstab or throwing (I tried firearms once, it was awesome and all but all the gear and ammo got too cumbersome for my taste in the long run). I'm thinking of going the magic route (Stun + backstab = good times), but will your aptitude affect the lockpicking skill since that one's considered tech?

So. Help?

 

1. Correct. Prowling gets boosted to broken levels if you receive the master training. If you combine it with backstabbing it gets even better. Backstabbing in itself is pretty strong if you get some training, but at high levels it's just devastating if you're a skilled prowler.
Take note that if you cleverly use the temporary and permanent bonuses available you may not need to max every skill out there. Also, maxing isn't even needed in many cases (such as picklocking, I think 16/20 should suffice there).

2. Not exactly. But it's how it always goes in Arcanum: the more damage you can deal alone the more exp you get in combat.

3. Yes and no. To me it's part of the thief experience too actually disarm traps. The spotting skill can be substituted (including training) by means of magic though. Alternative there's a nice technological device to use for trap detection (and for setting off traps, technically). As traps aren't exactly everywhere, but mostly found in masses in a few places that would probably be not too limiting.

4. Actually, I'd go for both. I don't think that your aptitude affects your picklocking ability at all. It merely affects the effects of items and a few spells. Depending on what you're going to equip you may want to sway a bit more towards one direction.
But it's always nice when you can perform some magical tricks. Like, turning invisible or stunning the enemy. Or making him your friend by means of persuasive magic. What I recommend the most though is the usual combination of Conveyance and Temporal. Teleport is just great (and actually the local teleport can be useful in turn based combat if you want to get behind somebody and would have to spend more than four action points for that), as are all means of speeding up yourself and slowing down the enemy. Also, if you intent to become totally magical you might find the spell useful that opens locks (although that's kind of noisy and annoying and no self-respecting thief would do that).

When I played my thief I learned how to teleport rather towards the end and spent my other character points in strength, dexterity, charisma, perception and willpower. By cleverly using your ressources and temporary stat boosters you don't even need to max most of these out. Then I just learned the trap skills, basic persuasion, the thief skills, backstabbing and melee as well as dodge. A few starting points went into Electrical to make charged rings.
I ended up as a slightly technological character. The only issue was, and this might interest you, that I wasn't small. So if you're interested in wearing very protective armor you might want to pick a small race so you can wear the armor that can be found in the Iron Fist settlement (as it is very protective and has little noise penalty). Although I barely ever had to wear more than my oiled piece of leather or my trusty smoking. The maschined plate is nice for the strength boost and power armor effect but it's just too noisy for a melee fighter.
I had quite some fun and no real problems besides the initial ones you encounter at the very beginning. Actually, you can pretty much solo Tarant's sewers and level up big time without problems if you're good at prowling and backstabbing.

 

In the Black Mountain Mines, you can scavenge around 10-12 scrolls of Sense Invisible off the Molochean Hands. Considering you need 3-4 of those to completely clear out the whole place (if you don't linger in one place for too long, of course), you can keep the other 6-8 or so for future use. There aren't many trap-filled places before BMM, either.

 

I've been playing a solo thief recently, and I find the combination of Melee, Prowling, Backstab, and the Hasten spell from the Temporal collage to be wildly effective. Hasten doubles your action points so you can literally run circles around your enemies. Prowling circles around your enemies allows you to backstab over and over every turn.

 

How'd your earlier levels go? From my experience just juggling points between prowling, lockpicking and pickpocketing already spreads the points kinda thin, even with just one combat skill to 'distract' from the thief stuff (throwing). Sure, the going does get good once you do get past the initial crawl and the skills are good enough to consistently get you the bling but it felt pretty tortuous getting there. This is just with throwing alone, and I'm worried that it might be much harder splitting points between thief skills and the backstab-melee-dodge trilogy.