The Art of Thieving

After some research and trying character/background combos,I`ve settled on a dwarven thief with the 'troll blood' background.Since magic is somewhat difficult with a dwarf,I`ve only invested in one spell: Agility of Fire,activated only before I attempt a serious thieving roll.Guns are somwhat weak (in the demo) and I don`t think I`ll have the extra CPs to cover gun construction,so I`m sticking with melee weaponry although my prime stat is dex.I considered a halfling,but couldn`t see my way to making a halfling combat viable. (but I see some real prospects in a Feral Child Halfling thief).I believe that successfull thieving requires technology.The auto lockpick makes your life so much easier.Lockpicking and pickpocketing are the prime skills of a thief,but what about prowling? Is it worth it? I have pulled of all my thievery without it,and even in broad daylight I succeed on most of my rolls.Does darkness really make a difference? And does the presence of your companions help/hamper skills like pickpocketing and prowling? I have found no evidence of any of these things.Had anyone else invested in a thieving character and noticed anything?

 

Prowling is only useful when you are a loner. So have your followers stand by while you go scout.

I never realy play with it. In theory you should be able to sneak on by Lunkan an pick the gate lock if it is dark enough and you are stealthy enough.

-gustavef

 

Try giving a halfling a balanced sword. My first character was a halfling who invests randomly in tech and he's mean in the field with a balanced sword plus he's got plenty of Healing Salves to stay in the field.

 

guns arent weak in the demo at all. my fine revolver kicked ass. you just gotta invest in perception and firearms skill. i took out everything with ease. now if only i had more ammo...

 

Hmm. IMO one of the better thief is halfling with the raised by monks background, way?
For good thief you really need high dexterity and perception so you already start with dex. 10 and per. 9 then you still have 5 CP to distribute: 1 to charisma so you can pick this guy at the Inn (forgot his name), 1 to the firearms (you are week so ranged weapon is your answer and you are going to be tech anyway), 1 lockpicks (you’re the thief after all), witch leaves you with 2 more CP, you can bust your strength, dodge, start doing some schematics, your choice. Throwing? I don’t know you’re to weak to throw far so you probably going to more damage to himself than to your enemy………… but of course I could be wrong. :smile:


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sethmage on 2001-05-14 10:47 ]</font>

 

If you buy a ton of ammo at the beginning and invest in heavily with your gun and smithy skills, along with some perception, you can become a good gun slinger, just use a sword early on at the crash site is whate i did

 

A really dumb way to thieve is to get doc roberts to join your team to defend the bank, right click on his picture, go to his inventory, take all his stuff, and then... You've got all his stuff!
Yay!
No theiving skill required!
:grin:

 

just put a few CPs in the explosive skill and sell whatever you make; you should have enough money to buy as much ammo as you want

 

I've been reading this forum for a while, and I never took the time to register, preferring just to read the posts. But now I feel I can contribute something very useful.

With every single one of my charaters I never have Money/Ammo problems because it is very simple to get a lot of money in the demo. The first thing I do when I go to town is use pick pocket on Ristezze and take his house key (any type of char can do it, eventually, without any skill in pick pocket). Then you go into his bedroom, open his chest, take the money (usually 500-1500 gold) then wait for a full day, open the chest again and the money re-appears, repeat this proccess until you have about 50,000 gold. So before I even have to worry about Ammo, I have enough cash to continually buy whatever I need from the shops. Plus, even if Ristezze sees you open his door or chest, he doesn't care at all.

Then, you go to the Halfling merchant, buy all his ammo, wait a full day, then buy his ammo again, repeat. Since there is no time limit in the demo, waiting has no drawbacks.

 

You can also buy ammo from the smithy

 

I found out that if you end up smashing the containers that both the smithy and Riz????? have in their rooms, they won't buy anything from you anymore. They will still gladly sell. They probably act like this because there isn't any place for their wares to go. They have a reaction of 72 and 113 towards me so them not selling isn't because of a like/dislike thing happening.

 

Has anyone been able to achive a backstab yet? How muck does it do or supposed to do?

 

Oh yes, I have 8*) The most I have done was 62 points in one strike. That is with an 11 ST, 1 Melee, 2 Backstab, 2 Prowling.

Backstab is one of those things that works well in Turn Base. When fighting the wolves at the crash site and the kite scouts, I could "run around" the target and backstab twice for about 15 points each.

The ammount of damage you do with Backstab is based on your skill as well as wether or not the target notices you. It can be quite effective. But since to do a lot of damage, it requires Prowling, so have your party members wait for you if they can not sneak.

-gustavef

 

me donk ,mes good fief ,mes nik lotso stuf

 

you know, for skills like pick lock and prowling and pickpocket, does putting an extra point in them improve your use of it if you don't receive training?
say, if you have 4 ranks in pickpocket, do you pickpocket as successfully as if you had 3 rank? (since rank 4 is not enough for expert training)

does putting more points into pickpocket help more or does putting the point into dex work better if you're not going to train(yet?)

putting points in them is not just for training, is it? it's for proficiency as well right?

 

Apretice training in lock picking doesn't really incress/decress you chances for sucess in picking a lock. This should tell you what the training lvls do...

Apprentice - pick lock action takes half as much time
Expert - the character is unaffected by light penalties
Master - the penalty for not using lockpicks is halved

This was riped strait off this section, http://www.terra-arcanum.com/characterbank/skills.php , off of this fine site. Points in the skill incress your chances to sucess. So training doesn't incress the sucess chance it just makes the skill better through enhancements.

 

oh yea. i knew about what the trainings do

i was just wondering if putting extra points in them made them better or if it was just so you could train

so anyone has any idea if putting a point into picklocks would be better than putting it in dex? (probably it will better, since you are concentrating on a particular aspect of your skill, but then again, it might not. as the creators might view it as that the point could get you some of the way to a training level)

 

IMO It is better to put a point into agility of fire instead of dex if you're going to be a lockpicker (unless you're a complete tech-junkie, in which case I don't know if the spell would work) but in this way, with average intelligence you can have master picklocks with only 10 dex.
With 2xAgility of Fire (which will not drain your stamina more than your recovery rate unless you have a very feeble constitution and is cumulative with both itself and electric ring thingies) and 10 base dex, you can have 18 dex which will allow you to up any dex based skills and allow you to learn master level.
When the spells are turned off, you lose the skill, but as soon as you turn the spells back on, the skill comes back, so for 1cp in magic (plus 5 in picklocks skill), and a bit of preparation at the start of the night, a fairly low level character can wreak havoc on merchants across Arcanum

 

page 31

 

Obviously I guess, pickpocketing is easier when your mark is incapacitated. :smile: For example, it is much easier to pickpocket people who are sleeping at night. One example would be the bank teller in Shrouded Hills, wait until she goes to bed, and pickpocket her key, even with no cps invested you can be successful. Another would be Mr. Franklin if you're a female and do the Madam Lil quest to service him. He goes into negative fatigue, and if you're fast enough, you can nab his ring of virility, again with no pickpocket skill. :smile: