Why thieves?

[Hrosskell]

I personally don't believe the "basic" and easiest-to-access thieves guilds are evil, but there might be some details I'm forgetting. They're definitely not lawful, which is where a lot of people get hung up in my opinion; the toolset of a thief is just that--a toolset. How it is employed may from time to time strain the good-evil axis, but I find it breaks the law/chaos one wide open often.

[Maetha]

I personally don't believe the "basic" and easiest-to-access thieves guilds are evil, but there might be some details I'm forgetting. They're definitely not lawful, which is where a lot of people get hung up in my opinion; the toolset of a thief is just that--a toolset. How it is employed may from time to time strain the good-evil axis, but I find it breaks the law/chaos one wide open often.

Alignment is always a harsh discussion, let alone when you have a bunch of D&D nerds stuck in the same room. Some people think Robin Hood is LG, some people think he's CG. Other people think he's CN or TN. It's all preference and taste- since they're guidelines for roleplay as opposed to hardline mechanical standpoints.

[Terageld]

I personally don't believe the "basic" and easiest-to-access thieves guilds are evil, but there might be some details I'm forgetting. They're definitely not lawful, which is where a lot of people get hung up in my opinion; the toolset of a thief is just that--a toolset. How it is employed may from time to time strain the good-evil axis, but I find it breaks the law/chaos one wide open often.

Alignment is always a harsh discussion, let alone when you have a bunch of D&D nerds stuck in the same room. Some people think Robin Hood is LG, some people think he's CG. Other people think he's CN or TN. It's all preference and taste- since they're guidelines for roleplay as opposed to hardline mechanical standpoints.

I've had a huge discussion with my friends about Robin Hood before. We ruled out that stealing is a grey area in the good-evil spectrum. Stealing is most defiantly a chaotic action. I feel that a man who steals coins for himself is evil, whilst a man who steals for the less fortunate is justified as good, just chaotic.

[Nimboro]

Heh. Too late. I'm eatin' dem cookies!

I took the opportunity to combine two new things ... a thief and a deep gnome. Maybe not the best combination, but I'm having fun with it.

Blingdenstone is exceptionally well done. It's an encapsulated area as big and as detailed as some of the smaller muds out there by themselves! That Solo guy did a bang up job.

Buddy, I apologize that I have yet to snag your deep gnome and talk to him. It's extremely rough, but a lot of fun!

Now, I've never played a high level thief but I can tell ya now, the roleplay surrounding the class is fantastic. Trying to avoid being demonized and the like, keeping out of sight out of mind.. The subtlty is glorious!

[Yemin]

So I'm considering eating the poison cookie as well. Could anyone give me a few pointers as to whats important stat wise for a thief. Apart from dex I've got all these other points to play with. Is it worth bumping Con to survive or are Thieves here in the same boat as wizards... if your getting hitt too much your doing something wrong. Is charisma really worth training when only one or 2 skills depend on it. More skills seem to depend on intelligence which is in line with tabletop. How high should strength realistically be. I'd like to use two weapons so the off hand's damage will be cut in half anyway. Should I really be bumping it all the way up to 18 instead of relying on sneak damage for most of my offense offense plus taking into consideration that weight has a pretty big impact here and so on?

Whats worked for you longer time thieves and what hasn't?

Please and thanks in advance.

[Hrosskell]

In pretty much every video game theorycrafting circle, more HP is a good thing. While it may seem like you're not getting any bang for your buck, consider this: if a wizard gets 1d4, and somehow maxes out his rolls for every level, having an 18 CON still doubles your health. Going beyond that does even more. The reason this is important, though, is because of the concept of "effective" health. Each point of AC, damage reduction, or ability to evade increases your "effective" health, making what little you have worth much, much more--and increases to that little become largely important in practice. Nothing competes with that ability score on a defensive level except DEX, and you have plenty of points to get both.

So, no, you shouldn't get hit--but you will, and it is important to have as much effective health for when that happens.

[Yemin]

Good points all. Right now the image is looking to be Dex-Con-Int. I think like some of my other characters I'm likely to train strength more to keep at a light load
than for damage is 16 enough to do this normally or will 14 suffice? On average if you keep to only carrying weapons, your armor, money food, wands and potions does that usually equal about 90 /100 lbs? The final areas Stat wis is Wis vs Cha. Use magic device is a powerful skill ordinarily but with the low number of charges in most wands and such how handy does it come in the long run? I usually get paranoid and train up Wis whenever I can.

[Vibius]

I have quite played thieves in the past and yes, they can have a myriad of archetypes, but before rolling one, one must understand that you are playing a very specific class with a very specific subset of skills, which is the point of playing the thief indeed, and also understand that their skills will be only used in particular instances, while the tanking of a fighter or healing of priest it is always on the table.

And what is perhaps most important of all, is understanding that you are very party dependent, you can pay feat points to use a shield and medium armor, but you will not be a fighter, and that you are best with someone else by you.

I think that what could give them some air is allowing to have the chance of sneak attack for each attack done against an enemy when the circumstances are right, right now (unless it has changed in the last months, I have not played for a while) at best you only sneak attack once each turn unlike in D&D.

In the end you will enjoying a very different RP experience but you have to understand what you will able to do and what not, if attempting to play a thief long term.

BR.

[Yemin]

I believe you can indeed double sneak. Or at Least I remember "Thieves" doing so when I've adventured with them and provided the opportunity

My concept for this character isn't so much assassin though. It was originally inspired by this :
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Elaith_Craulnober

Its evolved past it though and now I'm looking for more a gentleman highwayman type. SO I guess the stats will go Dex con str int cha.

[Vaemar]

I have soloed a thief for the past 300 hours and I can say that even rolling a non-pwp thief (i.e. low con, high cha) and soloing in pretty dangerous places I found it absolutely doable and not harder than soloing a fighter. Well, to be honest, it was actually easier.
I recognize that between level 25 and 35 I needed to use a bodyguard minion, otherwise it would have been very difficult to solo, although still doable. The main usage of the minion was only to allow my character to circle stab, since for the rest he was a pain to bring along. If you can find other characters to group, however, I expect that stage to be much easier and, of course, funnier.

[Korwin]

I'd still take into consideration on having good strength on your thief. for carrying gear, extra weapons and loot. More dmg too, no big worries about encumbrance with a decent strength

[Yemin]

Honestly yeah, I think encumbrance was the most hindering factor when I played one in the past. One of my quirks in any game is that I dislike waiting for something or repeating an action over and over so this excludes me from most of the stop start of carrying medium heavy load or skill / spell training.