What level do you dual a thief into a mage? Feel free to add what type kit thief would be better too :)

Swash10 or 15 -> Mage makes a great mage with melee backup if they get in trouble; an M/T probably isn't going to be backstabbing anyway, so there's no downside.

If you do want backstab for some reason, however, you could go with Thief9 -> Mage for a x4, or a Thief13 -> Mage for x5. Assassin is only good for the poison (since there's no way you'd go to level 21 for the uber backstab), and Bounty Hunter might be worth it for the interesting traps, but you have to compare the advantages against getting fewer skill points.

IIRC a Bounty Hunter (with an 18 DEX ) dualled to mage at level 13 gave enough skill points to put Find Traps and Open Locks to 100%, Set Traps to 80%, and enough points left over to allow for decent stealth skills. The Mercykiller ring (available in the Adventure Mart w/ Bonus Merchants installed) gives +20% to Set Traps and stealth skills, so IMO the character would have sufficient skill points for what needs to be done. I like the BH for his ability to "throw" his special traps, and think it makes a very nice dual with mage.

Depends on what party I have. Always, I'll max FT and OL to 100%. If no one else can PP, I get that as high as I can (usually 100% due to potions and gloves). Sometimes this can be done at charcter creation, meaning you can dual at level 8 at the start of the game.

Hmm you gave me an idea! This may be my new character build for my next game. I plan to start as a Faithful Rogue kit (a thief kit with some clerical spells as abilities) and once I hit lvl 12 (as a new clerical ability is gained which I forgot now), I will dual into mage. Is this cool? It will be like a mage/thief/cleric sorta. Oh and I may plan to play as a female PC for the very first time, to try Anomen's romance, or Kelsey's, out of curiosity. I heard that making Anomen CN was actually quite fun! Oh and I heard nothing but good things about sweet boy Kelsey.

But this will have to wait as I am now all busy with my current spiffy Chorister boy and his merry go-happy party. (Chorister, Arcane Fist, Keto, Jan, Jaheira, Immy) :wave:

Is it me or is m/t and f/m/t totally twinky overpowered? Can just hide/stab hide/stab

You can hide/stab, hide/stab with a plain thief and a few potions, too. Heck, an assasin would actually do a better job at it.

just seems insane the amount of pain a f/m/t can bring. Well, F/t for that matter. It almost seems like god mode as that class :p

Drew's right. Assassin's are built for hiding and stabbing and they get the nifty boosts to really get nasty about it with poison and the increased backstab multiplier they can achieve.

Whenever I go invisible with my thief in order to backstab, when I try to hide in the shadows it fails. Do I HAVE to hide in the shadows or can I just backstab while invisible?

you can backstab when you are invisible. whether or not you can hide in shadows WHILE/DURING invisibility i do not know

I played a couple times before realizing thief skills scrolled down when adding points, so my hide in shadows wasn't same with move silently. I didn't even know of detect illusion or traps :( It was a good thing my dog bumped the mouse so it scrolled down.

whether or not you can hide in shadows WHILE/DURING invisibility i do not know You can hide in the shadows while invisible, atleast with invisibility provided by Staff of the Magi.

The point of hiding when you are already invisible escapes me... :confused:

@ Silver

You can change weapon suitable for backstabbing.

And get a nice overlap between hiding and the SotM's invis. going off when you equip something else, so that you're never visible. But if you don't anticipate the invis. ending (just changing weapons won't do it unless the weapon is what's giving you the invis.), then you wouldn't need to hide.

Thank you, much obliged. :)

Wouldn't the character you're trying to sneak up on have to overcome two checks to spot you, if you were hiding in shadows and invisible at the same time?

What checks? The only ways to spot an invisible or stealthed character are spells, or scripted ignoring of invisibility (liches and dragons come to mind). Otherwise, the check that needs to be made is for a stealthed character to remain stealthed; invisibility is automatic (barring the two methods mentioned above).

Yup, the victims do not get a check, ONLY the attacker shoudl check to remain in shadows. If he is invisible by spell, scroll, ring or potion, no check is required. Any illusion dispelling spells and dispel/remove magic, level 2 conjuration spell Glitterdust, and thief detect illusions ability will dispel the shadowed or invisible form.

Note that some enemies can see invisible characters like Fel mentioned, like Liches, and Dragons to name a few.

Which reminds me, I guess dispel/remove magic does not affect the invisibility of a character who has hidden in shadows correctly?

Personally I dualled at 11th or 12th from Swashbuckler because at that point I was happy with my thief skills. With the Swash all I built was P.Pkts, O.Lks and F.Tps - with good Set Tps. Well over 100 in each. Also I gained a few AC from the Swash class (good for a mage) and was allowed to put several points into Q.Staff and 2Wpn Style.

So when I moved to Mage I was already a decent AC (in comparison to say - Edwin) and by the time I was able to be both Thief and Mage I was a strong character.

Luckily it did not take me too long to get up in Mage as I had LOTS of scrolls to learn. In fact in an Inn in Wak's Prom I went up to the brink of 6th Level Mage just through learning spells from scrolls (after downing a Potion of Genius btw).

Once I was a 13th level Mage myself and party went and got me a Staff of the Magi. From then on..lovely! :)

A mage/thief will have very easy time backstabbing, considering all those pesky illusion spells, so picking Swashy makes no sense to me, but your call pal. :p

Swashy because I wanted a better ac and attack capability.

Also I wanted some one to open and disarm stuff without recruiting someone who does that as their only 'job'.

In addition I solo'd a fair bit at the start. Something I always like to do to give a good start.

Hmm, for a soloer, Swashbuckler sounds good. I think high level Swashbucklers are very powerful characters. I even read the full detailed battle of Improved Irenicus battle (which is hard as hell) on insane difficulty. (which also really adds new powers, enemies to the already insane battle and double damage rate as well). And the solo Swashbuckler (lvl 40) just...breezed through it, I was amazed! Really! :eek: Must be powerful indeed.

Swashies put a little lead into the Mage and as you say are good solo-ers.

My only prob at the moment is defeating Kangaxx. I keep knocking him down and then he Imprisons me!

Cheezy swine that he is! :)

Have you got a Simmy yet? I use them, and they get imprisonned. Then lichy gets chunked.

Mind you, I'm not fighting Kangaxx, so maybe tis different. I haven't attempted that fight yet.

Okay, I am going to sound real dumb here but...

what is a simmy?

*awaits the thrown tomatos* ;)

A simmy is a Simulcrum (or however you spell it).

As for Kangaxx, use Spell Immunity: Abjuration to block the Imprisonment spells.