Thief Question

[Fuzzlewhack]

I'm trying to make a thief, and I just wanted some people's opinions on the best route to take...

1.) Hurthling or High Elf? The hurthlings have archery and food preservation, and high elves get dodge.
(I will never make a dark elf thief again, I have a saved lvl 17 DE thief and its impoossible to keep even N+ alignment. It seems like the lawful classes can just pickpocket all day and stay L)

2.) Slings, or bows and crossbows? I'm sorta banking on getting whirlind (thieves always seem to for their crowning gift) and the +15 +15 would be nice if I can get crowned early. On the other hand slaying ammo would be nice....

3.) Swords or daggers? I usually go for the raven birthmonth and try to stack on speed (making swords---> golden gladius a great path to take just for the +7spd. Should I hold out for something like serpent's bite?


And lastly, should I go Lawful or neutral?

[lotuskip]

I get the feeling you're trying to make these decisions too early. You can't plan a game of ADOM (well, to some extent you can if you're experienced enough, but it's still a pain). Just play, and go by what the RNG gives you. Basically, to answer your questions:

1) Race is not a big issue. Both work. Archery can be very nice (allows lighting shot talent, most importantly!), but so can dodge and food pres. None of them is necessary.
About pickpocketing, afaik you never get alignment drops if you only pickpocket targets who have already attacked you.

2) Use whatever you find. There is no reason to concentrate on one missile weapon class alone. The point is to kill those nasty bosses, not become a grandmaster just for grandmastery's sake. Slaying ammo will slay even with low skill levels. On the other hand, mastery in slings + Whirlwind will take down balors with ease even when using 1d4-3 rocks.

3) Use the most efficient weapon, not the weapon you're most skilled with. Use swords if you like for starters, but if you find Serpent's Bite, switch to daggers. It will kill everything quite effectively even if you have skill 0 in daggers. If you find Executor, switch to axes. Or are you roleplaying your character?
You really tend to use Golden Gladius? I've never heard anyone do that.

Lastly, being a thief you have no need for the thieves guild, so there really is no reason to be neutral. Being lawful provides resistance to corruption (if L+), and makes the dwarf town more useful. So as long as you are not going for an ultra or anything, lawful looks better to me.

[Silfir]

The golden gladius is not worth using. The Tactics skill is much too awesome.

Hurthlings and high elves: Your choice alone. High elves are stronger and live longer. Hurthlings are tougher and throw rocks somewhat rougher.

Slings, bows, crossbows: All of them if you want. Whirlwind is only 12, 12 though. If you're high elf, you have an equal chance of Sun's Messenger, which does have 15, 15. Rocks = easy ammunition. I'd advise using rocks until you have healthy stacks of arrows and quarrels, then training bows and crossbows. I guess thieves want to minimize melee either way.

Weaponry: Cannot pin this down. It hugely depends on the artifacts you find. If you're always Raven, however, I advise Polearms. Rune-covered trident is awesome.

If you're going to steal other people's possessions all the time like a thief, maybe being chaotic is more suitable for you? Anyway, being lawful has definite advantages since you can sacrifice almost anything; keep in mind pickpocketing is alignment-proof if the enemy has already spotted and turned hostile to you. So if you're, say, permanently invisible, pickpocketing enemies without first getting their attention with a gentle stab in the nads is a chaotic act.

[spectre]

Daggers are a good backup plan if you manage to find a phase dagger (although yeah, eternium whatever of penetration will make it obsolete).

Being a hurtling helps in the early game - no problems with starvation whatsoever, and has thrown rocks trained to 4. Low strength trains up fast, levels up pretty fast as well.
It all depends on how confident you feel. I would say Dark elves are quite a bit better than other elves just for the find weakness criticals.

Regarding alignment:
Before pickpocketing, look at the target if its hostile. Non-hostiles result in alignment drop. Also, backstabbing non-hostiles draws your alignment to C quite fast.

[nathrakh]

eternium dagger of penetration wouldnt make phase dagger obsolete. The way phase dagger works it would be better against monsters with huge PV, eg. molochs etc.

[zasvid]

eternium dagger of penetration wouldnt make phase dagger obsolete. The way phase dagger works it would be better against monsters with huge PV, eg. molochs etc.

weapons of penetration work like phase daggers.

[Sadface]

That's why you get the thief Heir gift: adamantium dagger of
penetration. As for races, the only race I actually get anywhere
with is hurthling...I'm not quite sure why - probably cooking and
awesome dagger, but any race (given enough talents) can
get the dagger.

[JellySlayer]

I'm trying to make a thief, and I just wanted some people's opinions on the best route to take...

1.) Hurthling or High Elf? The hurthlings have archery and food preservation, and high elves get dodge.
(I will never make a dark elf thief again, I have a saved lvl 17 DE thief and its impoossible to keep even N+ alignment. It seems like the lawful classes can just pickpocket all day and stay L)

2.) Slings, or bows and crossbows? I'm sorta banking on getting whirlind (thieves always seem to for their crowning gift) and the +15 +15 would be nice if I can get crowned early. On the other hand slaying ammo would be nice....

3.) Swords or daggers? I usually go for the raven birthmonth and try to stack on speed (making swords---> golden gladius a great path to take just for the +7spd. Should I hold out for something like serpent's bite?


And lastly, should I go Lawful or neutral?

I like hurthling thief. Extra talent + candle (always get candle...) guarantees you heir, which gets you a very nice adamantium dagger of penetration. You also get food preservation and archery, both of which are really handy for you. Trolls and orcs both also make decent thieves, although heir is tough to get with them.

[nathrakh]

weapons of penetration work like phase daggers.

No, they don't work exactly the same way.

[Fuzzlewhack]

Ok yeah so I decided to go with the hurthling. After a few tries (Kept dying in the UC on the way to high elven shop) I got a pretty nice thief going

--Level 18, lawful aligned
--got healing
--precrowned with presever
--at "Very close" so I'm hoping whirlwind is right around the corner
--slings at skill level 10
--rehetep and bloodaxe taken care of
--baller stats (nothing below 20 except mana)
--found RoDS and used it to save khelvaster


I think this one might be a winner...