Thief/Guide
Thief gameplay is not quite as straightforward as a Mages or Warriors who go into battle and simply throw fireballs or lunge at their enemy. A Thief sometimes needs a little more setup or planning before combat.
Gameplay
While a Warrior is a slab of health points, heavy weapons, and high armor class allowing them to win the war of attrition, a Thief is much more suited to a risk/reward style of play. A Thief's abilities generally do extremely high damage with the possibility of even killing enemies in a single hit with the downside being they will be slow to defend themselves afterwards. Though Dodge helps keep a Thief from being smashed to bits they naturally will have less health and armor than a warrior.
What Thieves lacks in mettle they more than make up for in guile. Thieves have a mountain of skills that provide utility outside of combat:
- Brewing poisons to apply to their weapons and antidotes to cure them
- Pickpocket, shoplift, and steal which provides extra experience, gold income, and all but removes the need to purchase from NPC shops
- Lockpicking to bypass doors that you would otherwise need the key for or may only be bypassed with lockpicking. Note: all classes can pick locks but it takes substantially longer without the skills of a Thief
- Stealth abilities to move through areas entirely unnoticed by aggressive enemies
- Shadow skills to bind enemies in place, walk through the shadows, and conjure decoys to take hits for them
Damage Types
As a melee class your weapon is your main source of damage and its type of damage is incredibly important. Different enemies are not only to weak or resistant to different elemental types but also the attack type such as slashing, piercing, or crushing. The help dtype and help special damage helpfiles in game are critically important to effectively dispatching enemies.
You should learn the Monster Lore as early as possible (level 8) and use the consider <enemy> command to see what the enemy is vulnerable or resistant to. You should also keep several different weapons of various damage and elemental types on hand so you always have the right tool for the job. Fighting with the incorrect damage type can make fights last significantly longer.
Combat
See Thief/Guide/Combat for an in-depth look at the Thief's rotation and abilities while leveling up
Equipment
See Thief/Guide/Equipment for guide on what makes good Thief gear as well as suggestions for gear while leveling up
