Thief as a D&D character

[Kish]

Um, wait. Being a member of the "thief" class has nothing to do with stealing. What if the character is--well, in Baldur's Gate you can only be an adventurer, but thieves by class whose career is law enforcement are not uncommon. Why should Ajantis find it more objectionable that the PC knows how to pick locks than that the PC knows how to cast arcane spells?

[jastey]

thieves by class whose career is law enforcement are not uncommon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you show me how to check this behaviour of the PC in the game I will happily integrate it. I had a long thought about it and decided that I'd rather exclude thiefs in general, than to risk a paladin calling a thieving PC his one and only.

[Kish]

I see. So what the class name actually means doesn't matter? It's taken from a word that means "someone who steals" irl, so Ajantis can't romance someone with that class?

 

I certainly hope the BG1tutu version doesn't let Ajantis romance Inquisitors. 'Cause...y'know.

[Domi]

I just thought, that it is one of the topics that would benefit from having a separate thread. Indeed, in BG1 we do not have the 'thieve's stronghold' that ultimately puts PC in the head of a thieving guild, ie sort of putting it more in the light of the rl thief.

 

Now, I did a tricky thing, chosing a few loot piles in specific houses with relatively unique treasure, and made a script that checked for PC first not having an item in his inventory, and then having it, after which event Dynaheir would have an outraged comment about stealing from innocent people.

 

I understand that it is a rather lousy solution for a whole romance check. So, does anyone knows a better and easier way to distinguish between a rogue who disarms traps and open chests in the dungeons and a thief who loots commoner's houses and picks pockets?

 

One solution is to check the amount of points on pickpocketing skill, I guess...

[Kulyok]

I am not sure whether it is possible, but you could check for the soldiers appearing on the scene of the crime. This way, you'll know for sure.

 

On the other hand, Ajantis is not very clever. If there're no other witnesses, and PC is nimble enough, she can well steal the item and then quietly sell it\cook an explanation without him noticing. So I guess it is possible to PC to trick Ajantis, to assure him she is an 'honest' thief.

[jastey]

As I said, I would appreciate help in this matter. Your comment is not helpful, Kish, just sniffy.

 

Domi: It's a good idea in principle, but to do it properly I would have to check nearly every item in the game... or so.

 

Pickpocketing.. Hm, in the end even that could prevent bloody fights from happening.

 

As I said, I spend time thinking about it and that was my decision. Convince me otherwise, and I'll happily include the alignment "thief" as a romance option.

 

EDIT:

Kulyok: Maybe at the beginning, but them I would assume a paladin to notice these things if committed by the woman of his choosing.

[Kulyok]

Besides soldiers, i think if there're 'stolen' items in your inventory, the game 'remembers' they are stolen, yes? Otherwise the merchants would eagerly buy it. So, perhaps it would make sense to check for these?

[Kulyok]

Maybe at the beginning, but them I would assume a paladin to notice these things if committed by the woman of his choosing.

 

Oh, men can be soooo blind... Especially if manipulated properly.

 

(sorry, that was my evil assassin character speaking - she was so looking forward to playing with... ah, romancing Ajantis)

[BevH]

I know that Kelsey makes remarks if the PC steals something. Not having much (read almost zero) coding experience, I couldn't really make heads or tails out of the bcs file. But Jason set the remarks to fire using Globals. Perhaps this would be a way to check for thief? Oh, and you can just ignore me.

[jastey]

Kulyok: A blind paladin is a dead paladin. I didn't include a falling path for Ajantis...

 

To check for stolen items: I made the experience that there are only a few that will be recognised as stolen.

 

In the end I don't want to have a romance that gets broken by every single little event. And I know good behaviour is not a matter of class. I loot the chests with my fighter PC, too, just because the game gives me the possibility to (at some points I stopped thinking about whether this really makes sense or wheter I would do that in reality.)

 

I just can't imagine a paladin to have a serious relationship with someone that could join a thieving guild. And I haven't got a clue as how to identify the remaining, good, fighting-for-a-better-world thiefs, sorry.

[jastey]

I know that Kelsey makes remarks if the PC steals something.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I know, but afaik it triggers only if the theft was not successful. As this usually turns the shop owner hostile, who is not reloading afterwards to try again?

 

Checking for a positive theft would include checks for nearly every item in the game... I am not ready to spend the effort, and I don't think it would be well spent, either.

 

EDIT: Thank you for splitting this into an own thread, Domi.

[Domi]

I think that the game is doing a something like: a cre saw Player1-6 open a container flagged as "somebody's". I will hazard to guess that it can (?) be remade into 'Ajantis saw Player1 open a container flagged as "somebody's"... I guess it would take dismantling Kelsey's mod yet again and looking at baldur.bcs to find out how to do it...

 

On the other hand, jastey, knowing how many events in the game you had already accounted for to make Ajantis uncomfortable with, I am thinking that it might just guard against the hard-core criminal types. On another hand, if you are thinking in terms of roguish types, bards could be suspect as well. You can always up the reputation requirement in the match for less desirable carrier choices, or only restrict pure class thieves.

 

It's a good example, I think, of how difficult it is to reconcile the game mechaniques with rl associations, and compromise between what feels 'right' and pleasing the audience.

[jastey]

Restricting to thief-onlies might be an idea. Although I fear that class(Player1,THIEF) will pick any class combinations with thief being the first class?

[Guest Great old one]

There's no way of making the game 100% realistic, I think alingment and reputation should be enough to judge the suitability for a romance, afterall good thieves do exist in baldurs gate (Imoen for instance). The pc learnt her theiving skills in candlekeep (essentially a good place) and, if a good character, never had any intention of using them for evil.

 

Perhaps thief-specific dialogs where she explains this to ajantis, (not neccessarily part of the romance) might be an idea. It seems a bit too heavy-handed to shut out the entire thief class as a romance option.

[Domi]

Restricting to thief-onlies might be an idea. Although I fear that class(Player1,THIEF) will pick any class combinations with thief being the first class?

 

Uhm, I always thought that Class,THIEF will pick up only pure classes, while THIEF_ALL will pick up all the dula/multies. But if the worst comes to worst you can check the multies out one by one...

 

There's no way of making the game 100% realistic, I think alingment and reputation should be enough to judge the suitability for a romance, afterall good thieves do exist in baldurs gate (Imoen for instance). The pc learnt her theiving skills in candlekeep (essentially a good place) and, if a good character, never had any intention of using them for evil.

 

Firstly, while Imoen's alignment is good, the question is not wether a thief can be good at heart, but rather would Ajantis romance Imoen's type. To me it sounds, like Jastey said no, he would not. Not because Imoen is evil, but because the romance is written for a different personality - and if I am incorrect, Jastey can always correct me.

 

Secondly, I beg your pardon, but how, how is Candlekeep, the fortress-library, where people are only admitted upon donating a book worth 10,000 is 'a good place' to learn to steal? Why would Gorion encourage his ward to study pick-pocketing or lock-picking? If PC learned any of it, it would have been in secret, and without permission. Which would hardly endear her to Ajantis, I wager.

 

Perhaps thief-specific dialogs where she explains this to ajantis, (not neccessarily part of the romance) might be an idea. It seems a bit too heavy-handed to shut out the entire thief class as a romance option

 

You are suggesting a romance independent class-specific dialogue because you do not like that Ajantis cannot romance thieves? I am sorry, but I fail to follow your logic.

 

Not all can be 'explained' to NPC, to satisfy a player's game-convenience wishes. Otherwise we end up with the absurdities like multiple romances, artificially pacified parties and all that.