Faction Thief

[Cerveza]

I have this char I found and was wondering what changes should be made to make him a factions thief? Well, not *only* factions, I'd still like to play a thief who happens to be in factions.

Currently
120 Stealing (105.2 and jewelry)
110 Magery
110 Eval
110 Med
100 Snooping
100 Hiding
84.8 Stealth

100 Str
25 Dex
100 Int

I was thinking that getting Ninjitsu on the char would be great for forms and Shurikens. But not sure what to drop...

[12TimesOver]

Are you planning on mage-based field fighting? If not, you probably can drop both Eval and Med and go Ninjitsu then Detect Hidden and/or Tracking or even Remove Trap. I tend to use only non-eval impacted spells (traveling, teleports, Summons, invis, etc) and the periodic direct-damage requirements are met with Mind Blast. I find I don't cast enough to worry about Med as long as I have a decent mana pool.

I roll with similar, basically:

120 Stealing (with items)
120 Stealth (with items)
100 Hiding
100 Ninjitsu (with items)
110 Magery (with Items)
100 Snooping (with items)
75-100 Detect
As much in tracking or, if serious faction, Remove Trap as items and the other skills will allow

The cool thing with this template is that there are a lot of items you can use to get your skill points up to the 800+ range (Burglar's Bandana, Shadow Dancer's, jewels, etc). Ninja is simply a requirement, you can't beat smoke bombs and quicker movement stealthed. Also Shadow Jump is essential, especially since stealthing up to burglary targets get's you revealed so easily, shadow jump to the target instead.

Detect and Tracking are essential as a spawn thief IMO - nice to find the protector if he's hidden somewhere and to keep revealing other stealthers that are around making it difficult for you to get your job done. Obviously Snooping is a requirement and anything below GM can get you busted but the Bandana gives you +10 so points saved there.

I do find you need to have some Stamina regen too because animal form seems to eat it right up. I still carry Greater Refresh but without regen it can take three or four GR's just to run from Fire entrance to the Semi spawn and back through Despise. Unless you go high enough in Ninjitsu to reliably do Ki Rin (99 minimum so 100 fails a lot).

With Imbuing you can nail all suit requirements pretty easily and inexpensively and you can also carry a book with this template.

Anyhoo...just my .02

X

[Cerveza]

I had heard that the suckish bow artifact... Frostbringer? was a great item to carry with you while moving as it has like 10 Stamina Regen on it?

I doubt I'll be casting on people so eval was my choice to drop for ninjitsu. This is a char I found on another shard so it's poor and has no support lol. So I'm just trying to build up a "fun to play" char instead of an "ultimate thief" type. So items will be a bit difficult to come by.

Maybe drop Magery completely for Wrestling? Disarm, Para, Steal? I'll have to look into that.

[12TimesOver]

I had heard that the suckish bow artifact... Frostbringer? was a great item to carry with you while moving as it has like 10 Stamina Regen on it?

I doubt I'll be casting on people so eval was my choice to drop for ninjitsu. This is a char I found on another shard so it's poor and has no support lol. So I'm just trying to build up a "fun to play" char instead of an "ultimate thief" type. So items will be a bit difficult to come by.

Maybe drop Magery completely for Wrestling? Disarm, Para, Steal? I'll have to look into that.

Never thought about Frostbringer, I tend to carry books for properties. I'll have to check it out.

Another cool thing about this template is that you can build it fast and cheap. Even without Shadow Dancers the skills a raise quickly and if you are on a new shard with no money then the spawn gold with a BoS becomes your friend I've looted millions just by stealthing through Despise at the right time on a server where I have nothing. It's come to the point where this ends up being one of my first templates to train up on a new shard where I don't know anybody just as a source of quick income without relying on sales.

I think you'll find the concept of the para-steal a wasted cause. Great idea in theory but application is found wanting, that's just my opinion of course. I also see no reason for Med on your template, with or without Wrestling so you gain points there.

This is one of my favorite "just for fun" templates. I also swap Necro and Spirit Speak back and forth with the Stealing and Snooping and it becomes a good way to farm pink's and be a general annoyance at spawns.

X

[dxrom]

Veteran faction thief here (I used to be a full time faction thief on Baja).

Before Ninja was released, I utilized this template:
120 Stealing (so that I could steal in stat with stealing items)
120 Stealth (+15 item)
120 Spirit Speak
90 Snooping
100 Hiding
95 Magery
90 Detect Hidden

Magery was used solely in regard to escape sticky situations or to help out in a grinder (IE: E-field myself up/down a building, arch cure, gheal, mind blast, dispel field)
Snooping, because what thief back then didn't have it? (Plus one time, I stole 4 +25 stat scrolls from a guild that just finished a harry, and took a bit to long to get inside their GH)
Spirit speak so that I could find res points translate trash talk, and self heal.

Nowadays though, when I make a faction thief, I make it with the following skills

120 Stealing
120 Stealth
110 Ninja
100 Magery
100 Hiding
90 Detect Hidden
80 Tracking
720 Total
===============
60 Stealing (110 with Jewelery, Shadow Dancer Legs and Burglar's Bandana)
120 Stealth
120 Spirit Speak
120 Ninja
100 Hiding
100 Magery
100 Detect Hidden
720 Total


Some items that I also used to use: Teleport Rings (We didn't have Ninja then, so no shadow jump), Bracelet of Binding, Invisibility Items (Again, no ninja back then, no smoke bombs), a pile of snow (to get things on last target) and stylish double blessed clothing that matched a dark grey LRC suit.

Also I used to carry a 100% RPD suit with as much HPR as I could get on it (with the Bracelet of Health) because back then, there was no cap on RPD, and it did work to dexxers who would go after the thief that was on foot.

[sprago]

I like the archer aproach to this

Archery 120
Tactics 100
Ninja 120
Hiding 100
Stealth 80
Stealing 120
80 left over ? maybe Snooping for basic stealing

Stats
STR 100
INT 50
DEX 100