Thief-like character for FO1?

[Whispering Darkness]

I recently popped in FO1 again and made a character relying on stealth, lock picking, and stealing. So far, kinda disappointed in the utility of such skills in a certain way. Granted I've only returned the water chip and am messing around in the Hug but so far I don't see any real use for these skills. Despite the freelance work of stealing people's things planting the bug on Gizmo. I, as of yet, have found little real use for the skills. Granted, it's been a long time since I played FO1 fully but do these skills have a more substantial role in the game? I don't really want examples <don't want to spoil the surprise, please for my sake!> but vague hints that there are indeed more gratifying uses for said skills.

 

[Dark Matter]

Nope, nearly all non-combat skills (and even some of the combat ones) are either pretty much completely useless (Barter, Outdoorsman, Gambling) or useful only in a few rare cases. Fallout sucks. Arcanum does a much better job at accommodating different play styles.

 

[Whispering Darkness]

I did find myself doing more fun things in Arcanum via thievery and the like than in Fallout, so far at least. Like the Thieves Underground chain was enjoyable.

 

[Zhirzzh]

Barter and Gambling aren't useless in FO1. Quite the opposite, even using them is an exploit. A decent barter skill lets you buy something, then sell it back for more than it cost, and it doesn't take much to put gambling's win rate at over 50%.

 

[Brother None]

Fallout accommodates people playing with violence or diplomacy well. It provides paths for science and stealth, and you can use either for quite a few quests (science really not a lot, tho'), but yes, stealth (and science) gameplay is not very rewarding in Fallout 1/2.

 

[Pastel]

That's the main reason I didn't like Fallout all that much and I think Age of Decadence will be better - more playable archetypes, more useful skills.

 

[Elwro]

Although thievery can get you e.g. a free gun in Shady Sands already.

 

[elander_]

For a pure thief Agility, Intelligence, Stealth, Lockpick, Steal are the way to go. Don't bother with Traps. You can raise your Outdoorsman, Science and Repair up to 90 by reading books and should do so as soon as possible. Gambling is a complement to Barter and if you pickup both you will get a load of money very soon and you won't have to bother with selling stuff anymore. Outdoorsman is essential for a solo player who doesn't use weapons.

Get your Stealth skill above 100 before leaving Junktown to the Hub. Doing quests is the key to gain xp for a thief. In the Hub try to raise your Lockpick skill above 100 and your Stealth above 150 then there's a guy that will give you some nice thieving quests and an essential reward for a thief. With a modest repair skill you can easily do the water chip quest in Necropolis and get a load of XP to improve your skills and then go back to finish other HUB quests.

When you have money to buy some radiation protection chems and a rope do the Brotherhood admission quest and then you won't have to bother with money or equipment any more. Hint: robots can be disable while they are inactive. Careful with what you do that might activate security robots.

Once inside the Brotherhood there's a nice Thief quest that will get a Power Armor. This should be your priority before doing anything else.

The Adyton area is very hard for a thief character. Some minor quests will can help you improve your equipment (including Power Armor). That's all there is for a Thief in this place.

Fallout is a short but awesome game. After this, what's left for you to do is to finish the game and solve the issue with the Mutants. Doing the Brotherhood quests will naturally send you to them. Make sure you have great Lockpicking and Stealth skills, both close to 200. You should have means to pick electronic locks by now and if you brought books your repair and science should be close to 90. It's also worth to get your Steal skill above 100 in this after this, but before reaching this stage of the game is rather useless.

You will visit advanced installations and you can use your science and repair skill on lots of things. Sometimes things will work easily if you use the right piece of cloth to disguise yourself. This trick works if you don't have any followers. Using your Steal skill can also give you items you could not get otherwise just by killing someone and looting his corpse. It's not very intuitive but that's how it works. If you find an item like, for example, a radio transmitter on a mutant you may be able to use it yourself to fool them. There's a way to blow the masters vault if you explore.

With this info it should be easy for you to complete the game as Thief without having to shoot a single weapon.

 

[elander_]

I did find myself doing more fun things in Arcanum via thievery and the like than in Fallout, so far at least. Like the Thieves Underground chain was enjoyable.

Arcanum has many more quests in the same style as Fallout and that alone makes it a more enjoyable game. However you can't play a pure Thief in Arcanum and finish the game, unfortunately. It's great challenge to be able to play pure classes in a crpg and lead them to the end of the game. When my Thief has to pick up a weapon to defend himself and get out of some mess it makes him look dirty and a looser.

 

[LCJr.]

I found the thief path in both Fallout and Arcanum very unsatisfying. Almost like it was done by the same developers.

 

[elander_]

Maybe you played the Thief series? I agree that in comparison to a Thief game Fallout and Arcanum are lacking but for crpgs it's quite good.

 

[Pastel]

Wasn't the thief/assassin path in Oblivion was pretty good, and well supported? [/weasel words]

 

[elander_]

This is about computer games not larping simulators.

 

[LCJr.]

Maybe you played the Thief series? I agree that in comparison to a Thief game Fallout and Arcanum are lacking but for crpgs it's quite good.

Nope. Closest I ever got was messing around some with the Thievery UT mod but that was after I'd played both FO and Arcanum. Saying it's "good for the genre" is just making excuses.

 

[elander_]

Nope. Closest I ever got was messing around some with the Thievery UT mod but that was after I'd played both FO and Arcanum. Saying it's "good for the genre" is just making excuses.

No it's just sating the facts. When we evaluate something we have to compare it to the best that was done in this genre.

 

[Pastel]

Thievery in RPGs has been consistently shit but that's not an excuse for any game.

 

[elander_]

Thievery in RPGs has been consistently shit but that's not an excuse for any game.

When you evaluate something you compare it to the best games that have been made. Otherwise it's only your personal opinion you are repeating here.

 

[Pastel]

Okay then, can I compare it to Thief? No? Why?

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Lockpicking is one of the most useful skills in the game. I've never been into stealth but I can assume you can sneak past a large amount of enemies. Are you looking for specific quests that ask you to use these skills or just in general gameplay?

 

[Dark Matter]

Nope. Closest I ever got was messing around some with the Thievery UT mod but that was after I'd played both FO and Arcanum. Saying it's "good for the genre" is just making excuses.

No it's just sating the facts. When we evaluate something we have to compare it to the best that was done in this genre.

The problem here isn't with the stealth system (which is serviceable I think) but the fact that there aren't enough opportunities to use stealth in a meaningful and useful way. And there's really no excuse for that, it's just poor design.

 

[elander_]

Okay then, can I compare it to Thief? No? Why?

Thief isn't a role-playing game unlike Fallout and Arcanum. It's not as simple as patching Thief gameplay into a crpg and expect the two systems going to work well without any conflicts.

Each Thief level is optimized for Thief gameplay. Even the time of the day is picked up for the player, usually in a special occasion when the owner of an house is away or something like that. In a crpg when the player enters a map he can be a thief, a fighter, a mechanist and have a million of other skill combinations. The player may visit the map in daylight or in nighttime in any day of the year.

It's significantly more complex to do something that matches Thief gameplay in a crpg for all these reasons. If you think you can do it then i'm very interested to see it.

 

[LCJr.]

_elander what are you going on about? If the gameplay isn't good/entertaining that's all there is to it. It really is that simple.

I could compare a pile of dogshit to a pile of catshit and one may not smell as bad as the other but it's still two piles of shit. Same thing with gameplay. Just because another game manages to do something worse doesn't magically make the bad gameplay of another game better.

 

[elander_]

_elander what are you going on about? If the gameplay isn't good/entertaining that's all there is to it. It really is that simple.

Maybe you just didn't play the game properly or didn't use all the chances the game has offered you. Playing a Thief isn't as easy as going in with guns blazing and shoot everything. Or perhaps you simply dislike stealth gameplay.

 

[LCJr.]

Nope. It's just done poorly in both games.

 

[elander_]

Nope. It's just done poorly in both games.

But poorly compared to what? When you say that you are making a comparison. What is the stealth game you enjoyed playing?

The problem here isn't with the stealth system (which is serviceable I think) but the fact that there aren't enough opportunities to use stealth in a meaningful and useful way. And there's really no excuse for that, it's just poor design.

I gave you a few hints above, like trying to use cloths for a disguise and the radio in the appropriate places. Just try to figure out where this could be useful. Also you don't need a lot of repair and science skill to pull out some tricks.