I know this has been asked before but i couldnt find the topic. So I am sorry for asking it again.

Imoen became level 2 and I added all her skills to open Lock. So now she is like

OpenLock --> 50
Find Traps --> 35
Pickpoket --> 25
Move silently --> 35
Hide --> 15
Detect --> 0
Set Traps --> 5

Until level 7 she will recieve 125 more points. How should I distribute these skill points? I want to make openlock and Find traps 100 first. Is this a good idea? I mean lets say 80 in each would be enough for BG1?

tnx.
Engin.

No, absolutely not. Imoen is the consummate scout. Her skills should be in stealth and traps (Hide first, traps second, move silently third, open locks fourth). She and the party have other options for opening locks, such as potions, spells and even bashing, but you cannot easily substitute for dealing with traps and setting up ambushes. Locks are only important in very, very few cases in the entire game. Points in there, especially early, are completely wasted.

I disagree. Prioritise Open Locks over the stealth skills (but prioritise Find Traps over everything). I agree that there will be more times when you might want someone to scout unseen than when you'll need to pick a lock. But that isn't the crucial issue. The crucial issue is whether there is another way to achieve it. In both cases the answer is "yes", but it's not as simple as that.

Your other options for opening locks are the Knock spell and forcing the lock. But the former uses up a spell slot that you can ill afford to spend on such a thing, and even the strongest character in the game cannot reliably force locks. The stealth ability is much more easily substituted for with potions of invisibility. These are perhaps the most plentiful potions in the game after healing potions and antidotes (at least in BG1 original; correct me if that's not true in Enhanced), much more commonly found than the potions that increase thief skills.

Stealth is absolutely irrelevant once one of your wizards learns invisibility spell. It lasts 9 hours and you can explore an entire map under this spell (and detect and disarm traps and open locks without breaking invisibility). Trying to use the stealth skill and detect traps in the same time is a pain, invisibility (by spell or potions) is the way to go. This is especially useful on the lower levels of Durlag's Tower, the place where detect traps skill counts the most. Once you enter a level, cast invisibility on Imonen, and have her travel the entire map detecting and disarming the traps.

So you can safely go with 50%-50% points into find traps and open locks. With this progression, there are very few places in the natural game route where you can not open a lock or disarm a trap.

Here are the options for replacing the thieving skills:

Open Locks: There's the Knock spell, and there's the option of forcing locks. (Note that Strength + Draw Upon Holy Might (in that order) should (unless the EE changed something here) allow a cleric (even someone weak like BG2 Aerie) to get 19+ Strength).

Find Traps: There is a spell that will do the trick, and Monks, I believe, can find traps. Unfortunately, neither option helps with disarming the traps. (Can you use a summoned monster to set them off?)

Pickpocket: No substitute, but Bards (if you can find one) get this ability. (Do you even need this skill anywhere?)

Move silently/Hide: Invisibility spell/potion.

Detect Illusions: True Sight/Seeing, and I believe there are a couple lower level spells that could work at lower levels. (Note that it is unlikely that you will need this in BG1 as the skill wasn't even in the original game.)

Set Traps: No direct replacement, but some spells, such as Skull Trap, can work as traps. (Also, in BG2's expansion, Bards can get some trap HLAs, despite not having the skill.) Also, while this skil is useful, it isn't something you *need* to have covered, and it wasn't in the original BG1 anyway.

Thanks for the suggestions. In my earlier playthroughs I had found stealth very annoying. You go stealth, disarm a trap and then you immediatly become visible and enemy starts shooting you. Same for backstab. Fine, you can do good damage but since you become visible leaving you in the middle of other monsters that you couldnt kill, you have to run back to main party.

So one question remains. Should I make open lock and/or find traps 100 or can i be ok with less?

About 75 skill should be enough to handle all those locks and traps. If you want to set traps 60 locks, 75 in traps and 95 in trapsetting should work well.

I'm not sure if you can use summons to trigger traps; although it wouldn't matter in some cases. Most traps are trip wire traps, which are disabled when triggered. However, some traps are pressure pad traps, which are still active after being triggered. If summons can activate traps, that strategy would be less effective in a place like Durlag's Tower.

Even Dorn (who comes with a 19 Strength) can't open all the locks unaided, IIRC. Pretty sure forcing everything requires at least the use of the giant potions regularly (and are there some for which 24 isn't enough? I haven't done exhaustive testing, of course). This probably depends on the specific trap. Some traps can be triggered multiple times, and I'm not sure all traps can be triggered by non-PC objects (there are apparently at least a few that definitely can, e.g., the Phase Spiders in one room in Candlekeep catacombs have a Web trap in their room that they spring, i.e., it even says "Trap Sprung"). Never absolutely needed, gets you some nice items though, especially if it's an NPC you don't want to kill (or kill right *now*). There are also cases (not sure if the EEs nerfed any of them) where you can get double items from an NPC by pickpocketing an item off them, which is then also given as a quest reward later. Just about true, and the latter are even more reliable (e.g., just try getting Safana permanently when she is still level 2 without the expedient of two invisibility potions!). On the other hand, potions aren't an infinite supply, and while spell slots effectively are, resting opportunities can be an issue if you need repeated uses. Pretty sure these are all Mage spells that require the Mage to be in sight range of the illusions to be dispelled. As the illusions one worries about at this point are mainly invisible monsters and mages, it's debatable if this is really a substitute (the Mage is much more vulnerable, and also has to be visible to these enemies, as spellcasting will dispel their own invisibility if they have it; the Thief can be stealthed while exposing illusions).

On the other hand, there are not nearly enough Thief points, especially at low level, to be allocating to something as situational as this ... (Mages, human or Ogre, and Sirines are about the main enemies that use invisibility)

I've always previously just put 100 in traps and left locks at 60 ish, however I noticed I had a dozen master thievery potions left over at the Sarevok battle last time. Those potions last 3 game hours? So you don't really need a score higher than 80 even for Durlag's.

I've always had a bigger problem deciding when to dual. You either need to plan on picking up another thief or... On a vanilla game cloakwood mines and the bandit camp are easy enough you might want to rush there early before dualing. But for SCS thats not really an option.

My suggestion is to dual at 6 if you are OK without thief skills in cloakwood - most people talk about picking up Koran etc. Or at level 5 if not. At level 5 you will still need to clear most maps before cloakwood, but you have some lee way.

I've never taken Imoen to level 7 thief, even back in 98 [not poss before TSOC!]. You lose the thief abilities for more than half the game including the beginning of Durlag's which is unacceptable (full party of 6 members will not likely have hit 130000 yet).

I would probably dual her at 4 in future. Even if I ever did hypothetically dual her at 7, I'd sooner spend the extra 75 points on detect illusion rather than boost locks in BG1.

I've heard it said you don't need more than 85 traps before Durlag's, but iirc Firewine was an issue at that level. Does SCS1 change it perhaps?

I just found out that summons can trigger traps, as well as monsters. I know because I was in the topiary area of Durlag's Tower, and the pandemonium of the monsters trying to get to me and the summons scrambling to get their target repeatedly triggered a pressure pad trap that pelted fireballs at my party and blew them to smithereens.