Hi Community,

maybe someone here can help me: I want to keep Nalia De Arnise in my Party and just recognized that she only lvl´t up as Mage (lvl 13) but not as Thief (lvl 4). But i need to improve her Thief-Skills because i need a Thief in my Party.

What can I do? I did not find some useful hints in the www so i hope that someone here can help me ;)

Kind Regards,

Anton

Nalia will never level up as a thief. She is a human who dual classed from thief to mage. Dual classing prevents any further progression in your primary class; your progression is in your second class only. The best way to get a thief back into your party is either pick up another [Yoshimo (temporary until Imoen), Jan Jansen or Clara/Hexxat]. The best option, story-wise is Yoshimo who you can then replace with Imoen when you rescue her. Her thieving skill will get you through the rest of the game easily. Best to pick up Imoen as early as possible; no point hanging around doing side quests while you childhood friend is languishing in a dungeon.

thx a lot - did not know that. I think i will get Imoen back later in the game, then i have a proper Thief ;)

Imoen is a proper thief. Be warned: you will lose Yoshimo, Jan is inferior to Imoen, and if your party is not evil, Hexxat is a bad choice.

Imoen is just like Nalia in this respect; she just has a higher thief level and better thief skills but they still do not improve.

I wish they hadn't made Imoen and Nalia the exxact same class combination when there are many class combinations and kits unused in the NPC list. (For example, there's no paladin who actually gets the abilities normally associated with the class, and no Fighter/Mage or Fighter/Thief.) Not strictly. He may be significantly worse as a spellcaster, but he *can* level up as a thief, and can therefore improve his thief skills and (assuming you have Throne of Bhaal, which you do if you have either GOG version) eventually get thief HLAs like Use Any Item.

Edit: strictly -> significantly

There is no thieving skill that Imoen cannot do. Imoen is superior to Jan.

How about Detect Illusions (without using magic)? Furthermore, I believe she isn't good at setting traps (unless you count tutorial Imoen, who can't be used (AFAIK) in SoA and can only be used in ToB if you import a tutorial save (which is not something a typical player would do)).

Also, Imoen can't do these things that Jan can:
* Equip Carsomyr (or anything else that isn't normally usable by a thief or mage)
* Scribe Scrolls or Brew Potions
* Set HLA traps
* (non-EE) wield Chaos and Entropy (assuming you have those items, of course)

Nobody wastes valuable thieving points in Detect Illusion and setting traps is not Jan's (or most other thieves) strong point, either. Throne of Bhaal only. And I don't class them as thieving skills. More like cheats.

Are you sure about that? Particularly in a party with multiple thieves (like one containing both Imoen and Jan), it can be useful to give Jan some of the thief skills that are usually ignored.

Also, you never know what a player will do. I have seen a speedrun of BG2:EE where the player dual classed the main character into a Thief (from Mage) and put every single skill point into Pick Pockets. From a casual standpoint, this build would be considered non-optimal, but it works well in a speedrun (though having only mage HP is something you have to watch out for). (I note that the mage spell Find Familiar is used for some skips, including skipping Chapter 4's dungeon entirely.)

As for the HLA related skills:
* If Throne of Bhaal is installed, you don't actually need to start ToB to get them; you just need 3 million XP to start learning them.
* Also, HLAs are clearly an intended part of the game, and are clearly not cheats. (I think you might have a tendency to label things as "cheats" that really aren't.)

And I think you're completely bonkers.