First off, this thread belongs in the OGL Forum
Secondly, you may also want to ask for advice over at the
Mongoose fourms, there are some very good people over there.
Now, lets see if I can help you any. I'll start by answering your last question first:
If I'm looking for a decent light fighter build that incorporates sneak, what's a good build?
Conan has a class for that: its called the Pirate. Medium BAB, d8 hit die, good Dodge, good Fort AND Ref, free TWF, a little bit of sneak attack plus the Ferocious Attack ability.
Pirate = swashbuckling finesse fighter who occasionally murders people
Thief = assasin who runs from the light of day and honorable combat
So, that being said, I'm going to focus my advice on a single-class Thief trying to get the most out of sneak attack. If you dont' like that then maybe you will want to multi-class in which case I can offer different advice.
SpiderMonkey said:
Hello all!
I'm hoping you can help a newb to Conan d20 build a decent finesse thief (or thief/soldier). My dilemna is that I'm uncertain of whether to multi-class my thief after I start gaining levels. Here is what I have so far for my first level thief:
Str 10
Dex 18
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 8
Cha 14
Feats: Combat Expertise and Improved Feint
Good choices, but risky nonethless. Since you describe yourself as a noob I'm going to re-iterate a few critical rules changes in Conan just in case you missed them.
As a finesse fighter you will be reasonably capable when facing lightly-armored opponents, but heavily armored opponents will be mostly safe from you unless 1) you are much higher level than them or 2) you catch them flat-footed. Remember: in Conan any combat condition that denies the character his Dex bonus to DV (including flat-footed and a Feint) means that the character looses
all his bonuses to both Parry and Dodge. Effectively they have a DV of 10. This is how you will finesse your way past heavy armor and, since your sneak attack also kicks in, this is how you will
disembowel them as well. So Improved Feint is a good choice because of that. Unfortunately it also requires you to spend a full-round in melee and, as you have already started to guess at, a Thief in melee has a life expectancy of approximately one and a half rounds. You cannot afford to miss so if you intend this to be your main tactic then max out Bluff and consider Skill Focus [bluff] as well. My advice? Use this as your dirty trick when cornered, don't try to charge into combat looking to feint/sneak attack your way to glory, that only gets you dead.
A different option would be to focus on winning initative and using a ranged attack to drop one or two foes at the start of combat (choose Dagger for your first Sneak Attack Style since it can be thrown and used in melee). Remember, in Conan you add your base Reflex save to initative, combine that with Improved Init and you will almost always come out on top. You could take Improved Init and Point Blank Shot at first level instead and be a very good dagger-thrower. If you can take out just one or two guys at the start of combat via a suprise round attack followed up by winning initative then the rest of your party shouldn't mind too much if you contribute little else the rest of the fight and it is much safer for you. Even if you do not decide to take Improved Init at first level I defenaetly recomend you take it at third.
I've been wondering if the multi-class would be worth it for feats like two weapon fighting, quick draw, improved initiative, WP Whip, and Improved Disarm;
First off: Two Weapon Fighting. The penalties for TWF are different in Conan, without the feat and using a light-off hand weapon the penalty is only -2 (with the TWF feat there is
no penalty). This means you should feel free to go ahead and TWF if you want and worry about the feat later. Going back to my suggestion for a dagger-thrower: you can use TWF with thrown weapons so if you walk around with two daggers out you can effectevly make a rapid shot attack in the first round. Also, if you do decide to multi-class be aware that most of the warrior classes (including Soldier and Pirate) get the TWF feat for free at first level so that is nice (translation, don't spend a feat on this). As for a whip/Imp Disarm. That sounds like fun but it means getting into melee more. If you do want to go that route you will need to start focusing on multi-classing. It is not really very good for a straight thief.
If you do multi-class with soldier then I'd suggest you shoot for a build that looks like Thief 2/Soldier X. That is, use your theif levels for some cheap skill points and that nice 1d6/1d8 sneak attack then go soldier the rest of the way. Trying to split the two evenly is a recipe for disaster. Barbarian or Borderer also have some potential for a multi-class thief.
also, thiefs seem very fragile, so armor looks helpful.
Understatement of the century there pal.
The Conan thief is the old-school thief. Good at breaking and entering. Able to sneak up on someone in a dark alley and murder them. A limp noodle in anything resembling a fair fight. Try to find a good Leather Jerkin and Steel Cap ASAP. That should help a lot for surviving the low levels. However, armor is ultametly antithetical to the thief class. At fourth level you get Light-Footed as a bonus feat and, considering your Dex score, at that point you are going to want to drop the armor in favor of not being seen and, if seen, not being hit.
To sum up, the theif class can be a lot of fun to play but you will not be mixing it up in combat a lot. You will be skulking around in the shadows looking for that one perfect opportunity to slit someone's jugular and then flee.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
Hope that helps.
