This may read noobish but I can't help it!..I have few doubts regarding Armor Class modifiers on the displayed Character Screen.

Before that, a glimpse of my knowledge pertaining the above.

1. Lower Thac0 & AC is better
2. Saving throws lower the better
3. Armos Class Modifiers like piercing, slashing, crushing..negative(-) the better while +1,+2 or +3 give penalties to actual AC.
4. Armors and Helmets ONLY lessen the damage and don't absorb damage nor make you immune to damage.

Now the doubts that I need help about :-
My Character Stats, -10 AC, THAC0 1 and Piercing -3 Slashing -2 Crushing -2 Missile adjustment -4 . A Full Plate Mail +1 and a Blade of Roses +3.
Saving throws all are in single numbers and in range between 2-10.
A Fighter Class (dual from thief at level 9) and Fighter level currently level 11 (Both class active)
Despite solid figures in stats, A Thief Ruffian (in Docks District) is able to kick my butt and drain almost 60-70% of the HP. Let's not imagine what pathetic condition stronger monsters will make out of this. There is certainly wrong somewhere which really pisses me off regarding Armor Class modifiers in this game.

AC effects whether you either are hit or not hit just makes no sense as to what exactly minimises the damage I can sustain. The Thief Ruffian has a poor Thac0 and worst AC and still he dies leaving behind 70% of HP drain to my Character.

So, what should be done to improvise this situation?

As I recall, in 2nd Ed AD&D rules there is no damage soaking - armour makes it harder for the enemy to hit you, but if you get hit the enemy will do the same amount of damage regardless of your characters stats.

There are a few items that provide damage absorption, but they're pretty rare, and they're generally only for one specific type of damage (like the Belt of Inertia or Horn of Roranach). Helmets will reduce the damage you take, but only indirectly. Helmets make you immune to critical hits... so if an opponent rolls a 20 on an attack, you'll be hit automatically but you won't take double damage. Spells like Armor of Faith will help reduce the damage as well, and the HLA Hardiness can be a life-saver. The Defender of Easthaven will also reduce your incoming physical damage, and so will being a Barbarian (though Barbarians can't wear plate, so it evens out in the end).

Basically, armor in D&D makes weapons "ding" off your armor without doing damage. There's generally no partial damage, you either take no damage or full damage. The better your armor, the more likely you are to avoid damage. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense honestly, but that's the way the system works, and it works against the monsters just as much as it works against you.

As to surviving, make sure your DEX is as high as possible. 18 dex gives you a -4 to your armor class, which helps immensely. However, if a single unnamed bandit is able to do that much damage to you in full plate, there is indeed something wrong. The ruffian captains have a THAC0 of 9 and two attacks a round (with a shortsword), so in full plate with a decent dex, and wearing a helmet, your piercing AC should be -4 or better. This means he'll hit you a little less than once per round, for 4-9 damage a hit. That shouldn't be enough to really hurt you a lot unless you're playing the game solo and don't have any healing potions. Use your other party members, concentrate fire on the more dangerous enemies first, and make sure to use controlling or disabling spells like Hold Person or Web. Disabled enemies are hit automatically, which is very useful. Also make sure to cast buffing spells before tough fights, and don't neglect class abilities like trap-setting.

You can also turn the difficulty down. At Easy and Normal, you'll get maximum hitpoints whenever you level up, and the monsters will do less damage. That makes life substantially easier, and I always make sure to create new characters on Normal even if I'm planning on playing the game at a higher setting. If an area's too tough, you can always come back later. Most of the game is open starting in chapter 2, but you probably won't be strong enough to kill everything right away. You can run into dragons, for instance, almost immediately after leaving Irenicus's dungeon. You simply aren't powerful enough to fight them until later. Once you get to level 14 or so, dragons and other monsters become substantially less scary.

You didn't tell how many hit points your character has, what his strength is and how many proficiency points in longswords he has and which buff spells you did cast on him.


Those ruffians are tougher than they look. As long as you're surviving everything is fine. You're still at the beginning of the game, your character will get more powerful as the game progresses. Be aware that you aren't a pure fighter, you sacrificed up to 54 hit points for the thieving skills, you have the option to hide and backstab for quadruple damage from behind if you aren't wearing armor heavier than studded leather.


If you really think there's something wrong with the game enable the dice rolls to be displayed in the console, there you can see what your characters and enemies had to roll to hit.

Am I the only one who finds the concept of dualling FROM a thief TO a fighter odd? I mean, if it's for RP value maybe... but still. First, you'd have WAY more HP starting out if you started as a Fighter and dualled to a thief. Second, you continue to gain thief skills every level, where as the benefits of being a fighter greatly decrease after level 13. Third and lastly, a multiclassed Fighter/Thief will have more than enough thief skills, good HP and Thac0, never go through a temporarily useless phase, and eventually will get the HLA's for both classes. Don't want to choose between Greater Whirlwind and Use All Items? You don't have to!

Also, you're wearing plate as a Thief? Anything stronger that Studded Leather renders your thief skills unusable. Also you're doing sword and board? Dual wielding gets you an extra attack per round and two handers typically deal greater damage, sometimes the best defense is a strong offense, right?

If I were you, I'd reroll. Ideally as a half-orc Fighter/Thief (19 STR, 18 DEX, 19 CON, everything else is gravy), either dual wielding long swords or katanas, or else alternating between a bow and a quarter staff (ranged combat can be a life saver for leather/cloth wearers). If you want to romance anyone other than Viconia, you may need to pick a different race, but otherwise the same applies.

Also, check out this: [url=http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur%27s_Gate:_Races_and_Stats]http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur%27s_Gate:_Races_and_Stats[/url]

HP 67
STR 19 (with Girdle of Giant Strength) DEX 18, CON 18, INT 5, WIS 5, CHR 16 (+2 from Blade of Roses)
Proficiency in Long Bow +++++ (Equipped Long Bow +2, Long Sword +1)
Chose Fighter to Dual from Thief
With 1 Proficiency in Long Sword and 1 Proficiency in Single Weapon Style
NPC - Korgan, Jan, Jahiera) I am against turning difficulty down so that's out of question but yes there is something wrong and indeed it's my fault after realizing some careful actions, esp. in factors causing damage over and lack to gain an advantage of my Character.

Since proficient as a Long Bow and performing melee combat with the Ruffians my character was actually receiving -4 penalty in dice rolls. Therefore after equipping Blade of Roses as soon as the Ruffians were close enough I was able to defend myself with No. of Attacks 2/round.

So, yeah a big mistake to understand this initially but a solid Armor can buy you enough time to stand and defend yourself but failed on equipping right weapons according to the proficiency my character is able to damage the Ruffians.

But, thanks for the help it was useful to notice the mistake. Basically I wanted to score highest Lockpicking and Find Traps score around 105 each and also to drink Thievery potions time to time without depending on Yoshimo or Jan cause I simply find them a liability rather any helpful later. And also there is no way to dual from thief to ranger for Human. Otherwise I prefer Ranger Class over Fighter.

I understand why you'd want a Fighter/Thief, ideally you get a thief without all the squishy thief drawbacks. What I am insisting is that you don't understand the best way to make one. Starting as a Thief and dual-classing to a Fighter is the worst way, you lose a crap ton of HP that way, never get your backstab multiplier to 5x and never get Thief HLAs. You'd be better off starting as a fighter, or better yet, multiclassing.

Multiclassing will allow you to grow as both a fighter and a thief throughout the game. You will get better HP than your current character, similar Thac0, 5x backstab multiplier, continuous increases to thief skills, and HLAs (high level abilities) of both the fighter AND thief classes. And if you chose to go with my recommendation of rolling a half-orc you can even have a natural STR of 19, no need for a belt! Starting off you'd have more than enough thief skill points to get Lockpicking and Find Traps to 105 too. Oh, plus you'd get more traps. Oh, and you never go through a useless phase. Are you getting any of this?

Yes you are right!
I don't get the skills namely Picklocking and Detect traps at the highest score 105 with which I started Thief skills and dual to Fighter Cass.

Again I didn't get the definition of Dual Class. If the game allows me to Dual Thief to Fighter on the Character creation screen than it's a valid dual class but I am losing Thief skills.
How is this possible? Imoen retains Picklock and Detect Traps score after dualling to Mage than what's wrong with Thief to Fighter.

I started with Picklock 105, Detect Traps 105 and rest on Pickpockets. At Level 9 dual to Fighter class and retain backstab bonus 5x, Set Snares abilities but entire Picklocking, Detect Traps, Pickpockets and Hide in shadows stats are now reset to base score of Level 1 Thief.

Apart from the points what you state, I can still manage those lacking parts to Thief/Fighter dual class.

But my question is why the game won't allow to retain the high Thief skills after dualling and reset them to level 1 Thief skills?
According to the definition of Dual class, the current class is allowed to retain ALL ABILITIES of previous class except the further growth in the class.

When you dual class, you lose all the class abilities of the first class until such time as your new class is one level higher than your original one. If you dual classed at level 9 Thief, then you lose all Thief abilities until your character hits level 10 Fighter.

I am aware of this fact.It's not that of a problem.
Let me repeat the dual class in the above example.

1. I chose Thief (Human) at character creation. Changed the Stats as follows.

Picklocking 105
Detect Traps 105 and rest of the score in remaining skills.

2. Dual to Fighter at Level 9. Thief class inactive now.

3. At level 10 BOTH class were finally active now. BUT apart from Set Snares and Backstabing Bonus 5x. I lost Pickpockets and Detect Traps Score(s) from 105 to Level 1 Thief score.
So now at Level 10 Thief/Fighter, Picklocking score = 20, Detect Taps score = 25 with the rest skills reset to base score as well.
How is this possible? It should have been at 105. That's the confusion!

Ah, apologies. My bad, as I guess I didn't read carefully enough. Is your character wearing heavy armor?

YES. But I remove it time-to-time to avoid any penalty and restrictions. So,I know about this as well.

Okay, you got me stumped. I'll think on this and get back to you if I come up with anything (may be a few days as we'll be away for a bit). Hopefully someone else can figure it out before then.

Many thanks.
I should also mention that initially assumed this might be a bug or glitch but after replaying it with a new game character twice, every time Character Display shows Thief skills reset to Level 1 Thief scores.
No Thief kit was selected. Just vanilla Thief was dualed to Fighter
Also, I have installed no Mods or any other stuff EXCEPT Baldurs Gate 2 Fixpack

It's definitely a bug (maybe caused by the fixpack). Use a character editor like shadowkeeper to set the thieving skills up again.