I always play with no thief at all

Imagine the carnage, the first time I met the little girl
The funny thing is that my last party, which I started a short time ago (and put on the shelf after Act4) consisted of a fighter dualed to mage. I had the easiest time of all the times I went through that. I was still a fighter in Dragon's Eye, tho. Actually, I think a single Fighter is probably the most powerful 1 person party in IWD. Everything else is unnecessary. It's just that he reaches lvl 30 so fast (with HoW), that it's no fun later on, just killing things and not getting exp. Now, why did I just go into that ?
-A