My LBB Thief

[Deleted]

I like the thief. I like classes as archetypes. In this way the thief is essential.

So after reading so many blogs, posts here and elsewhere, and jotting ideas down on paper, I've finally come up with something I may be ok with. 

The idea of a thief as an adventurer makes sense to me. But only in this respect: what if the thief decided to 'give up' the thieving lifestyle, and instead turned his skills toward the adventurer lifestyle. The problem with the 'Greyhawk thief' are the expectations of what thieves do. But if we applied the same expectation to fighting-men, clerics, and magic-users that we have applied to thieves, we would come to different conclusions. 

For example, a fighting-man with his 'skills', should be a guard or a soldier. A magic-user should be creating potions or magical items in a laboratory, or working in a library sorting scrolls and books. And, a cleric should be doing something in the local church. But each of these has turned their skills to an adventuring lifestyle.  The thief has also done that, but the way he was written, and since played, hasn't fulfilled those same expectations as an adventuring class. Rather, the thief's skills could be seen as something 'outside' of the adventure, and therein lies the problem.  It's almost like the thief was made for a different game.

So, first off, I dropped the thief's skills entirely. Then using already existing game mechanics I translated the thief's 'thieving' vocation to an adventuring vocation. I bumped HD up to D6 and changed the following:

Thieves:

Add 1 to reaction rolls due to guile.

Open stuck doors silently on 2 of 6.

Open locked doors on 2 of 6 but must have thieves’ tools for this.

Sense secret doors on 2 of 6.

Find secret doors on 4 of 6.

Listen at doors as demi-humans. +1 in 6.

Use the best of all classes saving throws (Or perhaps cleric or dwarf and Halfling saves).

Surprise on 1-3. This gives the thief a surprise attack. This replaces ‘backstab’.

Trigger traps on 1 of 6.

I haven't used this yet. What am I not thinking about?  Anything I could add or subtract?

[Finarvyn]

Actually, in a way you could say that the Thief was designed for a different game, as White Box OD&D has a different feel from OD&D+Supplements.

Yours seems like a decent enough approach, and simple in its mechanic, but I'm not sure that I'd use it instead of the Thief that comes from Supplement I Greyhawk. I've never had issues with the official version and am still curious about your rationale for needing a new one. Seems to me like the Thief as presented has a wide variety of skills and that a player could interpret the class as a scam-artist, as a scout (almost Ranger-like), as a traditional urban Thief, or probably in other ways. Those abilities can surface in role play above and beyond combat and dungeon exploration.

I guess your concern is based on factors that haven't ever bothered me, so I've never felt the need to reconstruct the class. Given your particular viewpoint on what a Thief "should" be, your solution seems to be well done.

[Deleted]

Oct 30, 2016 21:42:25 GMT -6 christopher said:

Surprise on 1-3. This gives the thief a surprise attack. This replaces ‘backstab’.

In the original write-up of the thief, this ability was described as "striking silently". It's one of the things I haven't seen emphasized is this ability to take out enemies silently. What in video games is known as a "stealth kill". The ability to take out guards without raising alarms could be useful in many situations. Perhaps, as the thief gains levels he should gain the ability to take out multiple targets silently or to perform a take-down at range.

This would give the thief an important role in the party dynamic and, IMO, is much more thematic as most fighters should be able to kill something from behind as killing is their primary business.

[tetramorph]

christopher, this is great.

I don't like the thief. All PCs are thieves. I want everyone exploring and looking and finding and sneaking.

But if I ran a thief it would be like this.

I might add: read languages d6 1-4

Read magic: HD + d6 if greater than spell level success, equal to spell level reversal, lower than spell level fail (but the scroll is still burned).

I would give the thief a possibility, when working alone, to surprise on 1-4.

I would also allow the thief to roll a separate surprise if the whole party is surprised. If thief is not surprised it means he was able successfully to hide in some way.

Fight on!

[Zenopus]

I like your ideas. Writing your own take on the thief is sort of an OSR master class.

Oct 30, 2016 21:42:25 GMT -6 christopher said:

Surprise on 1-3. This gives the thief a surprise attack.

There's some support for this in the write-up of the monk in Blackmoor:

"Note however that extremely silent creatures will double surprise possibilities, i.e., halflings, thieves, bugbears and undead double possibilities"(pg 1)

Anything I could add or subtract?

An ability to appraise Gems/Jewelry. When such is found, the DM tells the thief secretly what the value is. They can share this info or not with the party.

[foxroe]

I'm with Fin; if you use thieves in your OD&D game, there's really nothing wrong with the class as presented in Greyhawk - it's certainly what everyone is used to in later iterations of the game.

However, I do like your approach. It's an astute and unique observation with regards to archetypical extracurricular function!

My only advice is to add a "detect small traps" ability - this is IMO one of the essential thieving abilities WRT dungeons. Also, maybe reverse the chances for sensing and finding secret doors.

[Deleted]

Oct 31, 2016 4:41:18 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Seems to me like the Thief as presented has a wide variety of skills and that a player could interpret the class as a scam-artist, as a scout (almost Ranger-like), as a traditional urban Thief, or probably in other ways. Those abilities can surface in role play above and beyond combat and dungeon exploration.

I guess your concern is based on factors that haven't ever bothered me, so I've never felt the need to reconstruct the class. Given your particular viewpoint on what a Thief "should" be, your solution seems to be well done.

Finarvyn, I appreciate your response. It made me think.

My reason for not preferring the Greyhawk thief is primarily for aesthetic reasons. He doesn't fit the same 'mold' that other classes do in that they each have a clearly defined role in the party that contributes to the whole. Naturally, the thief is a self-interested personality/archetype, and his skills as written express this. 

I don't necessarily like the idea of the thief as having abilities that "can surface in role play above and beyond combat and dungeon exploration" because this takes away from the focus of the game.  I like the idea that the party has come together to explore the dungeon seeking fame and fortune.  And while the Greyhawk thief has similar goals, even the rules suggest a sort of 'separate adventure' in that the thief may steal from his fellow party members as well that his skills may take him on separate, distracting adventures.  Of course, those possibilities are interesting and add a level of opportunity to the thief that the other characters may or may not have, but this is the exact reason I don't like Greyhawk thief: his abilities and even the way he is written strongly suggest that he work primarily towards his own self-centered goals. I see him as a distraction and a 'thief' who steals from the focus the of the game. In a way, this makes him a better NPC than a PC. Which makes sense when seen alongside many people's desire to remove him as a playable class.

The thief I've outlined does not do this. His abilities contribute to the adventure, dungeon exploration, etc. while retaining those abilities that make him unique and a valuable role in the party. This better fits what I want from a thief. 

[Deleted]

Oct 31, 2016 15:56:32 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I might add: read languages d6 1-4

Read magic: HD + d6 if greater than spell level success, equal to spell level reversal, lower than spell level fail (but the scroll is still burned).

I would give the thief a possibility, when working alone, to surprise on 1-4.

I would also allow the thief to roll a separate surprise if the whole party is surprised. If thief is not surprised it means he was able successfully to hide in some way.

These are both great ideas! Thank you.  One thing I would like to add are abilities that the thief acquires as he advances levels. This way he is gaining more than hit dice. I also really like the thief, while working alone, surprises on 1-4 as this matches the mention of the thief in the monk writeup in Blackmoor as Zenopus mentioned above as having doubled surprise opportunities.

Zenopus:

Thanks for the encouragement and the Blackmoor reference. That is certainly interesting and nicely justifies the increased surprise opportunities for the LBB thief. 

As for the gems/jewelry, I'm not sure. It doesn't 'feel' right but I'm not sure why. Maybe because it leads to the 'separate game' feel that I mentioned before.  However, I'm not entirely opposed to 'secrets' between the DM and players.

Posted by foxroe

I'm with Fin; if you use thieves in your OD&D game, there's really nothing wrong with the class as presented in Greyhawk - it's certainly what everyone is used to in later iterations of the game.

However, I do like your approach. It's an astute and unique observation with regards to archetypical extracurricular function!

My only advice is to add a "detect small traps" ability - this is IMO one of the essential thieving abilities WRT dungeons. Also, maybe reverse the chances for sensing and finding secret doors.

Thanks! I've given a great deal of thought to the thief.  The Greyhawk thief doesn't feel right to me. So much so, that I thought about disallowing it as a class option.  However, I love the idea of the thief too much to simply discard him.  But it occurred to me that there was a great deal of dissonance between the Greyhawk thief and the thief as I conceived of him.  So after reading about the issue at various blogs and forums, it became clear that I wasn't the only one who felt this way despite the fact that the Greyhawk thief has been around for quite some time.

I considered the thief being able to 'detect small traps'.  Perhaps this will be an ability that the thief acquires upon gaining a level.

[legopaidi]

Nice work...I too have some problems with the Greyhawk thief (so usually I just go with the core 3) but this seems a great alternative. Maybe a little bit overpowered for my tastes but good overall. I might tinker further with this for my next campaign.

[Mike]

I like this because I really don't like thief-classes that have abilities that other classes are barred from using. I'm in a play-by-post game at the moment where a locked door is found; the referee rules that it cannot be opened because our thief is dead.

Whereas I would say, any character can attempt to pick a lock but thieves' are better at it than others.

[Stormcrow]

Nov 23, 2016 2:19:05 GMT -6 Mike said:

I like this because I really don't like thief-classes that have abilities that other classes are barred from using. [...] Whereas I would say, any character can attempt to pick a lock but thieves' are better at it than others.

This is a misconception of how the thief works. By the book, any character can try to open a lock, but the player has to say how he's doing it, e.g., "I stick a pin in the keyhole and try to move the tumblers." Then the referee has to decide, based on the characters abilities and the current circumstances, how likely it is that the character will succeed. If Og the Stupid and Clumsy tries to pick a lock with a pin and by moving tumblers while the party is being attacked by orcs in a corridor, he may have a 1% chance of succeeding, while Phineas the Clever and Quick, who is taking his time in a quiet room, might have a 25% chance. Or whatever.

The thief's Open Locks ability, on the other hand, allows the player to bypass the explanation and his common abilities and go straight to a roll based on his level of thievery. It's the "yeahyeahyeah, I'm a thief, I know what to do" ability, as are all the others. While other players have to think of how to attack a problem of thievery, a thief's player just has to make a roll.

The thief's special ability also lets him open magical locks that others can't open at all, but that's a matter of magic. All of the thief's special abilities have magical elements to them. The thief isn't just someone who steals; he's supernaturally—or at least cinematically—talented at it.

[foxroe]

Nov 23, 2016 11:10:38 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Nov 23, 2016 2:19:05 GMT -6 Mike said:

I like this because I really don't like thief-classes that have abilities that other classes are barred from using. [...] Whereas I would say, any character can attempt to pick a lock but thieves' are better at it than others.

This is a misconception of how the thief works. By the book, any character can try to open a lock, but the player has to say how he's doing it, e.g., "I stick a pin in the keyhole and try to move the tumblers." Then the referee has to decide, based on the characters abilities and the current circumstances, how likely it is that the character will succeed. If Og the Stupid and Clumsy tries to pick a lock with a pin and by moving tumblers while the party is being attacked by orcs in a corridor, he may have a 1% chance of succeeding, while Phineas the Clever and Quick, who is taking his time in a quiet room, might have a 25% chance. Or whatever.

The thief's Open Locks ability, on the other hand, allows the player to bypass the explanation and his common abilities and go straight to a roll based on his level of thievery. It's the "yeahyeahyeah, I'm a thief, I know what to do" ability, as are all the others. While other players have to think of how to attack a problem of thievery, a thief's player just has to make a roll.

The thief's special ability also lets him open magical locks that others can't open at all, but that's a matter of magic. All of the thief's special abilities have magical elements to them. The thief isn't just someone who steals; he's supernaturally—or at least cinematically—talented at it.

I agree. Thieving abilities represent a level of proficiency above and beyond what other classes are capable of - they do not supplant the abilities of players (and sometimes characters) to overcome "thieving" obstacles. If a party decided to sneak up on the gate guards, the DM shouldn't say, "only the Thief can do that." Instead, the DM could just probably just check for surprise. However, if the the Thief sneaks up on the guards alone, the DM would check against the Thief's Move Silently ability, and if the roll fails, the DM can still call for a surprise roll.

[Stormcrow]

Yes, the best sneaking any non-thief can hope to achieve is Pretty Darn Quiet. There's always the tiniest sound of leather touching stone or a leaf shifting ever so slightly, but the question is whether the monster hears it. If you take enough precautions you can have a 99% chance of not being heard. But only a thief can achieve Absolute Silence, literally a superhuman feat. There is nothing whatsoever for the monster to hear.

[spacelem]

There are any number of ways to open a locked door: use acid to melt the lock, use fire to burn the door, use an axe to smash through the door, ram it, lift it off its hinges, find a key, persuade a monster to open it for you. All of these are valid, but take time / use resources / are noisy. The Thief is the only one who can open the door quickly, silently, and without using resources.

I don't personally know how to pick a lock, and I really don't want to have to adjudicate a player trying to argue that they can, and so can their PC.