Greyhawk Thief Skill Progression

[peterlind]

I have listed the skill progressions for Greyhawk Thieves in a different order (a kind of ascending order based on starting percentage) and have listed the amount of % skill progression at each level. What can you observe from these progressions? Is there something that you would change in the progressions?

drive.google.com/file/d/0B3U1JYviYYT7aUI4RVBsSkNYanc/view?usp=sharing

[foxroe]

Well the OCD in me wants to rewrite the charts so that progression is smoother, but it's no more wonky than the combat and saving throw progressions in M&M, so I would never actually bother.

I liked 2nd ed. AD&D's take on it: The Thief gets 15 percentile points each level to distribute amongst the abilities as the player sees fit. It's an easy house rule to bolt onto M&M+GH.

[hamurai]

But 15 points would make the AD&D thief a lot weaker than the Greyhawk thief, according to the progression table. Should be more like 30 points. If the player gets to select which skills to raise with these 30 points, an Open Locks skill of 50% at second level would be possible, for example (if ignoring all other skills).

Does the AD&D thief start with higher skills, maybe? I don't have the book here atm.

My instinct would also tell me to smoothen the progression on the thief skills, but as foxroe said, it's similar to the rest of the progressions in the game so I'd leave it as it is.

[Scott Anderson]

The 2e thief added 30 points per level, not more than15 of which into any one skill.

[peterlind]

However, the 2e thief had 8 different skills to spread the points among, while the Greyhawk thief has five percentage-based skills with a progression. Climbing is treated differently and Hear Noise is based on a 1-6 roll.

[Scott Anderson]

So under the same convention, a gh thief would get 19 points to spend, not more than 9 to any one skill.

[foxroe]

Aug 24, 2017 0:59:55 GMT -6 Scott Anderson said:

The 2e thief added 30 points per level, not more than15 of which into any one skill.

Yes, you are correct. I misremembered the rule... it's a been a while since I've played 2ed.

[hamurai]

Ah, thank you for checking!

[peterlind]

Ok here is the Greyhawk Thief skill progression, very slightly modified: In levels 7 and 8, the total % skill increase drops from 40 per level to 35 per level, and then climbs to 50 per level for levels 9 to 11. I like the concept that there is a slow progression in early levels, then a spike in middle levels, and then a slower progression at higher levels. So my slight change is to move the 50 % point progressions to levels 7-9 (i.e. mid levels) and then slide the 35 point progressions to levels 10 and 11. Basically, the same numbers are being re-shuffled. What do you think?

drive.google.com/file/d/0B3U1JYviYYT7WmVtN2pqbGRoUzA/view?usp=sharing

[peterlind]

Here is something I have noticed:

The Greyhawk thief skill progression has 4 different kinds of progression:

When it is 25 percentage points per level, all skills go up by 5%.
When it is 35 percentage points per level, Remove Traps and Open Locks go up by 10%, all others by 5%.
When it is 40 percentage points per level, Hide in Shadows and Pick Pockets/Move Silently go up by 10%, all others by 5%.
When it is 50 percentage points per level, all skills go up by 10%.

[hamurai]

I'm a fan of a player-chosen progression as in AD&D. With this you could have two thieves in the group and they'd be totally different by their skills, too. Like, one might be a tomb robber specialized on disarming traps and picking locks while the other is a pickpocket from the city, specialized in picking pockets and hiding.

[peterlind]

Sure I like the idea of a player's thief character specializing in a thief skill or two, but do we need a new rule just for this, or should it be handled ad hoc by the GM? A way it could be handled is to allow for a point swap between a couple of skills when a new level is gained, such as raise one skill by 5% and lower another by 5%. But still allow for no more than a 10% increase in a given skill. Thus, a skill could go up between 0% and 10% at a given level.

I also like the idea of a standard thief skill progression, which will help a DM to determine the skills for NPC thieves. Perhaps the standard progression could be seen as the skill set of a "guild thief" who gets training from the thieves' guild? Also, in some ways, perhaps the thief skills can be seen as inter-related and inter-dependent. Does a thief need to keep up his pick pocket skills to keep getting better at opening locks and removing traps?

[foxroe]

A random thought on "specialization":

I think the concept of "specialties" within the context of Class came about with the publishing of Greyhawk (at least in an "official" capacity - I'm sure groups were employing similar ideas before the release of Supplement I). The Paladin, as a subclass of Fighting-Men, represents a "specialization." The Thief class, also introduced (officially) in Greyhawk, was granted the status of Class, not subclass. To me this means that the Thief as written is the general archetype for the stealthy and unscrupulous character. Specialization in any part of the Thief's area of expertise should be represented by a subclass. The Assassin for example, as a subclass of the Thief, specializes in murder and espionage.

So, just my current opinion, if one wishes to specialize in say Climbing and Opening Locks (a "second-story man"), then the DM can design a subclass of the Thief (the Burglar) with improved climbing and lockpicking abilities with a corresponding reduction in other areas (like pick pocketing).

... Two pennies poorer ...

[hamurai]

Why sub-class these specializations? Unless you want to make the thief sub-classes even more unique by adding more abilities (like the assassin's disguise, for example), just give the players 30 points to distribute and have them make their own "sub-class".
Personally I never needed an assassin sub-class. Just play the thief as an assassin and the rest comes up during play.

[foxroe]

I agree; that's certainly a viable way of doing it hamurai. I was just pointing out another "lens" through which to view the concept that adheres (I feel) more closely to the original game. The closest adherence however, is as you point out, just play the Thief the way you want.

[hamurai]

I see your point and it's always a good idea to view things through other lenses, as you put it. Getting a new perspective on and re-evaluating things.
AD&D brought us a whole bunch of thief sub-classes like the burglar you mentioned above. Back then when we played AD&D 2, many of my group (including me) enjoyed the sub-classes a lot. It's just that these days, personally, I prefer the freedom of OD&D.
At the end of the day it's all a matter of personal choice and the way the game is played. And in the right setting, I might just add sub-classes again myself

[peterlind]

Another thing I have noticed in the standard progression: The thief skills, overall, may start with the different percentage chances of success (i.e. 10%, 15%, or 20%), but after 1st level, their progression is essentially the same. Thus, if one thinks that a skill starting at 10% is a more difficult or more complex skill to learn, it does not seem to imply that it would be any more difficult to master than the other skills.

But I may have noticed a seeming incongruity in the skill progressions: The locks-traps skills, between levels 2 and 12, get three "bumps" of +10% at levels 4, 7 and 8 while the hide-sneak-pick pocket skills get only two "bumps" of +10% at levels 5 and 6. (Both sets of skills also get +10% "bumps" at levels 9, 10, and 11 and the gains are at +5% per level otherwise). So the seeming incongruity is that the hide-sneak-pick pocket skills generally start at higher percentages (i.e. pick pocket and move silently start at 20%), but they seem to fall behind in the progression to the locks-traps skills, which start at lower percentages (10% and 15%). . . a way to even out the progression would be to add another "bump" for the hide-sneak-pick pocket skills somewhere. . .

[peterlind]

So here is an effort at an alternate, consolidated/standardized thief skill progression. The progressions are consolidated in that all skills having the same base percentage chance of success end up with the same progression over levels (unlike Greyhawk). Otherwise, the progression ends up being the same for all skills until 100% is reached. (Please note that Zenopus gives a standard 15% general skill progression in his Holmes Reference 2.0 materials -- thanks). The progression looks pretty good, so I decided to go with that for 15% base skills, and then extrapolated for 10% & 20% base skills.

I have gone past 100% because some GMs might want to apply difficulty modifiers to skill rolls (for example, the B/X +/- 4 modifier to Attribute rolls based on difficulty (easy/hard) could be used as the basis of +/- 20% modifier for thief skills. Those who want to house rule a minimum % chance of failure (1% or 5% may still do so).

Last, a standardized skill progression system may make it easier to introduce other skills to the game, if this is desired. Here is the link:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B3U1JYviYYT7b2tSOWU2OUlTQTA/view?usp=sharing

[peterlind]

And here is a thief skill progression that is closer to the original design: The only change is to smooth out the alternating 10% skill bumps in early levels (twice for each rather than 3 times for one [open locks/remove traps] and 2 times for the other [hide/pick/move]), and then start the universal 10% bump for all skills 1 level earlier. Once this is done, the skills are already at least at 80%. So at this point, a 5% increase per level seems appropriate. . .

drive.google.com/file/d/0B3U1JYviYYT7NE9Zc0g0STNzZHc/view?usp=sharing