[variant] Thief Skills

[Finarvyn]

A poster named GrimmyV had this to say on DF:

Why not use 1D6 for all skills instead of just the one Hear Noise skill. That way every skill starts with 2 out of 6 chance to succeed (except Climb Walls which stays at 5 out of 6). Each level the thief gets an extra point to put in one of his skills starting with 1st level. Skills max out at 5 out of 6. Oh, and Read languages starts at 1 on a 6 at 4th level instead of 2 on a 6.

I think this is a great idea and I think I'm going to put it into my campaign at once.

[meepo]

I really dig that idea. D100's allow for a great deal of breaking down, but usually just end up being used in 5% increments, so a D20 would have worked just as well. And customizing a Thief sounds like an idea a lot of folks would get behind...

Plus this puts Thieves skills in line with many of the other D6 rolls in the game!

Yes...yes, I do dig it, indeed! Thanks for postin' this.

[Finarvyn]

meepo said:

D100's allow for a great deal of breaking down, but usually just end up being used in 5% increments, so a D20 would have worked just as well.

I'm glad someone else has noticed this. I have a bunch of games on my shelf that are d100 based, and almost every one seems to be mostly based on 5% intervals. I always thought that was a funny thing -- why not just make 'em all based on a d20?

And, yes, I agree that using a d6 for Thief skills has a certain old timer feel to it....

[calithena]

If you're getting into high levels or want further differentiation, you can go from 5 out of 6 to 7 out of 8, 9 out of 10, 11 out of 12, and 19 out of 20, which takes a page from the 'open doors' extension in AD&D.

I like this system but think it needs some more thought with respect to other character classes and what you're willing to let them do as a matter of course. I'm working on it...

[crimhthanthegreat]

I have always just used a d20 instead of rolling a percentage. I use a d20 for read languages, understand magical writings, open locks, remove traps, pickpocket, move silently, and hide in shadows. And a d10 is all you need to roll the the chance of a thief slipping and falling from 1st level to 10 level. I would only use precentages on the rare occasions that I would be using the extraordinary dexterity.

01 05%
02 10%
03 15%
04 20%
05 25%
06 30%
07 35%
08 40%
09 45%
10 50%
11 55%
12 60%
13 65%
14 70%
15 75%
16 80%
17 85%
18 90%
19 95%
20 100%

01 13% 1st level
02 12% 2nd level
03 11% 3rd level
04 10% 4th level
05 09% 5th level
06 08% 6th level
07 07% 7th level
08 06% 8th level
09 05% 9th level
10 04% 10th level

I use a d6 for hear noise and for find traps.

It would be interesting to change everything to a d6 or a d8 or a d10 instead.

[Finarvyn]

crimhthanthegreat said:

I have always just used a d20 instead of rolling a percentage.

Yeah, I have created some nice "roll high" tables for thieves using a d20. My next step was simply to reduce all of the columns into one "thief action" number with appropriate plusses for actions that were easier to do (for example, Open Locks always runs +5% or +1 easier than Remove Traps).

Not a bad system, but the d6 idea really jumps out at me.

[philotomy]

Cool idea. I like it, so consider it snatched.