Thief Abilities – Static Progression or Player Distributed Progression

Thief Abilities – Static Progression or Player Distributed Progression

I wanted to hear what others think or have noticed in their gaming history when it comes to the Thief Abilities - 1^st Edition Static progression or 2^nd Player Distributed Progression.

I am a little torn – I like the old-school feel of Static Progression; however, I like the idea of the 2^nd edition rules, which enables players distribute points into their thief abilities. The latter can enable ‘no one thief’ to be the same, and allows for greater variety with characters. Yet, I feel that bonuses or something a little creative from the DM could enable variety between thief characters in the 1st Edition method.

Just want to hear what others have to say.

I voted for the 2e variant with player distribution, but it was a close call. It basically allows to tune a thief to either the character concept or the campaign, which is a fine thing. On the other hand, pouring over the thief's skills when creating such a character can easily take longer than the whole rest of the process.

I think the 2e changes allowing a rogue to customize his or her thieving skills were among the edition's best improvements over 1e. Why wouldn't you want pcs to be able to adopt a certain amount of reasonable customization?

Otherwise, there is very little to differentiate two rogues from one another mechanically.

I have not played 1e/2e on any consistant basis in over 20 years. But the thief skill allocation change was one of the few changes that I though actually made 2e clearly better than 1e at the time.

I say static. I run AS&SH specifically to get away from overcustumization. Thief skills may not be a big deal, but you got to draw the line somewhere. You may want to maybe ditch one or two skills entirely, but in the end you still got to be decent in all of them, so the actual difference between two thieves should be mostly cosmetic and barely actively noticable in actual play. Assing individual percent points (or 5% chunks on a d20), doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. I want to avoid my players tinkering with their stats and fine tunning as much as possible.
Assigning points to thief skills doesn't seem worth the effort.

In general, a system that allows distribution includes static progression as one of the options, therefore I prefer flexibility.

For instance, 3e skill points are better than static progression, because they include static progression (just max-out as many skills as you have points/level) if you want so.

The key is presentation. If you present skills as "you have to spend points" (3e) some people will freak out because of the effort required. If you present them as static (5e) but then give an option to spread the proficiency bonus to more skills (might never be a 5e rule, but it's a very easy house rule if you want), everybody will be fine.

I wish there was an another option.

The issue for the thief is that the numbers are just too low until higher levels: either the base progression, or the number of points assigned in 2E means a lot of failure.

You need to allow multiple checks, easier checks--at least at lower levels--auto success or a boost to chance--or just more points, under either scheme.

TerraDave said:

I wish there was an another option.

The issue for the thief is that the numbers are just too low until higher levels: either the base progression, or the number of points assigned in 2E means a lot of failure.

You need to allow multiple checks, easier checks--at least at lower levels--auto success or a boost to chance--or just more points, under either scheme.

Click to expand...

I don't know how you remember those rules but that doesn't match my experience at all. The key for success in 2E was focusing in those things you really wanted your thief to do. At level 1, for instance, a Dex 18 halfling thief could choose to be a stealthy type and end up with the following:

Move Silently 10 (base) + 10 (racial) + 10 (Dex) + 10 (no armor) + 30 (points) = 70%
Hide in Shadows 5 (base) + 15 (racial) + 10 (Dex) + 5 (no armor) + 30 (points) = 65%

Picking the scout kit would further improve each stat by 5%. Both numbers are respectable, specially if you account for the fact that those are not used in an opposed roll, but simply "roll under, you succeed". A stealthy thief would be able to almost max out those skills by level 3, to start leveling something else after that. Now, if you wanted to be a generalist, you'd have to deal with a lot of failure, but the 2E thief could choose to focus, an option that his 1E counterpart never had.

I'm currently running DnD Next, but I miss the 2E thief design (and I know I'm almost alone here). Through all my years running 2E, I've never used the resources you describe (easier checks, multiple checks...), and players managed to turn intent into action easily, with careful choices during character creation. Failure was a matter of choosing to be all things at the same time, not a bug built into the rules.

Cheers!

sure, you have a best case scenario (18 dex) and put all the points into 2 skills. So they are terrible at everything else. There are locks and traps, and noises and walls, for that matter, in low level adventures.

Yes, they could then get, say, detect noise and open locks to that range around level 5, and two others by level 9...at which point they would be a "high" level character, and pretty good (not great) at 6 of 8 thief skills.

2e all the way.

I like the idea that a Thief could specialize in Stealth, Traps, Picking Pockets, or Opening Locks. My namesake was a CG thief who didn't put a point into PP until nearly 9th level!

For What Its Worth, the 2e DMG has the "average thief skill" table in it, which looks suspiciously like the 1e table. If a PC didn't want to bother distributing points, he could just level up on that table if he wanted.