D&D 2E 2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance

[James Gasik]

Yeah but the ability to take unlimited levels is kind of a wash. I think the vast majority of games never reached those levels, and what good does unlimited advancement do you if you can't survive to reach those levels?

Thieves did not have all that much greater survivability than Mages, when you get right down to it, and until they reach a decent level, probably less utility. Take for example, opening a lock. You're not going to get 95% chance to do that before 4th level most likely (at least, not without a Kit or a Dexterity score higher than 16).

Sure, it's better than using a spell slot on Knock, or asking the strong guy in the party to use his Open Doors (or Bend Bars/Lift Gates, depending on what's being unlocked) on it. Or just bashing it with a hammer or pouring acid in the lock. Find/Remove Traps, another Ability you should be prioritizing, is in the same boat.

That means you've spent all your points in these areas. Climb Walls, at least, generally starts high. But you'll probably want Detect Noise, and this is all before you can even think about "skulking about to backstab"!

Read Languages could be a good substitute for Comprehend Languages, but who has the points for that?

Which leaves us with Pick Pockets, which generally just annoys DM's anyways when you hit town and try to get rich quick, lol (though I did once beat a Lich by managing to steal his spell components, that was fun).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Low-level magic-users could hang out in the middle of the party and blast the paltry number of spells they had from relative safety. Low-level thieves, if there was a locked door, were expected to go check for traps, then try to disarm the trap, then try to pick the lock. If there are traps and there's a failure in those three checks, you have a high chance of ending up with a dead thief.

On the converse, thieves had better AC and marginally more HP.

Thieves did not have all that much greater survivability than Mages, when you get right down to it, and until they reach a decent level, probably less utility. Take for example, opening a lock. You're not going to get 95% chance to do that before 4th level most likely (at least, not without a Kit or a Dexterity score higher than 16).

 

[Jer]

Low-level magic-users could hang out in the middle of the party and blast the paltry number of spells they had from relative safety. Low-level thieves, if there was a locked door, were expected to go check for traps, then try to disarm the trap, then try to pick the lock. If there are traps and there's a failure in those three checks, you have a high chance of ending up with a dead thief.

For low level thieves that chance of failure becomes near certain because your percentiles for checking/disarming/picking locks were sub-30% until 5th level or so in early editions.

So eventually players would figure out that using Thief Skills was a trap. What you did was find a way to argue the DM into letting you open it from a distance somehow - maybe dropping a big rock on it, maybe something more clever. That way you avoided having to make those rolls at all. Or you'd explicitly lay out that you were going to open it from behind the chest so that darts don't hit you or acid doesn't spray you in the face. Or all of the other things that are basically players trying to work around the fact that their 15% chance to remove traps was not something they wanted to bank on being able to do.

 

[James Gasik]

Or taking The Mummy approach- send the hirelings into the trap-laden tomb first!

 

[dmhelp]

What about?
Single classed thieves start with 120 points (max 60 into a single skill).
Single classed thieves gain a 3 AC bonus (studded = splint).
Single classed thieves use fighter THAC0 (no extra attacks though).
Single classed thieves can weapon specialize (no extra attacks).

That lowers their low level mortality and increases their combat ability. A fighter is still going to out fight/out last them though.

 

[James Gasik]

I would probably give them a d8 Hit Die and the same Thac0 progression as Priests. Studded with no penalties is consistent with Rangers. More discretionary points would help them a great deal of course, but you should then reduce the benefits from high Dexterity. OTOH, I always felt Strength should grant a bonus to Climb Walls, Intelligence should provide a bonus to Decipher Script, and Wisdom should apply a bonus to Detect Noise.

Also, Backstab should be allowed with ranged weapons, allowing Thieves to become snipers.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Why single-class thief in 2e?
If you rolled bad ability scores, you could play thief and still perform great.
Also, their exp table meant that they would have many levels more then the other pcs.

 

[James Gasik]

Having more levels isn't fantastic when you don't get a lot for those levels. 10 levels of Thief is 160,000 xp. You got an average of 35 hit points and a Thac0 of 16.

That same xp total gets you an 8th level Fighter with an average of 44 hit points, a Thac0 of 13 and 3/2 attacks per round (2/1 with weapon specialization), plus better armor.

Now granted, by Thief 10, you can have decent numbers in most Thieving Abilities, so you bring the utility, but the issue was surviving to that point.

 

[Voadam]

Having more levels isn't fantastic when you don't get a lot for those levels. 10 levels of Thief is 160,000 xp. You got an average of 35 hit points and a Thac0 of 16.

That same xp total gets you an 8th level Fighter with an average of 44 hit points, a Thac0 of 13 and 3/2 attacks per round (2/1 with weapon specialization), plus better armor.

Now granted, by Thief 10, you can have decent numbers in most Thieving Abilities, so you bring the utility, but the issue was surviving to that point.

Between an AD&D fighter and thief of equal xp the fighter has better THAC0, Armor, hp, and number of attacks. Shocking.

AD&D thieves were just not designed to do comparatively well in most any aspect of combat while most other classes were. This was part by design to focus them on other aspects of the game, and part just design tradition carrying on from earlier editions starting in 0e. Backstab really is not enough to make them effective in combat. It took 3e to say that within their niche and style they should be as good in combat as anybody else, and it took 4e to really execute that concept well.

 

[James Gasik]

I was just commenting on the "have more levels" comment about Thieves. It's a common misconception that a faster xp track is an advantage- it isn't necessarily the case, even though it may seem to be. Well. Maybe when you run into a Wight it is!