D&D General Nostalgia : Thief Percentages

[atanakar]

I think its the Mundane Tier issues all over again.

The percentage thief skills well supposed to be "super heroic" or paragon tier actions.
But
Many DMs and players didn't want want nonmagical "super heroic" actions. They instead downgraded it to the system for apprentice and heroic tier action.

This mindset spread and thief skills looked weak. As years past, the power of skills increased and skill monkey could spec out superheroic actions. This eventually evolved to day where nonmagical superhero/paragon actions are just always on. There is no pass/fail for Second Story Work or Land's Strde. You just had to reach a high enough level to get it.

I'm looking at my copy of OD&D Greyhawk supplement, in which the thief was introduced. I don't see anything that supports your interpretation.

The only thing see is that thief abilities are restricted to thieves. We are to assume other classes simply cannot do these activities. They are only for the thief.

Quote: «They are not as strong as other classes in hit dice, but thieves have many distinct advantages which are enumerated below. Thieves can employ magic daggers and magic swords but none of the other magical weaponry. They can wear only leather armor and cannot employ shields. While they cannot learn spells, thieves of the highest levels are able to read those spells written on scrolls. Basic abilities are:
– open locks by picking or foiling magical closures
– remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)
– listen for noise behind closed doors
– move with great stealth
– filch items and pick pockets
– hide in shadows
– strike silently from behind
– climb nearly sheer surfaces, upwards or downwards.»

 

[Minigiant]

I'm looking at my copy of OD&D Greyhawk supplement, in which the thief was introduced. I don't see anything that supports your interpretation.

The only thing see is that thief abilities are restricted to thieves. We are to assume other classes simply cannot do these activities. They are only for the thief.

Quote: «They are not as strong as other classes in hit dice, but thieves have many distinct advantages which are enumerated below. Thieves can employ magic daggers and magic swords but none of the other magical weaponry. They can wear only leather armor and cannot employ shields. While they cannot learn spells, thieves of the highest levels are able to read those spells written on scrolls. Basic abilities are:
– open locks by picking or foiling magical closures
– remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)
– listen for noise behind closed doors
– move with great stealth
– filch items and pick pockets
– hide in shadows
– strike silently from behind
– climb nearly sheer surfaces, upwards or downwards.»

I don't disagree with you that they are thief only actions.
My point is that the game treated thief skills as superheroic.
Many fans didn't like that and treated them as normal but still exclusive.
And this is where the problem started.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There are three (3) main classes of characters: Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, Clerics. The thief, with percentages, appeared in 1975 in the Book IV, Greyhawk Supplement.

Yes, I'm aware of that. Does the original OD&D pamphlet/book contain any percentile rolls? Like to learn spells or anything.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yes, I'm aware of that. Does the original OD&D pamphlet/book contain any percentile rolls? Like to learn spells or anything.

The Thief first appeared in Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #9 prior to OD&D (Greyhawk). It used percentiles in both.

It was "borrowed" from Gary Switzer (Aero Games). The original thief used an MU chassis and had thief abilities that could be invoked like spells.

 

[atanakar]

@Ruin Explorer
quote: «Teleport: Instantaneous transportation from place to place, regardless of the dis- tance involved, provided the user knows where he is going (the topography of the arrival area). Without certain knowledge of the destination teleportation is 75% uncertain, so a score of less than 75% of the percentile dice results in death. If the user is aware of the general topography of his destination, but has not carefully studied it, there is an uncertainty factor of 10% low and 10% high. A low score (1–10%) means death if solid material is contacted. A high score (91–100%) indicates a fall of from 10 to 100 feet, also possibly resulting in death. If a careful study of the destination has been previously made, then the Magic-User has only a 1% chance of teleporting low and a 4% chance of coming in high (10–40 feet).»

Percentages are mentioned often in the book. Sometimes it refers to a bonus (+20%) which is then applied as +4 to the d20. I did not see an instance of them being used for a class ability, in Book I (Nov 1 1973). Book II Monsters & Treasures percentages all over the place, of course.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

@Ruin Explorer
Percentages are mentioned often in the book.

1. Constitution (chance of survival is %).
2. XP Modifiers for abilities.
3. Chance to know common lanaguage.
4. Formula for dispal magic.
5. Contact higher plance (chance to know, veracity, insanity).
6. Sticks to snakes (% chance for poisonous).
7. Chance for magical research.

-Men and Magic.

OD&D very much used a hybridized system; it combined a lot of emphasis on d6 with a combination of d20 and d00 incursions. The actual implementation of any given resolution system was scattershot; for example, the original turn undead table, with the d6 emphasis, is probably an Arneson legacy.

 

[Minigiant]

Now that I think of it, I would be okay with a moderately supernatural rogue subclass in 5e that had a percentage table. Like a ninja subclass or an acrobat subclass.

Then you could have percentage chance to succeed at feats with no opposed rolls and no gear/tolls.

A ninja would get silly stuff like climb sheer wall with climbing gear, opening locks with improvised tools. hiding in shadows, and running on water. The acrobat would get tightrope and stilt walking, tumbing (short distance flight), standing as a reaction, and avoiding fall damage.

 

[Dormammu]

I don't think you understand the environment RPGs came from, and I don't think you're suffiently familiar with early RPGs.

Those are some giant-sized assumptions. I was playing about 1979 onward, for whatever that’s worth. I referenced Basic Role-Playing, which was clearly based on D&D stats with percentile skills added, and Rolemaster, which literally began as options modules for D&D before become its own system. Neither of these games had any noticeable elements of war gaming. They didn’t even have rules for map-based conflict and had completely abandoned early D&D’s usage of tabletop scale for distances.

I didn’t ever encounter Superhero 2044, so I can’t comment on that. Another early game I remember playing was the first printing of Champions (the first incarnation of the HERO system). Champions did at least utilize hex maps, so I could see an argument for a wargame influence there. And perhaps building a character from points is derived from building army lists by points? It didn’t feel like a wargame, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the designers were wargamers.

Anyway, I don’t see a lot of specific examples of wargame influences in the early games I played. YMMV, though so far your opinion seems light on specific examples and heavy on “don’t question me” attitude so I’ll leave it there,

 

[Li Shenron]

I welcomed the 3e changes to skills and used the d20 system for 20 years, even though it is far from perfect, so I generally don't miss the % skills.

However they DO have an advantageous property of immediately giving you the probability of success. It's not difficult to translate a d20 roll to %, but you need to know the DC, and most DMs won't tell you that.

I know that many would say they like a bit of mystery, so not knowing the actual % of success is better. On the other hand, even if you DO know it, you still don't really know if you'll succeed or fail. It's just a more informed decision.

That said, it should be easy to convert d20 to %. You start with 50% chance for an average task (DC11) before applying any bonus, then each +1 bonus is +5%, while each DC increase is -5%.

I think such system doesn't need to be restricted to thieving skills, if you like it you can use it for every skill (even for saves and attacks if you want to go that far).

The only thing see is that thief abilities are restricted to thieves. We are to assume other classes simply cannot do these activities. They are only for the thief.

– listen for noise behind closed doors

I think that to appreciate this sort of old-school rule, you need to get into a more gamist/practical state of mind, NOT a simulationist/common sense state of mind.

Take the extreme example of listening to doors. Non-thieves didn't get to roll because it was not their ROLE to listen to doors. If you have a thief in the party, it's her duty alone to do that. That's why you want a thief in the party. If you don't have a thief however, it doesn't mean you can't win the adventure, and it doesn't even mean you will certainly fail at hearing something behind a door, it just won't be up to a PC ability to sort it out. The DM might still give the party a chance, but even if she doesn't, it won't be unfair, because it was your choice to have someone else in the party instead of a thief, so you certainly gained something else from that choice.

The simulationist / common sense system has its own downsides... When everyone can try to listen at doors "because it makes sense", then if the Rogue tries and fails, it makes sense that all other PC try also, no matter how bad at the roll, until one succeeds, and the laws of probability easily yield a much higher chance if you let 4-5 people roll instead of one (not to mention allowing retries). Then you have to overcompensate by having something bad happens on a failure even if it doesn't have to happen according to the situation, or to complicate the rules just to tame the total probability.

There is beauty in the simplicity of a system that just says "one chance" with probability x%, compared to a system with lots of rolls only to generate the same x%.

 

[billd91]

I do not miss the percentages. Low level thieves in 1e sucked, quite frankly. There were a LOT of problems with the class in 1e overall, many of which weren't fixed in 2e, though at least a player could push their percentage points around and have a couple of skills that didn't totally suck when they started adventuring.