OSE's official alternate Thief skills to good?

[Voadam]

The only thing consistent in TSR d&d products is that they're inconsistent.

Moldvay is interesting here. The small traps limitation does not show up on the thief ability description on B8:

"Find or Remove Traps is a double ability. The thief has the listed chance of finding a trap (if there is one) and the same chance (if the trap is found) of removing it. Either attempt may only be tried once per trap."

The limitation is mentioned once only, on B10 listing the thief class and is only made in reference for removing traps. "A thief's training includes learning how to pick pockets, climb steep surfaces, move silently, hide in shadows, open locks (with a set of lockpicks or burglar's tools), remove small traps (such as poisoned needles), and how to hear noises better than other humans."

Also the B10 thief class description says "They are the only characters who can open locks and find traps without using magic to do so."

This comes right after B9 which says about dwarves "They are expert miners and are able to find slanting passages, traps, shifting walls, and new construction one-third of the time (a roll of 1 or 2 on 1d6) when looking for them."

And later on B22: "Any character has a 1 in 6 chance of finding a trap when searching for one in the correct area. Any dwarf has a 2 in 6 chance. (This does not apply to magical traps, such as a sleep trap.) Checking a specific area for a trap will take one full turn. The DM should only check for finding a trap if a player says that the character is searching for one. Each character may only check once to find each trap."

 

[Voadam]

Aha. Another example of the players not being told all the rules!

The thief in 1e has a bunch.

For instance PH backstab page 27: "Back stabbing is the striking of a blow from behind, be it with club, dagger, or sword." seems pretty straightforward, get behind somebody and strike.

But then the DMG page 19 provides additional secret rules that complicate using the ability: "Back Stabbing: Opponents aware of the thief will be able to negate the attack form. Certain creatures (otyughs, slimes, molds, etc.) either negate surprise or have no definable “back”, thus negating this ability."

 

[Mannahnin]

Moldvay is interesting here. The small traps limitation does not show up on the thief ability description on B8:

"Find or Remove Traps is a double ability. The thief has the listed chance of finding a trap (if there is one) and the same chance (if the trap is found) of removing it. Either attempt may only be tried once per trap."

The limitation is mentioned once only, on B10 listing the thief class and is only made in reference for removing traps. "A thief's training includes learning how to pick pockets, climb steep surfaces, move silently, hide in shadows, open locks (with a set of lockpicks or burglar's tools), remove small traps (such as poisoned needles), and how to hear noises better than other humans."

Also the B10 thief class description says "They are the only characters who can open locks and find traps without using magic to do so."

This comes right after B9 which says about dwarves "They are expert miners and are able to find slanting passages, traps, shifting walls, and new construction one-third of the time (a roll of 1 or 2 on 1d6) when looking for them."

And later on B22: "Any character has a 1 in 6 chance of finding a trap when searching for one in the correct area. Any dwarf has a 2 in 6 chance. (This does not apply to magical traps, such as a sleep trap.) Checking a specific area for a trap will take one full turn. The DM should only check for finding a trap if a player says that the character is searching for one. Each character may only check once to find each trap."

Right.

As I discussed when I quoted and referenced these same passages a few posts ago, these seeming contradictions are resolved when we consider Moldvay's division of traps into Room Traps and Treasure Traps on page B52, and read the other passages with the context of the description from the Thief entry on B10 in mind, which tells us what kind of traps their ability works on.

 

[Weiley31]

Every skill starts as a one on a 1d6. The points you add the bigger the threshold to succeed. so 1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5 (maxed out).

Exp: Thief has put 3 points into Find Traps. A threshold of 1-4. Rolls a 5 on the check and fails.

I get it. I prefer it as the first digit going up instead of the second number. But once you put six points in a skill, how does that work in adjusting it? Or would it just legit stop at 1-5/5-6?

 

[DarkCrisis]

I get it. I prefer it as the first digit going up instead of the second number. But once you put six points in a skill, how does that work in adjusting it? Or would it just legit stop at 1-5/5-6?

Can never go higher than 1-5. 6 always fails.

 

[Voadam]

Right.

As I discussed when I quoted and referenced these same passages a few posts ago, these seeming contradictions are resolved when we consider Moldvay's division of traps into Room Traps and Treasure Traps on page B52, and read the other passages with the context of the description from the Thief entry on B10 in mind, which tells us what kind of traps their ability works on.

As written there are contradictions. Adding in additional new words and limitations is one way to resolve them.

Adding in the limitation of "treasure traps only" to the thief abilities and "room traps only" to the any character (and dwarf enhanced) find traps ability makes the "thief only" ability statement make sense, but that is not how I would expect the abilities to work as written.

If it meant the general finding traps to be only for room traps I would expect for it to explicitly say so in that ability description. Narratively I would expect high level thieves to be good at spotting Indiana Jones type room traps.

 

[Mannahnin]

As written there are contradictions. Adding in additional new words and limitations is one way to resolve them.

Or just not ignoring words which are there, which I already quoted.

B10: "remove small traps (such as poisoned needles)" (emphasis mine)

The limitations we're talking about on the Thief ability are explicitly present in the text of every TSR version of the skill. Every single version specifies that it only works on small stuff. 2nd ed actually goes ahead and explicitly rules out big stuff, too, rather than making it implicit:

"Find/Remove Traps: The thief is trained to find small traps and alarms. These include poisoned needles, spring blades, deadly gases, and warning bells. This skill is not effective for finding deadfall ceilings, crushing walls, or other large, mechanical traps."

There are three more full paragraphs of description in the 2E skill description. I wonder if they were drawing on any prior Sage Advice on it.

If it meant the general finding traps to be only for room traps I would expect for it to explicitly say so in that ability description.

You wrote "ability description", but I presume you meant in the rules for Traps on page B22? That could certainly be clearer, though the examples given are a trap door in the floor and traps which have a chance of springing when a character passes a certain point. EDIT: Or did you mean the Dwarf ability? That could also be clearer, but in all instances it's part of the section talking about their mining & construction skills, and so the context is there.

Narratively I would expect high level thieves to be good at spotting Indiana Jones type room traps.

That would certainly be helpful!

 

[Theory of Games]

Why?
I'm honestly curious why how you feel this would be broken in play - no shade or criticism intended. I believe that it would be bad in your game - I just want to know how you are playing that makes it a problem?

For me, as noted above, the way I tend to handle simple, mostly mechanical traps that the skill would work on (needles, spear traps, covered pits etc.) and figured most people did, is as at least partially diegetic/within the fiction. I.E. if the players say they are looking for tripwires and spend extra time (and so random encounter checks) doing so they can usually spot simple traps and escape, safely trigger or disarm them 100% of the time.

The highly specialized thief described here (remember this PC can't do other cool thief things like sneakily scout, effectively backstab, sleight of hand, acrobatic wall climbing, or lock picking) - an AC 7 to 4 rear rank combatant with a lower THAC0 who likely dies from any hit. A glass cannon for removing poison needles on chests they still have to smash open...

Again I am very curious if it still sounds awful to you with those caveats, and how you run B/X or OSE that makes the 5 in 6 trap obsessive a bad time?

I'll start with "these are just my opinions":

Referencing the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia, a 20th-level Thief has a 82% chance of removing a trap.

Referencing the AD&D Players' Handbook, a 14th-level Thief has a 85% chance of finding and removing a trap.

There's something here to be said about LBA (Level Based Advancement) and why that system is important. The "game" of D&D is getting our squishy 1st-level characters as far up the "level mountain" as possible. If you've played BECMI and AD&D, you understand this aint easy. But, it can be the best fun any game has ever offered, to include the sense of reward that comes from EARNING 36 levels of experience (RC).

IF a designer shifts high-level capability onto 1st-level characters, the structure challenge of a game depending on LBA begins to weaken. Consequently, the obstacles that once challenged the PC DON'T and the D/GM will struggle to provide interesting adventures for that overpowered character. This was the (very widespread) problem with 3e-5e: GMs were/are having a hard time challenging the overpowered PCs because the structure of D&D had been broken (player capability had increased but the capability of most traps and monsters either remained the same as AD&D or they had been nerfed).

Of course this stands right in the middle of "play experience", and yeah, it's fun to run through a game slamming every obstacle with little or no effort. Until it isn't (see LFQW). So, when I say that a LI Thief being able to crack locks with 83% ability is broken, I'm looking at what that kind of capability will do to a campaign as that PC levels.

But I'm a FGM (Forever Gamemaster) and again, these are my opinions. I'm open to others

 

[TwoSix]

I get it. I prefer it as the first digit going up instead of the second number. But once you put six points in a skill, how does that work in adjusting it? Or would it just legit stop at 1-5/5-6?

Dolmenwood (OSE's "successor") has the thief skills reversed into roll high on 1d6. So all skills start at 6, and work their way down to 2 (the lowest they can go).

 

[Weiley31]

Dolmenwood (OSE's "successor") has the thief skills reversed into roll high on 1d6. So all skills start at 6, and work their way down to 2 (the lowest they can go).

Ugh, I'm not exactly fond of that.