Why do we need thieves??

[Thomas Shey]

i've got to say, @Staffan, that by the time you've gotten down to that much wiggle in classes I don't really see the point in them (since the character end-result is going to be so widely varied anyway) but I'm not going to tell someone what works for them. I just have trouble picturing that any balance and function maintenance is being had that you couldn't just do with a build system (perhaps with some constraints).

 

[pemerton]

Now I'm trying to remember if there was any standard method of dealing with swimming at all prior to NWP and some of the specific outdoor related suppliments...

The AD&D DMG (p 55, in the section on "Waterborne Adventures") has rules for this; I don't think they're especially good:

Swimming will be impossible in any type of metal armor with the exception of magic armor. Any character wearing magic armor will be encumbered and the only stroke possible will be the dog paddle. It is possible to swim in leather and padded armor, but it is awkward and there is a 5% chance of drowning per hour. All heavy possessions must be discarded or the chance of drowning increases by 2% for every 5 pounds on the character's person other than his or her leather or padded armor. This includes weapons, purses filled with gold and/or gems, backpacks and hard boots. One unsheathed dagger may be carried by the adventurer between his or her teeth. Swimming during winds above 35 miles per hour will be almost impossible, and there is a 75% chance of drowning.
​

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The thief doesn't have to be the "skill monkey", or at least not be reduced to that.

If a Fighter can go toe-to-toe with Dragons and Giants four times his size, then a Thief should have similar extraordinary abilities. Hiding in Plain sight, disappearing into shadows to reappear somewhere else, sneaking behind a dragon, entering closed rooms, opening holes into magical force fields and what not. Stuff that is beyond what normal skill training does, even if it's based on it. Or, on the opposite end - there are things just being trained on the side as a Fighter or Wizard you can't accomplish.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I was too. "Backstab" was the original term, I believe.

And it was absolutely an expression of skills. Importantly, it was the only class that had skills rather than powers. (Hide in Shadows vs. Turn Undead) No one else had skills. If anyone else wanted to do things it was a 1 in 6 chance*, better if there were extenuating circumstances. These skills were also watered down in successive editions. Climb Sheer Surfaces became Climb Walls. Anyone could climb walls; the character had to remove all metal armor, be unencumbered, and had a bonus to their d6 roll if they had a rope. Thieves could freeclimb even with their backpack and gear. The other skills were similarly advantaged in theme.

And, as you note, as the class system transitioned to adding an initial engine-wide skill system, powers were added to the classes to strengthen their niche and archetype. So, in D&D there is more than a simple skill package to typify a "thief". The powers available might be unique to PC thieves, and NPCs only have the skill package.

I think which is why I disagree with the concept of "skill-monkey", especially in a class-based system. The Thief isn't a jack-of-trades character. They are the class that is supposed to be the best at stealth in an urban environment. I extend that to being the class most adept at urban environments: moving through, finding people, establishing networks, knowing who owes whom, &c. What I found to be an excellent JoT character is the Akashic from The Diamond Throne that Monte Cook initially published (now owned by someone else). They are the "skill-monkey" people want.

Sorry, this is only a tangent to the discussion - Diamond Throne is now owned by someone else? Anyone working with it and releasing new stuff?
I liked that setting and its class concepts.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Sorry, this is only a tangent to the discussion - Diamond Throne is now owned by someone else? Anyone working with it and releasing new stuff?
I liked that setting and its class concepts.

I think so. Although, I might be thinking of Iron Heroes.
One of those two.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think so. Although, I might be thinking of Iron Heroes.
One of those two.

If it helps, Akashic is a Diamond Throne / Arcana Unearthed/Evolved class.

 

[nevin]

Just wanted you to know, @Baron Opal II that I had a somewhat longish response to your post (agreeing with a few things, disagreeing with some others) that somehow got nuked by a combination of the board software and some sort of misclick that I lack the werewithal to try and reconstruct. I'll just again note that most of the things thieves did arrived too late in the day to assume their skills made things exclusive to them (in particular, if things like their "climb" skill was supposed to be superior to what people were letting other types do in some fashion, it'd needed to have been spelled out in far better detail than it was in Greyhawk, and that probably applied to some of the stealth elements too). As such, it at best ended up in a lot of overlapping method-of-resolution (even if the other versions of that were largely ad-hoc and varied).

I'd agree with thieves getting a "better" set of abilities than what could be done with Skills as currently written. I've always thought that Class abilities, in DND should be considered better than any skill. < edited to be clearer> A good argument would be the rogue has supernatural climbing skill while everyone else with the skill is a mere mortal even though they may be good at it. It shouldn't be possible for any other class to take climbing till they can compete with the rogue at 20th level. (with possibly the exception of the monk). I'd strongly favor an overhaul of the current skill system. Though magic spell lists and magic in general needs to be done first.

I'll concede that skills in general as currently used can completely replace classes like the thief. At a significant cost to having other skills that might be a better mesh with the character class taking them. But I said earlier. The reason we have "template" classes is it's easier. A lot of people like the roll up X class with X abilities and move on rather than spend thier time reinventing the wheel. I also said if you want less Class and more skills in game that games like GURPS do that and therefore there is no real reason to reorder 5E when you can just go to a game that lets anyone take any skill and play their character. I'm paraphrasing my other posts. I agree that skills are misused and poorly implemented. I however stand firm on my argument that removing the cookie cutter templates for people that don't want to create all the details themselves would be bad for the game. In my experience more people like easy in character creation than hard. It's one of the parts of the game that many view like "high school Homework". Making everyone give up the easy button would not help the games popularity.

 

[nevin]

The AD&D DMG (p 55, in the section on "Waterborne Adventures") has rules for this; I don't think they're especially good:

Swimming will be impossible in any type of metal armor with the exception of magic armor. Any character wearing magic armor will be encumbered and the only stroke possible will be the dog paddle. It is possible to swim in leather and padded armor, but it is awkward and there is a 5% chance of drowning per hour. All heavy possessions must be discarded or the chance of drowning increases by 2% for every 5 pounds on the character's person other than his or her leather or padded armor. This includes weapons, purses filled with gold and/or gems, backpacks and hard boots. One unsheathed dagger may be carried by the adventurer between his or her teeth. Swimming during winds above 35 miles per hour will be almost impossible, and there is a 75% chance of drowning.​

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yep AD&D inserted all kinds of things like this in the rules. Spell resistance was adjusted up or down by the level of the magic user vs the spell resistance. So that X percent spell resistance was adusted down by 5% per level from the base line for high level mages. (until Daemon's came along. They were a wizard or clerics worst enemy) I've said a few times and it seems to generate hate. AD&D if you played with most to all of the rules was more balanced than any edition that has come after. Of course it had less classes and options so it was easier to enforce.

 

[1QD]

Your thin logic .... Why does there always have to be a dig?

In counter of your "thin logic" label, I will respectfully disagree. Stealing something makes you a thief. Pulling out a sword and killing someone more than likely makes you a murderer or part of the kings militia. Warrior is different because they are skillfully trained in combat. In medieval times there were the farmers, and then their were knights and there were mercenaries. Your comparison illustrates them as farmers ( also called BGC's) in this case. In my system warriors also have special abilities, a form that is widely unique to them.

I think we can agree that the calibre of warrior as a profession differs highly from just a farmer, a paid mercenary and a fully fledged, lifetime trained Knight. Where I will agree there is easily a multitude of thief...roles, as a profession, it still boils down to a set of skills, skills that are relatively common place. Arguably the thief backstab could be considered a unique ability, this too has been added to the list of normal combat attributions. In this case, a simple double dmg for surprise situations

In fact it is to me far more arguable if anyone would have a better backstab, it would instead be an assassin type Prof, like ninja. The rest of the thief's skills boil down to fairly mundane abilities, henceforth the question. As mentioned thief roles boil down to roleplaying. You can be a good thief or an evil one, a romantic one, one that specializes in break ins, while others might rob caravans, again, none of these roles cry for a specific new profession.

My system as a whole tried to take all the architypes and boil them down to their core, and then were rebuilt with skills and abilities that would help define the unique aspects of the profession itself. Players can take more skills and abilities to accentuate their idea even further. Thief, when you look at it essentially boiled down to a select group of mundane skills. No special prof was required to express nearly any iteration of them.

Lastly if that isn't good enough the Mystic/Rogue/Monk Proff covers nearly all of the missing gap the thief would have, plus has extra abilities to boot, which sits rather nicely with my jack of all trades, master of few idea of bandits and would be thieves. If you still disagree after playing a mystic, then I invite you to use the prof creation rules found within my system and create your own version of thief and see if you can do any better.

 

[nevin]

In counter of your "thin logic" label, I will respectfully disagree. Stealing something makes you a thief. Pulling out a sword and killing someone more than likely makes you a murderer or part of the kings militia. Warrior is different because they are skillfully trained in combat. In medieval times there were the farmers, and then their were knights and there were mercenaries. Your comparison illustrates the farmers in this case. In my system warriors also have special abilities, a form that is widely unique to them.

I think we can agree that the calibre of warrior as a profession differs highly from just a farmer, a paid mercenary and a fully fledged, lifetime trained Knight. Where I will agree there is easily a multitude of thief...roles, as a profession, it still boils down to a set of skills, skills that are relatively common place. Arguably the thief backstabb could be considered a unique ability, this two has been added to the list of normal combat attributions. In this case, a simple double dmg for surprise situations

In fact it is to me far more arguable if anyone would have a better backstab, it would instead be an assassin type Prof, like ninja. The rest of the thief's skills boil down to fairly mundane abilities, henceforth the question. As mentioned thief roles boil down to roleplaying. You can be a good thief or an evil one, a romantic one, one that specializes in break ins, while others might rob caravans, again, none of these roles cry for a specific new profession.

My system as a whole tried to take all the architypes and boil them down to their core, and then were rebuilt with skills and abilities that would help define the unique aspects of the profession itself. Players can take more skills and abilities to accentuate their idea even further. Thief, when you look at it essentially boiled down to a select group of mundane skills. No special prof was required to express nearly iteration of them.

Lastly if that isn't good enough the Mystic/Rogue/Monk Proff covers nearly all of the missing gap the theif would have, plus has extra abilities to boot, which sits rather nicely with my jack of all trades, master of few idea of bandits and would be thieves.

ummm warriors are either paid killers or people who train to kill because they decided killing people is a good way to make money, or they just like killing. Being skillful doesn't change the fact they murder people, in d&d usually for cash or loot. Even in war you murder people on command because someone said so. Being skillful doesn't change the fact that warriors as a class either kill on command, for loot, or defend against the ones who are the target of the kill commands. it's all still killing people and skill doesn't mean anything if you want to talk about the morality of it. (I freely accept this argument applies to most D&D classes as played at most tables as well. )

I didn't argue some classes shouldn't have special skills or class abilities that were not available to anyone else. I said the logic you used was thin and could be used to remove any other class. (Adding the statement here ) the logic you used is that generic.

I also said if you want skills to be something anyone can do then there are other games that do that why reinvent D&D. Perhaps that wasn't your point but It was the one I got from what I read.