Flat Thief Abilities

General ACKS Forums General Discussion
,
40

Looking good Alex! I like how you’re handling it. I’m a softie, so I’ll probably try this out and also houserule adding Ability bonuses to thief skills and that should bring their skill chances up to where I want them. Plus the equipment is cool!

I think this is an unintended consequence (I like it but you may not): When they come into play, Lockpicking and Trap Finding proficiencies get a lot more useful using these rules.

I’m amazed at how smart the folks are on the ACKS forums, and how dedicated you are to weighing input mixed with your own design skills to improve the game. I’m typically intimidated to post on some of these threads for fear of dumbing down the conversation. You guys see things to a depth that I rarely can follow. Smart smart smart. Such inspirational reading. :slight_smile:

41

I LOVE these rules! Definitely would be put into my ACKS game.

42

As ways to “fix” the thief, I like the flat abilities in the first post, it gives the thief a decent chance to successfully use his abilities, and with the use of proficiencies he can choose to specialize in what fits his character.

Another thing about flat abilities is that it is easy then to add more options like the specialized equipment, ability score modifiers, task difficulties.

The template idea is another option I like, again it lets the thief choose what part of the class he want to excel at.

43

Oh, SNAP. How did I miss this entire thread?

44

That’s a really good point.

45

Thanks for the kind words! I think ACKS attracts GMs and Players who like tinkering with game mechanics (as compared to flavor or story or setting). As result these forums are a treasure trove of insight into the game.

As for me, I view the rules like a body of common law rather than a mandate of statutory law. Each gamemaster is his own district court. When inconsistencies arise, then the appeals court will, of necessity, hand down a judgment. But the appeals court also learns from the rulings of the other courts and can adjust the common law when needed. The ACKS rulebook is the Restatement of the Common Law. (And now you know why ACKS calls you all Judges…)

46

Since I’ve started running ACKs, I have made “Each Campaign is a Law Unto Itself” my mantra.

47

Has anyone thought of just letting thief players use the default starting throws (and default progression) for the thief but let the player choose which skills they are assigned to?

For example:
Thief characters get the following set of throws:
6+, 14+, 17+, 17+, 18+, 18+, 19+
Arrange them as you see fit amongst the thief skills.
Essentially, you would have thief characters start with a reliable “go to” skill of their choice, a secondary skill they are pretty good at, and they would be pretty poor at the remaining thief skills until mid to high level.

48

I finally had the chance to thoroughly read the entire thread and here are my thoughts:

I don’t think flat skills are a good idea. It correlates to how proficiencies work, but it does not correlate with how class abilities generally work. Thief skills are the abilities of the thief and they should improve with experience just like a fighter’s fighting ability improves, a mage’s spellcasting improves, and so on. A thief shouldn’t have to pay proficiency slots to improve his skills.

I don’t think using equipment to “fix” thief skills is a good idea either. However I do like having them there to improve chances. They look like fun equipment options for skill-oriented characters, and it’s always nice to have a reason to get PCs to spend coin.

The encumbrance and thievery idea seems too complicated for a BX style game. I do like the clarifications for opening locks and removing traps. That helps GMs a lot and looks like it will keep game-flow moving.

The core of the problem to me isn’t so much a math issue, but a numbers issue. The starting numbers for thief skills are terrible, especially when compared to the chances of success for other classes using their class abilities. I think the thief skill chart should essentially be re-written to show progressions that improve low-level thieves and keep high level thieves pretty much the same. This can be easily done… in fact, many thief skills improve at 2 points/level a the higher levels… if anything that trend should be flipped.

This is what I’m thinking. I’d show it all in chart form if I knew how to do that on this forum, but instead I hope my description is sufficient:

  1. Every skill except Climb Walls and Hear Noise start with a throw 4 points lower than the current values. Climb Walls and Hear Noise remain the same. The progressions of all other thief skills improve by 1 point per level (just like Hear Noise does).

  2. Make the idea of a -4, -2, 0, +2, +4 range of modifiers part of attempting thief skills. This enables two things (see 3 & 4).

  3. You can add the equipment list in Alex’s post above to give you bonuses on certain skill attempts in certain situations.

  4. The GM can impose the -2, -4 when they make sense to skill attempts when he/she wants the throws to be more inline with current chances of success.

49

I really liked the suggestions around thief specific equipment when I first read them but the more I think about it the more issues come up…

Cons:

Added complexity / unnecessary specifying of assumed equipment

Unintended consequences (e.g. does camouflage cloak effect the Explorer’s difficult to spot ability?)

Hands out some of the thief’s mojo to other classes (e.g. Camouflage cloak, to a lesser degree ear trumpet)

Effectively just grants a +2 bonus to starting thief throws, why not just it bake into the numbers

Pros:

It makes sense to have the option to upgrade equipment in the way a fighter buys better armour and weapons

Let’s face it, players tend to love kewl equipment

Allows other classes to steal some of the thief’s mojo (if no one wants to play a thief) and allows some flexibility in character creation

Overall I don’t think I would put the new equipment in, at least not as written. However a couple of measures suggest themselves:

  1. Masterwork thieves tools / expanded thieves tools - a package covering all the equipment options that simply gives a +2 to all thief skill throws. Less fiddle, similar result

  2. Leave things be and focus on the special nature of thief skills (as bobloblah refers to upthread. There’s lots of good commentary on this in the OSR blogosphere - see http://web.fisher.cx/robert/infogami/On_thief_skills_in_classic_D&D for a good example)

  3. Overhaul the thief skill system rather than use equipment and case rules as a patch (obviously much more work!)

All that said I’d take option 3 and there are some great suggestions above. I think the best take is from jedavis, posted upthread from his blog. It has a good blend of flexibility without getting too complex. However, I would even go one step further and make all thief skills proficiencies, which can be taken multiple times providing +4 increases. If non thief classes want to dip their toes in the larcenous waters that’s ok, they still won’t compete with the thief and there will be an opportunity cost in terms of proficiencies passed over. Obviously the thief would need to be compensated with extra proficiencies each level. I think jedavis’s suggestions regarding frequency of proficiency purchase seem reasonable balancing factors.

50

“Padded Rigging” actually sounds like a very nice piece of adventuring equipment for any character! Consider the following change:

Gear Rigging – A series of belts, straps, pads, and harnesses, designed to keep items securely fastened and protectively enclosed. A character wearing gear rigging can ignore 1 stone worth of equipment for the purposes of encumbrance affecting movement. Gear rigging counts as clothing. Cost: 5 gp.

51

I’m definitely going to yank some ideas here to add to my list of house rules.

52

I think Alex was trying to address the issue without having to retroactively rewrite the class/re-balance the class creation rules etc.

I don’t like flat abilities either. Players like to feel like they’re getting better at things. As I mentioned before, however, I believe thieves should start out GOOD at things and get better. I don’t see thieves being good at their core abilities from the start as unbalancing in any way - I do think there’s a mental block in old school gaming to do so. If a fighter had a 15% chance to hit a kobold at first level and couldn’t get better than an AC of 2 people would not play a fighter. The same goes for thieves.

I allow attribute bonuses to affect thief skills. That combined with the fact that I’m a bit more generous than Core in how players roll for attributes at character creation so they’re pretty much guaranteed a good Dexterity score at the least give thieves an immediate bump. I’m also generous at handing out situational modifiers in the thief’s favor unless they’re doing something impossible or unrealistic. I don’t mind combining that with the extra equipment but I can see where it would irritate some people.

I would have a huge issue with making proficiencies improve thief skills, unless you completely rewrote the class and gave them a TON more proficiency slots as they level up. Specific proficiencies shouldn’t be mandatory takes for any class - a thief should be able to take acrobatics, knowledge, bribery, contortionist, combat tricks, etc. just like any other class and still improve in their core abilities. Otherwise the class really gets gimped and I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to play one under any circumstance. If you make thief skills proficiencies you pretty push a character to spend all of their slots in specific places in order to try and get the best possible bonus.

One of the good things about skills improving as you level automatically is that it allows thief skills that you rarely use improve without you needing to invest in them - if you were required to invest in them to improve them, skills like hide in shadows and move silently would get a ton of love, and skills like pick pockets/hear noise almost no love(except in corner case ‘builds’). The current way skills improve, even if the number are terrible, actually make a well-rounded character to start. Proficiencies that are not tied to the base thief skills only serve to make the class more interesting… or at least more specific to the player’s idea of who that particular thief is and what odd tricks they can pull off.

53

And please forgive my lack of ability to edit some of the clunk in my previous post. >:-(

54

I thank you and Lloyd for verbalizing the things in this proposal that were making me uneasy. Encumbrance and multiple gear modifiers are definitely too complicated for my tastes - I much prefer most mundane gear to be useful primarily for enabling Devious Plans, with mechanical modifiers mostly the province of magical gear. I could definitely get behind a lower starting point and a slower progression down to the same values that high-level thieves already have; this sort of makes sense, when you consider that an expert in an area is likely to learn new things less quickly than a novice (though that’s already somewhat modeled by exponential XP growth).

I am also definitely considering writing a heavily-modified thief class that runs on class proficiencies for all of its skills (provided that I can eke enough average proficiencies per level out of the trade-off rules for it to be competitive with the current implementation).

55

moorcrys wrote: “I think Alex was trying to address the issue without having to retroactively rewrite the class/re-balance the class creation rules etc.”

I think that can easily be done with just one major change and one minor change. No need to change class creation rules or hijinks that I’m aware of.

  1. The major change would be re-writing the thief skill table on p. 23 in ACKS. I think a good move is reducing the current values on all skills except CW and HN by 4 and have them improve by 1/level. That puts all those skills at or within 1 point of the current value (except for PP which goes well into the negatives). The net result would be:
  • a 1st - 6th level thief is 20% better in 6 of 8 skills
  • a 7th thief is 10%-15% better in 6 of 8 skills
  • an 8th level thief is 5% - 10% better in 6 of 8 skills
  • a 9th level thief is +/- 5% better/worse in 6 of 8 skills
  • a 10th level thief is almost exactly the same
  • a 11th -14th level thief is very similar, with all scores except PP being either 5% worse, or sometimes 5% better.
  1. The minor change would be that all hijinks except HN are performed at a -4 penalty to the throw. This would leave the current expectations of hijinks by henchmen, ruffians, and followers exactly the same if they’re levels 1-6, almost the same if they’re level 7, and progressively worse at levels 8+. To mitigate the worse progression at for level 8+ henchmen and ruffians, you could say “if the member doing the hijinks is 8th level or higher, he only suffers a -2 penalty”, but I’m not sure that is necessary unless syndicates have a large number of members that high in level (I’m guessing not).
56

“That puts all those skills at or within 1 point of the current value (except for PP which goes well into the negatives).”

Disregard this sentence in the above post.

57

Beragon, your approach is not at all a bad one; it’s good and has the benefit, as you and moorcys pointed out, of leaving all the current class-building rules compatible.

Here are what I see as the advantages of the equipment/encumbrance based solution I offered earlier:

  1. It leaves the current class-building rules compatible with the new system.
  2. It leaves ACKS compatible with LL and B/X-based games.
  3. It makes a thief with better equipment better at doing his job, which offers more verisimilitude.
  4. It makes a thief who is light on his feet better at hiding, sneaking, and climbing, which offers more verisimilitude.
    I think the equipment/encumbrance mechanics can be streamlined a bit to make them more rules-light.
58

I really want to like it, but can’t. The equipment is too fiddly, and raises too many questions about why others don’t use it, why doesn’t every Thief already have it, why do we have to track it, etc. There is presumably a host of equipment other classes use by default that isn’t spelled out in the rules, either. The encumbrance rule, on the other hand, is nice. Simple, concrete, easy to implement, easy to track, maintains backwards compatibility…it really has a lot going for it. I’m not sure it’s needed for all the reasons I mentioned upthread, but I intend to test it out in my own game over the next little while. Something like:

If a Thief’s encumbrance is 5 stone or less, he gains a +2 bonus to throws for climbing walls, moving silently, and hiding in shadows. If his encumbrance is 2 stone or less, this increases to a +4 bonus to move silently and hide in shadows.

I’m a bit worried about its interaction with the existing proficiencies that benefit these Thief abilities (i.e. devaluing them), and I’m not convinced it’s even needed, but we’ll see.

59

With all due respect, I think you might be being a bit grognardy about the idea of thieves having equipment!

Here’s the current equipment. Comments about each.

EQUIPMENT THAT IS TOO FIDDLY*******************
Armament Blackener: A sealing caulk which, when applied to weapons or armor, permanently darkens their material. Blackened weapons and armor can be ignored when hiding in shadows for purposes of the encumbrance and thievery rules (see the Adventuring chapter, p. XX). A pint of armament blackener will blacken 4 stone worth of weapons and armor. Cost: 10gp.

APM: The encumbrance from items is too small to bother tracking. Delete.

Armament Oil: Lubricating oil which quiets the creaking and squeaking of leather armor, scabbards, and other metal and leather gear. Oiled armor and weapons can be ignored when moving silently for the purposes of the encumbrance and thievery rules (see the Adventuring chapter, p. XX). A pint of armament oil will keep 4 stone worth of armor and weapons oiled for one week. Cost: 2gp.

APM: Any self-respecting thief will oil his armor regularly. The rule of subtracting from encumbrance is annoying. Delete.

Rope, Knotted Climbing: A rope of silk or hemp, carefully knotted at arm length intervals to aid in easy climbing. Any character may climb a knotted climbing rope with a proficiency throw of 2+, adjusted by the better of the character’s Strength or Dexterity modifier. Cost: 2gp.

APM: Adventuring proficiency should cover knowing how to knot rope. Delete.

EQUIPMENT THAT MAKES GOOD SENSE*****************
Ear Trumpet: A funnel-shaped tube of silver, wood, shell, or horn that, when placed in its wearer’s ear canal, raises the apparent volume of sound. A character using an ear trumpet gains a +2 bonus to proficiency throws to hear noise. The bonus does not apply to hijinks. Cost: 15gp.

APM: The technology to create such items existed in the Middle Ages. The utility is real. The idea of having rot grubs crawl up these delights me.

Padded Shoes: A pair of soft-heeled shoes with padding designed to dampen the sound of walking. A character wearing padded shoes gains a +2 bonus to proficiency throws to move silently. Padded shoes cannot be worn with armor heavier than leather. They are destroyed if the character is immersed in water or damaged by fire. Cost: 15gp.

APM: The technology to create such items existed in the Middle Ages. They were widely used by historical ninja. Yes, all thieves would use them–that’s the point, to give thieves a buff. But it creates interest because its possible for the thief to be deprived of them. It’s a buff that doesn’t stack with elven boots. And the idea that equipment is annoying track makes no sense to me. All fighters use swords, but we don’t say that swords are too annoying to track. All archers use arrows, but we don’t say that arrows are too annoying to track. Moreover, this also gives characters in swords-and-sorcery games a reason to occasionally not wear plate armor, because it gives them at least a chance of hiding and sneaking (especially when combined with the low-encumbrance rules).

Thieves’ Garb: A suit of clothing, including hooded cloak, tunic, leggings, gloves, and scarf, woven in a camouflaging color. Thieves’ garb is available in different colors for use in various environments – brown for hills/mountains, green for forest/jungle, grey for settlements, white for tundra, etc. When wearing thieves’ garb appropriate to the environment, a character gains a +2 bonus to any proficiency throws to hide in shadows, avoid being spotted, and evade in the wilderness. Characters wearing thieves’ garb can always hide in shadows or avoid being spotted with a throw of at least 18+. Thieves’ garb imposes a -2 penalty when its camouflage color is inappropriate to the environment (e.g. white garb in the jungle). The bonus and penalty do not apply to hijinks. Thieves’ garb can be worn over leather armor, but not heavier types. Cost: 25gp.

APM: As above, the technology to create such gear existed in the Middle Ages. It was widely used by historical ninja. Moreover, this also gives characters in swords-and-sorcery games a reason to occasionally not wear plate armor, because it gives them at least a chance of hiding and sneaking (especially when combined with the low-encumbrance rules).

MASTERWORK EQUIPMENT***********
Thieves’ Tools, Superior: Superior thieves’ tools grant a +2 bonus to proficiency throws to open locks and remove traps. If the thief rolls a natural 1 while attempting to pick a lock, the tools may make a saving throw versus Death (at 1/2 thief’s level of experience) to resist breaking (see the Adventuring chapter, p. XX). The bonus does not apply to hijinks. Cost: 200gp.

Thieves’ Tools, Masterwork: Masterwork thieves’ tools grant a +4 to proficiency throws to open locks and remove traps. If the thief rolls a natural 1 while attempting to pick a lock, the tools may make a saving throw versus Death (at the thief’s level) to resist breaking (see the Adventuring chapter, p. XX). The bonus does not apply to hijinks. Cost: 1,600gp.

APM: This equipment is merely the application of my rules (also posted on these forums) for masterwork swords. Frankly, if we think it’s reasonable to track and offer masterwork swords for fighters, I don’t understand why masterwork thieves’ tools for thieves are too fiddly.