Flat Thief Abilities

General ACKS Forums General Discussion
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66

More musings:

Increasing the chances of success for the following thief skills: OPEN LOCKS, FIND TRAPS, REMOVE TRAPS

THIEVES’ TOOLS COMPANION KIT
A companion set of tools to use in conjunction with the standard set of thieves’ tools, this set includes drills, pliers, scissors, rods, blocks, pads, and a magnifying glass. A thief using this kit in addition to a set of thieves’ tools gains a +2 bonus to proficiency throws to Open Locks and Remove Traps.
Cost: 35 gp

OPEN LOCKS
The thief may make additional attempts on a particular lock as long as the previous attempt failed by 4 or less. Otherwise, additional attempts on the same lock are fruitless until reaching a new level of experience. The Judge may apply a bonus or penalty to attempts, depending on the complexity of the lock.

FIND TRAPS
If the thief fails the proficiency throw by 4 or less, he knows a trap exists, but does not know its exact nature. A thief may spend more time searching for traps to increase his chances of success. If he spends double the amount of time required (2 turns), he gains a +2 bonus to the attempt.

REMOVE TRAPS
The thief may make additional attempts to remove a trap as long as the previous attempt failed by 4 or less. Otherwise, additional attempts are fruitless until reaching a new level of experience. The Judge may apply bonuses or penalties to the roll, depending on the complexity of the trap.

67

A couple comments on the above:

  • The cost of thieves’ tools + thieves’ tools companion kit is 60gp… just like plate armor for a fighter.
  • whether or not the thief can attempt to disarm a trap he knows exists but does not know the exact nature of… that has been intentionally unanswered.
68

Brilliant. I am going to incorporate your “thieves’ tools companion kit” and “find traps” rule into Heroic Fantasy ACKS.

I might also make the bonus +4 at 5 stone or less encumbrance (e.g. 120’ move) and +2 at 7 stone or less (90’ move), but disregard the notion of adding or subtracting encumbrance from armor based on oiling and blackening and so on.

So this will result in:

Open Locks: +2 bonus (from companion kit), re-try on fail, break tools on 1
Find Traps: +2 bonus (from companion kit), vague idea of trap at 4 or less
Remove Traps: +2 bonus (from companion kit), re-try on fail, break tools on 1
Hear Noise: +2 bonus (from ear-trumpet)
Climb/Hide/Sneak: +2 to +4 bonus (from encumbrance), +2 bonus (from gear)

We’ll see how that plays out.

69

I like it. Much more concise. Here’s another piece of equipment for thieves (hope you didn’t dump INT):

FINDING AND REMOVING TRAPS FOR DUMMIES (POCKET VERSION) by Robin Lairs.
A thief who references this manual while searching for or disarming a trap gains a +2 bonus to the attempt, but the attempt takes twice as long.

:stuck_out_tongue:

70

My final musings on this. Some pretty cool stuff thanks to this thread, and it’s convinced me (on paper at least) that making these adjustments for thief PCs will enhance gaming at my group’s table. I plan on giving the following a go in my next session and see how we like them (currently a 3rd level thief in the party). I must admit that I’m torn over whether the equipment + a few key rules additions approach, or the thief skill chart re-write approach is better. I think they’re both equally good, but I want to try this one out simply because it just feels cool. If I find the thief player struggling with applying these adjustments to thief skill attempts, then I’ll consider the chart approach.

Anyway, it should hold us over until Heroic Fantasy ACKS is published!

NEW EQUIPMENT
Thieves’ Tools Companion Kit: A companion set of tools to use in conjunction with the standard set of thieves’ tools, this set includes drills, pliers, scissors, rods, blocks, pads, tweezers, shims, and a magnifying glass. A thief using this kit in addition to a set of thieves’ tools gains a +2 bonus to proficiency throws to Open Locks, Find Traps, and Remove Traps. Cost: 35 gp.

Adventurer’s Harness: Also known as a burglar’s harness, this is a set of belts, straps, sheaths, and cases designed to securely fasten items to one’s body without hampering movement. A character wearing an adventurer’s harness can ignore 1 stone’s worth of equipment when calculating encumbrance. It cannot secure heavy items, or coins and similar items. It cannot be worn over armor heavier than chain mail. Cost: 10 gp.

THIEF SKILLS (ADDITIONAL NOTES)
Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, and Climb Walls: Characters with these skills can increase their chances of success by being light on their feet. If the character’s encumbrance is 4 stone or less, he gains a +2 bonus to proficiency throws for these skills. If the character’s encumbrance is 2 stone or less, the bonus is +4.

Open Locks: A thief can attempt to pick a particular lock multiple times. As long as the previous failed result was more than half the result needed to succeed, he may make another attempt.

Example: a 1st level thief needs an 18+ to pick a lock. His proficiency throw results in a 10. He fails, but may try again. His second attempt is a 17. He fails, but may try again. His third attempt is a 9. He fails, and any further attempts to try that lock automatically fail until gaining a level.

Find Traps: If the thief fails a proficiency throw to Find Traps by 4 or less, he knows a trap exists (if there actually is one), but does not know its exact nature.

Remove Traps: A thief can attempt to disarm a trap multiple times. As long as the previous failed result was more than half the result needed to succeed, he may make another attempt.

Pick Pockets: A thief can try to suddenly grab an item without regard to being noticed – doing so grants a +4 bonus to the proficiency throw, but the intended victim automatically notices regardless of whether it succeeds or not. The item may not be a weapon in hand (that’s a disarm attempt).

71

Wouldn’t the high level Dwarves Fury have a higher AC?
Fleshrunes, +3 shield, ring, cloak, braces AC 7, and Dex 18 for a sick:
6+4+3+3+3+7+3=29

72

Nicely done!

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It’s my understanding that flesh runes do not stack with armor or things that count as armor, and that Bracers of Armor count as armor (“grant the user an AC as though he were wearing armor”, “no other armor may be worn with the bracers” emphasis on “other”).

74

I think I am just going to sit quietly and work on Dwimmermount because clearly I’m so knee deep in dungeon design I don’t remember my own rules as clearly as you guys do.

If anybody needs me, I’m over on the Kickstarter page.

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[/necro]

One simple fix might be to let a 1st level thief trade off one or more of his/her thief skills (similar to the trade-offs in the custom class rules) in exchange for a bonus proficiency (selected from a small list which improves one of their skills, such as alertness, cat burglary, lockpicking, skulking, and trap finding; possibly other custom ones with similar effects of ~+4 skill bonus). Changing the class with a more elaborate system of trade offs could put off certain thief skills until later in exchange for improved early skills.

I don’t think this necessarily balances the class, but it gives low level thieves a few areas where they excel so they might be useful long enough to survive to gain a few levels.

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I was actually contemplating necroing this thread as well. I decided to expiriment a bit with what would have otherwise been a standard bandit encounter and made them thieves instead. For several rounds, half of them tried to hide in shadows with the intent of sneaking up and attacking the squishy mages and archers.

Suffice it to say, every single roll was a failure, even for the level 4 thief boss. We do play-by-post, so the thieves are currently in the process of getting eviscerated by fighters and dwarven vaultguards.

I understand thieves are not meant to be competitive with fighters in combat, but they’re not really even competitive with clerics, who’s heavy armor is disproportionately more relevant at level 1 than being able to hide in shadows. I’m not even convinced the XP differential is sufficient. 1250 still seems expensive for a strict interpretation of the rules. It’s possible that clever roleplay and the DM saying “oh, a thief could do that no problem” could close the gap, but as-is, hide in shadows and its ilk just don’t stack up.

77

There is, perhaps, a third option of changing the type of roll for the thief skills, and go from 1d20 to something with a curve, like a 2d6/3d6.

A little massaging of the target numbers from the first table in the thread plus a bit of improvement over the remaining 14 levels could see a novice thief succeeding somewhat often, and a master thief flubbing at almost the same percentages they do at the current numbers.

3d6 with Alex’s very first table gets the level 1 thief between 25%-50% successful. Moving those numbers down over time to the 5-7 range gets the master thief at 90%-98% successful, which is in-line with the table from ACKS pg 23.

I dunno if breaking from ACKS’ consistency in using d20 is more outside the bounds than what else has been proposed. 3d6 at least gets you near a 1-20 range; 2d10 would also work at very similar chances.

78

I wasn’t there, obviously, so I don’t know what you did, but it sounds like you’re mishandling (if you’ll forgive the term) the probabilities.

The bandits, assuming that the PCs aren’t looking for them, might only trigger Hear Noise rolls by the PCs, followed by a Surprise roll only for a PC that “hears something” (successful Hear Noise, but don’t tell them anything, yet), followed by a Move Silently roll by anyone that might have been heard by those PCs that aren’t surprised. Keep in mind that a group of Thieves, if forced to all succeed or everyone fails are at a ridiculous disadvantage, and this probably doesn’t make any sense to adjudicate this situation that way (for example, a group of six 10th level Thieves are going to fail ~40% of the time by this metric). To me it makes waaaay more sense that either A.) only a Thief closing on a target who made their Hear Noise and passed a Surprise roll (i.e. a total 10% chance) should even be forced to roll Move Silently (i.e. one Thief), or B.) a group of Thieves moving together (i.e. following in each other’s footsteps) should make one roll at the worst probability. Either way, Surprise is quite likely, but more importantly, the odds for or against don’t become preposterous as soon as more than a couple individuals are involved.

The above all assumes that the Bandits are moving. If they know that the PCs are coming and wait, unmoving, in ambush, I would not allow the PCs the chance of Hear Noise. Unless the PCs are quite vigilant or the terrain is extremely open and difficult to hide in, I would automatically impose surprise. If they are vigilant, I’d allow a Surprise roll by everyone, but still impose a penalty due to walking into a prepared ambush.

79

If I’ve interpreted the rules correctly (and it’s entirely possible I haven’t), you roll hide in shadows, which is 19+ for level 1 thieves, in order to hide assuming conditions exist. These thieves were attempting to close distance with the party in order to backstab. When hide in shadows fails, you still have a 2 in 6 chance the party is surprised… unless this is outdoors and the party has an elf.

Only once you’re hidden does move silently come into play. successfully moving silently negates a chance to hear noise, and even if you fail to move silently and they hear noise, there’s still a chance at surprise.

That being said, room for adjudication for the situation is fine and probably necessary, but some guidelines would be helpful. Attempting to run thieves as written results in a lot of sadness for the thieves. I even had one player who, being especially risk averse, was not well suited to being an assassin and converted her character to a bladedancer.

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Nope, it’s Move Silently. But that’s not even really the problem. The issue is that the way you are adjudicating it, it is basically impossible for anyone to ambush the party. Ever. Does that make sense in your world? I know in my campaigns it doesn’t.

Assuming Hide in Shadows is required, only Thieves can ever avoid visual detection. The trouble here is that Hide in Shadows is not a PC’s ability to “hide”, it is specifically a Thief’s ability to disappear (i.e. cannot be seen) in shadowy conditions, even if that would otherwise be impossible for non-Thieves (or Assassins and what-have-you) to hide in, and a Thief must be motionless in order to do so.

For everybody else there are a four main possibilities, and remaining unseen is a function of either someone not actively looking for you, or someone not hearing you, and hence, not looking in your direction, or not being somewhere that you can be seen, or being invisible.

If the PCs are paying attention (e.g. watching for enemies sneaking up on them; monsters can only maintain this kind of alertness for 1 turn), and could theoretically see the Bandits, the Bandits will have to be invisible, or Hide in Shadows somewhere the PCs will move to or by, or be very well hidden. If that occurs, the PCs will be surprised. If the PCs aren’t paying that kind of careful attention to ambush (which I would say is most of the time) but aren’t distracted, they get to roll Surprise. This is normally 3+ on D6 to avoid being surprised, however, the Bandits being hidden and waiting in ambush can apply a penalty to this roll. I would actually say that unless the PCs are very carefully looking, as per the first option, well hidden Bandits who aren’t moving will be virtually certain to surprise the party. If the PCs are distracted (e.g. conversing, arguing, dealing with difficult terrain, guiding problematic animals, or any number of other things the Judge thinks are distracting), they get their Hear Noise chance (don’t have it in front of me, but I believe it’s 18+ from Adventuring Proficiency). If they fail, they get ambushed/Surprised. If they make it, those that do have to roll for Surprise as above (3+ on D6, or worse if the Bandits are hidden, etc.). Those that also manage to avoid Surprise must now contend with the fact that your Bandit Thieves can Move Silently (unlike normal Bandits, and assuming they’re even moving). Any Thief passing their Move Silently can not be heard by those who made their Hear Noise roll, full stop. PCs (and only those who Heard Noise and aren’t Surprised) would then be aware of any Thief that failed Move Silently, but only that Thief, at which point the PCs are surprised by the rest of the Thieves.

The problem with the way you’re adjudicating the situation, as I started this post saying, is that it leads to a result where it is virtually impossible for anyone to Surprise the party. To me, that’s patently ridiculous, so adjudicating the situation in this way makes no sense to me. Anytime you start stacking multiple rolls and requiring all of them to pass or fail to obtain a result, you will quickly land in the realm of absurdity, and Thief skills are no different.

81

I would argue that you are not running thieves as written.

Hiding in Shadows is defined (ACKS 24) as “A thief may attempt to skulk unseen in the cover of darkness.” While ACKS doesn’t explain that any further, a common interpretation of the ability is that it’s not just the ability to hide (anyone can hide, given something to hide behind), but the ability to hide in shadows, with “the cover of darkness” as your only form of concealment. If I’m standing ten feet in front of you on a dark night, with nothing between us, you’re guaranteed to see me, but a thief with hide in shadows could pull it off - he may only have a 10% chance to fade into the shadows that well at first level, but at least he can try, while it’s simply impossible for you or me.

Similarly, in the Surprise and Sneaking rules on ACKS 99, we are told that “If the monsters are watching an area that is dimly lit or otherwise offers some concealment, a thief (or similar class) may attempt to hide in shadows.” Hide in shadows isn’t for things as easy as walking up behind an unaware target (again, anyone can do that), it lets you move through a dimly lit area unseen, even if there is no cover, while someone is watching the area. This is coming pretty close to what I believe 3e/Pathfinder would call “Hide in Plain Sight” (which they only needed to add to the system because they watered Hide in Shadows down to just plain Hide).

So, no, the thieves probably don’t need to use hide in shadows at all in this situation. Just wait a moment until the targets are distracted (unless they’re diligent sentries, most people will be “distracted” most of the time - talking to someone, lost in thought, checking their gear, whatever - or go for the classic “throw a rock to get them to look in the wrong place” bit), then move up with being heard as your only worry, which is a 92% success rate for a level 1 thief (or 80% if the target has Alertness).

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Hey Jard, when an encounter occurs, here’s how you adjudicate it when one side is actively trying to sneak up, sneak past, or ambush:

Determine target’s watchfulness:

  1. Actively watching (sneaking party automatically detected)
  2. Passively watching (surprise roll*…)
  3. Distracted (hear noise throw*… if passed, then make a surprise roll*…)

*If the target fails any of these, the sneaking party may move 1 round without being detected.

Also, as someone said above, monsters (and presumably PCs) can only maintain a state of actively watching for 1 turn.

Now, the skills Hide in Shadows, and Move Silently are ON TOP of all this:

  1. A successful Hide in Shadows throw means the target is considered “Distracted” regardless of watchfulness.
  2. A successful Move Silently throw means any throw to hear noise automatically fails.

There’s more to it than this IMO, but it’s beyond the scope of the rules and into the realm of Judge adjudication (i.e. taking into account conditions, environment, PCs describing actions, etc)

83

I feel like I wasn’t that far off the mark.

*Marching party is at watchfulness level 2 (passive), roll hide in shadows to change to watchfulness level 3 (distracted).
*Thieves fail to hide in shadows (we can discuss the merits of forcing everyone to make a roll as well, but ignore it for the moment), therefore surprise is determined at watchfulness level 2, a surprise roll.
*Party has elves, so they are not surprised on 2+ instead of 3+. Party rolls a 2, so the elves detect the thieves and alert the party, who can’t act until the following round.
*Thieves act in the surprise round from 160’ (distance rolled for outdoor encounter). They advance to 120’ and fire their shortbows at long range, getting only a +2 for surprise since backstab only applies to melee.

Now, some ways I could have done this differently: I could have declared the party was at watchfulness level 3 (distracted) from the outset. It makes sense in retrospect as the only way an ambush was likely to succeed, but how does one adjucate this on the fly? How watchful should one assume a marching party is? Moreover, the distance rolled seems to be* at which the two parties can potentially spot each other. Generally, without stealthers, I’m rolling surprise for each side to determine if one side is aware of the other.

*substituing in the wilderness variations to the explanation for it in the dungeon section:

“When an encounter begins, the Judge will roll to determine the encounter distance in feet separating the characters and monster(s). If the monster encounter is preplanned, the Judge may already know how far the monster is from the characters. Encounter distance will be limited by the layout of the and the available light sources as well.
Next, the Judge rolls to see if the characters or the monster are surprised (see the Surprise table on p. 95). Then the Judge will check the monster’s reaction on the Monster Reaction table (again, see below). Using this information, the Judge will decide what action the monster takes. At this stage the characters will also decide what actions to take, such as whether to fight, flee, or try to talk to the monster.”

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*Marching party is at watchfulness level 2 (passive), roll hide in shadows to change to watchfulness level 3 (distracted).

Given that the examples of “distraction” on ACKS 99 include “conversation with friends”, I would consider “distracted” to be the default level of awareness unless the party knows that they’re in hostile territory and are proceeding with a moderate level of caution, in which case they would be “passive”.

*Thieves fail to hide in shadows

If they’re waiting in a prepared ambush, then they can be assumed to be reasonably well-hidden. I wouldn’t make them roll to hide in shadows until they actually move or initiate the attack.

*Thieves act in the surprise round from 160'

The thieves have the opportunity to wait as long as they like before springing the ambush, so, although they would notice the party at 160’, they would have the option of waiting until they get closer before actually attacking.

So, the way I would have handled it:

  • The party moves along a well-traveled road through settled territory. Since they have no reason to expect trouble, they are moving casually, talking to each other or perhaps singing a good traveling song. (distracted)

  • The thieves spot the party from 160’ away, but continue lying in wait as the party approaches. They let the party get to within 70’, then spring from cover and rush to attack.

  • The party rolls for surprise as the thieves break cover. They roll a 2. The elves call out a warning as they move to defend themselves, but it’s too late - the humans and dwarves are caught flat-footed and susceptible to backstabs. If an individual thief succeeds in his hide in shadows roll, then even the elves are effectively surprised by that thief unless they successfully hear noise (and he also fails to move silently).

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Technically they were coming close to where they roughly had been told a hideout of some sort existed (there were conflicting rumors of what exactly was out there), but I can still see that defaulting to traveling being the “distracted” level of watchfulness makes sense for a random encounter.

However, if the stationary thieves are essentially undetectable (they wouldn’t make noise either, after all), it becomes a question of how to fairly judge how close the party will travel to their ambush spot.

Of course, turning this on its head and using it to the benefit of thief PCs/Henchmen is a bit harder. The most common time to want to use it is in the dungeon, where they’re often the mobile party coming upon stationary watches, or if there’s a random encounter it’s usually two parties barreling into each other, especially since the low level thieves are likely too scared to scout too far ahead. Add in light sources being used vs. predominantly darkvision enabled monsters, things get even tougher for a player wanting to be a thief.