The way you talk about and run thieves is very similar to the way we always did it in B/X back in 1981. All PCs other than a thief try to sneak up on a guard or move past the guard undetected, the guard checks for surprise and if surprised the PC is successful. If a thief tries to do the same thing they make a Move Silently roll. If successful, autosurprise and autosuccess. If the thief fails, the guard checks for surprise just as if a non-thief was trying to sneak. We ignored the fail lock picking and you cannot try again rule. We allowed multiple attempts but each attempt requires a turn. They could keep trying as many times as they like but failure after failure meant more wandering monster checks because turns are passing by. Same for disarming traps. We also always saw the pick pockets skill more like legerdemain and would allow the thief a surprise dagger toss or the like at the start of a combat in certain situations, like if a parlay went bad and was erupting in hostilities, if the thief made their pick pockets roll. The attack may still miss of course, the successful pick pockets roll just allowed for the attempt. Totally agree about the climbing skill. I always think of the cover of the AD&D PH with the thieves prying lose the gem eyes of the idol. Without the thieves, the party is not going to be able to get those gems because they can’t reach them. Another under appreciated skill to me as well is the read languages skill. Even outside of magical scrolls that skill can be very useful. Finally, we used the climb percentage as an appraise skill percentage as well. For treasures like gems, jewelry, tapestries, works of art, candle sticks, etc. the thief could make a roll to appraise the value. If successful the thief knew the value. Failure and the DM would give a crazy high or low value to the object (DM made this roll obviously). We used encumbrance so this was very valuable to the party so that they could make an educated decision about what treasures to definitely carry and which ones could be left behind. Agreed, poor fighters overall, especially defensively with poor HPs and high AC. Offensively they are not bad but they better finish off the enemy because if the enemy gets to attack them back, look out. Race as class is another video you could do if you haven’t already, but another thing I like about B/X is there are only human thieves. I do not like demihumans thieves for a number of reasons but the main one is having demihuman thieves really cheapens human thieves IMO. I love the class. I know there are people who do not and just have them be NPC hirelings, but I think the game is more fun with them as PCs.
It comes as no surprise to me that players who have only ever played wotc versions of the game think and say a class that isn't suited for combat is a bad class. Bothers me that people can't seem to understand that combat in dungeons and dragons is supposed to be extremely dangerous and not a display of superhero powers like in wotc versions. Thiefs are great role playing characters.
Plenty of people who play OSR and older games make the same claim of the thief being no good - I don’t think what system you play decides how you role play
@@BanditsKeep I haven't really encountered older players who have complained about the thief but you are right. Games do not decide how you choose to role play. I definitely feel wotc polluted the minds of modern role players into thinking everything has to be geared around combat and all of that.
@@nordicmaelstrom4714 D&D was the child of a wargame, there have always been players focused on combat. It seems you just want to be negative towards newer players/editions and I hope that is not true.
@@BanditsKeep I'm aware of the history of the game. I am in fact a wargamer. I'm not negative towards new players in fact quite the opposite. I am however extremely negative when it comes to wotc and its games. I avoid everything wotc. Gave all their editions a shot and just felt their games ruined the hobby. I have unfortunately encountered far too many wotc fanboys who soured me on a lot of things. I will never play their society play ever again. I don't mean to come off negative or angry or anything like that. I don't seek out fans of those games and run them down. I just avoid those games and if newer players want to try the older stuff the table always has a spot is my saying.
@@nordicmaelstrom4714 I prefer to keep negativity out of my sphere of the hobby, please refrain from that type of post here - plenty of places online to hate/criticize /blame wotc for ruining the game - to me it's all D&D.
If your thief failed to open the lock right now, you can always spend more time trying to pick it. It does incur the danger of having a wandering guard stumble upon your thief or your group.
We used that option. It takes a turn (with all that means of torch use etc) and a normal d6 encounter roll. If the PCs have managed to increase the encounter roll, like raising it to 3-in-6 because a guard pushed a PANICBUTTON, they like this chance even less.
Add +5% per Dexterity bonus to hide in shadows, move silently, pick pockets, open locks and disarm traps. Add +5% per Intelligence bonus to finding traps.
I like it. I'd do it 50/50 tho = use dex to HS, MS and PP, but leave locks and traps related skills to intelligence. It gives more reasons to put a higher score in INT, plus it makes DEX a little less overpowered than it already is (compared to using DEX as a bonus for most skills+missile+AC+...)
Bonus scales so slowly in older editions. What if you converted every 10% of chance the class normally gives into a -1 bonus on a d20 Roll Under ability check, Dex or Int depending on the task.
How I always saw it is that the thief skills are always doing something above and beyond. Anyone can look for a poison needle trap or try to pick a lock or try to move quietly. Thieves don't move quietly, they move *silently*. A thief is finding a trap and but also is removing the trap just with a roll, totally neutralizing it. I think you can see this design philosophy in how climb sheer surfaces works. Anyone can climb, thieves can climb like a mountain goat and free climb up basically flat walls. So, any thief skill should be treated as beyond what a normal person could even attempt. Likewise, the thief is making a separate check. They make a check to move silently, and if they fail they can still try to sneak, it just isn't silent. If they fail to remove a trap, they can still try to disarm it, they just don't get to do it automatically.
i play adnd theif but i always loved the underdogness of the class, It always feels like a class that requires more thought and planning for your action. I just wish my group didnt think of them as a sub fighter though for the reasons meantioned. I get so much sass for not wanting to open doors after haven checked for traps and to chose to get out of combat till i have reinforcements.
One way to help low level Thieves....is too assign a "bonus" score to weak locks....ie, +50% etc, or automatic for a Thief, for early door locks chests and such. Conversely a difficult lock could be -25% to a pick lock try. Same for pick pocket....loose fitting pockets might be easier, while some might be deep and tight and therefor difficult...+/- to add some challenges or help. Climb walls....same thing ...its a rough wall....you have a piton and spikes...could be +75%....or its a negative plane and slick it could be -25 to 50%.... We as DM's can modify everything to make the game better.
I think the only change the b/x thief needs is that backstab should scale, like it does in AD&D. 2x damage just really isn't that much by the time you're level 6. It'll probably just leave you standing next to a very angry enemy with plenty of hp left, and desire to murder you.
in adnd 2nd ed. the discretionary points for thief skills made a huge difference for me. instead of 6 poor skill at lv 1, you had 4 poor skills and 2 not good skills. at lv. 2 you had 2 decent skills and and 4 poor skills. at lv 3, 2 good skills and 4 poor skills. after that, start working on improving a couple of those poor skills, or max out the good skills first.
I think the AD&D 2nd thief is the way to go, or at least something similar with the ability to specialize. The single greatest thing about 2nd was the customization potential, especially the speciality priests. It made the cleric and Druid kinda weird but designing your own priesthoods was like a mini game itself.
I allow the BX thief to add dexterity to all their thief abilities except climb walls. It adds a nice but reasonable bonus especially since I'm not a fan of letting games go to high levels.
Durina Nafeel, from Crusade (a Babylon 5 spinoff) was a perfect example of a thief. She snuck around, but not scouting ahead, but through the cracks and up the side of buildings. She is what made me think theives would be interesting.
Some of my own thief tips: 1. If at all possible, have a CON bonus. 2. Stay out of melee. A brave thief only lives long in his companions' memories. 3. Try not to "pull a Black Dougal" and put yourself in a situation where you're wagering your life on a long shot percentile roll. 4. Play up the social aspect of the class. Know who your guild contacts are and what they can do for you. Don't be afraid to gently remind the DM how useful a streetwise character should be in almost any urban adventure. 5. If the system allows it, multi-classing is your friend.
Love this video. Mostly I agree with you on all points. I think of thief skills as pretty much super power level skills but in a very narrow window. You pointed out Hide in Shadows. Yeah that is hiding in a dang shadow. Moving Silently isn't moving quietly. Anyone in soft shoes and not in heavy armor can move quietly. A thief can move silently. I could go on and on. A lot of people think it is an anomaly that the thief skills are measured with % while other abilities are a x in 6. I disagree. The point of that is that these are special skills. The only skill they share in common with other classes is listening and the thief is already inhumanly good and only going to get better. I think people look at the very low starting skills and miss a point. All B/X characters start bad at their job. I would say they are more or less at an apprentice state and when they make it to say fifth level they are journeymen. This game was originally designed to go to 36 levels. So yes you stink at everything at level 1 and you run away a lot. And you don't take jobs that need a hero, because you aren't one, yet. Hell I make most town guard captains in my game 5 or 6th level. Why would I bother hiring some rat stabber for a real problem. I tend to move games along pretty quick to about 3rd level. Then characters have a bit of HP and a bit of experience, and a few tricks up their sleeves, but there are 33 levels left to go. Well I will chatter on more in some other post. Love your videos.
Hi Daniel, thanks for the videos! I am a new subscriber and am slowly making my way through your catalogue of episodes. They are all very good, and I’ve learned at least one new thing from every one that I’ve watched, but this one is especially great. Easily the best advice in one place for how to handle the old-school thief! Looking forward to absorbing more of your content.
I run 1/2e with a homebrew for the Thief that expands bonuses and penalties for abilities, fleshes out how the skills are affected by abilities and situations and combines some that we felt were overly granular (Pick Locks and Find/Remove Traps was consolidated into Disable Device, Move Silently and Hide in Shadows = Stealth) to simplify and accelerate play for the class. Also, based on the level of success or failure, the game world is affected in that a massive success (rolling 01 or succeeding by 50 or more means the player may achieve above and beyond or never have to make a check in that scenario again -say for climbing a specific wall or surface). I like the idea that a success or failure shouldn’t always be the morning drive to work but should have real consequences that impact the trajectory of game play.
Interesting- I disagree about “stealth” though - anyone can be stealthy (that’s what surprise is for) a thief can hide in SHADOWS and move SILENTLY (caps for emphasis where I think many miss it)
I like your take on it, Daniel. And you’re correct that anyone can be stealthy. Our take is that the ability of Stealth for the thief class is something beyond normal stealthiness, almost bordering on a supernatural ability. As you described their ability to hide in a shadowy hallway when other classes simply could not. I really like your approaches
I houserule that Thieves, Rogues, and swashbuckler types are proficient with shields, bucklers at least. Sword & buckler was a Medieval European combo that lived well into the Renaissance for street toughs, ruffians, and ne'er'do'wells, so it makes sense to me that, if you are of that setting and you know how to use a one-hand sword, you should at least be familiar with the buckler, even if it is not a preference. It is the root of the term "swashbuckler," which goes back to the Medieval period, even though in modern media usually associates it with French swordsmen of the late 16-1700s who do not use them. It is a play on the swashing sound a sword makes on a buckler; I have yet to see anyone buckle a swash.
I have adopted more potent shields, and an expanded Parry rule for my 1E/2E campaign world ... For shields 0-Level men-at-arms and 1st Level Fighters get 1 pt. of added defense from a buckler, 2 pts from a small shield, 3 pts for a medium and 4 pts for a large shield (2nd Level and higher are 1 better with each) while other Classes get just 1 pt. from a buckler or small shield, 2 pts for medium and 3 pts for a large.
Fun video! I am boring, I just like fighters, but in line with what you are saying, I allow for the characters to attempt things and get through obstacles in imaginative ways outside of their listed class abilities. You are right though that the DM should go out of their way to season their adventures with opportunities for each class and each player to shine. Great ideas in your presentation, and there is something about your narration and descriptions that makes me want to play SO BADLY!!! lol
Climb Sheer Surfaces isn't just a fancy way of wording "climb walls/cliffs using normal climbing tools under usual long term time constraints", it's more like a Spider Climb ability that only works when you put on a show of trying to pass it off as merely skill and not a supernatural feat. Likewise Hide In Shadows makes you literally vanish when you engulf yourself in a shadow that could credibly hide you, and Move Silently means that no matter what your were wearing or carrying you literally don't give off any sound for others to detect. Once I understood this, and that Thieves and all other characters have no-roll access to completely ordinary means of stealth and infiltration, I came to really respect the Thief. I came into fantasy roleplaying from videogames, particularly those where the Thief's main points of utility were high combat mobility, rapid and accurate strikes with light weapons, reliable fleeing from enemies, and the ability to pickpocket items from enemies mid-battle in lieu of attacking on that turn (which mysteriously results in usually the same items still dropping anyway after the fight, meaning you get twice the treasure). I think a thief having a d4 hit die is better than them having a d6. They are overall a normal human being with some special infiltration abilities, not any sort of warrior and so shouldn't have extraordinary fighting skill. I wouldn't be opposed to dropping the Cleric's hit die to a d6 even though it's my favorite of these original classes. I believe also that "backstab/surprise attack" should just be a mechanic for everybody. Maybe the thief is _better at_ catching enemies unawares, but everyone should be able to get extra damage/bypass attack rolls/something by hitting an enemy who is asleep or doesn't know to watch out for an attack at the time.
Ah, yes, the "Retrieval specialist". I played a thief in AD&D that was basically a bounty hunter type. Somebody stole it and you want it back? Hire this guy. Got something that you absolutely, positively want dead? Hire this guy. "Backstab" was great combined with a sap if they wanted the mark back alive.
I love your videos and your DM style. Also, Thief are my favorite class too. I´m preparring a B/X game for 6 new players and i´ve using a lot of your tips.3 of them has played a llitle bit 3.5 (3 or 4 times only, they never read any manual). and the other 3 they never played at all. I don´t like 3.5. And i´m new DMing B/X so your videos has been a lot of helpfull. Thanks a lot, sincerelly!! You are great!!
I'd love a video on how you spice up fighters, and give them some new life from adventure to adventure. I love playing fighters and warriors for the ability to throw down the gauntlet and fight enemies head on, but other than that it's hard to find much flavor in their way of playing.
Steal the Warrior's Mighty Deeds from DCC so they can do extra damage and attempt stunts like disarming foes, knocking them to the ground, etc. to make combat dynamic.
Typically through gear, I hardly ever add extra rules when running BX - I try to stay fairly true to the simplicity of it. I think many people these days shy away from magic items "too early" but a nice magic sword in the hands of your fighter gives them the ability to face foes others cannot.
When playing BX I don't like to add rules, but if you are playing as fighter in any if my games, you should be attempting those things for sure and I will adjudicate based on the situation.
Another intriguing take on a classic class! I much prefer rolling high on 20 for everything and having crits and crit fails but you make the B/X thief sound as cool as they should be.
Thanks! I do understand that people like to roll high, it is possible of course to do that with percentile rolls as well. No doubt a d20 is a simpler mechanic though
The example of play in 1e Adnd had the thief hide in shadows behind the party first round. Move silently into striking position second round. On the third round they did their backstab. That might not always work depending on the play area but ruling the monsters are distracted during combat and the thief has a chance to escape notice by moving silently is a good ruling. Opens up the thief to sneak up to the magic user and take them out.
You're absolutely right. I blame Black Dougal's story for making thieves seem weak; the poor guy tries to use his skills, fails, and dies-- and it makes the class look bad. But DEX is one of the best ability scores (+To Hit for missile weapons and - to AC) with thieves and halflings being the only ones able to raise it. Bows are very strong in BX because there are cover rules but no RAW chance of hitting friends in melee, while climb sheer surfaces often makes it easy to snipe from an unassailable location. Then for whatever reason thieves are allowed to use two-handed axes and swords besides, with only the limited opportunity cost of initiative because they're not allowed to use shields anyway. I'm with you-- thieves are *really* strong RAW-- in fact just three years later, Meltzer/BECMI would actually nerf them!
I've thought that the thief class is a good build for a spy- all those secret abilities- espionage baby, the character was mentored by the head spy of a kingdom (perhaps even a nephew of that NPC) a coup happened within the spy organization and the head spy was killed by his former #2 and the new thief character has fled for their safety and is now in hiding outside their country. There may even be a theif/assassin that was sent to track them that they have to deal with.
Im fairly new to B/X as a system, only having played the Old School Essentials retro clone, but i see the skill chances as the base Chance, if they are trying to sneak on carpeted floor for instance then they may have a +10% to the move silently skill, maby even small bonuses for smart equipment choices like choosing clothing that makes less noise or doesn't have shiny belt buckes etc
I’ve run BX without thieves a couple of times. I assumed everyone to have some level of skill as a thief, because dungeon raiders would all have that to some extent (was thinking of how Conan in his younger years was as much a relic thief as a hard-hitting barbarian). It worked out okay until someone in the group really wanted to play a halfling the second time around, and since halflings are kind of just fighter-thieves in BX, I decided to allow thieves RAW. I was kind of dreading it, but we got in the groove pretty quickly.
I have always felt that the Thief should be better at fighting. It wasn’t so bad in B/X, where they had the same attack tables as Clerics, but one would think that a guy who grew up on the mean streets of Greyhawk or Specularum would be a little more hardy. It was really bad in AD&D where your Thief attacks were worse than Clerics. If you wanted a Swashbuckling Character like Grey Mouser (who was an archetypical thief, and who consequently was good at fighting) orGord The Rogue you had to multiclass into fighter. Once you changed your class, as a human, that was it, you could not go back to your original class and gain any more levels. Now I am thinking about starting a B/X campaign (actually OSE Advanced) and running some old modules i am thinking about what I can do to make the Thief more of a scrapper.
I will probably leave the thief alone. If they want to fight well, let the player run a fighter. If they want to be a sneaky fighter, they can play a ranger.
Revisiting this topic: i am deep i to my B/X game and nobody wants to play a thief. the party hired some henchmen and one of them was a thief. She was one-shotted by an owlbear who took off her head with a swipe of it’s paw. Later the group found a second thief who signed on for half a share and he ended up getting enveloped by a gelatinous cube (R.I.P. Igor…we hardly knew ye.). Now the party is soured on thieves. I know the answer is to put more traps and thief-obstacles in their way, but I did that before and the low level theives usually botched their rolls. Notwithstanding, a poison needle trap would definitely show the usefulness of thieves. Meanwhile, they aren’t good in melée because of their low hit points and their leather-only armor. So here is my solution: Thieves are opposite clerics on the D&D archetype wheel (just like M-U’s are opposite fighters). So they should do well what clerics can’t. They can use any weapon, and since they come from a harsh environment (slums, etc.) i am going to give them a d6 for hit points. This won’t make them into tanks, but it will make them more survivable when attacks come their way. Maybe it will give them enough hit points to let them reconsider whether or not they want to stand and fight, or retreat and use ranged attacks. I also am considering allowing the thief to use their dex bonus to hit in place of strength bonus for melée attacks, when using one-handed weapons. Reflecting a swashbuckling-type of fighting. Radical, I know!
Lamentations of the Flame Princess has a great system for their Specialist( thief). Basically its d6 system and you roll under your skill level. You start with a 2 in each skill and then gain points each level to put in skills. This gives you a chance to specialize. Want a pick pocket? Put all your points in Sleight of Hand. Want an Assassin? Put your points in Stealth( hide/ move silently) and Backstab. Its a fun easy system.
Great videos, thank you. I especially appreciate the points about making it worth it when they succeed at their skills and automatically assuming they check traps, etc. I'm a fan of letting them automatically succeed at their skills when other classes would have a decent chance or when they have plenty of time and aren't under duress. Question, what do you think of using D6 to resolve thieve's skills, for instance using the optional rules for OSE in Carcass Crawler #1 ?
Thanks. I’m not a huge fan of a d6 thief skills as I think they leave little room for modification based on player action. But in general I like 2d6 - perhaps that’s how the OSE ones work?
@@BanditsKeep The optional rule is 1d6 and you add "expertise points to increase it from 1d6 to 2d6, etc, as you level and the player can choose to be better in some skills than others, but I've seen some use 2d6 versions of this house rule, and that could work too, might be better indeed due to the tendency of the bell curve to even out the results and give more granularity. Thanks again, good food for thought.
Sometimes you want to sneak around and not even trigger a surprise check. It could let you swipe a thing (xp for gold, remember) or have a peek and figure that the group doesn't want to deal with these 14 orcs right now. You can bypass an encounter instead of dealing with it heads on.
This why i like systems with "difficulty mods" in them. Let say, easy, normal, hard. Hard - 15% chance , normal 50%, easy 80% It allow character to feel competent and still have that challenge. For exmple, you can add more easy locks instead of free loot. Therefore thief FEELS more professional and usefull. And rest (with actually important stuff) will be some "normal" and some "hard" locks. Same balance, same mechanics, much more rewarding for poor thief :)
All locks are not alike. So some should be easier and some should be harder. A simple lock should give the Thief a better chance to pick it. And a complex lock should either get a negative modifier or take longer to pick. Moving silently also is not the same in every situation. If it is noisy then you should get a bonus. Same goes for if you sneak up on someone who is sleeping. Trying to sneak up on someone while walking on gravel or similar surface should be harder. The DM and the player need to communicate conditions, intentions, etc and adjust things accordingly. I also believe that some equipment should also allow small modifiers. Such as wearing Soft Boots as opposed to Hard Boots. It is definitely harder to sneak in combat boots than it is to sneak in moccasins.
I ran the Basic D&D thief during the 80s and it works fine. These days, I prefer Basic Fantasy for B/X games and BF’s thief has a little bit better chances earlier on than BtB B/X. It’s actually closer to 1e AD&D thief percentages. I also like Lamentations of the Flame Princess’s Specialist and White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game’s thief as well, which both use d6s. However, since I’ve switched to 3LBB OD&D, I don’t use thieves as a class. I use a light secondary profession background system that gives a +1 to d6 checks every time a PC’s combat ability or saves increase. This is every three levels for the fighter, every four for clerics, and every five for magic-users. I allow burglar/thief as a background. This gives fighters with a thief background a 2-in-6 chance to do thief stuff at levels 1-3, a 3-in-6 chance from levels 4-6, a 4-in-6 chance from levels 7-9, and so on. In order to “move silently” you still wouldn’t be able to wear metal armor, etc.
Very inciteful Daniel. The thief is my favorite class in BX. I notice in many of your videos you reference the original BX rules over OSE. Is that a personal preference? Just curious. Thanks for the wonderful content.
While OSE is a beautiful version of the game, I believe the explanations in BX are aimed a bit more at “teaching“. To be honest I also used the original box at the table instead of OSE… maybe I do like it better 😂
With race as class, characters have strongly defined roles...fighters role is to get chewed on by monsters, wizards quarterback with spells, clerics are backup fighters, healers, and undead asskickers, and thieves are supposed to be the guy who spots deathtraps and open locks, but with the low skill percentages, they feel like they are less competent at their role than other characters...the wizard and cleric are better at opening doors and finding traps with spells. How do you suggest fixing the thief to be more competent? It's pretty sucky when you are not good at your job. Digging thru the cyclopedia it actually tells you to just fudge critical rolls like a lockpick attempt while the party is being chased. The sources also heavily imply that thief skills are somehow supernaturally better than what non thieves can attempt. Now, items like acid can provide some reliability, but anybody can open a lock with acid, so thats not ideal. So...some ideas I have are to introduce tiers of locks and traps, and for "common" locks or traps the thief would roll 2d6 to get a bellcurve for how they did at common tasks. E.g 5+ is a success, and under 5 is fail or complication such as broken lockpick stuck in the lock, maybe higher rolls are faster. For hard locks, you would use the listed thief percentages, and high level thieves may not even need to roll on common locks. However, the fact that percentages go above 100 implies that there should be modifiers for the lock...e.g bonuses for rusty locks, or penalties for well made locks. I also like the idea of magic lockpicks. The rules imply that thieves can only deal with nonmagical mechanical locks and traps. Magic lockpicks wouldnt provide any help for regular locks but would allow attempts at magic locks and traps at a penalty (vs not at all). Magic picks would be a status symbol. Expensive, and unable to carry other enchantments as it would interfere with the magic. Also hard to get because wizards do not want thieves having tools to break into their magic vaults. Magic locks would need consequences for failure, such as locking out for 24 hours, or summoning demons on a failed attempt, or my favorite, opening the lock but placing a portal to hell and an illusion of the vault in the door. In the real world, locksmiths pretty much pop your car lock in 30 seconds if they have the right tool, so 2d6 adds a chaos generator to spice up how your routine rolls go, makes a lot of sense, and is a little better than using pure handwavium to resolve thief stuff when they have crappy percentages. I'm conflicted about whether generally to allow retries, whether failure always sets off traps, etc. I do like the idea that retries would take a lot more time though. Perhaps an escalating penalty for each attempt which bottoms out your chance at 5% after a few tries that take longer and longer. Anyway, I feel like thieves need some more oomph to feel like they are good at their role....other ideas?
Old video, but i usually give the thief the option to learn from a thieves guild to have one skill start at level 4 (that doesnt go up each level until they catch up) but they are given a debt of 20k gold and have to pay it off in two years or theyll just dissapear and no one is sure what happens to them
Sometimes I use a Fate die for a lock, a + means it's an easy lock no roll needed takes a round to pick, a - means tough lock needs a roll and will take a full turn or more on a failure (wandering monster checks, etc). A blank is a standard roll and I may give extra modifications if the player explains what they are doin.
Bandit Keep, I love your vids, I think their awesome...but in this case, I must agree to disagree! Forgive me. :) You make some valid points...which I mostly agree with, I play Labrynth Lord(a 1e simplified clone). I like it more then ANY OTHER version of D&D. But, the Thief skill table percentages at levels 1-4 are STILL TOO LOW, man. It's because of the need for Survivability. These ARE, by far the deadliest levels for ANY player. Also, OSR usually tries mostly to keep PC's in an dungeon enviroment. Ya know, the Gold for XP thing. So, the game is MUCH MORE lethal. Which IS fine. But the REAL problem starts here: most (of my) players WANT to actively SNEAK and STRIKE/OPEN DOORS quietly. They want to FEEL like effective, sneaky thieves. But, in this case--they cannot. So they feel like utter failures and I have to keep encouraging them with, "It'll get better...just survive a few levels more, and your gonna be great!" All the while the PC has 8 HP. LOL. Perhpse, my THIEF players just want to STEAL all the glory too, cut throats, no matter the risk and end up dead LOL. That's just my 2 cents worth. Great vid though, keep'em coming! Liked your vid!
All of that is completely fair of course and I don’t disagree that it feels better to succeed than to fail. And while I know this is interpretation and not rules as written, I often time just allow my thief characters to succeed without rolling, not to sneak up and kill a person with a backstab every time, but to move across areas that a thief should be able to do without a problem I certainly don’t make them roll. And I think that is a big part of it ... people are used to rolling and on some level they like it and if that is how a table likes to play then the numbers are certainly too low. To me if you are rolling dice You’ve probably done something wrong. LOL
@@BanditsKeep I agree, my man. I chose to do it just as you said. OSR is still the best in my opinion and I share this love of it with you. :) Keep gaming, bro.
how you use a human thief to scout- and he does not have a light source. You have him ahead of the party at the very edge of the partys torch/ lantern range! that way he can still see a little, and he can hide in shadows caused by the parties light source! The parties light source also makes it safer for the thief, as any thing that the theif fails to warn the party about will likely charge past the theif, to get to the light sourced party, this also gives the thief a chance to back stab those whom have gone past him!
I have no problem with a low chance of success on the skills, but the terrible saving throws are what kill thieves for me. To me the core function of a thief is dealing with treasure traps. But look at poor Black Dougal (a level 2 thief) - he had an 85% chance to miss the needle, and a 60% chance to die by it (a 51% chance to die). Meanwhile a halfling (with more HP and the ability to wear any armor) can blunder around a dungeon like Mr. Magoo, and because of their saving throws they have only a 45% chance to be killed by a poison needle. The thief can be easily fixed just by improving the poison saving throw to closer to a dwarf or halfling.
Great video. My only issue is I simply don’t like having ‘too’ many resolution systems, but for whatever reason I’m not so opposed to this that I require a single universal one either :p. I am thinking of just simply using the hear noise progression for all thief skills (perhaps bumping climbing to keep it at its higher state).
I’m pretty sure that’s what White Box does for thief skills. I feel like I’m kind of the opposite, I like lots of different systems and I find a single mechanic system to be incredibly boring. This is one thing that has pushed me away from the d20 system. That being said, I know I am definitely in the minority LOL.
@@BanditsKeep don't get me wrong, I don't mind at all having multiple resolution systems, but I think this is one too many (or maybe I just love d6's!).
@@yohahn12 I think it also depends on the vibe of the game, for a quick one shot to pass the time I tend to like simpler games, it’s the long running stuff that I want more mechanics to mess with.
@@BanditsKeep would it be fair to say you prefer the idea of multiple minigames? For me personally the simpler the resolution systems the less it pulls me out of character. In an ideal world I'd never leave my character's headspace from the beginning of the session until the end lol The less 'game' the better for me I will confess I'm an edge case lol, I'd be happy never rolling my own dice while a GM rolls them for me behind a screen and narrates how well or poorly I succeed lol. All I ask is good odds (better than often advocated in OSR circles) so death is relatively unlikely and genuinely painful when it does happen. Don't numb me or I lose interest.
but the 2nd editions thief skills were only like 10-20% better than the other characters. and that was only after already leveling 5 times :/ opening the chest quietly was a really good example. but most dm's dont always keep sound in mind anyway :/ and like if ur dm is using random encounters, you're prob gonna get caught anyway. tbh, i think the main problem with early edition thieves, are the DM's. They always take ur backstab away from you, and always say ur not hiding. this wouldnt be a problem tho if the thieves had better stats too tho. so it's a mix
I’m not sure stats are the answer - how high do they need to be before you feel they are good? Isn’t that DM still going to have a wandering monster check? I feel like what you are describing is table culture - not rules
@@BanditsKeep srry I meant to say 1st edition. In 2nd edition the stats are fine. In first edition, as written, thieves were only (up to)15 percent better than other characters at picking locks. It was really disappointing lol. Most people homebrewed the rules to make the sneak thief actually a sneak thief
sci-fi arabian nights? i feel like this needs more explination. is it like magi-tech sci-fi/fantasy? i can dig it. al-qadim was my jam back in the 90's
Thanks for the video, it was a good watch. Now I love BX and it was what I started with, but the fact that these videos (there's a lot of them) are even needed is testament to how poorly designed the Thief was. If I, as a GM, have to internally justify odd (or very subjective) interpretations/applications of the class as written, well...then there's an issue. For me, BX is "the" perfect D&D system....excluding the Thief. It literally ruins so many of the well thought out and elegant systems in the genius that is the BX design.
I am not sure in the things Daniel covered in this video that would count as an odd or very subjective interpretation of the rules as written? Can you give an example? And specifically what is an example of how the thief ruins the elegance of B/X?
I’m scared of the title. I can’t watch now, but I have a pretty firm stance that thieves should not exist. They are actually just “thieves of fun”, except the joke is on the other players. You see they gobble up all the fun things in a dungeon that used to be done by everyone playing DnD. There’s no point in having anyone’s sneak or solve a trap of theirs a thief in the party. They basically tell everyone else to sit back and shut up, and wait until the thief gets in trouble then kill a couple guys. They were a later edition by people who didn’t understand the whole picture of DnD and just wanted to make themselves experts on all the fun stuff in a dungeon. Now they are the only ones sneaking, back stabbing, climbing, stealing, and dodging traps in a dungeon. What else is there to do?!?!? Just walk into the room last and kill a couple cultists. If you want to experience the thief archetype, just be a fighter, and ROLEPLAY that he’s a thief! All that fun should be given back to all the players! After all, they are all playing DUNGEONS and dragons, not just the thief.
You are not alone in feeling that way. Though I would point out that the thief was added to the game in 1975 only one year after the game was launched. Written up for the game by Gygax himself. I can’t say I’ve ever had a player do what you are describing, but certainly if they are hogging the spotlight that is a conversation that should be had, no matter the class they are playing.
Reading through Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories it made me realize. Is not that only thieves do these things. Is that they do it with a cat like cunning. They are more onto trickery, dubious acts. We can se Fafhrd do much the same "actions" The Gray Mouser do. But theres always grace, tricks and cunning with Mouser actions. Also in my tables, players other than thieves pcs always did things like climbing, disarming traps, sneaking and the like. The thief just did it somewhat better or more often.
The Thief is still my favourite character class! 🙂 I think a lot of the problem comes from the scenarios not the class. The Thief is a specialist vs the dungeon evironment. In later editions this has become diluted to a focus on making the Thief a combat focused character. To make the Thief useful adventures need to feature locks and traps and stuff to climb in order to gain the most valuable treasure, which only the Thief can do. If the adventure does not have these things, as many of the published modules do not, all you are left with is a class that is very limited in combat. You see a very similar thing in AD&D with the Ranger, which is a specialist vs the wilderness environment. If the DM skips over wilderness travel they lose a lot of their purpose. The Thief is the Indiana Jones / Lara Croft of the party. If the party want to come out with the treasure a good Thief should be essential!
I love you man. But i disagree with the highest respect to you on several things. Although I will say you are 100% with how hide in shadows and surprise work. I much prefer how 2E did thief skills and let them pick the skills they will really shine at, especially at low levels.
The way you talk about and run thieves is very similar to the way we always did it in B/X back in 1981. All PCs other than a thief try to sneak up on a guard or move past the guard undetected, the guard checks for surprise and if surprised the PC is successful. If a thief tries to do the same thing they make a Move Silently roll. If successful, autosurprise and autosuccess. If the thief fails, the guard checks for surprise just as if a non-thief was trying to sneak.
We ignored the fail lock picking and you cannot try again rule. We allowed multiple attempts but each attempt requires a turn. They could keep trying as many times as they like but failure after failure meant more wandering monster checks because turns are passing by. Same for disarming traps.
We also always saw the pick pockets skill more like legerdemain and would allow the thief a surprise dagger toss or the like at the start of a combat in certain situations, like if a parlay went bad and was erupting in hostilities, if the thief made their pick pockets roll. The attack may still miss of course, the successful pick pockets roll just allowed for the attempt.
Totally agree about the climbing skill. I always think of the cover of the AD&D PH with the thieves prying lose the gem eyes of the idol. Without the thieves, the party is not going to be able to get those gems because they can’t reach them.
Another under appreciated skill to me as well is the read languages skill. Even outside of magical scrolls that skill can be very useful.
Finally, we used the climb percentage as an appraise skill percentage as well. For treasures like gems, jewelry, tapestries, works of art, candle sticks, etc. the thief could make a roll to appraise the value. If successful the thief knew the value. Failure and the DM would give a crazy high or low value to the object (DM made this roll obviously). We used encumbrance so this was very valuable to the party so that they could make an educated decision about what treasures to definitely carry and which ones could be left behind.
Agreed, poor fighters overall, especially defensively with poor HPs and high AC. Offensively they are not bad but they better finish off the enemy because if the enemy gets to attack them back, look out.
Race as class is another video you could do if you haven’t already, but another thing I like about B/X is there are only human thieves. I do not like demihumans thieves for a number of reasons but the main one is having demihuman thieves really cheapens human thieves IMO.
I love the class. I know there are people who do not and just have them be NPC hirelings, but I think the game is more fun with them as PCs.
Some great stuff here, I like the Appraisal idea and will definitely be using that
It comes as no surprise to me that players who have only ever played wotc versions of the game think and say a class that isn't suited for combat is a bad class. Bothers me that people can't seem to understand that combat in dungeons and dragons is supposed to be extremely dangerous and not a display of superhero powers like in wotc versions. Thiefs are great role playing characters.
Plenty of people who play OSR and older games make the same claim of the thief being no good - I don’t think what system you play decides how you role play
@@BanditsKeep I haven't really encountered older players who have complained about the thief but you are right. Games do not decide how you choose to role play. I definitely feel wotc polluted the minds of modern role players into thinking everything has to be geared around combat and all of that.
@@nordicmaelstrom4714 D&D was the child of a wargame, there have always been players focused on combat. It seems you just want to be negative towards newer players/editions and I hope that is not true.
@@BanditsKeep I'm aware of the history of the game. I am in fact a wargamer. I'm not negative towards new players in fact quite the opposite. I am however extremely negative when it comes to wotc and its games. I avoid everything wotc. Gave all their editions a shot and just felt their games ruined the hobby.
I have unfortunately encountered far too many wotc fanboys who soured me on a lot of things. I will never play their society play ever again.
I don't mean to come off negative or angry or anything like that. I don't seek out fans of those games and run them down. I just avoid those games and if newer players want to try the older stuff the table always has a spot is my saying.
@@nordicmaelstrom4714 I prefer to keep negativity out of my sphere of the hobby, please refrain from that type of post here - plenty of places online to hate/criticize /blame wotc for ruining the game - to me it's all D&D.
If your thief failed to open the lock right now, you can always spend more time trying to pick it. It does incur the danger of having a wandering guard stumble upon your thief or your group.
That can be a good way to build tension - should you risk trying again? I like it.
We used that option. It takes a turn (with all that means of torch use etc) and a normal d6 encounter roll.
If the PCs have managed to increase the encounter roll, like raising it to 3-in-6 because a guard pushed a PANICBUTTON, they like this chance even less.
Add +5% per Dexterity bonus to hide in shadows, move silently, pick pockets, open locks and disarm traps. Add +5% per Intelligence bonus to finding traps.
Cool idea
I like it. I'd do it 50/50 tho = use dex to HS, MS and PP, but leave locks and traps related skills to intelligence. It gives more reasons to put a higher score in INT, plus it makes DEX a little less overpowered than it already is (compared to using DEX as a bonus for most skills+missile+AC+...)
Bonus scales so slowly in older editions.
What if you converted every 10% of chance the class normally gives into a -1 bonus on a d20 Roll Under ability check, Dex or Int depending on the task.
How I always saw it is that the thief skills are always doing something above and beyond. Anyone can look for a poison needle trap or try to pick a lock or try to move quietly. Thieves don't move quietly, they move *silently*. A thief is finding a trap and but also is removing the trap just with a roll, totally neutralizing it. I think you can see this design philosophy in how climb sheer surfaces works. Anyone can climb, thieves can climb like a mountain goat and free climb up basically flat walls. So, any thief skill should be treated as beyond what a normal person could even attempt. Likewise, the thief is making a separate check. They make a check to move silently, and if they fail they can still try to sneak, it just isn't silent. If they fail to remove a trap, they can still try to disarm it, they just don't get to do it automatically.
For sure
i play adnd theif but i always loved the underdogness of the class, It always feels like a class that requires more thought and planning for your action. I just wish my group didnt think of them as a sub fighter though for the reasons meantioned. I get so much sass for not wanting to open doors after haven checked for traps and to chose to get out of combat till i have reinforcements.
For sure - I think many groups think of a thief in that way.
Another great video, Daniel. It echoes my thoughts and experiences with thieves - an underrated character class by many.
Thanks!
One way to help low level Thieves....is too assign a "bonus" score to weak locks....ie, +50% etc, or automatic for a Thief, for early door locks chests and such. Conversely a difficult lock could be -25% to a pick lock try. Same for pick pocket....loose fitting pockets might be easier, while some might be deep and tight and therefor difficult...+/- to add some challenges or help. Climb walls....same thing ...its a rough wall....you have a piton and spikes...could be +75%....or its a negative plane and slick it could be -25 to 50%.... We as DM's can modify everything to make the game better.
Indeed
I think the only change the b/x thief needs is that backstab should scale, like it does in AD&D. 2x damage just really isn't that much by the time you're level 6. It'll probably just leave you standing next to a very angry enemy with plenty of hp left, and desire to murder you.
Ah yes, indeed a bad situation for sure!
In Basic Fantasy Roleplaying, there's an optional rule that Backstab does triple damage at level 9.
@@DM_Curtis That would certainly be very deadly
in adnd 2nd ed. the discretionary points for thief skills made a huge difference for me. instead of 6 poor skill at lv 1, you had 4 poor skills and 2 not good skills. at lv. 2 you had 2 decent skills and and 4 poor skills. at lv 3, 2 good skills and 4 poor skills. after that, start working on improving a couple of those poor skills, or max out the good skills first.
Nice
I think the AD&D 2nd thief is the way to go, or at least something similar with the ability to specialize. The single greatest thing about 2nd was the customization potential, especially the speciality priests. It made the cleric and Druid kinda weird but designing your own priesthoods was like a mini game itself.
I allow the BX thief to add dexterity to all their thief abilities except climb walls. It adds a nice but reasonable bonus especially since I'm not a fan of letting games go to high levels.
Durina Nafeel, from Crusade (a Babylon 5 spinoff) was a perfect example of a thief. She snuck around, but not scouting ahead, but through the cracks and up the side of buildings. She is what made me think theives would be interesting.
Cool
I love your channel, man. Been stuck on it for days lol.
Thank You!
I love all of your ideas. This is how I like to play the game.
Thank You!
Some of my own thief tips:
1. If at all possible, have a CON bonus.
2. Stay out of melee. A brave thief only lives long in his companions' memories.
3. Try not to "pull a Black Dougal" and put yourself in a situation where you're wagering your life on a long shot percentile roll.
4. Play up the social aspect of the class. Know who your guild contacts are and what they can do for you. Don't be afraid to gently remind the DM how useful a streetwise character should be in almost any urban adventure.
5. If the system allows it, multi-classing is your friend.
In terms of a simple mechanical tweak, this is one I came up with years ago:
garysentus.blogspot.com/2011/01/thief-skill-as-saving-throw.html
Nice options there, I could see it working well
Love this video. Mostly I agree with you on all points.
I think of thief skills as pretty much super power level skills but in a very narrow window. You pointed out Hide in Shadows. Yeah that is hiding in a dang shadow. Moving Silently isn't moving quietly. Anyone in soft shoes and not in heavy armor can move quietly. A thief can move silently. I could go on and on.
A lot of people think it is an anomaly that the thief skills are measured with % while other abilities are a x in 6. I disagree. The point of that is that these are special skills. The only skill they share in common with other classes is listening and the thief is already inhumanly good and only going to get better.
I think people look at the very low starting skills and miss a point. All B/X characters start bad at their job. I would say they are more or less at an apprentice state and when they make it to say fifth level they are journeymen. This game was originally designed to go to 36 levels. So yes you stink at everything at level 1 and you run away a lot. And you don't take jobs that need a hero, because you aren't one, yet. Hell I make most town guard captains in my game 5 or 6th level. Why would I bother hiring some rat stabber for a real problem.
I tend to move games along pretty quick to about 3rd level. Then characters have a bit of HP and a bit of experience, and a few tricks up their sleeves, but there are 33 levels left to go.
Well I will chatter on more in some other post.
Love your videos.
Thanks! Some good points here
Hi Daniel, thanks for the videos! I am a new subscriber and am slowly making my way through your catalogue of episodes. They are all very good, and I’ve learned at least one new thing from every one that I’ve watched, but this one is especially great. Easily the best advice in one place for how to handle the old-school thief! Looking forward to absorbing more of your content.
Thank You!
It's the essence of D&D. You are burglars. Crawling a dungeon is committing a burglary.
Indeed
"You are standing in an open field west of a white house. With a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here."
Yes!
I run 1/2e with a homebrew for the Thief that expands bonuses and penalties for abilities, fleshes out how the skills are affected by abilities and situations and combines some that we felt were overly granular (Pick Locks and Find/Remove Traps was consolidated into Disable Device, Move Silently and Hide in Shadows = Stealth) to simplify and accelerate play for the class. Also, based on the level of success or failure, the game world is affected in that a massive success (rolling 01 or succeeding by 50 or more means the player may achieve above and beyond or never have to make a check in that scenario again -say for climbing a specific wall or surface). I like the idea that a success or failure shouldn’t always be the morning drive to work but should have real consequences that impact the trajectory of game play.
Interesting- I disagree about “stealth” though - anyone can be stealthy (that’s what surprise is for) a thief can hide in SHADOWS and move SILENTLY (caps for emphasis where I think many miss it)
I like your take on it, Daniel. And you’re correct that anyone can be stealthy. Our take is that the ability of Stealth for the thief class is something beyond normal stealthiness, almost bordering on a supernatural ability. As you described their ability to hide in a shadowy hallway when other classes simply could not. I really like your approaches
@@danielrowan4716 Thank You!
I houserule that Thieves, Rogues, and swashbuckler types are proficient with shields, bucklers at least. Sword & buckler was a Medieval European combo that lived well into the Renaissance for street toughs, ruffians, and ne'er'do'wells, so it makes sense to me that, if you are of that setting and you know how to use a one-hand sword, you should at least be familiar with the buckler, even if it is not a preference. It is the root of the term "swashbuckler," which goes back to the Medieval period, even though in modern media usually associates it with French swordsmen of the late 16-1700s who do not use them. It is a play on the swashing sound a sword makes on a buckler; I have yet to see anyone buckle a swash.
Interesting and certainly not going to “break the game”
I have adopted more potent shields, and an expanded Parry rule for my 1E/2E campaign world ...
For shields 0-Level men-at-arms and 1st Level Fighters get 1 pt. of added defense from a buckler, 2 pts from a small shield, 3 pts for a medium and 4 pts for a large shield (2nd Level and higher are 1 better with each) while other Classes get just 1 pt. from a buckler or small shield, 2 pts for medium and 3 pts for a large.
Fun video! I am boring, I just like fighters, but in line with what you are saying, I allow for the characters to attempt things and get through obstacles in imaginative ways outside of their listed class abilities. You are right though that the DM should go out of their way to season their adventures with opportunities for each class and each player to shine. Great ideas in your presentation, and there is something about your narration and descriptions that makes me want to play SO BADLY!!! lol
Thanks! I do really love to play and explore this hobby.
Climb Sheer Surfaces isn't just a fancy way of wording "climb walls/cliffs using normal climbing tools under usual long term time constraints", it's more like a Spider Climb ability that only works when you put on a show of trying to pass it off as merely skill and not a supernatural feat. Likewise Hide In Shadows makes you literally vanish when you engulf yourself in a shadow that could credibly hide you, and Move Silently means that no matter what your were wearing or carrying you literally don't give off any sound for others to detect. Once I understood this, and that Thieves and all other characters have no-roll access to completely ordinary means of stealth and infiltration, I came to really respect the Thief.
I came into fantasy roleplaying from videogames, particularly those where the Thief's main points of utility were high combat mobility, rapid and accurate strikes with light weapons, reliable fleeing from enemies, and the ability to pickpocket items from enemies mid-battle in lieu of attacking on that turn (which mysteriously results in usually the same items still dropping anyway after the fight, meaning you get twice the treasure).
I think a thief having a d4 hit die is better than them having a d6. They are overall a normal human being with some special infiltration abilities, not any sort of warrior and so shouldn't have extraordinary fighting skill. I wouldn't be opposed to dropping the Cleric's hit die to a d6 even though it's my favorite of these original classes.
I believe also that "backstab/surprise attack" should just be a mechanic for everybody. Maybe the thief is _better at_ catching enemies unawares, but everyone should be able to get extra damage/bypass attack rolls/something by hitting an enemy who is asleep or doesn't know to watch out for an attack at the time.
For sure
Ah, yes, the "Retrieval specialist". I played a thief in AD&D that was basically a bounty hunter type. Somebody stole it and you want it back? Hire this guy. Got something that you absolutely, positively want dead? Hire this guy. "Backstab" was great combined with a sap if they wanted the mark back alive.
For sure
I love your videos and your DM style. Also, Thief are my favorite class too. I´m preparring a B/X game for 6 new players and i´ve using a lot of your tips.3 of them has played a llitle bit 3.5 (3 or 4 times only, they never read any manual). and the other 3 they never played at all. I don´t like 3.5. And i´m new DMing B/X so your videos has been a lot of helpfull. Thanks a lot, sincerelly!! You are great!!
Awesome! Let me know how you game goes!
I'd love a video on how you spice up fighters, and give them some new life from adventure to adventure. I love playing fighters and warriors for the ability to throw down the gauntlet and fight enemies head on, but other than that it's hard to find much flavor in their way of playing.
I agree. I think a bigger problem in B/X is not the thief class, but how vanilla the fighter class is.
Steal the Warrior's Mighty Deeds from DCC so they can do extra damage and attempt stunts like disarming foes, knocking them to the ground, etc. to make combat dynamic.
Typically through gear, I hardly ever add extra rules when running BX - I try to stay fairly true to the simplicity of it. I think many people these days shy away from magic items "too early" but a nice magic sword in the hands of your fighter gives them the ability to face foes others cannot.
Yes, in BX the dwarf is simply a better fighter and if you only play to level 14, the caps for the dwarf are pretty meaningless.
When playing BX I don't like to add rules, but if you are playing as fighter in any if my games, you should be attempting those things for sure and I will adjudicate based on the situation.
Another intriguing take on a classic class! I much prefer rolling high on 20 for everything and having crits and crit fails but you make the B/X thief sound as cool as they should be.
Thanks! I do understand that people like to roll high, it is possible of course to do that with percentile rolls as well. No doubt a d20 is a simpler mechanic though
The example of play in 1e Adnd had the thief hide in shadows behind the party first round. Move silently into striking position second round. On the third round they did their backstab.
That might not always work depending on the play area but ruling the monsters are distracted during combat and the thief has a chance to escape notice by moving silently is a good ruling.
Opens up the thief to sneak up to the magic user and take them out.
Indeed
Yes! Anyone can hide or sneak, but the thief has a preturnatural skill the average human doesn't have.
Indeed
You're absolutely right. I blame Black Dougal's story for making thieves seem weak; the poor guy tries to use his skills, fails, and dies-- and it makes the class look bad. But DEX is one of the best ability scores (+To Hit for missile weapons and - to AC) with thieves and halflings being the only ones able to raise it. Bows are very strong in BX because there are cover rules but no RAW chance of hitting friends in melee, while climb sheer surfaces often makes it easy to snipe from an unassailable location. Then for whatever reason thieves are allowed to use two-handed axes and swords besides, with only the limited opportunity cost of initiative because they're not allowed to use shields anyway. I'm with you-- thieves are *really* strong RAW-- in fact just three years later, Meltzer/BECMI would actually nerf them!
Indeed!
I've thought that the thief class is a good build for a spy- all those secret abilities- espionage baby, the character was mentored by the head spy of a kingdom (perhaps even a nephew of that NPC) a coup happened within the spy organization and the head spy was killed by his former #2 and the new thief character has fled for their safety and is now in hiding outside their country. There may even be a theif/assassin that was sent to track them that they have to deal with.
Nice! I typically think of the AD&D Assassin like that.
Thanks for sharing this. I found it very helpful. 😎
Glad it was helpful!
Im fairly new to B/X as a system, only having played the Old School Essentials retro clone, but i see the skill chances as the base Chance, if they are trying to sneak on carpeted floor for instance then they may have a +10% to the move silently skill, maby even small bonuses for smart equipment choices like choosing clothing that makes less noise or doesn't have shiny belt buckes etc
Good points! Take off your boots for a bonus, but get caught and you are barefoot!
I’ve run BX without thieves a couple of times. I assumed everyone to have some level of skill as a thief, because dungeon raiders would all have that to some extent (was thinking of how Conan in his younger years was as much a relic thief as a hard-hitting barbarian).
It worked out okay until someone in the group really wanted to play a halfling the second time around, and since halflings are kind of just fighter-thieves in BX, I decided to allow thieves RAW. I was kind of dreading it, but we got in the groove pretty quickly.
Cool
I have always felt that the Thief should be better at fighting. It wasn’t so bad in B/X, where they had the same attack tables as Clerics, but one would think that a guy who grew up on the mean streets of Greyhawk or Specularum would be a little more hardy. It was really bad in AD&D where your Thief attacks were worse than Clerics. If you wanted a Swashbuckling Character like Grey Mouser (who was an archetypical thief, and who consequently was good at fighting) orGord The Rogue you had to multiclass into fighter. Once you changed your class, as a human, that was it, you could not go back to your original class and gain any more levels.
Now I am thinking about starting a B/X campaign (actually OSE Advanced) and running some old modules i am thinking about what I can do to make the Thief more of a scrapper.
Right, you can play a sneaky fighter I suppose - but you’d lack the mythical their skills
I will probably leave the thief alone. If they want to fight well, let the player run a fighter. If they want to be a sneaky fighter, they can play a ranger.
Revisiting this topic: i am deep i to my B/X game and nobody wants to play a thief. the party hired some henchmen and one of them was a thief. She was one-shotted by an owlbear who took off her head with a swipe of it’s paw. Later the group found a second thief who signed on for half a share and he ended up getting enveloped by a gelatinous cube (R.I.P. Igor…we hardly knew ye.). Now the party is soured on thieves. I know the answer is to put more traps and thief-obstacles in their way, but I did that before and the low level theives usually botched their rolls. Notwithstanding, a poison needle trap would definitely show the usefulness of thieves.
Meanwhile, they aren’t good in melée because of their low hit points and their leather-only armor. So here is my solution:
Thieves are opposite clerics on the D&D archetype wheel (just like M-U’s are opposite fighters). So they should do well what clerics can’t. They can use any weapon, and since they come from a harsh environment (slums, etc.) i am going to give them a d6 for hit points. This won’t make them into tanks, but it will make them more survivable when attacks come their way. Maybe it will give them enough hit points to let them reconsider whether or not they want to stand and fight, or retreat and use ranged attacks.
I also am considering allowing the thief to use their dex bonus to hit in place of strength bonus for melée attacks, when using one-handed weapons. Reflecting a swashbuckling-type of fighting. Radical, I know!
Lamentations of the Flame Princess has a great system for their Specialist( thief). Basically its d6 system and you roll under your skill level. You start with a 2 in each skill and then gain points each level to put in skills. This gives you a chance to specialize. Want a pick pocket? Put all your points in Sleight of Hand. Want an Assassin? Put your points in Stealth( hide/ move silently) and Backstab. Its a fun easy system.
Indeed!
I completely agree that the thief is NOT the scout, unless you're sneaking in darkness towards a lit area.
For sure!
Great videos, thank you. I especially appreciate the points about making it worth it when they succeed at their skills and automatically assuming they check traps, etc. I'm a fan of letting them automatically succeed at their skills when other classes would have a decent chance or when they have plenty of time and aren't under duress. Question, what do you think of using D6 to resolve thieve's skills, for instance using the optional rules for OSE in Carcass Crawler #1 ?
Thanks. I’m not a huge fan of a d6 thief skills as I think they leave little room for modification based on player action. But in general I like 2d6 - perhaps that’s how the OSE ones work?
@@BanditsKeep The optional rule is 1d6 and you add "expertise points to increase it from 1d6 to 2d6, etc, as you level and the player can choose to be better in some skills than others, but I've seen some use 2d6 versions of this house rule, and that could work too, might be better indeed due to the tendency of the bell curve to even out the results and give more granularity. Thanks again, good food for thought.
Sometimes you want to sneak around and not even trigger a surprise check. It could let you swipe a thing (xp for gold, remember) or have a peek and figure that the group doesn't want to deal with these 14 orcs right now. You can bypass an encounter instead of dealing with it heads on.
Indeed
This why i like systems with "difficulty mods" in them. Let say, easy, normal, hard. Hard - 15% chance , normal 50%, easy 80%
It allow character to feel competent and still have that challenge. For exmple, you can add more easy locks instead of free loot. Therefore thief FEELS more professional and usefull. And rest (with actually important stuff) will be some "normal" and some "hard" locks. Same balance, same mechanics, much more rewarding for poor thief :)
Indeed
All locks are not alike. So some should be easier and some should be harder.
A simple lock should give the Thief a better chance to pick it. And a complex lock should either get a negative modifier or take longer to pick.
Moving silently also is not the same in every situation. If it is noisy then you should get a bonus. Same goes for if you sneak up on someone who is sleeping.
Trying to sneak up on someone while walking on gravel or similar surface should be harder.
The DM and the player need to communicate conditions, intentions, etc and adjust things accordingly.
I also believe that some equipment should also allow small modifiers. Such as wearing Soft Boots as opposed to Hard Boots. It is definitely harder to sneak in combat boots than it is to sneak in moccasins.
Indeed
do A Dwarf, Halfling & Elf class video as well!
Elves I touched upon but in my no semi humans video, but not so much the class as the concept.
I ran the Basic D&D thief during the 80s and it works fine. These days, I prefer Basic Fantasy for B/X games and BF’s thief has a little bit better chances earlier on than BtB B/X. It’s actually closer to 1e AD&D thief percentages. I also like Lamentations of the Flame Princess’s Specialist and White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game’s thief as well, which both use d6s.
However, since I’ve switched to 3LBB OD&D, I don’t use thieves as a class. I use a light secondary profession background system that gives a +1 to d6 checks every time a PC’s combat ability or saves increase. This is every three levels for the fighter, every four for clerics, and every five for magic-users. I allow burglar/thief as a background. This gives fighters with a thief background a 2-in-6 chance to do thief stuff at levels 1-3, a 3-in-6 chance from levels 4-6, a 4-in-6 chance from levels 7-9, and so on. In order to “move silently” you still wouldn’t be able to wear metal armor, etc.
I like that! And as it turns out when I use the 3LBB I also have no thief class
Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching
Very inciteful Daniel. The thief is my favorite class in BX. I notice in many of your videos you reference the original BX rules over OSE. Is that a personal preference? Just curious. Thanks for the wonderful content.
While OSE is a beautiful version of the game, I believe the explanations in BX are aimed a bit more at “teaching“. To be honest I also used the original box at the table instead of OSE… maybe I do like it better 😂
With race as class, characters have strongly defined roles...fighters role is to get chewed on by monsters, wizards quarterback with spells, clerics are backup fighters, healers, and undead asskickers, and thieves are supposed to be the guy who spots deathtraps and open locks, but with the low skill percentages, they feel like they are less competent at their role than other characters...the wizard and cleric are better at opening doors and finding traps with spells. How do you suggest fixing the thief to be more competent? It's pretty sucky when you are not good at your job. Digging thru the cyclopedia it actually tells you to just fudge critical rolls like a lockpick attempt while the party is being chased. The sources also heavily imply that thief skills are somehow supernaturally better than what non thieves can attempt. Now, items like acid can provide some reliability, but anybody can open a lock with acid, so thats not ideal. So...some ideas I have are to introduce tiers of locks and traps, and for "common" locks or traps the thief would roll 2d6 to get a bellcurve for how they did at common tasks. E.g 5+ is a success, and under 5 is fail or complication such as broken lockpick stuck in the lock, maybe higher rolls are faster. For hard locks, you would use the listed thief percentages, and high level thieves may not even need to roll on common locks. However, the fact that percentages go above 100 implies that there should be modifiers for the lock...e.g bonuses for rusty locks, or penalties for well made locks. I also like the idea of magic lockpicks. The rules imply that thieves can only deal with nonmagical mechanical locks and traps. Magic lockpicks wouldnt provide any help for regular locks but would allow attempts at magic locks and traps at a penalty (vs not at all). Magic picks would be a status symbol. Expensive, and unable to carry other enchantments as it would interfere with the magic. Also hard to get because wizards do not want thieves having tools to break into their magic vaults. Magic locks would need consequences for failure, such as locking out for 24 hours, or summoning demons on a failed attempt, or my favorite, opening the lock but placing a portal to hell and an illusion of the vault in the door. In the real world, locksmiths pretty much pop your car lock in 30 seconds if they have the right tool, so 2d6 adds a chaos generator to spice up how your routine rolls go, makes a lot of sense, and is a little better than using pure handwavium to resolve thief stuff when they have crappy percentages. I'm conflicted about whether generally to allow retries, whether failure always sets off traps, etc. I do like the idea that retries would take a lot more time though. Perhaps an escalating penalty for each attempt which bottoms out your chance at 5% after a few tries that take longer and longer. Anyway, I feel like thieves need some more oomph to feel like they are good at their role....other ideas?
Old video, but i usually give the thief the option to learn from a thieves guild to have one skill start at level 4 (that doesnt go up each level until they catch up) but they are given a debt of 20k gold and have to pay it off in two years or theyll just dissapear and no one is sure what happens to them
Cool
Sometimes I use a Fate die for a lock, a + means it's an easy lock no roll needed takes a round to pick, a - means tough lock needs a roll and will take a full turn or more on a failure (wandering monster checks, etc). A blank is a standard roll and I may give extra modifications if the player explains what they are doin.
Interesting
Interesting
Very good commentary
Thank You!
Thank You!
Bandit Keep, I love your vids, I think their awesome...but in this case, I must agree to disagree! Forgive me. :) You make some valid points...which I mostly agree with, I play Labrynth Lord(a 1e simplified clone). I like it more then ANY OTHER version of D&D. But, the Thief skill table percentages at levels 1-4 are STILL TOO LOW, man. It's because of the need for Survivability. These ARE, by far the deadliest levels for ANY player. Also, OSR usually tries mostly to keep PC's in an dungeon enviroment. Ya know, the Gold for XP thing. So, the game is MUCH MORE lethal. Which IS fine. But the REAL problem starts here: most (of my) players WANT to actively SNEAK and STRIKE/OPEN DOORS quietly. They want to FEEL like effective, sneaky thieves. But, in this case--they cannot. So they feel like utter failures and I have to keep encouraging them with, "It'll get better...just survive a few levels more, and your gonna be great!" All the while the PC has 8 HP. LOL. Perhpse, my THIEF players just want to STEAL all the glory too, cut throats, no matter the risk and end up dead LOL. That's just my 2 cents worth. Great vid though, keep'em coming! Liked your vid!
All of that is completely fair of course and I don’t disagree that it feels better to succeed than to fail. And while I know this is interpretation and not rules as written, I often time just allow my thief characters to succeed without rolling, not to sneak up and kill a person with a backstab every time, but to move across areas that a thief should be able to do without a problem I certainly don’t make them roll. And I think that is a big part of it ... people are used to rolling and on some level they like it and if that is how a table likes to play then the numbers are certainly too low. To me if you are rolling dice You’ve probably done something wrong. LOL
@@BanditsKeep I agree, my man. I chose to do it just as you said. OSR is still the best in my opinion and I share this love of it with you. :) Keep gaming, bro.
@@BanditsKeep yup thats one way we improved our thieves too. Just didnt have them roll lol. But that just show's how bad thieves were (as written)
how you use a human thief to scout- and he does not have a light source. You have him ahead of the party at the very edge of the partys torch/ lantern range! that way he can still see a little, and he can hide in shadows caused by the parties light source! The parties light source also makes it safer for the thief, as any thing that the theif fails to warn the party about will likely charge past the theif, to get to the light sourced party, this also gives the thief a chance to back stab those whom have gone past him!
Indeed
I have no problem with a low chance of success on the skills, but the terrible saving throws are what kill thieves for me. To me the core function of a thief is dealing with treasure traps. But look at poor Black Dougal (a level 2 thief) - he had an 85% chance to miss the needle, and a 60% chance to die by it (a 51% chance to die).
Meanwhile a halfling (with more HP and the ability to wear any armor) can blunder around a dungeon like Mr. Magoo, and because of their saving throws they have only a 45% chance to be killed by a poison needle. The thief can be easily fixed just by improving the poison saving throw to closer to a dwarf or halfling.
That’s an interesting perspective- another option is to have the thief check and the halfling open the chest.
Great video. My only issue is I simply don’t like having ‘too’ many resolution systems, but for whatever reason I’m not so opposed to this that I require a single universal one either :p.
I am thinking of just simply using the hear noise progression for all thief skills (perhaps bumping climbing to keep it at its higher state).
I’m pretty sure that’s what White Box does for thief skills. I feel like I’m kind of the opposite, I like lots of different systems and I find a single mechanic system to be incredibly boring. This is one thing that has pushed me away from the d20 system. That being said, I know I am definitely in the minority LOL.
@@BanditsKeep don't get me wrong, I don't mind at all having multiple resolution systems, but I think this is one too many (or maybe I just love d6's!).
@@yohahn12 I think it also depends on the vibe of the game, for a quick one shot to pass the time I tend to like simpler games, it’s the long running stuff that I want more mechanics to mess with.
@@BanditsKeep would it be fair to say you prefer the idea of multiple minigames?
For me personally the simpler the resolution systems the less it pulls me out of character.
In an ideal world I'd never leave my character's headspace from the beginning of the session until the end lol
The less 'game' the better for me
I will confess I'm an edge case lol, I'd be happy never rolling my own dice while a GM rolls them for me behind a screen and narrates how well or poorly I succeed lol.
All I ask is good odds (better than often advocated in OSR circles) so death is relatively unlikely and genuinely painful when it does happen. Don't numb me or I lose interest.
@@priestesslucy3299 I would say that is fair - I enjoy mini games.
I always gave the thief an extra 2% points to add to his base every time he succeeded a skill check. Picked a lock four times? That's eight points.
Interesting- so call of Cthulhu style
but the 2nd editions thief skills were only like 10-20% better than the other characters. and that was only after already leveling 5 times :/
opening the chest quietly was a really good example. but most dm's dont always keep sound in mind anyway :/ and like if ur dm is using random encounters, you're prob gonna get caught anyway. tbh, i think the main problem with early edition thieves, are the DM's. They always take ur backstab away from you, and always say ur not hiding.
this wouldnt be a problem tho if the thieves had better stats too tho. so it's a mix
I’m not sure stats are the answer - how high do they need to be before you feel they are good? Isn’t that DM still going to have a wandering monster check? I feel like what you are describing is table culture - not rules
@@BanditsKeep srry I meant to say 1st edition. In 2nd edition the stats are fine. In first edition, as written, thieves were only (up to)15 percent better than other characters at picking locks. It was really disappointing lol. Most people homebrewed the rules to make the sneak thief actually a sneak thief
thieves / rouges are the best
Indeed
sci-fi arabian nights? i feel like this needs more explination. is it like magi-tech sci-fi/fantasy? i can dig it. al-qadim was my jam back in the 90's
The culture has a bit of Arabian nights feel and the “monsters” include Djinn - but otherwise mostly sci-fi
You do know that in AD&D that theives have d6 hp?
I do know that. This video is about the Basic thief
Thanks for the video, it was a good watch. Now I love BX and it was what I started with, but the fact that these videos (there's a lot of them) are even needed is testament to how poorly designed the Thief was. If I, as a GM, have to internally justify odd (or very subjective) interpretations/applications of the class as written, well...then there's an issue. For me, BX is "the" perfect D&D system....excluding the Thief. It literally ruins so many of the well thought out and elegant systems in the genius that is the BX design.
I am not sure in the things Daniel covered in this video that would count as an odd or very subjective interpretation of the rules as written? Can you give an example? And specifically what is an example of how the thief ruins the elegance of B/X?
I'm not sure I agree that leaving things open ended is bad design, but everyone has their personal taste when it comes to gaming.
I’m scared of the title. I can’t watch now, but I have a pretty firm stance that thieves should not exist. They are actually just “thieves of fun”, except the joke is on the other players. You see they gobble up all the fun things in a dungeon that used to be done by everyone playing DnD. There’s no point in having anyone’s sneak or solve a trap of theirs a thief in the party. They basically tell everyone else to sit back and shut up, and wait until the thief gets in trouble then kill a couple guys.
They were a later edition by people who didn’t understand the whole picture of DnD and just wanted to make themselves experts on all the fun stuff in a dungeon. Now they are the only ones sneaking, back stabbing, climbing, stealing, and dodging traps in a dungeon. What else is there to do?!?!? Just walk into the room last and kill a couple cultists. If you want to experience the thief archetype, just be a fighter, and ROLEPLAY that he’s a thief! All that fun should be given back to all the players! After all, they are all playing DUNGEONS and dragons, not just the thief.
You are not alone in feeling that way. Though I would point out that the thief was added to the game in 1975 only one year after the game was launched. Written up for the game by Gygax himself. I can’t say I’ve ever had a player do what you are describing, but certainly if they are hogging the spotlight that is a conversation that should be had, no matter the class they are playing.
Reading through Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories it made me realize. Is not that only thieves do these things. Is that they do it with a cat like cunning. They are more onto trickery, dubious acts. We can se Fafhrd do much the same "actions" The Gray Mouser do. But theres always grace, tricks and cunning with Mouser actions. Also in my tables, players other than thieves pcs always did things like climbing, disarming traps, sneaking and the like. The thief just did it somewhat better or more often.
The Thief is still my favourite character class! 🙂 I think a lot of the problem comes from the scenarios not the class. The Thief is a specialist vs the dungeon evironment. In later editions this has become diluted to a focus on making the Thief a combat focused character.
To make the Thief useful adventures need to feature locks and traps and stuff to climb in order to gain the most valuable treasure, which only the Thief can do. If the adventure does not have these things, as many of the published modules do not, all you are left with is a class that is very limited in combat.
You see a very similar thing in AD&D with the Ranger, which is a specialist vs the wilderness environment. If the DM skips over wilderness travel they lose a lot of their purpose.
The Thief is the Indiana Jones / Lara Croft of the party. If the party want to come out with the treasure a good Thief should be essential!
For sure
I love you man. But i disagree with the highest respect to you on several things. Although I will say you are 100% with how hide in shadows and surprise work. I much prefer how 2E did thief skills and let them pick the skills they will really shine at, especially at low levels.
Sure, the 2e system is pretty nice.