Thieves

[Dalin]

While I patiently (not!) wait for the release of Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves, I'm curious how others have built interesting thieves for DFRPG. What makes a thief shine in an adventure? Are there combinations of advantages and skills that are particularly awesome? Has anyone modified the thief template or added abilities to give them more oomph?

I'm considering allowing some elements from DF12: Ninja or even allowing thieves to purchase the 50 point ninja lens. I would probably change the window dressing a bit (black PJs optional).

Has anyone run a party of all thieves? (Adventurers, p.39: "A party won't live long without one thief, and may consist entirely of thieves.")

[sjmdw45]

The closest I've ever come to running a game with fun and satisfying thieves required rewriting the AD&D skill system to (1) have broader skills, like Detect and Savvy (somewhat like DFRPG's Serendipity), and (2) have different probability curves based on dice pools with thresholds, kind of like Shadowrun.

As far as RAW thieves go, I don't think DFRPG thieves are there, nor *D&D thieves either. DFRPG thieves spend a ton of points on DX and IQ and Perfect Balance, but aren't set up to get a lot of return on that investment. I've tinkered with fixing the Thief profession by adding Extra Attack and Very Wealthy to the list of optional advantages, which would let you model things like assassins and deep-cover spymasters, plus dropping DX to 12 and IQ to 11 to free up 100 points that you could use for advantages or skills (max +10). That would give Thief a real feeling of "nonmagical expert" in whatever two or three fields you choose to specialize in.

But I don't think the RAW thief is compelling, compared to the alternatives. I can't think of a single criminal character concept who wouldn't be better off as either a Bard, Martial Artist, or Swashbuckler than a Thief. E.g. a bounty hunter who lives and dies by his traps--that can be a high-Per Gnomish bard with Keen Senses and Wisdom who puts some Quirk points in Traps skill. Same concept, more and better options.

[tbone]

The Thief template: effective or lame? There's a good consideration of the topic at the No School Grognard blog, looking at thieves in both DF and D&D. (Verdict: The profession is easily overshadowed by its peers. One commenter summarized it succinctly: "So yeah, the DF thief is a good model of the old school thief, and the old school thief sucked.")

I took up the topic in an article of my own, suggesting ways to power up DF and DFRPG thieves primarily by supercharging their skills through additional talents. (DF has a fair selection of talents of interest to thieves, but DFRPG offers few.)

My article, nearly five years old, holds up well, I think. But: Its advice is to fix the thief "problem" by doubling down on thieves' main feature, high skill levels. Some players might want to take the opposite route: not going deeper into skills, but instead broader into new advantages and abilities.

I think the GM can best help with that by being extra generous in letting a thief dip into other professions' abilities (as long as it's not stepping on another player's fun), as comments above wisely suggest. Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves should also be a help here, with new thief-focused advantages. (Lots of them. Maybe. There were many hammered out in playtesting, but I don't know how many will be in the final book.)

In the end, my own experience is that whether or not the thief profession is "effective", it's fun, and that's what counts. But, yeah, that fun suffers if the player feels the thief's too overshadowed by other PCs. So this thread is a welcome one.

(And to answer an OP question: No, I haven't played in, or heard of, a party of all thieves, beyond the truth of every dungeoneering party existing as a band of treasure-robbing "thieves". A party of all pure thieves does sound fun, though.)

[Christopher R. Rice]

The draft I submitted had 11 new combat power-ups, 18 new perks, and 33 new thief only power-ups. It was about 28,000 words upon final submission and that's about 33 pages of content not including the index, front page, etc.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

The draft I submitted had 11 new combat power-ups, 18 new perks, and 33 new thief only power-ups. It was about 28,000 words upon final submission and that's about 33 pages of content not including the index, front page, etc.

Any options for archtypes being half thief and half something else for an all thief group with abilities from Wizard, Cleric, Knight, etc.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by corwyn

Any options for archtypes being half thief and half something else for an all thief group with abilities from Wizard, Cleric, Knight, etc.

The lenses from DF3 were repeated along with a few from other books. There are 5 new templates: Bandit, Cat Burglar, Cutthroat, Mastermind, and Spell-Thief. Each template has at least 3 archetype paths for those templates, "architect" or "plotter" for Mastermind. The original template is also reprinted.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by tbone

I took up the topic in an article of my own, suggesting ways to power up DF and DFRPG thieves primarily by supercharging their skills through additional talents. (DF has a fair selection of talents of interest to thieves, but DFRPG offers few.)

I had time today to read your article. It was useful, informative, and fun to read. Thank you! I'm going to suggest that my player consider one or more of those talents.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Dalin

I had time today to read your article. It was useful, informative, and fun to read. Thank you! I'm going to suggest that my player consider one or more of those talents.

Thank you for the kind words. It's interesting that players in both DF/DFRPG and D&D raise complaints about the thief being overshadowed. It's fun profession to play (in my experience), so I welcome any ideas for removing those complaints.

I added a paragraph to the article now, noting this: On the template, the DF/DFRPG thief spends close to nothing on weapon skills (just a fraction of what even the wizard spends). Which is likely part of what sets some players complaining, but on the flip side, it means that just a few more points in weapon skills makes a real difference. With DX 15, a handful of diverted points easily gets you, say, Shortsword and/or Bow at 17 or higher, a decent level for skirmishing.

It's a pretty obvious improvement for any thief player wanting to help out more in combat.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by tbone

Thank you for the kind words. It's interesting that players in both DF/DFRPG and D&D raise complaints about the thief being overshadowed. It's fun profession to play (in my experience), so I welcome any ideas for removing those complaints.

I added a paragraph to the article now, noting this: On the template, the DF/DFRPG thief spends close to nothing on weapon skills (just a fraction of what even the wizard spends). Which is likely part of what sets some players complaining, but on the flip side, it means that just a few more points in weapon skills makes a real difference. With DX 15, a handful of diverted points easily gets you, say, Shortsword and/or Bow at 17 or higher, a decent level for skirmishing.

It's a pretty obvious improvement for any thief player wanting to help out more in combat.

I enjoyed the article so much that I started a giant reply on my phone about game structures, but it was too long and I got overwhelmed. :) The short version is that I think the thief lacks a niche as a dedicated profession, but I think all of the talents you suggest are improvements and I would allow any of them in my game, but thieves would still be weak IMO unless other changes are made, at minimum to free up points so you can actually SPEND them on those talents.

The fact that thieves are forced to spend 160 points (!) on DX and IQ plus 15 more on Perfect Balance might be why they're so thin on weapon skills. Even wizards spend only 140, and other professions spend 60-120. Diverting those DX/IQ points into talents from your article's list of talents would... still leave thieves without a real niche, but they'd be more fun to play. (And you could spend more points on advantages like Weapon Master (Knife) and Expert Backstabber, which are kind of fun if not overpowered by the standards of a combat specialist.)

P.S. #DailyHouserule on Twitter is terrific!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by tbone

Thank you for the kind words. It's interesting that players in both DF/DFRPG and D&D raise complaints about the thief being overshadowed. It's fun profession to play (in my experience), so I welcome any ideas for removing those complaints.

Thieves have two fundamental issues: they try to be good at both DX and IQ skills, and they try to be good at IQ skills without being a spellcaster. The way GURPS works, the first is almost always doomed to failure in high point games, and the second is just not particularly efficient. The easiest fix is probably something like:

• Make Perfect Balance optional (and expect to see it vanish from every character sheet; it's a terrible advantage)
• Make Flexibility optional (not actually a bad advantage, but not so good or thematic that it should be on every sheet)
• Reduce base IQ by a point.
• Increase base DX by a point, without adjusting basic Speed.
• Add a level of some really bogus Thief talent. I like Filch, Pickpocket, Search, Stealth, Streetwise, Traps [5]. Allow more levels with points.
• With the above savings, increase flex points from 30 to 50.
• Add Charisma to available options.