Thief skills. Ever since back in the day, I was not a fan of how they were implemented. The selection was good, but the % mechanic didn't seem to hang together with the rest of the mechanics, the starting percentages seemed arbitrary, and all thieves advanced at the same rate. AD&D 2e introduced thieves being able to allot their % gains from leveling as they wished, which helped, but it still kind of annoyed me (despite my being otherwise a fan of % systems, like Star Frontiers).
In recent years I've become a big fan of D&D's 2d6 mechanic for morale and reaction rolls and I think it could be applied to thief skills as a better replacement for the default percentile mechanic. Thoughts?
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- Selection of thief skills stay the same.
- All thief skills start at +0 to the 2d6 roll.
- At 1st level, the thief gets 2 points to add to skills (either add +2 to a single skill, or +1 to two skills).
- Each additional level, the thief gets 2 more points to add to their thief skills.
- Skill checks are made against the difficulty of the task (roll equal to or higher than the difficulty level assigned):
2 / impossible to fail (no roll required)
3-5 / Easy
6-8 / Average
9-11 / Hard
12+ / Very hard
- Example: Mungo the 1st level thief finds a chest with the lock broken off. Since the lock is broken off, it effective level is 2 - Mungo can simply open it.
- Example: Later in his career, Mungo the 3rd level thief has Pick Pockets at +4. He attempts to pick the pocket of a high level elf in the market (difficulty 10). He rolls a 7 for a total of 11 and cuts the elf's purse from the target's belt when someone else bumps into the elf. Getting greedy, a few rounds later Mungo tries again - removing a scroll tube protruding from the elf's robes - but rolls a 3 for a total of 7. Mungo is detected, and after a scuffle is captured and imprisoned by the city guard.
- Released sometime later, Mungo reaches 5th level and has his skills tested when he tries to join a guild in a new city. They assign him the task of picking the pocket of a senior thief of the guild at a random time. Mungo has put more points into picking pockets and now has a +7. The task is near impossible as the target is one of the guild's best (difficulty 14); Mungo rolls an 8, for a total of 15 - success! The guild admits him, world spreading quickly of Mungo's legendary pickpocket skills.
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Why I like the idea.. it gets rid of the seemingly arbitrary starting skill percentages and identical advancement rates of the classic system; it expands use of the 2d6 mechanic used elsewhere; it gives even low level thieves the chance to make an epic score by rolling a pair of 6's; and it puts the power in the DMs hands to assign difficulty levels to checks rather than a flat percentile rating.
Feedback welcome!
That looks workable to me. I agree the d% skills kind of jar with how everything else works (but then so does everything else in the old system!). Granted that the thief led directly to my beloved RuneQuest, but I often yearn for a universal mechanic in D&D. Trouble is, there are a lot of ways you could go - 1d6, 2d6 or 1d20 depending on how far you want to take it.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure there are a bunch of 1d6 and 2d6 thieves' skills mechanics out there, you might get some more ideas with a bit of searching (particularly on the OD&D Discussion Forum).
Dyson Logos has an awesome 2d6 skill system.
ReplyDeleteMichael Thomas
ReplyDeleteYep, agreed on all points. As time went on, especially from Greyhawk on Gygax made increasing use of the percentile check in character mechanics; Arneson seems to have always been a fan (Blackmoor, and First Fantasy Campaign). I'm of a mind to keep percentiles for use with mainly non-character related mechanics - treasure rolls, random encounter rolls, etc. where that level of granularity is highly useful. For character mechanics, I'd like to keep it to d6 (initiative, surprise, detect secret doors etc.), 2d6 (morale, reaction, some other stuff) and d20 (attacks, saves).
Wyl Majure I may have seen it but it's not ringing any bells - you have a link handy by any chance?
ReplyDeleteThanks Tony! Doug - interesting take on it; not quite what I'm looking to use, but I like it.
ReplyDeleteI've seen something like this, perhaps it was Dyson Logos' version, which I quite like, but I'm not willing to substitute the existing % based system, simply because I'm lazy about this aspect of the system, and complexely, because I think there are a lot of modifiers that can be added to the existing % system without adding any rules. So, yeah, it boils down to me being lazy. ;) I wouldn't mind playing a thief if someone else's game that featured the 2d6 system, however. I'm always open to new rulings & rules. :)
ReplyDeleteI've read about the original. Pre-Gygaxian thief (which can be seen in Warlock or living rules document from that SoCal College the name of which escapes me), which had skills based off of the wizard's spell table, and once lockpicking was at a certain level, lower level locks were automatically opened without the need for rolls. I liked that.
ReplyDeleteAndy C I like your use of the 2d6 table.
ReplyDeleteI will point out that the OD&D Thief % system is really just a d20 roll under system (like ability checks in B/X) since it uses 5% increments (except for Climb Walls). So you could change it to a d20 roll very quickly. But using the % dice instead of d20 helps us remember that it is a roll under rather than roll over like to-hit/saves.
Andy, just got around to seeing this... and I really like it! Did you implement it in your game, and if so, how has it worked out in play?
ReplyDelete