Further reflection, feedback from readers, and a lot of discussion with my son have led me to make some changes to our D12 thief skill table. What we’ve essentially done is get the 12th level numbers to match up with the 12th level numbers in the source (Labyrinth Lord). I’ve pretty much kept my higher starting rates, though, as I’ve always felt that the numbers were too low.
| Locks | Traps | Pockets | Move | Climb | Hide | Hear | Read | Cast | Appraise | |
| 1 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 3 | – | – | 5 |
| 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 4 | – | – | 6 |
| 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 3 | – | 6 |
| 4 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 4 | – | 7 |
| 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 4 | – | 7 |
| 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 8 |
| 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 9 |
| 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 12 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 9 |
| 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 10 |
| 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 10 |
| 11 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 13 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 11 |
| 12 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 12 |
My son sat with me and we worked these over until we were both happy. The numbers are, in most cases, more or less similar to the official LL numbers starting around level 8 or 9.
I also upped the cast spells from scroll numbers some, though we’re ruling that the scroll must first be read (read magic is at read languages -2 rate) to know what it is. Casting from scrolls number is -1 per level of the spell, so a 6th-level thief trying to cast a first-level spell would need to roll a 2 or less on d12.
We also added an “appraise items of value” skill, something we already had but had not put on the table.
In my games, the thief is much more than a lock-picking, trap-finding specialist. He’s a lot more in the vein of the “rogue” of later editions, though his combat skills are not anything like those super-ninja versions. Now that I’ve got the higher-level thief skills back to where they originally were, I’m going to have to revisit the thief advancement numbers in our new XP system. I thought I had all the classes locked down, but this is all still in flux. (I hope to post on our advancement system next week if I can get multi-classing finalized.)
Thanks for the feedback so far and I’ll welcome more.
Tags: thief
Although I doubt I could get the people playing thieves in my campaign to change streams this late, this is quite interesting.
Yeah, it’s definitely a switch. The numbers could be adjusted a little more to make them even more closely match LL/BX. We wanted to massage them a little to reflect what we’re going for, but I think I’m going to put a version that is as close to LL/BX as possible for those who might be interested in the method but don’t want our modifications.
We’re running S&W: Core, moving toward S&W: WB with all of the AD&D classes via house rules and otherwise – thanks for taking the time to put this together and share. We have a thief currently using Dyson Logos’ 2d6 thieves’ B/X rules. I’ll have to compare the two systems and see what’s what. All hail the d6!
I’ve looked at that 2d6 method before, but I couldn’t find it again when I started working on this. My google spell failed, I guess. Where can I find it?
It’s here.
Thanks. I hadn’t remembered that he had worked up a 1d6 method, also. I think that 1d6 is PERFECT for White Box type games, which is why I used in my White Box Thievery write-up some months ago.
[...] We have modified our table to more closely reflect the by-the-book numbers at higher [...]
[...] Compare these to the higher low level numbers of my game’s thief. [...]
Hi everybody,
for some reason I felt the need to do yet another d6 thief skill variant accounting exploding dice, skill modifiers and custom skill growth. I plan to use it tomorrow. Will let you know.
well, one of the rogues died, and the other didn’t do any shady thieving. I guess we have to wait
[...] that we’ve more or less settled (for now at least) on our D12 thief skills, I’m going to post our success rates for non-thieves attempting many of the same tasks. Each [...]