Now 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 of these is a normal x-in-6 chance similar to the standard hear noise check. I’m actually pulling them straight from the d6-based White Box Thievery I posted last spring, though I’m not going to allow non-thief characters to remove traps, only find them.

Here they are, with some modifiers and notes:

Find Traps: Dwarves +1, Halflings +1 for snares and traps in woodland settings. This only applies to non-magical traps. A roll of 6 may indicate that the trap has been accidentally sprung.

Pick Pockets: Half-orcs -1. + or – 1 for every three levels the intended victim is above or below the picker’s level. A roll of 6 may indicate that the attempt has been noticed.

Sneak Quietly: Elves and Halflings +1 when in non-metal armor.

Climb Walls: Dwarves -1, Gnomes and Halflings -2. This chance for success applies to walls with sufficient hand- and foot-holds; smooth stone or masonry gives a -2 modifier (at least). A roll of 6 may mean that a fall from near the top has taken place.

Hide: Elves and Halflings +1 in woodlands. Someone already under observation cannot successfully hide.

Hear Noise is the standard ability as described in the rules.

Obviously these all follow, with the exception of climbing walls, the standard 1-in-6 chance that we all know and love. I happen to really like 1-in-6 for difficult tasks, 2-in-6 for hard tasks, 3-in-6 for simple tasks, and 4-in-6 for easy tasks. So x-in-6 is basically the D&D universal task system, and a look around the old rules will show that, with various tweaks here and there, it always has been.

One thing I’m considering is: When a 1-in-6 chance gets a -1 modifier (when a half-orc attempts to pick a pocket, for instance) instead of becoming 0-in-6 the chance for success becomes 1-in-12. It just goes with the “let PCs try anything they want” vibe I go for.

Here is a little more copied from my White Box Thievery rules that will probably be pasted as-is into our growing homebrew Labyrinth Lord rulebook:

Situational bonuses and penalties will, of course, apply as well. An inattentive sentry may give a +2 bonus to characters attempting to sneak past, while a scroll tucked into an inner pocket may give a -1 penalty to a pick pockets attempt. Similarly, the game master may simply rule on certain actions as warranted. A smooth and polished iron tower, for instance, may be declared un-climbable without assistance, while a wall overgrown with vines may not require a climbing roll at all. An attempt to hide in the plain sight of a squad of orcs which have already spotted the PC will certainly fail, but an attempt to hear a loudly snoring giant may always succeed.

Game masters may list common modifiers appropriate for his or her campaign ahead of time, but, whether or not this is done, on-the-fly rulings during play should be expected. These skills, by their very nature, are apt to be used for unusual and unforeseen purposes.

By clearly establishing baseline chances of success for all adventurers, claims that thief skills somehow restrict such activity to thief-specialized characters should be minimized. Everyone will know that their cleric (or fighter or magic-user) can try to pick someone’s pocket or climb a wall, just as everyone already knows that their character can listen for noise or search for a secret door whatever their class.

Tags: Labyrinth Lord, thief

For those that are interested, here are the by-the-book Labyrinth Lord thief skills calculated for d12 checks instead of percentile dice. This was made simply by taking the percentage value and multiplying by 12, rounding x.5 up to the next d12 number.

Dwarf: Locks +1, Traps +1, Climb -1
Elf: Locks -1, Pockets +1, Move+1, Hide +1, Hear +1
Gnome: Locks +1, Traps +1, Move +1, Climb -2, Hide +1
Halfling: Locks +1, Traps +1, Pockets +1, Move +1, Climb -2, Hide +1
Half-Elf: Pockets +1, Hide +1
Half-Orc: Locks +1, Traps +1, Pockets -1, Climb +1

The LL thief table only goes to level 14 despite the game taking classes up to level 20.

Compare these to the higher low level numbers of my game’s thief.

Tags: Labyrinth Lord, thief

As I noted recently in my Labyrinth Lord House Rules, I’ve decided to give thieves a d6 for hit dice rather than the d4 specified by LL and B/X D&D. This doesn’t seem to be an uncommon ruling, though I didn’t arrive at it lightly.

In fact, I didn’t decide one way or the other until my son’s main character, a thief originally generated in Second Edition AD&D but recently ported over to Labyrinth Lord, earned a new level. At that point we needed to know which die he’d roll for additional hit points, and I went with the six-sider.

D4 or not D4?

Over at B/X Blackrazor, JB is working up a “B/X Companion” to take the place of a follow-up to the 1981 sets that was never produced. As B/X has provisions for levels 1 through 14, and I play Labyrinth Lord which goes to level 20, I’ve been keeping an eye on his progress for some good ideas to possibly incorporate into my LL game should any PCs advance to such stupendously high levels.

A recent post, B/X Thieves: Epitome of Heroic Adventurer, talks at length about thieves and the justification for their d4 hit dice. He makes a lot of great points, and I really can’t bring myself to argue too strongly against his position, but I really don’t feel that d4 is appropriate for thieves.

Hit points are an abstract measure of “toughness”, more or less, and thieves, of course, aren’t nearly as tough as fighters. Are they as tough as clerics? Possibly, though you’ll probably get a wide range of answers depending on where each players rates the cleric on the priest — holy warrior scale. I tend to rate clerics closer to holy warriors, myself, and think that maybe they are probably a little tougher than thieves, too. In AD&D, there wasn’t a problem. Fighters had d10 hit dice, clerics d8, and thieves d6. All was right in the world.

In B/X (and Labyrinth Lord), however, there is a problem because fighters have d8 and clerics have d6. I happen to think this is a better scale, for what it’s worth, but it does leave the poor thief needing to share hit dice with either the cleric (which I think probably isn’t right) or the magic-user (which I think certainly and positively isn’t right).

Maybe d5 hit dice for the thief? Or d4+2 at first level and d4 for each level thereafter? How about d6 at odd-numbered levels and d4 at even-numbered levels?

Kilgore's battered Red Six

I ran through a number of possibilities, including leaving it at d4 because that’s the way it’s written, but finally went with d6. Part of the reason was it’s just plain simple.

Though I don’t see thieves as the ninja-commandos that they have morphed into over time, I also don’t see adventuring thieves as just regular guys with a couple special skills. Sure, they aren’t likely to be terribly skilled in combat compared to the classes that have combat as a major part of their skill set, but neither are they likely to be as weak as magic-users, for whom combat is usually an afterthought. I think the d6 thief, capable of holding his own in a fight against most opponents, at least for a little while, better matches up with the swords and sorcery feel that I go for in my games most often.

In short, if they are to be a separate adventuring class, I think thieves should be more like fighters who have given up advanced combat training and conditioning for skills in sneaking and skulduggery, not like normal men who have picked up some stealthy specialist skills.

I’ve considered making a few weapons restrictions for thieves, who have none in B/X or Labyrinth Lord.

I continue to like the White Box Thief system I came up with to use with original edition games, but I don’t think it’s really right for Labyrinth Lord. Also, all of this might be moot for me once Advanced Edition Characters is published. We’ll see.

Until then, my thieves have d6.

Tags: Labyrinth Lord, thief