AD&D - Adding to the Thief Class
Polyhedron magazine has an article about adding to the class..
The article "Arcane Academe: Adding to the Thief" by Jeff Martin introduces new skill options for the Thief class in AD&D, inspired by the Unearthed Arcana supplement. It provides additional skills like Appraise, Ransack, and Infiltrate, aiming to give Thieves more variety and specialization within the game. This expansion allows for a more detailed approach to Thief abilities, enhancing their gameplay experience with refined skill checks, racial and dexterity adjustments, and various skill proficiencies based on level.
Highlights
🏛 New Thief Skills: Introduces Appraise, Ransack, and Infiltrate to expand Thief abilities.
📜 Appraise: Allows Thieves to determine an item’s value accurately, especially valuable or rare items.
🔍 Ransack: Skill focused on quickly finding hidden items or concealed compartments.
🕵️ Infiltrate: Enhances the Thief’s ability to sneak, hide, and infiltrate restricted areas.
📈 Level-based Proficiency: Skills improve with Thief levels, allowing gradual mastery.
🧬 Racial Adjustments: Certain races (e.g., Dwarves, Elves) receive bonuses to specific Thief skills.
🤸 Dexterity Adjustments: Dexterity modifies Thief skills, with higher Dexterity providing additional benefits.
Key Insights
💡 Specialization Boost: Adding skills like Appraise, Ransack, and Infiltrate gives Thieves unique roles within a party.
💡 Increased Depth: The racial and dexterity adjustments add a nuanced layer to skill effectiveness based on character traits.
💡 Game Balance: The gradual proficiency scaling aligns with level progression, balancing gameplay and skill effectiveness for Thieves.
Excellent work! Is it just me (an original AD&D player) or does every new character class or D&D publication seem like added “legalized cheat moves”? Players want “night vision “ to cheat against the DM weapon of the darkness, “long rests” are a cheat against the DM’s weapon of grinding down the player HP. Every player can pick locks so campaigns don’t require a thief (and their skills) - players design characters as a cheat against anything the DM can throw at them- heroes without flaws or possible failures (additional modifiers to every dice roll) - it’s like playing the game monopoly and saying “my Dog token is the child of a Hotel Tycoon and has an inexhaustible trust fund” - if everyone has in game “super powers” then just say “we go to the Dungeon, kill all the monsters, get all the treasure- what new level and now?