Thieves
HP/level: 1d6
Required stats: 9 Dex
Weapon proficiencies: 2 +1/4 levels
Non-weapon proficiencies: 3 +1/3 levels
The skull-duggerers, pickpockets, con artists, alley thugs and mobsters of a campaign world either are thieves or employ them, and for very good reason;
No one can do what a thief can do like a thief. Nobody. Some classes can do a little of this or a little of that, and the likes of spellcasters have magicks that certainly take a nice shot at emulating the skilled hands, feet and wit of a thief.
But, as any good thief would tell you, they all fall short of the real thing.
Thief Skills are what makes a thief a Thief and not just some bum of a sad fighter trying to cut a purse or steal a pocket watch. They are extremely diverse, utilizing their skills in a whole host of ways to get at what they want.
And what, exactly, do they want?
Well, by hook or by crook, what drives a thief can be as varied as thieves are amongst themselves. Some might think it’s a thrill, some might think it’s a game. Yet others might want to get rich by doing as little “real” work as possible, and yet others might harbor malice enough to just want it all for themselves and to hell with everyone else who isn’t good enough to keep hold of what they’ve got.
From the heroic to the nefarious, thieves can be it all (and often are, sometimes at the
same time).
As a general rule, whenever a thief is flanking someone, has gained surprise on a foe or has snuck up on an unwary target (or attacks someone who is unsuspecting, such as if they believe that the thief is friendly), the thief gets a “Backstab” attack roll and damage modifier. Such attacks are at a +4 to hit above and beyond the thief’s base attack bonus and magical weapon bonuses, strength bonuses, etcetera. The thief gets a single attack with this modifier, even if the thief can use multiple weapons or has multiple attacks in a round. If the attack is a hit, the thief multiplies his or her damage (before adding damage adjustments) by a number determined by his or her level.
Level; multiplier
1-4: x2
5-8: x3
9-12: x4
13-16: x5
17-20: x6
21-24: x7
25-28: x8
29: x9
30: x10
Thieves have a 5% chance per level of being able to read wizardly spell scrolls. They subtract 5% per level of spell they are attempting to read. If their intelligence scores are not high enough so that, were they wizards, they could cast the level of spell inscribed on the scroll, the attempt automatically fails in a manner completely subject to the DM’s whim. This is NOT a Thief Skill that they can add points to, but a class feature that reflects the thief’s increasing abilities to get into things they probably shouldn’t, even magic.
Thieves have base percentages in each skill to start with in their thief skills, modified for dexterity and armor worn. Heavy armors murder their percentages in almost all of their skills, so thieves tend to avoid them (unless they’re trying to pull off a disguise, perhaps, or making off with it to sell).
At 1st level, a thief gets 60 points to distribute amongst his or her skills as the player sees fit. No more than 30 can be put onto any one skill, however. With each additional level as a thief, the character gains 30 points to put towards bettering their skills, no more than 15 of which can go to any one skill. There are nine skills that thieves begin with, though there are two others that they gain in higher levels that shall be described below.
Note: thieves can raise their percentile scores in skills above the normal maximum of 95%. It costs 5 points per 1 point increase above 95% to do so, but many high level thieves often have a few skills well over 100% in this fashion, and are as such extremely good at those things.
Pick Pockets
Open Locks
Find/Remove Trap
Move Silently
Hide in Shadows
Climb Walls
Read Languages
Escape Bonds
Levitation *at 10th
Walk through Walls *at 15th
Pick Pockets:
This skill has a variety of uses, it’s naming use being the most obvious. If a thief wants to snag something out of a passing pocket or pouch, they make a check on percentile dice. Say that a thief has a 40% Pick Pockets skill. The DM rolls the percentile dice and then looks at the level of the person being robbed. The Dm then subtracts 1% for every level higher than the thief’s own the victim has, or doesn’t do a thing if the victim is of equal or lower level. If the thief’s check is 40% or less, they snag something (or something specific, if they saw what they wanted or knew it was there, perhaps worsening the check if the DM decides the specific item in question was buried a bit in a pack or stuck in a pouch at a careless angle). If the thief succeeds, voila! The thief then has the item. If the thief fails by up to 10%, they get nothing, but the attempt is not noticeable. Failure of more than 10% allows the victim a Spot check at DC 15 plus or minus the difference in their own level and the thief’s. Thus, if a 7th level thief were trying to pickpocket a 10th level fighter, the DC would be 12 (15 minus 3 because the victim is 3 levels higher), providing the thief failed the roll that badly. Another use for this skill is snatching something out of a person’s hand. Say that the thief really wants to remove the wand pointed in his face from the wizard’s hand that’s holding it. In that case, initiative would be rolled. The thief would get a modifier of +3, modified for dexterity. If the thief won, s/he could make a Pick Pockets check at half their percentage to snatch the item. If the check succeeded, the thief would zip a hand out and pluck the wand out of the blinking wizards hand. If the initiative roll failed, the thief would be subject to attack (and it’d probably hurt), and if the percentile check failed, the opponent might have snatched the object away in time, or simply held onto it tightly enough. In the case of larger objects or those tightly held, like swords in the grip of a warrior who is trying to kill you with it, such an attempt is pointless and liable to get the thief mangled. Now, a sword could be pulled from the opponents scabbard by such an attempt. Imagine the look on a furious fighter’s face when, as he tries to punch a thief, the thief nimbly snatches his sword from his own scabbard and turns it on him. The check for such actions as that are at half the thief’s pick pocket percentage.
Open Locks:
Opening locks seems to be a thing that all thieves both love and hate doing. They love it, because locks tend to hide good treasure, and they hate it, as locks also tend to hide nasty traps. The opening of locks, however, requires Thief Picks, and this skill is largely useless without the correct implements to do the job with (although a thief can surely try, their luck at picking a lock with, say, a well placed kick or a fork is likely to be severely penalized). The thief rolls the check, the DM assigns modifiers according to lock quality (from +60% for a really poor lock to –60 for a masterful lock), and if the thief succeeds, the lock is opened. All attempts at opening a lock take time, as described below. This skill also allows a thief to make locks. Making a lock is just like trying to pick one in that the thief makes a check (remember that a thief will need to get the materials to make a lock in the first place), modified by the same value that would be in effect if they were trying to pick it according to lock quality, and, if they succeed, the lock is built.
Very Poor Lock: +60% to open or make: 1d3 rounds to pick, 10 minutes to make
Poor Lock: +40% to open or make: 1d4 rounds to pick; 20 minutes to make
Average Lock: +20% to open or make: 1d6 rounds to pick; 30 minutes to make
Good Lock: no modifier to open or make: 1d10 rounds to pick; 1 hour to make
Very Good Lock: -20% to open or make: 2d8 rounds to pick: 2 hours to make
Excellent Lock: -40% to open or make: 1d3+1 turns to pick: 4 hours to make
Masterful Lock: -60% to open or make: 1d6+2 turns to pick: 8 hours to make
The times listed to make locks are effective if the thief has all the materials necessary. The time to pick locks can be modified by circumstances.
Find/Remove Traps:
The disarming and making of traps is also amongst the thieves’ gamut. Separate checks must be made to find and remove a located trap. Traps can range from blithely simple (a hastily covered shallow pit) to blindingly nefarious (like, a blade swinging vertically down from the ceiling that triggers a blade to sweep horizontally a moment later that, as it crashes to the wall on the other side, breaks a hollowed stone, releasing chlorine gas into the air). Such things are all in the average day of a good thief, and they’re prepared to both disarm them and make a few of their own. Finding and removing traps often requires Thief Picks, and the making of them almost always requires materials (sometimes a lot of them, as in the double blade and gas trap exemplified above). Much like picking or making locks, the thief makes a check that is modified by the complexity and skill with which the trap was made. A check to find a trap that fails triggers it. A check to disarm a trap that fails also triggers it. Risky business, all of it. Against magical traps (or traps that include magic as an integral aspect), the thief’s percentage to find and/or disarm the trap is half. Traps within traps also have to be taken into account, and disarming one trap might be the trigger that sets another one off (as most thieves who’ve found this out first-hand and survived readily recall), so, very risky business indeed, the finding and removing of traps.
Very Poor Trap: max dmg: 1d3 or equal effect: 1d3 rounds to find/disarm: +60% to find/disarm or make. 5 minutes to make
Poor Trap: max dmg: 1d4 or equal effect: 1d4 rounds to find/disarm: +40% to find/disarm or make. 10 minutes to make
Average Trap: max dmg: 1d6 or equal effect: 1d6 rounds to find/disarm: +20 to find/disarm or make. 30 minutes to make.
Good Trap: max dmg: 1d10 or equal effect: 1d10 rounds to find/disarm: no modifier to find/disarm or make. 1 hour to make.
Very Good Trap: max dmg: 2d8 or equal effect: 2d8 rounds to find/disarm: -20% to find/disarm or make. 2 hours to make
Excellent Trap: max dmg: 3d10 or equal effect: 3d10 rounds to find/disarm: -40% to find/disarm or make. 6 hours to make
Masterful Trap: max dmg: 5d12 or equal effect: 5d12 rounds to find/disarm: -60% to find/disarm or make: 12 hours to make.
Move Silently:
This skill allows the thief to move at their normal walking rate of movement soundlessly.
Such modifiers can range from +50% to –100%. Walking soundlessly through an empty room that has a stone floor while barefoot and not garbed in any noisy material might grant the thief a +50% to the check. Such things as boots, armor and carried gear all detract from this skill’s usefulness, and the thought of trying to move silently while wearing a suit of full plate (-95%) across a floor covered in dry leaves (-30%) while carrying a sack full of jingly coins (-30%) for a total penalty of –155% would make any thief’s stomach turn. If the thief stops, for any reason, another check must be made when the thief starts moving again if they wish to continue moving silently.
A thief that has succeeded on a Move Silently check cannot be detected by a Listen check. Penalties for moving faster than walking are as follows.
Walk slowly (x.5): +10%
Walk (x1): normal percentage
Hustle (x2): -15%
Jog (x3): -30%
Run (x4): -50%
Run (x5): -80%
Hide in Shadows:
Hiding in shadows, blending in with a crowd, making one’s self very scarce in a thicket; this skill is all of it. The Thief, on a successful check (modified for circumstances) can blend in almost completely with his or her surroundings, whether it means hiding in a shadowy corner of a room or fading into a crowd. Obviously, one can do little to hide in a bare room that is brightly lit (-100%…which means that a very skilled thief could, in fact, do it…which is why these skills are quasi-supernatural), but for most occasions, this skill works wonders. It can be used in complete conjunction with Move Silently, although a Hide in Shadows check must be made each round while moving. A thief that has succeeded on a Hide in Shadows check cannot be detected by a spot check.
Detect Noise:
Anyone can use the Listen proficiency, but when a thief stops to listen, their keen ears can pick up on the most amazing things. On a successful check, modified for circumstances, a thief can hear even subtle whisperings up to 60’ distant as clearly as if they were right there in his ears. Such mundane things as walls, doors and the like can negate this completely, but if a thief were trying to listen in on a conversation across a relatively quiet inn commons, s/he could do so on a single check. Now, if a handful of rowdy dwarves came in, s/he’d have to recheck with a modified penalty for increased noise. A thief only needs to recheck when they A) move, B) try to listen to something else specifically or C) the noise level increases significantly. Thieves do not need to recheck when the noise level diminishes.
Noise Modifiers:
Perfectly still: +50% Ex: silent and still, no noise of note at all
Very quiet: +30% Ex: a gentle breeze with no other sound
Reasonably quiet: +10% Ex: a room with a single softly snoring person in it
Average: no modifier Ex: a tavern room with a low murmur of talking
Fairly noisy: -10% Ex: a tavern room with talking and light music, perhaps laughing
Pretty noisy: -30% Ex: a full tavern room with jangly music and laughter
Very noisy: -50% Ex: a tavern full of arguing militiamen in jingling armor
Cacophony: -70% Ex: a full-out tavern brawl
Utter Cacophony: -100% Ex: a dragon tearing the roof off the tavern and eating the brawling militiamen
Doors and walls add a difficulty of anywhere from –10% to –100%, depending on thickness and composition. So, trying to hear a whisper on the outside of the tavern wall while the dragon is eating the militiamen would have about a –150% penalty to the check, which could be done if the thief had a skill of 151% and rolled a 1 on the percentile dice. In such a situation, however, the thief is well advised to bother with whispers at a later, more opportune time when dragons are less abundantly present.
Being eaten by the dragon, of course, carries unique penalties all its own.
Climb Walls:
Skittering up a cliff face, scampering up a castle wall or even picking one’s way up a nearly vertical wall of glass is this skill’s business. The business of climbing is often a thief’s only means of entry (or exit, as is all too often the case), and thus, most thieves tend to be very good at it. A thief can climb, on a successful check, at 1/2 his or her normal walking speed. Compare this to someone with the Climb proficiency being able to climb at a speed of 2 feet per round (or 20 feet per minute) on a successful check, and you can see how a thief’s skill is not only superior in terms of success ratio, but also in efficiency. At half their percentage, they can even “climb” across horizontal ceilings and such, though only at ¼ their normal walking speed. Modifiers are taken into account after the percentage of the skill is halved, so a slick wall’s –20% penalty becomes all that much more daunting when a thief’s skill goes from, per say, 90% to 45%.
Tree: +50%
Crude wall: +40%
Standard Wooden palisade or house wall: +20%
Standard stonework wall: +15%
Standard dwarven stonework wall: -15% (the stones are near perfectly fitted together)
Rain slick: -20% in addition to other modifiers
Iced over: -35% in addition to other modifiers
Glass-smooth or fully mirrored surface: -90%
So, a thief trying to climb the side of a crystal palace that is glistening slick with rain would have a –110% penalty. Trying to pick one’s way across a stonework ceiling sheeted with ice would have a –20% penalty (standard stonework and iced over modifiers combined)
The use of a rope and grapple adds +30% to any vertical assent, as does the use of a rope and pitons on a stone wall, although the use of either (especially the pitons, which must be hammered or drilled in) can create noise and take time.
Read Language:
A thief can, on a successful check that has been modified as per the DM’s ruling of the language in question’s difficulty (+50% for a very common language to –infinity for a language used on another world the thief’s never been to that was destroyed a thousand years ago) to get the general idea of what a single page of script means. The thief can, at half their percentage, decipher spell scrolls without triggering magical traps upon them (unless the traps are triggered by handling the items in question and the thief handles them, which is another matter entirely), learning what spell is upon the scroll in the process. The thief can also use their skill, again at half it’s percentage, to identify glyphs of warding (priest spell) to Symbols (potent spell traps) without setting them off. Failure on the check, of course, sets them off, though the thief still gets any applicable saving throws (if, indeed, there are any. Some traps really are that brutal.)
One check is required per page of script or equivalent, or per spell or magical marking to be deciphered.
Escape Bonds:
Wriggling free of a binding rope, squeezing out from under a slowly falling ceiling through a slowly closing door or even shaking off the effects of a Hold Person spell, this is the skill that can do it. The thief can escape any one physical binding on a successful check, modified for circumstances. At half their percentage, the thief can even try to wholly evade paralyzing or holding spells, such as Hold Person or Bigby’s Crushing Fist. Spells like Temporal Stasis, Binding and the like can also be attempted at, even though they offer no saving throws (or radically modified saving throws for the Binding spell). The thief’s percentage is further lowered by the difference in his or her own level and the spellcaster’s level in such cases. In cases where the thief is of higher level, 1% is added to his or her percentage for every level difference. So, a thief with a 80% escape bonds skill that is 8th level is trying to avoid the hold person spell cast by a 5th level mage. His skill is halved to 40%, further modified to 43% for being 3 levels higher. If he makes his check at 43%, he avoids the spell completely. Even if he fails the check, he still gets the saving throw allowed by the spell. Note that this skill cannot give a saving throw against spells that offer none, like Temporal Stasis or Bigby’s Hand spells. If the check is failed, that’s that. In the case of the Bigby’s Hand spells, even if the check succeeds, the hand can try again in it’s next turn, requiring another check if the thief wants to remain free of the nasty giant hand.
For each physical binding on a thief (per say, his hands and feet are separately bound), there is a –10% to the percentage for every binding beyond the first. Now, if a thief were binding another thief, they would roll opposed Escape Bonds checks. If the binding thief made his or her check by more than the victim thief, the victim thief’s Escape Bonds skill would be ineffective against the bindings. If the victim thief made his or her check by more than the binding thief, he or she could use their Escape Bonds skill as normal.
If the binding thief fails their check on the opposed roll, the victim thief must still make a check. If they succeed by any margin, they can use their skill as normal, but if they, too, fail it, they cannot use their escape bonds skill on these bindings.
At 10th level, a thief gains a new thief skill.
Levitation:
The thief can use this quasi-magical skill, starting at 10th level (whereupon they can begin putting points towards it) to levitate 1 foot straight up per round. Each round of levitation requires a successful check. Failure on anything but 100 results in no movement, although if the thief is attacked or attempts any action except levitating, they fall. Note that this is NOT a magical function, and dispel magic, anti-magic shells and similar have no affect on the use of this ability. Note that, while attempting to levitate or maintain levitation, a thief gets no AC bonus from dexterity. In addition, because they cannot otherwise move at all, they are also considered Held, and any attack against them that hits their AC, after dex adjustments are removed, is considered a critical hit. Dangerous business, using this skill when danger lurks, as a thief that manages to levitate 20 feet up a 30 foot wall that gets shot by an archer takes not only the damage from the critical hit, but also falls and takes damage. However, it is a skill the any clever thief can use to numbingly useful ends. The thief can levitate while carrying up to 10 pounds of weight per level they have attained (so, a minimum of 100 extra pounds). Every ten pounds of weight beyond their own weight subtracts 1% from the percentage. So, a 15th level thief with a 60% levitation skill that has 50 pounds of gear and is trying to float out of a hole while carrying 70 pounds of Halfling and gear would get a –12 %, for a final percentage of 48%.
Failure of this skill on a roll of 100 results in the thief falling.
At 15th level, thieves gain the ability to walk through solid objects.
On a successful check, the thief can walk through one foot of solid material of any non-magical sort (stone, wood, mythril, doesn’t matter what it is so long as it is not magical or made by magic). At half their Walk through Walls ability, a thief can walk through magically created or outright magical walls. A 20th level thief with a 50% Walk through Walls skill could walk through a two foot thick castle gate on two successful checks, but trying to walk through the Wall of Stone the king’s wizard put up in front of him (blocking the whole entryway) could be a problem, as not only does the thief’s skill get halved, but he needs to make a successful check for every foot of material he is to walk through. Failure on a check while moving through solid material results in any part of the thief that is inside of the wall becoming stuck. If the thief’s head, torso or entire body is inside the wall, s/he simply dies. Such walls as a Wall of Fire cannot be walked through, as they cause damage to anyone near them. A prismatic wall or even a prismatic sphere could be traversed, though the thief would have to check at half his or her percentage against each and every layer of the prismatic wall or sphere that is yet erect. Failure on any check in that process would result in the thief being hit by all seven effects and, further, receiving no saving throw. In short, instant death several times over as his ruined, petrified corpse is randomly blipped off to another plane where, even if he’s resurrected, his mind is shattered into insanities grip and the lethal poison in his system probably requires another resurrection to bring him to life again, whereupon there’s still the matter of insanity to deal with…
Some walls are just not worth walking through.