D&D 2E 2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance

[cavetroll]

So what if you had a fighter/thief and a thief in the same party? You can’t really direct who gets which magic item….

If they are a different race or alignment you could. But as a DM you generally played with friends in the 2e days and you knew who was going to pick each items. A fighter/thief is lower levels than a thief, you could also at a level requirement.

 

[James Gasik]

Were they sneaking around? I find this hard to believe, as 1st level Halfling Thief with a 16 Dexterity has a Move Silently of 50% and a Hide in Shadows of 50% if they put all their points into those Abilities (which means they are completely useless at finding traps or opening locks). Then, even if they get into melee range and backstab with the best weapon for the job (broadsword in 2 hands vs. medium size for 4d4 damage, which, while unlikely, COULD fail to kill an Orc), they are now all alone in leather armor for the couple of rounds it takes for their party to rush in (as they need to be far enough away that nobody can detect their presence). Unless it was a single Orc, then you could just surprise them by busting into a room and somebody firing an arrow at them.

Don't forget also, our Halfling Thief has to creep around at 1/3 his speed, which is half that of a human's to begin with. All to have his coin flip (well two coin flips, as he most likely has to roll both Hide and Move Silently to get that close) at not being seen, and most likely becoming a Halfling shish-ka-bob.

For those of you who had different play experiences, that must have been awesome and I'm envious. But I've only ever played three Thieves in 2nd Edition. One died to a flubbed Move Silently roll, another got a Ring of Invisibility and lasted to the ripe old level of 7th, and the third was a Dwarven Locksmith who found the traps, opened the locks, and wisely fired a bow in combat standing alongside the Mage.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The last 2e campaign I ran, there was a halfling fighter/thief. They did everything a little worse than the single-classed fighters and single-classed thief did. If I recall correctly, they didn't pick a kit.

My take on the thief skills, like others, is that they are brutally low, and take forever to become viable. Furthermore, using them directly puts the thief in harm's way (scouting ahead, trying to find and disarm traps) that make their lifespan potentially much shorter. Kits can enable you to specialize and at least be close-to-okay at a few things early on.

Using magic items to balance out the class is fine - I think most thieves back then were perpetually on the hunt for a ring of invisibility, cloak of elvenkind and/or boots of elvenkind. And magic items were a major part of the progression of every class.

 

[James Gasik]

Those are pretty potent magic items though. And letting a Thief gain magic items that would let them ignore their Thieving Abilities seems strange to me now (back then, it never struck me as odd).

What is strange is when a Fighter in heavy armor can wear Boots of Elvenkind and still have a 95% chance to move silently, but a Thief couldn't even wear Studded without penalties!

 

[mach1.9pants]

A way to balance the single classed thief is to make single class (only, specialized in thievery) thieves abilities always work off a normal human could do it. So if a normal human could possibly sneak past an unattended guard? Yup, success don't roll, fighter thief rolls. If an attentive guard, recently on duty in front of a castle gate, in daylight, impossible. Well, not impossible to the specialized thief, he gets to roll. Basically rool to sucessfully use invisibility and silence!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've heard that before - that a thief (or anyone) can just make a Dex check to sneak past a guard at night, but the thief skills come into play when it's otherwise impossible for regular people - that they represent almost magical abilities.

A way to balance the single classed thief is to make single class (only, specialized in thievery) thieves abilities always work off a normal human could do it. So if a normal human could possibly sneak past an unattended guard? Yup, success don't roll, fighter thief rolls. If an attentive guard, recently on duty in front of a castle gate, in daylight, impossible. Well, not impossible to the specialized thief, he gets to roll. Basically rool to sucessfully use invisibility and silence!

 

[mach1.9pants]

I've heard that before - that a thief (or anyone) can just make a Dex check to sneak past a guard at night, but the thief skills come into play when it's otherwise impossible for regular people - that they represent almost magical abilities.

Yeah it is based on what Mike Mornard (spelling?) mentioned in the original EGG games. But it is more, Thieves automatically acheive anything humanly possible, they will find all basic taps if they loook, they will easily sneak into un alert places, climb and cliff, open any lock in a townsmans house, pick any Joe’s pocket (and steal beer from the bartender). However to climb the glass tower, to find, disarm, and open the trapped high quality chest, they roll. It doesn’t make them OP, to do these things they have to be alone, a massive risk. It also doesn’t solve that in combat thieves should just hide until it’s over!

 

[James Gasik]

If the Thief were written with that assumption, I'd be happier about it. But the books never reflected that concept, and in fact, if you read things like the Mountaineering Non-Weapon Proficiency, you can see, by 2e, at least, climbing things if you weren't a Thief or Bard was intended to be HARD

I haven't read the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide in a long time, so I don't recall how difficult climbing was for non-Thieves in 1e. I do recall reading discussions that the Thief was badly received because the existence of their abilities just meant that things DM's decided characters could already do, were now class-locked.

Thieves need help, that's for sure, and if you take the approach that their abilities are "beyond normal", that might help them. Oddly, I don't care for the modern approach, which is that "everyone can do this stuff if trained, it's just the Thief gets more skills/better bonuses".

Mostly because that creates issues when you try to design encounters: "Ok, so everyone is sneaking up to the fortress, that's a DC 15 Stealth check." Players roll dice, and the Rogue player is like "what, I have a +17 with Advantage."

Which means you can't possibly use anything that could challenge the Rogue as a "party challenge", so either the Rogue always succeeds, or the rest of the party always fails.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah it is totally not how it is written, even OSR clones that cleave close don’t include or even hint at this ‘interpretation’. It leaves Thieves as pretty useless, I’ve never had a player play one apart from my first proper campaign, after that everyone I’ve played with have realised they suck - totally reliant on DM to do anything, and as ready for insta death as the MU. Especially as that campaign was BECMI, Magic User you can blind someone with a word, Thief you get 2% better at hiding and sneaking - but not at the same time.

 

[Voadam]

In 1e thieves were the class that most demihumans could take unlimited levels in.

This was a reason demihumans often became thieves or multiclassed thieves.

In the 2e DMG they changed this and most capped out at level 12.