Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Musing Mage" data-source="post: 8572897" data-attributes="member: 7025552"><p>I am going to venture a controversial thought here - the Thief class is fine as-is.</p><p></p><p>So many DMs and players nerf the thief in the way they approach the abilities, then complain about how much they suck, when simply looking at it from another lens makes them quite useful.</p><p></p><p>Moving Silently and Hiding in Shadows are the ones most often done completely wrong. I have yet to see anyone use them as anything more than a binary pass/fail metric. They are meant to be possible <em>enhancements</em> to normal surprise chances, not the baseline skill to achieve them.</p><p></p><p>If your move silently succeeds, you subtract 2 points from the opponent's surprise roll. (d10, where surprise is achieved on a 1-3. Therefore successful MS means you surprise 1-5, 50%) Failure to MS simply means you don't get the enhancement but may still roll for normal surprise chances.</p><p></p><p>Hiding in shadows is your chance to achieve an <em>invisible state </em>in the right lighting conditions. Like with moving silently, failure doesn't mean you are automatically spotted, it simply means surprise chances are normal. So low starting numbers are still not a bad thing. A 15% chance to hide in shadows is still a roughly 1 in 6(ish) chance to become invisible in low light/shadowy conditions, which only gets better as you (rapidly) advance. If you're using the individual XP rules in the DMG, then thieves get 2xp per GP of loot, so they will ROCKET up in level after a good haul, I have seen it many times.</p><p></p><p>Backstab is also often nerfed into oblivion with a series of requirements. One DM I played with only allowed a backstab attempt IF the thief had successfully hidden in shadows, THEN moved silently behind the opponent AND achieved surprise (which was an unmodified roll, not adjusted for hiding/moving silently). That's the most extreme I've seen it, but many others are not far off from this.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I like 1e for backstab where it's always possible so long as you're on the opponent's rear, but for 2e, if you just use surprise as the only metric you need, then backstab will see plenty of use. And yes, it should be possible to re-achieve surprise by ducking out of the fight and successfully hiding for a round. There's already a note about being unable to hide under direct observation, but if the thief can slip out of sight, give them that chance - it is after all, what they do best.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Musing Mage, post: 8572897, member: 7025552"] I am going to venture a controversial thought here - the Thief class is fine as-is. So many DMs and players nerf the thief in the way they approach the abilities, then complain about how much they suck, when simply looking at it from another lens makes them quite useful. Moving Silently and Hiding in Shadows are the ones most often done completely wrong. I have yet to see anyone use them as anything more than a binary pass/fail metric. They are meant to be possible [I]enhancements[/I] to normal surprise chances, not the baseline skill to achieve them. If your move silently succeeds, you subtract 2 points from the opponent's surprise roll. (d10, where surprise is achieved on a 1-3. Therefore successful MS means you surprise 1-5, 50%) Failure to MS simply means you don't get the enhancement but may still roll for normal surprise chances. Hiding in shadows is your chance to achieve an [I]invisible state [/I]in the right lighting conditions. Like with moving silently, failure doesn't mean you are automatically spotted, it simply means surprise chances are normal. So low starting numbers are still not a bad thing. A 15% chance to hide in shadows is still a roughly 1 in 6(ish) chance to become invisible in low light/shadowy conditions, which only gets better as you (rapidly) advance. If you're using the individual XP rules in the DMG, then thieves get 2xp per GP of loot, so they will ROCKET up in level after a good haul, I have seen it many times. Backstab is also often nerfed into oblivion with a series of requirements. One DM I played with only allowed a backstab attempt IF the thief had successfully hidden in shadows, THEN moved silently behind the opponent AND achieved surprise (which was an unmodified roll, not adjusted for hiding/moving silently). That's the most extreme I've seen it, but many others are not far off from this. Personally, I like 1e for backstab where it's always possible so long as you're on the opponent's rear, but for 2e, if you just use surprise as the only metric you need, then backstab will see plenty of use. And yes, it should be possible to re-achieve surprise by ducking out of the fight and successfully hiding for a round. There's already a note about being unable to hide under direct observation, but if the thief can slip out of sight, give them that chance - it is after all, what they do best. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance
Top