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2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance
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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8574040" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>Oh I agree, the DM -should- be working with the Thief. Unfortunately, the guidance in AD&D seems to be the very opposite.</p><p></p><p>While not relevant to the Thief specifically, we have Gary actively saying that you should NEVER tell Assassin players that they have an extra class ability (poison use) unless they ask specifically (hey can assassins use poisons?). His rants about player agency inform the DM that the players need to work for everything, and you should make things as hard as possible for them.</p><p></p><p>And sometimes, that's baked into the rules- for example, Monk open hand damage doesn't work on creatures of a certain height!</p><p></p><p>2e doesn't have anti-player rhetoric, but the rules still reflect that things should be hard. Some of the things I noted about the Thieving Abilities just boggle the mind. If I Hide in Shadows, infravision cannot detect me. But I can't Hide in Shadows in pure darkness, so infravision can detect me easily before I can reach an area with some kind of illumination?</p><p></p><p>And the truly tragic part about this is that backstab isn't really even all that good! The damage multiplier is to the weapon damage dice alone! Now the Thief does have a few weapons that can really take advantage of this (a broadsword does 2d4, so 4d4, 6d4, and so on isn't bad). Elves will probably use longswords which are a little worse at 1d8.</p><p></p><p>Halflings can use these weapons in two hands and it's not like Thieves use shields or anything.</p><p></p><p>Presumably a Fighter/Thief could use a Greatsword or something crazy like the Longspear from the Complete Fighter's Handbook.</p><p></p><p>But even then, this isn't guaranteed death, even though it can be a lot of damage.</p><p></p><p>Of course some DM's I know actually took the "knife in the back" comment quite literally and disallowed backstab with heavy weapons.</p><p></p><p>You can see this with a lot of the early 3e discussions about the Rogue's Sneak Attack, where DM's, used to older rules, flat out rejected the notion a Rogue could Sneak Attack with a greatsword or a scythe.</p><p></p><p>Then in 4e and 5e, what weapons you could Sneak Attack with was restricted, so that while 5e Rogues can use longswords, they can't use them to Sneak Attack.</p><p></p><p>I know that this is an example of DM's stepping beyond the rules, but this is the kind of environment the Thief lived in- his abilities were hard to use, had glaring flaws, and the DM was sometimes encouraged to make the Thief fail.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8574040, member: 6877472"] Oh I agree, the DM -should- be working with the Thief. Unfortunately, the guidance in AD&D seems to be the very opposite. While not relevant to the Thief specifically, we have Gary actively saying that you should NEVER tell Assassin players that they have an extra class ability (poison use) unless they ask specifically (hey can assassins use poisons?). His rants about player agency inform the DM that the players need to work for everything, and you should make things as hard as possible for them. And sometimes, that's baked into the rules- for example, Monk open hand damage doesn't work on creatures of a certain height! 2e doesn't have anti-player rhetoric, but the rules still reflect that things should be hard. Some of the things I noted about the Thieving Abilities just boggle the mind. If I Hide in Shadows, infravision cannot detect me. But I can't Hide in Shadows in pure darkness, so infravision can detect me easily before I can reach an area with some kind of illumination? And the truly tragic part about this is that backstab isn't really even all that good! The damage multiplier is to the weapon damage dice alone! Now the Thief does have a few weapons that can really take advantage of this (a broadsword does 2d4, so 4d4, 6d4, and so on isn't bad). Elves will probably use longswords which are a little worse at 1d8. Halflings can use these weapons in two hands and it's not like Thieves use shields or anything. Presumably a Fighter/Thief could use a Greatsword or something crazy like the Longspear from the Complete Fighter's Handbook. But even then, this isn't guaranteed death, even though it can be a lot of damage. Of course some DM's I know actually took the "knife in the back" comment quite literally and disallowed backstab with heavy weapons. You can see this with a lot of the early 3e discussions about the Rogue's Sneak Attack, where DM's, used to older rules, flat out rejected the notion a Rogue could Sneak Attack with a greatsword or a scythe. Then in 4e and 5e, what weapons you could Sneak Attack with was restricted, so that while 5e Rogues can use longswords, they can't use them to Sneak Attack. I know that this is an example of DM's stepping beyond the rules, but this is the kind of environment the Thief lived in- his abilities were hard to use, had glaring flaws, and the DM was sometimes encouraged to make the Thief fail. [/QUOTE]
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