This is especially true given that all the fighting talents are fair game as well, of course... and even most of the others, as 'thief' is a pretty loose term.
In fact, I once had a campaign going (I didn't play, but my brother did, and we have very similar tastes in characters) devoted to the underworld of thieving in a sort of medieval fantasy city (as always, much inspiration from the Thief video games, which are absolutely classic and a must for anyone wanting to play a thief in any setting, in my opinion). There were... I think 5 (its been awhile) PC's.
My brothers character, the one most resembling what I usually do, was mostly into stealth and precision. He had things like Spying, Thief (master?), sword, silent movement, bow, and climbing. He had some of the qualities of all other characters, but was not the best as good at traps and such as the more specialized characters.
Then there was a two-man team.One was the 'gadgeteer' type of thief- some exotic weapons (I think a bola, throwing knives, blow darts.... weird stuff, but very cool), stuff for detecting and removing traps, lockpicking, etc. The other of the two was the leader of the two, and had sort of a mix of 'con man' and 'fighter' and '(traditional DnD) thief' traits. Stuff like Charisma, Bard, Sex Appeal, some more normal thiefy things like my bro and the 'gadgeteer' had, and, if i recall correctly, some spells.
Then we had a more fighter-like thief.He didn't have a high DX or IQ, but focused on Strength. He used a big axe. Least 'DnD thief'-like of all the characters, but still a thief by profession. His big thing was that he used a mixture of some well placed talent points (allowing him to do some of the more stealthy sides of the job, while lacking more of the 'mechanical' aspects such as traps and lockpicking) and intimidating fighting ability to get what he wanted... Say he was trying to get into a room with two guards at the door.... using his (good enough for most situations) stealth abilities he could frequently make a surprise attack on one of them, and then either (the main hope) scare the other into giving up/ kill him, steal the keys (if they had them) and break in (Axes are good for chopping doors).... then probably end up jumping out a window with the loot and making a run for a good hiding spot using his Running talent, as all that noisy chopping probably would've made the other guards savvy to the break in....
Finally a sort of Robin Hood type, who was a lot like my brothers character but with Missile Weapons as well.
All of these are thieves, but with so many "theiving" (as defined by DnD) talents to choose from, and the need for "other" talents as well (weapons, 'mechanical' talents, athletics, etc) the number of possibilities for a thief are as endless as any other character in TFT.... as any of those characters can take any and all talents!
On Mar 21, 2011, at 8:36 AM, Rick Smith wrote:
Hi David, Not sure if you are being serious, but the rules in Thail were independently created by Dave Seagraves. Actually, something like the superscript rules have been invented by 4 people I know of, so I can't claim that they are wildly innovative. They're a pretty obvious fix for something that a number of people would like to tweak in TFT. I've read what you've written about Thief being a full D&D character class and I half agree. The thing is that there are lots of talents for fighters and not so many talents for Thieves. If it takes 4 or 5 memory to learn all there is to know about Thieving and 50 memory to learn all there is to know about fighting, it is pretty obvious what the game system is oriented on. This bugged me and I added a bunch more talents for Naturalists, and Thieves and Mechanicers, etc. Robin Law talks about game systems that give you 'crunchy bits', and some of the crunchy bits in TFT are talents. Some people like to play with TFT as written and some people like to add to it. I've got (totally unplaytested rules) for spells up to IQ 35. I've never had a PC or NPC take those spells, but I like the fact that there is something better to aim for. All this is leading up to a gentle apology for getting testy with you. You had written about it being so much better that people don't add more attributes and numbers to define their characters. I've added attributes, you bet. In addition to the superscript rules, I've added attributes like Rvank (an attribute for demons only), Piety and others. Some I've kept and others don't make it into my next campaign. Each changes the focus of the campaign and what it says in a small way. Those numbers are not meaningless, they are to make it easier for the game to express some - thing different. I was irked enough by your diatribe on the right way to play TFT that I was tempted into pointing out the inconsistency with respect to your opinion on adding 'more numbers' and your adding a new attribute (psionic power) to the game even if it was kept a secret attribute. Anyway, no hard feelings I hope. Warm regards, Rick. On Sun, 2011-20-03 at 17:39 -0500, David Michael Grouchy II wrote:Rick, just for the record, I love your superscript rules, and I had a real blast playing with them in Dave Seagraves PBEM campaign. David Michael Grouchy II ========== Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com. Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body "unsubscribe tft"
===== Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com. Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body "unsubscribe tft"