From: pd1x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Peter F. Delaney)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: house-rules
Date: 12 Oct 92 18:20:43 GMT
Organization: Junior, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

(For reference:  Single >'s is Joe Beck, >> is Jorge Diaz.

Negative stuff first, if you don't want to hear the argument and just
want to cut to the assertions, skip past all the >> replies/flames/etc.
and read the reasons we're improving the thief, all the way at the
bottom.  -P)

*

In article <QeqB2ey00VoxQ2qapq@andrew.cmu.edu> jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Joseph E. Beck) writes:

>Yes, we've all ready the official description of what a cleric is.
>What the thread is concerned with (imo) is game balance.  The cleric
>can spank the thief, and has spells, and has better saves.  This led
>us (in our group) to swap cleric and thief attacks and hit dice.

 ccoprdj@prism.gatech.EDU (Jorge Diaz) replies:

>> Well, gee, you might as well just say "A cleric can spank a mage.  Let's
>> switch the mage and cleric attacks and hit dice."
>> The point is that a thief is not supposed to fight (not face-to-face,
>> anyway).  Of course the cleric can spank him.

	Siiigh.  But you don't *understand*.  The cleric *can't* beat up a
mage.  Can you say Sleep spell?  How about Color Spray?  Casting time =
1, at range, you're just *dead*.  As opposed to our thief, who, if lucky
enough to use his mondo move silently ability successfully is allowed a
to hit roll for a chance to get a damage roll to kill the mage.  Yay
team.

> (Joe says mages can remove traps...)

>> Really?  And just how many unseen servants are you going to conjure
>> up in one day?  The thief can remove 100 traps if he wants.  Can
>> your spell do that?

	Well, duration of Obscene Servant is one hour plus one turn per level,
so I can probably remove quite a few, yes, plus I can use it for all
sorts of other neat things!  If you're running across 100 traps a day,
you may want to have a talk with your DM.  Plus, unless you have traps
that reset themselves (ex. covered pit of vacuuming people who have
already spotted it into the sphere of annihilation) setting the trap off
is as good as disarming it, *and* it always works.

>> And how do you propose to find these traps?  Cleric spell?  Great,
>> how many Find Traps is your cleric going to memorize?

	No, not FT.  Use the Obscene Servant as a Polish mine detector.  

>> The point is that, yes, it's possible to replace the thief with
>> magic, but the thief has the advantage that he can do it any
>> time he wants, as often as he wants.

	Wow.  Whoopie.  As often as he wants, but with a big chance of failure.

>> Hell, why not get rid of fighters?  There's nothing they can do that
>> can't be substituted with magic!

	Gosh, good point.  Maybe the fighter needs to be improved.  (Yes, we
fixed the fighter, too - now, even though my first level mage can still
kill four 1st level fighters, at least the fighters have a prayer of
killing one first level mage without the advantage of surprise - maybe).

	I admit, though, that the fighter has some abilities the mage doesn't. 
They're called hit points and armor.

>Ok, so you're 10th level thief is better than the mage at reading 8th
>and 9th level scrolls.  2 questions:  how often does this come into
>play?  And if your party found an eigth level scroll would they let
>the thief read it (I certainly wouldn't).  Most groups I've seen find
>relatively few scrolls.

>>You find a scroll with a spell that the mage already has in his
>>book.  What do you do?  Give it to the thief!  Besides, the mage
>>can *write* scrolls for the thief to use.

	You obviously have more scrolls than we do.  And isn't it kind of time
consuming for the mage to write scrolls for the thief?  And isn't he
kind of silly if he does?  I mean, 25% chance of backfiring a fireball
next to *me* doesn't sound like fun.

>I think even low level thieves are exceedingly fun, but not very
>powerful.

>>Well, I've never played a thief before, but I'm hoping to play one in a
>>campaign that a friend of mine will be starting soon (hint, hint, Matt ;-)
>>and I'm really looking forward to it.  I think the thief offers the
>>best role-playing possibilities.

	Okay, when you hit 6th level see if you feel useless or not.  I'm
curious - will you change your mind?  BTW, a thief can be very fun to
play, but he's definitely really weak compared to the other classes. 
Our claim is there's nothing close to play balance, not that some
classes aren't fun to play.  We just don't understand why they weakened
the thief and *strengthened* the wizard for 2nd Edition!  Why, oh WHY?

>>A 4th level thief is much more effective
>>than a 4th level mage in combat, and possibly even out of combat.  Now
>>a 9th level mage might be very effective in combat, as long as he doesn't
>>get hit.  You know, those robes and funny hats just scream "I'm a mage!
>>Better shoot me with an arrow before I fireball you!"

>>And a thief is always a better thief than a mage, simply because the mage
>>is limited in what he can do.

	I don't know what you're talking about, here, and I doubt you do,
either.  Isn't the longbow a bit slower than a fireball?  A mage who
gets hit with one arrow isn't dead, either.  You still get to see him
*next* round.  And if there are fighters around, or he's invisible, or
whatever, well... let's just say that I've been in too many of these
games, and know that for relative power, the mage starts out tougher by
comparison, and gets even  tougher by comparison, and the thief starts
out the weakest and gets weaker every level.

>>Mage: Oh, I'll have my unseen servant set off the trap.

>>GM:  OK, he does.  A block drops from the ceiling, and everyone takes 10d6
>>     points of damage.

>>Party:  Great idea, Mage!  [Party then proceeds to tie the mage up with his
>>        own intestines.]

Or how about:

Thief:  Ok, I disarm the trap.

GM:  <roll, roll>  Oops.  A block drops from the ceiling, and everyone takes
	10d6 damage.

	I don't know what you're getting at, here.  A stupid mage is more
detrimental than anything else, but a smart one is deadly as anything.

>>Most of your points seem to be centered around combat.  Do you run a
>>very combat-heavy campaign?  If so, I can see why you think thieves are
>>under-powered.  But when you keep in mind that thieves aren't supposed
>>to run into combat, they don't seem so weak.  I don't understand why
>>you feel this need to turn thieves into fighters.

	Well, we run an *AD&D* game, which by nature is pretty combat heavy. 
People often complain that I don't run *enough* combat, actually, since
there're usually only 1 to 3 battles per session, and a "session" can
mean several days of game time, most spent figuring out who the good
guys are and who the bad guys are :-).  Still, you have to keep in mind
that if there are no combats, the mage and cleric don't need as many
combat spells, so they're better off than the thief.  If there are
combats, they have these combat spells, and the thief has nothing.

	We want to make it so the thief has a chance of being useful somewhere.
 For this purpose, we're using a new system that gives thieves a better
choice of special abilities, and starts them at a higher percentage of
success.  In addition, we have made it so the street tough thief is
tougher than the priest character.  Most CMU'ers disapprove of any case
where something is strictly better than something else.  Anyway, this is
an experiment, so we won't know if it makes the thief too deadly - but I
doubt it will.  

	I feel that my job as GM is to run a game that pleases my players. 
Thus far, everyone who played with Krelth (Joe's character) agreed that,
although he was well-played, he wasn't really needed.  Doyhozs (priest
of Loa-Pa'hn, who is Sleep, Beauty and Dreams), Lothian (Transmuter),
Esra (priest of Tadin-Lo, who is Thor-like), and Relon (Ranger) did just
fine without him.  Krelth's main job was to leech money and find things
out that the others would have gotten anyway, just a little bit later. 
I shudder to think how useless he would have been with a Diviner in the
group!!  He and one of the fighter characters were replaced at
"mid-season" with Picard (paladin) and Thurin (F/M/T), who were *much*
tougher.  My conclusion was that, although Krelth was quite good and
finding stuff out, he was mostly useless.  A really fun and memorable
character, but not powerful at all.

	The only time to play a thief is when you are multi-classed; F/T or M/T
are both quite deadly combinations, because they can get info, use their
abilities sometimes, and most importantly be useful in combat *and* out.
 So I feel that making the Thief tougher with combat skills and
increased options, so that he gets significantly tougher with each
level, will make him more attractive as a single class, and less
attractive for the multi-classer's, who advance relatively slowly in
Thief by comparison (because of the second class "leeching" xp from
Thief).

	Make sense?

Pe+eR
.
Pe+eR Delaney, CMU, Pittburgh, PA ... Compuserve: 73750,3667
Internet: blackclove+@cmu.edu ...  Local: pd1x
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