Bumping Thief Skills by Level

Another "fix" for Thieves!

Moreover, referencing my recent post regarding Thief Skills for Non-Thieves, it dawned on me - in the same call-in episode to the Red Dice Diaries that I had called into, so also had my friend Rob C. of the Down in a Heap podcast called in with his own house-rules for "fixing" the Thief skill progression. He seemed to have a similar line of thinking to other refs with whom I have played before - advancing the skill chances to succeed according to level, retaining the table but making it a little less punishing - and he did so in a simple form: so, if you're still looking to make Thieves more effective early on, here is what Rob C. does (or, at least, my take on it)!

Accelerated Thief Skill Success Chances

A Thief character, when tabulating their chances of success at a given Thief skill (optionally excluding Hear Noise, at the behest of the referee's sense of verisimilitude), is treated as a level of experience greater than themselves equal to the ability modifier of their prime requisite ability, Dexterity. Thus, for a 2nd level Thief - for example - attempting to Move Silently:

• At a Dexterity of 12, or +0, have a 25% chance of success.
• At a Dexterity of 17, or +2, have a 35% chance of success.
• At a Dexterity of 8, or -1, have a 20% chance of success.
  

A character cannot go below 1st level when determining the effectiveness of their skills.

The Specialist Thief (Optional)

In addition to the above, a Thief may choose to specialize in one of the six percentile-based Thief skills. In so doing, the Thief gains an additional increase of 2 effective levels: further increasing their chances of success in their chosen specialty. So, if the same 2nd level Thief from before were to specialize in Move Silently, their chances would change accordingly:

• At a Dexterity of 12, +0 from prime requisite and +2 from specialization, have a 35% chance of success.
• At a Dexterity of 17, +2 from prime requisite and +2 from specialization, have a 45% chance of success.
• At a dexterity of 8, -1 from prime requisite and +2 from specialization, have a 30% chance of success.
  

In fairness, I think Rob's rule is a bit less generous - in that he grants a +1 only at a 16 or above - but I'm a magnanimous DM, aren't you?

But this has me thinking...

While jotting this down, it made me think - how much does this differ, in terms of Thief effectiveness, from adding their Dexterity directly to the modifier? Specialization excluded - as that was not a part of the original houserule, a quick break-down using Hide in Shadows looks as follows; with "Bump by Modifier" referring to boosting level according to Dexterity modifier (this houserule) and "Bump by Score" referring to boosting the percentile directly (the previous houserule):

		Bump by:
With Dex Of:	R.A.W.	Modifier		Score		Delta
For a Thief of 1st Level
8 (-1)	10%	10	1	18%	3	-2
12 (+0)	10%	10	1	22%	3	-2
16 (+2)	10%	20	3	26%	4	-1
For a Thief of 3rd Level
8 (-1)	20%	15	2	28%	5	-3
12 (+0)	20%	20	3	32%	5	-2
16 (+2)	20%	30	5	36%	6^	-1
For a Thief of 6th Level
8 (-1)	35%*	30	5	43%	7	-2
12 (+0)	35%*	35%*	6	47%	7	-1
16 (+2)	35%*	55%	8	51%	8	+0
For a Thief of 9th Level
8 (-1)	65%	55%	8	73%	10	-2
12 (+0)	65%	65%	9	77%	10	-1
16 (+2)	65%	85%	11	81%	11	+0
* Technically, B/X has a 6th level Hide in Shadows at 36%,     but as far as I know, this is widely accepted as a typo. ^ On the nose, as far as typos are concerned!

Comparing the delta - bumping the Thief's effective level for the purposes of skill percentages, excluding the Specialization skill, is less generous than adding Dexterity to the percentage, as a whole. We knew this - or, could have inferred it easily - regarding the lower Dexterity scores: the former method applies a penalty for negative Dexterity, while the latter is always beneficial to the Thief. However, an interesting trend - the higher a character is in level and the higher the Dexterity score of the Thief is, the more closely the two align. 

At the lower bound, there is as much as a three-level difference between a dexterous Thief and a sinistrous one; however, looking at the higher level thief - this shrinks to 2 levels for the clumsy Thief, but is down to even for a Thief of respectable Dexterity - going one higher, if the Thief were to have rolled an 18 - the increase by bonus rule would actually outpace the flat bonus by score: offering a 9th level Thief the equivalence of 12 where the 82% chance granted by Dexterity only would still truthfully only be approximate to an 11th level character. Further - to compare percentiles alone, the bonus by modifier actually does outpace the bonus by score in terms of raw success chance: with both our 3rd level and 9th level characters benefiting more from a +2 Dexterity modifier than a 16 Dexterity.

So to conclude: this version of the Down in a Heap suggestion benefits higher level characters equivalently or better than does the CWR suggestion of two weeks ago - however, the CWR suggestion benefits lower level characters much more generously. 

What kind of experience do you want to create with the Thief? 

Once you've decided, pick your poison!

So Kudos!

Kudos, Rob - over at Down in a Heap: thank you for the rule and thank you for getting my brain running on the subject again! Kudos, John - of the Red Dice Diaries - well played in your Thief episode, getting a bunch of folks thinking on the subject with you! And kudos, readers, for bearing with me on yet another Thief fix post. Surely, with the sheer volume of houserules regarding Thieves, we definitely haven't run out of appetite for mechanical comparisons and new ideas yet.

Delve on, readers!

Public domain artwork retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com and adapted for thematic use. Attribution in alt text.