On Friday, Dr. Kromm revealed this tidbit:
• We made tentative plans for the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves playtest . . . look for a call for playtesters in early September.
This book is overdue, and no, I didn't write it. I know who did, but it doesn't seem like Dr. Kromm revealed that information, so I sure won't.
I will absolutely get myself into the playtest, and force some free time to contribute to it. I think Thieves are a good template but need some support. I've written a bit myself.
For those who look at my campaign and say, you sure don't need a Thief, I would say that you only see part of the story. A thief-less group sometimes fails to solve things that a group with a thief could, and sometimes totally fails to notice this fact. From my side of the screen, the lack of a thief - and the lack of a mindset of people who will use the skills on such a template - has cost the group. Lockmaster isn't everything, and a Swashbuckler with Luck and good lockpicks can only get so far.
So I'm really looking forward to this book.
"Swashbuckler with Luck and good lockpicks can only get so far."
ReplyDeleteTechnically true if the Swashbuckler didn't put more than one point in the skill (or any points). But if the Squishbockler puts the points in Lockpicking that a Thief does they're only 1 skill below the Thief (unless the Thief buys up High Manual Dexterity which is one of those questionable decisions in my opinion).
Of course the Swishypoker is going to be woefully behind on the Trapsprungin, and that in my opinion is where Scouts and Thieves really shine, avoiding those "make new character" deathtraps.
Well, I figured saying, "Of course, if the Swashbuckler spends more points that could go to being a better Swashbuckler on being a better Thief, the Swashbuckler will be better at being a Thief" was pretty much a given in a point-buy system.
DeleteAs you say, Traps is also critical here. If it was one skill, Lockmaster would be sufficient for anything not in a NMZ. But I'll say from my side of the screen, there is stuff that was missed, and stuff that was poorly exploited or exploited in a too-costly fashion, that would not have been with a well-run thief.
I do have to say, one of the things I think DFRPG did well was shifting Lockpicking away from being IQ to DX so Caster Professions can't "be as good" for a minimal investment. But there just isn't enough to keep the skill 'niched' for Thieves.
DeleteBut we've had this discussion before (the meta 'we'), and I'm really intrigued to see what DFD: Thief brings to the table. It's the one DF book I've been clamoring for for ages.
It's not the skill, but the template that carries it, that makes a difference here. You can have a knight, a swashbuckler, and a barbarian, all with Broadsword skill, and have very different PCs. I could go on about the issue with thieves, but largely it's an expectation that they'll do things they don't allocate points to doing, and setting up games where what they do are not important. Or where the players ignore the importance even if it's there, content to pass on the value because no one wants to be a support character.
DeleteAll too often I hear about clerics not being good fighters like an AD&D cleric, which is a very rose-colored-memories look at clerics in AD&D vs. fighters. And I hear this with thieves not being able to essentially backstab everything to death and out-fence a knight, which is a rose-colored-memories look at "thief"-labeled fighter-type classes from video games and later RPGs. Neither of them live up to the memories, any more than people expecting a 1st edition AD&D fireball are satisfied by a DF wizard.
I disagree with the 'rose-colored'-ness of those memories. The complaints I've heard were pitched as "not as good as [CLASS] in D&D*", and while AD&D Clerics weren't the fighters that Fighters were, they're still //closer// than GURPS Clerics are to any of the combat Professions. Ditto Thieves/Rogues.
DeleteAs for Wizarding spells, yeah, that is a completely different genre expectation, though I understand that eventually (enough exp) and with certain additional Options turned on, GURPS Wizards get 'close enough' to scratch the Glass Canon itch some Players have. And for some of us, GURPS Wizard do what we'd rather have Wizards doing anyway... but then we're not hearing complaints from that side of the house.
* And in my groups it's always a call back to 3e D&D, where Clerics were second string fighters, Rogues could make significant contributions to combat without having to work very very hard at it, Druids rock out, etc...
We might be disagreeing because of different experiences. I've heard - verbatim - that AD&D clerics are "as good as AD&D fighters, but with spells." That's not totally inaccurate at 1st level, but isn't 100% accurate, either, and becomes less true as the game progresses. That DF clerics aren't AD&D clerics doesn't make AD&D clerics into AD&D fighters.
DeleteSame with thieves. Sure, a 1st level thief isn't terribly bad at combat compared to a 1st level fighter, but make them 5th, 7th, 9th level and it's not even close unless you can sneak up for that one backstab.
DF points are high, so you end up with more of that high-level split, where an AD&D cleric isn't as good as a fighter with the same XP, and thief and a fighter the same situation.
It's been said elsewhere that I wrote a DFD supplement, just not wait. So this is obviously me. :-)
ReplyDeleteWay to keep it mysterious, Chris.
DeleteWell, he's not writing DFD Investigators...
DeleteOr is he!?!?!?
My recollection on Thieves (which came from AD&D 2e to start and well influenced by Diablo) is that there true path lay in shooting bows, which ran off their Prime Attribute Dex
ReplyDeleteThat'll be a different feeling, for sure. AD&D allowed thieves to use a sling but not a bow, so you had your Dex bonus to missile fire but only 1/round at 1d4 or 1d4+1 for stone or bullet respectively. So thieves laying down some ranged fire wasn't a thing.
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