Quote from: The Traveller;680947Aside from the fact that I'm not talking about AD&D, you can achieve the same effect by giving the magic to any other character. You changed things around to make the thief more effective in your game, good for you, that supports exactly what I'm saying so I've no idea what we're arguing about.

a) Yes, I was, though it holds true, those less so.
b) I agreed to that.  I said so in the first place I agreed to a large degree, but you've just gone way too far down the continuum of thief suckitude.

Quote from: The Traveller;680917Almost as condescending as calling them paleogames, you might say.

Except that if you've actually read anything I've written, it should be pretty obvious that I *like* that style of game.  Hell, I'd love to find one that actually ran that way.  I'm half-considering making a two-hour drive on weekends to play with my old GM.

I only call it "paleo" to differentiate from "old-school", which is what a lot of people consider what they did when they were ten and picked up their Basic D&D box at the store.  You know, like I did before I got a chance to play in a "paleo" game.

Quote from: The Traveller;680896If it fails 90%+ of the time, it's not useful.

Except that, IIRC, you had multiple retries with open lock.  So it wasn't so much a question of "can I do it" as "how long will it take, and will bad monsters find us during that time".

At least, OSRIC says retries are allowed - I'll have to check my 1e stuff when I'm not at work.

Quote from: The Traveller;680930If you have a thief scouting you're almost guaranteed to alert anything ahead after repeated failures to move quietly.

Sometimes, sure.  Which is why you had the thief within retreat range to the rest of the party.  It was a dangerous game.  It wasn't WoW "I can just disappear and nothing will see me EVER!" type stealth.  And when it *worked* you could get good information.  And smart playing would remove the need for as many rolls as possible.  The dice were the last resort, not the first.

1st level was hard.  A lot of characters died.  Wasn't any easier on the thief than on the fighter that rolled crap HP.

Quote from: The Traveller;680930The only way a thief was going to detect traps before reaching higher levels was if you put a blindfold on the poor bastard and made him walk twenty feet ahead of the group.

And in old-school games, "finding traps" was a lot more about looking around and examining the environment than just rolling dice.

And I'll admit - from a more "modern" campaign style (these four players, playing these four characters), the thief is absolutely terribly balanced.  Horribly.  But early D&D, as a whole, doesn't really fit well with "modern" campaigns.  That's not what it was designed around.

Quote from: LordVreeg;680949b) I agreed to that.  I said so in the first place I agreed to a large degree, but you've just gone way too far down the continuum of thief suckitude.

Not even slightly. I'm not dredging up the details of a table I haven't looked at in decades but if you're interested do check out the expert rulebook thief class.

What exact game are you talking about then? I looked back and I'm not sure you have said. Just "thieves in D&D" as far as I can tell.

(oh. Basic/Expert?)

This argument has devolved into stupid absolutes, so let me backtrack to the original question of the thread: I think that game balance is good until it makes things boring. Also, I do think the AD&D thief is in fact a bit underpowered, and for example, the base 2e thief is an improvement because you can specialize your thief abilities, which makes you better at the sort of things you are going to try to do, provides a greater benefit to having two thieves in the party, and – in the service of "not making things boring," helps make individual characters more distinctive. So I do think it is possible to make beneficial changes along these lines.

Quote from: Imp;680953What exact game are you talking about then? I looked back and I'm not sure you have said. Just "thieves in D&D" as far as I can tell.

(oh. Basic/Expert?)

This argument has devolved into stupid absolutes, so let me backtrack to the original question of the thread: I think that game balance is good until it makes things boring. Also, I do think the AD&D thief is in fact a bit underpowered, and for example, the base 2e thief is an improvement because you can specialize your thief abilities, which makes you better at the sort of things you are going to try to do, provides a greater benefit to having two thieves in the party, and – in the service of "not making things boring," helps make individual characters more distinctive. So I do think it is possible to make beneficial changes along these lines.

The Talking Heads had a song about posts like this.  As they said, stop it.

Quote from: The Traveller;680947Aside from the fact that I'm not talking about AD&D, you can achieve the same effect by giving the magic to any other character. You changed things around to make the thief more effective in your game, good for you, that supports exactly what I'm saying so I've no idea what we're arguing about.

Thieves have better survivability than magic-users, and better movement/less encumbrance than fighters. A 6th level magic-user with boots of levitation still only has 17 HP. A fighter with an elven cloak is still slow and heavy. And thieves tend to be haflings, elves, and other races that have stealthy attributes and/or infravision. They have built-in qualities that make them superior scouts to other classes, gear aside.

Also Thief is frequently part of a multiclass set - Dwarf or Halfling Fighter/Thief, Elf or Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief (or Mage/Thief), Gnome Illusionist/Thief, the semi-mythical Cleric/Thief (now that's a support character...).

In wich cases the Thief bit gives a bunch of skills in exchange for not using armor heavier than leather.

Quote from: The Traveller;680933You said nothing was guaranteed at a lower  level, I pointed out that a couple of spells had no saving throw.

Which isn't even remotely 'guaranteed success'.  But ok, let's do this.

Quote from: The Traveller;680896If it fails 90%+ of the time, it's not useful.

It doesn't fail 90%+.  The chance of success with Open Locks is 25% at first level, modified by race and Dexterity.  A Dwarven Thief with 18 Dex has a 50% chance of Opening Locks.  A far cry from 'useless'

QuoteExcept they were terrible at moving quietly too. If I recall correctly about the only thing they had any chance of doing was climbing walls, and hey, rope+grapnel. Plus they weren't really very good at even that.

You don't recall correctly.  Aside from the Dwarven Thief, a Half-Elf Thief with 18 Dex has a 50% chance of picking pockets.  A Halfling Thief with 18 Dex has a 35% chance of Moving Silently (not Quietly).  Like Elves, by virtue of being a Halfling, they can surprise monsters with a 1-4 on a d6.  Pretty good scouts, I would say.

Quote from: The Traveller;680933You  also said greater than 0% was not terrible odds. 0% isn't terrible odds,  it's no odds. To emphasise it a bit more, let's roll a d20. Every time a  1 comes up, I'll give you ten bucks. Every other time, you give me  twenty. Would you say those odds are terrible or otherwise?

No, that's wrong, too.  The correct analogy would be to roll a d20, and when it came up as a 19 or a 20, you would give me ten dollars.  You know, 10%.  On any other result, nothing happens.  Like when you roll to hit but are too low.  The opponent doesn't automatically do damage, you simply didn't succeed.  A lack of success is only a failure in a very, very narrow range of concepts.  Sure, that character failed to hit, but that doesn't make them a failure, nor does it render them useless.  That is the kind of thinking that has taken over modern games.

If you are going to focus on the niggling details and pick nits, you should probably make sure you have the details correct first.  One time in a thousand, you might be able to find that one critical thread that unravels the whole tapestry, but I wouldn't suggest it as a standard operating procedure.

Quote from: robiswrong;680951I only call it "paleo" to differentiate from "old-school", which is what a lot of people consider what they did when they were ten and picked up their Basic D&D box at the store.  You know, like I did before I got a chance to play in a "paleo" game.

Ahem.  "Vintage".  

Quote from: StormBringer;680977Ahem.  "Vintage".  

good call.

Quote from: StormBringer;680973It doesn't fail 90%+.  The chance of success with Open Locks is 25% at first level, modified by race and Dexterity.  A Dwarven Thief with 18 Dex has a 50% chance of Opening Locks.  A far cry from 'useless'

I just looked up Basic D&D, and in it, the base chance of a 1st level Thief (no race modifier, obviously) opening a lock is 15%, and it can't be retried.  There are no bonuses for stats listed, though Dex grant a to-hit bonus.

Of course, it's also worth noting, I think, that the thief will hit level 3 at 2400 XP, giving him a 25% open lock chance, which is before the Magic User hits second, way before the Elf hits second, and barely after everyone else.  This continues on through the levels, when the Thief hits 5, everyone else will be 4, except the Magic User who is almost ready to hit 4, and the Elf that's barely halfway to 4.

And that 15%-25% is still, uh, better than anyone else.  And since the presumption in those old games was never "you *will* make it past this", that's potentially a lot of extra treasure that you go home with.

There's also no racial (obviously) or dex adjustments to Thieving skills in B/X.  Again, I'll look up 1e when I get home, since I don't know how close OSRIC hews to 1e, and I've seen statements that suggest they've bumped the Thief slightly (and its insistence that you can retry a lock is directly counter to Basic).

... I would just like to point out that when you have to resort to: Well if they are the perfect race and have 18 dex, to support your argument, there might be something wrong.

Not saying you are wrong, saying that you're using flawed premises. Having 18 dex is RARE.

(Also he did specify Basic/Expert, so the Race Class combination thing and ability score modifiers is moot).

Quote from: Emperor Norton;680988... I would just like to point out that when you have to resort to: Well if they are the perfect race and have 18 dex, to support your argument, there might be something wrong.

Not saying you are wrong, saying that you're using flawed premises. Having 18 dex is RARE.

(Also he did specify Basic/Expert, so the Race Class combination thing is moot).

Yes, a flawed premise is not a good basis for supporting an argument.  You are absolutely correct.  

Quote from: robiswrong;680985There's also no racial (obviously) or dex adjustments to Thieving skills in B/X.  Again, I'll look up 1e when I get home, since I don't know how close OSRIC hews to 1e, and I've seen statements that suggest they've bumped the Thief slightly (and its insistence that you can retry a lock is directly counter to Basic).

Stock 1st Edition is the same, no retries.  I like the suggestion someone linked to that the first try is to open in one round, the next is in one minute, and the successive attempts take a turn each.

The one attempt rule is an echo of the idea that the dungeon is working against the players*, so I can kind of dig it.  Not my go-to style, because I promise a locksmith doesn't shrug their shoulders and walk away if the first attempt does not open a lock.


*if anyone would be so kind as to remind me where I read that...

Quote from: Haffrung;680958Thieves have better survivability than magic-users, and better movement/less encumbrance than fighters. A 6th level magic-user with boots of levitation still only has 17 HP.

And, again, a 6th level MU will have earned enough XP for a thief to hit level 8 - so they'd have, on average, 20 hp compared to the MU's 15 at level 6.

Even the cleric would only have 24.5 with the same experience gain, making the thief (in terms of hp) not that much more fragile than the cleric, though they'd likely have less AC (even after dex adjustment)

The advancement rate difference is significant enough to mention, I think.  It's easy to get caught up in "level 5 thief vs. level 5 m-u", but that's a poor comparison.

Quote from: StormBringer;680990Stock 1st Edition is the same, no retries.  I like the suggestion someone linked to that the first try is to open in one round, the next is in one minute, and the successive attempts take a turn each.

It's not bad, but I'd rather avoid "balance via houserule".

Not surprised about the retry.  I don't mind the rule, because frankly I don't like the "I'll just try and try til I get it" philosophy, though the old D&D assumption of wandering monsters makes it *not free*.

I also think it's somewhat more reasonable than the "locksmith" scenario, because you're working under pressure, in poor light, and in a dangerous environment.