Goodman Games

Hi everyone,

As the next installment in the "What's changed?" department, here is the next iteration of the thief class. There are several things here, some pretty glaring, some a little more subtle:

* Thief skills now use a d20 base instead of d%. Personally I think the d% system had a lot of charm (in a "weird subsystems are fun" kind of way) but there was pretty consistent negative feedback to that so I will be changing it.
* The thief skills come with better-defined DCs associated with their use. These DCs are not opposed by the other party's skills; there are hard DCs. (This goes along with some changes to the skills chapter, but you don't need that to make sense of the thief class.)
* Select weapons do additional damage when employed in a backstab. The attached excerpt includes the weapons table that notates these.
* In between the hard DCs on Sneak Silently and Hide in Shadows, and the weapons being more appropriate for backstabs, I think the backstab will work a little better mechanically. My own lineage of thief experience involved many, many games when I was younger where the thief player routinely crept ahead and took out guards and sentries with backstab attempts. That's what I was going for in the class and hopefully these rules better support that experience. I think you can make good use of a thief's backstab without ever getting into "flanking logic," provided the player is crafty...

I believe those are all the changes. Let me know what you think!

http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/Thief.zip

Thanks,
Joseph

Highly disappointed to hear there is a skills chapter at all let alone the thief skills and those silly arbitrary charts. Oh well.

Joe,

Now that you've gone to .zip files, you are going to here from folks like me that does not have access to WinZip or any other Zip program at work.

Any hope of this being put into a .pdf or .doc download? I'd love to look this over during lunch.

Take care.

Sure, try this link for a PDF. Hopefully everyone can download this:

http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/ ... 081711.pdf

Thanks.

Just had a read through.

in a word Wow! Great stuff!!

My only "wait what!" moment is on the handle poison entry. So your implying NOBODY but a thief can handle poison or that if they do they run the risk of poisoning themselves at a much higher rate then the thief?

I used to handle hazardous chemicals all day long with no training whatsoever just my basic intelligence and I never had any kind of accident in 12 years.. I have trouble figuring out where this rule/ability is coming from as a result. I had assumed it meant that only thieves could easily obtain ingredients for and Make poisons etc That made sense for those that like the Assassin/Ninja paths I guess. But now? Clarification please??

It's time to 'fess up to the fact you are, in reality, a DCC-RPG thief!

Its a fair cop! i CONFESS Ossifier!

My fave character type is the Rogue/Thief etc always has been so shoot me! Okay I do like to add a splash of magic use in now and again but yes you got me!

I find this new version excellent. It's an perfect way between old school & new school
Adopted

Use 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/). It's free!

One has to be careful what one downloads at work!

7-zip is safe for work. Really. It is an old, established freeware program.

I only have 2.5 issues with the thief class: that there isn’t a way to customize the thief’s kill set, and that they don’t get their INT bonus to casting.

Starting with the “.5” issue: unopposed checks for thief skills… this is radically outside my comfort zone, but I can see that the logic in the mechanic is sound: so on with the beta testing. One assumes that the DC could be further modified up or down based on player craftiness (or lack of same). i.e. thief wearing no armor, soft shoes, and black out fit, etc. brings DC’s down a bit. Used verses NPC’s and Monsters, fine, no problem: but my “spidy DM sences” tell me that without an opposed check for PC’s; it opens the door for players to abuse other players. My current group is great, but I do most of my gaming in shops these days and you never know who’s going to sit down at your table. There are some right nasty folks out there, who enjoy spreading their misery to others via the “RPG game setting.” I’m more than capable of dealing with it when it happens, but any time I spend policing behavior takes away from my time (and focus) for story telling. Just some food for thought.

Continuing with the reversed order theme…

To me it is totally implausible that a thief with no bonus or even a negative bonus gets the same chance to cast from a scroll as the lucky bas***d thief with a great Agility and Intelligence of 18. Heck, I’ve always operated from the position that characters with intelligence lower than 7 have trouble reading… let alone casting from a scroll. I had some players not too long ago where the Dwarf had an INT of 6, so I ruled the character only knew the Dwarven language (poorly). They couldn’t read the runes and the group made a fantastic series of role play events centered onthe Gnome character doing the interpreting for the Dwarf, & teaching the Dwarf to speak Common. It went on over the first 4 levels (D&D 3.homebrew) and @ 4th the player took the INT stat to 7: still couldn’t read, but no more communication issues. It bonded the players together rather well.

{takes deep breath}

First off: Wizard/ Thief has always been my favorite class combo & I’m still very disappointed that the DCC RPG doesn’t support multi-class in the core mechanic. I have no issue with the mechanics of the alignment based paths for the thief class: I just don’t like the fact that (once again) an opportunity to allow player input has been passed over. When I think back over my past characters, my thieves have always specialized their skulduggery. I've never been interested in picking pockets… too much risk for too little food… as the saying goes. I always played “Robin Hood” or “cat-burglar” style thieves; or dungeoneering experts, and I’ve never been interested in playing assassins… too cowardly for my tastes. For me, 3 path options simply isn’t enough variability to make for interesting thief characters: especially since there is only a 37.5% chance of having a bonus to Agility. A 1st level thief, with an Agility of 9-12, and lawful alignment is no different than any other. Too generic for me.

Apparently I’m not alone in this thinking. This is clipped from my soon to be posted game report:

I’ve got a player who has no interest in continuing the game because; “I have no emotional attachment & therefore no interest in playing the survivors of the funnel. The disconnect between poor stats and occupation is too odd to overcome: and I hate the way they wrote the Dwarves.”

When I inquired a little deeper they said: “In other versions of RPG games, I make lots of tiny little decisions about “this” or “that” aspect of a character design. Each of those decisions helps to bring the character alive & makes them unique. The character lives or dies based on the accumulation of my plans verses what Fate has in mind. In this system everything is done to my character by a table of options written by someone else’s ideas of how things should be. There’s not enough room for “me” in my characters.”

I offered the full spectrum of DM “appeasements;” including rolling up new character(s), but no luck.

Response: “ It still doesn’t change the fact that someone else is writing the tables, so I’m stuck choosing or randomly picking from someone else’s ideas…”

Some more food for thought.

I think unopposed checks are a good thing for the thief skills. It is up to the DM to appropriately set DCs, but in general opposed checks are incredibly variable which discourages the risk taking you want thieves to engage in.

I'm in 100% agreement on the Intelligence/Personality and scroll reading issue. I guess we need some indication of how scrolls work, but I really can't see how it is much a play balance problem, especially as the player already passed up making a high intelligence Wizard to make the thief. As stands, the restriction seems arbitrary and a bit punitive. I might suggest the die type for reading a scroll maxing out at d16 however - high level thieves can already luck their way to an incredible result.

Likewise, I'm not impressed by the alignment based charts. I'd rather see one unified chart and then a number of bonus modifiers at each level dependent on alignment. "As a Chaotic Thief you may take an additional +2 to two of the following thieving skills and a +1 to two of them, but may not take these bonuses more than once for the same skill each level: Backstab, Sneak Silently, Hide in Shadows, Pick Pocket, Disguise Self, Handle Poison." This tiny bit of change would allow player's to feel a bit of control and would eliminate two charts for three sentences of difference between the alignments.

I think I know where Mr G was going with the unopposed skill check business. But I too have misgivings. I can only hope that the case is proved one way or another with further Beta Testing

Int as a Scroll cast bonus and stat bonus for skills however? Absolutly!! To think a slow weak thief will be the same as a fast strong one is just plain silly! I mean its a fantasy game yes but such an anomally grates upon the nerves of all thinking players and makes the class harder to play as well as less satisfying.

Of course we need to know how scrolls actually work before we can make a final judgment but I'm with the previous posters fully on all points thus far. I seem to recall making a plea for just those scroll rules not too long ago on another thread as well

Thieves should apply their Int bonus to reading scrolls, as other ability modifiers are applied to other skills; I need to actually put that in writing.

Interesting comments on ability modifiers by alignment. DCC RPG deliberately takes a path of character design that involves less "player customization" than many more modern games. When I started playing D&D, there was no customization except for choice of equipment and alignment. And even alignment might get overruled by the DM if you acted out of your stated alignment! DCC RPG makes a decision to go back to "the good old days" in the element of player customization.

As for your player's comments, I'll break out the two issues I see:

First, related to the thief class, I like the suggestion of limited customization by alignment. I'm trying to integrate alignment more thoroughly into DCC RPG game play, so I believe there should be some mechanical implications to choosing an alignment. But, to your point, it could be "choose to modify some skills from the following set of options" rather than hard designations. As long as it can be done in a scope of customization that's no more dramatic than a wizard choosing his spells (which currently is the most extreme character customization recognized by the game), that might work. I'll have to think about it some more but I'm open to the idea.

Second, related to the process of player customization of their character classes: players who are used to many customization options for their characters, whether it's feats and skill points in 3E, or powers and purchasing magic equipment in 4E, or the many other options out there, will probably find a change of pace in DCC RPG. This may or may not excite them. DCC RPG deliberately involves more player ownership of the non-mechanical elements of the character and less player impact on the mechanical components. I'm glad your player gave it a shot, and it may not be the right game for him if he enjoys the "meta-game" of character customization. I definitely acknowledge the feedback, and this is one area where DCC RPG has to retain its current approach; allowing more customization will start to turn it into a game.

That said, feel free to adjust according to your own house rules and players. I've said this before but since there are new members of the boards, it's worth saying again: DCC RPG is like a map with certain areas well-defined, and other areas quite "unknown." For example, the skill system is deliberately simple, not just because I like it that way, but because I'd like it to be plug-and-play with individual DMs' own skill systems; skills seem to be one of those area where many people sub in their own house rules. Other parts of the game will be that way as well. The recipe for DCC RPG: start with "100% as written," add house rules, mix well, and play as needed!

Yaaay!



Well Yaaay again! That's a great statement of where DCC is trying to go as I ever heard. Its always a shame when you hear a player didn't enjoy themselves at a game you have run (or designed methinks!) but if DCC is to have its own identity as someone else (I have a lousy forum post memory I am sorry) mentioned recently then their needs to be a line in the sand across which its no longer DCC but a different RPG entirely.

Last line of "Backstab": vulnerabilities is mis-spelled.

Hide in Shadows: crevasses is mis-spelled.

Pick pocket: "This skill also other feats..." <-- missing words there

Pick lock: "notable difficulty" rather than difficult

Very last table: ‡ - worshipers is mis-spelled.

But I'm sure you knew that!

And I REALLY like the sneak/hide in shadows concept!

Firstly, I'd like to propose that cross bows are added to the list of weapons that do extra damage in a thief's hands. As I recall from my reading, the cross bow was the assassins weapon of choice once it was invented... like the modern sniper rifle.




+d30... wooot



In a DCC RPG 0-lvl funnel you don't even get to choose that much. I remember those games too, after 4 or 5 modules they always boil down to hack-slash-loot-repeat... yawn... or; you arrived at the game and wondered vaguely if you would survive the DM's latest attempt to vent his/her anger issues... and if you're really lucky there might be a couple of magic items. Though, not enough for everyone, which brought on the inevitable b*tch fest over who got them. Of course you solved that last problem in DCC RPG. Since all magic items carry the "ire of the Gods" then no body's going to want them.



double plus wooot:

My suggestion is to simply add up the ability points awarded for 1st lvl (16 for all paths) and let the player place up to 3 points in any abilities that draw their interests. The difference between abilities at 1st & 2nd level is (18), so they spend these points on the abilities and nothing can be higher than 5, etc.

I don't object to the addition of alignment to the mechanic, but to the narrowness of the choices available: Thug, Assassin, Swindler. Setting aside for the moment that these words have a lot of baggage & preconceptions that comes along with their use; a whole new world of possibilities opens up if it were instead explained thusly:

Lawful thieves belong to a guild or organization of criminals. There are many types of thief employed by these syndicates; corrupt lawyers and officials, lock breakers, demolitions, cat burglars, guild beggars, prostitutes, and assassins negotiating & executing contract hits... (pun intended)

Chaotic Thieves are independent agent style thieves who poach territory under the noses of the guild-thieves. They have all of the same possible styles of skulduggery, it's just that they recognize no one but themselves as master.

Neutral Thieves tend to be spys, smugglers, confidence artists, circus performers, but could easily find a position within a criminal syndicate or as a free agent.



but that means her assessment is in fact correct... (speaking from a player point of view)... a player only ever gets too build their story out of the elements that they are provided: by the game; by the DM; by the world (game or DM both). It's fine in theory, but most of those elements are going to be randomly generated/found and that's not much different than showing up at a game and having the DM tell you what you are going to play. Especially when the "slot machine" system spits out: cherry/ eight-ball/ lemon.



Um... If it isn't a game then what else could it possibly be? I disagree entirely with the idea that wanting to have your character "think" its way through development is "meta-gaming" and therefore some sort of detriment. A PC is an analog for the player to explore a carefully constructed fantasy; as such it has free will, just like any other creature does.



I totally get the idea that the DCC RPG is supposed to be the seed or grit at the center of a snowflake; no 2 are the same, but all formed by the same process. However, if you're going to respect a DM's right to create their own version of the game, then why not require that the system/DM extend that same curtsey to the players... without whom the DM is just a weirdo sitting in a room talking to him or herself...? The last thing anyone wants is a possible return of the DM tyrant.

I think he means character creation itself becomes a (sub-)game. And I don't think building a character by making many choices is being called a detriment -- but not having those choices initially is another viable way of creating characters and is the method this game employs. As for the free will stuff, well, I don't have the power to double my IQ, or change the financial status of my family at the time of my birth, or decide that my legs work as well as yours do, etc. Creating a character by arranging and deciding can be fun and lead to fun stuff, but working with whats you gots can be fun, too.

Has no one ever played poker? Maybe it's just me, but I've never been able to decide to hold a pair of kings...

I think the real issue with the funnel is its reuse with each new game. Most RPG groups are static. The same 4-6 people play campaign after campaign. Among a group of 4-6, there's going to be someone whose tolerance for the funnel is going to 1 or fewer times and that's it. Granted, the same is true for tolerance for superhero games, tolerance for point-buy games, tolerance for Emo vampire games, etc. But DCCRPG is a fantasy RPG and with so many to choose from, the funnel can easily become a sticking point for some groups.

OTOH, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with chargen rules compatible with DCCRPG. So as much as I fear reaction to the funnel, I also don't see it as a real problem. If optional rules are going to appear in the rule book, a lot of these "issues" could be averted by a short paragraph on starting at 1st level without the funnel: 4d6 six times arrange as desired, choose a class, equipment, roll two augurs pick one, etc. A short paragraph to calm down the folks who want choices will probably help a lot of potential Judges get the game to the table a second or third time.

Or there's this idea which I just remembered: viewtopic.php?p=45099#p45099

stipulated as true for the time of birth, but between then and the time that the 0level funnel starts they've had some time for a little growing up. Shouldn't the character making process reflext that time as well. Sure, you were born the son of a cooper, but you're not "suited" for the job so your parents arrange for you to apprentice with to blacksmith because you were more suited to that.

If someone comes up to me and says they want to play the exiled son of an evil king fighting to clear his own name and overthrow his tyrant dictator father... I'm gonna let them, because that's the kind of story they want to play. Heck, I had a player in a 3.0 game who wanted to play a Gnome wizard, but his INT stat wasn't that great, so he pulled what I call a "G.U.R.P.S. maneuver" on me. He asked if he could make his PC a Paraplegic if he could then increase the INT stat to more respectable levels. As requests go, it was so full of moxy that I said go for it!

The character spent the first 5 levels tied to the saddle of a riding dog. As soon as he could, he captured an air elemental and forced it to carry him around in a little floating chair that shot lightning bolts. That character remains one of his top 5 favorite characters of all time.

What I'm trying to say is (getting back to your original point) in the real world we don't have much if any control over the events that happen to us. I think that's why people play RPG's, WoW, and any of a thousand other distractions; all centering around the idea that we can decide to be something other than who and what we are. There's a reason why it's called fantasy role playing. Right?

First of all, love the gnome-tied-to-a-dog story -- great stuff!

As for 'why' it's called 'fantasy role playing', well, that's a can of worms that you've unintentionally (I think) set the can opener on. Briefly, it could be fantasy in a "Hey! I can do whatever, limited only by my imagination!" sense, or in an "events taking place in an unreal world" sense. Mechanics, one way or the other, don't determine if it's fantasy or not. Then there's another can called "why people play" sitting right next to that first can, and which I will pretend isn't there...

To address both your point and Jim's point above, the funnel doesn't have to be the only character creation method. You don't have to start at 0-level. That idea is in the game, as is. To support that with just one quote from page 10 of the beta: "The author strongly encourages you to begin play using the method as described here exactly." I sure don't read 'strongly encourages' the same as 'demands'. Whether or not you do heed that suggestion, you need never think about the funnel and it's ins and outs again. Carry on with whatever method works for you. If the 'thousand other distractions' that let you decide the details are not enough, and you want one more, then do things that way with DCC, too. It ain't gonna break it if you do.

But if you like the aspect of RPGs wherein you have X resources and Y problems and finding solutions to those problems with only your handy resources is the highlight of the game, the funnel/randomization works, too.

I don't like the funnel or the lack of customization either but those things are very easy to houserule away that it doesn't concern me.

While I don't disagree with the points being made, I'll point out that the game's tag line is explicitly "You are not a hero."

Obviously it is up to John what that means to him, and any of it can be house ruled. But, I suspect any suggestions that don't take that well into account will not match the game vision.