The thief is great in combat, just not grinding melee combat. Choose better combat tactics and watch the change. I recommend learning the value of ambush, ranged weapons, and kiting. Choosing the terms of battle are often as or more important than DPRs.

I recommend single class challenges, running a party comprised of the same class, to all GMs and players to get a feel of their class strategy and tactics. It's an enlightening experiment.

Quote from: gamerGoyf;688434The "Thief" class wasn't a respectable fighter (or really a respectable anything). "Thieves" being good at fighting only starts in 3e when "backstab" became "sneak attack", and the Rogue class became awesome ;3

And that's been in place for over a dozen years now.  What a particular character class had for abilities decades back isn't part of the discussion, I would imagine.

Quote from: J Arcane;688456Rogues in Arcana Rising have a d8 hit die and cleric THAC0.

In my heartbreaker the default rogue has d8hd and +1 Att/ 2 levels

But the GM can build new archetypes under the rogue class that have lower HD and say more skills, much lower HD and say magic or better HD and less skills.

So a Scout might have d8HD +1Att/2 levels 2 points per skill
A Fence might have d6HD +1Att/3 levels 1 point per skill

(there are more class options but you get the idea  )

One thing From AD&D that really confused me was why the warrior monk, the Shaolin master of mind and body who spent hours training in arts martial and spiritual was so much worse at fighting than friar tuck..... until he was about 12th level by which point Friar Tuck could waste him with a pillar of flame

Quote from: Ravenswing;688692And that's been in place for over a dozen years now.  What a particular character class had for abilities decades back isn't part of the discussion, I would imagine.

Dude, where do you think you are 0_0

Quote from: Ravenswing;688692And that's been in place for over a dozen years now.  What a particular character class had for abilities decades back isn't part of the discussion, I would imagine.

Some of us old guys have been playing 1E/2E dnd with the older thief model for more than 12 years

Bah! Uphill! both Ways!!!!

Personally I like the old thief who has to earn a backstab with strategy and stealth, but gets torn up by a real fighter in a fair fight.

The melee killing machine rogue tome is more a multiclassed fighter/thief.

Quote from: The Ent;688600What you're imagining is a fighter/thief, mage/thief or Illusionist/thief.
(...well there's also the cleric/thief and the fighter/mage/thief I suppose but ymmv )

Thieves work best as multiclass, I'd say, and I've heard that's one reason for the very creation of the Class, back in the day, but don't take my Word for it.

The thief was the first step toward taking classes away from representing strong archetypes and toward representing skilled job specialties.

Before there was a thief, all competent adventurers could climb, sneak, look for traps, etc. Based on circumstances and the application of common sense these activities were handled.

Along comes the thief and suddenly all other adventurers were incompetent clowns to make room for the thiefs miserable existence. Common interpretation of the rules made the fighter in light armor no longer capable of sneaking because being stealthy was the thief's "thing".

This soon became a proliferation of classes, shoehorning everyone into tighter and tighter niches to make room for the ever growing number of class specialties. Envisioning your fighter as a type of Conan, Lancelot, or Aragorn didn't work because there were barbarians, cavaliers, rangers, etc.

The evolution of this became "builds" within those classes and specialization and hyper-focus to a level of absurdity.

In 4E flying creatures were only allowed to "hop" in combat. Why? Because of melee focused builds. "Viable" characters were designed in such a way that they would be utterly useless in any ranged situation so the mean old monsters had to agree to stay on the ground so the melee folks wouldn't feel useless.

That is fucking shit design and it all started by making room for the thief.

(nods to Exploderwizard)  Yeah.  Like a lot of those 70s gamers, my VD&D homebrew got increasingly baroque -- as D&D itself would become, as the years went on -- and loaded down with more and more classes and "demi-classes" to reflect each Kewl Noo Option.  I wince, in recollection, at how I bought into the shoehorning, and would steer people who'd give me a character concept towards the narrow little box that I thought came the closest to their notion.  Sometimes there was even a "demi-class" that fit.  Sometimes.

Then, in 1983, I started writing for a game company that had a Fantasy Trip license, and starting up my campaign again after a year's hiatus, the owner suggested I convert to TFT, a system I'd always sneakingly admired.  I was enchanted.  I didn't have to shoehorn, and my players didn't have to compromise: to hell with the labels and the pigeonholes, here are your points, just pick the stats and abilities you want.  I never looked back.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688833(nods to Exploderwizard)  Yeah.  Like a lot of those 70s gamers, my VD&D homebrew got increasingly baroque -- as D&D itself would become, as the years went on -- and loaded down with more and more classes and "demi-classes" to reflect each Kewl Noo Option.  I wince, in recollection, at how I bought into the shoehorning, and would steer people who'd give me a character concept towards the narrow little box that I thought came the closest to their notion.  Sometimes there was even a "demi-class" that fit.  Sometimes.

Then, in 1983, I started writing for a game company that had a Fantasy Trip license, and starting up my campaign again after a year's hiatus, the owner suggested I convert to TFT, a system I'd always sneakingly admired.  I was enchanted.  I didn't have to shoehorn, and my players didn't have to compromise: to hell with the labels and the pigeonholes, here are your points, just pick the stats and abilities you want.  I never looked back.

If finely tuned specific abilities are what you are looking for I agree, just ditch the class baggage and move on. I still enjoy the simplicity of class based systems. Once they start to go beyond the broad archetypes needed for the genre, its better just to switch to a skill base.

Quote from: James Gillen;687372I may have mentioned this before, but in Game of Thrones (the TV version especially) being a murder-hobo kinda seems like the POINT.

JG

I'd say the point in Game of Thrones (or any GoT-like campaign) would be to get OTHER people to be murder-hobos for you.

I swear hanging out with you people on this board has poisoned my mind.

I have not been posting to EnWorld for a couple years now.  I go back there for 5e discussion, and the 3e/Pathfinder and 4e fans are irritating the shit out of me!

It's all DPR and tactical combat and Kewl Powerz and optimization between feats and class powers and magical items and balance stuff and all this bullshit.

Fuck people! When the DM looks at you and says "what do you do", do not look down at your character sheet or power cards or figurine or whatever the fuck you've been depending on to tell you what to do.  You look the DM in the eye and you say "I toss my torch at the rug that troll is standing on, intending to light the rug on fire, and then I get the fuck out of there before the whole place goes up!" or "I try to convince the troll to allow us to escort it to a whole den of tasty Kobolds to eat, in exchange for safe passage" or whatever it is you think your character would do to get out of that situation alive and (hopefully) a bit better off for it.  

The game is not about doing the most damage.  This is not a wargame for fuck's sake, it's a role playing game!

Argh! OK, sorry, rant done.

It's all your fault.  You people and your ideas, they're poison I tell you! You boiled me in your TSR era pot of water and before I realized it, this frog was cooked!

Quote from: Mistwell;689234I have not been posting to EnWorld for a couple years now.  I go back there for 5e discussion, and the 3e/Pathfinder and 4e fans are irritating the shit out of me!

It's all DPR and tactical combat and Kewl Powerz and optimization between feats and class powers and magical items and balance stuff and all this bullshit.

Fuck people! When the DM looks at you and says "what do you do", do not look down at your character sheet or power cards or figurine or whatever the fuck you've been depending on to tell you what to do.  You look the DM in the eye and you say "I toss my torch at the rug that troll is standing on, intending to light the rug on fire, and then I get the fuck out of there before the whole place goes up!" or "I try to convince the troll to allow us to escort it to a whole den of tasty Kobolds to eat, in exchange for safe passage" or whatever it is you think your character would do to get out of that situation alive and (hopefully) a bit better off for it.  

The game is not about doing the most damage.  This is not a wargame for fuck's sake, it's a role playing game!

Your journey towards the dark side is complete.

Quote from: RPGPundit;689218I'd say the point in Game of Thrones (or any GoT-like campaign) would be to get OTHER people to be murder-hobos for you.

[thumb up]

Quote from: Mistwell;689234I swear hanging out with you people on this board has poisoned my mind.

Yes it has, so let me snap you back to you senses ;3

Quote from: Mistwell;689234Fuck people! When the DM looks at you and says "what do you do", do not look down at your character sheet or power cards or figurine or whatever the fuck you've been depending on to tell you what to do.  You look the DM in the eye and you say "I toss my torch at the rug that troll is standing on, intending to light the rug on fire, and then I get the fuck out of there before the whole place goes up!" or "I try to convince the troll to allow us to escort it to a whole den of tasty Kobolds to eat, in exchange for safe passage" or whatever it is you think your character would do to get out of that situation alive and (hopefully) a bit better off for it.

All of those scenarios assume an absurdly cooperative GM otherwise

"The rug is too wet to catch on fire, the troll eats you."

"You fail to escape, the troll eats you."

The troll is not convinced by your argument, then the troll eats you."

because in any "old-school" system heck in D&D Next even, those actions are governed solely by GM fiat. So if he isn't on board you are not escaping the troll today. Now you are right, combat being the only option on the table sucks. That has nothing to do with what isn't on peoples character sheet and everything to do with what is -_-

Quote from: gamerGoyf;689290All of those scenarios assume an absurdly cooperative GM otherwise

Methinks there might be a wee flaw in your argument.

Quote from: gamerGoyf;689290Yes it has, so let me snap you back to you senses ;3



All of those scenarios assume a competent and fair-minded GM

-

FYP

If you don't have a competent and fair-minded GM, you may as well stick to boardgames. Because an RPG with a comprehensive rules-set that engages only the analytical part of the mind is just a really fiddly boardgame.