How Do Thieves Skills Work?

[cartweel]

Howdy! First Post!

I currently run a D&D game once a week at a local comic shop for 9-12 year olds. (And yes, it is awesome.) I'm thinking of switching to BFRPG because I think it hits the right level of complexity for my younger players.

BUT: I cannot for the life of me find where thieves abilities are explained, in terms of how they work mechanically. I see the chart full of percentages and think "Okay. Do I roll above that? -- below that? And to succeed? To fail?"

I know I recognize this from early editions of D&D, but can someone please explain the basics?

[Dimirag]

Welcome to the forum!

Thieves skills are describe along the Thief class description, and under Using the Dice is the description for percentile rolls.

These skills work by rolling a d100 and rolling equal or lower than the percentage value for the skill use, if the roll is higher the skill use is a failure, otherwise is a success.

[cartweel]

Thanks! I guess I just hadn't looked closely enough at the "Using the Dice" section -- surely assuming (egotistically) that I know how dice work!

So as I poked around online to try and answer this question earlier, I found that a lot of people have reacted to similar setups the same way that I am. Namely, I think it's pretty strange that a thief is only 10% likely to succeed at some of her skills! Doesn't that seem pretty low? A wizard isn't 10% likely to be able to cast a spell, right?

So, do people play this "as is" or do they "hack" it to give the thieves better chances of success? The thread (on another forum) that I was reading went into various bonuses that apply to thieves that make these percentages less bad... do some of those bonuses exist in BFRPG?

I just don't think I would want to say to one of my 10 year old players: "Alright, so now you're an awesome thief who has lived in the streets and knows what he's up to...........except oh wait, you actually kind of suck at your job!"

[Dimirag]

The values seem low but are higher compared to non thieves. Remember that a GM can modify these values based on situations, which allows the players to search ways to increase their success chance.

Its not uncommon for GMs to use the skills a ta one or two level higher than the actual thief level.

At fist level all classes are not that great (compared to other game editions), the magic user starts with one spell, which, depending on what spell it is it could be resisted.

Remember that any class can do some of the things thieves do, like hearing, searching for traps, climbing, hiding and the like, some of these are explained in the rules (with a chance of 1 in 6 o 2 in 6) for the ones that don't have an explanation use your judgment on how to resolve it for non-thieves and then adapt it for thieves.

[seandon4]

I play it as is, for the most part.

Some allow the Thief options in the optional rules section of BFRPG.

I suspect one can use whatever rationale seems best: locks in dungeons are more mysterious and potentially more difficult than your typical lock, perhaps? But again, can adjust for an easier lock. Wizards have the Knock spell, but they have to know it, have it prepared, and can only cast all their spells once per day. Thieves can try their skills on all the locks and depending on the game, may quickly get past the lower levels.

The only thing that I've considered reading/playing different is "Find Trap". I've grown to prefer thinking of it as "find small trap" (e.g. needle trap.) Because sometimes anyone might be able to role play finding/avoiding a larger trap, depending. Dwarves are better at finding larger traps as well.

EDIT: Likwise, anyone can try to hide, but thieves can "hide in shadows", which is harder to do.

[Metroknight]

I have before converted the thief skills to be roll over. Instead of that 10% or less, it became 90% or over. This allows you to apply the modifiers to the rolls themselves instead of the target.

If you have a thief that has a picking pockets of 40% or less, my way would let it be 60% or better. I believe the bell curve is the same for either (not a math whizz on this).

There is also a thieves option supplement or so I thought.

[Woe]

I've never understood this well. Let's assume a thief has a hide skill of 15%. If the DM rolls a 14, that means the thief stays hidden. But what would a 16 mean? The thief shouldn't be automatically seen, because that's a bit unfair. The observers would make a second roll as a "normal adventurer" against a secret doors check?

Or if a thief can sneak at 15% but another thief is listening with a listen skill of 20%. Do these cancel out? Does the second thief get a +5% bonus roll on his listen check of whatever (since I'm not clear what target a normal adventurer would have).

[Dimirag]

Hide and Move Silently are complicated skills as they involve chances from outside sources

I've never understood this well. Let's assume a thief has a hide skill of 15%. If the DM rolls a 14, that means the thief stays hidden. But what would a 16 mean? The thief shouldn't be automatically seen, because that's a bit unfair. The observers would make a second roll as a "normal adventurer" against a secret doors check?

A 01-15 roll means that the thief is well hidden, a 16+ roll means that the thief thinks he is well hidden.
The difference between well hidden (successful thief) and hidden (everyone else trying to hide) is up to the GM.
If you normally allow a chance of detection (like if searching for traps or treasure -1 in 6-) then a successful thief cancels any detection chance (and could halve special chances) and a thief that fails is treated as any character hiding.

Or if a thief can sneak at 15% but another thief is listening with a listen skill of 20%. Do these cancel out? Does the second thief get a +5% bonus roll on his listen check of whatever (since I'm not clear what target a normal adventurer would have).

Normal characters have a 1 in 6 chances of hearing unless their race says otherwise, if the thief moves silently then no hearing roll is needed, he moves silently, thus, creating virtually no noise; if he fails then he moves normally (although thinking that he is moving silently) and thus any hearing character gets his roll.

[Woe]

Thanks. That's how I've been playing it. However, with the second example, the first thief always thinks he is moving silently and the second thief always thinks he heard something/nothing. If the sneak and listen skill are the same, I'd just cancel them out and call it the 1-in-6 chance for the first thief to be heard. But when it's +15% and -20%, should I give the second thief a 5% chance of automatically hearing the first thief, and if that fails, fall back to the 1-in-6 chance? That feels consistent with the rules but a bit awkward. The other option is to give the second thief +5% on his 1d6 roll i.e. 22% chance of detecting the first thief. That also feels consistent, but the math feels more convoluted.

I'm not sure what system it was, but I'm used to a difficulty target and both parties would be affecting the same target. Here, it doesn't look like there is a shared target.

[Dimirag]

The way I rule it would be: If the moving thief does it successfully the other thief has no chance of hearing it regardless of the listening roll (the thief does not know the result of the roll)..

If the moving thief fails his roll he will still move (the thief does not know the result of the roll). And then the listening character makes his roll (w/out knowing the result), if its a failure then he does not hear anything, otherwise he hears some steps.

Remember that Moving Silently, Hiding, Trapsearching and Listening are not rolled by the player.

In resume:
Moving -- Listening = Outcome
Failure -- Failure = The thief moves without stealth but is not heard.
Failure -- Success = The second thief listen to the footstep (or other moves) of the fist thief.
Success -- Failure = The first thief moves silently.
Success -- Success = Same as above.