Revisiting some of the latest thief posts, I don't really have a complaint about the way thieves are run, just suggestions. Obviously, the thief system isn't perfect. Of all the thief paths, you see specific paths containing the majority of thieves and other paths having near none. People can nitpick on the little bits all they want, but I'm more interested in thieves as a whole.

What does everyone think about making thieves more adventure oriented? I saw someone mentioned about D&D thieves. People liked playing thieves from that game because they had a good all-around use. This game... the thieves seem pretty much stuck to PC populated areas, and most people groan when thinking of allowing a thief in their group. "What use are they? How are they going to help the group?" If they had just a few more skills that made them more group-friendly, I think things would balance out a bit better. Bards are great active group-pleasers, how about thieves being passively so? Umm.. explanation:

Thieves can get a few automatic skills, perhaps based on their different thief paths, that only work on NPCs and in groups. A trapper thief might auto-set a trap behind an enemy, and then next time the enemy falls or stumbles, he triggers the trap and X happens. Pickpocket thieves may find extra money/items (keeping a larger portion for themselves) and split it with the group. Thugs bully their prey and leave them more vulnerable to attack, a la orc, but a bit nicer. Poisoner thieves could auto-violently-poison mobs without expenditure of poison ingredients. Binder thieves could lasso a sword arm or leg and reduce dodging or parrying. These are just some suggestions. It could go well beyond this too, so that just having a certain kind of thief while traveling could lead to some beneficial surprises (Party travels with a thief, they find a batch of copper behind a rock, or are lead past an aggro mob without being hit or something).

So, what's everyone think of this? There are plenty of problem with thieves already, but if we could find a short-term fix until whatever major changes take place, perhaps people would be a little more complacent.

One last thought. In the assassin room in the academy, it talks about assassins not really matching up to thieves in the shadows. Assassins are much more combat-suited to be able to take on thieves. Perhaps if thieves could hide better than assassins could, so that assassins can't detect thieves, but only their own kind, the statement would be more true. Assassin hides, can't see thief, thief hides, can see assassin except in the wilds, duergar sees both, but not assassin in the wilds.

One person suggested things to help thieves when adventuring. I would suggest something along the lines of a 'detect secret', where the thief can see things that are hidden in the description.

IE. if there is a brick in the wall that can be looked at, but most people need to search the descriptions to find it.. a thief might be able to see it outside of the room description.

Of course that would require a boat load of coding, since I'm sure the Imm's wouldn't want to have all hidden objects revealed to thieves.

One more... why do assassins have detect hidden at all? I see why they want to be able to hide, but why would they train to detect people who are hidden?

I think removing the detect hidden skill from assassins is a good idea. They already have mark to track someone, even if they hide. They don't care about everyone, just the person they are hunting.

It would also make both thieves and assassins more unique by not allowing them the same method of detecting hidden people.

...Rome...

Regarding thieves being able to interact with non-PC's in a more meaningful way, the fact of the matter is this.

I can log in many days and have one other guy in PK, or three others that aren't my foes. If I'm stuck unable to do more 'thiefly' things that aren't PC-jack & steal oriented, I will be quit bored.

>Regarding thieves being able to interact with non-PC's in a
>more meaningful way, the fact of the matter is this.
>
>I can log in many days and have one other guy in PK, or three
>others that aren't my foes. If I'm stuck unable to do more
>'thiefly' things that aren't PC-jack & steal oriented, I will
>be quit bored.

That may have been short, but all I got out of it was a post-it
note on my monitor to remember to look at locked doors as I
cross them for pickability. So other than jack, steal and pick
lock, what 'thiefly' things with NPCs were you thinking of?

Qaledus

Ooer! You're both brilliant!

What if there's a class/race-wide questmaster type thing available at the hero ranks. You log it at 4 am, there are 16 players on, one other hero that you really don't have beans worth to interact with him, you go to a certain place and this NPC always has something for you to do. The reward for this quest wouldn't be experience, but a single percentage of skill/spell/power/song increase. The increase could only apply to those skills/spells you'd increase from spamming off somewhere in the mountains. This could also solve the lore problem, by making one questmaster give out lore points. I think the possibilities are endless, and would encourage exploring the land. Let's say you could only complete one quest in an in-game week, and if the quest is too hard, you can get a different random one after an OOC day.

Sorry, this is WAAAAAAY off-topic, but Qaledus inspired me. I agree with the guy who said there's not much to do with a thief if there are no PCs on. I don't have any new suggestions at the moment on how to fix it, though.

It won't happen like that, but there's some stuff in there that is
on my personal to do list.

Qaledus

Are usually quite useful for finding hidden items. Perhaps some sort of detect hidden passages and containers and stuff like that... Basically to the point that if you go to hell and you want to fully explore it, you bring a thief, because he'll spot the things other people would miss. Of course this would be a lot of work, but just think of all the stuff you could find that would make having a thief around worthwhile for all sorts of exploring (and even when ranking... on the off chance they decide to share that they just spotted something neat).

Good lord, what happened to the days when there was a treasure worth more than 4 gold that a thief could actually get to that an invoker/conjuror/etc couldn't do much more easily, quicker, and more efficiently?

Locked chests with goodies that other classes drool over but can't access?

The way it is now, all the thief paths (with the possible exception of pickpocket) are just a watered down fighters with hide.

Excluding path skills I personally find incongruent with the overarching philosphy of the particular path (what does grapple/deathstrike/have to do with bullying anyone? What does shield block have to do with traps?), I think thieves need 2-3 more 'thievy' skills distributed across the board. Detect treasure. Smell gold. Locate buried treasure. Maybe they should come with a metal detector wand and a loot bucket. I don't know, but something!

When that treasure south of Seantryn, which requires lock picking and stealing from decent level mobs = zero gold, and a certain dwarven treasure chest can't be picked by a midling thief, and only contains 3 gold to begin with, I agree with Eskelian, what's the point?

Heh, sorry but I have old ties to the class, and feel strongly about hooking up my thief peeps. =P

I should've rephrased. More thiefly things that DON'T involve PC's, is what I meant. So yeah, pick locks, would be nice to occassionally steal something from an NPC that I want to steal besides stuff to sell that hasn't been discovered by Team Nerf Shopkeepers(tm), just the ability to do stuff. NPC's whip my ass, I can't steal from half of them, can't pick most locks and many see me.

So in short, I'm a super-wussy warrior.

Yeah, I'll agree that detect hidden is a little overused on NPCs, including by me.

A thief should tool an assassin, in pk, both players being skilled.

I know when my most powerful assassin, Lokrin, clashed with a thief, he only won because he was hasted before the fight and the thief only had one scroll to slow him with. After that my uber-gear made him flee, but he still managed to rob me. A non-hastened or less well geared assassin would have been toast against that thief.

Mainly because thieves have blackjack, steal, scrolls and maces.

But your thief wasn't out schooling people, nor have any once they got fixed from the Yanacek abuse time period. I don't buy the thieves are uber thanks to scrolls thing.

Not that thieves were all round better killers.

There's a big difference.

Hmm.. I don't see how thieves should best assassins. Other than thug path, there's not really a lot of combat-useful skills available to thieves, were it to come down to a one-on-one fight. Also, seeing as how assassins can always see thieves, it makes it hard to sneak up and whack them on the back of the head. My two cents.

Seeing a thief doesn't stop him jacking you. If you are planning to fight a thief, at some stage you have to accept that blackjack possibility, and it is a reliable skill. I know a player that plays thieves regularly and particularly likes killing duergar, because they always run straight at him and he jacks them.

The thief can use scrolls to enhance himself and mess up the assassin. If he manages to jack the assassin, that's all that's required. Many thieves take thug up to cheapshot, and a hasted mace wielding thief will kill a slowed assassin very quickly indeed.

Bear in mind that thieves have potions to escape. Assassins don't (or shouldn't, if the thief jacked them). That even allows the thief to make use of any preps the assassin is carrying in his inventory. Ultimately, thieves can fairly easily escape assassins with two teleport potions in their inventory. Assassins cannot escape thieves nearly as easily when both players make good use of their skills.

That's my opinion, but I've seen a lot of thief vs assassin fights and been in more than a few.

I concur. Thieves are one of my biggest worries when playing an assassin.

nt

I disagree.

In the 1 hour you're jacked for, he's not going to be able to steal all your ####, recite 19 scrolls on you, quaff 8 potions and somehow then manage to keep you from just walking away assuming he isn't a thug.

An assassin can hide from the thief, he can maledict the thief better, he can cure blindness, heal himself, tank better, do higher damage attacks....

You're putting the assassin in the worst light. He at the very least can stop the thief from jacking by tripping.

>In the 1 hour you're jacked for

It's not that hard to build a thief with 2 or even 3 hour blackjack, still. It's just not every single thief with the skill.

>You're putting the assassin in the worst light. He at the very
>least can stop the thief from jacking by tripping.

If we're assuming a non-flying non-arial thief, sure.

>If we're assuming a non-flying non-arial thief, sure.

Even if he's flying, you can go for the strangle + blind dust or murder then blind right after when he walks back in (usually works pretty good if you time it right). Its not easy, but still, it'd be pretty hard for them to get you blinded, slowed, steal all your stuff, etc etc etc etc too. I don't much see point in saying 'how good are things when no one defends against it or makes a saving throw' because if that's the case APs and Necros are unstoppable.