Goodman Games

My players are at level 4, and the wizard and warrior are both getting nicely into their classes and holding their own. However my thief player is getting a litte frustrated at being weak in combat and not really getting a chance to show off his uniqueness beyond checking for and removing traps and occasionally sneaking in the shadows. Any tips for making thieves more effective - certainly in combat, but also just in terms of being a strongly defined character - that I can subtly introduce for him?

First thing I always ask when I hear that the Thief in the party is not measuring up -- how easy do you make it to get into position for a Backstab?

I try to be as generous as possible when allowing a sneak silent check or other events going on in the melee to allow the thief a Backstab attempt. Sometimes it means that they spend a round setting it up and then getting the attempt on the next round, but that awesome "this includes an automatic crit" factor makes up for the "lost" round.

Other than that, the "average" Thief could have contacts wherever the party might go, in terms of civilization. That can be valuable for finding adventures and even just rare equipment and other odd resources...

UniversalHead wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 6:23 pm My players are at level 4, and the wizard and warrior are both getting nicely into their classes and holding their own. However my thief player is getting a litte frustrated at being weak in combat and not really getting a chance to show off his uniqueness beyond checking for and removing traps and occasionally sneaking in the shadows. Any tips for making thieves more effective - certainly in combat, but also just in terms of being a strongly defined character - that I can subtly introduce for him?

The thief can spend Luck to modify any roll - initiative, attacks, damage, crit table results. At 4th level, the thief gets +1d6 per point of Luck spent. Luck is finite, but in any given combat where it is important, the thief should have opportunities to shine. And, let's face it, an automatic crit for a backstab is a hell of a power. Frankly, a duo of warrior using a Deed to set up a backstab and thief then making use of that opportunity puts fear into the fearless.

Raven_Crowking wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 5:20 am Frankly, a duo of warrior using a Deed to set up a backstab and thief then making use of that opportunity puts fear into the fearless.

When can I play in one of your games?!? My imagination loved that scene!

If your theif/group spends a lot of time in cities/towns/any place with some organized government, you could let the thief have fun trying to forge documents to get players past certain guards, or requisition resources.

Thieves should be able to climb walls/ceilings kind of like spiderman or a comic book thief more than a "realistic" idea of what a person could do. If the enemies don't see the thief hanging from the ceiling I could see the thief getting multiple turns of throwing daggers from the ceiling and getting backstabs that way.

a thief could use makeup/prosthetic/clothing to disguise themself or another person as any other person, this could be done to some effect.

and then of course, handle poison could have a lot of uses. Maybe the thief is getting buddy/buddy with some guards, slips a poison into their stew, the poison might make them fall asleep, or die, or maybe just have diahrea so they can't stay on their guard duty.

Granted, a lot of these things aren't based on combat, but they could be used to change the situations facing the players .