What do you think of a word that suggests looting, treasure hunting, etc.:
Or some rogue-like words:
Or some synonyms for thief:
There are also more violent sounding terms like:
Riader is usually used as an alternate for Barbarians ind20 games , capitalizing on the classes higher movemnt rate and sometimes adding skirmish abilites. D20 Game of Thrones does this, think Viking here /
Knave isn't bad, its used in the D20 Game of Thrones game for a Thief variation but its too medieval for my tastes
Of course all this depends on what you are doing with the class, if you are going more "skilled guy tougher than a thief" something like The Grey Mouser you'll want a more generic name like Rogue (kind of like the Pathfinder version) , Heavy Hitter with some stealth would call for a different name. I personally would avoid anything that is a specific crime myself and Burglar is for hobitsses
Some sillier suggestions: misappropriator, acquisator, pilferer, …
A fun party game: they say the Inuit have a hundred words for snow, and the Arabs a hundred words for sand, but how many words has English for theft?
I rather like burglar and knave. I agree with the distaste for hoodlum, and feel that rogue is played out.
I suppose "tortfeasor" doesn't have the necessary ring to it.
Out of the list of names provided by Alex my preference would be for knave.
Hm. I'd like to see what's either included or excluded from the base thief.
I've long wanted to see a class that could just be called "Adventurer", and I'd usually envisioned it as a HD1/F1/T2 that has the dungeony door/trap/etc. set of skills. The sort of career or skill-set that people would naturally gravitate to given a world full of treasure-laden ruins.
[quote="koewn"]
Hm. I'd like to see what's either included or excluded from the base thief.
I've long wanted to see a class that could just be called "Adventurer", and I'd usually envisioned it as a HD1/F1/T2 that has the dungeony door/trap/etc. set of skills. The sort of career or skill-set that people would naturally gravitate to given a world full of treasure-laden ruins.
[/quote]
That's actually a really good idea.
I personally named this class Archeologist >.>
(Their proficiency list does include whips, yes, why do you ask?)
[quote="Alex"]
That's actually a really good idea.
[/quote]
/me prints this out poster-sized, hangs it on his wall
[quote="Aryxymaraki"]
I personally named this class Archeologist >.>
(Their proficiency list does include whips, yes, why do you ask?)
[/quote]
I named mine "Fortune Hunter", but it's got my hacked-up half-caster progression I'd whipped up way before Axioms, etc, and may actually be a bit too-genre aware. Archeologist was the 9th level title. And the template came with a fedora.
I like knave.
[quote="koewn"]
And the template came with a fedora.
[/quote]
We can always change it to "Time weathered yet stylish hat" and let the imagination fill in the rest.
Explorer is taken... I like adventurer for its simplicity.
Knave, scamp, miscreant, scoundrel (too Star Wars-y).
Seeker, traveler, pathfinder (heh).
Fixer.
What about "macgyver"?
Here's where I am right now:
Class Name: Freebooter
Why freebooter? It sounds very in-genre. And the literal definiton (from Dutch) is "plunderer". While it often is used to mean pirate, the actual definition of a freebooter is "a person who goes about in search of plunder". "a person, such as a pirate, living from plunder"; "a person, especially an itinerant, who seeks pleasure and wealth without responsiblity"; "an adventurer who pillages, plunders, or wages ad-hoc war on other nations"; "one who plunders or pillages without the authority of national warfare"; "a member of a predatory band"; "a pillager"; "one who wanders about in search of plunder, a robber, a pillager, a plunderer"; "someone who takes spoils or plunder". Perfect!
Paths:
Build:
Build will be HD 0, FIghter 2, Thief 2. Trade Fighter value down to broad weapons (+1 power), narrow armor (+2 powers), 2 fighting styles (+1 power), and one damage bonus (melee or missile) (+1 power), to yield 10 powers.
XP per level will be 1000 + 400 + (150 x 5) = 2150XP.
This will give a class with the level of proficiency of a thief combined with the hitting power of a fighter. However, its staying power is only half that of a fighter, and less than that of an assassin, paladin, etc.
NOTE that only the thief value can be used for the thief skills so this requires some careful thought. The exclusive thief-only skills are Pick Pockets, Open Locks, Find Traps, Remove Traps, Backstab, Move Silently, and Hide in Shadows (Climbing and Hear Noise are available as proficiencies). So that means each of the 4 paths can only have 5 of these 7.
I'd love your recommendations as to which of each they ought have.
Expeditionary - a looter of tombs and delver of dungeons [optimized for dungeon thievery]
I limited myself to 3 suggestions each so that the suggestions allow the possibility that the build might change to being Fighting 2, Hit Die 1, Thief 1.
it seems weird that the wayfarer would have the same skills as the ruffian, but the skills i am imagining are not thief skills.
As we discussed elsewhere, the wayfarer probably has "difficult to spot" so that their backstabbing happens as an ambush. Whether they also have sniping to strike from range and possibly run the following round or acrobatics to get more backstabs is unclear. Maybe move silently and hide in shadows ARE important for them to have.
[quote="Jard"]
Maybe move silently and hide in shadows ARE important for them to have.
[/quote]
Hm.
So, given "difficult to spot" succeeds on a 3+ in the wilderness, Hide In Shadows seems superfluous for the outdoorsy bandit? Put another way, Difficult To Spot lets you hide in underbrush as a 12th level thief, and in dungeon cover as a 6th level thief (14+). If you're primarly an outdoorsman, you're much better off with Difficult To Spot for hiding.
I'd not thought about those two proficiencies/skills in combination before. Interesting. I'm kinda curious if 3+/dungeon and 14+/woods, the reverse, is balanced. Or a Devices proficiency that's 12+/2+ open locks or remove traps (and the reverse).
Perhaps listing out all 10 skills we think they should have might be a good way to proceed. Up to the first five are thief-exclusive abilities. Some thoughts...
Expeditionary - a looter of tombs and delver of dungeons [optimized for dungeon thievery]
My initial thoughts to Alex’s first post; I’ve just seen the second post.
Asterisk (*) below indicates a proficiency/skill selected with a non-Thievery power.
Expeditionary
a looter of tombs and delver of dungeons [optimized for dungeon thievery]
Climb Walls*, Hear Noise*, Find Traps, Open Locks, Remove Traps
Note: I’m envisioning the Expeditionary as a specialist, non-melee combatant, thus no Backstab, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently. The difficult to spot power might be appropriate as low cost stealth.
Ruffian
a cut-throat and killer [a sneaky damage dealer, similar to the 3.5E rogue]
Climb Walls*, Backstab, Find Traps, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, Open Locks
Note: Climb Walls, Find Traps, and Open Locks to reach a well-protected target.
Scoundrel
the gentleman-thief [optimized for disguise and charlatanism]
Hear Noise*, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, Pick Pockets
Note: Hear Noise because of Carousing, and Hide in Shadows because of Spying. Pick Pockets suggests many Freebooters choose the less deadly path of Scoundrel, per the rulebook comment “this skill is the bread and butter of nonadventuring thieves.”
Wayfarer
a bandit, highwayman, or scout [optimized for wilderness thievery]
Backstab, Hear Noise*, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently
Note: Hear Noise because of “scout” and Carousing. Hide in Shadows because of Spying, and Move Silently because of Smuggling. A Wayfarer might select Trapping proficiency to “detect and disable simple wilderness pits, snares, deadfalls, etc., as a thief of his class level.”
I want to back up for a moment and thank Alex for the explanation of the Freebooter class name. That was really interesting!
As the paths are developing, it appears we may not need 10 powers at 1st level. We should continue working through the paths, but I think it would be good both to reduce the XP of the class (via a reduced Fighting value trade-off XP penalty) and to extend powers gained over multiple levels through power trade-offs.
Similarly, as we “re-invent” the Thief, and therein the Thieves’ Guild (!), I see the Thief as a class that tries to “do it all” Thievery-wise, and maybe not so well as we would like. But we have the opportunity for the Freebooter paths to focus on areas of Thievery, such that any given path may be “less than” a Thief, but one or more of each path working together will be “greater than” 4 or more Thieves, i.e. making the Thieves’ (or Freebooters’) Guild the “team sport” it is often portrayed as in the literature.
Comparing my initial thoughts on thief skills with Alex’s second post on all path powers, we mostly agree on the core thief skills for each path. Where Alex’s second post concerns me (and I may misunderstand) is in “hard-coding” existing proficiency selections by path. If proficiency selections are to be a core of how the Freebooter’s paths are to be differentiated, this may point to one or more bonus class proficiencies as power choices.
I would first look to the core thief skills and ways to enhance them by path. This is complicated somewhat by the new HFH Thievery rules, in that I find myself looking at the Thief, then the new rules, then the Freebooter possible paths, trying not to forget some salient point.
Focusing on the Expeditionary, Find Traps and Remove Traps are core to the path (I have visions of Dungeons & Dragons Online in my mind). Trap Finding proficiency points the way, but these looters of tombs are really good at trap finding. What if:
At 1st level the Expeditionary is an expert trap finder, receiving a +2 bonus on proficiency throws to find and remove traps. He may find or remove a trap in one round (rather than one turn) by making a successful proficiency throw with a -4 penalty. At level 7, he may find or remove a trap in one round by making a successful proficiency throw with no penalty. At level 13, he may find or remove a trap during combat in lieu of making an attack by making a successful proficiency throw with a -4 penalty.
What do you think? Not just on my comments but the Freebooter as it is developing. Speak up, community!
And I’m back, to continue my unchallenged domination of this thread 
I was thinking, as long as we’re playtesting the Freebooter, maybe this is the perfect opportunity to playtest one of these options: http://www.autarch.co/forums/general-discussion/flat-thief-abilities
Any of the options that would allow a thieving class to allocate their thieving skill advances by level would assist in the specialization/“teamwork” approach to thieving I mention above.