Hey Tywyll,
Some interesting blogposts for Thieves. I think they’re a difficult class to play, but in my experience there’s always one or a couple of people who love to play them to the hilt, ahem, and have an absolute blast doing so. A couple things came to mind as I was reading your posts:
First, in ACKS thieves get some of the coolest ‘domain’ abilities when they reach higher levels. Hijinks are awesome, and I feel like ACKS in particular brings high level thieves and guilds to life if you invest in a high-level campaign.
Second, I completely agree with you, and would implement in my own game, both your ability and racial modifiers to thieving rolls. It gives lower level thieves incentive to do some actual thieving! Those first through third level charts are pretty brutal unmodified. Thieves should be encouraged to use their abilities, and if higher level thieves can breeze through their open lock or find/remove trap rolls… well, so what imho? Let them have some fun with the class doing the things they wanted to do in the first place. As long as there’s some chance of failure, I don’t mind seeing a thief have some better chances of success over the long term of the game. Encourage them.
I doubt I would implement “All it costs is time” across the board, but I might use it for certain things - untrapped locks and wall-climbing for instance.
Another option I was thinking of would be to allow thieves (and only thieves, not nightblades or assassins, who have quite a few tricks of their own) to select Class Proficiencies in General Proficiency slots. This would give them a slight power boost, particularly right out of the gate, and potentially some more interesting tricks up their sleeves as they level up. This was an option I was considering for bards as well. I haven’t thought hard enough about it to know if it would break anything or not, but in the swirling morass that is my mind it seemed like an interesting option for those two classes in particular.
Cheers!