Fixing the DF Thief

The Thief Template from Dungeon Fantasy 1 (and DFRPG) is one of the worst available options.  In a game that's largely about getting into big fights, the Thief gets only 1 point for their primary melee weapon (2 if they don't want a shield), which puts them at the same skill level as Templates like the Bard, Cleric, and Druid.  The Thief also gets one point in a ranged weapon, and that's it.  Considering that most Bards/Clerics/Druids use melee only as a last resort, this makes the Thief essentially worthless in combat.

The main issue with the Thief is, to quote DF1, that "they're broad-based experts at mundane skills".  They're the only class with nothing to do in combat, by design, which is a huge misstep.  Well, before we get started, lets take a brief look at what roles the various Templates fill:

Barbarian: Melee Combat, Nature Knowledge
Bard: Face, Utility/Support Magic
Cleric: Healing/Support Magic, Holy Knowledge
Druid: Utility/Support Magic, Nature Knowledge
Holy Warrior: Melee Combat, Holy Knowledge, Healing/Support Magic
Knight: Melee Combat
Martial Artist: Light Melee Combat, Parkour/Climbing, Chi
Scout: Ranged Combat, Nature Knowledge
Swashbuckler: Light Melee Combat, Parkour/Climbing
Thief: Parkour/Climbing, Thief Skills
Wizard: All Non-Healing Magic, Magic Knowledge

Notably, the Thief is the only Template with an emphasis on Thief Skills (mainly Stealth, Lockpicking, and Traps).  This leads to an in-game problem where, depending on the game/GM, either you need to take a Thief (eg because there are locked doors or traps), or you would never bother (eg because you can smash down locked doors and run through traps).  This can be sort of solved by giving the Scout access to Thief Skills as an alternative to their Nature Knowledge, or the Bard in exchange for some Face skills.

Looking at the Barbarian and Scout as examples of mixing roles (Melee/Ranged Combat + Nature), I'm going to re-imagine the Thief as a similar mix, of a Swashbuckler's Light Melee Combat and the existing Thief Parkour/Climbing and Criminal Skills.  Now, let's take a look at each individual section of the Template, and see what can be changed.

Attributes
Low ST and HT are somewhat forgivable, but IQ 13 is a giant waste of points.  It affects Gesture, Holdout, Shadowing, Smuggling, and Streetwise, and then background skills, which are mostly still too low to reliably succeed.  Lockpicking and Traps are mostly DX-based (+Per-based for Traps) in DF, so IQ doesn't actually do anything for them.  Let's go ahead and drop it to 10, which gives us 60(!) points.

Summary:
IQ reduced to 10 [+60]

Points Balance: +60

Secondary Characteristics
Will drops to 10, which is fine.  Per drops to 11, which is not.  Increase it to 15 to make the Thief able to spot traps and other such hazards.  Remove the Basic Speed penalty entirely; the Thief needs to go fast.

Summary:
Per increased to +5 (15) [-20]
Basic Speed increased to +0.00 [-10]

Points Balance: +30

Advantages
Perfect Balance is gone as mandatory, but remains an option.  The major change here is going to be something that saves a lot of points down the line: a new Talent that affects the Thief's main skills.  We'll determine those skills later, but for now, let's say it will affect 8 skills, so 8/level, and we'll take 4 levels (similar to the Barbarian) to start, for 32 points.  Add Weapon Master (Weapon of Choice) [20] as an option to increase combat ability and Improved Will up to +3 to compensate for lowering IQ.

Summary:
Perfect Balance no longer mandatory [+15]
New Talent [-32]

Points Balance: +13

Disadvantages
To compensate for increasing Basic Speed, add an extra -10 points of disadvantages, for a total of -50.  The list itself could probably use some pruning, as choices like Kleptomania or Trickster are going to make sure the rest of the party resents your character, but that's beyond the scope of this article.

Points Balance: +23

Primary Skills
Forced Entry is out; in DF it's only useful for getting higher ST bonuses for smashing/forcing doors/iron bars, which is completely worthless to an ST11 Thief.  Filch will only come up rarely, and defaults from Pickpocket at only -4, so we'll get rid of it.  Pickpocket, Lockpicking, Traps, and Stealth will be getting modified by the new talent, so they can be dropped down 1, 2, 2, and 8 points, respectively.

For the Talent, we'll want to include Lockpicking (now DX+4/19), Pickpocket (DX+2/17), Stealth (DX+5/20), and Traps (IQ+4/14, but 19 for spotting/disarming).  Filch is at effective 13 at default.

Summary:
Forced Entry removed [+1]
Filch removed [+2]
Pickpocket lowered to [1] [+1]
Lockpicking lowered to [2] [+2]
Traps lowered to [2] [+2]
Stealth lowered to [4] [+8]

Points Balance: +39

Secondary Skills
Sleight of Hand is a neat little bit of flavour, but we already have two stealing skills (well, Pickpocket and a default Filch), so it's out.  Shadowing defaults to Stealth at -4, or 16, which is more than good enough, so it's dropped.  Smuggling is of debatable use; Holdout already covers hiding stuff on yourself/other people, so it's dropped.  Urban Survival is going to be in the Talent, so it can drop 1 point.

Now, the combat skills.  The Thief needs a bit more skill than the Barbarian, as they can't afford to take a beating, so we'll go with DX+3/18 [12].  The shield/off-hand options increase to [4], which gives 16/17.  Going without a shield increases skill to 19.  The ranged option gets an extra point, as it's not the focus, though if you wanted, you could swap the melee and ranged points to make a ranged Thief, which might be an interesting idea.

The Talent adds Gesture (IQ+4/14), Holdout (IQ+4/14), Streetwise (IQ+4/14), and Urban Survival (Per+3/18), which gets us to exactly 8 skills.

Summary:
Sleight of Hand removed [+1]
Smuggling removed [+2]
Shadowing removed [+2]
Urban Survival lowered  [+1]
Melee Combat/Shield skills increased [-14]
Ranged Combat skills increased [-1]

Points Balance: +30

Background Skills
Add Knot-Tying (DX+0/15) and Jumping (DX+0/15) as options.  Remove skills that nobody else has and will almost never come up (Forgery, Counterfeiting, Lip Reading, etc).

Final Touches
Add 20 points worth of optional Advantages, for a total of 50, which provides a lot more freedom.

The last 10 points I'm going to spend on another level of ST, so that the Thief can wear slightly heavier armour and carry more things.

The Talent will be named "Skulker", and will negate its level in encumbrance penalties for Stealth as its special effect.  If you prefer, it gives plus its level to Reaction Rolls with thieves and other ne'er-do-wells.

I'll include a full template at the bottom of the article.

Assessment
Now let's see if I succeeded at what I set out to do:

1) Is the Thief now a more capable combatant?  With skill 18, and the choice of Weapon Master, definitely.  They're still a bit squishy, with HT 11, but hopefully the extra DR from heavier armour will help.  Backstabbing isn't a death sentence any more!

2) Is the Thief still able to steal things, sneak around, and pick locks?  Thanks to Skulker, they're actually better than they were, with one exception: several skills are now at "default", and yet should still be noted on the character sheet.  I actually chose to just merge Shadowing with Stealth, Filch with Pickpocket, etc, to save on sheet space.

The Wizard Problem
Up until now I've conveniently ignored another major problem, which is that most of what the Thief does in the dungeon can be done better by a Wizard for under a dozen points.  Keen Sense lets anybody be pretty good at detecting (most) traps, while Armour and the various Resist spells let you just ignore them entirely.  Invisibility has a few pre-reqs, but many Wizards dip into the Light college for Continual Light, and Hush, which has the very useful Silence as a pre-req, is also easy to access.  Lockmaster opens locks while ignoring difficulty modifiers, and has only Apportation as a pre-req, which is also very useful and likely to be taken.

This is without getting into more creative spells, like Shape Earth to block pressure plates, or just Levitate to move everyone over tripwires.  Meteoric iron locks obviously stop Lockmaster, but the others are substantially more difficult to stop in ways that still allow the Thief to shine.  This is more of a problem with the Magic system in general than a problem with the Thief, and there's no easy fix.  There are four real options:

1) Get rid of any spells that would completely invalidate the Thief (Lockmaster, in particular).

2) Ask Wizard players to focus on other spells.

3) Switch to a different magic system which requires larger points investment in fewer spells, like Sorcery.

4) Give the Thief access to new, cheap, non-magical, and useful options at the start of play, like Nondetection from DF11 Power-Ups.

The Alternate Thief Template

Attributes:
ST 12 [20]
DX 15 [100]
IQ 10 [0]
HT 11 [10]

Secondary Characteristics:
Damage 1d-1 thr/1d+2 sw
Basic Lift 29lbs
HP 12 [0]
FP 11 [0]
Will 10 [0]
Per 15 [25]
Basic Speed 6.5 [0]
Basic Move 7 [5]

Advantages:
Flexibility [5]
High Manual Dexterity 1 [5]
Skulker 4 [32]

50 Points Chosen From:
IQ+1 [20]
DX+1 [20]
Per +1 to +3 [5/level]
Will +1 to +3 [5/level]
Basic Speed +0.25 to +1.00 [5/level]
Basic Move +1 or +2 [5 or 10]
Ambidexterity [5]
Catfall [10]
Combat Reflexes [15]
Danger Sense [15]
Enhanced Dodge 1 [15]
Improve Flexibility [5] to Double-Jointed [15]
Gizmo 1-3 [5/level]
High Manual Dexterity 2-4 [5/level]
Honest Face [1]
Luck [15] or Extraordinary Luck [30]
Night Vision 1-9 [1/level]
Perfect Balance [15]
Peripheral Vision [15]
Serendipity 1-2 [15 or 30]
Signature Gear [Varies]
Striking ST (Only on Surprise/Backstabs) 1-2 [2 or 4]
Wealth (Comfortable or Wealthy [10 or 20])

Disadvantages:
One Of:
Greed (12) [-15]
Kleptomania (12) [-15]
Trickster (12) [-15]

One Of:
Callous [-5]
Code of Honour (Pirate's) [-5]
Curious (12) [-5]

A Further -30 Points From Those Above Or:
Bad Temper (12) [-10]
Bloodlust (12) [-10]
Compulsive Carousing [-5]
Compulsive Gambling [-5]
Compulsive Lying [-15]
Compulsive Spending [-5]
Cowardice (12) [-10]
Laziness [-10]
Lecherousness (12) [-15]
Loner (12) [-5]
One Eye [-15]
Overconfidence [-5]
Post-Combat Shakes (12) [-5]
Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions) [-5]
Skinny [-5]
Social Stigma (Criminal Record) [-5]

Primary Skills:
Climbing-17 [1]
Escape-16 [1]
Lockpicking-15 [2]
Pickpocket-18 [1]
Stealth-20 [4]
Traps-16 [2]

Filch-14 [0]

Secondary Skills:
Acrobatics-13 [1]
Gesture-14 [1]
Holdout-14 [1]
Search-15 [2]
Streetwise-14 [2]
Urban Survival-18 [1]

Shadowing-16 [0]

One Melee Skill Package:
1. One of:
Rapier-18 [12]
Saber-18 [12]
Shortsword-18 [12]
Smallsword-18 [12]

One of:
Cloak-16 [4]
Shield (Buckler)-16 [4]
Main-Gauche-16 [4]

2. One of:
Rapier-19 [16]
Saber-19 [16]
Shortsword-19 [16]
Smallsword-19 [16]

One Ranged Skill:
Bow-15 [2]
Crossbow-16 [2]
Sling-14 [2]
Throwing-15 [2]
Thrown Weapon (Knife)-16 [2]

Background Skills:
Brawling-15 [1]
Carousing-11 [1]
Gambling-9 [1]

Seven Of:
Acting-9 [1]
Cartography-9 [1]
Disguise-9 [1]
Fast-Draw (Any)-15 [1]
Fast-Talk-9 [1]
First Aid-10 [1]
Garrote-15 [1]
Hiking-10 [1]
Knot-Tying-16 [1]
Jumping-15 [1]
Merchant-9 [1]
Observation-14 [1]
Poisons-8 [1]
Seamanship-10 [1]