New Thief Abilities: Con Artist, Assassin, and In Plain Sight

Con Artist [5/lvl]

This new talent gives +1/level (max 4 levels) to Acting, Disguise, Fast-Talk, Gambling, and Merchant.  Con Artist is meant to emphasise the "social" aspect of Thieves, and to replace Craftiness/Street-Smart, both of which already have skill overlap with Skulker.

Reaction Bonus: Street urchins, scammers, forgers, and the like.

Alternate Benefit: +1/level in Contests against somebody trying to fool you.

Assassin [5/lvl]

This talent gives +1/level (max 4 levels) to Garrote, Knife, Poisons, Fast-Draw (Potion), and Fast-Draw (Knife).  Assassin is meant to replace the Assassin template from DF12: Ninja, which makes the same mistakes the Thief did (that is, inefficiently spending points on skills).

Reaction Bonus: Other assassins.

Alternative Benefit: +1/level to avoid self-inflicted poisons.

In Plain Sight [1]

In Plain Sight is a perk that allows a Thief to try to sneak in areas where this would normally be impossible: guarded well-lit hallways, open fields, and the like.  They suffer a base -10 to Stealth to do so.

New Holy Warrior Ability: Holy Smite

Holy Warriors don't get enough options, in my opinion.  They're all going to take Blessed (Heroic Feats), and then maybe Resistant (Evil Supernatural Powers).  Turning and Faith Healing are good, but very expensive, and better in the hands of a Cleric anyway.  I figure that Holy Warriors, as holy warriors, should get at least one other combat option, and here it is, definitely not ripped off from D&D: Holy Smite.

Holy Smite [7/lvl]

Prerequisite: One level of Holiness/Power Investiture per level of Holy Smite

When making an attack, you can imbue your weapon (or fists, or arrows) with burning divine light which is even more effective against true enemies of the faith.  For each FP spent before rolling to attack, up to your level of Holy Smite, add 2 burn damage to any successful attack, or 4 against enemies of the faith.  This bonus damage can affect insubstantial targets, even if the normal attack wouldn't.

Advantages:

Innate Attack (Burning) 4 (Follow-Up (Any Attack), +50%; Affects Insubstantial, +20%; Not Incendiary, -10%; Variable, +5%; Costs Fatigue, -15%; Accessibility (Enemies of the Faith Only), -30%; Holy, -10%) [5.5/lvl]

Innate Attack (Burning) 2 (Follow-Up (Any Attack), +50%; Affects Insubstantial, +20%; Not Incendiary, -10%; Variable, +5%; Costs Fatigue, -15%; Holy, -10%) [3.5/lvl], [0.7/lvl] as an Alternate Ability

Urban Scout Lens

The idea for this lens came while reworking the Thief.  As of now, there's not really a good (non-Wizard) alternative to having a Thief; a Scout can find Traps, sure, but no template can take Lockpicking or Pickpocket, for instance.  The obvious solution is to take the Scout, an already functional high-Per template, and switch out its "nature" side role for an "urban" one.

Urban Scout          +0 Points

Secondary Characteristics

Per 15 [5]

Advantages:

Replace
Outdoorsman 2 [20] with Skulker* 2 [16]

Add to options
Flexible [5]
High Manual Dexterity 1-2 [5-10]

Perfect Balance [15]
Skulker 3-4 [8-16]

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.

Alternate Martial Artist Template

Attributes:

ST 11 [10]
DX 16 [120]
IQ 10 [0]
HT 12 [20]

Secondary Characteristics:
Damage 1d-1 thr/1+1 sw
Basic Lift 24lbs
HP 11 [0]
FP 12 [0]
Will 12 [10]
Per 10 [0]
Basic Speed 7.00 [0]
Basic Move 7 [0]

Buffing the Martial Artist: Alternate Trained by a Master and Weapon Master

Trained by a Master

Trained by a Master (or TbaM) has the following effects:

• Rapid Strike penalty is reduced by half
• Multiple Parry penalty is reduced by half
• Unarmed attacks do not take damage from armed parries (this is a houserule)

These are almost the exact same bonuses as Weapon Master, but without the damage bonus.  TbaM works with all melee weapon and unarmed skills, but this is needlessly broad, as most Martial Artists won't use more than 4 melee skills, assuming they invest points in all of Judo, Karate, and two melee weapon skills.  Compare this to the Knight and Swashbuckler who start with Weapon Master (One Weapon), and are given the option to buy up to Weapon Master (All Weapons).

The 5-point brackets of Weapon Master are a good target to emulate, and the percentage Accessibility modifier from Powers can be used based on how many skills TbaM effects.  To start, there are six unarmed skills, but because nobody is ever going to buy more than one striking skill (Boxing, Brawling, and Karate), and one grappling skill (Judo, Sumo Wrestling, and Wrestling), it's fair to reduce these to only two skills for the purpose of calculating the discount.

Buffing the Martial Artist: Attributes and Skills

Attributes

16 DX is the highest in DF, and also the only good Attribute Martial Artists have, but they can't really afford to lower it.  ST and HT are horrible for a frontline combatant, but can be bought up with advantage points, while IQ only really matters for two Chi Skills (Invisibility Art and Pressure Points).  Meanwhile, Move 8 is a bit unnecessary, and Will is a tad low for the stereotypical "kung-fu master".

I'd suggest the following changes:

• Decrease Basic Move to 7 (+5)
• Increase Will to 12 (-5)

Skills

Martial Artists are supposed to fill the same niche as the Swashbuckler; a lightly-armoured combatant who can fight, jump pits, and climb walls, but is incapable of doing almost anything else.  Despite this, they only put 8 points into weapon skills; tied for the second lowest out of all the templates with the Wizard, only beating out the Thief (which is borderline worthless, and needs to be entirely rewritten).

Buffing the Martial Artist: Alternate Blind Fighting

As mentioned in the post on Chi Skills, Blind Fighting is cool but annoying for DF Martial Artists because it involves rolling dice twice every time you want to attack or defend, and starts at a pathetically low level.  Instead, let's build Blind Fighting as a Chi Ability.

The easiest option, and therefore the one that I'll use, is just Vibration Sense.  It only requires one roll per foe per encounter instead of dozens, and the base price is less than it would take to get Blind Fighting up to a reasonable level.

On the downside, it requires a reasonably high Perception, which the Martial Artist doesn't have, but that's something I'm going to look into in the future.  It also doesn't work in water, but that's pretty negligible.

It ends up looking like this:
Vibration Sense (Chi, -10%) [9]

If you want to offer a powered-up version that works in water and ignores penalties, you can use this:
Vibration Sense (Sense of Perception, +100%; Chi, -10%) [19]

Buffing the Martial Artist: Chi Skills

The vanilla Martial Artist, much like the Bard, suffers from being split across too many areas: mundane Attributes and Skills, mundane Advantages, Chi Abilities, and Chi Skills.  Judging by their high DX, low ST, and Acrobatics, they are meant to fill the same niche as a Swashbuckler, but with some neat tricks from Chi Abilities and Chi Skills instead of pure martial skill.

Chi Abilities are pretty much fine, and 20 points doesn't dig too far into the rest of the budget.  Chi Skills, however, are simultaneously a huge point dump (44 at least, when you count in Chi Talent), and many are nearly unusable due to low skill levels.  Part of the problem is needless breadth; a 15-point Talent and 7 barely usable skills is far worse than a 5-point Talent and 5 consistently-useful skills.  Further, many skills are based in IQ, Will, or Per, which are pathetically average.  In addition, several of the skills are simply not very interesting or useful, leading to an unnecessarily bloated skill list.

My idea is to split the 15-point Chi Talent into three 5-point talents instead, encouraging specialization in a narrow group of actually usable (Skill-14+) chi skills.  This will require paring down the list to only 15 Chi Skills from 20, and then splitting them into thematic groups.  To start, let's go through the Chi Skills.

Buffing the Martial Artist: Alternate Unarmed

Unarmed Martial Artists are an option in DF, but they're pretty terrible, for a number of reasons:

1. Thrust damage is terrible, and while they can stack up many +1/die bonuses, those are all from power-ups (Claws (Blunt) and Seven Secret Kicks from DF11, and Fists of Power and Unarmed Master from Pyramid #61, if you use that), and on top of that they still need to buy ST up to 19 (17, if you take the maximum two levels of Striking ST allowed in vanilla DF1) to really start to get much use out of the bonuses.
2. Weapons that parry unarmed attacks deal damage.  This is somewhat fixed if you rule that Trained by a Master allows Martial Artists to ignore this as a special feature (which I do).
3. The need to be at Reach C for punches and judo throws is a significant tactical hurdle.
4. Karate and Judo are Hard skills, and Martial Artists only get starting skill levels of 17 and 16.  Also worth noting is that they'll never get bonuses for Balanced weapons, Accurate enchantments (though this could be ruled to apply to gauntlets), or Weapon Bond.

My first solution was to allow ten levels of Striking ST (Unarmed Only -40%, Chi -10%) [2.5/level], but that still requires 8 levels (and all 20 starting Chi Power points) to get up to a 2d attack, while other templates, like the Barbarian and Knight, get well past 3d base swing damage, thanks to weapon damage and Weapon Master bonuses.