Singular Thief Class

[Asche]

I am nowhere near the first person to suggest this. What I'd like is a discussion on why we shouldn't do it, beyond obvious occupation of staff time in a time of transition. So, here goes. Why SHOULDN'T we merge the pickpocket and burglars classes into a singular thief class that is unrivaled in lockpicking, pickpocketing, sapping, and sneaks as well as a assassin? They'd be as good a fighter as a high end pickpocket (IE, not great), but be able to do all the sneaky things that aren't poison or stabbing people indiscriminately.

[CodeMaster]

A merging of the two classes would represent an exceptional utility guild.  I wouldn't hesitate to play it, but from a playability standpoint here are my big two reasons they should stay separate:

1. Replayability.  I played a relatively long-lived pickpocket and made the mistake of rolling another pickpocket right after because I enjoyed it so much.  Realizing I would be redeveloping the exact same skill tree (albeit in a different city) was a bigger bummer than I thought it would be.  Rolling a burglar would have sated my desire to play a thief while giving me a fresh experience.

2. Incentive to group.  Lockpicking, steal, and sleight of hand are extremely powerful manipulation skills, and they can interact a lot.  Splitting mastery of these skills up between a couple guilds can force characters to be reliant on each other and group up.  "I'll pick the lock, you ease the door open, and our assassin buddy will silence the guard before he has a chance to raise the alarm."

In some sense, the idea of an exceptional utility guild already exists.  Only, it's for desert-based characters.  Correspondingly, it seems feasible to me that rangers could be split into two complementary but similar guilds, say a hunter and a survivor/explorer, in the same way that pickpockets and burglars are distinct.  Rangers seem to be a lot of people's favorite class, though, so I wouldn't dare suggest that with any seriousness!

[RogueGunslinger]

Why not? Because I like variety. I'd rather something be given to each guild that makes them more unique and useful. Things like the addition to sleight of hand, which helped pickpockets and assassins immensely. Or like Trap, which used to be on burglars.

Perhaps a disguise skill for changing sdesc or mdesc for burglars. Some sort of smoke-bomb vanish skill for pickpockets.

How cool would that shit be? Really cool.


Edit: Or get rid of the weird ways the classes branch certain skills. That could be a decent start. But that's a tangent for another day I suppose.

[Saellyn]

Popping smoke seems more assassinish a la Ninja than anything.

[RogueGunslinger]

Popping smoke seems more assassinish a la Ninja than anything.

It'd be more of a temporary darkness in the area, in my mind, or a flash-bang like effect that temporarily blinds. Something to ease a pickpockets escape troubles until they are able to hide.

[Jihelu]

Smoke bombs sound like more of a burglar thing to me than pickpocket.
Pickpockets need to be sneaky and not get caught to begin with.
Assassins need to not be spotted and murder people/etc.
If a burglar gets caught he could fight his way out, or just 'BAM SMOKE BOMB' -flee

[Majikal]

How did we go from merging two guilds (mostly to help pickpockets limited skillset) to smokebombs...

And all those guilds already have a ninja vanish that shits on anything a smokebomb would do anyway.

45 people are here, hunting you.
>hide
you search for a good place to hide
you hide yourself
>em wins

[FantasyWriter]

it's >sem wins.
Geeze, what a noob!

Isn't this completely doable with the extended subguilds now?
I'm not much of a sneaky player, but it seems like any sneak guild/not-matching-extended-sub, would pretty much make you a rogue god.

[Tetra]

Smoke bomb would be assassin, more than burglar.  If you are going to devise an escape strategy for killing someone, that would be the smokebomb.

[Patuk]

The point made about rangers is actually very good. Someone wanting to go out in the wilderness has one class to rule them all. City-bound dudes have not two, but three bleeding classes thry need to pick between.

[spicemustflow]

Generally, real life criminals tend to specialize (I learned that from a book), so I'm for keeping the 3 classes apart.

[ABoredLion]

Assassins could do with skills that actually scare people into not following them. I want ninja traps! Where's my claymore?

[RogueGunslinger]

Caltrops would be cool.

[Armaddict]

Caltrops would be cool.

Really, I'd just like for trap to come back, but only in a completely bolstered form.  Snares for the wilderness, deadfalls.  Caltrops, simple lever-needles in door locks, and so on.

Trap was, back in the day, pretty damn scary, and I loved using it.  It saddened me greatly when I could no longer make rooms asplode, but it was probably for the best.

[Kankfly]

Some sort of tempered down 'trap'-like skill for hunters seem pretty cool. Baiting traps and letting small animals walk into them. If others stumbled onto your trapped animal, they can steal it, so you'd have to be extra cautious where to put them. Not sure how that's going to work out codedly.

[Bushranger]

Code Select Expand

> trap box ShaLeah

You put the short, vivacious hottie into the paper, kank patterned gift-box and rig the trap.

> give box Templar

You give the paper, kank patterned gift-box to the stuffy, boring old Templar.

As he shakes the paper, kank patterned gift-box the stuffy, boring old Templar says, in stuffy old Sirihish:
"A gift for me? You shouldn't have!"

The stuffy, boring old Templar opens the paper, kank-patterned gift-box, triggering the trap and causing the short, vivacious hottie to spring out and land in his lap!

The short, vivacious hottie wounds the stuffy, boring old Templar with her drama doing tremendous damage to his reputation!


I would love to see Trap returned for Assassin and Ranger alike!

[Jihelu]

So....what did traps do before? Examples and what not. Unless thats too ic or something.

[Bushranger]

So....what did traps do before? Examples and what not. Unless thats too ic or something.

Pretty much nothing. You could open TRAP (I meant trap) a container that would open and close.

This was useless to Rangers so the skill was removed from them a long long time ago.

Assassins sometimes used flash powder to blow things up with closed containers as gifts to Templars. That's about it.

If it comes back it would need major reworking.

[Jihelu]

So people would actually send bombs to templars/people?
Was there a way to disarm these?
If not, that sounds hilarious.

[shadeoux]

It was funnier finding that backpack on the ground, hustling to the Gaj, and opening it in the Gaj and watching everyone get exploded.