Characters: To Catch a Thief Post 1

 
Characters: To Catch a Thief Post 1 -- 

About 5 Months ago I posted a post called "Skullduggery" which was a fast table about strange thieves guild. So, I'm staying with that thief motif for the end of 2023.

The concept form this post hopefully a series is making characters in various systems all with the same or similar themes. This is to explore the differences of the systems, not only in character creation but in how they interact with the player in that initial fist touch phase that character creation often represents.

Why Theves? Rouges? or whatever the specific system calls them. 

First off almost every system has some version of the rouge archetype. It's reliable. 
Secondly, Thieves are generally skill monkeys. As in they get a lot of "stuff" early in games that they can do; because of this they're more interesting to build at low levels than say Mr. /Mrs. standard fighter. 
Third and final, they're generally non magical, so I can avoid also diving into the spell system of whatever system I'm looking at until I want to.

Thief 1: Pathfinder 2 CORE.
the newest edition of the venerable Pathfinder game. This is the game that finally makes a clean break from the WOTC's intellectual property by filing all the serial numbers off another evolution of D&D 3.5.

While that reads a bit snarky, it's not. This game is an evolution of that system. While a reader can still see the 3.5 DNA under the hood. What I have read of the game is different enough that it feels like a new experience.  For example, right off the bat the modifiers seem a bit more under control than other versions of pathfinder, with my best skill landing at +6. Pathfinder was one of those games that very much needed tighter math. I understand that in the next few year Pazio will drop splat books which will slowly bloat the numbers, however right now it seems to be sitting in a good place.

It took me about two hours to pull together a Third level Thief. I wasn't really tracking time all that closely. I also have to take into account this was the very first time I had cracked the books. So, I was reading intro's, Mechanic descriptions, all that. With some system mastery I could drop the time to create a character by more than half.

A note on technique. I use a piece of scrap paper or notebook and a pen to create the character. No fillable character sheets or any of that, then I type it into MS-Word.  The result shows all my mistakes and may not be formatted how the reader might be used to seeing a Pathfinder character.

So here you go in a completely unformatted manner... I'll comment in line in Blue

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Concept: A former Detective, forced to leave their profession and take their skills to the dark underworld of the city streets. Good at sneaking, good at finding things. Knows the city. Tricky in a fight using stealth and cage feints to keep their target off balance so they can strike for the greatest advantage.
 
Human: Level 3 Rogue:
Background: Detective  

Picking Class, Ancestries and Background are the big initial decisions. Ancestries and Class will set up the characters initial attributes with a series of +1 and -1 modifiers, and Background gives some free skills and another chance to modify the attributes.
humans for example get +1 to two attributes. Elf's get +1 Dexterity, Intelligence, and a "free" (or you pick} attribute bonus and a -1 to Constitution. 
now the book states that any Ancestries can choose just to take the flat +1 to two attributes to best represent their character... Which leads me to ask, why do the ancestries at all. The game could have said take two +1 attributes and one -1 attribute and then just pick an ancestry.
Because
Once an ancestry is picked you pick a Heritage, Humans have "Skilled Human" and "Versatile Human" Skilled gets the character an extra skill. Versatile gets the character an additional general feat.
meanwhile Elfs get 6 different heritages to choose from all of which grant a variety of bonus features.

Hit Points 32 
There is nothing random about HP. Your level 1 hp are based on your ancestries + you class. each level you get your class HP. for example the thief gets 8 HP per level. For long term game balance this is a great move, it's also boring.

AC:15 (10+Dexterity+armomr+Armomr skill level)

Key attribute Dexterity 
Based on class. You get a +1 to this attribute.

Strength 0
Dex +2
Con 0
Intel 0
Wis +1
Char +2

No more attribute scores. They went with just modifiers. a good choice. There are no random attributes they are all based on Class, and ancestry choices.

Versatile Human: 1 (*general feat) This is the Heritage I wrote about above; Humans draw the short straw here. I can imagine a "book of heritages" or at the very least heritages being the billing blocks of new campaign settings in about 2 years.

Ancestry feat: General Training At levels 1, 5, 8 13, 17th levels you get an ancestry feat based on being human. There are seven of them to choose from a level 1. I took General Training so I could nab another general Feat.

Skills and feats:

Thieves get to pick a "Racket: which flavors the charter a bit further. The rackets are mastermind, Ruffian, Scoundrel, and Thief. Each has their own abilities, and bonuses. I picked SCOUNDREL because the special ability helps the thief get "sneak attacks." by putting the target off guard from a round. In combat keeping the opponent off guard is generally what this character is all about. 
I like this. While I can gripe about the ancestry attribute bonuses being mechanically meaningless, what I can say is if a reader wants to make an intimidating, muscled up, elf, Ruffian Street tough, rouge a player certainly can. 

Racket: SCOUNDREL: With a successful feint (Pg. 239), target off guard vs your attacks till end of next round. On a critical success with a Feint the target is off guard vs all attacks If you feint with an agile or finesse weapon you may “step” immediately after as a free action. This might be crazy good after a few levels honestly...

SKILLS:   

Ok Rogues get all the skills. Like I don't even know if I picked every skill I get. Seven plus the characters intelligence modifier... I mean if a rouge character is built for it, they can be trained in pretty much everything.
Trained is +2, Expert is +4, Master (7th level or higher) is +6 Legend is (15th level and higher) +8

Skills also have sub actions called untrained actions which anybody can try even at +0. for example. Stealth covers "Conceal an Object", "Hide", and "Sneak." so when the character wants to do any of that kind of stuff, they will use Stealth, even if they stink at it.

Some skills have special "Trained Actions" that the character can only access when they have a certain level of training. For example: Arcana has Identify Magic, which you can note even try unless you are "trained +2 " in Arcana. Thats a cool touch and the skill descriptions are detailed, and useful.

Also, many skills have special effects described for Critical successes, and failures which is cool even if I would hate keeping track of it. Shove Success push target 5 feet, Critical success push them 10 feet, shove critical failure you fall down prone...nerd.

-Perception: Expert +4

-Expert In stealth (Skill Increase at level 2) +4 + dexterity +2 = +6

-Trained in Society skill +2 Intelligence + 0 = +2

-Trained in Underworld lore skill +2 Intelligence + 0 = +2

-Trained in Diplomacy +2 Charisma +2 = +4

-Trained in Deception +2 Charisma +2 = +4

-Trained in Thievery +2 Dexterity +2 = +4

-Trained in Survival +2 Wisdom +1 = +3

-Trained in Acrobatics +2 Dexterity +2 = +4

-Trained in Athletics +2 Strength +0 = +2

-Trained in Lore +2 Intelligence +0 = +2

-Trained in Occultism +2 Intelligence +0 = +2

-Trained in Arcana +2 Intelligence +0 = +2

-Trained in Light Armor AC +2

-Trained in unarmored defense. +2

-Trained in Simple Weapons +2

-Trained in Martial Weapons +2

-Trained in Unarmed Attacks +2

Sneak attack: Level 1 Rogue ability:  If target is off guard and you are using an agile, finesse, ranged or unarmed attack add +1d6 damage. In this game with the preset hp 1d6 is a good bonus. It goes up at 5th, 11th, and 17th level. The bonus damage is called a "Precision "bonus which represents the attacker hitting a weak spot, less then sneaking up and stabbing someone in the back. I like that distinction.

Surprise attack: Level 1 Rogue ability: ON round 1 of combat if you if you roll deception of Stealth for initiative, creatures that act slower than you are considered off guard against you. This is a F-ing great ability read it again... then read Sneak attack...

 
Two Skill Increases for level 2: Taking 2 skills from trained to Expert.

Deny Advantage: Level 3 Rogue ability: If an enemy is your level or lower then you, they cannot put you off guard to hidden, undetected or flanking creatures. Or creatures using surprise attack who are your level or lower.  I guess the rouge doesn't have to worry about getting back stabbed.

General Feat: Canny Acumen Grants expert (+4) in Fortitude saves General Feat: Incredible initiative +2 to initiative rolls. 

General feat from third Level: Armor proficiency medium armor. (trained +2) I just wanted it

Skill Feat: Assurance (You can choose to take a 16 on stealth rather than roll)

Skill Feat: Experienced Smuggler GM Uses a minimum of 10 + stealth for secret stealth checks made for you. 

Assurance and Experienced Smuggle, these two Skill feats: which are feats that modify skills... Are good together Because it means if the player chooses, they never have to take less than a 16 on a stealth check whether they would roll it, or the game master was going to roll it secretly (Secret rolls are back in the rules ... its 1989 gain)

Skill Feat: Charming Liar: (PG 253) If you critically succeed when lying the target likes you more. Fun.

Skill Feat: Streetwise (Pg 263) Recall information about local area in a city.  Also, a nice flavor feat. Received for choosing the "Detective background."

Rouge Feat level 1 Nimble dodge: +2 to ac if you can see your attacker (reaction once a round.)
Rouge going to rouge.

Rouge feat level 2 Mobility: If you move half your movement or less (Stride?) no attacks of opportunity. 

Again, this is Rouge stuff, you can use three actions a round and a reaction. A stride is 1 action to move up to your total movement. This Feat says if half the movement is used it doesn't trigger attacks of opportunity. 
I assume a rouge could:
Action 1: Move 1/2 movement (15 Feet) No attacks of opportunity.
Action 2: Sneak attack someone whose initiative is slower then Thier's who is off guard Because of Suprise attack.
Action 3: Then use mobility to move half movement again for their last action to move away, no attacks of opportunity... at level 3.
I may be wrong, but I don't think I am. 

Equipment:

Leather armor // AC = 10 + (AC +1 + Trained +2 Dex +2 = +5) (AC = 15)

Short Sword: // 1d6 pierce. Agile, Finesse, //

Trained +2 Dex +2 (+4) //

Thieves' tools:

I just picked stuff. I really didn't go too far with the whole equipment choosing part. Some weapons have special effects on Critical successes, The Short sword is a finesse weapon so the thief can get stabby with it. Leather armor does not affect Dex bonuses.

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