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Thick as Thieves RP - Player Character Skillsets

Like in every RPG, each and every player character has certain skills available to him or her.

Skillsets are distinct from specialisations. A specialisation points to a particular area which an individual professional thief considers his/her personal field of expertise. Skills, in contrast, are in and of themselves a much wider and more equalitarian concept, and pertain to specific capabilities of individuals.

The vast majority of skills is shared among all professional thieves, regardless of their specialisation. However, as one would expect, a specific thief's skills often reflect in one way or another what his or her specialisation is within “the business”.


Basic stats and skills

Health: The overall medical status of a character at a given moment. Dependant on various factors. Can be damaged by injuries, illnesses, combat, poisons, can be restored/healed via medicines, resting, a particular diet and certain magical healing items.
Strenghth: The overall physical strenghth of a character, especially in more demanding activities such as hard physical labour, melee combat and archery, lifting and carrying objects, etc.
Endurance (Stamina): The overall capability of a character to perservere and withstand various stresses, injuries, and Fatigue.
Agility (Dexterity): The overall masterry a character has over his/her common movement skills and movement speeds.
Fatigue: The amount of fatigue a character is experiencing at a given moment. Dependant on various factors, can be counteracted via resting, consumables, certain medicines, substances and items.
Concentration: The amount of concentration the character has at a given moment. Dependant on various factors, can be increased overall via regular long-term training.
Evading:
Running:
Jumping:
Climbing and mantling:
Rolling and sliding:


Visual stealth

Visual self-awareness: The skill at keeping aware about one's own body movements while sneaking or hiding. Even in environments well suited to easy and effortless sneaking, there is no guarantee that the thief (or thieves) in question can't make the occassional mistake. Willingly or inadvertently… Before one can truly ponder skillfully skulking past well-lit areas, tricky patrols and hard to ascertain safety measures, he/she needs to know his/her own physical limitations and capabilities. This includes learning about one's own recurring mistakes and oversights while sneaking, such as inadequate speed or posture, inattention to the casting of your shadow, etc.
Spatial awareness and orientation: A skill focused on observing and understanding one's surroundings while sneaking, at any given moment. Exterior spaces, but particularly interior spaces of different sizes, heights, distances, and surfaces, all require different approaches to traversing them. There is also the issue of horizontal movement versus vertical movement. A thief, particularly a burglar, will often be forced to contemplate and attempt a vertical ascent or descent in order to get to his desired location or target. Being able to assess what places are safe or effective to tread, climb or crawl through might seem like a minor thing, but during sneaking, hiding and even escaping, this skill can turn into a matter of life and death.
Light-and-shadow intuition: A skill that is not easy to explain, and is even less easy to master. This is simply an individual's personal intuition (for lack of a better term) at assessing the transition from light to dark and from dark to light. Well, not always complete dark - rather, very dark shadows - but the aforementioned basis is fully in place. Shadows and darkness are the best friends of a stealthy thief. Having a knack for telling which shadows are visually safe enough, and which are only so-so or not safe at all, can sometimes be the tipping point point in whether one gets revealed and caught or not. The importance of this skill is quite high and it is improved only after several months or years of sneaking experience.
Shadow-skulking: Skill at hiding in shadows and shadowy spaces without drawing the attention of adversaries to oneself. This isn't necessarily a static matter, as it often involves a person moving around in the shadows, in order to decrease the probability of eventually getting caught. Shadow-skulking is a very essential skill for all thieves who specialise on classic, visual-aural stealth.
Hiding: Skill at hiding both in shadowy spaces and well-lit spaces. Most commonly used when it's not safe or available to hide/skulk in the shadows, and a person needs to quickly find a space to hide in from potential adversaries. The skill reflects one's knack for finding an improvised hiding place even under extreme pressure and unfavourable odds. Even something as simple as temporarily hiding in a shipping crate (and hoping no one sees you) counts as an utilisation of hiding from plain sight.
Leaning: Skill at leaning carefully around the corner, in order to get a sneak peek of what might be going on beyond it. Emphasis on carefully. Leaning is a skill that appears easy, but it is actually rather hard to master. It's also a risk course of action, even for the best-trained of thieves, as there's always a potential margin of error involved in virtually any lean from behind a corner. Even the most careful ones. As great a skill as leaning is for stealthily observing one's nearest surroundings obscured by obstacles, far too many rookie thieves tend to underestimate its effectiveness and value. Don't be one of them…
Sneaking balance: More often that not, the art of sneaking around requires at least a degree of crouching. This is rather necessary in order to minimise one's height-related conspicuousness and the loudness and speed of one's leg movements. Unfortunately, the need for crouched or very slow walking is not exactly a natural style of gait for any humanoid, and can pose some problems. One of the most immediate is one's balance while walking, even on a perfectly safe, secure and wide enough surface. Especially after some long, tiresome or difficult bit of sneaking, there is always the off-chance of stumbling or otherwise erring when you'd least want to. Practing your balance and learning when to not push it too far during sneaking can prove very helpful.
Crouched walking:
Creeping:
Crawling:
Facial disguise:
Apparel disguise:
Concealing items: In a pinch, a skill useful to just about all thieves, but it is particularly useful for larcenous individuals specialising in spying and intelligence gathering. For professional thieves, space for carrying useful gear is always limited. The gear usually has to be worn on the outside, commonly on the person's belt, or more rarely on the back or over the shoulder. A useful way to get around that is training to conceal small objects in one's clothing (e.g. tiny loot in small amounts, smaller and stealthier tools or weapons). All without making it apparent to any bystanders - admittedly, the hardest part of such an endeavour…


Aural stealth

Aural self-awareness: The skill at keeping aware about the sounds made by one's own body movements while sneaking or hiding. Even in environments well suited to easy and effortless sneaking, there is no guarantee that the thief (or thieves) in question can't make the occassional mistake. Willingly or inadvertently… Before one can truly ponder skillfully skulking past areas with loud surfaces, tricky patrols and hard to ascertain safety measures, he/she needs to know his/her own physical limitations and capabilities. This includes learning about one's own recurring mistakes and oversights while sneaking, such as overly heavy footsteps, overly fast walking or creeping speed, ignoring subtle differences between surface types, ignoring the sound impact of the amount and nature of gear and loot you're carrying, etc.
Sound propagation awareness:
Sound direction awareness:
Knowledge of surfaces:
Eavesdropping:


Burglar skills

Map and plan reading: The skill at reading and especially understanding maps and plans found on the sport or brought along for a particular thieving mission. A truly surprising amount of thieves who boast about their professionalism go off on a heist or adventure just willy-nilly, only to be unpleasantly surprised once they run into something they didn't expect or know about. Don't be like them. Careful preparation can not only make all the difference between success or failure, but life or death as well. Granted, you're often not lucky enough to recover a completely detailed or completely readable map. You're often forced to simply work with what you have, use your noggin to fill in the blanks, and just make the best of it.
Navigation:
Breaking in: The skill at planning and figuring out ways to stealthily break into a locked or guarded building/establishment. A crucial skill for the early phases of any heist. Also comes in handy when one is planning his return journey, back to the relative safety of the streets and the nearest safehouse or other hideout. Rather than just being about finding an entrance and scurrying inside, the skill involves a careful assessment of which way inside one should use (a non-obvious solution to entering often proves the right answer), when he/she should enter, and whether any special tools for breaking in are required. Concerning break-in tools, the skill also governs the stealthiness of their use by a thief.
Pickpocketing: The skill at picking others pockets. A very useful skill for situations where one can sneak up quietly on security personnel (or other staff) from behind their backs and deprive them of their keyring. On a less objective-centric note, it's of course also useful for stealing people's belt purses in order to secure some monetary gain on the side, or to steal a tool or object dangling from their belt so you could use it for your own needs. A really skilled thief can also dare to try pickpocketing directly from people's pockets, which is not exactly an easy task.
Lockpicking: The skill at picking open various types of locks and locking mechanisms. One of the truly essential burglar skills. Not only for getting to less accessible loot, but also useful for non-violently opening up new doorways and routes that were previously unavailable for entry. (Main article on lockpicking.)
Trap disarming: (Main article on trap disarming.)
Loot-savviness: The skill at assessing which particular pieces of potential loot are worth the theft, and which are not. Based partly on common sense, partly on knowledge of the local context and partly on intuition, this skill influences quite a lot on how successfully you'll earn a living by stealing stuff. Stealing commonplace domestic items made of the cheapest and most mundane materials will probably not earn you a fortune, but stealing even the same kinds of items if they are made from precious metals or feature rare and exquisite craftsmanship will bode better for your monetary gain at a fence.
Loot awareness: Distinct from mere loot-savviness, this skill lies in how capable one is at spotting loot within a certain space, usually various rooms inside interiors (though loot situated outdoors exists too, of course). The tricky thing with loot is the fact that it's often hidden from plain sight. While your “proper” fellow citizens make mistakes by leaving their valuables in places where they're easy to nab, this is the exception, not the rule. Some of the valuables that can't be hidden all the time will be ready for nicking as soon as you break into a room. But the majority won't be so conveniently placed, and you'll have to carefully and stealthily snoop around in order to locate it.
Ghosting: A practice that goes hand in hand with using visual and aural stealth skills. Its aim is simple: Try to leave behind as few clues to your presence and the theft you've committed as is humanly possible. The less evidence you leave behind of your larcenous activities, the better for you and the harder for The Watch and other investigators. If you can, be a ghost. It's not only practical, but it also keeps alive your personal legend of an almost phantom-like burglar.


Melee combat skills

Available to all specialisations, but crucial only to Field Agent and Security character builds.

Please keep in mind that even thieves skilled in combat are not professional warriors or soldiers. Evading a threat or running away from it isn't cowardly, it's a reasonable and natural choice. Defending yourself is valid, but killing people because they're in your way is not.

Brawling: One's capability at (usually defensive) melee without the use of weapons. Brawling primarily consists of offensive and defensive moves initiated by the upper and lower limbs. Moves such as punches, slaps, hand-hammering, kicks, tripping someone off his feet, etc. The use of worn impact weapons, such as brass knuckles, also counts under brawling.
Bludgeoning/Chopping: Offensive melee skills, for impact attacks. These two moves are interchangable to a certain degree, and can be seen being used by weapons such as clubs, maces, hammers, staffs (for bludgeoning), swords, axes and some other bladed weapons (for chopping). Along with Brawling moves, these two are perhaps the oldest set of combat skills ever, known since the dawn of time and the creation of the first primitive weapons. Bludgeoning and Chopping is meant to create deep wounds or shatter entire body parts, and can therefore be incredibly nasty to the adversary on the receiving end.
Thrusting/Stabbing: Offensive melee skills, for piercing attacks. These two moves are interchangable to a certain degree, and can be seen being used by weapons such as spears, other polearms, swords (for thrusting) knives and daggers (for stabbing). The point of these offensive moves is incredibly obvious: Inflict the deepest wound possible or internal bleeding, to cripple an adversary in a serious way and take him out of the picture.
Cutting/Slashing: Offensive melee skills, for incision attacks. These two moves are interchangable to a certain degree, and can be seen being used by most types of bladed weapons, such as various knives and swords. Unlike the impact-based Bludgeoning or Chopping, the point of a Cutting attack or a Slashing attack is not to bury into the armour and body of an opponent and give him a deep or gashed wound, but to create a more surface-level wound, that is nevertheless big and causes major pain or bleeding or other physical stress.
Parrying: Defensive melee skills. Parrying in general is a defensive move meant to deflect an opponent's weapon from causing harm to you, and is done only with armament. The weapon used for parrying doesn't necessarily have to be a melee weapon, though those are the most logical choice for such a thing and the best suited for it. Parrying is different to Blocking in that it's more of a temporary manuever, to stall the worst of an opponent's attack for at least a few seconds. Along with various offensive moves, parrying is one of the basics of any swordsmanship.
Blocking: Defensive melee skills. Blocking is mostly shield-related and armour related, though some limited blocking moves are also possible with one's weaponry. Blocking is different to parrying in that it's often a more prolonged and more calculated defensive move. It also tends to deflect a lot more of an adversary's attacking energy, in order to thwart a powerful melee attack that a simple parry could not stop, or stop only partially.


Ranged combat skills

Available to all specialisations, but crucial only to Field Agent and Security character builds.

Please keep in mind that even thieves skilled in combat are not professional warriors or soldiers. Evading a threat or running away from it isn't cowardly, it's a reasonable and natural choice. Defending yourself is valid, but killing people because they're in your way is not.

Draw weight: Only important for bows and hand-spanned crossbows. Depends on a character's Strenghth, Agility, and also the degree of Fatigue. With the sole exception of hand-spanned crossbows, crossbows and firearms do not require draw weight consideration, since they are reloaded via more mechanical means, rather than directly by hand. Draw weight for bows and hand-spanned crossbows is not a replacement for the reloading skill, but runs parallel to it.
Reloading: Deals with a character's capability of reloading missile weapons during a certain amount of time. Does not affect throwing weapons. Bows and hand-spanned crossbows are drawn, mechanical crossbows and crossbow-derived weapons are spanned, firearms are reloaded. In the case of bows, Reloading and Draw weight are always counted together, as they are used concurrently while drawing a bow before the arrow is released/shot.
Throwing: Deals with a character's capability of throwing objects, either mundane objects used as improvised decoys and weaponry, or purpose-built throwing weapons. It is a skill similar to the draw weight or reloading skills, but isn't directly related to either of them.
Aiming: A character's skill at aiming steadily and with accuracy at a given target. Different ranged arms (missile as well as throwing weapons) require different styles of aiming, due to their construction. Bows and crossbows are held differently and mostly aimed only by the naked eye, while firearms also tend to have varying forms of sights.
Holding breath: Deals with a character's capability at holding his/her breath in order to lower one's idle body movements (caused by breathing) and thus temporarily improve the potential accuracy of aiming.
Distance estimation: A character's skill at roughly assessing the distance which a released, fired or thrown projectile/object will have to travel in order to reach its target. Due to the curvature of the planet and the planet's surface gravity, all passively flying objects must come down sooner or later. Taking arrow/bullet/blade drop into account is therefore important while shooting or throwing at a certain distance.
Wind direction estimation: A character's skill at estimating where the prevailing wind currents are coming from at the moment, and how they could affect his/her shot. Wind currents affect virtually all ranged projectiles, but particularly arrows, bolts, darts and the various throwing blades. Firearm projectiles (bullets, balls, etc.) have less of a problem with wind currents, but aren't entirely immune to them either.


Magic skills

Skills listed here are equivalent to spells. They are available only to Conjurers, Masters of Disguise and Alchemists, though they also become available to characters who have either of the three professions chosen among their other specialisations.

Magic is useful, but limited in its effect and its available power. Notably, the simple magic available to thieves requires the use of amulets, charms or at least some sort of object with latent magical abilities (herbs, gems, ores, organs, other ingredients) to cast even the weakest of spells. Though the three magic-oriented specialisations are more adept at casting than other thieves, you need to bear in mind that they are no powerful mages either.

The “Seven Spells of Larceny”, as they are often nicknamed, are:

Scry: Also known under the nickname “Thieves' Hunch”. A spell that provides a supernatural hint or sensation to the user, either about some part of the environment, or about figures and objects populating it, or events occuring within it. Unfortunately, this makes it something of a “lottery spell”, as the results it provides might vary wildly and might not always be of use to the particular caster. This is a generally useful spell.
Louden/Dampen: A spell for manipulating the outcome of sound in a small area. It can be used for a variety of tasks, such as “raising the volume” of a more distant conversation in order to make eavesdropping easier, or to dampen the sound made by one's step on a particularly loud surface inside a particularly echoy room, etc., etc. This spell is particularly useful to stealth expert character builds and some spy or field agent character builds.
Confuse: A spell used to fool, stump, mesmerize, and generally perplex an NPC, including potential adversaries. Its exact effects can vary, but all of them pertain to lowering an NPC's Concentration and generally making a mess of it for a short while. If used wisely and sparringly, it can create enough of a temporary distraction to be a nice trump card for solving trickier challenges to one's sneaking around. This spell is particularly useful to conman and stealth expert character builds.
Decoy: Something of a more advanced cousin to the Confuse spell. It creates the titular decoy, which can take on the form of any number of visual or aural illusions. These are usually very short and subtle examples instead of anything grandiose, as their briefness makes them more confusing or even frightening to an affected NPC character. If used wisely and sparringly, it can create enough of a temporary distraction to be a nice trump card for solving trickier challenges to one's sneaking around. This spell is particularly useful to conman and stealth expert character builds.
Repel: A spell that creates an invisible power barrier or wave blast that can push back an attacking adversary, or attempt to knock him off his feet, etc. The only real combat spell worth the name, but its limitations make it ideal only for defensive purposes instead of offensive combat. This is a generally useful spell.
Enhance: A spell that enhances a character's movement-related Agility, Endurance and Concentration skills, and ocassionally, his/her Strenghth skill. Be warned though, this spell cannot be used to enhance one's combat-related Strenghth, Endurance, Agility and Concentration. This spell can make you jump a little higher or turn around swifter or run slightly faster in an emergency, but it cannot make you wield oversized weapons or reload instantaneously. This is a generally useful spell.
Heal-up: A spell that actually doesn't heal wounds or injuries, but it speeds up the natural healing processes in a tiny area, such as the area of said wounds or injuries. In essence, it shortens the time needed for a wound and/or injury to heal itself. Bear in mind that restoring lost health still requires proper medicine and old-fashioned healing/resting. This is a generally useful spell.

All spells are always temporary and always take a toll on the user's current state. Virtually all seven of them increase one's Fatigue, depending on how long they are used in one go, and how strongly or intricately they're used. Also, different spells drain different character stats: Some primarily drain mental stats, some the physical stats, and so on…


Diplomatic skills

Persuasion:
Haggling:
Deception:
Distraction:
Intimidation:


Managerial skills

TBA.


Artisan skills

TBA.


See Also

shared_worlds/thick_as_thieves_skillsets.1444997511.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/03/29 15:18 (external edit)

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