Players guide to the Thief career
The thief career is strongly themed around Stealth, which is an interesting mechanic in OWRPG, but quite often a challenge in roleplaying games in general - how do you work with a party - especially when that party may have characters that are very bad at stealth?
And as a professional thief, that problem is added to another one - how to roleplay a thief without being annoying to other characters. I will address both these concerns in this guide, as well as the various game mechanical issues you should consider when building your thief.
Before looking at character creation, it is useful to know what a Thief can do in OWRPG that other careers cannot.
First of all, they start with the Criminal Underworld cultural lore. This gives them various advantages dealing with criminals and the like, but perhaps more importantly it lets them use thieves tools to pick locks and disable traps. Without this lore, you cannot even try to do that, the way the rules are written. And the Criminal Underworld lore is only available to Bounty Hunters, Brigands, Charlatans, Knight Exiles and Thieves - and Bounty Hunters and Knight Exiles have to actively choose it. That means that while this isn’t a unique ability, chances are that the thief will be the only character with this ability. Thieves tools are used with Initiative/Dexterity, which makes that characteristic/skill combination valuable to a thief. Initiative also governs Awareness, which, while not a direct requirement, also makes sense for a thief to be decent at.
The truly unique feature of the thief is their career talent, Without a trace. This has several benefits:
When fighting at night or concealed by terrain, cover or shadow, you can use the Agility/Stealth skill to oppose incoming attacks. This gives thieves a third option to defend themselves in addition to the normal Agility/Athletics and Weapon Skill/Defence duality, which gives them an extra reason to focus on the stealth skill.
They can always tell without a test which objects in the immediate vicinity are most valuable. This will likely rarely be useful, but it’s thematically appropriate.
The favoured characteristics of thieves are Initiative, Agility and Reason - meaning these are cheaper to increase for XP. We have already mentioned why Initiative and Agility will be important to thieves. Reason is a bit less obviously useful, but Reason/Recall may be tested to get the most out of their City Lore and Criminal Underworld lores. It can also be used to find weaknesses, decipher clues, identify strangers or assemble improvised devices, so use your imagination. Reason/Willpower is useful to anyone when things get scary and helps you not get distracted. Even so, Reason probably shouldn’t be the highest priority for a thief - every other characteristic is likely to be at least as useful.
All the origins allow you to be a thief, and they all have their advantages and disadvantages.
However, halflings are by far the best suited to take advantage of the Stealth skill due to getting the Short Size talent, which allows you to hide in plain sight from larger people and improve your Agility based defenses - which synergizes with the thief career talent as we will see. Halflings also have good starting Ballistic Skill, Initiative and Agility, arguably the three most important characteristics for a thief. Their skill bonuses include shooting, stealth and dexterity as well, which are also important to thieves. (Some thieves may prefer throwing to shooting due to career starting bonuses and gear, but because of their low strength, halflings should probably use bows or crossbows.)
It should be noted that characters of any origin can take the Short Size talent during character creation, but humans, elves and dwarves have to pay 2xp for it - which means you have to roll some things random. That’s not a big price to pay for such an amazingly synergistic feat, especially if you already rolled thief randomly, but halflings getting it for free is still a huge advantage for them.
After halflings, imperial humans are likely the best thieves. Their Initiative and Agility are both good, and as they pick their starting skills freely, they can make choices that synergize with the career. Their only real weakness is a lower starting Ballistic Skill. Bretonnians are almost as good, but their starting skills are slightly less useful to a thief even though they get one more.
Elves - and particularly wood elves - are okay thieves as well, as their BS, I and Ag are all good, and wood elves start with Stealth. Their Lightning Reflexes talent doesn’t synergize amazingly with Without a trace though, as it allows athletics defence when ambushed. But it’s not all bad, athletics defence is likely to be at least okay for a thief (possibly great - we’ll get to it, but even with Without a trace thieves should probably still invest in athletics), and the ability to ignore ambushes is good for anyone.
And then there are dwarves. This origin has no synergy with the thief career. Ballistic Skill, Initiative and Agility start low. The dwarves greatest asset, toughness 4, is less important to a character that doesn’t want to even be seen. None of their starting skills are especially useful to a thief (even though melee, endurance and willpower are excellent skills in general). Their saving grace may be the ability to take Lore: Subterranean, which may come into play if you plan to run around the sewers a lot. But that doesn’t really make up for it. Worst of all, a dwarf thief isn’t especially lore friendly - certainly possible, but you’ll have to come up with a good reason why they’re doing something that dishonourable. If you want to play a dwarf thief, by all means do so, but I wouldn’t.
Unless you’re going to pick all three favored characteristics (Initiative, Agility and Reason), picking characteristics is going to be as XP-efficient - or more so - than rolling randomly in the long run. In the short run however, you want to roll randomly if you need XP for talents that can only be taken in character creation. For a thief, Short Size may just be good enough that you could want to be sure you take it.
If you pick, in most cases Ballistic Skill, Agility and either Strength or Toughness are going to be the best options. Swap Ballistic Skill for Weapon Skill if you want to fight in melee instead of at range. Get Strength if you’re planning to use throwing weapons, otherwise Toughness. If you know you’ll have the XP to increase it later, possibly swap Agility for something else.
The reason Strength is important for throwing weapons is that not only does it affect damage, it also affects range - and the throwing knives you start with, while otherwise a good thrown weapon, sorely need that range boost. Toughness helps you not die, which is always useful.
As we discussed, your favoured characteristics are Initiative, Agility and Reason. The first two are great for a thief, but there is little reason (ha) to spend much XP on Reason. Among the non-favoured attributes, Ballistic Skill, Toughness, Fellowship, likely Strength and possibly even Weapon skill are all likely to be more useful.
For skill bonuses you get +1 to four out of Melee, Throwing, Awareness, Dexterity, Athletics and Stealth. Stealth, Athletics and Dexterity should be auto-picks here. Stealth and Dexterity should be obvious by now. Athletics is what you’ll use to oppose attacks when you cannot use stealth. It also governs moving fast when running, jumping, climbing, riding, swimming, as well as avoiding damage from a fall, avoiding getting grappled, extinguishing yourself if you’re set on fire. Finally, it’s what will allow you to avoid falling flat on your face when moving through difficult terrain. Any of that sound useful to a thief? I thought so. Get athletics. It’s arguably even more important than Dexterity and Stealth.
That leaves us getting one of the last four. If you want to attack in melee, get melee - it synergizes well with Bretonnians and Dwarfs and is probably the best choice for them, but as we will see in the Combat Tactics section attacking in melee isn’t usually the best choice for a thief. I guess it is okay if you want to sneak up on people and cut their throats, as that will still require an unopposed melee attack. Imperial humans and both types of elves should consider Throwing, as it is the ranged attack skill you can get highest during character creation, and you’ll start with throwing knives - but throwing weapons require investment in Strength to be any good, so you may want to go with Bows or Crossbows as your weapon of choice instead. That means you could be looking at Awareness. Halflings should certainly take Awareness, as their low starting and max strength means that throwing weapons will never be particularly good for them.
Your Lores are Criminal Underworld which we already discussed, and your choice of a City lore - pick the city you’ll be spending the most time in, ask the GM.
For trappings you get a dagger, throwing knives, peasant’s garb, concealing clothing and thief tools. One of your biggest decisions is going to be whether or not you use those throwing knives, as we’ve already hinted.
Your assets are going to be a Secret hideout, Secret identity or Map of the underground. Any of these could be good, depending on what you make of them. Secret hideout is the only one with a specific game mechanical advantage (+1d on the Lay Low endeavor), though Map of the underground specifies a route into Talabheim past the guards and toll gates. I’d probably go with one of those unless you have a good idea for what you want to do with the secret identity.
Your contacts are common folk and wanderers and wastrels. Roll randomly and see what happens, but remember that you can talk to the GM about swapping one if you get ones that you don’t find interesting. Lotti, Olena, Jaime and Gruginn seem more suitable and useful to a thief than the others in my opinion.
We already discussed the career talent Without a trace.
Your social tier is Brass - the worst there is, nothing you can do about that.
Skills are generally going to be better than a random talent or asset. If you don’t want to use throwing knives, this is where you improve your Shooting skill. As your second pick, consider Leadership (to threaten people) or Charm (to sweet-talk them), assuming you already have Dexterity, Stealth and Athletics at 3. Endurance is also a decently useful skill. If you did go for throwing, consider pushing Awareness to 3. Or you could pick an important skill that is already at 3, such as Dexterity, Stealth, or Athletics, to 4.
If you have XP, consider if you want to take the Short Size talent or if you can increase a valuable characteristic. If you can’t or don’t want to, here are some talents that might be useful for you:
Feigned Flight (fall back when you successfully defend) and Night Dweller (various bonuses when fighting at night) talents could both be good for a thief, and cost 2XP with no prerequisites. The Touched by the Winds talent also costs 2XP and could be really fun - a knack for Illusionism is reasonably thematic for a thief. If you have Initiative 4+, Exceptional Hearing may be useful,
For 3 XP, consider any of the above, but if you fulfill the requirements Acrobatic (Ag4+, ignore enemies when moving and halve fall hazard ratings), Hardy (T4+, roll fewer dice on the wound t able), Intense Scrutiny (I4+, be a lie detector), Resolute (Re4+, fall back in short range and avoid being broken) and Vanguard (Ag4+, move a zone when moving quietly or carefully) are all likely to be useful.
As a thief, you are going to want to interact with the stealth mechanics of the game.
Stealth isn’t just stealth in OWRPG: The first thing to notice is that the Stealth skill covers all slow, careful movement as long as it requires coordination and doesn’t attract attention. Crossing a narrow beam is specifically called out as an example that isn’t about hiding. So the Stealth skill can be used for more than just staying undetected.
This is uncommon enough as a mechanic and unintuitive given the name of the skill, even though it is fairly clear in the skill description. You should probably talk to your GM about how they’ll rule it. The way I read the rule, as long as you’re moving slowly, carefully and without attracting attention, you should be able to roll Stealth instead of Athletics to get somewhere. It probably doesn’t apply to crossing difficult terrain in combat, as that needs to be reasonably fast, but I would let you do it outside of combat. Of course, your athletics skill is going to be good as well, so even if your GM disagrees with me here, it’s not that important.
Stealth is also tested for hiding things, including concealing weapons and other items on your person. Remember that a dagger (or knuckle iron) gives you +1d to hide or conceal it.
Actually hiding (or sneaking, shadowing, passing sentries unnoticed, etc) also require a stealth test. Unlike some games, OWRPG does not go into further details here outside of combat - you describe what you want to do, the GM asks for a Stealth test if it seems possible, and then you do it.
Attacking from stealth (whether in combat or when initiating it) is an unopposed attack roll. You still need to roll the attack, but the enemy does not get to defend. Note that you still have to beat their resilience, so enemies with high toughness and armor may be hard to take out silently unless your attack deals good damage. Furthermore, only minions will go down to a single hit. Brutes, champions etc will take more than one hit to down. Several characters attacking at the same time might still do it, but it will be hard. A lot of fairly important NPCs are minions, however, and your GM may rule that successfully cutting someone’s throat takes them out regardless - but RAW it is only going to work with minions.
It seems you need to maintain cover and/or concealment to stay hidden, meaning that sneaking up behind someone isn’t going to be easy unless you’re concealed by fog or darkness. The exception here may be the Small size feat that lets you hide in plain sight from “larger folks”, though the examples seem to indicate that you still need cover - just less of it. Tall grass and shrubbery might qualify. Talk to your GM about how they plan to run it.
Either way, this means ranged weapons are far more likely to be useful from concealment than melee weapons, which is why I think thieves should focus on either shooting or throwing.
In combat, you will have to take the Manoeuvre: Move Quietly option to be able to test Stealth and hide, and it requires there to be cover or concealment you can get to using your free move, meaning it will have to be within medium range. If cover is marginal, you may have to fall prone to hide.
Remember that if you have to cross difficult terrain, you will also have to roll Athletics to stay on your feet - but that happens after your movement, so you might just fall prone into hiding, which isn’t necessarily a problem. You may want to ask your GM how he’ll be running that particular situation. You can’t both move carefully and move quietly at the same time, so you are going to have to take that athletics check, yet another reason why thieves need good Athletics even though they can defend with stealth. Once you’re hidden, you have disappeared from view, which means you can’t be attacked and can attack unopposed on your next turn.
If someone wants to spot you while you’re hidden, they will have to take the Manoeuvre: Move Carefully action and test awareness. Significantly, this takes their action, which means you can hide again on your next turn even if they do spot you. As the GM I would rule that they can call you out to their friends however, and that you can’t hide in the same spot again if they moved over to you. Furthermore, I would rule that if you hide behind a very small piece of cover while they are watching and they then move over there, they will see you automatically - though if you are hiding in a larger terrain feature or could easily move from tree to tree or something, they would have to check. (Combat in this game works best if positioning and movement is considered approximate rather than absolute - otherwise the range of spears is just strange.) Technically that is a house rule, but it seems reasonable. Even with that, hiding is quite powerful as a defensive tool.
The stealth system probably works best if both the player and the GM are reasonable and look more at what might be possible in the fiction, rather than try to game the abstractions one way or the other. The GM should remember to put enough clutter around the battlefield that stealth can be used, however, and he should remember that combat Stealth in this game is more about dropping temporarily out of sight, than being totally unnoticed. (On the flip side, it’s not invisibility either.)
Using stealth in combat is easy in OWRPG even if other characters aren’t stealthy - indeed, perhaps it is easier if they aren’t as someone will have to hold the line while you snipe from behind a pile of crates. But in investigative situations and exploration, there may be times where you want to sneak in - and the rest of the party can’t.
You could feel a strong urge to split the party and go it alone. In most situations, this is a bad idea. From a “fun at the table” perspective, it means everyone else has to watch you play a solo mission. From an in-game tactics perspective, if you’re caught while alone, you’re likely dead.
If you are playing with inexperienced players and/or an inexperienced GM, you should discuss this with them if you’re planning to play a stealthy character.
The best way of handling this is for everyone to sneak in together, and for skilled stealthy characters to be able to help the others be quiet. Modern roleplaying games have mechanics that support this, and OWRPG is no exception - the GM should run these kinds of situations as Exacting tests. Exacting tests require several successes to complete, and several characters can contribute. It is even possible to contribute with several different typos of skill. However, each test made has a price.
Lets say a party of four characters want to sneak into an enemy camp and into a particular tent, past various sentries and guards. They need to get there within an hour, or the things they want to steal will be moved elsewhere. The GM says that sneaking in will take a total of 10 successes, but each test will take 10 minutes, unless they can come up with some other reasonable price to be allowed to test.
Abelbert the thief goes first, and states he sneakily goes past some sentries, guiding the others. He rolls Stealth and gets 3 successes. Awesome!
Next up, Brunhilda the noble does the same, but she gets 0 successes - the guards are nearly alerted, and the group fiddles around in the dark for a while without getting anywhere. Twenty minutes have passed, and they only have 3 out of 10 successes.
Carl the soldier says he wants to figure out the guards routes. He rolls Recall with a bonus from his Military lore, for another 2 successes. They’re halfway there, but half the time has run out.
Finally, Dagna the hedge wizard illusionist says she wants to cast a spell to muffle their footsteps - she suggests that the risk of a miscast is enough of a price that she could have been doing this during the half hour that has already passed and only finished now, and that the potency of the spell will count as the successes. The GM agrees, but says that a miscast will reduce the number of successes they’ve accumulated by the number of dice in the miscast pool - he knows the low-level miscast results aren’t that dangerous. She makes several casting rolls and eventually manages to get the improvised spell off for another 2 successes. Note that several rolls were made here, that’s not a problem as only the potency goes towards the exacting test.
7 successes have been achieved, and 30 minutes passed. Brunhildas player is determined to do something useful, and states that she will spend a gold coin to bribe a passing guard into letting them further into the camp. The GM considers and says that a gold coin certainly is enough of a price for a silver status guard to look another way, but if she fails a leadership test the he will take the gold and help - but then report them, ending any chance they have of succeeding. The group groans, and Carl says he will help Brunhilda by trying to spot a guard who is likely to take a bribe but be honourable enough not to try to play it both ways. The GM allows it because he has the Military lore - otherwise he would have demanded a price for the roll - and he rolls Awareness. He gets a single success, which gives Brunhilda an extra die on her leadership test. She rolls - and scores 4 successes! Between Carls looking choosing of a mark, and Brunhildas skills at bribery - and monetary might - they find a soldier that not only takes the bribe but is happy to lead them all the way to where they need to be.
Mission successful, with half an hour to spare!
As you can see, clever use of an Exacting test allows the group to tell a story, where every character contributes - and the thief got to use his stealth skill. This is generally a much better way of handling things than the stealthy character going off on their own. Even if they GM had said that only the Stealth skill could be used (which would certainly be an acceptable possibility, if a bit more boring), this would have let the entire group participate in the action.
The thief (and any other stealth-based combattant) is likely to want to hide the first round, attack from stealth the second, rinse and repeat. Ranged weapons will make this a lot easier. This will keep them safer, and make their attacks more powerful.
The elephant in the room are the throwing knives that all thieves start with. This is a silver tier throwing weapon, that unlike other throwing weapons doesn’t run out of ammunition (until after the battle - technically you then need to collect them the way the rules are written, which is strictly worse than what they’ve described for non-throwing ranged weapons. I think reasonable GMs will judge that if we don’t track arrows, we don’t track throwing knives - even if we do maybe track throwing axes, spears, nets and other bigger throwing weapons). The throwing knives do Strength damage, and have an optimum range of “Short” (the same zone).
Throwing weapons have the special rule that if your strength is 4 or higher, their optimum range increases by one step, in this case from “short” to “short to medium”. They also cannot be used at all beyond their optimum range.
Thieves probably want to be as far from the “action” as possible, and higher damage is really good even if you are making unopposed attacks. That means you really want Strength 4 if you’re going to use those throwing knives. You can get that during character creation, and if you do, the knives aren’t a bad weapon. If you invest further into strength, they can become really good, at max strength they do as much damage as rifles against unarmored targets - and that’s without reloading.
Even with Strength 3, they are okay. Staying hidden in the same zone as the general battle lets you count for outnumbering, and as long as you’re hidden you are likely to be ignored. So it could be used. With strength 2 though (looking at you halflings), you are unlikely to make much of an impact on the battle even with unopposed attacks, unless your throwing skill is really, really high.
If you don’t want to invest in strength (and especially if you are a halfling), a shortbow is a really excellent choice. It gives +1d to shooting at short range, so if you want to stay in the same zone as your friends for those sweet outnumbering bonuses, you get a bonus for it. It is damage 3, so no worse than an average human with a throwing knife. And its optimum range goes up to medium and it can fire at a penalty even beyond that.
If you want to stay further away, the warbow may be okay, but it will give you a penalty at short range… I think short range is likely to be more useful than long range, so I would avoid it.
If you can somehow afford silver tier weapons, the longbow has better damage (4), but has the same problem as the warbow for short range. The crossbow is probably a better choice for you - still better damage, extra damage against armored enemies, and an optimum range of short to long. It does require reloading, but you can reload while staying hidden, and your Dexterity (which is what you test to reload) is likely to be good because you want it for picking locks.
The various guns could also be good for a thief, but they require the Blackpowder lore - and you probably have better things to do with your time than learning about blackpowder weapons.
As we’ve established, melee isn’t likely to be optimal for rogues, but it is still useful to have a melee option.
The dagger is easily concealed, but its S-1 damage rating means it’s likely not your best choice. If you invested heavily into Strength though (because of throwing knives), the Knuckledusters may actually be great for you. They allow you to attack with Brawn, which means those Strength dice will be rolled for the attack and you don’t need weapon skill. Brawn is a more generally useful skill than Melee as well. If you go that route, check if your GM is likely to houserule any downsides to unarmed attacks, such as damaging you if your attack is parried. Rules as written, the high strength, Knuckledusters + Throwing knives combo is pretty good.
The staff is also a good choice for you. If you don’t want to get into melee, and like to stay at range, hiding out in difficult terrain is likely to be your best bet, as your enemies might fall flat on their face if they try to come get you. The staff gives you a bonus to athletics when crossing difficult terrain, and may therefore be the best bet for a bow or crossbow user. It’s not bad for a knife user either, and you may want both this and some knuckledusters (you'll get the bonus to athletics even if your Melee score is bad). If a staff doesn’t seem quite suitable for a thief, go watch the opening scene with Rey from The Force Awakens, or any story about real-life shillelaghs. (Not the D&D spell of the same name.)
If you want to use throwing knives, get strength 4 and the throwing skill. If you do, get some knuckle dusters as your first purchase. Otherwise, ignore strength and get the shooting skill. Get a shortbow as your first purchase, if you can’t convince a silver or gold tier character to buy a crossbow for you. Either way, get a staff (possibly flavored as a shillelagh walking stick/club) as your second purchase.
Hide as much as you can during combat, then attack at range from hiding to get unopposable attacks. Consider staying at short range to help your melee-fighting friends with outnumbering bonuses, and/or hiding out in difficult terrain to make it hard for the enemy to get to you.
Use stealth to defend if circumstances allow, as long as it is better than athletics, but be ready to use athletics fairly often - you may not always have cover or concealment.
As you improve your character, consider getting talents that help your mobility and stealth. We mentioned most of these in the character creation section.
The most important thing to remember when roleplaying a thief, is to roleplay the person, not the profession. Inexperienced (and young) roleplayers who are handed a thief will often try to steal everything. This is disruptive to play, and annoying to everyone else. Don’t do that. For most characters in OWRPG (regardless of profession), your profession is something you practice during downtime, not during an adventure. You are a thief, not a kleptomaniac, just like the soldier character is a soldier, not a mass murderer.
Make sure you give your character motivations, a personality and ties to the world beyond just “being a thief”. Perhaps she more than anything aspires to be something else than a thief. Perhaps he’s perfectly happy to be a thief, but is a member of a gang or thieves guild which he is trying to balance up against his obligations to his family. Maybe he steals for a living because a rich merchant or noble he crossed has had him blacklisted from proper jobs, but used to be an honest guardsman, and now only steals from the wicked? There are plenty of ways you could write a thief that gives you things to play on beyond just stealing things.
And even if you are a thief who’s just out for himself - make sure you mostly do that during downtime. If you see a truly golden opportunity during a session, by all means go for it - especially if it is in the interests of the rest of the party. But don’t insist on rolling for pickpocketing every stranger you see.
And never, ever, steal from other player characters. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Here are some characters from history and fiction that may give you inspiration for playing your thief:
Jonathan Wild – 18th-century London crime boss who ran a huge thieving operation while posing as a thief-taker who “caught” the criminals (usually his own gang members).
Mary Frith (“Moll Cutpurse”) – 17th-century London pickpocket, fence, and cross-dressing highway robber; flamboyant and fearless.
Jack Sheppard – 18th-century London burglar and escape artist whose daring prison breaks made him a folk hero.
Adam Worth – 19th-century gentleman thief who inspired Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty; master of elaborate heists.
The Gray Mouser (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) – A sly, quick-witted rogue who thrives in back alleys, noble courts, and thieves’ guilds alike.
Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) – The “reluctant burglar,” using guile over brute force.
Lupin III (Lupin the Third) – Flashy, comedic, but supremely capable master thief.
Carmen Sandiego (Carmen Sandiego) – World-class thief whose skill lies as much in planning and disguise as in the act of stealing.
Simon Templar (“The Saint”) – Gentleman thief and adventurer, often targeting criminals and corrupt rich men; equal parts charm and danger.
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