"Favorite "Thief" character?" Topic

I read this today: picture
… and it got me thinking. I only ever played one thief character in my D&D days, and he was more of "second-story man" than a highwayman or pickpocket/cutpurse. I liked the "skill" aspect of the character more than the larceny, and if I ever roleplayed a thief again, I'd probably go that same route. So, what type of thief characters do you play or prefer?

The Highwayman— "Your money or your life!"
The Pickpocket— "My jeweled amulet— it's gone!"
The Cutpurse— *snick*
The Backstabber— "I'm in the money, I'm in the mone—ERRK!"
The Second Story Man— "But the Golden Skull was locked away in the highest room of our tallest tower!"
The Skeleton Key— "Why, yes, your diamonds are stored safely in our vault— By Hera! They're gone!"
The Grifter— "Hold on… why does this solid gold idol that lass sold me weigh less than my favorite pillow?"
The Trap-tricker— "But but but— the treasure room was guarded by poison darts! Pressure plates! Snake-filled pits! Spike-filled pits! Snake-and-spike-filled pits!!!"

Or list your own variant.

Con-man.

All of it.

I only played one thief in a D&D game and that was a half-orc bruiser type. I'm talking muscles and a club. I couldn't pick a lock to save my life. Later into his life after a spell attack that fried his mind a bit I decided to add a single level in sorcerer and with my low stats I was only able to get like 2-3 spells. After that he used them as his secret weapons.

The Breaking and Entering sorts (your Second Story Man, Skeleton Key, and Trap-Tricker) are the most useful to the standard dungeon delvers, while the others are better NPCs, or are "Fighters of Larcenous Morals".

Unfortunately (or maybe "fortunately") the later editions of D&D focus less on the profession and more on the professional skills, so the Rogue is often played like a combination Highwayman and Trap-tricker despite an implied history as one or more of the others.

Pirate!

I was always amused by the concept of Conan as a stealthy burglar.

Allen

The barmaid lass that I played in earthdawn. Never saw the point in a character labelling themselves as a thief. Always figured you'd get put in jail.

But I don't really have a favourite type. Prefer to be able to adjust to the situation as required. Smooth tongued, good with locks and silent being the main skills required.

SF, rather than fantasy, but I like the Stainless Steel Rat type. Probably would fall under grifter, or skeleton key, or trap-tricker … or all of them.

Doug

The amateur cracksman – famous cricketer by day, audacious safe cracker by night. It can only be A.J. And Bunny.

Garrett from Thief -- a man with true focus on what's important. "Save the city from the evil plans of the Machinists? Ooh, a candlestick!"

Assassin – not the "amazing solo combatant" type, the thoughtful kind who makes his target dead by poison, trickery, misdirection. Doesn't work well in dungeoncrawls, but fun in more social campaigns. My favorite was a murderous intellectual in an Amber game years ago, but I've revisited the idea in GURPS and Call of Cthulhu since.

As the character would have said, stealing lives is a type of theft, too.

My current D&D character is a thief. Jester travelled with a circus as an acrobat. Most moves reqquires either a back flip or a tumble.

DM: OK you open the lock and find 100gp

Jester: Hey guys I found 75gp!

I don't think I've ever played a thief.

All of it.

Same here. Our AD&D Lankhmar campaign went on for years.

the only redeeming feature of the otherwise bleakly derivative 'Belgarad' were the quite interesting characters.

After the members of my RPG group first read them, EVERYONE wanted to be Silk.

and IMHO Silk covers every single one of your options listed, and adds 'Spy' and 'pretty unlikely lover' to the deck.

Pat

The Second Story Man
The Skeleton Key
The Trap-tricker

Kinda mix of the three…

BUT his name is ALWAYS The Robber Hotzenplotz… and is a halfling…

Grey Mouser, low level mage rapier wielding thief…

The Consultant -- hired to check the defenses of various items/people.

Last rogue I plated was mostly a strong-arm man with a little bit of con-man. Hey, I was the face of a bunch of fantasy SPECOPS guys!

I'm really too direct personally to play a good sneak-thief all the time, but I can improvise a stealth-monster if I need to.

I usually go for opportunistic rogues like in The Thief of Baghdad… up for whatever leads to profit, but not an assassin or mean-spirited grifter… so I guess that's the cutpurse/second-story man/skeleton key.

"Never trust a woman, an elf, or a thief. Shadow was all three."

Yes, it's a paraphrase from the book cover.

Still, coolest rogue ever!

Gracias,

Glenn

I once played one half of a Grey Mouser and Grey Mouser duo (my oppo was an 'Assassin' in the rules, but that was just the peg to hang his character on) The rest of the part were the diversion. We were sometimes hired as 'War by other means'. "You're besieging a town, but want to get in? Certainly… By the way, do you have a daughter?"

Roald Dahl's "Fingersmith". None better.

Binky says "OINK"

Use to DM and play in the Thieves Guild game setting link so had plenty of options but 2nd story types where my number one selection.

Still have the rules tucked away somewhere…

Would Jonathon Teatime count as a thief? :-)

-Will

Frank and Jesse.
Weaselhoffen.

I go with the professional treasure hunter kinda like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. Except a human instead of a hobbit/halfling.