Q: What are the coolest thief skills people have seen?

[coder at ibm.net]

From: jwagner at larry.cc.emory.edu (John Wagner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.diku
Subject: Re: Q: What are the coolest thief skills people have seen? Date:
26 Nov 1997 16:15:06 -0500

Richard Woolcock (KaVir at dial.pipex.comNOSPAM) wrote:
: The Wildman wrote:
:  > On Wed, 26 Nov 1997 05:31:19 -0600, johan.ingles at janes.co.uk uttered the words:
:  > >Most muds have their thieves do fairly standard things,
:  > >namely:
:  > >o Steal
:  > >o Sneak
:  > >o Hide
:  > >o Backstab
:  > >o Attack
:  > >o Dodge
:  > >o Piercing weapons
:  > >Now this is all well and good, but does anyone out there
:  > >have any suggestions for other thief skills or seen
:  > >anything on other muds that seems especially cool?
:  > >      http://www.dejanews.com/     Search, Read, Post to Usenet
:  > What about picking locks, disarming traps, _setting_ traps (!), and other
:  > things that are too subtle for the warrior, and too physical for the mage.
:  > (And too unpieous for the cleric)
:  > Personally, I hate classes. I think a skill based system works better. But
:  > that's just me.
: I prefer skill-based systems too, but you can still have thiefy-type skills.
: A nice one that I've not seen on many muds is 'Disguise'.  Another far more 
: common one is 'circle'.  I believe (but don't quote me on it) that there is
: a stock base which allows thieves to apply poison to their weapons.  One 
: other power I saw somewhere a while ago that I think is quite nice is a 
: 'cut throat' type power, which results in the target bleeding to death over 
: a period of time.
: KaVir.

	What is a thief?  In the romantic sense a thief is good at getting into
and out of places, to get at stuff- at using his body or tools or  objects
to get at things and get away with the posession.  From what  things might
one steal objects?

	-Bodies (people)
	-Chests (containers)
	-Buildings
	-Vehicles (trains,boats, stagecoaches etc)

	And by what mechanisms do these things protect their posessions?

	for Bodies - Senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing),
			Clothing (moneybelts, purses)

	for Chests - Locks (tumbler, combination, skeleton)
			Strong walls (steel bands)
			Hidden compartments

	for Buildings - High walls, locked doors, barred doors,
			barred windows, moats, booby traps, strong doors,
			strong floors, strong rooves, hidden passages,
			hidden doors

	The art of the thief therefore is in overcoming these obstacles.   Notice
that booby traps are many and varied; however they generally  operate on
the principal of a small sensor device (trip wire, lever,  pressure plate)
actuating a large and violent force (bent back spiked  pole, deep pit,
loaded crossbow).  Thus a successful thief must be sensitive to things; he
must be able to -study- an item for sensor devices, to  -study- a wall for
possible hidden doors or alcoves, to  -study- a wall  for climbing niches
in rock.  If each procedure in an item's code could  have a difficulty
ranking in terms of how well it is hidden, then a  successful clever (high
INT + XP) thief might be able to sense that  procedure in an item.  For
example:

(whatever language)
Item chest (
	Chest description, property detectLevel=0,{}
	Procedure chesttrap, property detectLevel=35,{}
	Procedure hiddencompartment. property detectLevel=80, {}
	);
 would allow a PC to immediately see the description, with some 
difficulty (versus studySkill+INT+randomfactor) sense the chesttrap and 
with extreme difficultty sense the hiddencompartment.

	You could add exits to rooms with detectLevels;

exits (
	North, property detectLevel=0,{/area/Wonkbat/northfield.c}
	South, property detectLevel=0,{/area/Wonkbat/bridge.c}
	East, property detectLevel=5,{/area/Wonkbat/hiddenpath.c}
	Up,property detectLevel=35,{/area/Wonkbat/roughwall.c}
	);
Thus studying a room would reveal more exits for the skilled thief/player.

	In action a 'thief' must have self-control and grace, to avoid  senses
such as a person's sense of feel, a tripwire, a pressureplate.   You could
add a property to the procedures/methods called 'sensitivity',  which
creates a threshold beyond which the trigger is tripped, the person  or
beast is alarmed.

orcbeast (
	senses {smellSense=20,
		touchSense=15,
		sightSense=20}

	if senses_triggered, attack())

chestTrap (
	senses {smellSense=0,
		touchSense=80,
		sightSense=0}
	if senses_triggered, explode())

To which a thief could attempt to be_gentle(increases lightness of touch),
	hide_smell (increase nonsmelliness.. Bathe? 
Clothes?),conceal_self (increase hiddenness).  Compare the levels of the 
sensitivity with the thief's levels plus a random factor to determine if 
the procedure (attack, explode, etc) is activated.

		What do you think?

		John Wagner
		jwagner at emory.edu

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
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