Equipment for Thief's Skills

Zondervan leaned away from the thick oaken door regretfully. "I can't hear a word of what's being said in there," he said miserably. His mentor Raimen smiled at him and reached into the voluminous folds of his robe. Hardly the time for a conjuring trick, the miserable apprentice thought. But Raimen swiftly flourished a polished bronze hemisphere topped with a cone, the open surface of the hemisphere wrapped about with a thin metal mesh. With only the hint of a flourish, he placed the end of the cone to his right ear and leaned closer to the door, gently placing the mesh-covered surface to the wood. A smile with just the slightest hint of smugness beamed from the older thief's face. "Try again," Raimen urged his apprentice. Zondervan craned his neck closer and placed the cone against his own ear. Now he could hear the Guildmaster's voice—faintly, to be sure, but the words were clear enough . . .

"Just one thing, Master," Zondervan said in a newly-respectful tone on the way to the Footpad for an ale, "what is the wire mesh for?"

"To keep the ear seekers out, of course." Raimen said mildly. "The Guildmaster is very fond of using them as a defense against snoopers."

"But—but before you gave me the listening cone I . . . I tried to listen anyway, I placed my ear against the door . . .," cried the apprentice, suddenly aghast.

"Indeed you did,'' Raimen replied coolly. "Better nip off and see the clerics for a cure disease spell. I get ten per cent of their fees in such cases, you know. See you later, I trust . . ."

A wide variety of special equipment items are available for thieves if they know where to look for them. This special equipment is listed in the Equipment section. Many of these will be specific to particular thief skills and are listed for each piece of equipment. The use of lockpicks with the Open Locks skill is an obvious example. There are also many miscellaneous items which thieves are particularly likely to find useful in their work, and there is a full listing of these items also. A tabular summary of likely prices and encumbrance values can be found at the end of this chapter.

All this isn't to say that only thieves should be allowed to use the items detailed here, of course. In some cases, other characters cannot use these items effectively. Lockpicks are useless for picking locks in the hands of anyone but a thief, for this skill is specifically (and exclusively) a thief skill. many other items do not necessarily have such restricted use. For example, the use of tar paper could potentially be useful for characters other than thieves. But such an item is particularly likely to be encountered in the subculture of thieves, and to be used by them when going about their nefarious activities. Also, taking a lively interest in equipment items which assist stealth, concealment, silent break-ins to places where you shouldn't be, and suchlike is naturally part of the role-playing of thieves. Brave, hardy warriors and pious priests really shouldn't be interested in such matters!

In the full equipment listing, it is entirely for the DM to determine whether certain items may or may not be available in the campaign world. For example, as noted in the Player's Handbook, combination locks may well not exist in a world based on medieval times, and thus the use of a small listening cone to assist in opening such locks would be irrelevant in such a game world. Then again, certain items may well be available but not openly so. Only from shadowy, illegal sources and suppliers will such items as lockpicks be available. Availability of many items will depend on the nature of the society the thief operates within, as detailed in the chapter on Guilds.

Since the items detailed below are not included in the Player's Handbook, they can be introduced to PC thieves in different ways. Going on a job with an NPC thief who uses one or two specialty items is one way of educating a PC thief. A second possibility is regular attendance at the informal "seminars" of the Thieves' Guild—make that PC go back to high school! A third possibility is during training; part of a thief's training by a higher-level thief may include being told about a small number of items relevant to thief skills. If the PC is allocating a large slice of his 30 percentage points for improving one skill (often the case), then information about 1d3 items relevant to the use of that skill and also 1d2 miscellaneous items can be regarded as part of what the PC is paying for during his training. A fourth and final possibility—an entertaining one—is that the PC hears about such items from popular stories and tales concerning a legendary master thief NPC in the campaign world, or even from overhearing some officers of the law discussing such matters at the next table in the tavern!!

Skill Modifiers

Many equipment items detailed will be stated to give a modifier to the chance for success for a skill check. The skill modifiers should be treated as suggestions only, although for game balance it's probably best not to give bonus modifiers to a thief much greater than those suggested. In any event, a central rule which always operates is that the maximum chance for success after all modifiers are applied (for race, dexterity, conditions, equipment, etc.) is 95%; a "natural" roll of 96-00 on d100 always fails!

You might also wish to allow an analogous 1% chance for success—a natural 01 always succeeds, regardless of modifiers. The poor 1st-level thief trying to pick a masterful-quality lock in the dark with improvised lockpicks rolls—01! He's done it! The lock clicks open . . .

In some cases, different items of equipment may each add to some chance for success when climbing walls, opening locks, etc. In the case of nonmagical items, a general rule should be that no more than a total of +20 can be added to any chance for success in such a skill test, no matter how many items are employed to assist the thief's natural talent. The DM may also not allow additive modifiers if items have a similar function. An obvious case would be the use of climbing daggers and spikes for assisting the climb walls skill; the thief could not add the individual modifiers for these two equipment items together and claim an extra bonus, since they both do the same thing (although they have important, individual, additional uses).