Comment on “The Criminal Class”

Loving that art connection, Danny. In Alexis's case there are already skills such as History which are keyed to periods of the world and/or periods of time. I think applying such constraints would make giving the thief an objects-of-art recognition study quite feasible -- as long as we are talking a thief who is closer to "jewel thief" than "ordinary criminal underclass," which seems reasonable for mid-level knowledge-type skills.

I can also see thieves and assassins maybe getting some mild skills in the architecture category, for the purposes understanding building design and its effects on the movement of people within the structure would be invaluable. obviously this category wouldn't take the place of rolelplaying out the process of spying in order to sneak peeks at the location in the first place, but once the players began carrying out some kind of reconaissance operation or even just moved to a new kind of area, this study could answer player questions like:

1 - what is the weakest point in a wall made of wood? stone? when it's the corner of two walls? when the wall is round?

2 - can i recognize thicknesses of glass in windows, so i know which ones are easiest to break open? can i gauge how thick doors are based on the sturdiness of their hinges or the speed with which they open?

As far as re-purposing some of the other classes' skills, it seems clear to me that at least some of a thief's skill should apply in certain regions only. for Alexis this could mean giving them some abilities which are tied to a locus ( be http://tao-of-dnd.wikispaces.com/Locus).

(I'm having trouble articulating an additional point about how to incorporate thief skills without circumventing the roleplay processes, as Alexis points out above. I might come back and write that later.)

Great timing Alexis, I've got a thief and an assassin running in my game and they've been eager for me to start fleshing out those skills. I'll put my wiki editor hat back on a bit more tightly for this stuff.