Building Bhakashal - The Thief Reimagined - Here Comes the Spider!

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Thieves were perhaps the biggest challenge in building Bhakashal. There are ample fantasy precedents for thieves, so that’s not the problem. And thieves are kind of sexy, fast, stealthy, and calculated, thieves play into a trope that lots of people like.

However…

Thief skills are terrible at low levels, which isn’t necessarily a problem, except that the skills themselves are often directly linked to dangerous things. If you fail a Find/Remove Traps roll it can be lethal, ditto for a move silently roll when trying to surprise an opponent. 

The effect of this has been threefold in my experience, either players don’t play thieves, they dual/multi-class them, or they ensure to take on a humanoid group (e.g. elves) that gives them a big set of bonuses. This has always been the way with TTRPGs, hack what doesn’t work or just don’t use it.

Thing is, there are some fairly simple solutions to these problems (I don’t claim originality, I’m sure others have done similar things) that make thieves extremely fun to play without making them too powerful. And a well played thief is ROLE PLAYING GOLD. I’ve heard people suggest you can run D&D without thieves, and of course you can, but with a few tweaks thieves are one of the best classes in the game.

The first change, and one that vexed me for months, was the name. There’s nothing wrong with “thief” or “rogue”, but I wanted something fresh and evocative. 

Ends up “spider” is a synonym for thief. 

Who knew?

So Bhakashal  thieves are “spiders”.

Nice.

Fixing Thief Skills

The “penny drop” moment on this for me was the 1e AD&D scroll casting rules. In AD&D the level of spell you can cast is based on your level. But you can cast spells that are above your regular castable spell level if you cast them from scrolls. The mechanic for this is genius. You roll for failure, and then, if you fail, you roll for potential harm.

The beauty of this system is that it uses nested probabilities, the harm odds only come into play IF the failure odds hit. Requiring two rolls means that the odds of failure are reduced significantly. So for example, if you have a 30% chance of failure, then if you fail, a 10% chance of harm, then the odds you will have a harmful failure are 3%. 

Nesting probabilities means that the overall odds of the second event happening are significantly reduced.

The second piece of the puzzle was the old saw that I have heard a million times, “thieves are badly designed in D&D because EVERYONE should be able to sneak”. And I agree that everyone should be able to sneak, but the thief, a professional sneaker, should do it better. 

Nested probabilities allow you to model this easily without adding any new rules! 

AD&D has rules for “sneaking”, surprise rules! So in Bhakashal, ANYONE can try to surprise an opponent. You roll for surprise, since the attacking party is aware of the target, they can’t be surprised, but the target can, standard 2 in 6 odds apply. And of course common-sense modifiers can be used, e.g. if a fighter in plate mail is trying  to sneak up on someone I would decrease the odds of surprise to 1 in 6. 

If a thief tries to sneak up on someone, you nest the probabilities, e.g. roll for surprise, if that doesn’t come up, roll for move silently, if that comes up, the thief has surprised the victim. I decided that this was a better approach than just giving a modifier on surprise for the thief, as it heightens the excitement (you failed the first roll, will you fail the next!) and it reduces the odds of failure.

The only other adjustment I decided to make was to add a small bonus to thieving skills across the board as they are simply too low to start. I fiddled with different numbers for a year or more until settling into the current system, DEX based mods (as DEX is a core thief stat) and a few mods for humanoid groups. 7 years of playtesting have made me confident that these numbers give you a workable skill system that hits the sweet spot: success a lot of the time but not all of the time. That’s all you need, the possibility of failure creates the excitement, even if it is remote.

The thief’s other secret weapon, taken directly from AD&D, is fast level progression. Thieves level up the fastest, so dual or multi-classing a thief is a great choice, but it also means they will progress on saves, to hit and thief skills faster than people realize. Bhakashal keeps this brilliant little piece of design in the game.

So, without further ado, here comes the spider!

Bhakashal - Spiders

- level advancement, to hit, saves as PHB Thieves, exceptions noted below.

- Stat Requirements: minimum intelligence and dexterity of 12. Note that although it is not a requirement of the class, a high charisma is extremely useful to a spider.  

- Finesse Weapons: For any weapon of less than 50gp weight and 3’ or less in length the spider can apply their dex bonus to hit instead of their strength bonus .

- Surprise: Spiders get the regular chance to surprise targets (e.g. 2 in 6), if this fails they get their thieving percentage (MS) or (HIS) as appropriate, to try and surprise.

-  Skill Bonus: modify all skills but hear noise, read languages and climb walls by 2% per point of dexterity above 10, read languages is modified by +2% per point of intelligence above 10. CW and HN stay the same.

Spider Skills

Spider skills should be interpreted broadly, using their functions from the PHB and others like those suggested here. Allow players some creativity here, if they think of a new skill that fits the archetype then run with it. 

- Pick Pockets: A spider can PP twice a round, failure by more than ½ of the remainder indicates detection (e.g. if they have a 30% chance, or a 70% chance of failure, take 70%, divide by 2 and add this to the chance of success, so rolling higher than 65% indicates detection). Also Includes: cheating at cards, switching out, hiding or planting objects or distracting a target. Divide the PP percentage by 5, and add this to the encounter reaction roll on top of charisma for a confidence game or swindle, to fence an item or fleece a mark.

- Open Locks: Includes removing a component of a mechanism without breaking it, extracting jammed objects, tieing-untieing knots (escaping bonds), reinforcing existing locks, fastening something against removal. NOTE: A successful OL roll means that a binding done by the spider (e.g. tying up a victim in rope) will reduce any chance of breaking the binding by half (e.g. if you have a 2 in 6 chance of untying yourself from the ropes, it is reduced to 1 in 6). 

- Finding and Removing Traps: includes disassembling objects, small item and weapon repair, and locating secret doors. So, for example, if there is a 2 in 6 chance of locating a secret door and the spider fails this roll, they get an additional FRT roll to find it. Also, thieves can use complex technology (up to and including up “developed” technology e.g. basic firearms) with a FRT roll, so a spider could pick up a pistol and shoot it without a non-proficiency penalty with a FRT roll. Also, if they kept that firearm and studied it for at least a month they could make a FRT roll to be able to repair it, and if they continued to study it for an additional month they could use their FRT roll to build firearms. If they fail their FRT roll when trying to use, repair or build a technology, their odds of harm from the attempt are ½ of the failure odds.

- Move Silently -  Includes moving “softly”, e.g. if a spider is trying to avoid tripping weight traps give them their regular roll to avoid tripping the trap, if it fails they get their MS roll to avoid.  Also includes feats of balance, e.g. if there is a 2 in 6 chance of slipping on the ice, the spider gets this roll, if they fail the roll they get their MS roll to avoid slipping. 

- Hide in Shadows - includes both hiding in the dark and hiding behind objects in the light. Combo Move: spider distracts a target or becomes hidden while in combat with a successful HIS roll (the PC must identify a hiding spot or a distraction method), then makes a MS attempt next round, if successful, the spider can backstab.

- Climb walls - includes acrobatic and parkour moves, e.g. tumbling rolls to avoid damage from being dismounted or knocked prone, tightrope walking, pole vaulting (20’+1’ per point of DEX or STR damage bonus - whichever is higher), high jumping (5’+1’ per point of DEX or STR damage bonus), broad jumping stand (10’+1’ per point of DEX or SRT damage bonus), broad jump running (20’+1’ per point of DEX or SRT to damage bonus), and dive attacks (same damage profile as backstabs, minimum 10’ above target)

- Read Languages - Includes: reading magic (not casting spells), assessment of jewelry and gems, magic item values, reading of command words on objects, “street lore” if the spider is familiar with the area (e.g. knowledge of who is influential, who is beholden to who, who has pulled off big jobs recently) and knowledge of magic item properties or cursed magic items.

 - Hear Noise - Hear noise actively reduces chances of being surprised, e.g. if the spider applies the skill and surprise is indicated against the spider, they get their hear noise roll to avoid surprise. Active listening requires the spider to be stationary and silent, e.g. cannot be done in melee. Hear noise includes: identify composition and number of unseen group, recognize accents and dialects, hear and remember command words for items used in presence

Spiders and the Guild (Brass Blade Guild)

The guild of the Brass Blade in Bhakashal has two main branches. The first is associated with the shantytowns and is run by one of the two current leaders of the guild. This branch is responsible for providing muscle, recruiting new thieves, fleecing visitors and adventurers that arrive in the shanty towns and shaking down locals for protection money. Finally they attempt to profit by acquiring monstrous components from incoming hunters at low prices and selling them at higher prices in the city (arbitrage). The current leader of the shanty town branch of the thieves guild is a thri-Kreen, Kalantros.

The main branch of the guild is run out of the city docklands and headed by a rich merchant who is a former adventurer. The city guild focuses on high end stealing of important items and kidnapping of important people for ransom, breaking into important homes of high ranking nobles to embarrass them, supplying the black market for luxury items, and acquiring monstrous components to sell for spell scribing, magic item creation and hybrid creature creation. 

Breaking into homes of the wealthy is almost an art in Bhakashal, as is the art of designing protections for your home. Any breaking and entering done in the city without guild approval is extremely unpopular. Guild cut for a regular B+E is 50% and final say on any unique items, if guild information or resources are used 75% cut is appropriate. This can still leave a substantial windfall for the spider. Of course, a particularly awesome job without approval can and has been used as an “audition”, traditionally completing an unapproved but spectacular heist and gifting the spoils is an accepted method of entry to the guild. 

The amount of wealth in any given home is generally a function of the Ward and at the discretion of the ref. For example, a poor neighbourhood or slum would have homes with treasure type J-N, but it could have a private residence of say a merchant of bad repute with treasure type O or P. A residential neighbourhood might have a few richer homes with say treasure type R. A wealthy neighbourhood would have treasure type A-H.

Every private residence and business in the city will have some sort of security against theft and intrusion. Security varies, traps, guards, animals, monsters, magic spells and minor magic items, poor homes might have a tripwire with clanking metal, a private residence in a semi-affluent neighbourhood might have dogs and a protective glyph, a wealthy home might have a monster, a few traps and guards. If in doubt, assign 1 protection (a trap or animal) to a poor home, 2 protections including a minor magic item or spell for a residence of moderate wealth and 2-5 of any kind for a wealthy residence.