From: jek@duke.cs.duke.edu (James E. Kittock)
Date: 18 Jun 92 18:00:44 GMT
Subject: Re: Alternate character classes


Thief Variant: the Intriguist


This subclass of thief has abilities shying away from robbery and
killing and aiming more towards dealing with people. However, while
gaining skills suited to a politician, it retains many of the skills
useful for subterfuge. This subclass is well suited to many lines of
work: investigation, spying, courtier, emissary, etc. There are no
formal schools for Intriguists, as the quest for daily survival and
general success in life are sufficient education for these characters.

Intriguists may be of any race and alignment and have the
following abilities requirements: Dex 9, Int 12, Chr 13. They may use
weapons as per thieves, with the addition of fencing and other "noble"
weapons (will vary from culture to culture). Often, they will carry
other weapons as part of a disguise, but will suffer the same
non-proficiency penalty a thief would. They are not trained in the
use of armor, and when fighting in armor will suffer a penalty of -1
to their THAC0 per unit of AC improved by the armor. Of course, they
may wear armor for purposes of disguise. Intruigists fight, save, and
gain HP as thieves.

The changes to the thief class for Intriguists are as follows:

I. Abilities lost:
a. Backstab
b. Pick Pockets skill
c. Find/remove traps skill
d. Armor use (see above)

II. Abilities gained:
a. Access to Priestly and Wizardly proficiencies without extra slot cost
b. Fencing and other noble weapons (see above)
c. Manipulate skill
d. Psychology skill
e. Spot Hidden skill
f. Memorize skill (all new skills described below)

III. Other changes
a. Weapon and nonweapon proficiencies as follows
		Initial	# Levels
   Weapon	2	5
   Nonweapon	3	3
b. Keeping with the Thief numbers of 7.5% per skill for first level and
   3.75% per skill for each level above first, Intriguists receive 75%
   at first level and 35% per level above first to distribute among
   their skills.
c. Base skill percentages and modifications are as follows:
   (modifications for Dex as per Thieves)

			Intelligence	Charisma	Race
Skill		Base	14 15 16 17 18	14 15 16 17 18	El  Gn  Ha  Dw  HE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	~~~~	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Open Locks	5	-- -- -- -- --	-- -- -- -- --	as thieves
Move Silently	10	-- -- -- -- --	-- -- -- -- --	as thieves
Hide in Shadows	5	-- -- -- -- --	-- -- -- -- --	as thieves
Detect Noise	15	-- -- -- -- --	-- -- -- -- --	as thieves
Climb Walls	40	-- -- -- -- --	-- -- -- -- --	as thieves
Read Languages	10	 5 10 15 20 25	-- -- -- -- --	as thieves
Manipulate*	20	-- -- -- -- --	 5 10 15 20 25	-15  -5 -15 -15  -5
Psychology	15	 5  5 10 10 15	--  5  5 10 10	 --  --  --  --  --
Spot Hidden	30	-- -- -- -- --	-- -- -- -- --	 20   5  10   5   5
Memorize	10	-- --  5 10 20	-- -- -- -- --	 --  10  --  10  --

*racial modifiers apply only to members of other races


Descriptions of New Skills.

Manipulate: Using this skill, the Intriguist can manipulate the
thoughts and emotions of a given target. Some possible forms of
manipulation include: amuse, appease, befriend, calm, confuse,
convince, frighten, intimidate, and irritate. Note that these
manipulations can be effected against only one person per level per
use. A separate roll is required for each affected person, however. 
DM discretion is required as to degree and duration of effect. Since
this is not magic, Elves' and Half-Elves' resistance to Charm-type
spells does not apply. However, an Intriguist is -10% on this ability
with regards to a member of a different race.

Psychology: This skill lies somewhere between Empathy and ESP. It
allows the Intriguist to assess the motives for the actions of a person
and may hint at what the person is thinking, but will not give literal
thoughts. It is usually obvious to the Intriguist what a person's
general emotional state is. A roll is required if the person is
somehow attempting to hide hir emotions. The skill may also be to
assess situations of the "why did this happen?" type, if sufficient
information is available. To use the skill directly on a person, the
Intriguist must have some form of contact with them, whether verbal,
visual, telepathic, etc. Any Intriguist is -10% on this ability with
regards to a member of a different race.

Spot Hidden: This skill reflects the Intriguists practice at noticing
things that are out of place or in some way unusual. It will work on
concealed or secret doors if there is some external evidence of such,
no matter how slight (a book less dusty than the others around it, a
loose torch sconce, etc). This skill will similarly only find traps
that have some at least slightly visible component (the point of a
needle inside a lock, a differently-colored paving stone, etc). 
Further, this skill applies to situations such as a person out of place
in a crowd, a marked card in a deck of cards, etc. The Intriguist may
specifically search for things using this skill, but as long as the
Intriguist is capable of using it (i.e. can see and is mentally
functional), it is considered to be "always on" and the DM should roll
for the character to see if something out of place was spotted.

Memorize: This skill allows the Intriguist to make a "photographic
memory" of an object, document, place, etc. Non-visual memories are at
-10%. If the roll is greater than the amount needed, this reflects the
approximate percentage of information that was lost in that memory. 
Thus, if Lane the Intriguist has a 30% chance to memorize the Seal of
the House of Erwin, and he rolls a 70%, he has missed about 70% - 30% =
40% of the important details.

