The lowly first level thief can be challenging to play in an old school renaissance game. Thieves face some dangers the other character classes try to avoid while still contributing to combat. The thief can be a key character in any old school adventuring party if you are cautious and creative.

The Woes of the First Level Thief

You don’t have many hit points.

Your armor is limited to leather, making those precious few hit points even more of a concern.

Your weapon options suck only slightly less than the magic user.

You have some abilities that the others don’t have but not at a high level of ability.

You are on point. You will face dangers before the rest of the party is even aware of them.

Character creation.

This is a rare case in classic fantasy adventure gaming that I recommend a player think very hard about the choices they make in during character generation. Anyone playing a thief has more choices to make. Those can be the difference in early level survival. Some of these choices depend on what rule set you are playing.

In some clones, the human would be your only option for playing a thief. If you are playing a game that allows you to pick the race of your character, like OSRIC, play anything but a human if you are playing a thief.

I admit, I’m advocating a bit of min-maxing. With the thief character, you need all the advantages you can get. Gnomes, dwarf, elves, half-elves, half orcs, and halflings all have infra-vision. Infra-vision is a huge benefit for a thief. That gives you an edge against human adversaries and makes it harder for monsters to detect you in the dungeon. Being able to scout ahead and return to the party with information and without alerting your adversaries is a big advantage.

Thief is also one of the few classes without level limits for those races. Those races also have some other benefits that help the thief character survive, like the dwarf’s abilities around stone work.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess has the “specialist” class. LotFP borrows from the 2E AD&D thief in that it allows you to pick where you put your points. Other OSR games have a fixed progression for thief abilities. The two most important skills for a thief are sneaking and climbing. If you are playing a game that allows you to allocate points, put as many as you can into those two skills. There is a good argument to be made about skills for detecting and disarming traps in lieu of climbing. It’s probably a toss up. Personally, I try to avoid remove traps rolls whenever possible. I’d rather set them off from a distance, use an alternative route or some sort of gear to deal with the problem. Relying on die rolls too often gets your character dead.

A few OSR games have secondary skills and failed careers. If you get to pick (usually they are random), try to pick one that you can use as a role-playing tool like “jeweler” or that might give you some bonus when you are trying to solve a problem of getting into a building or assessing a trap, like carpenter or mason.

If the rule set allows, and your character qualifies, you might want to go with multi-class of thief/magic user. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons a high DEX, and high INT class blend that has incredible utility is the gnome thief-illusionist. They are rare due to the multi-classing rules but the two classes have very complimentary abilities if the character qualifies. Fighter/thief has it’s appeal since you get the weapon and hit point benefits. I think the spell casting blend is more potent later on.

Gear

There isn’t a class that can make better use of gear more than the thief. Obviously, you want thief tools for lock picking and trap removal. Think about other tools a burglar might want and buy anything you can afford. Hiring laborers to carry extra gear and act as helpers is a good use of resources.

Caltrops. An auger. Glass marbles. Lard, oil or grease for door hinges or applying to stairs so a monster slips and falls giving you a chance to stab it in the back. String or twine to trip an enemy or make a simple snare. Rope and climbing gear, a pry bar, spikes, block and tackle, hand carts, hammer, flint and steel, bags, sacks, oil cloth, wax, a hand mirror, flour, acid, and wire are all things I’ve seen players use in clever ways. I’m sure there are more.

Since you can’t wear heavy armor or use large weapons, you might as well have a pile of useful gear to improve your chances.

Social encounters

Referees will vary on this particular topic. In my campaigns, I assume characters have some loose connections with others of their profession. A thief, at the very least, will know where to look for smugglers, fences, forgers, poisoners, and others of their profession. If your referee uses thieves cant or some sort of symbol system like hobos did in the Great Depression, a thief could find and contact the criminal underworld in a city. That could give the party access to information, and resources they might otherwise miss. A random encounter in a bad part of a city could lead to trouble. Having a clever thief who speaks the lingo can turn a dangerous situation into an opportunity for gain.

Depending on the rule set you are using, thieves might have a better use of languages and be able to read. Those are always useful when you are trying to gather information or get a message to someone without being noticed. These are generally not activities that happen in low level adventures but they can.

Information gathering is something that I work into my games. That includes information acquired before leaving on an adventure as well as information gathered while on the adventure. It may not always pan out, but I encourage you to have your thief character ask around before going to a dungeon. See if you can get a few hints and rumors about the sort of obstacles you might face. Sometimes the referee will have a whole list of rumors prepared, other times they will improvise something. If you have the coins, bribe people, grease palms, be friendly, buy drinks, schmooze. What you learn may give you clues about useful gear or other ways to prepare for the dungeon.

I encourage you to spend some of your loot on things like flamboyant clothes, throwing parties, buying drinks, and carousing. Thief characters are a perfect opportunity to play a rascal. Remember, the purpose of this is not to be a spectacle at the table but to advance the objectives of the party through social interactions. Entertaining your friends is a bonus, but not the point. Engaging with the referee’s NPCs to get information that the party can use to it’s advantage is valuable. Friendly interactions with the locals is not a job for the bruiser in plate armor, the skinny book worm with delusions about harnessing the very power of the cosmos, or the violent religious zealot. A friendly smile, monetary encouragements, and a bit of flair can get you a long way.

Exploration, obstacle, and trap encounters

As previously mentioned, the thief is the star of the exploration show. In dungeons, they are the scout and the look out. They climb, crawl into tight spaces, and check out the situation before the rest of the party gets anywhere close. This is where the combination of those character creation choices, gear, and problem solving come together.

The thief is also the character that is most useful at low levels when the party encounters an environmental or physical obstacle. Climbing has great utility. Ropes, grappling hooks, spikes, hammers, ladders, and other tools make this safer and likely more successful. Crossing water, chasms, ravines, going down wells or shafts are all common obstacles. Be prepared. If the group doesn’t have some of the gear to navigate these obstacles, you’ll have to rely on rolling dice to see if you succeed. At low levels, the thief’s skills are not that great. Stack the deck in your favor by using gear.

Another point where referee’s vary are traps. I don’t put a lot of traps in my dungeons unless it makes a sense for there to be traps. I do use some tricks like a slightly ajar door with a bucket full of acid or Greek fire waiting to be dumped over a careless adventurer’s head. Barriers, simple pits, deadfalls, trip wires, collapsing roofs are my go to when it comes to traps. There are exceptions but usually, very simple traps are the rule in my games. Some referees like elaborate Grimtooth style traps but those are relatively rare.

The way you avoid or detect traps without relying on dice rolls is by being cautious, thorough, and paying close attention to the referee’s descriptions. Anything that seems odd, unusual, or out of place could be a trap or trick. Ask questions, probe with a stick, throw a bag of sand or a rock. You can slow the game down trying to solve a trap problem but you aren’t entirely responsible for that if the referee has thrown a bunch of elaborate traps at you. Traps slow down play because nobody wants to lose a character to a poison dart. An experienced referee knows that and will give you some clues about the nature of the trap if you ask good questions. If you have to deal with a trap, try to avoid the find/remove traps roll. It’s unreliable. If you roll on it often enough, you will fail. Sometimes, you run out of ideas and there isn’t any choice but to hold your breath and roll.

This is one of those rare moments where I will say the answer to your problem might be on the character sheet. Specifically, in your gear list. A grappling hook with a rope, a bit of wire, a mirror, or a sack with some sand might save you.

Combat

The thief is about as limited as the magic user in a fight. They have a few better weapons and slightly better armor but that’s it. At 1st level, a thief has the same attack chances as a magic-user and maybe not any more hit points. Of course, the thief has the back stab ability but that is limited and once you’ve done your back stabbing, you could be in real trouble. If there is an enemy spell caster, I’d encourage the thief to focus on doing something about that problem if possible.

It’s fairly obvious that a thief wants to stay out of a toe to toe fight if he can. Sneaking, and ambushing is the best use of the thief’s talents. Climbing, dropping heavy things onto monsters from above, tripping monsters with a staff between the legs, or a rope are all good uses of thief talents.

If things get so bad that the thief has to get into a toe to toe fight, the party might do better to run away. Use one of those tricks or tools the thief has in his baggage to slow down the monsters.

Conclusion

Don’t be the guy who steals from party members. That is a terrible interpretation of the thief class. Be the guy who steals for party members. I like to think of the thief as the safe cracker in a heist movie. They are part of the team that has to work together to make the big score. They know they won’t last in a fight when the guards show up so they need the muscle for that. They do their job because they are a pro. It’s OK to take some risks and get into trouble from time to time by picking a particularly juicy pocket but you have to balance it out with the interests of the party. It’s one thing to steal from a noble because the party is short on cash and needs a room at the inn. It’s another thing to steal from a guy who has an entourage of guards because you want to see if you can get away with it.

The thief can be one of the most fun character classes to play. They have special abilities and opportunities for social encounters that the other classes do not. A good thief can make certain obstacles and traps easy to deal with that would otherwise be impassible or require the use of precious magic resources. The thief can access certain social classes and sources of information that would not be available to fighters, clerics, or wizards.

If you’ve never played a thief, I encourage you to give it a try sometime. With thoughtful and creative play, a thief is an asset to any party along with being a great deal of fun when you pull off some scheme that makes the whole party a lot richer.