D&D Lite Revisited – The Thief

After the Fighter it’s time to take a look at the other flavour of melee: the Thief!

We’ll base our lite Thief on the Rogue and compare his damage per round to that benchmark of an adventurer: the Champion. Ideally they’re fairly equal.

The first thing we need to figure out is what sort of damage does a Thief even do? Let’s assume Sneak Attack triggers every round – that’s not so difficult as long as you pick your targets to be within 5 feet of an ally, and as far as I understand this is how the Rogue is balanced.

Our Rogue has two short swords. We can enumerate all of the possibilities and combine for average damage (1D6 sneak attack damage)

Now enumerate over all the possibilities in a combat round (assuming a 65% chance to hit):

For an average of 10 damage.

Repeat this trick for 20 levels and here’s what we get, given the same progression as the Lite Fighter:

Analysis

We see an inversion of what happened with the (Lite) Fighter, where the Thief overperforms at low levels and then does a bit worse, with level 11 (and 20) standing out.

There may be something that can be done in a later iteration to smooth this out, but if the goal is to “make sure the Thief can keep up and play regular fifth edition content” then I think we should be safe here.

Survivability

One thing that isn’t taken into account yet is the Thief’s ability to not die. Its mainstay abilities uncanny dodge and evasion give the Rogue a lot more effective hit points than its hit dice would suggest. Our Thief, on the other hand, is particularly squishy.

In keeping with the relentless simplicity of what we’re proposing, let’s give our Thief a single ability that emulates both of these: reaction. A Thief character can, once per round, take a special reaction action outside of his turn. This can be anything from ducking behind cover, throwing sand in someone’s face, cutting the cord on a chandelier, etc. (as long as it’s not an attack). It will usually amount to imposing Disadvantage to an attacker, but players be creative.

Summary: The Lite Thief

Thieves devote as much effort to mastering the use of a variety of skills as they do to perfecting their combat abilities. Many focus on stealth and deception, while others refine the skills that help them in a dungeon environment. When it comes to combat, thieves prioritize cunning over brute strength.

Hit Die. d8

Sneak Attack. Once per round, when you hit an enemy that is not focussed on you (either because you are hidden, or they are fighting one of your comrades) you may add 1d6 to your damage dealt.

Reaction. Once per round you may use your Reaction. You may use it at any time, even interrupting another creature’s actions. When you do, you may take a simple non-attack action such as dodging, hiding, or using an item.

Leveling Up. When a Thief gains a new level, in addition to adding another Hit Die, apply the next bonus in the following progression. When all bonuses have been gained, restart at the beginning.