Standardized Skill Checks for Classic D&D
While skills systems for D&D weren’t developed in much detail for the earlier editions, there are a few skills checks in B/X Dungeons & Dragons scattered through the book between classes and encounter rules. They use a variety of different dice mechanics (d6,d10,d%) and sometimes for different classes attempting the same activity. I decided that I’d wanted to make this a bit more streamlined, and collected them all together and standardize how they work.
All the skill checks, including those for the Thief class, are now rolled on a single six-sided dice. This is a bit of a change for the Thief class, but I prefer the simplicity and since most other checks are done on d6 it made sense (to me anyway) to have the Thief work this way as well. The Hobbit’s hiding skill is also changed to d6 for both dungeon and woodland conditions.
D&D traditionally uses roll low for skill checks, but your group might prefer to always have rolling high on a dice indicate success. If you use roll low, you must get that number or less on the dice roll to succeed. If you use roll high, your roll must be at least equal to 7 minus the listed number (eg. 7-1=6, 7-2=5 etc).
Skill Checks – d6
All Classes
Hear Noises, Find Secret Doors, Find Traps: 1Dwarf
Find Secret Doors, Find Traps: 2Elf
Hear Noises, Find Secret Doors: 2Hobbit
Hear Noises, Hide: 2 (5 for Hiding in Woodlands)Thief
Hear Noises, Pick Pockets, Move Silently: 2 (+1 at Levels 4,6,8)
Find/Remove Traps, Hide in Shadows, Pick Locks: 1 (+1 at Levels 3,5,7,9)
Climb walls: 5
The Thief’s skills top out at a 5 in 6 chance at level 9, or 83%. This makes them a little worse at climbing walls, but a little better at hiding in shadows than they would be with the default % system.
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This is quite interesting, but is it necessary?
I’ve never had a player complain about this, in my recent playing of classic D&D via Labyrinth Lord or back when I used to play AD&D 2e.
I think there are about as many different ways to play D&D as there are groups playing it. If your group likes using d% for the Thief, there’s no reason for you to change that. If you decide you’d prefer the Thief and Hobbit to use the same dice rolls to see if they can hide, there’s no reason not to change things to make it work the way you want.
One of the things I like best about older editions of D&D is that they encourage the DIY aesthetic, making your own house-rules, dungeons, settings, and even completely rewriting all of the rules if you feel like it. Is it necessary to do any of that? Not at all – it’s a great game as-is. Can you do it if you enjoy it? Sure – why not.
Stuart,
Do demi-human thieves take the better of two checks if both have beneficial mods?
In B/X Dungeons & Dragons there are no Demi-Human thieves.
Although all the Demi-Human classes do have some Thief-like abilities (Hear Noise, Find Traps, Hide).
I had a feling you were going to say that.
So… Opening things up to more ‘Advanced’ gamed, would demihuman Thieves receive the better of the two?
Yes, I’d say they should get the better of the two rolls. At lower level that’d be their racial roll and at higher levels it would switch to the class roll.
If you really wanted to give them a bonus instead you could do it like this:
Dwarven Thief
Find Traps: 2 (+1 at Levels 3,5,7)
Elven Thief
Hear Noises: 3 (+1 at Levels 4,6)
Hobbit Thief
Hear Noises: 3 (+1 at Levels 4,6)
Hide: 2 (+1 at Levels 3,5,7) (5 for Hiding in Woodlands)
Although I think you’d end up with everyone wanting to play a Demi-Human Thief instead of a Human one, which is something I don’t like with AD&D compared to Basic.
Thank you Stuart.
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