"You see this."

How Thieves benefit from RAW.

A lot of DMs make the Thief a lot harder to play than it should be. They’re already disadvantaged in BX/OSE: They get no skill adjustments for dex or race as they do in 1E, lower hit die, and their skills don’t reach even-odds until about 7th level—which would be devastating to any other class, if we tried to imagine Fighters, MUs and Clerics who start the game with a 10% chance to hit, cast, or turn undead.

I think the issue begins with remembering that the game is not a reality simulator, it is turn-based and abstract. And I think the issue is exacerbated by a series of over-extensions.

Consecutive rolls

Each time you introduce a new roll to succeed at a task, you multiply the chances of success to understand the total success rate. So if you rule that a Thief needs to succeed multiple skill checks to complete an action, their success rate drops to almost nothing. It’s punitive, so if you do this, have a VERY good reason and explain it to your players in advance.

Climbing

Lots of DMs make the Thief succeed a Climb Sheer Surface roll to climb trees, scramble rocks, scale gnarly dungeon walls, climb ropes, vines, etc. But if the Thief starts play with an 87% chance to climb a cement wall, there should not be a roll to get to the top of a tree or a pile of rocks. Branches and rocks aren’t vertical surfaces.

Incidentally, the RAW doesn’t say this movement rate should be penalized either.

Traps

It’s one roll to find and remove. Not two separate rolls. Additionally, anyone can and should narrate searching for traps before using the Thief’s skill, including the Thief player. When the players have exhausted their imaginations, then it’s the Thief’s turn to use their skill (simulating the Thief’s character mastery).

This is the only Thief skill that takes 1 Turn because it counts as “Searching”, per the exploration rules. No other Thief skills consume a full Turn.

Hear noise

Again, not a Turn-long action. The listening continues for as long as the player narrates it. (Tip: Narrate/address hearing monsters approach at the end of your table round-robin to prevent cutting off exploration actions with combat – everyone should get to finish taking an action every turn!)

Hide in Shadows

SO many tables think this roll applies to hiding in general. It does not. The Thief can successfully hide behind things all day long without rolling dice. It is not a required precursor to back-stabbing (unless the monster needs to walk right past the Thief to expose its back).

Move silently

Loads of tables penalize this movement rate to half or worse, but there’s not a word in the RAW to back this up. Let the Thief move at their full combat or exploration rate, appropriately.

Loads of tables think that the Thief has to move silently to backstab, but there’s not a word in the RAW to back that up either; a monster can remain perfectly “unaware” in a noisy environment (like combat).

Moving silently is sneaking without making any sound at all. Zero. This is not the same as moving quietly, which all the PCs do while exploring. So when you rule that a monster’s special hearing exposes the silent Thief, you’re making up a sound that literally doesn’t exist. Let it work.

Open locks

Not a Turn-long action. Or at very least, it’s not defined as one Turn, RAW. The DM should have some adjudicated sense of how long it would take to pick a given lock, and that’s their call… but 10 whole minutes sounds like a really complicated lock.

Back-stab

Ok, here we go. I buried the lead because the other points all lead up to this one.

Firstly, only OSE calls it “stab”.

Back-stab
When attacking an unaware opponent from behind, a thief receives a +4 bonus to hit and doubles any damage dealt.

BX simply says:

“When striking unnoticed from behind, a thief gains a bonus of +4 on “to hit” rolls and inflicts twice the normal amount of damage.“

There is nothing here that says it has to be a stabbing weapon.
There is nothing here that says it has to be a one-handed weapon.
There is nothing here that says Surprise is required.
There is nothing here that says a strike is melee.
There is nothing here that says moving silently is required to remain unnoticed.
There is nothing here that says hiding in shadows is required to remain unnoticed.

Every DM can adjudicate otherwise as they please, but we can state with confidence that those are house-rules. Let’s break down each point.

“Stab”
If you’re an OSE language stickler, the title tells us the action is stabbing. So that rules out blunt and ranged weapons. But for BX purists, it can be any weapon.

“Strike”
Take a look at the magic missile and fireball descriptions in BX, they both use the word strike to describe projectiles. The term doesn’t strictly apply to melee attacks (again, unless you’re strictly OSE based).

One or two-handed
Thieves can use any weapon, including 2-handed swords and pole arms. if you limit Thieves to one-handed or small weapons when making a rear attack, that’s your weird rule, not Tom’s or Gavin’s.

Unnoticed/unaware
Awareness and surprise are unrelated. Surprise is not required. Watch:

1. Surprise is a procedural mechanic in this game. It occurs exclusively in the beginning of an encounter, and it gives one side a single round to act without initiative retaliation. It has nothing to do with being alarmed, scared or even prepared.

2. PCs can be armed, readied, looking , listening, suspicious of attack… and still the surprise roll is made when wandering monsters are encountered. Because it’s procedural.

3. If the PCs surprise monsters and decide to evade, that doesn’t mean the monsters never saw them. The PCs might have come upon the monsters face-to-face, 20′ away! It only means the PCs have one round to run to get out of line-of-sight in case the monsters begin pursuit.

So if aware PCs can still be surprised, and surprised monsters can still be perfectly aware, then awareness and surprise have no relationship.

To remain unnoticed, the Thief just needs to be unseen until they attack. Behind something. Out of the torch light radius. Around a corner. (And in fairness, doesn’t cross the line of sight of the targeted monster.)


Moving to attack
This is a turn-based game. Action is abstracted. When you win initiative, the monsters just SIT there. They can not react, they can not move, they can not turn around.

So when the Thief (or PC-side) initiative comes up, the Thief—just like everyone else—can move normally and attack. There is no need for moving silently to remain unnoticed, because the targeted monster can’t do a f*cking thing except stand there. Arguably, as long as the Thief doesn’t cross the monster’s field of vision, they are still unnoticed.

In a quiet environment, the Thief might need to move silently to cover two rounds worth of movement, sure. But succeeding that, they could use the following round to move normally before back-stabbing because it’s still a turn-based-game.

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As always, food for thought at your table.
Thanks for reading.