Doe's anybody else think that the fact that you can be a thief and at the same time be good is just wrong. I mean when was the last time you met a good thief, the fact that they steal automatically makes them unlawful, and yet you can go a lawful good thief. I think if your gonna be a thief you should play evil or at least neutral. Paladins can't play Evil because it would defeat the purpose and i think the same should apply to thiefs !

What do you folks think

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Robin Hood! Simon (The Saint) Templar! Both were Good thieves - even if they were Chaotic - at best, Neutral - Good. Raffles might be an example of a Neutral thief. A good thief might be, for example, a suave highwayman-type, robbing the rich and giving to the poor.

But I agree with you - a Lawful Good thief seems... odd. Unless you play him as a REFORMED thief... which would sit well with his adventurer status.

Tancred

After all, whatever class you are, you're all still adventurers. Except Anomen, he's a lvl. 18 Ponce.

Ah yes, Good Ol' Robin Hood, Just because he rob's from the rich, he's good, well it's still thieving as far as im concerned which makes him unlawful, but I suppose you'd consider him neutral because he did give most of it to the poor.

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Well... I don't consider Robin to be Good because he gives to the Poor. I consider him good because he stole from the rich to further his long-term goal of thwarting the usurpation of King John/The Sheriff of Nottingham (depending on the version you know) and restoring the Lionheart to the throne.

Tancred

Ends justify the Means, and all that.

Point taken Tancred, Indeed you state a good case as to why Robin could be considered good but... When I think of thief, I think of the back alley rogue and all that Jazz and goodness plays no part of it, as for lawful....

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In planescape:torment you meet a couple thiefs who could be considered lawful good. One is from mount celestia and considers himself a "engineer" rather then a thief and a thief named lenny that even a harmonium officer trusts.

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I guess anyone who tries to play a Lawful Good thief simply sets themselves a very tough RPing challenge, and ends up with a condtradictory, rather narrow, shallow character - or, if they're exceptional, a masterfully crafted persona, with a VERY unique background. For the sake of common sense, I agree with thee.

Tancred

There's always room for the Exception to the Rule.

I think that you can't be a lawful good thief. It's the only alignement restriction about thieves.

Well, you can be a good thief by only disarming traps and picking locks.

The troubleshooter kit is a thief kit that acts as a sort of security officer. In order to ensure security, you will have to know about thieving skills.

As for adventuring types, I think a thief should never be lawful, but can be good.

The lawful aspect offers a different dilemma, which laws is a character lawful to? As member of a thief's guild, a character may very well be lawful to the rules of the guild, but (hence) unlafwul to the laws of the country. What would the alignment of such a character be?

As a final verdict, I insist that alignment is merely a tool for good roleplaying, and should be applied with flexibility.

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Ilvyn the Black Son
Guardian of the Prime
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U CANT be a LAWFUL good thief

Thieves can't be lawful good. Theft implies breaking of laws - it's not a moral choice to be good or evil. And how is stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor not good? It's just not lawful, that's all. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

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The description of lawful is that they always follow a set of rules but doesnt mean they follow the countrys rules. Maybe a lawful good kensai from kara-tur is honor bound to kill the person that attacks his master even if that master is running a crime ring and the person he killed was keldorn. A chaotic good character might not do that but since the lawful good kensai ALWAYS follows his set of rules he does.

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My 3E Rogue is Chaotic Good, but then she's NOT a thief. She's a government agent - however the Rogue class was closest to the skills a spy/troubleshooter requires

Now you sound like another planescape:torment npc Eli Havelock.

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This is a great topic,
Those who have said that thieves cannot be of lawful alignment are correct - this applies to all rogues including bards.

I think it would be kind of cool to have a lawful good bard kit - no pickpocketing but have something like detect traps, a special bardsong or a good cleric spell as a special ability instead. After all, as far as I can see there's nothing particularly unlawful about being a singer/storyteller per se, it's the thieving aspect that determines the alignment restriction isn't it?

I'd be interested to hear other views on this. I think if I ever got into kit creation this would be my project.

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Epona of The Laughing Hyenas and The Ladies Guild.

I think that thieving is neither Good, Neutral, or Evil. Within the game context, no action is easy to judge in isolation - you have to look at the big picture.

Suppose a wicked Dragon took over a Dwarf cave, full of riches. If the Dwarves ask a thief to sneak in and retrieve the gold, he would be acting in a Good way, wouldn't he? (Bilbo Baggins) But that demands the wilful bending of rules- so he'd be Chaotic. Most our heroes are. Few by-the-book people make interesting tales.

Since it's always Unlawful to steal, I guess that stands to reason. But you can be a Neutral Good person, and be driven to steal, say out of hunger? Such a character would rarely steal.

What about killing though? If stealing is Unlawful, surely killing should be worse? How can a monster-killing person be a Lawful Good Paladin? Shouldn't they seek alternative means to handle the problem?

As for Robin every Lawful good person i meet DOSE try to seek alternitve means to defeat him.

as for the bard subject,i think whay makes him Unlawful is his personaltiy,not just pickpokceting,now i want go into what excaley i think his personialty restircks him from being lawful (heh heh) but thats for another thread.

but of course i could be wrong

"Thief" is actually just a title. For instance, my thieves NEVER pick pockets. I just use them for finding and disarming traps, and sometimes for picking locks. This character isn't doing anything remotely evil or unlawful (I don't consider picking locks in DUNGEONS to be illegal), yet he is still a "Thief". He's as much of a thief as a Paladin is, yet he can never be considered 'Lawful'.

Very interesting topic! So if you were asked to retrieve a document from
say a certain person who was not evil, but would not willingly give you
the document you would be forced to pick pocket the individual to avoid
a unnecissary death? where would this put you on the alighnment side??
I personaly believe stealing can only lead to harm.

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Boy do I wish I had my DnD books here. I think we are arguing semantics. But I do have a Lawful Good Race that many would consider thieves: Kender. If you don't know what they are, you need to. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif

BK

Imoen's neutral good... if the lawful good were available to theives in BG1, she would be.

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Very, very interesting, and I think we finally came to a conclusion, you can not be a lawful thief, it's just not right, but I still disagree STRONGLY with the fact that you can be good !

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If a theif cant be law good, why should he be lawful neutral or evil? it is still breaking the law in most cases

Caleb How is Lenny a good theif in any way? He makes the lady become a slave??

That was his boss that put trist in to slavery. Lenny saved the evidence to use against him later but he wasnt brave enough to do it.

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