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Old 01-18-2001, 07:42 AM   #1
Armisael
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I was sitting here drowning my sorrows in cordial when I came up with an idea. Thieves can backstab with edged weapons - why can't they blackjack people with blunt weapons? I mean think about it; a thief equips a club or mace, hides in the shadows, runs up behind a mercenary band's mage and clubs him over the head, doing normal damage and knocking him unconcious for 1d(thief's level) rounds. The mage is effectively out of the fight and the thief's companions move in for the kill, confident they won't have some bastard stunning them or making them run around like headless chickens. Comments?
 
Old 01-18-2001, 09:08 AM   #2
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Totally agree with you there, Armisael. Backstab to me really represents a surprise attack by a thief on an unsuspecting opponent, and the damage multiples reflect the victim being taken by surprise.

I believe that this has been addressed in 3rd Ed, where backstab is now called something like "Sneak Attack" or something, and thieves will be able to use any weapon to do it.
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Old 01-18-2001, 09:16 AM   #3
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I have always been thinking that one main use of a thief's backstab is to kill or disable someone very softly, even in the middle of a crowd. The victim then just falls down silently. Seems to me that a dagger is a much more efficient weapon to do that. Bashing people over the head is much less likely to stay unnoticed.
My AD&D 3 thief is allowed to 'sneak attack' with his dagger, but not with his short sword. I do not know about blunt weapons though.
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Old 01-18-2001, 09:20 AM   #4
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Moiraine - off topic, I tried to get into this really cool Sydney photos website but my connections really slow tonight, I'll try again tomorrow morning at work and post some photos for you!
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Old 01-18-2001, 09:23 AM   #5
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Not necessarily true, Moiraine. Stabbing someone in the back tends to produce a lot of blood and screaming. Ever play Thief?
 
Old 01-18-2001, 09:36 AM   #6
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Memnoch, thanks !
The weather is so cold and snowy here that I really need a picture from the other side of the world to keep me from freezing !

Armisael, the thief is my favourite character to play with, maybe I have a 'romantic' image of thieves in my mind (women do that sometimes !), but it seems to me that a real good thief would know exactly the exact point on the body of the victim to aim at in order to perform a instant and silent kill. It seems quite true from the heap of Fantasy books I have read, at least. Then I am not that much of a thief in real life, so ...
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Old 01-18-2001, 10:16 AM   #7
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Well, think about it realistically.
A third level thief sneaks through a large estate. She's just stolen a priceless piece of jewellery and is about to make her escape when not a meter in front of her, a door opens. Light pours out, and the lady of the house emerges, candle in hand. Luck is on the thief's side, and the woman turns her back to the thief and heads down the corridor. Now, the thief may or may not have the nerve to actually kill someone, but her top priority is escaping the manor undetected. All the estate's windows are barred, and the only exit is the door downstairs. The thief knows that if she trails the noblewoman from a distance there's a chance she'll be able to slip past without being seen, but there's a fairly high risk behind that, so she has two choices - use her dagger and slit the woman's throat, or use her blackjack to knock her unconscious. Consider what could happen. She's third level - there's a good chance she'd miss a critical point with the dagger and the woman would scream, and she can't gag her with a hand, because the woman has a candle in front of her; she'd see the thief in her peripheral vision. In any case, if a body was found, especially the body of a noble, there could be guards all over the city by the next morning, so there's a good chance the thief would have to skip town in the same night. In this scenario, which might be fairly typical for a thief, it'd be easier and far less risky to simply disable the noblewoman rather than kill her.
 
Old 01-18-2001, 11:00 AM   #8
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OK, OK, I give up !

One thing though. As I play a Gnome thief, I would need a very long club or hammer to bash a regular-sized person much higher than on his butt, and as my little Gnomy hasn't got the strength to carry his own rope anyway, the situation you described could be quite tricky for him ...
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Old 01-18-2001, 11:10 AM   #9
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Well in ADOD 3 ed you can sneak attack with all simple and martial weapons and even with bows and xbows, it is the attack of oppotunity against an enemy letting his guard down for example flatfooted or flanked, if a thief wihish to do so he can use a blunt weapon and even a blackjack or cudgel to deal out subdual damage knocking someone uncunsious.
And yes, it´s annoying not to be able to secretly sneak in and knocking people unconsious and get XP for it, I mean if you are a good thief you might have problem with killing everyone but a gready player wants XP and thus knocking unconsious(beware my mighty spelling ) becomes useless..
I think that a good thief should get more XP´s for not killing an enemy. Every fool can die or kill, but only a master can disarm or take out an opponent with harming him!
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Old 01-18-2001, 11:18 PM   #10
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Yer kidding me? I don't think you ought to get EP for blackjacking someone, but it should take them out of the entire fight. You'd end up killing them anyway, so EP shouldn't really be an issue... should it? Anyway, thieves are supposed to be more concerned with wealth than power.
And yeah, I can see how that might be a problem, Moiraine... heh. Then again, how would you go about backstabbing? Jab them in the thigh?
 
 


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