Thief Development Thread

[sunspawn]

The thing is, Fire Breath is canonical for the GBA class, which is not even a Lancer - it's Dragoon, a dragonish-themed class that's somewhat different from the Lancer of FFT and, at least as I read it, here.

[kablizzy]

I didn't see much difference between the two when doing my research on Lancer, dudes that wear dragon hats and wield spears and jump and have access to mostly the same skills with that exception, so I figured I'd classify it in there as well. In either case, we have other options if we decide to go another way with development. Plus, as far as Lancer goes, I like other skills better, but that's for the Lancer thread.

In terms of this, need a lot of conceptual work here. Need Ilium to respond a bit and then I'll comment more.

[Mordred]

Fire Breath is a pretty cool skill to leave them with. A problem with a lot of the posted classes is that a lot of fighter classes have access to a variety of elemental attacks within their native skill set, which makes me feel a little bit apprehensive - the elemental game is sort of the Wizard/Summoner/Geomancer stomping ground as I see it.

As long as Lancers don't also get Ice Breath and Thunder Breath, I don't see a problem with keeping Fire Breath.

[Schwerpunkt]

May 2, 2013 8:27:29 GMT -6 sunspawn said:

The thing is, Fire Breath is canonical for the GBA class, which is not even a Lancer - it's Dragoon, a dragonish-themed class that's somewhat different from the Lancer of FFT and, at least as I read it, here.

Lancer was re-translated as Dragoon in WotL. It's the same class, just with a slightly different name.

I still prefer Lancer, though. "Let's give the dragon influences to the Dragoon class!" is not very clever.

[Mordred]

Ladies, I have an idea.

Thieves can "steal" other characters' abilities in battle. This is kind of like Mime, but not quite so one-note. Once you "Steal" an enemy ability of your choosing, you can use it until you are K.O.'d and the victim can't use it until the thief is K.O.'d. Thieves can even steal monsters' abilities like this! (Hellooooo, Blue Magic done well!) Thieves can also "Peep" an enemy at a range to copy the last action they made - that is, like they stole it but without locking the victim's access to that skills and without being able to choose which ability since it's based on the last thing the target actually did.

Thieves also gain the Well-Prepared/Equip Change stuff I came up with for Squire. For the Thief, it's flavored as "I have stolen so much shit in my career that I have anything I might possibly need in my sack o' loot."

There we go: Ninjas remain the speedy, stealthy, knife-wielding assassins, while Thieves are speedy, anything-wielding rogues, whipping out an entire bag of party tricks based on their stealing motif without actually breaking the economy.

Thoughts?

[Schwerpunkt]

I'd like Play Dead to be an active ability that triggers as a "reaction" the next time the Thief gets whacked. That alleviates the problem of "this class has really shitty brave and can't reliably trigger reaction abilities" that Kablizzy's original build had.

And I honestly have no idea where we are on this class because the first post hasn't been updated.

As for Mord's suggestions, I like the idea of always being prepared. The Thief is the goddamn Batman. I don't like, however, the whole 'Peep' angle. That's kind of silly. Why would a Thief be able to jetpack jump into a group of mobs like a Lancer, shield slam like a Knight, or lob Holy at people like a Priest?

[kablizzy]

I LOVE Play Dead, and I don't know where we're at either, I'll have to go through this and figure out a bit better where I stand.

[Mordred]

Play Dead could be a unique Reaction in terms of its trigger condition; there's no need to make it a really weird Action ability when it's more suited for being a really weird Reaction ability.

"Peep" was my attempt to throw it in somewhere in some way that might be useful, but yea, Thieves don't really need to be able to steal powerz at range. The melee-range Steal Ability, though, is what makes this version of Thief worthy of the name. If that doesn't float your collective boats, it's back to the drawing board for me.

[kablizzy]

Eh, not that it doesn't do it for me - it's cool enough, I just haven't decided what side of the fence I fall on for Thief yet.

[Schwerpunkt]

Making Play Dead a reaction ability is hugely problematic. Think about it: the Archer opens the battle by shooting the Thief. The Thief plays dead and spends three turns splayed out on the ground. Suddenly the party that started the map is seriously degraded in its efficiency. And you have to go into battle with that reaction ability equipped or you simply can't use it. This basically makes the Thief's own reaction ability into a way to permanently CC the Thief.

If we instead make Play Dead an active ability that fires when you next take damage, it makes a lot more sense.

[Mordred]

Alright, fair enough then.

[pendejochy]

I think I prefer the name rouge, because it implies both stealing and dirty fighting, but doesn't necessarily have to include the first one.

www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0008.html

I don't know if we're doing HoI style plots in this game, but maybe instead of abilities directly related to stealing, we do abilities indirectly related to it?

Like a treasure hunter ability where the thief has the ability to get more money/gold from a battle o just find it laying around the battlefield? Like a X% chance to find a potion, some gold, or some other useful thing every X turns?

A "tiptoe" ability that lets the thief avoid traps and entry hazards like punji traps, bear traps, and claymores?

Ignore height support/movement ability, expressed as using those ninja claw things or suction cups on your hands?

The ability to steal stats (just for the duration of the battle or until you KO the thief) where you can swipe some of the other guy's speed or PA?

The ability to hide in certain terrains like woodlands?

A support ability that lets you put on a disguise, so you can start the battle as an innocent bush, allowing you to move around the battlefield until you decide to strike? Maybe you can even reuse it in certain circumstances, like if the enemy falls asleep? Won't work if you're the only one fighting.

Basically, instead of outright stealing, the rogue is just sneaky, which could serve him in battle, or he can also/instead use it to write up a plot about breaking into an NPC's house and robbing him blind.

Stealing from PCs should still not be allowed, even outside of battle for game balance reasons.

[Mordred]

We already discussed Thieves giving bonus XP/JP/Gil. To summarize my reasons for why this is a terrible idea: your Job class is a purely combat choice, and if one Job had extra economic perks we would have to weaken it in combat to compensate, else it would be OP. Weakening the Job's combat ability, however, would turn it into a liability for the party and the player, overall no fun for anyone involved.

If traps are going to be in the game, a tiptoe skill would be very useful. Currently there are no plans to incorporate traps.

Ignore Height isn't currently on the drawing board; even Lancer only gets Jump+5.

Stealing stats would be cool.

Doesn't Ninja get the vanish thing?

[kablizzy]

Ninja has something akin to Vanish, yeah. I'm continually on the other side of the fence for the Xp /Jp /Gil thing, but for now, we'll roll with the 'No economic' thing.

[Diethe]

Also Pende, yeah the stealing thing has been limited to looting loot bags from people (Thief will be given an ability or two relating to stealing loot bags once per enemy while still alive, giving the possibility of actually still winning rewards even if you lost the battle and a bit more loot). No more, no less. This is to compensate for combat ability at the same time keep the 'thief' theme. It'll be called 'Mug' that allows you to steal loot based on the level of the target at the same time deal some minor damage like a 'throw stone' one.

Still, no permanent items can be stolen.