Ninja Class

Nathan, in his extremely famous poast about Thieves which has inspired a generation of gadabouts & ne'er-do-wells, said: Clerics have a “flavor-setting” problem, while Thieves have a “mechanical” problem. This mechanical problem is usually understood like this: with the Thief came a skill system that provided codified mechanics for tasks such as climbing or hiding that were previously resolved via rulings. The reason this is bad is because it can limit the field of play; if the Thief can “hide in shadows,” are other characters able to do so? This is typically the most common objection, which you will see noted again and again on various blog posts. And it got me thinking about how I have no mechanical issue with the Thief, my issue is entirely one of flavour, as I have no particular place in my heart for Sword & Sorcery and just find the thing the Thief embodies kinda boring, so it got me wondering why that is. The answer I arrived at was this: the Thief as-writen just seems like a…