Thief (Dungeons & Dragons)
| A Dungeons & Dragons character class | |
|---|---|
| Publication history | |
| First appearance | Supplement I - Greyhawk |
| Editions | All |
| (as an alternate class) | OD&D |
| Stats | OGL stats |
The rogue or thief is one of the standard playable character classes in most editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. A rogue is a versatile character, capable of sneaky combat and nimble tricks. The rogue is stealthy and dextrous, and in 2nd edition was the only official base class from the Player's Handbook capable of finding and disarming many traps and picking locks. The rogue also has the ability to "sneak attack" ("backstab" in previous editions) enemies who are caught off-guard or taken by surprise, inflicting extra damage.
The abilities of the thief class were drawn from various archetypes from history and myth, but clear debts from modern fantasy literature can be traced to characters such as J.R.R. Tolkien's Bilbo Baggins, Fritz Leiber's The Gray Mouser, and Jack Vance's Cugel the Clever.
In his article "Jack Vance and the D&D Game", Gary Gygax stresses the influence that Vance's Cugel and also Zelazny's Shadowjack had on the thief class.
D&D fan Gary Switzer shared the idea for a thief class with Gary Gygax over the phone; development was done in Switzer's roleplaying group, primarily by D. Daniel Wagner, one of the writers of the Manual of Aurania, the first non-TSR D&D supplement. The thief class was introduced in the original 1975 Greyhawk supplement. They had 4-sided hit dice under the new combat system introduced in that supplement.
The thief was one of the standard character classes available in the original Player's Handbook. The thief was presented as one of the five core classes in the original Players Handbook. In the 1st edition the Thief character class was the only character class that any nonhuman type, such as an elf or dwarf or halfling, could achieve unlimited levels in. In some lights, it must be stated that thieves can be a very noble class indeed, and this is reflected in the AD&D game rules, permitting thieves to be Neutral Good or even Lawful Neutral, but never Lawful or Chaotic Good. Gary Gygax has noted in hindsight that this may have been an oversight, as alignment was never meant to be viewed as an absolute hierarchy of best to worst, and character classes should reflect their medieval fantasy counterparts, even into accurate ethical and moral alignment license.
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