What's the best way to build a thief in 3.5? What's

>>49252524
Define "thief". Also, while we're at it, define "best". I'm not entirely sure what you want here. Do you just want to be able to steal stuff reliably?

I had one player do amazing with straight rogue with no alterations. Another took a higher magic route to the thievery goal and went arcane trickster. Yet another went straight wizard and used magic for shenanigans. In a slightly more powerful game, I saw a pair of players playing an ur priest and illithid savant, literally stealing magic from their opponents and the gods themselves. More information is necessary.

>>49252687
Stealing, pickpocketing, some points in social skills as well to weasel your way out of situations.
You know, stereotypical thief stuff.

>>49252524
Can't speak for 3.5e but for 5e I had a character who resorting to thievery for quick,easy cash to pay for his lifestyle of laziness and glamour. Outside of that, however, he was very lazy and had an interesting take on the flexibility of the law, doing everything from forgery to thievery, but never murder.

He was raised in a village known for skilled mercenaries and cutthroats, but due to some circumstances he was quite pacifistic, determined to injure but never kill. Using throwing daggers to disarm and disable and destroy, caltrops to slow and hamper, dust to blind, and even bear traps to immobilize, he'd weaken foes to the point of surrender or easy dispatching by the party.

tl;dr lazy pile of pacifistic shit resorts to thievery to make quick cash, gets wrapped up with an adventuring party and helps by throwing a metric fuck ton of objects

>>49252524
I had a LG goblin rogue salesmen who followed the paladin code but still picked pockets.

I stole a girls immortal soul off her vampire master, along with his wallet, which i gave back after he was beaten.

>>49252524
Wiz/Sor with Invisibility, Knock, and Charm Person. Maybe put some cross-class points into stealth skills if you need to.

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>>49252752
1) Use attachment related so you can supplement your skills and Trapfinding with some psychic powers (reskinned to taste)
2) See if your DM will still let you use the Feat-Rogue variant from Unearthed Arcana with this; swap out your Sneak Attack progression for bonus feats.
3) Pick up the Shape Soulmeld feat or even a dip in the Incarnate class so you can supplement your skill ranks with some impressive competence bonuses via soulmelds.
4) Bind a vestige. Naberius is a good one.

>>49252524

There are many ways to build a thief, but I prefer those that do not immediately advertise you are a thief to everyone around you. Was always fond of adopting another class to act as a "front" of sorts; one level in fighter, one level in wizard, or even a couple levels in commoner.

Being dressed in black leather with a dozen daggers visible is not the ideal.

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>>49252752
Generally when I make Rogue characters, they tend to focus on only one of these, not all of them.

As for which one is the most fun... it depends on the RP, but either quick-talking conman, or parkour-heavy pickpockets pulling off Assassin-Creed-Style chases.

I've never actually found the whole lockpicking/trap disarming route to be very fun... and stealth/disguise tends to fall flat in larger parties because you either do those things alone and split the party, or the party sticks together and you're only as good at it as the worst player.

By making a bard.

>>49253350
>>49252524

Alternatively, could make a Factotum.

>>49253350
This, or sorcerer. Possibly cleric of some thief god. Arcane Trickster?

I think Spellthief wasn't even half bad.

>>49252524
I made a rogue/warlock hybrid once who was a lot of fun. A lot of the invocations sync up really well with thievery. And you can do magic item shenanigans.

>>49252524
Wizard specializing in the Illusion school.

>>49253720
This. Warlock/Rogue is better than Arcane Trickster archetype. Infinite Disguise-Self and such is really nice.

Actually, forget most of the Rogue part completely. Just take the Skilled feat and play a Warlock with lots of skill proficiencies and play them like a Rogue even though they aren't. You don't get a whole lot that's noteworthy from the higher levels of Rogue anyway.

>>49253767
If anything, it's the Enchanting school you'd actually want. All Illusion specialization does later on is make semi-real illusions that cause psychic damage. Generally harming/killing people is sorta bad if you wana be a good thief. If you're just after Illusion for invisibility and distractions and such, you don't really need to choose the Illusion school specialization to get them.

>>49252524
Not sure about the rest of your shit but the most fun i ever had was playing a literal whore.
Seduce people into close proximity and either i'm suddenly close enough to take their shit or they're asleep long before i am which buys me time to loot their shit.
Basically whored my way to the BBEG's bed. Even took a player for a ride cause he is thought OOC and IC what we had was "special".
Honestly, while it was the easiest and most money i ever made it was also sad.

Try it, you might like it.

>>49254335
No idea why it added "is" between "he" and "thought".

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>>49254335
Don't be That Guy, unless you're openly playing a Magical Realm ERP to begin with.

>>49254418
No magical realm involved. Just recognizing weakness and exploiting it with what i had at hand.

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>>49254500
>Literally build a character who's gimmick is sexing people for loot and information.
>"Yeah guys, it's not magical realm or fetish based at all."

At the very least I hope you wern't making the GM describe it all while everyone else sat there feeling awkward.

>>49254575
Thats just it. Everyone at the table was so ripe for it they didn't even care. They WANTED it to happen. The fucking bard even got jealous it wasn't him i chose cause he had jack shit for gold or loot. The GM even made the paladin fall for his actions in a jealous fit AFTER i looted him blind. The fucking BBEG at that point welcomed me with open arms cause then it was the GM's turn.
The method could have been candy or handshaking for all it mattered but it worked and it worked so well.

>>49254418
>>49254575
Ok dude, chill, it's not ERP if they fade to black.

You DID fade to black, anon, right?

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>>49252524
>What's the best way to build a thief in 3.5?
By playing different edition
Or game, really

>>49254683
What games have the best thief-type classes or archetypes? What are the high points of them?

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>>49254671
>"Thats just it. Everyone at the table was so ripe for it they didn't even care. They WANTED it to happen."

I'll take that as a "no".

>>49254694
4e has thief of legend, which is the thiefiest thief to ever thief.

In D&D anyway.

>>49254740
Epic Destinies don't count, it's practically "congrats you've won the game, here's some stuff from Exalted".

How does thievery play during usual adventuring and levelling in 4e?

>>49254717
>>49254671
For the most part. Like i said. It could have been milk and cookies or vomitting jewels for all the actusl method was concerned.
What i did it for was the fact they wanted it badly enough they threw their shit at me then said I was the victim and my only misdeed was playing with them in THEIR game.

Either way, OP asked for the most fun i had a theif and that was it. Complete and utter mayhem and control and they gave it all to me.

>>49254760
I actually have the character builder at hand so I decided to check.

A first level Eladrin Thief is trained in:
-stealth
-thievery
-streetwise
-bluff
-athletics
-acrobatocs
-perception

and can
-short range teleport
-essentially has a climb speed
-may use thievery at range (like Arcane Trickster) for a feat

with the Treasurehunter background can also:
- Once a day use Treasure sense (although it's not as amazing as it sounds, it merely gives a +4 bonus to find an item of your choice).

I'm leveling it up just to see what powers are available.

>>49254980
2nd level utility: nothing too exciting. Lots of options for skill bonuses, lots of minor action use of thievery, stealth and one cool option that lets you substitute streetwise for a bunch of checks (basically, you know someone who can help).

6th level utility: Some nice choices. There's one that lets you bluff so hard the other guy doubts his own memory. A trapfinding one that lets you reroll any rolls for finding traps. Otherwise a bunch of bonuses to stealth and stuff.

10th level utility: A power that lets you steal in combat without any penalties. A power that lets you take/give basically any item from/to the target, without revealing you if you are hidden. A power that lets you bluff so hard you can complete a ritual you don't have enough resources for or aren't skilled enough to do. A power that turns you literally invisible as long as you aren't in bright light.

Feats: can learn a cantrip (ghost sound, mage hand, etc.). Thief feats let you steal stuff in combat. I wanted to go through all, but holy shit there's a lot and a lot is just combat.

>>49255271
Its alrigth, you're showing that it has plenty cool shit already.

>>49254694
OD&D. There were no spot rolls so the player had to figure it out by themselves from the DM's descriptions. And you couldn't just roll disable device, you had to describe yourself how your character would go about the business first. Reducing solving puzzles and traps to a just flat skill check is the worst disservice the modern editions did to the whole genre.

>>49252524
Be a dickass that steals things, even ehen completely unnecessary.

>>49255370
>There were no spot rolls so the player had to figure it out by themselves from the DM's descriptions.
That's NPCs, how did player stealth work then?

>>49255370
Meh, when I play OD&D I always feel like I'm controlling a point and click adventure game character, except I get a random chance to not die if I click on something the designers of the game didn't want me to click on.

With skill rolls I can actually have a character who has a sort of baseline competence (or, in the case of skills he's bad at, a cap, no matter how wily the player is).

>>49255271
In paragon:

PPs usually have 1 utility power, which is not much. Some of them are pretty cool. Veiled Master can douse any kind of light source, that then can't be re-lit until the encounter ends (or out of combat that's about 5 mins), and also gets limited range blindsight. Pretty cool overall.

Otherwise, nothing interesting until Epic (thief is an essentials class so it doesn't get any power choices; pretty sure a rogue would have faired better in this respect), where there's Thief of Legend, which does thigs like let you steal your soul back from death (effectively becoming immortal), or steal away a warlord's ambition. You are essentially Carmen Sandiego, except you don't have to let the kids win.

>>49252524
literally just be a rogue

>>49255393
By carefully describing how, where and in what way you are moving. 0D&D basically required from players to be REALLY creative, or they were dead in the 2nd room of the dungeon.

>>49255411
>I'm too lazy to think
Yeah, we've noticed

>>49255621
>0D&D basically required from players to be REALLY good at figuring out what the DM wants to hear, or they were dead in the 2nd room of the dungeon.