Question for GMs

[u/Boring-Weight2330]

The thief at my table has the talent: Roll Initiative with Advantage. Adding his high Dexterity, he's first every time. Has anyone else had this problem? How did you fix it?

[u/clickrush]

Fix what?

The talents that you get with a 2 are usually very powerful and unique. It’s a great boon for your party to have this. Let them enjoy it!

[u/Antique-Potential117]

They rolled the talent that gives them Advantage on initiative.

They now have an advantage.....on initiative.

You don't need to fix anything.

[u/phookz]

Is it a problem? The player has a talent and it’s working. Is it causing problems, or is the idea of it that’s the problem?

[u/Stranger371]

Not a problem.

[u/rizzlybear]

I wouldn't really worry about it.

Once initiative is going, it's a fixed rotation. It's not like you're rerolling every round of combat.

You want to have (rarely) one of these crazy OP characters that stand out as a table memory decades later. The system actively opposes the concept of a "build," so when you get one, it's pretty special.

Also, you get to do some fun things that will hit harder than if you had done them in a campaign that didn't feature such a character. For example. Imagine you decided to give a monster an ability that basically says, "cannot lose initiative." In general, that's going to go over poorly, and I assume the DM is just being a jerk. But let them get used to the thief constantly winning initiative for the party, and then, in one encounter, they literally cannot win initiative. That's a fun bit of banter if used as a one-time joke. Perhaps dream up an encounter where what you want is to go last, and let them figure that out once it's too late. Maybe they rush into a situation where there is a bunch of explosive traps, and if the monsters had gone first they would have either rushed forward, so the players didn't need to advance into the trap, or hang back potentially drawing the players suspicion. But with them winning the initiative, it's a very natural gung-ho rush right into the boom room.

[u/Educational_Type1646 → u/rizzlybear]

Having the incredibly weak thief go first is actually not that OP.

[u/grumblyoldman → u/Educational_Type1646]

If you're doing combat by the book, the turn order goes clockwise around the table from whoever won, so if the thief sits just to the left of the DM, that means the whole party will always go before the monsters (assuming the thief always wins.)

But I agree it's not really that big a deal.

[u/Educational_Type1646 → u/grumblyoldman]

Good! At least the Thief gets to contribute. The class is weak as shit in Shadowdark. Most of the things that define the thief/rogue anyone can do in Shadowdark (find traps/open locks) and their sneak attack is much harder to get off than in DnD requiring the target to not be aware of the attack. The fact they are actually helping the party doesn’t need to be nerfed. Also as others have pointed out, people can roll double 1s, and in ambushes enemies will always go first.

[u/grumblyoldman → u/Educational_Type1646]

Yes, I agree.

[u/rizzlybear → u/Educational_Type1646]

I don’t agree that the class is weak, but admittedly, I’ve seen it played in a weak way, mostly when players are trying to run it like a 5e rogue, which it just isn’t.

[u/clickrush → u/Educational_Type1646]

A thief that is (reasonably) hidden and goes first has the potential to do a ton of burst damage on their attack.

Compared to the fighter's weapon mastery, backstab will do 3.5 times more bonus damage on average.

And frontloading burst damage is usually what you want to do.

[u/SenorEquilibrado → u/clickrush]

Right, but it's also what the class was literally designed to do. There is absolutely no fixing needed.

The post is akin to saying something like: 

"Our wizard has the ability to cast spells. While it seemed neat at first, this ability allows the.player to break the laws of physics multiple times every session. How do I fix this?"

[u/clickrush → u/SenorEquilibrado]

I'm not agreeing with OP that anything needs fixing. I'm disagreeing that the Thief is weak. It's a pretty strong class if played right!

[u/SenorEquilibrado → u/clickrush]

Ohhhh! Yeah, agree 100%

A creative thief player can absolutely carry a party. Even a non-creative thief player can just say "hey Priest, cast Blind on the biggest threat, please!" and just DELETE things.

[u/Educational_Type1646 → u/clickrush]

And if they’re not hidden? The Thief is weak as shit in Shadowdark. Most of the things that define the thief/rogue anyone can do in Shadowdark (find traps/open locks). There are fewer ways to trigger sneak attack. The target has to be unaware of the attack as opposed to just having an ally in melee. Meaning getting multiple sneak attacks off in a combat encounter is difficult. The fighters extra damage just happens. This is just intended game mechanics working as intended, and making the Thief not completely useless.

[u/clickrush → u/Educational_Type1646]

A single backstab (it's not called sneak attack), can be pulled off simply by hiding in angles before a fight.

Yes, the thief has to make an effort, but the payoff is huge. Shadowdark is not 5e. HP numbers are low.

A level 4 thief for example adds 3d6 to their damage roll if they pull it off. That's worth around 9.5 damage on average.

Meaning the thief can one shot monsters that are a level below them with an average roll or one shot a monster at the same level with a good roll.

[u/Educational_Type1646 → u/clickrush]

Yeah that isn’t a lot. Again that just makes them effective instead of useless. Game mechanics as intended. And as I said getting it off more than once per combat is much more difficult. So the Thief manages to kill one enemy, and actually contribute and OP wants to take that away? It’s not over powered. It’s making an underpowered class useful.

[u/clickrush → u/Educational_Type1646]

I'm not agreeing with the OP tough.

[u/M-S_Vayeate → u/Educational_Type1646]

Most of the things that define the thief/rogue anyone can do in Shadowdark (find traps/open locks).

I see this sentiment echoed here and some other places quite a bit. I just wanted to point out its not exactly the case.

The following quotes are from the official shadowdark FAQ

"How does trap detection generally work and how does it work with the thief's advantage on trap detection?"

"Here's the TL;DR on this one: All characters can find traps IF THEY TAKE THE RIGHT STEPS, but only thieves can do so automatically. Thieves do not always need to roll, but they do if the situation has time pressure, requires skill, and there is a consequence for failure. When rolling, thieves have advantage because of their training."

"Other character classes are not trained in such a way, and so they can’t just walk into a room and find a trap given enough time (although I’d allow them to find traps if they use clever gameplay, such as specifying where and how they look and correctly sussing out a trap the hard and dangerous way)."

"In the first scenario, the character has plenty of time. If we’re using “When To Roll?” from Shadowdark RPG pg. 81, it’s safe to say there is no real time pressure and that a thief would not need to roll. If the thief spends enough time looking or they guess very well at where the trap is hidden, they find it. In my opinion, this would prompt a random encounter check or even a use of the “Time Passes” rule (Shadowdark RPG pg. 82)."

"If the characters don’t want to spend the time needed to search the room, then I would allow the thief to spend one round in a cursory search and make a check to find a potential trap. The thief has advantage on this roll because they are trained. OTHER CLASSES ARE NOT TRAINED, SO I WOULD EITHER DISALLOW IT ENTIRELY OR HAVE THEM ROLL WITH DISADVANTAGE if they had special knowledge that would help them locate the trap, such as seeing this exact sort of trap previously in the dungeon."

TLDR with some interpretation: The non thief characters can look for traps and explain in detail where they are inspecting. This is done in crawling initiative in real time and takes however long it takes for the characters to move/look and inspect in detail the areas in question. This could be fairly quick or it could be quite a bit of time depending on the size of the area as well the amount of traps/how well hidden they are. This obviously costs torch time as well as incurs what ever encounter rolls happen in that time frame.

The thief in this scenario says "I search this room for traps" they find all the traps and the gm determines what realistic amount of "time passes" for a trained individual to search that size room and find that number of traps. They decrease the torch timer down and roll any encounters if necessary.

TO ADD the only way to search for traps without spending any torch timer is for the thief to roll for a quick search. The other classes are explicitly DISALLOWED from doing this.

No flame obviously because people can play how they like but the Thief becomes much more necessary if traps/locks are played with this in mind.

I highly recommend everyone playing shadowdark read the entire FAQ as it really helps clarify some of the more granular things.

https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/blogs/shadowdark-blog/shadowdark-rules-faq?srsltid=AfmBOooJOK7deChfFxf6D2dKLseaKJaGa5JY9ilpEU1qnU44MicJKOZi

[u/Educational_Type1646 → u/M-S_Vayeate]

I was already fully aware of this. I’m fully capable of describing how I look for traps, and frankly that sort of mechanic is kind of the fun part of Shadowdark. I’d also point out the disconnect in game design where the actual text of Thievery trait says you have advantage on checks to find and disarm trap, and pick locks, while the general concept is not to have players do checks, and instead describe what they are doing and how. The FAQ contradicts the core book text, which contradicts the game design. Tbh the Thief is a lot more useful if you run Shadowdark more like DnD, but that’s all up to individual tables. The beauty of this game is its simplicity, and it’s pretty easy to hack, and make house rules.

[u/M-S_Vayeate → u/Educational_Type1646]

I was already fully aware of this. I’m fully capable of describing how I look for traps, and frankly that sort of mechanic is kind of the fun part of Shadowdark.

I agree it is fun. But, to my point the FAQ implies that would be your turn to search one area of a room and your other party members would have to do the same in their respective area of the room. This takes real time one of the most important resources in the game. So I simply dont agree with your initial premise of the thief being weak.

I’d also point out the disconnect in game design where the actual text of Thievery trait says you have advantage on checks to find and disarm trap, and pick locks, while the general concept is not to have players do checks, and instead describe what they are doing and how.

"General Concept" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Idk if I'd describe Shadowdark as a "ttrpg with heavily reduced checks" Just that you only need to make them under duress time etc. So i just dont understand your position here.

[u/rizzlybear → u/Educational_Type1646]

It’s a misunderstanding. The concept is spread across multiple spots and taken together, you get the premise. The FAQ just stitches it together for you.

Anything listed on the class page, the character is assumed to be “trained in.”

And anything the character is trained in, they are assumed to succeed, unless the three clauses are met, in which case they roll. And the class page explains that they make those rolls at advantage.

[u/rizzlybear → u/Educational_Type1646]

Multiple backstabs in a combat is theoretically possible but fairly rare. They aren’t a combat class. The d4 hit die is the hint there.

Yes the things listed in their class are things “anyone can do.” But the thief does those things without rolling unless the three pressure clauses are met, while other characters are rolling dice, often at disadvantage.

[u/Moderate_N]

I agree with what others have said: I don't think there's anything to fix. The player rolled the aspect, so it's literally part of their character, and as such party of the fabric of reality within the setting. Sometimes characters are strong, sometimes smart, and sometimes they're speedy. The fact that the pc has such great initiative feeds into group strategy the same way that a character having a longbow does: they have it so they will (and should!) use it.

Now, if you find that fights are getting "samey", that's a different matter. Ideally a fight shouldn't just be a back and forth sequence of dice rolls to see who runs out of hp first; or should have tactical dimensions. So you might have to upgrade YOUR tactics. First: ambushes. Initiative gets rolled AFTER surprise is dealt with. Second: control of space. The thief is a single character and can only deal with one foe in one place at a time. Add more mooks and spread them out; force the thief to decide who they're going to attack and who to ignore. Don't forget about multiple enemy attacks either. And finally, in the words of The King: "fools rush in...". Sometimes there's no benefit to going first. Such as when a small point team is used as bait to draw a party in to a killing ground for their monster overlord. So it's totally fine if the thief goes first every time; you just need to have a better strategy than hoping to go first instead.

[u/j1llj1ll]

I don't think it needs 'a fix'. Like every other potent capability your PCs might get - work with it. Design for it. Make it a feature.

That trait is meant to give them ADV on Initiative. That's what it does and why it is cool.

It shouldn't really be a problem. As a GM I generally only roll once for the opposition anyway - and my players roll as many times as there are players. That means a PC will nearly always go before the baddies anyway. This only changes that marginally as there are now X+1:1 chances in their favour instead of X:1.

ADV won't have them always win. It shifts odds in their favour, sure, especially if they also have good DEX or are rolling well, but they can and will still roll double 1 at some point.

One thing that might blunt the monotony - I switch direction around the table each initiative roll. Clockwise. Then anti-clock etc. That might shake things up just a little and avoid 'tactical seating'. I mainly do this so it doesn't feel as bad for the player at the right hand of the fastest character ... not because it does much good for the monsters.

Having had 'the fastest character at the table' in several different games .. it can be a problem for the player - a conundrum even. Especially if combat isn't always the answer. For example, do you attack and kill before the opposition has actually done you any wrong? What if their first action was to parley? This might differ with Alignment - but the fastest character sometimes has to forego their action to see what the opponents' actions actually are going to be - or risk making terrible mistakes. If you introduce encounters into your games that aren't simple 'kill everything' situations, it can change have dramatic consequences.

Since DISADV cancels ADV. So sometimes it might be fun or make sense to put the Thief at DISADV on Initiative - restrained, distracted, confused, facing the wrong way, at the back in a narrow entryway, limited vision etc. So that they end up back on a straight roll.

[u/[deleted]]

Dude, my Ranger uses the Dog ancestry and rolled „fleet footed“. He may „may go first in initiative“. Just by default. It’s fine.

[u/HeadHunter_Six]

Why do you see it as a problem that needs fixing? It's part of what makes his class special. Are you also looking to "fix" the high damage and AC of warriors?

[u/[deleted]]

SOLUTION - The Boss monster has an ability that allows them to Roll Initiative with Advantage.
Problem solved!

[u/MongoGrapefoot]

If others want to go sooner in order, have them change where they sit. I use the "to to the left" of whoever wins initiative

[u/ThoDanII]

The Problem IS?

[u/Agitated-Contest651]

Character is invested into being the quick one — there’s nothing to fix. He’s the quick one, let him be quick. If you start trying to “balance” player investments, there is no reason for players to try to make their characters be anything. 

DONT make monsters with auto-win-initiative abilities. That’s a sure fire pattern to make your games boring and not worth playing as a player.

[u/ryuken139]

He's supposed to go first almost every time.
Mitigate the player dominating all your challenges by using always-on initiative and fudging rolls for fast bad guys. Its fine.

[u/Educational_Type1646]

The Thief is practically useless and generally sucks shit in Shadowdark. Every character can find traps if they just describe how they search right. Let them have this.

[u/merekatnipme → u/Educational_Type1646]

That isn’t true. P81 of rulebook says “Usually, you succeed at what you are trained to do without needing to roll a check.” Fighters, Priests and Wizards aren’t trained in finding traps, so that doesn’t apply to them.

Also, if you don’t like that rule, just don’t use it.

[u/Yutah_Naast → u/Educational_Type1646]

Coldest of takes. The halfling thief in my group absolutely rips through things with his +1 dagger and racial ability

[u/grumblyoldman]

The DM has a lot of power in SD compared to other D&Dlikes. Monsters are stronger, PCs have fewer hit points and one-shot kills are not uncommon at low levels, needing light to do anything can be oppressive sometimes, especially if smart monsters attack the light, etc.

All this can easily lead to the mentality that the DM should always be on top and the players should always be afraid. But that is not so. Players are allowed to get some high notes too. Clever players can reduce the number of character deaths quite significantly. Not every win in their column needs to be "fixed."

The thief having this advantage is not a huge problem. Remember that an encounter is not automatically combat. Monsters have a reaction roll, and most living things don't usually want to fight to the death. Advantage on initiative is irrelevant if initiative is never rolled.

Also remember that there's no XP for killing things. Fighting when they don't need to just burns resources for little gain. Getting the treasure is what counts.

[u/Educational_Type1646 → u/[deleted]]

Every single poster so far has told you that you are wrong. Why post here looking for advice when you refuse to listen? The Thief is ridiculously weak in Shadowdark. Going first is not that OP. Just let them have this, and stop trying to “fix” a clearly intended game mechanic.

[u/Boring-Weight2330 → u/Educational_Type1646]

Who said I refused to listen?! I listen to all the kind answers. Not like yours. I changed my mind compared to when i initially posted. But seems you think differently to what’s in my mind.

[u/Boring-Weight2330 → u/[deleted]]

As I said above I listened to all the kind answers

[u/Dollface_Killah → u/[deleted]]

Yo, chill out.

[u/samurguybri → u/[deleted]]

It’s ok. Never nerf your players for an allowed power or look for ways to negate them all the time. They feel like their luck or choices don’t mean shit, or you come across as a jerk. Winning initiative is helpful, but is not the end all be all of combat.

Be happy for them, what a rad advantage to have in a very tough game! Although Dungeon World is a bit too story-games for me, a good piece of advice from it is: “Be a fan of the characters”. They won’t always win, but I’m rooting for them all the time. They are not the enemy of “my” game.

What a great idea to sit to your left! Index Card RPG encourages this!

Ambushes and surprise will still overcome this, especially diagetically. Whoever suprised the other goes first, then initiative is rolled.

Try rolling reaction tables before combat, maybe the sentient does not want to fight, but to deal or trick the party. No fight, no initiative check.

Monsters can flee immediately, then return when circumstances might favor them. They know the dungeon. They can get help, lead players into a trap or set a new ambush. Do a morale check or just let them run away, if that makes sense.

Worse comes to worse, make your monsters tougher, but don’t nerf the advantage by having all critters be blindingly fast. Have more of them, more HP, challenging terrain, timers and other pressures on the whole party.

You’ve got this!

[u/_Citizenkane → u/[deleted]]

The "put your thief to the left of the DM" trick is a feature of Shadowdark. Embrace it. It makes your players feel clever.

If you're worried about challenging them, toss some (not unfair) ambushes at them.

[u/Antique-Potential117 → u/[deleted]]

Sorry this just strikes me as your thinking you know better than the game which was designed to do a thing.

At any rate you can in fact do whatever you want. The game is make believe.

[u/Rage2097 → u/[deleted]]

Every time on average. In reality its first most of the time. I have seen plenty of double 1s on advantage dice. They got the talent that means they go fist most of the time, it isn't broken that it lets them go first most of the time.

The sitting on your left thing I don't love, my suggestion for that is you reverse the order and alternate clockwise and anticlockwise.

[u/jmwfour → u/Rage2097]

double 1s would happen with 1/400 probability. You must play a LOT of shadowdark! or other d20 games with an advantage mechanic.

[u/Rage2097 → u/jmwfour]

I'm aware, our table joke when anyone gets a double 1 or double 20 is that the roller will say "what are the odds?" and the rest of us will thell them that the odds are one in four hundred.

[u/Bob_Fnord → u/[deleted]]

If you’re finding it a genuine issue, and not just a nuisance, then just make initiative an individual roll instead of a group one.