One of the premises of The McHack is that the game should be as simple as possible. I don’t really like skills as they add a layer of complexity that keeps players looking at the character sheets instead of the “eyes-up” gaming I prefer. But if thieves don’t have skills, what even is the point of them?

I decided to make thief skills just an extension of the Task mechanic – a D12 roll against a target – for certain thief-like tasks. Instead of altering the target score as the thief advances, I chose to provide a pool of bonus points that the player can divide among the various thief skills as desired. The character gets four bonus points per level. These points then act as bonuses to individual skill rolls on a one-for-one basis. This leaves me free as a referee to set Skill Targets dependent on the current situation, and the player gets to apply a bonus depending on which skill is being used.

Another recurring theme through The McHack is the restriction of Ability Score Bonuses to one-off adjustment (so for example a character’s CON Modifier is applied once only to HPs, not every level). So for thief skills I decided to add the thief’s DEX Modifier once at level one to those pool of bonus points. If the DEX Mod goes up or down throughout the course of the game the player needs to amend their skill bonuses accordingly.

Regarding the actual skills open to a thief, I did not deviate too far from the original BX skills. The big exception is the Assassinate skill. This allows a thief a simple D12 skill roll to instantly kill any humanoid creature if they are able to secure a surprise attack. This is obviously a powerful skill, and helps to elevate the thief from humble lock-pick to deadline assassin. It is one of the rules I will be most closely monitoring in test play to make sure it is not too powerful!

Thieves are only proficient in light armor (obviously) and medium weapons (makes sense). Thieves cannot be lawful or good, which is pretty self-explanatory, I think. Thieves are allowed to spend up to 10% of their treasure on honing their skills in an urban or similar setting, thus allowing for quick access to XP, and they can join a thieves guild for protection and plot hooks.

That’s McHack thieves – I hope you like them!

---