I’ve already drawn up a class based on Senshi from the anime Delicious in Dungeon, and while doing that, I thought of listing classes for the rest. While Falin and Marcille would require custom magic types, and Laios is the epitome of Generic Human Fighter (with good roleplaying to make it unique), Chilchuk is an obvious Halffoot Burglar… which hasn’t been properly updated to ACKS II, and is one of the classes with more work needed. Arbrethil, unsurprisingly, comes in with an adaptation, but, as it happens, I disagree with some of his picks, and others aren’t quite what is shown in the anime. Then, too, the anime is not quite HFH. Nonetheless, Arb’s work was a great help to me.
With that out of the way, I present to you:
Halffoot Picklock
· Key Attribute: DEX
· Requirements: DEX 9
· Hit Dice: 1d4
· Maximum Level: 10
Masters of opening doors and disarming traps, Halffoot Picklocks are a frequent sight in the more commercialized dungeons.
Combat Characteristics
While they habitually avoid threats, halffoot picklocks have been about some rough places, and are surprisingly good fighters when in tight spot.
Combat Proficiencies: Picklocks practiced with few weapons, proficient with only knives/daggers, shortswords, handaxes, slings, darts, and shortbows. Due to their light build, they are only comfortable wearing light and very light armor. They are proficient fighting with shields and with two weapons at a time.
Combat Progression: Despite their slightness and penchant for avoiding direct combat, picklocks pick up how to fight relatively quickly. They advance in attack and saving throws by two points per four levels, and can cleave once per two class levels (rounded down).
Starting Class Powers
Several of the Picklock’s class powers are identical to the Thief Skills of the same name, though the target numbers at a given level are sometimes modified by the other powers listed below. For brevity, the details of these powers are elided.
Listening: As Thief Skill
Trapbreaking: As Thief Skill
Lockpicking: As Thief Skill
Searching: As Thief Skill
Sneaking: As Thief Skill
Hiding: As Thief Skill
Pickpocketing: As Thief Skill
Natural Stealth: Due to their slight frame, halffoot picklocks are hard to spot even when not trying to be sneaky. Other creatures suffer -2 to their surprise rolls when encountering picklocks.
Skulking: Even when legging it, picklocks are elusive. They only suffer a penalty of -2 when Sneaking at combat speed, and of -5 when running. They also gain +2 to all Sneaking and Hiding throws compared to Thieves of their level.
Trackless Step: Halffoots naturally leave little sign of their passage, and picklocks cultivate this talent. They cannot be tracked, and, for each level of experience, can cover up the trail of another creature. Creatures so hidden, including the picklock, do not count against party size for purposes of evasion.
Placating: When caught, picklocks have a gift for avoiding punishment. If the picklock has not attacked an opponent during an encounter, and his fellow halffoots have likewise refrained, he may, as a combat-equivalent action, gush forth a spew of chatter that causes opponents to think twice before attacking. While doing so, they may not move more than half speed, but any opponent attempting to directly attack (not including area of effect attacks) the halffoot must save vs. spells or be unable to do so (their action is not wasted, though). This effect lasts until the halffoot’s next initiative and may be extended by spending another combat action. Mindless creatures are not affected, nor fantastic creatures of animal intelligence, but ordinary animals are, as are all intelligent creatures (even if they don’t share a language with the halffoot; the meaning gets across).
Lockpicking Expert: Picklocks are among the very best at picking locks, as the name implies. They gain a +2 on Lockpicking throws compared to Thieves of the same level, and only botch on 1-3 when hastily picking locks (when methodically picking a lock, they never botch).
Natural Trapfinder: Picklocks are very good at finding and disarming locks. They roll at +2 compared to Thieves of the same level when Searching and Trapbreaking, and additionally, due to their slight frame, only trigger undetected traps on a 1 in 1d6.
Slippery Fellows: Picklocks excel at getting into and out of places they oughtn’t to be. They gain +4 to any Paralysis save to escape being grabbed, stuck, restrained, wrestled, or otherwise manhandled. They can slip between bars of a portcullis or out of physical shackles with a proficency throw at a target equal to 19-their level. (this power is identical to the proficiency Contortionism)
Additional Powers At Higher Level
Halffopt picks require 1,275xp to reach level 2, the amount need to reach each level doubling thereafter, until level 7, which requires 40,000xp, after which 8th level requires 80,000xp, 9th 180,000xp, and 10th 280,000xp.
Hidey-Hole (9th): When a picklock attains this level, and constructs a hidey-hole worth at least 5,000gp, their fame will cause 2d6 1st level picklocks to gather to him as followers, drawn in by his exploits. This power is otherwise identical to a Thief’s hideout.
Halffoot Racial Powers
Child-like: Any halffoot character suffers -2 to loyalty and morale from any non-halffoot henchman, but gains +2 to loyalty and morale from any halffoot henchman. This does not affect their reaction rolls.
Demi-human Ancestry: Due to their dwarven ancestry, halffoots gain a +1 bonus on Paralysis and Spells saving throws.
Difficult to Corrupt: Halffoots craves comfort and security far too much to be able to descend into dastardly wickedness. They suffer only 1/2 the usual amount of Corruption from spending time in sinkholes of evil, using evil magic items, or other causes of corruption.
Easily Encumbered: Halffoots have a normal load of 3 stone instead of 5 stone. They have a speed of 60’ when carrying 3 1/6 to 4 3/6 stone. They have a speed of 45’ when carrying 4 4/6 stone to 6 stone. They have a speed of 30’ when carrying more than 6 stone. A halffoot can carry a maximum of 12 stone, modified by his Strength bonus or penalty.
Halffoot Tongues: All halffoots speak the common tongue, their native tongue, and three bonus languages, selected from the following list based on their shire’s proximity to other races and realms: Bugbear, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Goblin, Human (various), Hobgoblin, Kobold, Orc.
Big Stomachs: Once per day a halffoot can recover hp by consuming a meal accompanied by alcohol, coffee, or tea. This recovery is equal to the hit points gained from a day of rest and can be in addition to rest.
Underfoot: Because of their small size, halffoots can more easily avoid attacks by big, clumsy creatures. Monsters of larger than man-sized suffer a -2 penalty to their attack throws against halffoots.
Short-Statured: Due to their short stature, halffoots have a speed of 90’ when unencumbered. They can never wield large-sized weapons such as arbalests, great axes, morning stars, lances, long bows, polearms, or two-handed swords, and must use two hands when wielding medium sized weapons such as battle axes, maces, staffs, and swords.
Weak: Halffoots have a -4 penalty to proficiency throws to Dungeonbashing proficiency throws. In addition, they roll one die size smaller than normal for their Hit Dice (already factored in).
Class Proficiencies
Proficiency Progression: At 1st level, halffoot picklocks select one class proficiency from their class proficiency list and one general proficiency from the general proficiency list. They select an additional class proficiency at 4th and 8th level. They select an additional general proficiency at 5th and 9th level.
Halffoot Picklock Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Alertness, Ambushing, Arcane Dabbling, Armor Training, Bargaining, Blind Fighting, Bribery, Cat Burglary, Caving, Climbing, Combat Reflexes, Combat Trickery (disarm, knockdown), Craft, Gambling, Folkways, Lip Reading, Mapping, Martial Training, Mountaineering, Navigation, Precise Shooting, Revelry, Riding, Running, Skirmishing, Skulking, Sniping, Swashbuckling, Trapping, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus.
Halffoot Picklock Secrets
F1b, HD1, T2, H3, and Narrow Weapons for 2 powers makes 13 powers thief skills instead of the 10 in HFH. Quite the change! To start, we import more-or-less directly Lockpicking, Searching, Trapbreaking, Pickpocketing, Sneaking, Natural Stealth (formerly Difficult to Spot, see JJ 314), Swashbuckling, Placating, Climbing, and Listening. Contortionism naturally fits a small halffoot, and, in my opinion, so does the reduced chance of setting off traps of Trapfinding (the anime explicitly calls this out, too). So too does Passing Without Trace. So far, apart from Trapfinding, this is precisely what Arbrethil did (he chose Skirmishing). Great minds think alike, but Pedantic Demographers stand on the shoulders of giants.
We aren’t done, obviously. This isn’t an update to HFH, it’s its own class. To decide what to leave in and what to cut, I turned to the list of what is a proficency and what must be taken as a class power or thief skill. Placating, Natural Stealth, Pickpocketing, Lockpicking, Searching, Trapbreaking, Sneaking, Hiding, and Listening all must be taken as part of the class. Climbing and Swashbuckling can be taken as class proficiencies, and don’t seem to be things that all halffoots would be good at, so I cut them. For the Picklock, I replace them with Lockpicking Expertise (duh, it’s in the class name) and Skulking (halffoot innate tendency). I think that this philosophy of baking in the powers that are most likely to be “innate” is a good way to sort out the various ideas in a class concept. I refrained from level-lock tradeoffs because that would just make the decision space for creating this class even more complicated.
As the finishing touch, we note that Lockpicking Expertise and Skulking, along with Contortionism, Passing Without Trace, and Trapfinding were all former class proficiencies for burglars. On top of that, Combat Trickery (underrun) is a bad joke. We need 6 new class proficiencies and Climbing and Swashbuckling are only one, since for some reason HFH lists Swashbuckling as a class proficency pick for burglars despite them already getting it from light on their feet. Revelry and Folkways are easy ‘dud’ picks, while Armor Training allows customization to chainmail, and Martial Training lets favorite weapons get picked. Lastly, Bribery is a good skill for any ne’r-do-well.
I also slightly altered the weapons proficiencies, because who doesn’t know how to use a handaxe? I rather dislike the rules for halfling weapon selections (though not the rules of the Weak power), but I abided by the strict letter of them.