[caspin00]

Hello all, I'm fairly new to the boards and thought I would just share something that I've been thinking alot about lately. I'm a huge fan of rogue classes, it's what I play in just about every mud or mmorpg I try. Lately I've been noticing a bit of a problem though, it seems that in alot of muds rogues have been reduced to something along the lines of an asssassin. What I mean is in just about every mud I've played a rogue is a character whose biggest advantage is backstabs and critical strikes. Now maybe I have a strange idea of what a rogue is, but I always envisioned a rogue as someone who would much rather not even get in a fight. I want a rogue that can sneak up on a mob, steal some coin, disable a trap, and unlock a treasure chest. Now I realize in most muds these skills are possiable but they seem to take a backseat to combat as if they're something that is added as an afterthought. Now I understand that it would be difficult to build a mud that rewarded stealth.. it'd be extremely easy to exploit. I was thinking perhaps though of rogue only quest, for example maybe a fellow rogue guildmate got caught, and it's your job to sneak into the local jail, pickpocket the key from a guard and release him, without getting into a fight. Anyways that was my crappy rogue rant, I'm curious to hear what you all think.

[Cubey]

Well, you could try Evarayn. On that MUD, which is classless per se anyway, you can choose to focus on assassin skills - the stabbity ones, or on the thievery ones - lockpicking, pickpocketing etc.

[Gihnral]

I like more thievery oriented rogues myself.  I'm also fond of the class in general.  On CF they broke thieves down to different "paths".  Different guilds offer different skill sets.  And you can mix and match to an extent.  So if you want a full on thief.  Almost every skill you have will be focused on the art of thievery.  For those who still want a more brutish waylayer on the side of the road type, there are skills for that as well.  Being able to "build" a rogue to your own playstyle is rather nice.  With there being five paths to choose from, several guilds for each.  Trapper, Binder, Poisoner, Thug, City Slicker(which is the thief it sounds like you'd enjoy).

[Molly]

We have actually been pondering the implementation of the Rogue skills 'mask' and 'cloak' in our mud.

Mask would make the player show up as 'a masked figure' to anybody in the same room that hasn't got the skills needed to detect a hiding/sneaking rogue. Cloak would in addition to that replace the name in 'who-list' with 'a hooded figure'.

What is holding us back a bit is the risk of abuse. It would be interesting to learn if some other Admin had experimented along these lines, and what the outcome was. I guess it would be possible to log certain actions while using mask and cloak, but that would entail checking logs, and I relly dislike playing mud police.

Any input?

[crymerci]

If you're interested in roleplay, you could try ArmageddonMUD. We have three rogue-type classes: assassin, burglar, and pickpocket. And of course you can play them any way you like...never entering into combat at all if you choose.

[Valg]

I had a big answer on this, but it turned into a blatant ad, so I re-located it to the appropriate forum.  Suffice to say for here that <span style='color:"red"'>Carrion Fields</span> has a very deep thief class which can permit the types of stealth-oriented characters the original poster was seeking.  If you want more detail than that, please check out:

[Ogma]

Dartmud is not class-based, but skill based, and there are thieving skills which cover the 'burglar' aspect and the 'assassin' aspect of the rogue class.

However, becoming a burglar or assassin isn't just a matter of walking up to the right guild or selecting the right class at character generation time. Asking about gaining the thieving skills is a pretty sure way to get an appointment with the end of a sword or a bolt of green fire. Revealing that you have them is likely to lead you towards the same end, unless you have powerful backing. It's possible, just darn difficult.

[Threshold]

There are two types of "rogue" classes on Threshold- one is more stealing based, the other is more swashbuckling based.

Stealing is an intricate process that can (depending on the theft) involve: casing your mark, tracking the mark, making use of associates to distract the mark, preparing the mark for being robbed, and then actually robbing the mark.

In addition, with an extremely well developed common law legal system, should you get caught you can embark on a legal defense (or hire a lawyer) to beat the rap.