The Scoundrel, Part 11: Being Sneaky

These skills and abilities deal with sneaking around, getting into or out of difficult places and situations and not getting caught.

Stealth/Move Silently: The ability to move without making a sound. Quite useful for sneaking up behind someone to backstab them, or when making good an escape. Not something other classes would be trained for. Verdict: Ability

Hide in Shadows: Being able to hide even though the searcher can see you, as long as you're covered in shadows. I don't see why this shouldn't be an ability. Verdict: Ability

Pickpocket: Stealing something that someone else is carrying on their person without them noticing. Should be limited to Scoundrels, I think. Verdict: Ability

Disguise: I'm not totally sure about this one, but I think it should be available to everyone. I can see warriors (they're called "Veterans" at level one in OD&D, I should emphasize) carrying out commando raids in disguise, and I can see magic-users being able to disguise themselves as well, possibly with minor magic (and wasn't Gandalf pretty good at disguising himself, both when he infiltrated the Necromancer's lair and when everyone thought he was dead?). Verdict: Skill

Climb: At first, I had trouble seeing other classes, say, scaling a castle wall, but this is growing on me as something every class should be able to do, at least if they aren't encumbered. I know some versions of this specify that this is "extraordinary climbing" of sheer surfaces, but that feels too much like Spiderman to me… I'm still somewhat on the fence on this one, and input is extra-welcome. Verdict: Skill

Escape: Basically, this lets your character get loose when tied up, and could conceivably have implications for grappling. This is something I can see every class needing, and getting better at progressively. Verdict: Skill

Sleight of Hand: The ability to make things disappear in your hands, or appear. Think of making flowers appear, or the old trick of hiding a pea under three hats and moving the hats around, or keeping guards from finding something while you're being searched. Sounds like a fun, flavorful thing for a scoundrel to be able to do. Verdict: Ability

Wary: An improved chance not to be surprised. This makes sense as an ability, I think, because Scoundrels will have more often been in situations where they need to be constantly listening for a guard that is sneaking up on them. Verdict: Ability