Character Building: Namey-ology

"Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."


So this is another topic I struggled with. Not because I don't think it's important, but because I'm not entirely sure I can properly articulate any useful advice for this. Hell, to this day we still call it the hardest part of character creation: The name. It's hard as hell, but because you want to come up with a GOOD one. Anyone can blurt out something that could probably be someone's name, after all. In fact, I started doing exactly that to solve all the blank stares filled with unspoken cries of 'help'. The fact that nobody ever took my suggestions(What's wrong with Bumblechunk Slaptyback, after all?) proves that hardly anyone ever REALLY wants to give up on this. The character's name is where you can make your first impressions and nail down a great beginning to defining your character's feel and tone. So, here we go.

I'll get this out of the way first, the Intarweb has plenty, plenty of places you can find a name generator or baby name website. These can give you either a good idea on how your PC's name would sound based on ethnicity, or give good 'meat' to start with. I'm only going to link you to one of them, a drow name generator that was taken from Dragon Magazine, and I'm only bothering because it's a great object lesson(as well as being a pretty good elf-y name maker).

This object lesson is that names are made of syllables, and it's up to you to swap them around or fill them in. In fact, the 'pattern' of a name can make all the difference because it controls the flow, the feel of the name. I've found making sure your name is within one syllable(but not the same) is a good place to start. There's plenty of exceptions of course, but when you're deciding on a name, looking at the pattern can help shape how the name 'feels'. In addition, a severely unbalanced syllable count can put emphasis where you want it: Names like Cleopatra Jones(and its 4:1 ratio) shift the attention to the longer portion.

So flow and feel are important. Syllables and sounds can change those a lot. Before we get into content, I thought I'd point out a dumb little trick that comic books have been using for years. Peter Parker, J'onn J'onnz, Clark Kent, Wally West...comic books use repeated similar sounds to make a name more memorable. Keep in mind this also means names like Diana Prince or Cain Marko for using two 'hard' sounds to start off the names.

Cain Marko brings me to the next tip, which would be content. Hey, we flowed pretty well this time, it's like I'm a real god damn writer. Er, anyway. Even though you may not consciously be aware of it, Cain Marko tells you a lot about the kind of person he is before you even really see him do anything. There's probably billions of people named Cain or Caine or Kain, but the one you're likely to remember was a murderer. Famously so, being the biblical first murderer. Marko also sounds low-brow and crass, like something a construction worker would call his buddy Mark. So you immediately start to think Cain Marko is a low-class murderous thug. Just in case someone is confused at the point I'm making, I'll point out that Cain Marko is none other than the Unstoppable Juggernaut.

Let's dovetail again into his superhero name. These are both really fucking hard and really easy, but I'm going to address them alongside a similar concept of nicknames or fake-ish names. By fake-ish name I mean something that has a really obvious reference in it or doesn't REALLY sound like something anyone would actually be named, like Maxwell Lord or Dan Backslide. These hammer you over the head with descriptives, and that's totally fine. It might be crass or cheesy, but it's way better than nobody being able to remember your name. Nicknames can do the same thing, or they can tell  hook into an amusing story. They can even divert your expectations, like a lunatic being nicknamed Baby-san solely because he's kinda short.

Superhero names. Like I said, these can be really easy because they're MEANT to be big and bold, but really hard because leaning on descriptives can be really boring. The only time you want to do a really flat name like Wonder Woman, Robot Man, The Atom, Black Thunder, or Goliath is if you want your hero to feel classic and silver-agey. Otherwise, esoteric references or puns are your friend. Look into where they're from or where they spent a lot of time, and start looking for references in the culture or mythology of the location, or dig even deeper and find a small element you can associate with something else or expand into a new meaning, like a fire controlling hero with a reference to hot foods, or a villain whose name and actions remind you of California's brush fires.

This is completely an aside, but I just wanted to say something. Nobody likes puns. Everybody hates them. The secret, though? People who like puns? Kind of hate puns. They love them for how cheesy and blunt they are, like being hit with a very clever baseball bat. Either way, they'll remember your punnishing name for SOMETHING.

Puns, Nicknames and 'superhero names' can also mean titles. In a fantasy game, a lot of titles can be subjective, or so unimportant that your GM might as well let you take one. I mean, what's a character being a Duke or Duchess REALLY mean for a game? They have a house somewhere they'll never use, and a king somewhere whom might beg his help for something. That's an oven-ready plot hook right there. Anyway, titles can 'sub in' for a last name if your character wouldn't logically have one, or if you just can't think of one. Plenty of them are given in the same manner as nicknames anyway: a tiefling with golden skin might become known as Seong, The Golden Child. A man who wears his family crest proudly might become known as The Duck Knight for its prominent mallard.  Basically, a title is just a fantasy nickname. Use it as such.

So anyway, I guess it's time for an example and some final advice. Let's get the example out of the way.

Doug Jones
James "Sonny" Crockett
Dan Backslide

None of these are bad names. Doug Jones is bland and normal, but in a modern game full of normal people, that's not that bad. Maybe his player would like to add some sort of nickname, or maybe he WANTS it to be easy to forget to put emphasis on a superhero(or supervillain) name. After all, the real life Doug Jones is a great fucking actor who never seems to get much credit or recognition...maybe because his name's boring.

Crockett reminds you of Davy Crockett, the 'king of the wild frontier' who was a no-nonsense badass. Sonny reminds you of the sun or a sunny demeanor and brings your thoughts to where his show is set: Miami, Florida. Finally, he has a normal first name like 'James' but his nickname implies nobody who really knows him actually calls him that: like he has a checkered past or a lot of very informal, maybe shady friends.

Dan Backslide has a really short first name that puts emphasis on that weird last name. Even if you don't know what backslide means(I don't even know if that's really a word) you immediately have your suspicions. He's a complete slimeball and probably a cowardly wimp.

Finally. Remember that ethnicity isn't the only thing that gives a name a certain feel. Fantasy races, real world subcultures, martial arts stars or even blacksploitation heroes all have a certain 'feel' to the name that you can and should try to learn. Plenty of various fantasy themed races have a pattern of a vaguely fantasy-sounding first name, then slamming two real words together for the last name. This is probably so popular because of laziness, but it DOES make it easy for you to guide expectations where you want them.

I doubt this'll be the only time I talk about names. There sure is a lot to this. I hope this helped someone, somewhere escape from giving their awesome PC a bland name out of exasperation.

Nursery Time

Today we're talking about child characters. Before I say anything else, I just want to say this.

I know.

I get it. There hasn't been a child character in a pen and paper game that's not been a rampant force of party destruction and source of endless bickering. Most people would say insisting on a child concept borders on deliberate trolling, and I have to admit this post was damn near another episode of TPK. It's not, though. I decided to be a little more even-handed and say where and how they might be introduced into a game.

So maybe there's a one percent chance someone reading this doesn't understand where the problem is. The problem is, most people play a wide range of characters with differing morals and personalities, but protectiveness toward children is going to be a fairly common trait. Not caring what happens to a kid makes someone feel scummy, and we know(both IC and OOC) that a lot of bad shit is going to surround our characters. I mean, it's a pen and paper game. It's a given.

I'm seriously trying to stay away from examples in this blog, but this is another topic rife with them, so please bear with me. Let's start with Jackie Chan Adventures. In JCA, Jackie Chan goes on a multitude of dangerous adventures along with his uncle, a former enemy named Tohru, and his niece Jade, who's about ten or so. Every episode Jackie tries to keep Jade safe(mostly by leaving her at home) and every episode she sneaks along and gets caught up in the action. Every episode. There are 95 episodes and this plays out every single god damn episode. Jackie gets a lead on something to do. Jade wants to go too. Jackie tells her no. Jade sneaks along. Jackie notices, then spends the rest of the episode periodically yelling at her for being in danger. In a show this is mostly forgivable if not a little irritating. In a PNP game, though? Nobody wants to spend the time to do this every session, and I can assure you Jade's player is having a whole lot more fun than Jackie's.

But I did say there are times where it's more acceptable. I mean, Otaku are all kids and nobody seems to have a problem with them, right? Circumstance and tone can mean the world to a character's mindset, and so can the kid's ability to take care of themselves. I'd like to say to everyone: Buy into the game's world. Make sure everyone else is too. Shadowrun and World of Darkness are places where life is cheap and a child isn't necessarily a whole lot more safe being tucked away somewhere as opposed to being near the other PCs. A superhero world generally eschews questions of protectiveness since most of the 'kids' are more than capable of defending themselves, far more than a normal person. Nobody is saying that being Robin isn't a shitty life for Damian Wayne. We ARE saying that he spent his short life training to be a master assassin under one of the most brilliant minds in the universe, and if he WASN'T Robin, his life would probably be a lot shittier.

I'll circle back to Batman in a second. I went over tone, but let's talk about Circumstance a bit. In Leon the Professional a professional hitman ends up taking care of a little girl. This is an amazing movie that I absolutely refuse to spoil, but I CAN point out a few things without discussing plot specifics. Over the course of the movie we find that it isn't exactly that Leon is worried about her on the short term: He feels himself capable of protecting her. He's more worried about her on the long term, in that nobody should WANT to be an assassin like he is. There is no truly better life for the girl, either: Her parents are both dead and Leon is too cynical(realist?) to think sending her to an adoption agency would do anything but send the girl into a life of torment being shuffled around the system.

Basically, Leon doesn't think that there's a better life for the girl away from him, and he's right. Batman feels much the same way when he sees Dick Grayson's parents die and notices the kid boiling for revenge. He sees himself in the kid, and worries that if he's left alone and kept 'safe' that he'll turn out like Bruce himself. The same thing happens with Jason Todd and after his untimely death(which we all voted for, good job guys), Batman swears off involving children in his work...only to come face to face with three more kids who don't have a happy ending without him. Tim Drake was brave and savvy enough to confront Batman who was reckless and violent following Jason Todd's death...and Tim's parents were attacked as well, leaving his father crippled and his mother dead. Stephanie Brown's father is a well-known supervillain and she took on the responsibility of 'spoiling' his plans. Finally, Damian Wayne's entire life was spent in assassin ninja training at the right hand of an immortal mastermind. None of these kids really have the opportunity to have a normal life anymore.

So what am I saying? Actually, let's split this into three groups so I can be a little clearer.

To the child players: Guys. Be a kid, but be a smart kid. Be a cool kid who can take care of themselves. You'll be just as powerful as the other PCs, after all...and that makes you a god among children. Kids aren't necessarily dumb, and you acting dumb repeatedly is only going to make the other PCs uncomfortable out of character and feel like they really ought to do something to keep you away from danger. Play a kid with a checkered or broken past, a kid with no happy end outside of the other PCs. Basically? Meet the adults halfway. You can be a kid without being delusional, or intensely stupid, or an annoyingly hyper sugar-filled agent of what-does-this-button-do disaster. Remember that kind of stuff is way, way less fun for the other guys than it is for you.

To the adults: Chill. Like Leon, like Batman, and like a million other guardians. You absolutely can think it's up to you to protect the kid, and you absolutely can feel like the best place for them is near you, and not far away where you won't be if something happens. Keep the tone of the game in mind, because shit can be rough in even epic fantasy worlds. I mean, what would you seriously say to Red Sonja if you found her a week after her village was slaughtered? Offering to drop her off at the first parent willing to take her in is lame (and borderline neglectful). Bend, don't break, to keep from being lame.

To the GM: Make the tone of your game clear. Actually, you should probably be doing this ANYWAY, but if someone wants to play a kid this becomes a touch more important. Treat the subject of the PC being a child with kid gloves(HA!) and try not to make the PCs second guess their decision to take the kid with them. They might be one derisive comment away from thinking they need to dump the kid "where it's safe".

A kid can bring a lot of cool RP and interestingly different situations to a game if you do it right. I've even seen it done right in some situations. Really, everyone just needs to chill a little bit and...ironically...be mature about it.

In Defense of the Magic Shop

It's no secret that I hate 'low magic campaigns'. Whether you intend it or not, when you say "I'd really like a game with fewer magic items in it, so we could put more of an emphasis on mundane equipment and make the items you get feel more special" all I hear is "I'd really like a game where I give you way, way less reward for your efforts, so we can fuck up the game's balance, and make the PCs smile through clenched teeth and strained expressions while I do whatever I want." I can't help it, I feel the idea is inherently flawed. Some people might consider a 'compromise' of insisting that they'll be using a normal amount of magic items, but there won't be any shops who buy or sell magic items.

Let me be clear, I hate that more than I hate the idea of a low magic game.

One day I'm going to buckle down, grit my teeth and try to write out some advice for getting that low magic feel without screwing up your game's balance or the PC's feeling of reward, but today is not that day. Today I'm going to defend the idea of the good old Magic Item Shop which is much maligned and often for damn good reasons.

The reason being of course is that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I don't hold to the idea that a farmer only makes a few copper a month, but they certainly don't make much money. Plenty of tradesman make several gold a day and spellcasting services or alchemist items can bring home heaping handfuls of bacon, but the magic item creator? You sell ONE +1 dagger and you could probably retire for life, right? Add in the fact that most people feel skilled spellcasters are few and far between and a shop that sells or buys items that go for hundreds of thousands of gold doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. I feel you, I do, but let me try to debunk the two major reasons.

Pathfinder really helped me out with the 'rarity' problem. In the core rulebook there's a feat called Master Craftsman that lets 'normal' people take and use magic item creation feats. The 'new' idea that you can get magic weapons from the blacksmith, magic hats from the haberdasher, and magic jewelry from the jeweler sure does go a long way toward justifying the idea that magic items would be for sale. After all, if you were an enterprising blacksmith, what would YOU try to learn to hone your craft? Where would you put YOUR feats? Even if you hate the idea of Master Craftsman and hope it dies, you can't deny that learning to enchanting items is a natural progression in a society that includes the concept. Even a craftsman who is too inept to enchant is served well by hiring or partnering with someone who can.

Let me walk through a little object lesson for both our sakes. To take a single item crafter feat, our craftsman must be a level 7 expert. Let's assume they're the best reasonable craftsmen they can be, so their INT is 14, and their feats include Skill Focus, Master Craftsman, and a single item creation feat. That would make their Crafting check +14(INT +2, Ranks +7, Skill Focus +3, Master Craftsman +2). If they've got an apprentice who can reliably Assist them, that means +16. If they take a ten each day, that means they can create a shortsword in two days, or roughly 16 hours. The same person would take a little less than three weeks to make a chain shirt. In contrast, enchanting that chain shirt as +1 would take...one day. One whole day. You know what? Let me get back to what this means in my closing paragraph, my skull's starting to hurt.

But, it is a lot of gold, right? It is. Our boy the blacksmith up in my example could retire off selling one or two +1 longswords. Only, if you replace enchanted items with expensive services or technology and blacksmiths with real world entrepreneurs, how often does that REALLY happen? How often does someone make or do one thing then retire? I can't say it happens very much at all, and it's for two reasons. One is that someone who's plying a trade creating things is doing so for the craft and not solely for the money more often than not. This is especially true in a fantasy society where picking up a sword and running off to hunt for Pirate Lich treasure is on the table. Even if that's NOT true and they ARE only in it for the money...nobody's in business for a LITTLE bit of money. Tastes grow expensive and exotic, and what profit that's not being pushed into raw materials for new items is likely going to a lifestyle that requires the professional in question to keep plying their trade.

So that's the logical argument, but running a game really has nothing to do with logic(Har Har Har). So what's my other reason? Let's run a few more numbers and hopefully I can make my point. Pathfinder Core says that the average party of four level 1 adventurers are going to get 100 XP and 65 gold per (CR 1) encounter, meaning on average they're going to have 20 encounters by level 2 and a grand total of 1300 gold each. The book says you use gold budget to determine magic items in the hoard and says it should be used with 'good common sense' (sidenote, that line legit made me laugh.).
So assuming a ridiculous 50% of the budget is gold and valuables, the staple of adventuring, they've got 650 gold. So far this seems okay, right? The book says 20 CR 2 encounters will get them to level 3, and that'll shape up to be 2,750g, or another 1,375 in gold. They've got 2,000 gold in change now. You know what? I think I've proven the 'character wealth by level' chart is scary accurate, so assuming that FIFTY PERCENT of your treasure has been magic items by level 10 our adventurer is going to have 31 thousand gold laying around.

What are they spending it on? There are no magic item shops, remember? I urge you to go open any silly equipment book you can find and look for mundane items that'll total up 31,000. I'll wait. Basically, Either they're buying 31 water clocks, or someone in the group is taking Item Crafting Feats to circumvent you entirely and end up with MORE magic items than an average group who had access to item shops. It did the opposite of what you wanted to happen.

So what did we learn today? Well, I learned that the item crafting rules are completely absurd and you should either handwave crafting time or make 'weekly' skill checks count as daily. We learned that it and the magic item creation rules were probably designed by two people who didn't even talk, and all of this stuff is best handled by creating 'downtime' portions of time instead of tracking precisely how long it takes. We also learned how removing magic item shops creates a weird little game of chicken in your PNP that probably ends in the opposite of what you intended. The thing is, players will naturally want control over their magic items. What was something mysterious and cool in earlier editions is now an integral part of building your character, and taking any amount of control away from that is likely to cause problems. It could be just a ridiculous glut of gold sitting on the player's sheets and being forgotten, or it could be the party wizard getting 'fed up' and working within the rules to accomplish what the PCs wanted in the first place: Control over their gear.

P.S. While writing this I found that Pathfinder has rules on making magic item purchases based on the size of settlement you're in. Adhering to these rules strictly instead of my usual handwaving or 'fast and loose' decisions on availability sounds like a good 'compromise', though their random rolling nature could still see some breakdown at level 15 or higher. I'll close this out saying this. To everyone who thinks you shouldn't be able to buy magic items at all? The developer's intentions are on my side, not yours.

Character Building: The Best You've Got

"And now, with your permission, I'm going to do my stuff."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm gonna do the best I can."

This is another "duh" topic but I felt like I should explain myself. Some of the things I said earlier like in MAD and SAD and our topic on Socialist Gaming contain a certain underlying thought: The idea that players should build the best possible character they can build. However, even theorycrafters I know rarely do exactly that. If you were ever wondering why mine, Walter E. Daleiard's, or anyone's characters are always so 'powerful' I hope this will lift the veil of methods at least a little.

Your first hint is that it's not because we endlessly read the books or memorize everything in them. I used to do that, but these days new books get read once, maybe twice unless I'm looking for something. It can help to remember what goes with what or where this stuff is in the books, but overall all you've got to do is make an attempt.

What I mean is, what we're doing when we build a character is finding and applying synergies. Excuse the corporate buzzword stuff, but that's what we're doing. It might help you to mentally(or physically) do one of those charts where you write one big word in the middle of the page then branch it out to lots of little associated words. Identify what your class is good at, then take feats, powers or skills to capitalize on that. The first big secret, though? A lot of the time we're declaring what we WANT to be good at, and seeing if the class can do it. That's fine. In fact, most people probably do this more than making the absolute 'best' possible choices they can. All you're really doing is shifting what word is in the middle of the page. After you've got that word down, find what works with it or makes it better. Just write all the shit down via association. I end up flipping through books a lot skimming for anything associated with one particular concept, like disarming, tripping, sneaking around, or being defensive.

In D20, your feats are usually your most important decisions. So, once you have a big sackful of feats that all work together, you apply them to your build. Then, you fill the holes with other important feats or things you want to be good at. Try to take your primary ideas or RP-driven choices and make the best of them. A Tiefling Fighter may not have the best STR, but they can take Armor of the Pit for +2 AC, leverage that DEX into TWF feats, or use INT to more easily hit Combat Expertise tree feats. Someone playing a goblin, with their +4 racial bonus and +4 size bonus to stealth has more incentive to take Stealthy or Skill Focus(Stealth) than someone without those, even if not a sneaky type. Course, if they don't have room, those bonuses they get can 'make up' for some neglect. The point is you don't always have to 'just accept' a substandard choice.

This dovetails nicely into the next two secrets. The first, mine, is really quick and simple. Plan your character ahead of time and put together a build path. This will eliminate confusion but also tell you if the character is even really going to work: If you're only 'finishing' your build at level 16...maybe time to let it go or rework the character. Course, with a lot of characters this isn't strictly necessary: A good build is not always a complicated or 'tight' one. That said, I've found preplanning is like 75% of my success.

The other secret is learned in part from our buddy Dale and in part from Flux. Before I lay it on the table, here's a question for you in very general terms. Consider the two following options:

A. 100% Offense, 0% Defense.
B. 70% Offense, 70% Defense.

This was a choice many people had to make in City of Heroes when selecting a class. Boy howdy, let me tell you, the immense vast majority picked B. Being the best at one thing is often not as good as being "good enough" at many things. B is not likely to notice their 30% lack in offense in most situations, and they'll spend much, much less time on the floor than A does. This isn't just offense and defense we're discussing, though. Being "pretty good" at several things will always make for a better character in a pen and paper game. Dale tries to be "good" at one thing, then seeks to 'plug' any weaknesses his characters have, whether it's a severely lacking save bonus, or even just not having any decent skills. That way, he can apply his character to many more situations than someone who threw all of their effort into being the best at something. Then usually someone bitches.

As a final little object lesson, here's an old character path I made and the 'thought process' of making it. Actually, since Unchained Rogue came out, this isn't even the best possible way to do this concept. Just bear with me, since it's a good example anyway.

Knife Master Rogue, First Version

I want to make a character who uses small weapons like daggers or kukri.
Sneak Attack makes up for a small weapon die.
Sneak Attack benefits from having as many attacks as possible.
So that would mean Two Weapon Fighting.
There's a Rogue archetype that gets bonus damage from using light blades.
That rogue archetype gives a bonus to sleight of hand.
Deft Palm and Underhanded both synergize with that.
Fighter has a 'close weapons fighter' archetype too.
Fighter will help me take those TWF feats and give me attack and damage feats.
the first damage feat cuts off at level 4, and I want as much sneak attack as possible anyway.
Trip goes well with TWF, I can blow offhand attacks on knocking people down.

I could go on, but I hope you 'get' why I stressed association and synergy. Most decisions made for whim or RP purposes can make for a good character anyway: Nobody HAS to suck to play a combination they feel like playing. I mean, it's not as though sucking makes you a better RPer or something. You just suck. Don't suck.

The Tools of the Trade

Most of what makes the Thief great is looking at something like an ability, spell or piece of equipment and seeing a completely different way to apply it. To get your brain juices squishing around I'm gonna list some of my favorite tools, and to prove that a lot of the Thief's best friends are overlooked, I'm only going to use the Core Rulebook. If this is all obvious to you, well. Sorry. I know a lot of people to which it's not.

Spells and Use Magic Device. While I could probably write a whole book on UMD's ability to emulate class features and how useful that might be, the thing that's going to come up most often is UMD letting you carry around wands for a little bit of spell utility. If you want, rogue talents can even give you a few spells. Low level spells can have a deceptive amount of use to you. I'm not going into the obvious ones(invisibility, silence, animate rope, reduce person, featherfall), just some that you might have overlooked for being useless as a matter of course.

Detect Magic. I don't think I should have to tell you why you should have an item that causes this effect. You're going to be dealing with magic a LOT, and not all of it is going to be sigils and magic traps you can detect via Trapfinding. In addition, it tells you what swag to grab.

Mending. Mending can put together a torn letter, fix a broken lock, let you open a letter's wax seal then put it exactly back as it ought to be, or steal things the owner thinks were destroyed like official seals, keys, blackmail materials, pictures, plans or more. Paper can be VERY useful to you.

Dancing Lights and Ghost Sound. There's a will save associated with ghost sound that even the dumbest guards have a fair chance on, but it's a catch 22 situation. Even if they make the save and realize it was an illusion...they still might go check it out. If they're a patrolling guard, they absolutely will go look. They'll know someone is where they shouldn't be, but that may not matter to your goals.

Mage Hand. Duh. This also applies a bit to Open/Close which can handle way more weight than Mage Hand can, 30lbs as opposed to 5.

Acid Splash/Spark/Ray of Frost. Sometimes you need very, very little damage to destroy something you're setting out to destroy, or to get a lock or bar out of the way. Each use is only one round too, so it can get you through an obstacle very quickly.

Alarm. It can be silent if you wish, and this can tell you someone's coming, giving you ample chance to hide or skedaddle.

Obscuring Mist. Nothing about this spell implies it's extraordinary for mist, so if you use it to mask your getaway and create cover to hide behind, someone without ranks in Spellcraft might not even think it's anything but a normal weather pattern. Depending on the day, of course.

Floating Disk/Unseen Servant. Carrying things silently while you climb around like a monkey. Floating Disk also lasts 1 hour per level and can be used as a 3 foot 'leg up' to get somewhere high.

Expeditious Retreat. Sneaking cuts your move speed in half, and this will get it back to 30ft per round.

Magical Aura. There's the obvious use of hiding your own magic items to smuggle them in, but also casting it on someone else's gear to cause a fuss. Slight of hand will let you touch someone's gear, and the few seconds of distraction an argument causes might be all you need.

Darkvision. Basically, ever since 3.0 D20 has put a bizarre emphasis on how powerful some things are, and darkvision is one of them. YOU are the reason why. Darkness is your conealment-creating friend, and a light source will give your position away faster than anything else will. I heavily recommend trying to get this via a racial ability, because other sources are really expensive. Plus, goblinoids are cool.

Disguise, Disguises, and Layers of Defense. Basically, you don't want to be caught, but if you are caught, it helps to have another way to fool them. This can mean bluff checks, but also having a disguise, nonmagical or magical. If you look like you're plausibly supposed to be there, you're going to get a vastly different response than someone who looks like hot death in black leather. White lies are better than bigger ones, as well: You get a bonus on bluff checks if your story is plausible, so implicating yourself for a smaller crime("I know the party is in the main hall, I just thought I could get a glimpse at the duke's armor collection!") is way easier than boldly stating you're doing no wrong. Disguises, or even just the right clothes, go really far toward that.

Bribery. This is really obvious, I just wanted to caution you against going way, way over what a reasonable bribe might be. It can be tempting, since you HAVE that much money, but dropping hundreds of gold on someone when buying them a beer might suffice is a giant, glaring clue that you don't want to leave. Suddenly, they know you're loaded, and even if they're completely unwilling to tell, one failed will save to Detect Thoughts is all it's going to take to implicate you. Unless your GM's world is different, there aren't very many rich adventurers in one place. Someone finding out a guard or apprentice was bribed with alcohol could be anyone. Someone finding out they were bribed with 200 gold narrows their search down to probably five people in the entire city. If you're having trouble, a Sense Motive roll could tell you what that person would expect to be paid. Or if they're willing to be bribed at all.

Class Abilities. This is a super quick rundown of some helpful class abilities you may not have thought about.

Fast Movement. Stealth cuts your move speed in half, and you want to be able to cover as much ground in a single round as possible. Monk and Barbarian's speed bonus, or expeditious retreat spells, can cover for you if you don't want to take Rogue for Fast Stealth.

Bardic Knowledge. Everyone loves this one, but I want to point out it grants you the ability to make knowledge checks untrained, which could be really useful if you're faced with something strange.

Wild Shape, animal companions, and familiars. Unless your target is ridiculously suspicious, seeing a bird or cat inside their house will probably be met with a mild "shoo, shoo" at best.

High Jump and Slow Fall. Most buildings are protected assuming you're going to try to get in from the ground. Being able to leap further than they expect you to be able can put you on their roof and bypass a lot of their locks. Just expect any place with a court wizard to have thought of this.

Lay on Hands, Cure Wounds, and Altruism. People tend to look the other way if you're offering something for free or for cheap. Clerics give shit out for free all the time. Even being able to cast CLW once or twice can get your foot in the door.

Skill Mastery. Most of the rogue talents are really self explanatory, but I wanted to mention how fucking good this one is. You want to eliminate every chance for failure you can, and not having to roll stealth, disable device, bluff, or any number of other skills can go a long fucking way. Even at high levels, a dopey 1HD guard might spot you if you roll bad, and you'll always have to deal with normal people with not so many levels.

Now, while I was writing this I bought Ultimate Intrigue(Quick! go look up the release date on the book to find out how far in advance I write these!) and...wow. This is full of stuff a good heister, social character, or thief type can take. I won't be going into it or any other 'obvious' tools, though. I'm just trying to express how useful some very normal stuff can be if you look at it differently. In the end, I hope this got you to just think outside the box when it comes to playing a utility character. It's a bit of a weird wraparound: You're playing a person in a game who sees the world around them like game pieces to manipulate. If that's a bit cerebral for you, just remember: You have to apply YOURSELF. You have to find opportunities to use your toolkit. Don't wait for the GM to make them, because most of the time, they already have.

The Thief

"Shake my hand. C'mon, boys, won't you shake a poor sinner's hand?"

My favorite class is rogue. There's been a lot of names and variations, and now in Pathfinder there's a ton of classes that can fill the role that'd go to the thief in first edition. Whether it's rogue, bard, investigator, alchemist, mesmerist, slayer, or monk, the thief fills a role of nonmagical(let's put a big asterisk here for later) skill based utility. Back in the day you'd be disarming traps and climbing walls to pass ropes down for the party, then acting like a tiny wiry version of the warrior. Those are still your job today, but now there's a lot of other things that are also your job, whether they seem like it or not.

That's the major point I'm gonna make today. The Thief is a very unique way to play the game that can be a lot of fun, or it can simply be the half-fighter they look at to go first when the party gets to the dungeon. That second way isn't an invalid way to play, but you're not playing your role to your fullest. Regardless of your actual class, the Thief builds a toolkit through equipment, skills and class abilities, and must apply it themself. That's not easy, but the opportunities the GM is leaving for you aren't going to be marked with neon signs(Unless you're playing Shadowrun in which case disregard that) but are there regardless. It's a change in mentality that might not be EASY, but I promise you it's a much more rewarding way to play.

Basically, the Thief needs two things. They need a wide range of skills, and they need utility provided by their class to compliment those skills. This means the Rogue and their talents, the bard and their spells, the monk and their movement utility...but also a well built Alchemist can get into the act. Or Wizard. Or "half and half" classes like mesmerist, spiritualist, occultist, swashbuckler, investigator, or slayer can fill this role. Being the utility support character is a state of mind, and multiclassing a little tiny bit into a high-skill class like bard or rogue can go a long way. For one, it gives you those sweet, sweet class skill bonuses. For two, even two levels of rogue will give you a rogue talent which you can spend on patching up something you're bad at. Mostly this would probably be Fast Stealth so you don't need to cut your move speed in half while sneaking, but there's a ton of very useful basic rogue talents. Bard would get you bardic knowledge, some 1st level spells, and a handful of cantrips. I'll go into how useful cantrips can be later.

So I'm going to go into helpful things to stuff into your virtual toolbox later, but first a bit more on that Thief mentality. I keep saying Thief partly because we're not talking about specific classes right now, but also because despite your character's alignment, you have to start thinking like a criminal. If you see a wall, estimate the climb DC from the description. If you see guards, count how many and where they go. See a house, mentally note the ways in. Once your party has a goal, think of how you can apply your toolkit to immediately accomplishing that goal, morals be damned. Once you have a list of how to do that, you can apply morals to it later. Just remember to apply morals BEFORE you enact your plan, or else that probably means you're evil. In general, see people as obstacles or things to manipulate. See physical security as hurdles to vault over. Think outside of the box, and outside of what you think the GM wants you to do. If you're having a bit of trouble, there's a discovery show from a while back called It Takes a Thief where a former professional burglar breaks into people's houses to prove a point about home security. The show is mostly the one guy kicking doors down then violently throwing through people's things, but it might provide some insight to how a criminal can work. Other shows like Lie to Me and Leverage can help too, but remember they're fiction, and try to take ideas and concepts more than specific cons.

I hope that helps. As a special note to GMs...be reasonable when you're designing people's houses, castles, et cetera. By default, the Thief has to surprise you a bit to work their mojo, and don't take it as an insult. If they want to steal the macguffin instead of going on a quest to earn it...consider the fact that stealing it will probably be just as hard as the quest was supposed to be. So what's the problem? If you're worried about the other PCs sitting out, encourage The Thief(or thieves) to involve the other pcs in the plan in roles they can fill via spells or skills. If they HAVE no skills and they're not complaining(I see you there, Blorch. Stay in your corner.) Maybe they WANT to sit these out and watch the Thief work. You're gonna find out a lot of your job as a GM requires communication.

Midweek I'm going to give you that list of what you might want to put into that toolkit. This one's getting a bit long.