Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
Is your argument that thief skills are basically saving throws that only thieves get to still get success after an attempt to do one of these things has failed?
I think they can function in a similar manner. Its an idea I ran across some years ago and keep remembering because it sounded odd at first. AFB so I'll pull out random half-remembered numbers.

Party mapping a dungeon has 1/6 chance to surprise a random encounter, I think I recall halflings maybe 60' ahead having say a 2/6 chance. All race based, everyone has before class factored in. If its a halfling rogue with 20% hide & silent out scouting do you use that instead? Should thief scouting because they have specific skills be rolling racial chances until class skills are higher? That makes sending the "sneaky" class pointless (until the skills are better of course). Similar effect with something like dwarf chance to spot odd stonework, should a dwarf fighter be better at detecting moving stone traps than a dwarf thief until the thief has leveled up enough to have the same base chance?Similar with listening at a door. Should thief class be worse than everyone base chance at low levels (really don't recall base chances here)? If someone wants to swipe a trinket off a table, maybe roll under Dex for non-thief but thief has worse skill % for a long time.

If you use the skills like they're saves you can avoid low level thieves maybe being worse or just marginally at thief stuff than regular adventurers. It's another way to use them that makes up for terrible %s and not getting spells or fighting ability. And I'd do that in addition to thief being able to actively use the skills.