Just to get one thing out of the way. Anyone can attempt any non-weapon proficiency. In my old games, I had a rule that rolling a one on a d6 meant success in anything, usually with detecting secret doors or finding a trap. For my 2e clone, the GM can adopt the same rule, or make it a roll equal to or under 4 on a d20. The latter choice is for folks that must have complete consistency.

I made a minor edit in my previous post. Two of the thieves skills had Intelligence as the attribute instead of Wisdom. Rogues need to have dexterity to be certain, but a wise rogues know when to press his/her luck and when to wait for another day. I wanted more traditional thief skills to reflect Wisdom as a second important attribute for a Rogue.

Before discussing kits, it is important to mention how many proficiencies characters start with, especially in light of the Thief changes. Basically, it's the same as listed in the 2e PHB except that Rogues start with 6 non-weapon proficiencies and gain a new one every three levels. Not only does this put all characters gaining more non-weapon proficiencies at the same time (every three levels) it also emphasizes the idea that a Rogue lives by his skill, not by his sword or by overwhelming magic.

When it comes to rogues, this would appear to make them very powerful at low levels. Really though it allows them to be good at two or three of the eight traditional skills. It will still take until 19th level to be good at all of them.

As far as kits are concerned, I only want them to offer choices as variation of one of the main archetypes. If you are a thief, you can take the traditional package or one of these others based on description. If you want a swashbuckling pirate, he/she can do a couple of the traditional thief skills, boating, tightrope walking, etc. If you want an urban thief, here are the skills for that.

What I do not want is a player looking at the list of all the non-weapon proficiencies and taking four hours to figure out what his character is going to be. More importantly, I don't want the players to have to memorize a bunch of options and rules to be able to play. Presenting them as choices to the player, I leave it to the GM to create his/her own kits.

Next time, I'll list some of the kits for all the classes. After that, it will be time to talk about the two systems of psionics available in 2e.