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.

One thing that has always bothered me about 2e thieves was a breakdown between the iconic D&D THIEF SKILLS and certain non-weapon proficiencies. I still think of ventriloquism and disguise as alternate thief skills, yet they have a different mechanic to determine success from climb walls or read languages. Odd.

I could, as a 1st level thief, have a 60% chance of creating a good disguise (assuming a 13 charisma), but less then 35% in doing most of the canonical thief skills, except climb walls.

One way to resolve it is to make several non-weapon proficiencies into thief skills. I like this approach in part because some of the non-weapon proficiencies had been used a theives' skills in previous editions. I also like it because it gives a thief more options. I can see an urban thief as quite different than and adventuring, dungeon-crawling thief. I could see both as quite different from a yazuka and assassin. You could start with a list of twelve skills starting with 1 point and 16 points to build with no more than 6 points going  to one skill.

However, once you make the thief skills and non-weapon proficiencies the same mechanic, it makes more sense for all the thief skills to become non-weapon proficiencies. This allows characters to have a narrow band of skills with better than a one in three chance of doing anything. This also ties into the kits idea, but that will come later in another post.

To preview a bit where all of this is going: Warriors will be differentiated by weapon proficiencies and specializations. Rogues will be differentiated by non-weapon proficiencies. Wizards will be differentiated by schools of magic. Priests will be differentiated by domains. Psionicists will be differentiated by disciplines. Certain non-weapon proficiencies can add flavor to any character, but I want to get rid of certain silliness in the various Handbooks. (An amazon kit for every class. Ugh.)

Back to the topic. To re-skin the thief skills into non-weapon proficiencies:

Pick Pockets: DEX +0
Open Locks: DEX -1
Find/Remove Traps: WIS -2
Move Silently: DEX -1
Hide in Shadows: WIS -2
Detect Noise: WIS
Climb Walls: DEX +2
Read Languages: INT - 3

Next up, more on the kits.