Comparing Dyson's d6 Thief and LotFP's Specialist

TL;DR: give LotFP Specialists 8 skill points to invest, not 4.

The celebrated Dyson Logos has a post on thieves that's nearly a decade old now. In the post he takes the B/X Thief skill table, which was given as percentile rolls, and converts them to their d6 (X-in-6 chance) equivalents.

(There was very little reason to present Thief skills as percentile rolls in the first place. All of them were in 5% increments, bar Climb Sheer Surfaces which ranges from 87% to 99%, and Hear Noise, which was given as an X-in-6 chance. Why, TSR?)

Lamentations of the Flame Princess, famously, also uses the d6 for skills. They give all characters a 1-in-6 base chance at succeeding, and allow Specialists (Thieves) to invest 4 skill points in any of them, and a further 2 points on each level up.

Converting Dyson to LotFP

So what would Dyson's numbers look like in LotFP? In the table below I've taken his numbers, changed the skill names to their LotFP equivalents, and removed Hear Noise. I've also merged Pick Locks with Find or Remove Traps, and Move Silently with Hide in Shadows, always choosing the higher odds of the two merged skills. Sneak Attack is a skill in LotFP, but originally was a class feature fixed at 2x, so I've set that at 2. The new LotFP skills not based on Thief features are omitted. Finally, we tally up the total "skill points" in this converted-Dyson system, and compare that number to the skill points from LotFP's Specialist class table.
 
Dyson conversion vs. LotFP

Level	Tinker	Sleight of Hand	Stealth	Climb	Sneak Attack	Total skill points	LotFP Specialist skill points
1	1	1	1	5	2	5	4
2	1	1	1	5	2	5	6
3	1	2	2	5	2	7	8
4	2	2	2	5	2	8	10
5	2	2	2	5	2	8	12
6	3	3	3	5	2	11	14
7	3	3	3	5	2	11	16
8	4	4	4	5	2	14	18
9	4	4	4	5	2	14	20
10	5	5	5	6	2	18	22
11	5	5	5	6	2	18	24
12	6	6	6	6	2	21	26
13	6	7	6	6	2	22	28
14	6	7	6	6	2	22	30

Dyson agrees with most people that the starting values are much too low. In the post he also presents a conversion to 2d6, and a houseruled version of it to boost the skills. (The houserule even includes choosing one "favoured" skill - could this post be present in LotFP's DNA?) Here, I won't be looking at the 2d6 tables. Instead, let's find out how the d6/LotFP skill conversion of the (famously stingy) B/X table compares to the LotFP ruleset. Starting from a base value of 1, the above table has 4 points invested into Climb, and 1 into Sneak Attack. That makes for a total of 5 skill points - more than the 4 that LotFP grants to first level Specialists.

The two rightmost columns of the table show that the B/X Thief is overtaken by the Specialist in skill points at 2nd level. To be fair to LotFP, though, we did chose the higher of two skills when merging them, instead of taking their average. It may also be argued that the LotFP Specialist's bump to a d6 hit die, and the ability to choose which skills to improve, offsets this loss in skill points.

A Little Boost

If, then, we agree with Dyson and others that these numbers need a boost, particularly at low levels, what would it look like under LotFP rules? Since all classes have skills at 1-in-6 in LotFP, the smallest reasonable buff we can give the Thief/Specialist is to start all Thief skills at 2-in-6 instead of 1.

Boosted Dyson conversion vs. LotFP

Level	Tinker	Sleight of Hand	Stealth	Climb	Sneak Attack	Total skill points	LotFP Specialist skill points
1	2	2	2	5	2	8	4
2	2	2	2	5	2	8	6
3	2	3	3	5	2	10	8
4	3	3	3	5	2	11	10
5	3	3	3	5	2	11	12
6	4	4	4	5	2	14	14
7	4	4	4	5	2	14	16
8	5	5	5	5	2	17	18
9	5	5	5	5	2	17	20
10	6	6	6	6	2	21	22
11	6	6	6	6	2	21	24
12	6	7	6	6	2	22	26
13	6	8	6	6	2	23	28
14	6	8	6	6	2	23	30

Now, the score at 1st level is a whopping 8 points to LotFP's 4. The Specialist only overtakes the Thief at 5th level. However, in my opinion, the levels below 5th are far more important to the game than the ones above it, so the LotFP skill point allocation seems lacking.
 
My conclusion is to keep LotFP Specialists otherwise as they are, but try giving them 8 skill points at 1st level instead of 4. (I won't limit the amount of skill points invested into any one skill, at least to start with. If there turns out to be a problem allowing one to max out one of their skills at 1st level, then we'll deal with that as it arises.)

Or, for a super simple rule: start Thieves at 2-in-6 for all skills (except Climb at 5-in-6), and increase this on levels divisible by three: to 3-in-6 at 3rd, 4-in-6 at 6th, and 5-in-6 at 9th level. Then, if playing beyond name level, bump everything to 6-in-6 at 10th.

Below is a comparison of the skill point equivalents of our various conversions with LotFP rules-as-written, as well as LotFP with a buff of 2 or 4 additional skill points at 1st level.

Comparison of skill point equivalent totals

Level	Dyson	Boosted Dyson	Dyson Boosted Smoothed	Super Simple	LotFP	LotFP+2	LotFP+4
1	5	8	8	8	4	6	8
2	5	8	9	8	6	8	10
3	7	10	10	11	8	10	12
4	8	11	11	11	10	12	14
5	8	11	12	11	12	14	16
6	11	14	14	14	14	16	18
7	11	14	16	14	16	18	20
8	14	17	17	14	18	20	22
9	14	17	18	17	20	22	24
10	18	21	21	21	22	24	26
11	18	21	21	21	24	26	28
12	21	22	22	21	26	28	30
13	22	23	23	21	28	30	32
14	22	23	23	21	30	32	34

I suggest you try out giving this higher number of skill points to Specialists/Thieves - whether your taste is to allow them to invest the points freely, or make a rigid progression resembling the B/X originals with Climb being far ahead of the others. See if that makes Thieves feel too overpowered and breaks the game - I doubt it will.

One caveat: starting Specialists with 8 points does mean that Thief skills are maxed out at 10th level, and only Sleight of Hand (which is modified by the target's level, and thus a base value higher than 6 still makes sense) increases beyond that. But that's only if you invest in Thief skills and nothing else; LotFP has other skills such as Architecture and Bushcraft to soak those points in. And honestly, I don't plan on playing beyond 10th level anyway.