Musing: Thieves

Like fighters, I always thought thieves got short changed when it came to their background and understanding what they were. Most think thieves are just that, those engaged in thievery, either raised on the streets or trained at a guild to be a pick pocket in a busy market.

But thieves don't strike me as that, in fact, I see them as the most appropriate class to be delving into ancient dungeons. Look at their abilities after all: Find/Remove Traps, Climb Walls, Read any Language, Read/Cast from Magic-User scrolls... these guys aren't thieves, they're tomb robbers! The thief class has much more in common with Indian Jones and Lara Croft then it does with the urchin pick pocket. These guys are build to enter old tombs, crypts, dungeons, and temples and not only survive the old traps left behind, but understand the old pictographs on the wall and know where to find the hidden treasure cache.

Guilds that train the adventuring thief class are probably full of old scholars, archeologists, and the plain old curious, people that want to know what had gone on before them (and score some loot along the way). I see these guilds as training "thieves" to delve these places for research, getting their hands on ancient artifacts, and just plain old testing of skills. These guilds also train in less savory things like Hiding in Shadows and Picking Pockets so that their employees can not only better survive, but gain valuable information. Someone knowing about secret entrances to old temples may not reveal such things in public, then there are those that hold the only remaining copy of that old key and won't give it up willingly. If some "thieves" happen to use those skills to relieve a well off noble of his coin purse, well, that's not the guild's fault is it?

In fact, most likely thieves, in terms of the adventuring class, are probably not called thieves in Bluestone. Though "tomb robber" sounds just as bad, hmm, what to name them... Any ideas?