The cut
After a delve that pays gold, each Light-Fingered hero in the party keeps 5% of the purse, rounded, with a minimum of 1 gold. The treasury receives the rest, and the Day Book records what was kept, so the leak is always visible.
Three rules decide how much it costs:
- Only on delves they join. The cut is taken from the party’s purse. A Light-Fingered hero sitting on the bench takes nothing.
- Per hero. Each Light-Fingered hero in the party takes their own 5%. Two of them cost 10%.
- Percentage of the whole purse. It scales with the delve, so it costs most on the contracts that pay best.
| Delve purse | One Light-Fingered hero | Two in the party |
|---|---|---|
| 60 gold | −3 | −6 |
| 200 gold | −10 | −20 |
| 400 gold | −20 | −40 |
How it compares
Five percent of a purse is a small number on any single delve. Across a season of regular delving it becomes a steady leak, roughly a 5% tax on the income from every run that hero makes. That is usually less than the difference between a strong hero and the next-best option, so the trait rarely justifies passing on a good recruit. It does justify thinking about which runs they make.
The economy planner lets you see what a few percent of delve income means against your six-day settlements.
Other places it shows up
- Gear hunts dislike it. Gear Hunt jobs list Light-Fingered among the traits they would rather not take, which takes 6% off that hero’s suitability. The other job types do not mind.
- Forks in the dungeon. As party leader, a Light-Fingered hero leans +2 toward a treasure side room. With nothing pulling the other way, they take it about 80% of the time it is offered. Treasure rooms carry extra gold, so the detour usually pays, and the hero then takes 5% of the larger purse.
- Flavour. Quest reports have Light-Fingered lines, and on pair duty the hero uses the “coin” voice shared with Thrifty, Coin-Minded, Hard Bargainer and Greedy. Some of those lines are about borrowing from the stores and selling a comrade their own boots.
Managing a Light-Fingered hero
- Bench them on the biggest payouts when you have a comparable alternative.
- Use them freely on routine delves, where the cut is a handful of gold.
- Avoid stacking two Light-Fingered heroes in one party, since the cuts add up.
- Keep them off Gear Hunts if you have someone else who fits.
Conflicts and rarity
The game never puts Light-Fingered on a hero who is Generous or Oathbound. Heroes can earn new traits over a career, and earning one of those removes Light-Fingered.
- Rarity: common, negative · draw weight 100 of 6,365 · about 1 recruit in 25
- Founding draft: any card, or as the negative half of the wildcard card.
- In the wiki’s archive: first present in the 2.1.8 build (absent from 2.0.7).
Recruiting
A mild negative. A strong hero is usually still worth signing; factor the 5% into how you value them and do not pay a premium on top. On a guild that lives on a few large purses, it matters more than on one that runs many small delves.