Why is the Thief the only semi-martial to only get d4 hit die?
Pretty much just the title.
All the other semi-martials get d6 hit die, but the poor Thief gets both the worst armour and only d4 HD, which seems a little strange to me. The armour at least makes narrative sense as the Thief is a stealth character, but I don't see why they're any less durable than the Enchanter, for example. Sure, the Thief levels up slightly faster, but not by a large margin. If that were the issue then there's the Cleric that levels up faster than the Enchanter and actually makes it to levels 12-15 faster than the Thief. On the face of it, all the other classes seem to fit a pattern, Martials: d8, Non-Martial: d4, all the other Semi-Martials: d6, Thief: d4.
Those of you who've been following the development of Dolmenwood, do you know if this has been discussed? Is it just to maintain backwards compatibility with OSE? Is there some balance issue that's not readily apparent to me? Just tradition? Something else?