Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ramacass 02-07-07, 09:51 PM	Obviously the gold you can take away from an AR is limited to the APL the mod is played at, but here's my latest scheme at earning in game GP to be spent on the current adventure My cunning and devilishly handsome bard casts nystul's magic aura on a small silver ring making it appear as a ring of deflection, disguises himself as stern, grave, mage and goes into a shop bluffing his way into selling the ring for a 1,000 gp by telling the shopkeeper he is on an urgent mission and must leave town at once, assuring him the ring is real, he sells it and then buys supplies for the current adventure. What would the bonus be on the shopkeeper's sence motive check vrs my bard's bluff. It seems to me that the shopkeeper would recieve a +5 due to fact the story is a little hard to believe and puts the shopkeeper at some risk the ring is a fake. I personally feel it is important that the game incorporate activities like this, thinking outside the box and building characters with interesting spell and feat choices. Thoughts
cycloptic_squirrel 02-07-07, 11:38 PM	If I was a DM, I'd give him +5 or +10 or significantly more if his spot indicated you were dressing up. I'd also mark your AR as evil and alert the Triad. With the right DM and a time limit that isn't set in stone, most creative 'outside the box' solutions or activities have a chance of succeeding.
Ramacass 02-08-07, 12:57 AM	If I was a DM, I'd give him +5 or +10 or significantly more if his spot indicated you were dressing up. I'd also mark your AR as evil and alert the Triad. With the right DM and a time limit that isn't set in stone, most creative 'outside the box' solutions or activities have a chance of succeeding. I thought about a +10 but it doesn't seem to put the target at "significant" risk, using the bluff examples in the PHB. Nifty trick though huh I'm just thinking about starting up a Bard and am thnking of other ways he could be useful to the party and I think a 1000gp worth of consumables for an adventure is pretty useful. I do hope you were kidding about that marking my AR as evil part. I mean if you can use slight of hand to get gp between adventures why can't you do a bit of "extra legal" in game activities.
RLWilde 02-08-07, 01:14 AM	I'd also mark your AR as evil and alert the Triad. I wouldn't call it evil (unless there were special circumstances), but I'd let the Triad know, as well as mentioning it to other local judges. In a normal campaign, this sort of activity would have a good chance of eventually catching up with the character, as word of fake magic items entering the market began to spread. Wouldn't it be loads of fun for this character (and maybe the rest of the party) to be taken off to jail for such activity? :)
cycloptic_squirrel 02-08-07, 01:18 AM	The +5 or +10 would probably depend upon how well you roleplayed it out. If you made any sort of attempt at doing it in character I'd probably spring for the +5. In a home game, I wouldn't exactly say what you're doing is evil, but I would have the magic shop owner put a price on your head, which could muck up a few things. In LG I have few other options. If you took time to find an evil or disreputable magic shop owner I might not do the evil AR thing; but what you're talking about is stealing shamelessly from an honest businessman so you can buy things for yourself, what I'd say is evil. If you needed the cash to supliment some holy quest or give the money to the poor or heck, if you paid him back at the end, I'd probably let it go unnoted. Also, a note and a call to the triad probably wouldn't get your character yanked immediatly, but repeated use (>6 times) I'd say has a very good chance. It's not because you're doing something creative and non-standard (I enjoy seeing such activities), it's because you're doing something I consider evil. The slight of hand option isn't 'evil', but I consider it the difference between stealing a candy bar and TV. If you tried it at my table, I'd warn you what I'd do, but I'd let you do it, and I would probably smile and laugh with you, because it is a neat trick.
Morgen 02-08-07, 01:42 AM	Well on one hand your being rather greedy and nothing in the rules says a shop keeper has that kind of money to throw around on a ring or would even really want such a silver ring. Your market for that item should be relatively small. Now if you did it in trade for a service or something, that might work a little more often. Not really an evil act then, since there isn't such a thing as an "honest businessman" I'm totally sure! ;)
Ramacass 02-08-07, 01:46 AM	Good points, I guess I just don't see it as any worse than the slight of hand out of game uses. Your stealing from somebody either way, just this way your role playing it. The point is I guess that this sort of thing will be viewed very differently by different DMs. Alas, why do I not play in the bandit kingdoms ;) The point of the disguise was to be able to avoid being tracked. If I changed the disguise each time, and never pulled th stunt twice in the same city. It seems pretty safe to me. Also I could role play those mods where the party has lots of overcap and use it to pay the merchants back. Even keep tally of who I owe money and how much overcap has been returned and how much I still owe them :) Huh, Huh, any converts to non-evil country- it's nice over here
Japangirl 02-08-07, 01:50 AM	I never thought it was evil, just really clever. Of course I do play in the BK . . .
Ramacass 02-08-07, 01:50 AM	[QUOTE=Morgen;11423257]Well on one hand your being rather greedy QUOTE] Yes, isn't it great:D
MatBlack 02-08-07, 02:34 AM	The +5 or +10 would probably depend upon how well you roleplayed it out. If you made any sort of attempt at doing it in character I'd probably spring for the +5. In a home game, I wouldn't exactly say what you're doing is evil, but I would have the magic shop owner put a price on your head, which could muck up a few things. In LG I have few other options. If you took time to find an evil or disreputable magic shop owner I might not do the evil AR thing; but what you're talking about is stealing shamelessly from an honest businessman so you can buy things for yourself, what I'd say is evil. If you needed the cash to supliment some holy quest or give the money to the poor or heck, if you paid him back at the end, I'd probably let it go unnoted. Also, a note and a call to the triad probably wouldn't get your character yanked immediatly, but repeated use (>6 times) I'd say has a very good chance. It's not because you're doing something creative and non-standard (I enjoy seeing such activities), it's because you're doing something I consider evil. The slight of hand option isn't 'evil', but I consider it the difference between stealing a candy bar and TV. If you tried it at my table, I'd warn you what I'd do, but I'd let you do it, and I would probably smile and laugh with you, because it is a neat trick. well, since he would be selling it for "over the cap" gold, i don't see it as being particularly evil, as the money goes back to it's rightful owner (or at least SOMEWHERE) at the end of the mod (as opposed to Non-adventuring larceny which he gets to keep). even if he were to buy a lot of gear with the money, if he wanted to keep it, he would have to pay for it with gold from the mod, thereby eventually purchasing it "legally." though to get any large amount of money, you'd have to be in a large enough city (Greyhawk or Dyvers spring to mind) where the shopkeeps would be possessed of incredibly high Spot and Sense Motive skills, probably along with lots of nifty tools to overcome what would be a very common problem in a world full of adventurers and Nystul's magic aura. and the local constabulary would probably be more than happy to haul some adventurers off to jail (or to become a Gelatinous Cube in the Dyvers sewer system). but that's just some "out of the box" DM thinking. ;)
Jay_Ibero_911 02-08-07, 01:39 PM	Wow, so many people are mistaking a chaotic act for an evil one...BREAKING THE LAW IS NOT EVIL! At least not in an of itself...
MatBlack 02-08-07, 03:37 PM	Wow, so many people are mistaking a chaotic act for an evil one...BREAKING THE LAW IS NOT EVIL! At least not in an of itself... i don't think anyone is mistaking Chaotic for Evil. harming others to help yourself is indeed chaotic. depending upon the particulars of the act, it could also be considered evil. the particular act in question (knowingly going to lengths to cheat a merchant out of money for no reason other than personal gain) could easily be interpreted differently by different DMs, as it sits fairly close to the border of Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil. the amount of foresight and planning involved could easily sway the act away from Chaotic altogether, and put it in the category of a solely Neutral Evil act. as LG doesn't really concern itself with alignment tracking outside of sliding into evil, the Chaotic argument is academic here (unless we were talking about a Paladin or Monk, but we're not, so feh ;) ).
Rerednaw 02-08-07, 04:42 PM	Obviously the gold you can take away from an AR is limited to the APL the mod is played at, but here's my latest scheme at earning in game GP to be spent on the current adventure ...What would the bonus be on the shopkeeper's sence motive check vrs my bard's bluff. It seems to me that the shopkeeper would recieve a +5 due to fact the story is a little hard to believe and puts the shopkeeper at some risk the ring is a fake. I personally feel it is important that the game incorporate activities like this, thinking outside the box and building characters with interesting spell and feat choices. Most likely it won't matter what the shopkeeper bonus is. The majority of the time the bard with Glibness active is going to succeed even on 1. A 14 Cha, 7th level bard could have 10 ranks in bluff. So that's a minimum check of 43 before any kind of optimizing. I like thinking outside the box. In home games, I've used a bard to pull off some pretty outlandish scams. In LG though...I'd ask the Triad what their take on this behavior is.
RLWilde 02-08-07, 11:36 PM	The point of the disguise was to be able to avoid being tracked. If I changed the disguise each time, and never pulled th stunt twice in the same city. It seems pretty safe to me. If that's the case, it probably would be pretty safe (barring some atypical shopkeeper... I really wouldn't recommend trying to get college sweatshirts and shot glasses from the Rel Mord University bookstore with this trick ;)). Of course, depending on where you, keeping it down to once per city may mean not using it very often. Using in-game logic, hitting the same city even 3 or 4 times might lead to the likely targets (even in a large city, the number of shops that you would likely hit would be relatively few, considering the price of the item) pooling resources to hire someone to find youm including a Divination or Scrying spell.
copper_wyrmling 02-09-07, 02:21 AM	If that's the case, it probably would be pretty safe (barring some atypical shopkeeper... I really wouldn't recommend trying to get college sweatshirts and shot glasses from the Rel Mord University bookstore with this trick ;)). Of course, depending on where you, keeping it down to once per city may mean not using it very often. Using in-game logic, hitting the same city even 3 or 4 times might lead to the likely targets (even in a large city, the number of shops that you would likely hit would be relatively few, considering the price of the item) pooling resources to hire someone to find youm including a Divination or Scrying spell. So... having a permanent Nondetection would be helpful, then? Wild Mages can UMD scrolls of Glibness...
Morgen 02-09-07, 03:44 AM	Can we not have these good/evil conversations anymore? 80% of the characters in LG would have to be removed from the campaign for just completeing most of these mods by some people's standards.
redgamer 02-09-07, 05:21 PM	I just go with people of greyhawk realize there are such things as illusion spells and check before plopping down 1,000 on a deal that is too good to be true.
Ramacass 02-10-07, 03:10 AM	I just go with people of greyhawk realize there are such things as illusion spells and check before plopping down 1,000 on a deal that is too good to be true. Well it's not actually too good to be true, selling a ring of deflection for 1,000gp is standard. It's a question of using bluff to and I quote "you can make the outrageous or untrue seem plausible," the part that's hard to believe is that my character can't wait to have him identify it because he has to leave at once, plus "why waste a 100gp on a spell when I assure you it's legit" without the bit about having to leave immediatly it's a straight roll bluff vrs sence motive. Because of the potential risk involved what with the chance it's a scam the shop keeper gets a +5 if the DM thinks believing my character puts the shopkeeper at some risk and a +10 if the DM thnks it puts the shopkeeper at significant risk to believe my story. The example givin in the book for a significant risk bluff is"This diadem doesn't belong to the duchess. It just looks like hers. Trust me, I wouldn't sell you jewelry that would get you hanged, would I?'" Now in that example the shopkeeper recognizes the jewelry as the duchess's so believing me could put him in some SERIOUS hot water. I don't think my scam puts the shopkeeper in anywhere near as much potential trouble. But others may disagree. Now if I told the shopkeeper I was actually a polymorphed silver dragon and i need 1000 more gp for the break enchantment spell cast on me and if I don't get it cast immediatly I'll stay this way forever, by the love of Bahamut please hurry! he would get a +20 on his sence motive but if he failed he would still believe me, according to the rules. Now of course the other option is the DM just won't let me do it, not because it's against the rules but just because they don't want to deal with it. or believes it's an evil act and would hopefully tell me their opinion before hand of my plan so I might reconsider. Now if I were going to do it i'd write down the shop, shopkeeper's name, and city on the AR and a note of how much I owe them. Also when there is overcap I'd mark it off from what I owe these people and have the DM sign off on it. Or if the triad doesn't like all this i'd just not do it at all. And take combat spells and feats and try to get through mods the old fashioned way, hack my way through, or rather sing while others hack their way through. I'm easy either way, I just thought it was a nifty idea and went with my character concept. Now my main greyhawk character would never do something like this. She's a fiesty, spring attacking, longspear weilding, self righteous, lesbian priestess of Farlanghn (note avatar) I'm NOT trying to find a way as a player to "cheat." I'm just exploring what a rogueish character might do in a strictly structured game like LG
Simpi 02-10-07, 03:18 AM	I'm just exploring what a rogueish character might do in a strictly structured game like LG And the word strictly structured is the word here so best advice is "Don't do it" as you cannot get any permanent benefit from it. Sampo Haarlaa Naerie Triad
Cardinal Teplin 02-10-07, 07:38 AM	There aren't many shopkeepers in my region who would actually have 1000gp, so that would be a flaw in the plan right there. Obviously your region would differ. Otherwise it sems like a fairly standard scam to me - rather similar to the 'diamond ring trick' in Going Postal, (by Terry Pratchet) - and would have rather similar consequences. It would certainly be evil if the shopkeeper couldn't actually afford to lose 1000gp on a deal, and it subsequently led to his penury, suicide or the starvation of his dependents. I'd certainly have no problem in letting it work, provided a suitable target could be found. Its just that actual liquid funds are rare, and people who can afford to buy and sell magic items even more so. H
Mommy was an Orc 02-10-07, 09:30 AM	I'd certainly have no problem in letting it work, provided a suitable target could be found. Its just that actual liquid funds are rare, and people who can afford to buy and sell magic items even more so. Probably explains why when you find 24000K of magic items, it mysteriously only shows up as 4500 gold after the adventure. :/
Cardinal Teplin 02-11-07, 04:24 PM	Precisely - finding a buyer is hard. This is also why the world appears to be full of people who have valuable items they havn't sold - which is they are willing to offer item X as a favour in return for someone actually coughing up real cash!
RLWilde 02-15-07, 01:22 AM	So... having a permanent Nondetection would be helpful, then? Sure, not guaranteed, though. :D
cetiken 02-15-07, 07:31 PM	My cunning and devilishly handsome bard casts nystul's magic aura <clip> Thoughts What a terrible spell for a bard. They get like 4 1st level spells and between Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Charm Person, Cure Light Wounds, and Inspirational Boost (SC) there isn't a lot of space for spells that only give you 500gp that you may not be able to use (especially with these DMs who think you're evil. You'd clearly only do somthing like this to raise funds for a hero's Raise Dead casting.) YMMV though.
Reylance 02-16-07, 03:03 PM	It's an interesting idea. And if you want a realistic bluff, you can say "My friend died, and he needs to sell this ring to pay for his raise dead spell. Will you offer more than half book value? No? A shame you couldn't help a person in need." However, selling magic items didn't work too well for a certain Brendingund fellow not so long ago....
zelf_gale 02-16-07, 03:28 PM	Here is why I wouldn't allow it. Store policy. I once worked at a pawn shop. If you were my best friend ( as per diplomacy roll) and you convinced me you believed that your pawn was valid (as per bluff roll) and I believed you to be a person who had the credentials to certify it as such (as per disguise roll) I still wouldn't purchase the item without testing its validity. It just isn't worth losing my job if my boss finds out I didn't check first thus violating store policy. Additionally, there are other mitigating circumstances that could have occured. You could have been deceived when validating the item. You could have accidentally picked up the wrong item before coming to the store. Someone could have intentionally replaced the orginal with a fake. You could have pulled the wrong item out of the wrong pocket. All would be reasons that I would consider even I believed all of your story when making a purchase that is over 100,000 USD in worth. On top of that any business will have some sort of isurance in case of fraud, but that insurance claim may be invalid if we didn't try to personally certify that the item was valid before buying it. So you can deceive me into thinking I'm your friend, you can deceive me into thinking you believe an item is what you say, you can deceive me into thinking you've got the credibility to certify what you say BUT I do not have to ignore my good sense just because you do. I will however maybe give you a little extra for the real thing (since you are my friend) and trust that is really was working if you put it on me (since you are a wizard who told me what it was). But if you are putting me into remote but very large amounts of risk I'm gonna take precations against the corner cases. And additionally, I would restrict this purchase to wizards schools, temples, and thieves guilds, since otherwise few people would have access to the cash, people, and power to sucessfully run such a business at a profit. -Fin
Japangirl 02-16-07, 03:47 PM	While that is all valid in today's world, in LG the mercantile and economic systems are a lot more Medieval. There is no validation, people generally own their own stores or have apprentices so losing one's job isn't a concern, and there is no insurance. On the other hand, Identifies are cheap (100g), 1st level caster, and only take an hour, so any shopkeeper who is about to shell out 1000g on an item will have it identified. Additionally, by the time a shopkeeper is wealthy enough to afford shelling out 1k gold in cash, s/he has enough ranks in Appraise to appraise the ring's true value, not be suckered by the Nystul's Magic Aura. Now if you could bluff that you need the money RIGHT NOW for some reason and can't wait an hour (the curse will kill you in half an hour if you don't go and sacrifice the gold or something) and you make the diplomacy check as well, then maybe the ring would get sold. But not just under a general circumstances buy. I still like the idea, I just don't think it would work very well now that I've given it some thought.
GrahamWills 02-16-07, 04:18 PM	In Verbobonc it looks like the punishment for this crime is confiscation of all carried goods, 200GP fine and 2TU imprisonment. Since in a magical world it is remarkably easy to fool people into thinking one thing is not what it actually is, I would think the simplest way for a high-end shopkeeper to stay in business is to take a small trimming of hair, or nails or the like and register that as yours. As soon as any fakery is discovered, hire your APL8+ party of adventurers (one of whom will have scry) and tell them to go find the culprit and bring them to justice. At APL 8, they shouldn't cost you more than 3,000 gp, which is easily worth it to dissuade the next idiots. Running this when you are supposed to be runnign a mod is a bit unfriendly to everyone else, so I would just tell the person that if they fail to save against scrying they will get caught. The save will need to be 18+ and you have a -10 for giving up a body part. Fail and you lose all your carried possesion, 200gold and 2TU.
Cardinal Teplin 02-16-07, 07:56 PM	I submitted a metaorg that did this sort of thing - part postal service, part vigilante gang. Never did get accepted though...