False Identity: The Possibilities - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Yunru Jan 27, 2015 20:16:17	You have created a second identity that includes documentation, established acquaintances, and disguises that allow you to assume that persona. Additionally, you can forge documents including official papers and personal letters, as long as you have seen an example of the kind of document or the handwriting you are trying to copy.
#2 Tempest_Stormwind Jan 27, 2015 23:47:26	"The kind of document" is deceptively powerful if you've had any bureaucratic or legal background at all. Warrants, invitations, and business records are perhaps the most useful to PCs (unless you're in Eberron, where travel papers, identity papers, and letters of credit are common). Intrigue games allow for even more havoc, particularly if you're trying to manipulate NPC alliances through the "personal letter" version ("Your exellency, I believe I have proof your wife is having an affair with your best friend!"). And now you only need to have seen one of these documents, in the general "kind" of the type you want to forge. To keep this getting out of hand quickly, I'd treat each region (say, town or province) as having its own "kind" of each type of document. Good luck using one nation's language on a search warrant in another! For crafty players: If you don't have enough bureaucratic or legal experience to regularly see these, along with samples of handwriting appropriate to them, well... look at the first half of this ability. Greetings, I'm the new clerk sent in from the capital to help organize the regional tax records for the local magistrate, so could I please have access to his files? You'll find all my paperwork is in order... Oh, and all of this appears to be automatic, without a check. With good enough Deception skill to redirect initial suspicion away from a deep reading of the documents, this is going to be really hard to detect. Honestly, I think this is certainly one of the strongest background features in the book, if not the strongest directly. It compares very favorably to a good chunk of the 9th level assassin ability, for instance (although, being a background ability and thus open to more interpretation, there's no way to guarantee you'll be able to establish a second false identity if your first cover is blown - but you should still have usable forger skills). EDIT: You know, I just noticed that the assassin's Infiltration Expertise prevents you from assuming an identity that belongs to someone else, but the charlatan's False Identity has no such limitation. That could cause problems, if people deploy RAW arguments on backgrounds (a move that I feel is somewhat unsporting, but still...).
#3 Timborama Jan 28, 2015 11:53:15	Unrelated, yet somewhat related: I made a character with the Charlatan background. The idea is to use my fellow PCs' meta-knowledge against them! In a semi-harmless way, of course. He pretends to be a baron of some sort of town/village/whatever using his background feature, all while adventuring, so he can use his false identity for connections and/or wealth. But, in reality, it's the opposite! He's REALLY a baron who falsified documents to be an adventurer so he can satisfy his wanderlust (and slight homicidal tendencies). Yes, it's a pretty lame plot-twist...but no one will see it coming!
#4 BRJN Jan 30, 2015 18:31:52	Also semi-related: One of the other players in the group I joined recently, goofed up: he apparently has this background and can cast Disguise Self. In order to turn Invisible, he had to drop the Disguise spell, while almost but not quite out of line-of-sight of the rest of us. So now we (players) know that the "human noble" we travel with is actually a Drow. He then ran away from a fight, along with the information (a business log) we were sent to copy. I don't know what he's up to...

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Yunru

Jan 27, 2015 20:16:17

You have created a second identity that includes documentation, established acquaintances, and disguises that allow you to assume that persona.
Additionally, you can forge documents including official papers and personal letters, as long as you have seen an example of the kind of document or the handwriting you are trying to copy.

Tempest_Stormwind

Jan 27, 2015 23:47:26

"The kind of document" is deceptively powerful if you've had any bureaucratic or legal background at all. Warrants, invitations, and business records are perhaps the most useful to PCs (unless you're in Eberron, where travel papers, identity papers, and letters of credit are common). Intrigue games allow for even more havoc, particularly if you're trying to manipulate NPC alliances through the "personal letter" version ("Your exellency, I believe I have proof your wife is having an affair with your best friend!"). And now you only need to have seen one of these documents, in the general "kind" of the type you want to forge.

To keep this getting out of hand quickly, I'd treat each region (say, town or province) as having its own "kind" of each type of document. Good luck using one nation's language on a search warrant in another!

For crafty players: If you don't have enough bureaucratic or legal experience to regularly see these, along with samples of handwriting appropriate to them, well... look at the first half of this ability. Greetings, I'm the new clerk sent in from the capital to help organize the regional tax records for the local magistrate, so could I please have access to his files? You'll find all my paperwork is in order...

Oh, and all of this appears to be automatic, without a check. With good enough Deception skill to redirect initial suspicion away from a deep reading of the documents, this is going to be really hard to detect.

Honestly, I think this is certainly one of the strongest background features in the book, if not the strongest directly. It compares very favorably to a good chunk of the 9th level assassin ability, for instance (although, being a background ability and thus open to more interpretation, there's no way to guarantee you'll be able to establish a second false identity if your first cover is blown - but you should still have usable forger skills).

EDIT: You know, I just noticed that the assassin's Infiltration Expertise prevents you from assuming an identity that belongs to someone else, but the charlatan's False Identity has no such limitation. That could cause problems, if people deploy RAW arguments on backgrounds (a move that I feel is somewhat unsporting, but still...).

Timborama

Jan 28, 2015 11:53:15

Unrelated, yet somewhat related: I made a character with the Charlatan background. The idea is to use my fellow PCs' meta-knowledge against them! In a semi-harmless way, of course.

He pretends to be a baron of some sort of town/village/whatever using his background feature, all while adventuring, so he can use his false identity for connections and/or wealth. But, in reality, it's the opposite! He's REALLY a baron who falsified documents to be an adventurer so he can satisfy his wanderlust (and slight homicidal tendencies). Yes, it's a pretty lame plot-twist...but no one will see it coming!

BRJN

Jan 30, 2015 18:31:52

Also semi-related:

One of the other players in the group I joined recently, goofed up: he apparently has this background and can cast Disguise Self. In order to turn Invisible, he had to drop the Disguise spell, while almost but not quite out of line-of-sight of the rest of us. So now we (players) know that the "human noble" we travel with is actually a Drow. He then ran away from a fight, along with the information (a business log) we were sent to copy. I don't know what he's up to...