The way we have been playing is basically that you really can't collect items like that from people or the DM makes it impossible. Priest ring for an example, I wanted the ring as a fellow follower of the god and offered EXTREEME amounts of stuff for it, tried diplomacy and other skills to get at it (no thievery) and he refused. I can kinda see where he came from, I admit, but whatever.
Anyways, how do you decide what to say a NPC has on his to be stolen and if the thief gets it does he Permanently get it? Like the extra 10 gold for example. And is that RPGA Legal and recognized or however you would say it. Would it be acceptable outside a home game, like at a convention for example, if my char had an extra 200gp for stealing at lvl 10 or so.
Sorry for babbling, and thanks for the help. =)
Okay, I'm curious how these really work in playing RPGA home games. Some friends and I have played about a dozen mods and we've noticed that at the end of the mods you get item or X gold ect. Also I noticed that no monsters or NPC's have any sort of indication of what they might or might not be carrying on their person. So, as a GM, can I assume that if the thief pick pockets a nobleman or merchant that he finds, say 10 gold or something. Or if he successfully SoH a priest wearing a ring with the symbol of his god and gets the ring, does he get to keep these items in game, like record them on his sheet?
The way we have been playing is basically that you really can't collect items like that from people or the DM makes it impossible. Priest ring for an example, I wanted the ring as a fellow follower of the god and offered EXTREEME amounts of stuff for it, tried diplomacy and other skills to get at it (no thievery) and he refused. I can kinda see where he came from, I admit, but whatever.
Anyways, how do you decide what to say a NPC has on his to be stolen and if the thief gets it does he Permanently get it? Like the extra 10 gold for example. And is that RPGA Legal and recognized or however you would say it. Would it be acceptable outside a home game, like at a convention for example, if my char had an extra 200gp for stealing at lvl 10 or so.
Sorry for babbling, and thanks for the help. =)
Put simply, there is absolutely NOTHING a PC can do to get rewards beyond the maximum XP/GP listed in the module and the items in the item bundles. Now, if the party failed an encounter that would result in them getting less than the maximum gold, in which case it's up to the DM if the PC can make up the difference using Thievery or other options.
Does the RPGA Have any rules or guidelines for this? If not, then those skills are kind of pointless without a specific in game reason to steal from whomever. Get the key open the door. There are a ton of mods where thats not necessary, thats why I ask. Kinda a pointless set of skills otherwise, if you get no real use from them.
Yes, because Thievery has absolutely no use besides picking pockets.
Or there's always trap disarming, lockpicking, etc.
There are 0 Traps and/or locks in LFR.
No, there are traps in LFR. But if you try to disarm them in melee, you will have 0 HP. :D
Happens.
As for the original question: If I DMed a cutpurse, I would simply deduct the 'findings' from that PC's share of the treasure. I'd pay it forward.
If we could, we'd spend the entire LFR adventure picking pockets and then we'd go crazy buying magic items. The GP rewards maintain balance.
I don't think there's any official ruling on picking pockets. In a four hour con game, picking pockets would really take away from the adventure. But if you're in a home game, have fun.
Priest ring for an example, I wanted the ring as a fellow follower of the god and offered EXTREEME amounts of stuff for it, tried diplomacy and other skills to get at it (no thievery) and he refused. I can kinda see where he came from, I admit, but whatever.
first off:Maby the ring is needed for something else further in the game, maby next month the priest clutches your character and with his dying breaths reveal the ring is the key to the basements by taking the third paste perl off the idol and putting the ring face in its hole. but wait, he lost the ring weeks ago and now you all are doomed.
Secondly: I think it is intended to shy away looters.
PC:"I steal the belts from all the dead guards!"
DM:"to make a rope of sorts to escape from the tower I take it?"
PC: "Wow thats a great idea! I was just going to take them and sell them for 5 gold each, after this, but that idea is so much cooler!"
PC2: hey why does the thief always get more loot than the rest of us?
PC: because I take everything not sewn on or nailed down, I got a scalpel and a hammer just in case I see those too.
I can see paying it foward, you get to steal the gold out of his belt he wont have the gold when you loot the bodies.
side note:I once had a halfling thief play all about his daggers and picking pockets. well he got a magic item i made that let him make a thievery check to pick pockets in stead of an opportunity attack when people passed his threatened area. HE thought it was cool as heck untill one game he was surrounded on eight sides by guards, he spends three action points and proceids to steal the 4 longswords from half the guards. He described it as simply grabbing the sword by the handel and throwing it out of the sheath away from them, bugger rolled three natural 20's in a row so I let him attack each of the guards, no roll below 10 so here go 8 swords flying all over the place making all sorts of chaos, it was a great moment for his character.
Nerds, it seems, are quite poor.
The most Sleight of Hand will get you in most RPGA games is some dice and maybe a pencil.
Nerds, it seems, are quite poor.
A natural 20 though can get the last soda from the fridge or even the DM's last mountain dew.
1) For traps, make each success count for something. A common trap countermeasure is Thievery as a skill challenge with 4 successes before 2 failures. First success can be -1 to trap's attack. Second can be -2. Third can be the trap attacking every other round (or half as often). Fourth success is the trap being disarmed.
If you are a player, remember the disable option - it is +5 on the attempt and has a 50% chance of the trap not activating the next round. That CAN be worth a standard action if the trap is doing solid damage to your party.
2) For slight of hand or, really, any skill, roll with the player's intention. Use the DMG difficulty table (erratad version) to determine the DC, then give them some benefit (gold pendant, list of best merchants in town, promisory note for free notes at a tavern, etc.). As others mentioned, the PC can't get gold above the cap, but they could make up for gold lost to a failed encounter and they can just plain have an awesome time feeling like an accomplished thief who has a gold pendant they really like. Nothing wrong with that!
For traps, make each success count for something.
Personally, I liked the disarming method for a particular trap in the Menace of the Icy Spire adventure (Dungeon 159). I'm hoping that this is a change to traps that we'll see reflected in DMG 2.
Essentially, disarming that trap required 4 successes of DC X. If you make DC X, that counts as one success and delays the trap for 1 round. For every 5 points by which you exceed the DC, you get another success. (So, if you roll high and make DC X+15, that counts as 4 successes and you disarm the trap completely in 1 round; if you only roll DC X, that counts as 1 success and also delays the trap for a round.)
I suppose if you wanted to, you could use DME to use this method instead of the standard DMG method, even without it being official. In the meantime, though, I'd tend to just advise the use of delaying--the disarm skill challenge is better left until after combat.
-- Brian Gibbons.
There are times that being able to swipe an item unnoticed should prove useful in both dimplomacy checks: here is the ledger from that merchant we are telling you is a zhent double agent, so you don't have to just take our word for it, read for yourself; and Bluff checks: we found lord hibbert's ring in your study sir (hand them the ring you pick pocketed earlier) so we know you are working with him (wait for the reaction and pray your bluff rocked etc).
Thieving for profit may not work well in LFR, but that doesn't mean it can't be used to great effect.
Every skill has it's uses, just some get used more often.
Ummm. Which trap? I only see one trap that can be disarmed, and it is a single disarm success, in T10...
Page 20. Doesn't use the standard stat block, but since it seems to be more trap-like than a magical crossbow turret and can be disabled/delayed by Thievery, I'd consider it one.
-- Brian Gibbons.
Personally, I liked the disarming method for a particular trap in the Menace of the Icy Spire adventure (Dungeon 159). I'm hoping that this is a change to traps that we'll see reflected in DMG 2.
Essentially, disarming that trap required 4 successes of DC X. If you make DC X, that counts as one success and delays the trap for 1 round. For every 5 points by which you exceed the DC, you get another success. (So, if you roll high and make DC X+15, that counts as 4 successes and you disarm the trap completely in 1 round; if you only roll DC X, that counts as 1 success and also delays the trap for a round.)
I suppose if you wanted to, you could use DME to use this method instead of the standard DMG method, even without it being official. In the meantime, though, I'd tend to just advise the use of delaying--the disarm skill challenge is better left until after combat.
I like the idea of the DC+5 yielding an additional success... though with the usual trap DCs, it would be pretty hard to get more than two successes. I don't like the success and delay. For one, it perma-turns off the trap, which is against the cinematic idea I like. Also, it removes any use of the disable technique (except for PCs with low thievery). I do hope DMG2 fixes traps.
In 3e my rogue liked disarmign clerics of their holy symbols and pickpocketing wizards compenent pouches in combat to shut them down. alas, Thievery in 4e doesnt' seem to allow such things.
Nonsense, I would certainly allow it in a game with a good roll. Sounds like classic page 42 stuff to me.
Nonsense, I would certainly allow it in a game with a good roll. Sounds like classic page 42 stuff to me.
Inasmuch as practically every enemy spellcaster is just using their implements as a prop for flavor, the fact that you can cobble together a system to allow PCs to steal them is a bit irrelevant.
-- Brian Gibbons.
Inasmuch as practically every enemy spellcaster is just using their implements as a prop for flavor, the fact that you can cobble together a system to allow PCs to steal them is a bit irrelevant.
-- Brian Gibbons.
I agree, that is why I wouldn't do a system, but would allow a player to attempt it just to enhance the flavor of the story. I would not allow this to become a default move, as that takes away the flavor and becomes dull, but bringing out the games flavor is part of DM's job.
For example, think of Gambit of the X-Men. Great character, yes, but wouldn't be a fit for what we have: he steals from everyone (including his friends) as he sees fit to meet ends, he exists to develop his own agenda over that of the greater good, and he is willing to shelve his own self-admitted moral obligations for a few moments of great experiences.
He may not be the best example, but hopefully one that people can relate to in some weird way.
Personally, I love seeing traps in my LFR adventures as a DM. My players don't much agree... but that's because only one of my regulars took training in the skill. ;)
Inasmuch as practically every enemy spellcaster is just using their implements as a prop for flavor, the fact that you can cobble together a system to allow PCs to steal them is a bit irrelevant.
Yeah, this is what I meant by my statement that 4e doesn't allow me to do it. Not that I couldn't conceivably do it with the skill.
One of the things to bear in mind with the Thievery skill in LFR is that within the scope of Living Forgotten Realms, the writers and directors are trying to push the heroic aspects of the game and world more than the ever-popular morally-gray parts of the game that many of us know and love.
Interesting. I often have felt that LFR was devoid of morality as compared to LG. Part of this is the alignment system, but a large part is the general availability of quests/adventure within mods as disparate opportunities with little requirement on the player's/PC's side. For example, in LG you really felt that you were part of something and that you were fighting against the forces of evil. You could not play four mods in most regions without this being obvious (and heroic). In LFR, many of the mods are rescue missions, recovery missions, travel missions... there is no moral reason behind your participating and none of the NPCs speak to you about the moral imperative behind what you are doing. You might find that the forces behind the problem are evil worshipers of Shar, but the NPC you talked to probably doesn't care. They just wanted XYZ taken resolved.
One of my gaming groups went to Gen Con with the idea of playing antiheroes... we laughed at how little the setting cared to what we though would be a tough shtick to pull off.
Maybe I'm seeing it wrong, but I see this setting as much more conducive to things like picking pockets than LG was. In LG, the setting cared and the continuity could really hurt you... play the next mod and there's that NPC who caught you with your hand in their wallet! Steal from the kingdom and become wanted. Etc.
As for what the system allows you to do, this falls under DM adjudication and it is clearly the intent of the core rules for players and DMs to do these kinds of things. (DMG p42 says "Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine.") The rules really state that the player states what they are trying to do (I want to steal the foe's implement) and the DM explains what that could accomplish ("I'll say that gives them a -2 to attacks for the encounter") then checks the table on DMG p42 for difficulty ("We are in the 7th-9th level range, so I'll go with a hard DC of 23") and assigns a skill ("Thievery"). The action could be further limited "This spellcaster seems to be particularly brazen, making this action possible" or have repercussions "doing this causes you to grant CA until the start of your next turn" or have a time limit (perhaps as a save ends effect instead of lasting the encounter, because the spellcaster has a backup implement they can use, but the move throws them off of their game). In general, I favor being pretty favorable (end of encounter) but couching everything with a premise that this is not necessarily something you can do all the time ("Yes, that would be possible because this foe is so brazen that the implement might be easily taken from him"). The player gets the idea that this isn't something they can use to break the system but rather a reward for out-of-the-box thinking.