This campaign had been going on for a few sessions to help a new DM get used to his job. He then allowed us to either keep current characters or to roll new ones, this time with fewer restrictions.
I wanted to be a Doppelganger Rogue originally, and I asked if I could do that, to which he answered yes. I rolled him up and joined the group that had played a few sessions without me after the change. We were in the capital city of the land and I decided to go thieving. I made about 5k gold and was happy. Then I run into another party member who wants to rob the bank, so I say I'll join in. I run inside and scope the security and the personnel. Then I get some new garb and shape change into one of the banks tellers.
My friend runs in and causes a massive distraction and I go into the vault, which was apparently left open, and begin to pick the locks of the safe boxes. The DM tells me that its already unlocked... so I ask about the others and he says they are as well.... Then I just spend the next couple of minutes stuffing the contents into my handy haversack.
I end up getting it full and turn to leave and I encounter the police force. I instinctively turn into my "natural" form of an Ilithid I encountered in my youth and they freak out and cower. I run out and my friend managed to escape. We split the loot and each had 1.8 million GP.
Was I wrong in doing this? I had all the intention of taking what I could get, but I didn't expect the vault to be open and boxes unlocked. The DM says he regrets not doing more, and he the city will learn from the experience.
On the other hand, I now have a shiny new set of armor and dagger among other things.
Sorry for the long story.
The DM is falling into a newbie trap of giving the player sway too much stuff way too easily. Best option IMO at this point is to say "whoops" and either restart the game or pretend that event never happened.
A better idea might be to spend that cash in some other way than loot for yourself. Yes, you pulled off the heist...but you used it to bribe people for later contacts, or you felt guilty and donated it to the church, or something like that.
A better idea might be to spend that cash in some other way than loot for yourself. Yes, you pulled off the heist...but you used it to bribe people for later contacts, or you felt guilty and donated it to the church, or something like that.
I think I might do something like this then. I've still got a good amount left. Most of it went to +5 armor and Dagger. I bought a lot of potions as well. They came in handy in our last dungeon, although the wizard could have helped by not running aimlessly into traps while I'm standing there wondering why I can't do my job...
It turns out that he had been giving out a lot of treasure, so he wasn't too mad about it. He said it was a good learning experience...
The DM is falling into a newbie trap of giving the player sway too much stuff way too easily. Best option IMO at this point is to say "whoops" and either restart the game or pretend that event never happened.
FYI, my characters name is Jayne. ;)
Congratulations on being the most wanted criminals in the land. I'd be very careful with that gold, now.
Definitely too much stuff. That does need to be undone.
1. The government/military/authorities are going to come after you with whatever means necessary to get their money back.
2. Word is going to spread around about who did the deed, and other criminals may come after you to get some or all of that money. Yes, you are a criminal. You robbed a bank. Is your character alignment evil?
3. Too much money coming from a windfall like that would cause your character to be irrational in certain cases. Trust me, greed can happen to anybody. As a player, you might think you can control it..... but if you robbed a bank in real life, what would you do with 1.8 million? This goes back to situation #1 and #2, except your character now has to watch his back.
4. Your DM can just say he missed up, you let it go, and revert back to the storyline before the robbery happened.
5. The DM just throws whatever he can at you, just to make up for a newbie-DM mess up. In this case, your character would prob end up dead soon.
Good luck, and may the dice roll in your favor.
Well you looted an awful lot of gold, lucky bugger to strike the bank at just the right time huh?
Well it just so happens that the kingdom is in the middle of so intense disagreements over it's rulership, the current King holds his position only because he has the might of the majority of the army backing him. An Army that has to be paid for, and who's pay is due, in fact somewhat overdue. There are already a few disertions and some grumbly soldiers.
Now it just so happens that the Bank was preparing to transfer the King's gold stored there to be sent to pay off the troops, which is why they were unlocked, the guarded wagons were about to arrive when they did the heist.
No gold, means a very upset army, an army that will suddenly be willing to listen to the other contender for the throne, loyal troops are suddenly divided against disgruntled troops switching sides. In fact the kingdom is on the verge of civil war as the King scrambles to recover the lost gold and pay the troops.
The King declares martial law in the city to stop the rioting and looting and his most loyal troops are holding the city. They are scouring it to find the gold and bring the robbers to justice.
Oh you would so hope you weren't silly enough to have spent that gold, specifically coined to pay the troops it has a different date on them then most coins and are thus recognizable. If you've been buying expensive new armor, then you've just drawn alot of attention to yourself. Not that it matters, there's a good chance that a few divination spells might reveal who stole it and where they are. The gold you have is suddenly a hot potatoe, get caught holding it and your dead.
BTW, city is locked down, all exits heavily guarded and the troops are searching and looting their way through the city looking for them.
The Players and the DM need to recognize that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You can't steal that much gold and not have reprecusions. In this case your characters have stolen more gold then is within their power, and thus should face a challenge equivelent to the rewards they've taken. You don't take a dragon's horde without facing a Dragon is the premise here. Your characters have just stolen from rich and powerful people, people with armies and high level NPCs.
This of course makes the game more interesting as well as avoiding the situations you have just described. The players can and will still try their stunts, but they will recognize the need for moderation and not going too far, at least with cause and effect they will be careful to not cause anything who's effects they can't deal with.
In this case I suggest you talk to the DM and do the following. YOu know you've stolen too much and will not be able to unload it, and don't want to be hunted down, so tell him you will find a group of unsavery thugs and use your shapeshifting ability to disguise yourself as one of them and spend some of the coin openly, thus drawing attention to them, then ambush them and kill them, place the gold, all of it, in their possession along with the items that you purchased with the gold (thus making linking them with the stuff you purchased while disguised as them) and turn them over. You solve the DM's problem this way and can expect a decent reward as a sizable finders fee is in order.
I hope he doesn't intend to correct the situation with heavy handed tactics. It might be better for all just to make up new characters if things get too heated in an attempt to rebalance things.
If you really want someone to get better at DMing in general though, rather than perhaps just in certain aspects like roleplaying NPCs (which goofy might be good for, with extreme personalities) then I would recommend you all restart entirely or from the last "normal" point in the campaign, and then play a "normal" campaign with good characters and follow the storyline you know he has ready.
For helping someone get used to the system and running a normal game (so he can then run the crazy stuff better and without going too far) some player cooperation would be required.
It seems like everyone had a great time and that's what's important, but if the idea was that you originally play a normal campaign to help him learn the system, your characters should probably stick to more traditional adventurer behavior.
Running evil or "crazy" campaigns is pretty tough to do right, and a new DM should probably get some experience with the default good campaigns so he can give out treasure rewards, xp, and deal with encounter building and running.
If the idea was just to goof off with him controlling the world then I suppose it was mostly a success.
If you weren't a member, add yet another hostile group to the list hunting you down.
Hell, even if you were a member, pulling a job like that would likely have serious repercussions....
You didn't do anything wrong - unless you want to count forgetting to buy some anti-scrying items. Now it's certainly too late for that in this city....
And sure, your DM botched it by handing out way to much loot....
But you know what? Most DMs have done something similar at some point. And the first reaction is to consider ways of either re-winding it or startng over. Wich is actually just as bad as the initial mistake. Also nearly as bad is the idea that it can be adressed by simply reducing the loot found in future sessions.
Now comes the fun part of taking this "oops" moment and trying to still spin stories/adventures off of it.
It can be done.
Heck, I wonder why the people selling you those +5 weapons didn't just turn them on you and robbed you blind.
Eh. I say roll with it. Heroic level PCs with millions in gold should be a fun campaign. :D
Hmm, nobodies mentioned the local thieves guilds reaction to this.
If you weren't a member, add yet another hostile group to the list hunting you down.
Hell, even if you were a member, pulling a job like that would likely have serious repercussions....
You didn't do anything wrong - unless you want to count forgetting to buy some anti-scrying items. Now it's certainly too late for that in this city....
I've seen a couple to few posts saying he did nothing wrong. He did do something wrong, he robbed a bank. He did it successfully without any immediate repercussions.... until the DM decides to do something about it.
Look at my post above, there's going to be "other criminals" after him. I'm not saying all thieves are pickpockets, but that's why their class is called such a thing.... Until in 3rd ed. it changed to Rogue. The anti-scrying is a good idea, and wouldn't warrant TOO much attention as to "who doesn't want to be seen".
I seriously would have had the timeline backtracked only if his alignment is good/neutral..... realize his mistake as a PLAYER, and not do it again. If his character is evil, commence play as normal and see if he can get out of the situation that he put himself in. That's what I would have ruled if I were the DM in that case, and also gave him some situations I as a player might have had to deal with in his shoes.
Once again, bro..... Good luck, and may the dice roll in your favor.
We took the majority of that money and started a re-education and housing center for freed slaves (anonymously of course). We are still filthy rich (couple hundred grand each) , but it was a good way to soak up some excess fundage.
It does not matter what you have or don't have, it matters how you and your DM play it out.
It gives you a way of spending the money in a satisfactory way without imbalancing the game. It also opens up a wide variety of storyline possibilities.