The Heist-A Campaign Idea

[Karoht]

The Concept:
You guys are all part of the thieves guild. You're criminals, end of story. You take contracts to go steal stuff, kill people etc.

All Rogues and Bards party, maybe allow a tough guy like a Fighter or Barbarian or some variants thereof. Allow 1 caster other than the Bard. Might allow a Ranger. Start at Level 1-3. Core 3.5 (unless I get a really good arguement for allowing a rogue suppliment) or Core Pathfinder.

Bards-The face. Charisma-mancy is to be used and abused.
Rogues-The sneakies. The acrobats. The ninja's. The assassins. The experts in all things subterfuge.
The Fighter-The Muscle. That is all.
Wizard-The gizmo man. Has a tool for just about every imaginable task. And lots of skills to back it all up.

Give them 3 capers and odd jobs that are just there for warmup sake, maybe some sidequests along the way. Then give them the hook. The caper that everyone remembers as the time when 'snot got real'

4th caper should be hard, players should be level 6 or 7 by this point. Really hard. But basically, the 4th caper is where the players end up crossing the line. Maybe they do something horrible and it's a wakeup call. Maybe they steal something from someone they shouldn't, or they fail to steal something for someone that doesn't accept failure. Where you take it from there is up to you. Characters on the run? Characters trying to fight the other bad guys? Characters competing to get the macguffin or treasure before someone else? Sabatogue and Subterfuge everywhere. Think Assassins Creed here with a higher degree of fantasy.

You'll need to stat out all kinds of stuff, really give your players all kinds of solutions to problems. Stealing something from a castle should not feel like entering a dungeon per se, nor should they fight an army to get the object in question. Stealing something from a crypt should be 1 part Indiana Jones and 1 part Oceans 11, with just a subtle hint of classic Dungeons and Dragons dungeon crawl.



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Motivations
-Greed. Lots of greed. Maybe it's a love of money, shineys, magical power, collections of stuff, whatever. There are degrees of greed, all of which applicable. There is a world of difference between the guy who wants to get rich and then retire/live comfortably, and the guy who wants all the money in the world for no other purpose than having more than someone/everyone else.
-Power. I'll skip all the cliche's. Power is used and abused. This campaign is going to focus on the abuse. Crooked officials, bribe-able guards and nobles, etc. Everybody has a price. Some people's price is absurdly low. Kinda goes with that greed thing. Exerting power is a reason unto itself for power. Some are power hungry, some are power happy, some are power neutral, some are powerless.
-Safety. The player party is probably looking out for their own hides. Maybe as a team, maybe as individuals.



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The Nuts and Bolts.
So once 'the hook' happens and the party decides what path they want to pursue, I would want this to become much more 'off the rails' as it were. There are a lot of things I want to stat out in advance. I'm probably going to make use of a LOT of commoners or commoners with maybe a single class level. I want to really make use of urban environments and the relevant terrain, both to help the Rogues. I want a lot of situations where skill checks are going to be extremely useful. I need LOTS of enemies which Rogues can fight highly effectively other than just lots of humanoids. I need LOTS of enemies which can bog down the party for reasons other than lack of Sneak Attack Damage opportunities.


Thoughts?

[Treblain]

Ah, the heist. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Thug Fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighterVariantThug) is a useful class for the gang's "muscle". Urban Ranger could be cool, too; he could use his animal companion to sneak past security and steal stuff for him. If you find reason to use non-core material, there's plenty of options; the beguiler class fits the thief-wizard role very well, for one. Off the top of my head:


Artificer as "the gadget guy"
PrCs: Thief-Acrobat, Spymaster, Nightsong Infiltrator, Exemplar, Temple Raider...
I'm sure someone's going to mention factotums sooner or later, so yeah. They do everything.


Enemies? Maybe big dumb ogres and trained magical beasts as security grunts? Otherwise, urban environments mostly have humanoids, so most enemies would have NPC or class levels. Don't forget to give them Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive. Aside from enemies, have a lot of puzzles, traps, and obstacles to get through.

Storywise, the classic twist in a heist story is having the team get betrayed by their employer, barely escape, go on the run, and improvise the ultimate job to get payback. That should do nicely for a climax.

[Epsilon Rose]

Criminal campaigns always strike me as a bit interesting, but I wouldn't put such heavy restrictions on class, you're cutting out lots of great concepts.
Artificer and Beguiler have already been mentioned but there's also warlock, binder and spell thief (allot whom have a fluff tendency towards greed and thievery) and that's just the obvious things anything short of paladin could be adapted into a great thief. I'd just stipulate that the character concept has to work in a thieves guild (so no war vets doing the shining knight routine, batman wizards, codzilas and so on [actually you might be justified in banning sorc/wiz and clerics not dedicated to thief gods]).

Also, the way you worded the twist has me worried. It sounds almost like you're going for an Aesop. It's fine to have them get betrayed or find out that there's something bigger going on, but forcing them to mess up probably won't come across as very fun.
Also, this might be the type of campaign that works better as a sandbox.
Also also, I'd recommend watching Oceans 11 and Lupon III, DNAngel, Mouse and Magic Kaito and reading the original Lupon. They're all about thieves that do crazy things (and actually explain how they do them, unlike Carmen Sandiego) and DNAngel has magic going on.

[Geigan]

I would actually suggest a break from traditional XP per encounter. Make it a lump sum at the end of a job based on what they managed to get away with. Reward creative solutions with bonuses. It also helps to curb anyone with a kick down the door/kill things attitude as they'll know they aren't contributing through that alone and it'll get them thinking along the thief mindset.

I'd also offer the sidequests as smalltime things on the side for if they feel they need more resources. They could also be used as breaks from the main job so you can still give the other PCs who may not be participating while others plot something to do. Like say the muscle isn't needed so he goes on a one man bounty mission while the masterminds are plotting. Sure it's good to encourage everyone to get in on the planning but sometimes hey just want to get to the action and plotting takes time, so you could give em something separate on the side. Other ideas:
-wizard is needed for his magic touch. Some sort of magical puzzle needs solving for the right price of course
-bounty hunting/assassination as sneaky or straight forward as the players desire to curb both the good/evil sides as well as the subtle/brash players

Just make sure the only rewards these jobs gives them is money at first. Extra resources to work on the main job. Factor them in later on the lump sum XP so they still benefit later on.

Note this is a lot more on the delayed gratification side of things which may upset your players, but it should reward patience and make pay day that much sweeter.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Your problem with a caster in the mix is the 'gizmo man' will quickly outshine the entire party. Who needs Hide when you have Invisibility? Who needs Move Silently when you have Silence? Who needs Pick Locks when you have Knock?

Also, you've got no one to patch you up if a 'job' goes pear-shaped.

As a suggestion for a party member, a Warlock makes a good, if limited, 'gadget man'. He can use magic items, particularly after 4th level, but he doesn't have a lot of power on his own. Best of all, he CAN use clerical wands to heal with.

As far as being useful on a caper, he's got a couple of points for him:

Depending on his invocations known, he can easily be a 'face. With Beguiling Influence (particularly if he starts out as a Rogue with Able Learner), he's a manipulator par excellence. With Spider Climb, he's your second-story man. With Shatter, he can get you into places quickly. And with Eldritch Blast, he can make sure that anyone who does see him can get silenced quickly.

[Jack_Simth]

With the right domains, a Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) makes a great sneaky healer. Trickery (for Hide, mostly) is obvious, but is there any way to get Move Silently as a class skill without a level dip? Hmm....

[Epsilon Rose]

I agree with Geigan about rewarding xp at the end of the heist, and not awarding xp based on kills. That's probably the single greatest thing you can do to encourage intelligent and sneaky play, since they wont have much of a reason to go killing every one.

[true_shinken]

I just wouldn't restricted allowed classes. Let your players get creative.

[Karoht]

Replies a plenty. Go!

@Timeline
I have a minimum of a year to come up with all of this, and I plan on giving it that much love and detail. This is week 1 of 52 of the planning. So certain aspects have not been thought out yet. The villian of arc 1 isn't even thought up yet, for example. So if something feels incomplete, it is because it is, but don't be surprised if I haven't given something (like the Twist or my villains or anything) a whole lot of thought.


@Locations
I plan on giving the PC's a really big and detailed and fleshed out city to work with. I'm going to give it lots of details. The good news is, there will likely not be much traveling outside the city, because the city is where the loot and the action is. Yes, there will be some side jobs that take them out of town for a change of pace here and there, but the players won't be traveling the countryside for the majority of the campaign. That said, I will be prepared for the eventuality that the players leave the city. I kind of expect that to perhaps even be a major plot point.


@Restricted Classes
Yeah, talked that over with the players. They're all against such restrictions. Then again, when I asked them what they want to be, they all listed rogues, bards, 1 fighter, 1 wizard. /shrug
So the restrictions are out. For now anyway.


@Hired Goons
I ban leadership in most of my games, partly because the group I play with will almost always take it every opportunity they get, and build armies rather than play their characters.
However, these characters will have the option to pay for some extra hired muscle from time to time, through different contacts and the like, for certain jobs.
If/when the players reach the more freeform part of the campaign, I half expect them to form their own thieves guild or something of the like, just because I know the players, so I will have to be prepared for this.


@XP per Heist
I'm going to treat each big job as almost separate modules, and will hand out XP at the end of the jobs themselves. Mostly to make my headaches less, and it is much easier to keep track of. It just means I have to effectively judge the overall CR/EL of a given job incredibly carefully, and adjust the rewards from there, based on how the party dealt with it and what complications arose or were bipassed entirely.
I also do spot XP rewards for smart/awesome ideas (typically 25-100 XP multiplied by level, depending on the degree of awesome), solving puzzles or dealing with traps and such.


@Suggested References
Watched em all. Seen all the new Oceans films, as well as the original. But more sources are always good if anyone can suggest some.


@Gizmo man
Hooboy. I have only realized how big a can of worms I've got on my hands with this one. This is actually why I wanted to restrict some of the classes. And yes, there is serious potential for this player to become the center of attention with all the rest as just lookers on. This is something I very much want to avoid.

One thing I had bouncing around my head was prep time, and giving the party a fair amount of it. Reason for this is two fold.
1-If I give them preparation time to do things like scout the place out, find out about security measures, scry, etc, then it actually gives them a reason to formulate a plan in advance.
2-If the gizmo man needs to build something for the job, there is time for that to happen. Meaning someone like an Artificer becomes a near perfect fit for the job, making that class a touch more likely to see play. But in reality, it actually opens up all kinds of options for spell casters of all walks.
(Though, the fellow who will probably play the Gizmo has expressed that he will likely want a Sorcerer. It's kind of all he ever plays.)


@The Twist
Believe me when I say, I want this to be a party choice. More than just an 'all roads lead to x' choice. I haven't given this aspect a whole lot of thought yet. I don't plan on beating over their head that 'working for X is bad, working for Y is good' but rather breaking down the choices a bit more like a feature and benefit analysis.
IE-Working for X means a and b, you know X has a propensity for c which has you a bit worried, and then there is d to worry about.


@Morality Scale
I should clarify this now. If I say good or bad, I mean them in very loose and general terms. Odds are, I'll probably use these terms incorrectly a few times even. That said, please do not hinge on these two words too heavily. I want morality to remain as grey as possible in this game, but I find good and bad to be easier to refer to than light grey and dark grey. By all means point out if I'm being too heavy handed with either, but again, don't hinge on that too heavily please and thanks.
If anything, I want to approach this campaign from a neutral position, but much of the campaign will likely lean on the dark grey side of things.



There is quite a bit I will need to be prepared for.

[WinWin]

Sounds like Magic Tea Party time. Normally dungeon crawls tend to be fairly linear, even if multiple options are given for exploration. In a scenario where the goal is fairly static, accounting for any and all methods of reaching that goal can be fairly difficult.

You may have to watch for players using their abilities in a clever fashion. They may simply avoid any obstacles and escape with the prize unhindered. This is not a problem per se, but may have the game end early because a clever player 'solved' the adventure with minimal time and effort.

Another problem may be to rely heavily on player obstacles. Adamantine walls and teleport traps are an extreme. Try and figure out a few clever deterrents or obstacles rather than brute forcing a particular play style.

Give some thoughts to repercussions. Someone that goes to the effort of protecting valuables will most certainly attempt to get them back if they are stolen. Many magical methods can aid in this, but so can word of mouth. Fencing some valuable, one of a kind item in the city where you stole it is the kind of thing that can be the downfall of a theif. Also, pay some mind to people seeking revenge for any deaths resulting from the heist.

[Karoht]

Bingo. Obstacles have to be more than arbitrary hinderances or things to keep a puzzle hard.


One example I had for a side quest will be to recover the signet ring off a minor noble. The person paying to have it stolen is another minor noble, who is planning on issuing some forged documents. The problem? The target has been dead for 50 years, and buried in a crypt, and taking the ring off a dead guy is easier than removing it from the living members of the family (who also all have the same ring). And due to a fire at the records office, no one really knows which crypt he is in, the family owns several. It might be worth it to make some inroads with the local undertaker (who I plan to have as a reoccuring character anyway) to narrow down the search.


One of the rogues could just go and luck out with an incrediby amazing act of pickpocketing, get an identical ring off a living family member. Or they can search this crypt out in their downtime, possibly while prepping for another heist later.


Also, not everything is booby trapped per se. Imagine another crypt for a moment. The crypt next door is filled with expensive things, as it is the crypt of some past hero. One of the greedy players walks into the crypt to take a look at the shineys (or even just take them) when a very noisy hologram displays some great heroic deed of the hero. During the day, not a huge issue. At night? Hey, someone is in the cemetary after curfew, at the hero's crypt! Call the guards!


Sometimes you don't have to booby trap the magical macguffin either. A rival thief of some sort, bent on stealing the macguffin as well, can be lying in wait to see who else comes after it. Or ambushes them after all the traps are dealt with. Think Moloch in Raiders of the Lost Arc, the rival archeologist. Waits for Dr Jones to get the idol out of the boobytrap laiden temple and takes it from him.


And then we have local law enforcement. They might not be the incompetant lvl 1 commoner town guards. They might also be a heavily corrupt organization, willing to tourture to acquire confessions, or use other magical means to produce false witnesses and testimony. The kind of things that make other mob bosses actually quite careful of the law, rather than being something like level 10 rogues who have zero reason to fear some lowly town guards. Perhaps the guards are career soldiers of the royal army, and are basically doing guard duty while waiting for the next conquest.

[Zonugal]

Well when confronting such issues I tend to burrow off of popular culture so when reading what the party composition may look like I can only think of the ideal team...

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/06/11/gal_a-team.jpg

With that said there shouldn't be any problem of one party member over-shadowing another in this type of campaign. Heists are typically extremely teamwork based. There might be a mastermind (think of Timothy Hutton from Leverage) but even they still have to carry their own weight on conjunction with everyone. Heists are about precision (and loads of it) which make one member of the party almost incapable of pulling of such a task without the trust & assistance of his team mates.

But when looking at something like a standard team composition for a heist I think they tend to revolve around these four pillars:

The Mastermind
The Face
The Muscle
The Gadget Man

If a fifth member is introduced they tend to be the crazy guy or the transportation expert.

[Karoht]

I'm really having difficulty with my main villian so far. I want him to be a caster (joker bard, joker sorcerer, or batman wizard variant, maybe some kind of warlock?), at the same time I don't. I do however, have a reason why none of the other evil rogues in evilrogueberg have sneak attacked him into oblivion one way or another.

When this fellow came to town, the mages had quite the political hold on the city. Through other contacts around the city he convinced the population that mages = bad. He then used the Thieves Guild (and by association the rogues and assassins and other such sneaky types) to stage crimes and blamed them on the mages, plant phoney evidence, etc, all done over a period of 4 months. Then they basically infiltrated the mage guild completely. They took it over via assassination, bribery, blackmail, and framing. This placed the Thieves guild into quite the position of power in the city, and net the sneaky types involved quite the profit in the short term. Their control of the city has also net them very tidy profits via their control of the markets and black market.

From there, the big bad has used his influence from the shadows mostly. The guards around town are the police, the thieves guild is essentially the secret police and assassination squad to put down any disenters and collect and enforce taxes and dues. And the town guards are already corrupt to begin with maybe?

The thieves won't touch him because they have no way to fill the power vacuum with one of their own, he has net them quite a bit of money and power, and is still their bread and butter. And he could probably have any dissenters killed easily enough. So in other words, they can't replace him (yet), he's been pretty good to them, and they're terrified of him.

I don't want the campaign to feel like it is on rails too much. The PC's can work directly with or against this character, or possibly ignore him entirely. If they work for him, maybe he will have them push into another town, with much the same plan, which the PC's could take in all kinds of directions, such as refusing to hand control over to him once they have the town. Or, maybe they could work with the thieves guild itself in trying to supplant him, or appease him. Maybe they hook up with the remains of the Mage guild? Or the actual politicians of the town, in order to break the shadow government. Or maybe they just keep doing odd jobs under his/her watchful eye until another plot hook catches their interest.

...I keep saying 'him' a lot, and yet the more I think about it, the more I envision a female. Just saying.

Thoughts?

[Greenish]

With the right domains, a Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) makes a great sneaky healer. Trickery (for Hide, mostly) is obvious, but is there any way to get Move Silently as a class skill without a level dip? Hmm....There's some halfling-only feat somewhere, and due to bad wording blackscale lizardfolk might get MS as a class skill, but that's pretty much it. I ran into the same problem, trying to create a stealth cleric (an RKV, actually).