Forgery

[noparlpf]

So what is up with that? Does any class besides Rogue (and obviously Factotum) get it? Why not? You'd think that (seeing as Forgery is opposed by Forgery) Wizards, Archivists, and the like would have it, considering how much they rely of accurate texts.

So, seeing as how almost nobody gets Forgery and very few people are likely to have cross-class ranks in it, what are some neat tricks you can use it for?

I was thinking that maybe a Wizard could use Forgery to disguise a harmful spell as a buff of some sort, and then somehow get it to an enemy. The enemy then learns the spell, and then sometime when he tries to cast it on himself as a buff, he actually gets cursed or something.

[MesiDoomstalker]

1 rank in it will pretty much gaurentee you beat anybody without ranks. I personally think Aristocrat and noble-esque classes should get it. Corrupt government and all.

I think the main, intended uses is to fake papers to get inside a city or a prison or some such. Or mundanly trick somebody into doing something because your a better liar on paper than in person. But what kind of Rouge has a better Forgery skill than bluff? :smallconfused:

[gbprime]

Well forgery is really only useful in highly lawful societies and rare situations elsewhere. Any setting patterned off a dynastic Chinese setting (and a few of the Eberron kingdoms) will thrive on this skill, but metropolises like Sigil or your average setting's city aren't all that lawful and Forgery will only go so far.

That's probably the reason the skill is a bit neglected.

[Emperor Tippy]

Oh it can be great fun but it's usefulness is almost entirely DM dependent.

For example, you can forge papers from the King allowing the PC's to draw monies from the governments accounts, or to order around guards, or to carry weapons openly, etc.

As for tricks to use it.

1) The Papyrus of Deception from Complete Adventurer for a +5 enhancement bonus; remember to use Magic Aura on it though.

2) Stylus of the Masterful Hand from Complete Adventurer for a +5 competence bonus. It also has the benefit of storing up to 3 forgery checks (at least the handwriting part), so you can use various short term skill boosts such as Guidance of the Avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a) to push the check incredibly high and then have it ready to use whenever.

3) A masterwork tool for another +2 circumstance bonus.

You can easily end up with a forgery check in the 30's with minimal skill point investment.

Now, if the DM won't let you use it; well then it's a waste.

[gbprime]

For example, you can forge papers from the King allowing the PC's to draw monies from the governments accounts, or to order around guards, or to carry weapons openly, etc.

My players did this once, using a writ to start appropriating funds from a city. The look on their faces when the city council nominated some guards to help protect the PC's place of business as vital to the interests of the state was priceless. They got to play a shell game for a while, keeping the guards busy guarding nothing. But the gig was up when the local church ecclesiarch started dropping by to schmooze with these supposed well-offs and receive his "goodwill" handout.

Duping the council, duping the guards, duping the guilds, duping the crime bosses, duping the church... RUN!!! :smallbiggrin: Much hilarity ensued.

[Piggy Knowles]

I've used it to make a fake religious text once - a newly discovered tome that disproved the claims of a cult leader, who had been gaining a little too much influence with the mainstream religion.

If you're a factotum, there's no reason NOT to take a rank in forgery - it's an Intelligence-based opposed skill that hardly anyone else seems to take, and you can just take a single rank and boost it when necessary. It may only come up once or twice in a whole campaign, but hey - it's just a single rank, and when it DOES come up, you'll be glad you have it.

[Necroticplague]

I think the main, intended uses is to fake papers to get inside a city or a prison or some such. Or mundanly trick somebody into doing something because your a better liar on paper than in person. But what kind of Rouge has a better Forgery skill than bluff? :smallconfused:

One with a higher INT than CHA, but equal ranks in both?

[MesiDoomstalker]

One with a higher INT than CHA, but equal ranks in both?

Even if true, Bluff will still be better on average, mainly due to time required. Forgery, while less likely to fail, takes time and a certain degree of law-fulness in the reader to work, since its mainly used with NPCs with authority. Bluff can get you out of a sticky wicket in a jiffy without any preperation.

[Galanar]

EDIT exemplar also get this I think.

I've used it to have some papers on myself as If written by the BBEG (got a gopy of her wrtting once) that showed meas infiltrated in my character group.

Some sessions later we were captured by BBEG minions and I was the only that was set free (thus allowing me to rescue my friends).


Other uses I've given this skill:

steal a book and forge the records as if the book was lent to someone i did not like

with some gather information and kb local prove that i was the heir of an abandoned state.

make fake wanted posters as if issued by the city guard, to cause trouble to a fleeing womena i had to locate in a city, then guard the address in the poster untill somebody brought her there.

[Psyren]

My players did this once, using a writ to start appropriating funds from a city. The look on their faces when the city council nominated some guards to help protect the PC's place of business as vital to the interests of the state was priceless. They got to play a shell game for a while, keeping the guards busy guarding nothing. But the gig was up when the local church ecclesiarch started dropping by to schmooze with these supposed well-offs and receive his "goodwill" handout.

Duping the council, duping the guards, duping the guilds, duping the crime bosses, duping the church... RUN!!! :smallbiggrin: Much hilarity ensued.

This amused me greatly.
And never before were horses purchased as swiftly :smalltongue:

[Venger]

forgery is probably the most hilarious skill in the game.

with a mere +50 to the forgery DC, you can forge something that you have literally never seen before

unlike most other skills, forgery doesn't actually have a set DC to do anything, just a few +2 bonuses/penalties for the mark's familiarity with the document,so the +50 applies to the mark's opposed check.

use the stylus of the masterful hand for a +5 competence bonus and the papyrus of deception for a +5 enhancement bonus.

assuming factotum, you'll have, say, an 18 starting int and put 1 rank into forgery at some level, since cunning knowledge only works with skills you have at least 1 rank in. that means cunning knowledge gets you your factotum level as an untyped bonus to the check. since these two items here cost 5k, let's say you're level 8 so they don't entirely wipe you out for an additional +8

acquire a scroll of "divine insight" (a trivial 150gp) and you should have a sufficient UMD check to activate it safely. this provides a 5+CL bonus (for let's assume the lowest CL as is customary and say 3) for an additional +8 insight bonus (although obviously, you could pay more for a higher CL scroll and thus a bigger bonus)

now you have everything you need:
1. decide what you want to forge
2. declare cunning knowledge:forgery (+8 untyped)
3. activate the scroll of divine insight and designate the forgery check you are about to make (+8 insight)
4. morph the papyrus into what you need +5 competence
5. use the stylus and start writing +5 enhancement
6. take 20 on the check and spend 20 minutes (if less than a page) or 1d4x20 minutes writing out your thing +20
7. activate the command word on the stylus and store the result of this forgery check for later use
8. make the check +5 from int bonus, +1 from ranks

if at all possible, try to distract the mark so he only views it casually (for a -2) and use a handwriting he's not familiar with (-2) I'm unsure of when exactly someone would need to review a document they weren't familiar with to see if it's fake, but if that happens it's -2, if they kinda know it (like normal people kinda know money) it's 0 and if they know it well (like bankers know money) it's +2

so with all this, assuming the best exterior circumstances, the person is rolling against 52 +4 or 52 -6 that gives either +6 (- the 50) or -4 (- the 50) for a document you've never seen before.

assuming a normal person (nonfactotum) with a 0 int using an untrained forgery check, his total mod can be expected to be around 10 on average which would impose a -40 penalty to the opposed roll.

it is far easier than it should be to make copies of things you've never seen.

forgery checks are also one of the only ways you can negate the logical limbo of anything you can do the DM being able to counter.

it is not possible for your mark to implement the same measures you did to make a defensive forgery check. assuming you're making something you actually have a sample of, you can't fail. while the intial cost is somewhat high (5150gp) this combo can essentially be repeated indefinitely thanks to the stylus's "store handwriting" ability. hope you picked someone important!

you can also have a pool of 3 people in the stylus at any given time. if you need to impersonate all of europe's aristocracy, buy more styluses. with these kinds of forgery checks (a worst case scenario of +48 at level 8) if you
don't have enough money for a few 2k items, you're doing something wrong

[Seak]

forgery is probably the most hilarious skill in the game.

with a mere +50 to the forgery DC, you can forge something that you have literally never seen before

unlike most other skills, forgery doesn't actually have a set DC to do anything, just a few +2 bonuses/penalties for the mark's familiarity with the document,so the +50 applies to the mark's opposed check.

use the stylus of the masterful hand for a +5 competence bonus and the papyrus of deception for a +5 enhancement bonus.

assuming factotum, you'll have, say, an 18 starting int and put 1 rank into forgery at some level, since cunning knowledge only works with skills you have at least 1 rank in. that means cunning knowledge gets you your factotum level as an untyped bonus to the check. since these two items here cost 5k, let's say you're level 8 so they don't entirely wipe you out for an additional +8

acquire a scroll of "divine insight" (a trivial 150gp) and you should have a sufficient UMD check to activate it safely. this provides a 5+CL bonus (for let's assume the lowest CL as is customary and say 3) for an additional +8 insight bonus (although obviously, you could pay more for a higher CL scroll and thus a bigger bonus)

now you have everything you need:
1. decide what you want to forge
2. declare cunning knowledge:forgery (+8 untyped)
3. activate the scroll of divine insight and designate the forgery check you are about to make (+8 insight)
4. morph the papyrus into what you need +5 competence
5. use the stylus and start writing +5 enhancement
6. take 20 on the check and spend 20 minutes (if less than a page) or 1d4x20 minutes writing out your thing +20
7. activate the command word on the stylus and store the result of this forgery check for later use
8. make the check +5 from int bonus, +1 from ranks

if at all possible, try to distract the mark so he only views it casually (for a -2) and use a handwriting he's not familiar with (-2) I'm unsure of when exactly someone would need to review a document they weren't familiar with to see if it's fake, but if that happens it's -2, if they kinda know it (like normal people kinda know money) it's 0 and if they know it well (like bankers know money) it's +2

so with all this, assuming the best exterior circumstances, the person is rolling against 52 +4 or 52 -6 that gives either +6 (- the 50) or -4 (- the 50) for a document you've never seen before.

assuming a normal person (nonfactotum) with a 0 int using an untrained forgery check, his total mod can be expected to be around 10 on average which would impose a -40 penalty to the opposed roll.

it is far easier than it should be to make copies of things you've never seen.

forgery checks are also one of the only ways you can negate the logical limbo of anything you can do the DM being able to counter.

it is not possible for your mark to implement the same measures you did to make a defensive forgery check. assuming you're making something you actually have a sample of, you can't fail. while the intial cost is somewhat high (5150gp) this combo can essentially be repeated indefinitely thanks to the stylus's "store handwriting" ability. hope you picked someone important!

you can also have a pool of 3 people in the stylus at any given time. if you need to impersonate all of europe's aristocracy, buy more styluses. with these kinds of forgery checks (a worst case scenario of +48 at level 8) if you
don't have enough money for a few 2k items, you're doing something wrong

Since forgery doesn't allow retries, doesn't that disqualify it for taking a 20?