Campaign Help

[The Bandicoot]

Alright, so in my campaign one of my players has expressed an interest to forge The City Council's signatures to make a withdrawal from the city bank. He got a decent roll but I'm wondering what a Bankers would have in sense motive/appraise. I already gave him the signatures to copy easily enough and I want to put a little challenge into it.

[Alienist]

In the real world promissary notes (?) got more and more complicated, e.g. needing special ink and paper, eventually turning into the whole song and dance routine we have today with 'paper' money.

Regardless of how good the forgery is, the bankers are 100% certain to send someone to verify the amount if it is spectacularly large. Even smaller amounts say 10,000gp and up will attract significant interest. How heavy is 10,000gp anyway? 100 pounds? 1000 pounds?

Magical precautions are likely to involve: detect thoughts, discren lie and zone of truth (permanent). They might not use them for normal/small amounts.

The best thing to avoid those precautions would be to somehow disguise yourself as one of the important personages in question, and then get huffy at any delays, and roll brilliantly on your bluff checks. And/or go for the potion of glibness.

[Johel]

In the real world promissary notes (?) got more and more complicated, e.g. needing special ink and paper, eventually turning into the whole song and dance routine we have today with 'paper' money.

Regardless of how good the forgery is, the bankers are 100% certain to send someone to verify the amount if it is spectacularly large. Even smaller amounts say 10,000gp and up will attract significant interest. How heavy is 10,000gp anyway? 100 pounds? 1000 pounds?

Magical precautions are likely to involve: detect thoughts, discren lie and zone of truth (permanent). They might not use them for normal/small amounts.

The best thing to avoid those precautions would be to somehow disguise yourself as one of the important personages in question, and then get huffy at any delays, and roll brilliantly on your bluff checks. And/or go for the potion of glibness.

This.

As for the initial question :

A small clerc would be level 1
That's the guy who would be responsible for small sums, like the ones needed for the daily running of the city's various public branches.
At best, with maxed skill, Wis 15 and Skill Focus, he would have +9 in Sense Motive and Appraisal.

The top guy might be level 5 with Wis 16 (SUPERBANKER !!).
So that's +14 in Sense Motive.