Great Heists

[Palegreenpants]

A few players in my group really like to steal things. And I must say, most of these robberys are pretty hilarious. So this got me thinking, I wonder if other people have storys of their most notable theivings?

So I've made this thread as a place for tales of a kleptomaniacle sort.
Post of your best theiverys/robberies/heists here!

[kieza]

A bunch of archaeologists have just returned from a successful dig. They bring back a valuable ancient statue in remarkably well-preserved condition, and place it in the secure vault at a high-security bank until they can auction it off. The next morning, everything in the vault is gone. The wards are untriggered, no alarms went off, the guards saw nothing. The archaeologists sue the bank, the bank settles, and they disappear with the money to go on another dig.

In reality, the statue was a fake, which the wizard made using stone shape. Inside the base was a timer, which went off after the vault was sealed for the night, cast a silence spell, and disintegrated the upper half of the statue so that the other device in the base could unfold into a teleportation circle printed on an umbrella-framed canvas. (This is 4e, where you need a circle at your destination.) The "archaeologists" teleported in, teleported out all of the valuables from the sealed vault, and planted another disintegration device to destroy the evidence after they left. The only tracks they left were the dust from the disintegrations, and since the device also had a wind spell built in, the dust was spread evenly over the entire floor. The wards were only set up to detect and counter short-ranged (line of sight) teleportation since the bank never planned to have a teleport circle inside the vault, only the walls and door were alarmed, and the guards were outside the vault. The players got away with all of the valuables, AND the insurance money, AND the settlement from the bank, and then planted a bunch of goblin weapons at their new dig site and adopted new identities.

[Palegreenpants]

One of my more recent sessions had a pretty good robbery in it, but it can hardly compare to Kieza's story.

The party thief (ranger/battlemind if you must know the class) had been perusing the local magic item shop, when a special axe caught his eye. The axe was reputedly cursed, yet extremely valuable due to its extreme cutting edge. He asked the gnome working the shop how much he would sell it for. His answer, 3,000,000gp. The thief said nothing but this, "I'll be back tonight".
He later snuck though the creaky old tower the shop was in, picked the vault door where the axe was kept, and tossed it and himself out a window to the party's wizard, who used feather fall.

The axe was indeed cursed, and nearly chopped two of the party members in half (it was mildly sentient, and turned on it's wielder if swung).

So now their problem is finding a buyer in another city. Preferably one who doesn't mind curses.

[Jay R]

Back when I was very new to the game, a party I was not with got caught by cockatrices and turned to stone. They had a great many magic items, including a Bag of Duplication. You could put anything in the bag, and you would get an exact copy, but the copy was worthless. Magic items wouldn't work, food would be inedible, etc.

I went out and recovered the statues, brought them back, and had them turned human again. But before they woke up, I took all their items, duplicated them, and left them with the useless duplicates.

So I was there when the players discovered that their magic items didn't work. I was extremely sympathetic, and offered helpful suggestions. When they started complaining to the DM, because the rules didn't say being turned to stone would make magic items not work, I asked to speak to the DM privately. So we had a pleasant three minute private chat about nothing in particular, and then I came out told the players, "OK, he told me what happened. Yes, it's within the rules; there's just something you don't know about." Wasn't I helpful?

They never came after me because they never knew they'd been robbed. They just didn't understand why none of their magic items worked any more.

[Palegreenpants]

I must say, when it comes to players stealing from other players, thing get hectic.

Like my group. They had been having great fun with a Ring of Three Wishes. The party had already used two wishes, and they where arguing about who got the last one, so one of the players (Im pretty sure it was the wizard) stole the ring from where the Battlemind had hidden it (in his beard, he was a dwarf). A brief struggle followed, but then the wizard used the last wish.
The wish was for an airship, but that's another story. :smallbiggrin:

[LadyFoxfire]

We did one game where a couple of priests of Rahn (home brewed god of money and war) got pissed off at the church for treating them unfairly. So they decided to hit them where it hurt, and rob the church's bank vault.
We started off with a full frontal assault on the bank, blasting down doors, flamestriking the guards, and just generally wrecking stuff. Once we're inside, we happen upon a bank clerk who angrily demands to know why we're here. Someone casts Charm Person on him, and he fails his save. The DM points out that even though he's charmed, he's still going to object to us robbing his bank. So we tell the clerk that we're here to make a withdrawal. He cheerfully leads us to the vault, we clean it out, and are out of there before the city guards show up.

Another time, we were robbing a wizard's castle; I don't even remember what we were looking for, but one of the defenses he had was a pack of displacer beasts. My enchanter charmed one, and still has it as a pet several years (real time) later.

[Yukitsu]

In one spelljammer themed game, our group was carting itself around in a bunch of cobbled together ships when we decided to steal some obdurium from a dwarven mining asteroid colony. We rammed a ship into the center of their fort at near-light speeds, grabbed tons of metal during the chaos and fled with 2 million gold pieces worth of obdurium.

While the rest of the party was looking for that, I was looking for a dead high smith, which I eventually extorted the materials and process required to create obdurium from. I threatened to expose the secret of its manufacture, and the location of the raw ores (their home asteroids) if they came after me.

After that, I brought everyone to a bar for some celebratory drinks and sailed off with the ship without the party. To be fair, the heist was mine, I left everything the party had earned itself there, and paid them back with interest on what they deserved. I just didn't want to give any money to the NPC boss guy that we were taking orders from. :smallwink: