Banks, Economy, and Rogues.

[gr8artist]

I started my campaign several months back with big plans for economy, banks, interest rates, and bank vault security. Something about ratios for town size compared to bank safety measure CR's. Anyway, most of the mechanics ended up being backstage fluff that gave me extra work to do without letting the players enjoy the game. So I kinda scrapped it all and just started wingin' everything.
But now my rogue wants to rob banks every time she's in town. I come up with some cheesy traps and locks and everything, but she's level 13 and I'm highly disappointed in lock DC's. I also want to be realistic... if the bank tellers can get to the money, why can't the expert thief?
She can get past any guard, pick any lock, and she can usually spot spell traps. Her saves are really good, except for Will, but most enchantments don't last long enough to stop a whole heist in the middle of the night. She's got spider-climb, and flight, and invisibility, with massive modifiers to stealth.

She's really spec'ed for this, and I want her to be allowed to rob banks, but I need ways to challenge or test her without getting repetitive. I also need a nice, balanced, reasonable estimation of the amount of money gained from one night's good haul.

[Bouregard]

Do what real banks do.

Two locks for one door both on the opposite side of the room out of reach for a single person. Both have to be used in the same round.

Safe with a timed lock inside and no lock on the outside. It will simply not open outside working hours.

The point of guards is not to kill or capture a rogue, it is to alert the authorities and help painting wanted posters.

Gold pieces and gold bars are also quite heavy nd time consuming to move. So your thief should bring some time.

Also you need someone who buys several tons of gold without asking too much questions.

[gr8artist]

Hm, those are actually some excellent ideas. She likes to solo the bank-heist thing, so the two locks idea is wonderful.
Also, I suppose a generic "clockwork" mechanism could function for the time-delay safe, but is there a spell effect that would also work?

[BowStreetRunner]

The first thing that every good bank robber needs to learn is that banks are owned by someone. That someone is usually wealthy and powerful.

The second thing that every good bank robber needs to learn is that the money and other possessions stored in banks belong to people. Many different people with many diverse backgrounds leave money and belongings in banks. Some of those people are scary.

Robbing banks results in making enemies. Don't ever let a PC commit robberies in a vacuum - their actions need to have consequences. Those consequences may lead to a great deal of FUN! Lawmen, bounty hunters, assassins, competing thieves...robbing banks can attract a lot of attention. :smallbiggrin:

The extra attention may eventually lead to the PC taking a bit more time to investigate who is the owner of each bank (hmmm...the assassins guild owns this bank and uses it to launder their fees...I think I will pass) as well as who the major customers are (ah, that safe deposit box belongs to the head of the arcane order...maybe I'll leave that one alone...for now).

[Bouregard]

Hm, those are actually some excellent ideas. She likes to solo the bank-heist thing, so the two locks idea is wonderful.
Also, I suppose a generic "clockwork" mechanism could function for the time-delay safe, but is there a spell effect that would also work?

I'm not a big fan of magic in fantasy realms. Magic is the stuff the big guys deal with. Your lowly traders bank should only prevent teleportation into the strongroom to prevent extra cheesy thieving.



Now about the amount of money you can get from a heist:
Loot is generally limited by two things:
-ease of transportation
-ease of cashing it in

Bonds and papers of ownership are hard to pawn away because they could be forged and have sometimes the name of the owner on it.

Gold bars are heavy and really hard to sell because only a few people have enough money to buy one from you.

Artwork is unique and therefor easy to identify as stolen.

The professional rogue goes for jewelry, goldpieces and a goldbar or wo, to cut down later.

This means you don't have to worry about a thief stealing anything in the bank with a price tag on it.


On the idea of guards:
CR is irrelevent but place them in good positions, add guard animals and enough lights. They have to report the crime, not try to stop a rogue who can stab them without any trouble.

[TuggyNE]

IRL, locks and safes are not designed to keep thieves out. They're designed to provide a nearly-guaranteed and predictable delay, so the alarm systems can do their job and bring in the cops. You can adapt that philosophy here; design systems that take time to work through, and (redundant) alarms that are difficult to disable.

Depending on the banks in question, it might be entirely plausible for a mid-level caster to be hired for on-call teleport-and-capture duty.

For time-locks, combining the generic spell clock mechanism (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a) with e.g. a wall spell, or perhaps antilife shell, to block off the passage should work.

[Fouredged Sword]

The second big security measure taken at small banks is simple and hard to get around.

Don't have anything in the vault you don't need. Gold bars and other generic things that are high value are stored off site in a heavily guarded vault. The bank only carries enough gold to keep them through the week and waits for the armored wagon to bring them more if someone makes a big withdrawal.

Second, the best defense is a door with no outside handle. If you break into the vault you find a closed door with a small window. To get in you have to convince the guard standing inside to open the door. His shift is 8 hours long and he has food and water for weeks if needed.

Even if you kill him through the door you then have o cut your way through a thick metal door.

He has a permanent CoP evil he stands in, so charms and domination don't work ether. The whole area is warded vs teleporting.

This is a simple, fairly cheep block that is very hard to circumvent.

[jaybird]

Depending on just HOW important this bank is, you could see some really nasty spelltraps. Forbiddance, Prismatic Wall, Symbol of X, and the good old Power Word: Boom (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081114150821/oots/images/4/41/Explosive_Runes.GIF) all come to mind.

One brutal trap is a guard making his rounds. He appears to walk through a wall. In fact, the guard is illusionary and disappears "into" the wall, which is also illusionary. Behind the illusionary wall is another wall...of the Prismatic variety :smalleek: only recommended for mid-op and higher campaigns, or highly lethal ones.