Thieving from sleeping players

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

Generally, you dont want to nick stuff from your players. They dont like it and it can go very wrong. But, I have a potential encounter which it would work well with.

Its on my low level (1-5) random encounter table, group of Jaebrin thieves (a minor spellcaster and some modified warriors) pretending to be hunters invite the players to share camp with them, offering to help keep watch. A different encounter is the same thing, but totally legitimate. Anyway, depending on a number of things, when the party is asleep, the Jaebrin will attempt to steal small items. Nothing too important, coin pouches, packs gone through, rations taken or spoiled or tipped out, maybe boots, that sort of things. I might go as far as daggers,or low quality wands/potions, but I'm not a monster.

Of course, the perfect situation would be for the Jaebrin to get caught half way though, triggering a fight, turning into a chase, and either the loss or recovery of some small items. But I dont want that to be a given, and given that its all small things, the total loss of them is still an acceptable outcome, leading to either frustration, but not too much, or better yet, a break from the goal of the session to track them down and get their stuff back.

The thing is, I am wondering what checks I should roll. I could roll sleight of hand, but if they are asleep, they cant spot. Move silent vs listen might work, but the -10 for sleeping would make it near impossible for my tables level of optimization. Plus it doesnt work all that well for several of the thefts.

Really I am looking for what I should roll, and what that should be against, for things like undoing someones belt to slip off a coin purse. Something small, but on their body. Im thinking some sort of wis check is appropriate, but I cant think what the DC should be.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Posted this in the wrong subforum initially, and have reported that one requesting deletion. A duplicate might pop up though. Apologies for that.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Albions_Angel
Its on my low level (1-5) random encounter table, group of Jaebrin thieves (a minor spellcaster and some modified warriors) pretending to be hunters invite the players to share camp with them, offering to help keep watch.

Is this an encounter table you worked up yourself? I’d be interested if so—this is the sort of encounter I’d like to include in my own campaign.

My players are pretty paranoid (can’t imagine why), so in this situation their PCs would usually double up on watch, which would make it more difficult for any skullduggery from strangers. Hard to imagine a group of adventurers who would immediately trust strangers to guard their camp, but every table is different.


Originally Posted by Albions_Angel
I might go as far as daggers,or low quality wands/potions, but I'm not a monster.

No, but the Jaebrin are. :smalltongue:

Seriously, if these are dedicated thieves then there’s no reason why they should hold back. If they take something the party really misses, then that’s a motivation to hunt them down, and either have a showdown in their lair (if they have one) or on the road (with the prospect of attracting a third party).


Originally Posted by Albions_Angel
The thing is, I am wondering what checks I should roll.

You can give the Jaebrin a partial penalty as well, perhaps if they’ve been drinking to be “companionable” with the PCs. That could go some ways towards reducing the PCs' penalty for sleeping.

[Albions_Angel]

It is a table I made myself :) Its not very good so far, but I am happy with its level of workability. Got the idea from another poster. Works off google sheets. Change any unoccupied cell (you will have to create a copy to do this) and it will randomly roll for you.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z6GCWl2DZULBFQ49plpv9TVkegfb7GZiMYkxCmeAzj4/edit?usp=sharing

The aim is to fully stat each encounter with a link to a google doc, then I can just click and bam, its all there.

Only 50 different options right now. Gunna add more, but its currently workable.

This is for Jarlheim, my northern snowy/temperate area, and the one that is done is for the main routes, which are semi-regularly patrolled by the country's soldiers. Nothing above a CR 5 unless you end up with 2 of them, or roll another area (so a well traveled route but near the sea might sometimes roll on the coastal table, which is higher CR). Its all part of my plan to take the pressure off me when I DM, by keeping it on now, in between games. 4 or 5 tables for each country, plus a couple for sea travel. Then I NEVER have to worry about travel, nor have to use a premade table which doesnt conform to my geography (Jarlheim has no dragons, for instance, and Dinosaurs are NOWHERE in my world and I will throw books if you summon a fleshraker).

[Falontani]

My goodness that is amazing work. I honestly would pay for encounter tables like this; I am absolutely abysmal at creating my own but am sorely in need of them. Give me inspiration for a fight (inborn inspiration works) and I can plan a lovely encounter, but a random encounter meant for in between the meat of my planning is the hardest thing for me to plan for.

[Darth Ultron]

If you want to steal pointless small items from the characters, but maybe have them maybe have a chance of getting them back...you might just want to drop this encounter idea.

In general, sleeping creatures are helpless...and this is by design. As sleeping creatures are easy to say steal from. So it's hard, if not impossible, to make stealing in their sleep anyway ''fair''.

Mechanically, their awareness has to be much less then when they are awake. But even giving the characters ''a chance'', like just saying a check at half their normal check...still leaves a huge chance that they might fail. Even a mechanically ''very alert'' character has a good chance of failing the check.

But you only want the thief to take small pointless items? Sure, you don't want to ''screw over the players'', but you also don't want to waste time, right? So having small stuff be taken really has no effect, so much so that you should not even bother doing it.

Again, in a general sense, if you don't really feel like committing to an Encounter Idea, your better off just doing another Encounter. To do a ''half baked'' cartoon encounter is rarely worth it.

And if your players won't like the encounter...or more accurately won't accept the encounter: then don't do it.

If you really do want to run the ''steal small stuff and get caught'' Encounter: just make it happen. Don't bother with chance or a roll. Just have Thief Stumblefingers make a huge loud noise or such, that will wake up the characters and have the encounter.

[Fizban]

The thing is, I am wondering what checks I should roll. I could roll sleight of hand, but if they are asleep, they cant spot. Move silent vs listen might work, but the -10 for sleeping would make it near impossible for my tables level of optimization.
Yup, turns out messing with people while they're asleep is easy.

Lifting an object from a person is DC 20 with sleight of hand, -10 sleeping penalty is nice and symmetrical for a 50/50 on a normal person vs a normal person. The thing is, the more people you've got moving around and doing things, the more checks there are, the more chance someone's gonna get a good roll off and make the check. As long as their sleight of hand and move silently aren't high enough to auto-succeed on everyone, you can assume, or a roll a bajillion dice, that someone wakes up eventually.

[Uncle Pine]

If you want to introduce your players to the concept that yes, scumbaggery is something that exists in your world and that they should be aware of it, you could have the jaebrins succesfully go through their "petty stuff" (the kind of things you listed) and then have one of the thieves excitedly announce in a not-so-muffled way to his companions "hey guys, just look how cool this [insert type of weapon] is close up!" while holding whatever magic or engraved weapon one of the main hitters in the party may own. This means that:

1) the characters (or at least some of them) will have an easier time waking up immediately and the chance to start the chasing sequence much sooner, since they have a real chance to catch the thieves red-handed;
2) one of the thieves is very close to the party's bruiser;
3) despite technically holding your punches behind the screen, from the players' point of view a sense of danger has been established: they are to confront a gang of thieves while deprived of some potions, tools, at least one weapon and without having regained prepared spells from sleep. It is also very possible that they are half-naked, or that some of them aren't donning armor;
4) whether the characters make it through the night with all their stuff or not, they'll know that everything is fair game and that if they failed it wasn't because of DM fiat but because they failed to take advantage of an opportunity that was presented to them.