Magic to provide forgery knowledge

[Xhosant]

Forgery checks are opposed by gorgery checks, and nobody takes forgery (or so the saying goes). So I wanna see how fun a forgery-centric character can be. The one detail giving me pause, though, is that you need to know what you're forging. While some carefully-picked Knowledge skills can go a long way, I want something more.

So, does anyone know of magic that could provide a character with a good view of any style of document on a whim? Scrying on one such document without knowing where it might be, sivining the relevant knowledge, or (as a last resort) easily, subtly and reliably probing a mind for its details would all work.

[Jack_Simth]

Forgery checks are opposed by gorgery checks, and nobody takes forgery (or so the saying goes). So I wanna see how fun a forgery-centric character can be. The one detail giving me pause, though, is that you need to know what you're forging. While some carefully-picked Knowledge skills can go a long way, I want something more.

So, does anyone know of magic that could provide a character with a good view of any style of document on a whim? Scrying on one such document without knowing where it might be, sivining the relevant knowledge, or (as a last resort) easily, subtly and reliably probing a mind for its details would all work.

Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, Locate Object, Moment of Prescience, and Divine Insight seem likely to be useful. Also Detect Thoughts.

[Zaq]

I feel like Bardic Knowledge or some equivalent might be surprisingly useful here. And/or K: Local and K: Nobility/Royalty. After all, if you want to argue to your GM that you have, in fact, encountered such a document before, what skill might you roll to prove such a thing? Exactly.

Yes, I know you mentioned Knowledges already, but it's worth repeating.

You might also try using Disguise and the stealthy skills to simply try to get into a place where you can see an example of what you're trying to forge, even if you can't necessarily get your actual hands on it. If your GM gets picky about how long you have to study a document to become really familiar with it, invest in Autohypnosis; gaining perfect recall of a single page is only a DC 15, and nothing says you can't take 10 most of the time.

Forging a document you've never seen before is a +50 to the check (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#forgery), so if the spells Jack mentioned aren't enough, you can see just how high you can juice up your basic modifier. Maybe use the Dream of Insight feat (Secrets of Sarlona) for about a +11 bonus a few times per day (takes setup, but Forgery takes setup anyway). If you can swing a usable Truespeak mod, Universal Aptitude gives you a +5. (I mean, technically, if you actually take a meaningful number of levels in Truenamer, Recitation of Mindful State gives a tiny competence bonus to Forgery, but it requires having actual Truenamer levels, so this is a bad idea unless you're doing something really specific.)

You might look at going Seer (Psion). I feel like a few of their powers would be appropriate.

If you feel like getting risky, you might also see if you can swing using Suggestion or similar mind-affecting magic to convince your target that yes, this is in fact what the document in question looks like. Probably a shorter-term solution than getting a good look at what things are supposed to look like in the first place, but why not keep a backup plan around, right?

[Troacctid]

Get yourself a Third Eye Sense so you can see everything everywhere. 24,000 gp.

[Feantar]

Profession(Notary) would be extremely useful. Other professions of similar bent as well. I dissagree that bardic knowledge would be useful - bardic knowledge applies "information about local notable people, legendary items, or noteworthy places". Unless there are legendary passage papers of some kind.

On a lighter note I can just picture a cleric using commune "Lord Moradin, I beeseech thee, is the tax shortform X5's citizen field mandatory?".

Find the path might actually be useful in that regard. It seems to include things such as passwords to glyphs, so helping you forge entrance papers miiiight work. On the other hand it doesn't work on creatures, so... your mileage may vary.

[Xhosant]

You might also try using Disguise [...] Autohypnosis; [...]takes setup, but Forgery takes setup anyway). [...] Suggestion

The whole point is to avoid the setup. 10 minutes' notice to become commanding officer of that warcamp we didn't expect in our way. But Autohypnosis can be handy!

As for suggestion, there was a spell someplace that was compulsion-on-paper. The example use was guarding a spellbook with the order to put it down, go away and forget about it. That would be ideal ("believe the bearer of this document in regards to its contents").


Get yourself a Third Eye Sense so you can see everything everywhere. 24,000 gp.

Lovely item, but then you realise that even if I know where the form is kept and how to get there, I can't look into a folder or under the pile of other documents. I just hope it's left on a desk somewhere.


Profession(Notary) would be extremely useful. Other professions of similar bent as well.

On a lighter note I can just picture a cleric using commune "Lord Moradin, I beeseech thee, is the tax shortform X5's citizen field mandatory?".

Find the path might actually be useful in that regard. It seems to include things such as passwords to glyphs, so helping you forge entrance papers miiiight work. On the other hand it doesn't work on creatures, so... your mileage may vary.

Huh, that is ingenius! Knowledges are limited, professions can be anything.

The Commune made me chuckle.

While handy, FtP explicitly excludes the actions of guardians as guidance-worthy. Such as a pesky patrol asking for your papers... Plus, it ineicates the right action at the time. It'd probably suggest you pick up the torch you'll need later, but I doubt it'd tell you in advance how the needed document is formatted even if a non-creature was to review it.

[Jack_Simth]

You might look at going Seer (Psion). I feel like a few of their powers would be appropriate. Oh, there we go. The Carmen San Diego trick. Use Remote Viewing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/remoteViewing.htm) to spy on those who'd have the appropriate documents, and Retrieve (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/retrieve.htm) to get one of them. A Third Eye Sense (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#sense) can be used to scout the place and find a suitable person for remote viewing.

[Troacctid]

Lovely item, but then you realise that even if I know where the form is kept and how to get there, I can't look into a folder or under the pile of other documents. I just hope it's left on a desk somewhere.
You can see in the dark with it, so it seems like it should work just fine?

[Xhosant]

Yes, so I can look into the dark cabinet just fine. But I can't look under a rock, into am envelope, or inside your skull, because of physical concealment. It is darkvision, not xray vision. The space between envelope and content simply does not exist (except maybe on the molecular level).

At the very least I wouldn't allow it as a GM and, more importantly, wouldn't be satisfied with it as a player (which ties in importance with 'I doubt any GMs I know would allow it').

[Zaq]

The whole point is to avoid the setup. 10 minutes' notice to become commanding officer of that warcamp we didn't expect in our way. But Autohypnosis can be handy!

As for suggestion, there was a spell someplace that was compulsion-on-paper. The example use was guarding a spellbook with the order to put it down, go away and forget about it. That would be ideal ("believe the bearer of this document in regards to its contents").


Dream of Insight takes a full-round action to set up, that's all. I highly recommend reading the feat section of Secrets of Sarlona. There's some weird stuff in there.

That spell you're thinking of is Illusory Script (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/illusoryScript.htm).

[danielxcutter]

Dream of Insight takes a full-round action to set up, that's all. I highly recommend reading the feat section of Secrets of Sarlona. There's some weird stuff in there.

That spell you're thinking of is Illusory Script (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/illusoryScript.htm).

I mean, at least half of that book is literally intended to be mystical, exotic, and/or weird in the first place... but yeah, the dream stuff does kinda stand out particularly.

Oh yeah, Moment of Prescience could help, if you don't have another source of an insight bonus and you can either cast(or manifest, if you're a psion) it or have an ally who can. Insight bonus equaling CL/ML = YES.

[Xhosant]

Don't get me wrong, these are wonderful buffs, but the objective here is to get our original. Besides its equivalence to a +50 buff if we do there's the possible gm objections to an epic skill use...

[danielxcutter]

Don't get me wrong, these are wonderful buffs, but the objective here is to get our original. Besides its equivalence to a +50 buff if we do there's the possible gm objections to an epic skill use...

Perhaps, but after all, "nobody takes ranks in Forgery" is partly an optimization thing, not a "literally nobody in a D&D world takes ranks Forgery" thing. I can easily see an NPC who's job is to check legal documents having a considerable bonus, honestly.

As for getting a look at the original... well:


To forge a document on which the handwriting is not specific to a person (military orders, a government decree, a business ledger, or the like), you need only to have seen a similar document before, and you gain a +8 bonus on your check. To forge a signature, you need an autograph of that person to copy, and you gain a +4 bonus on the check. To forge a longer document written in the hand of some particular person, a large sample of that person’s handwriting is needed.

Basically, it depends a lot on what you're forging.

[Xhosant]

Exactly, some people have ranks and I'd hate to need to match them at -50.

Well, the first and maybe second category would be the most useful. I wouldn't mind the third, but still.