Tired of having my stuff stolen

[Korivan]

We've all been there. Had the DM steal some stuff off us, or a fellow player passes notes to the DM explaining how he/she is pilfering our stuff. Anyways, this is about protecting your gear. Specifically, I'm looking to protect my bag of holding while I wonder the streets of a city. I've thought about alarm/greater alarm, but I don't want to risk a character getting away with a screaming bag, or left empty handed with an alarm screaming in my head.
Idealy, I'd like to have something to
A) Help prevent the bag from being stolen in the first place.
B) Prevent/discourage bags/backpacks from being slit open
C) Something to harm/deal non-leathal damage to those who want to put thier grubby hands on my stuff.
D) A way to keep the bags/backpacks from opening for anybody else but me.

Anybody else got any ideas or experiences with this?

[Myrmex]

And here I was thinking your DM was taking your dice or lifting cash from your house when you weren't paying attention.

[Umael]

Replace your bag of holding with a bag of devouring.

Put your viper familiar in your bag.

Use glyph of warding on the opening to your pouch.

[Mastikator]

Put stuff in a steel chest, lock the chest. Carry the chest.

[Kallisti]

This solution might be just a little expensive, but it works:
First, buy a spiked shield with a hidden compartment inside (I believe there are rules for that in the Arms and Equipment Guide.)
Then, buy an Eternal Wand of Absorb Weapon (This is the expensive part...)
Put your valuables in the Bag of Holding and the Bag of Holding in the spiked shield.
Spiked shields are weapons as well as shields. Absorb weapon.



Or, Leomund's Secret Chest. But the first way is more awesome.

[Mongoose87]

Kill the rogue. He's a jerk, anyways.

[Fax Celestis]

Get a Packmate homonculus. Trust me. Anyone who's ever read the Discworld books are damn scared of those things.

Spoiler

Show

That's it on the right.

[PLUN]

If my party thief is keen on using their stealing specialities on my, then I assume this is a game where using your talents on fellow party members is fair game.

I tie bells to my stuff, fill my chest to the brink with water or one of the other half dozen ways to foil thievery and show the thief my talents. Which are likely murder.

[RelentlessImp]

For nighttime excursions: Rope Trick. You, yourself, and you go up into the extradimensional space with all your gear, pull the rope up. Tada. No more rogue pilfering your stuff in the middle of the night.

For daytime excursions: The good old bag of holding->bag of devouring works, though if your DM is dense he won't even consider the possibility of them grabbing the wrong bag.

Cast Arcane Mark on every piece of your gear and use Detect Magic to track it down - and then Enervation the person who stole it into non-existence. Eventually, they'll get the point. Yes, enervation them into non-existence even if they're your party members - especially if they're your party members. Let the party know you're not going to put up with that inter-party stealing crap. Works best for a Lawful Evil/Neutral Evil character, though. I did it once and wound up party leader for a mostly CE party, since I was the only person willing to threaten everyone else and had the means to get away with it. The inter-party thievery cut down in all subsequent games after that, though.

[Shademan]

put all your stuff in a bag of holding and tie it to your balls

[Faleldir]

Or an ass of holding.

[Foryn Gilnith]

put all your stuff in a bag of holding and tie it to your balls

Social taboos are quite effective. Few people are willing to reach into somebody's groin for a quick buck.

[Korivan]

Or an ass of holding.

But seriously, thank you. Like the idea with the absorbing the shield. I'm usualy a caster, so well within my abilities I'm sure. I rarely have found a bag of devouring, but now I want one. Not sure where the Packmate homonculus is found though. The steel chest is out, I don't tend to have the stength.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Packmate is a special homunculus from Magic of Eberron. You can always get an unseen servant or a gentle repose-preserved zombie (so it looks normal) or something to carry the chest.

[Shadow_Elf]

Label your bag with Explosive Runes. Then just always have Fire Shield or Resist Fire on, and you're good!

[Grumman]

How about casting Overland Flight on yourself? They can't steal what they can't reach, and anyone trying to "accidentally" bump into you is going to be rather obvious when you're twenty feet off the ground.

[UserClone]

put all your stuff in a bag of holding and tie it to your balls

DUDE, pretty vulgar and inappropriate. I'd prefer if you didn't.

Label your bag with Explosive Runes. Then just always have Fire Shield or Resist Fire on, and you're good!

That wouldn't help you, actually, since the runes' damage is [force].

And actually, this thread reminds me of when we had a new-ish member in my (then) group, and he wanted to DM, so I lent him several books (maybe eight) and subsequently never saw him again. One of them was even a recent Christmas present from my (then) fiancee. What a jerk.

[John Campbell]

We had a newbie, a kid, join our game who decided to play a halfling (All halflings are thieving scum.) rogue, and had the fairly common newbie misapprehensions that: a) "Rogue" necessarily means "thief"; b) "Thief" necessarily means "kleptomaniac"; and c) The party is an appropriate target for said kleptomania.

I'm playing a Fighter/Urban Ranger/Rogue... read: "Guild thug/boxman who decided on a minor career change when town got too hot".

I caught him stealing from one of the other party members, and proceeded to: a) Lift the stolen goods off him without him catching me and hand them back to their rightful owner; and b) Inform him, in character, that we're going to be playing by Guild rules; to wit:

1) He does not steal from the Guild - that is, the party.
2) Any loot he gets from anyone else is shared with the Guild party.
3) If he doesn't like these rules, he can walk away, in which case none of us will ever see him again. (That's also a rule.)
4) If I catch him breaking any of these rules, I cut his throat.

This didn't go over particularly well with the party Paladin or Knight, but I made it stick, and he was much less of a problem after that... particularly after the first time he decided to Sleight of Hand everything of value off innocent bystanders (and by "value", I mean, "to said low-level NPCs", which was chump change for adventurers of our level) and then had to explain to the Paladin and Knight where the shares of money he was trying to give them came from.

[Shademan]

DUDE, pretty vulgar and inappropriate. I'd prefer if you didn't.

but pretty darn effective

[Crossblade]

Lace your coin purse with Contact Poison. Wear gloves.

[Doc Roc]

Glyphseals are made for this. MiC. I like to load mine with teleport or planeshift or similar.

[Mastikator]

but pretty darn effective

Or just incredibly painful if someone tries to steal it anyway.

[Emy]

Coat yourself and all of your belongings with Contact Poison. Be warforged.

Fixed.

That aside, the arcane mark route is probably the best.

[Foryn Gilnith]

It's the general principle. Without going into disgusting details, that specific method is implausible for women. If your bag of holding is in an area generally considered taboo in society, there's less chance that it will be detected in the first place (why are you looking at another man's crotch?); and even less chance that it will be taken (why are you fondling another man's crotch?)

[UserClone]

but pretty darn effective

Okay...but talking about your balls is not generally polite in a forum frequented by underage children, ladies, and people of class.

[Doc Roc]

But

"Why are you reaching into your crotch when I asked you to clear your tab?"

[Doc Roc]

Okay...but talking about your balls is not generally polite in a forum frequented by underage children, ladies, and people of class.

I am a person of class, but I'm basically okay with spherical objects. I did spend sometime learning spherical geometry a while ago, which is wonky enough that I held a globular-grudge for a bit, but we're on generally good terms now. I'd go so far as to suggest that I'm even okay with balls I can't exert ownership over.

[UserClone]

Not the point.

[Shademan]

oh, shees, don't be a prude. its just a sack of skin with some minor organs in them.

[Roukon]

If you have access to Song and Silence, the 3.0 bard and rogue splatbook, there is the thief-catcher. It looks like a magical book, but when a thief opens it up, they are imprisoned inside the book. The fluff with it says it was designed by spellcasters to protect against theives who were stealing their magical tomes.