Counterfeiting in Campaigns

[Athedia]

I think this is the right forum. I am just starting designing a campaign and had a few questions. I want the campaign to focus on counterfeiting and the problems associated with that. I have a few ideas for shopkeepers keeping track of coins (ranging from the old biting the coin, to scales and magical detection systems the wealthier the store is) I also wanted the players to have a risk of carrying counterfeit coins on them. The overall campaign would be learning who was doing the counterfeiting and eventually tracking it to its root. But I haven't been able to find anything on counterfeiting in any of the articles I have read and am not sure what mechanics to use. What should be the average amount of counterfeit money? Detection rates? Any advice really.

[Merchant]

I am not experienced in end but I was going to ask for a home brew conman. I mention this because the series is big on counterfeit items. My thought would be use the forgery skill for more than just documents. Give the forger a bonus for having a certain number of skills in the required item they are making counterfeits of, in your case coins, but you can make compaign based on counterfeits. Maybe the parties hard won treasure is nothing but fake coins and art.

[Debihuman]

It is a lot easier to counterfeit paper than it is coins. You have to get the weight and hardness right to counterfeit a coin as well as match the stamping. Spot or Appraisal might be appropriate skills rather than Forgery. A standard coin weighs 1/3rd of an ounce (50 to the pound). Plus each type of coin has a specific Hardness; pure gold is relatively soft.

These can be melted down into bars too. Rules for that and for the Merchant Prince Prestige class can be found in Power of Faerûn, chapter 4. The fool's gold spell from there would also useful.

Debby

[Athedia]

It is a lot easier to counterfeit paper than it is coins. You have to get the weight and hardness right to counterfeit a coin as well as match the stamping.

I had read this, and that is actually why I wanted to do a counterfeit campaign, because of how deep it would have to go.

Spot or Appraisal might be appropriate skills rather than Forgery. A standard coin weighs 1/3rd of an ounce (50 to the pound). Plus each type of coin has a specific Hardness; pure gold is relatively soft.

I was planning to have stores be able to weigh the coins and of course some people just bite them to see if they are gold.

These can be melted down into bars too. Rules for that and for the Merchant Prince Prestige class can be found in Power of Faerûn, chapter 4. The fool's gold spell from there would also useful.

I will look that up, thanks.

[AeonsShadow]

Many common ways of detecting counterfeits are easy to bypass if the character knows what they are doing.

cutting/nicking. When testing an item made of gold, a person will "Nick" the item, making an incision with a knife, cutting into it to see whether or not the middle is gold or lead. for things such as coins, the nick is shallow on the side, but if it is an item that is to be shown off, they will do it where the nick won't show, and thus is the key to a proper counterfeit.

Tapping. When testing gold encrusted gems, a merchant will take a small metal spike, about the size of your pinky, and a tip the size of a pinhead, and tap it with a small hammer against the base of the gold holding the gem. If the gem is fake and made of glass, it will crack, while a real gem would take the first hit with ease. The way to go around this it to add a thin layer of silver on the underside of the glass, so that the hit does not penetrate into it.

More to come later.

[lsfreak]

One thing to possible keep in mind default D&D coins are ridiculously huge. One-third of an ounce is larger than most historical trade coins, used between merchants or nations, let alone daily stuff. Trade coins are reliably 100-130 per pound; from what I gather, the daily-use silver in Greece was in the 600 and 300 per pound range.

To summarize and approximate this post,
Monthly wages for a carpenter: 1/3 florin
Monthly wages for a mercenary: 2-3 florins
Monthly wages for knight + two soldier sidekicks + attendant (all mounted): 20 florins
Sheep: 1/25 florins
Bushel of grain: 1/20 florins
Sword: 1/3 florins
Breastplate: 2/3 florins
Full plate: 4-7 florins
A florin is a gold trade coin of 130 per pound.

[Hexalan]

Eh, this is gonna be complicated.
Well, since your campaign is based finding the counterfeiters, you'll have to actually map out the economy. Make a big web that shows everyone that trades coin. Show who's going to give who money, and how much. Make sure you know in advance who's making the fake coin. Know how much counterfeit coin there is relative to real.

There's lot's of little stuff, too. Some people will figure out there's counterfeiting going on before others. Maybe they'll start checking coin before others and might start with less. Banks and Merchants will deal with a lot more fake coin than Farmers. It will be harder for people that deal with large amounts of coin, like Jewelers or Adventurers, to check every single coin.

[Deviston]

Also keep in mind that the PC's would need to keep an eye on the market and local news. If there are no new trade caravans, or no new carnivals or additional reason for spending to go up, and yet the value of items drop (due to a great influx of currency into the economy) and then suddenly rise (welcome to inflation, folks have more money, like it, and then charge slightly more for this and that) then you can safely assumed there is false currency abouts.

This would be a thing that you have the counterfeiter know as well, so they curb when they spend their funny money. Attempting to spend it only when high spending is normal. And why does that person who seems to have no job have all this wealth? Interesting... IRS 101. Your characters are essentially IRS agents and a loca law enforcer or two.

And truly the easiest way to capture the counterfeiter, would be to have said magical detection at various shops (a hidden one of course) and instead of the shop keeper yelling "FAKE! GUARDS GUARDS!" you would, as the IRS, have them report the person secretly and collect this information over a three - six month period, eventually you will see the main buyers with fake gold and have an extremely easy move from there. Shockingly easy I would say.