Heist Stories!

[Captain Kablam]

CRIMES! It is sad but true that there are times when a party turns to the darker side. However when they don't dive into full on murdohobory they still have adventures of a finer culture of crime. So let's hear about them!

I want to hear about the different types of jobs you and your merry band of ne'er-do-wells might've pulled in the partys you gamed with or even the games you've run. Anytime where the players wanted something, like a lot, like more than the other guy, and made a plan to get it.

I got a few stories myself I'll share here and there to keep the thread alive.

Spoiler: The Silver Swords Job

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SO!
Me and a few of my buddies are playing in a 5e campaign run by my buddy Dungeon Master. Our crew was Tilk the barbarian, hardy warrior of the frozen north, the muscle, Osborn Highhill, halfling bard, musician, entertainer, face man, and Me, Francois Noir, debonair rouge swashbuckler, agent of corruption to the other two and man of wealth, taste, and culture.

We three are travelling in the woods when we're attacked by some bandits and a pair of their slaves, Leon, the DM's self insert anime sword guy with some fire sword and Terra, his girlfriends alchemist character (I promise this the only cringe in this story). After fighting off the bandits and freeing the other heroes they tell us about this cave where there are more bandits and working more slaves near to death. I didn't care to much about that but I was interested in the bandits treasure stores. Apparently they made bank so naturally we had to take that.

I ask Leon and Terra what they remember about the place. Here's what we had to deal with.

• 60 Bandits
• 1 boss with serious sword skills
• Unknown number of trapped fire gates that could separate us and block our escape

The Silver Swords were a massive criminal organization, with a few branches all around the continent.

What we had to our credit

• The team as mentioned above
• Our new recruits
• Silver Swords Uniforms
• A decent amount of gold
• The slaves
• And the Local constabulary (town guards)

So here's what we do, we use the gold we got to buy a wagon, some boards, and some gold paint. As well as three bags of holding. We go back into town and let the guards know where their little cave is located at and that we would like some men to help stomp em out, this give us 20 men. Next step is to buy up a bunch of basic swords, daggers and shields, as many we can stuff into the bags. We spent days in prep, making a fake top to the wagon that makes it loaded down with oodles of treasure, the alchemist lending a potion that makes the "coins" (gold painted woodchips) feel like the real deal, while the wagon had the space inside enough to hide 2 men. We also had the alchemist make us a sloppy green goop (tanglefoot bags basically). We had Leon and Tilk practice getting in and out of the wagon, they would have to be fast. We talk over the plan and everyone memorizes their roles With the practice and the gear prep taken care of we were ready.

SHOWTIME!

Me and Osborn dressed in Silver Swords uniforms approach the gate with a chained up Terra in tow, while Tilk and Leon were hidden in our wagon, the 20 guards lying in wait in the forest. We tell the Bandits that we're from another branch, on the run with a big score. We tell em we found a runaway slave and that she killed their boys, and some of ours, and that an example needed to be set. The guards agree to take us into the boss, I go with the "treasure" to take it to where the rest of their loot is stashed while Osborn goes with Terra to the slave cages to teach her a lesson (the guards unaware of the bag of holding filled with weapons and shields on them). The whole way in we take note and keep a sharp eye for where the gate were and how to shut them off.

I'm lead to the main area where other slaves are forced to mine, the big bandit boss watching them toil. I notice a cage off to the side where a bunch of kids are being held. I crack a joke, "Hey so you guys sacrificing kids to an arcane god for mystical power? Cool, I get it. Lightning hands, amiright?" That makes the bad guy laugh and he says he wants to show me something, while I talk a couple of his guys into pushing the cart for me.

While that's going our bard and alchemist are lead to the cages. The girl slips her fake cuffs and he takes out his crossbow, they start tossing weapons to the slaves and fight off the guards. The bard gives a rousing speech and convinces the slaves to fight for their freed om, we get 30 guys in that and even more as they liberate the mine, their revolution fighting their way towards us and getting ugly, but better as the sounds of combat help bring in the guards.

Word of that has yet to reach the boss as he shows me his treasure room privately and his laboratory, where he was experimenting and torturing kids in an effort to make his own elemental sword. I decide that while I joke about hurting kids, actually hurting them is too much for me. I ask, "Hey whats that all the way over there?" I ask staring at a random corner behind him. I have to roll bluff, crit 20. I then take out my short sword and stab him in the back. Sneak Attack, Roll initiative. I shout for Leon and Tilk to help. Right on que they get out of the cart just like they practiced, killing the grunts that pushed the cart and were counting the money. They then goop up the vault door like they were told. We now have the boss by himself with none of his dudes. he tries to book but he cant because the door is glued shut, and gets stuck himself. This slime the alchemist made was flammable. Cure Leon getting the final hit. We then load the wagon up with all the real treasure that we could, we cleared the place out, third bag of holding.

Outside the vault the battle is in fullswing, but we had no intention of sticking around for that, much to Tilk the Barbarian's annoyance. Staying means being heroes, heroes share, and I'm not sharing my treasure. However the guards and ex-slaves bolstered by Bardic music make for a formidable fighting force, one that's overwhelming the bandits. We break out of the vault, meet Terra and Osborn, they hop on the cart as we haul ass, my darts being flung and disabling the gates as we peace out amongst the chaos!

[Bphill561]

Temple of the Death God

Spoiler: Unhappy DM

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The game was Tunnels and Trolls, quite old but similar in concept to first edition DND (although they still make new editions).

So the DM seemed to be getting frustrated with the rest of the players for not taking any initiative so he laid a trap. There was no adventure hooks and the other players decided to go to the bar. The only thing they heard about without trying or applying any effort was a job in the Temple of Death. My character found several better hooks, but the other players ignored me. Basically there was a treasure of untold wealth and artifacts, but it lay in the city's temple dedicated to death. The only catch was that no one that had entered the temple had ever returned except for the monks that lived there. The players insisted we had to go do this despite my protests.

We got to the temple without any problem since it was in the city in which we lived. I created a minor disturbance outside by whipping up a mob of refuges looking for food and pointing them at the monastery. We were able to easily gain entrance through a side door during the commotion. Once inside, we only had to sneak past a couple of guards before we ended up in unoccupied halls with thin layers of dust. It seemed a little odd that the monks of the monastery did not keep this halls clean or seem to travel in them at all. The further we went, the thicker the dust got, but we eventually made it to the vault.

The vault itself was a 50 foot tall, 20 foot wide door of Mithral which is the only special metal in the game and extremely valuable. Depicted on it was a mural to death that was very intricate. There were no handles, mechanisms, traps, enchantments, or indication of any kind that the door moved in any fashion. The other players insisted on staying to figure it out. Mean while the DM keep making odd comments like it felt we were there for days, which then extended into weeks. I got suspicious and asked him if we appeared to be the same age that we were when we entered the building. He would not really answer, only saying that everything was okay. It became apparent to me that the door did not actually move and may have been the treasure itself.

Then I realized I had a spell on my list that everyone had been making fun of me for taking. It was quite expensive and difficult to cast. The only thing it did was turn precious metals into gems for easy transport, and the group generally did not keep track of weight. I burned all my magic for the day to cast the spell 3 times and reduced the mithril door from a 50 foot tall door to a 25 foot tall door. I also did it in such a fashion that we could take a piece of the door with us, enough to craft weapons and armor since that material was the best in the game. The gems that rained down on the party were worth millions and took up all of our carrying capacity. The DM looked a little upset, but beckoned us to enter and see the treasure. I quickly said "No, we already have more than we can carry and we are leaving. I insisted while I picked up the gems I also would not climb up to look over the wall, I wanted to get away with the loot as quickly as possible." The rest of the players went along already talking about what they would have crafted or buy with all the money. The game does not really have magic items, we had a custom system so there was really not anything in the vault that we could not create with that ourselves. The DM was very upset and we never saw a door or structure made of metal again in that campaign or any others. Likewise the players stopped making fun of me for buying weird spells.

I told the DM afterwards that I did not think the door opened and it was curse that made people want to stay there until they died. Once dead maybe their spirits could enter and learn the mysterious of death, which be exceedingly valuable. He was a big Lovecraftian fan and it was the type of stories he liked to throw at us to finish a campaign if we was unhappy with them. He refused to comment or ever mention the temple again. I talked to the other players afterwards and convinced them to be a little more proactive after that. They were more than pleased to elaborately role play their shopping adventures next time we met

[StevenC21]

Why is this in the 3.5e forum.

*scrubbed*

[AvatarVecna]

Here's a spoiler'd very-old post of mine asking for advice following an impromptu heist:

Spoiler: Grenades Are Not Melee Weapons

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So, my IRL group does a "take turns DMing" kind of thing, because we sometimes have attendance problems; last time we met, I ended up running. It was a basic plot that I've run before in various editions (a gang has taken up shop in town, drive them out); due to the make-up of our group, they went in a "social manipulation" direction, attempting to get the town guard pissed off enough to ignore the gang's bribery, setting up the local community and business owners, and attempting to partner with other adventuring groups to try and take on this organization. It's all going well, and is building to a (hopefully) thrilling confrontation at the gang's hideout, which would normally be extremely tough for the PCs to take on. Our 6th lvl party (at least while I'm DMing and my character is elsewhere) consisted of the following:

• LG Dwarven War Cleric with hammer, full plate, and shield, serving as tank and healer (and buffer on occasion)
• NE Gnomish Illusionist with healthy dabbling in Evocation and Necromancy
• N (LN?) Champion Fighter with a preference for solving problems with his spear
• C"N" Moon Druid raised by wolves who's convinced she is one
• CN Halfling Beastmaster who rides a velociraptor
• NG Kalashtar Transmuter who doubles as the group face

Now, while the illusionist and the warpriest went around investigating local businesses to see who could be tricked into publicly opposing the gang, and the fighter and kalashtar went barhopping to find murderhobos in need of money, our own group's murderhobos (the druid and ranger) went off to find an explosives store (it's Eberron, so I figured there's probably one around Stormreach somewhere). Before mentioning what happens, I should tell you about these two characters. The halfling is played as a devil-may-care live-life-to-the-fullest kind of adventurer; previously, he's gotten himself blackout drunken on some several thousand year old giant booze found while looting some old giant ruins, and while he's not the kind of person who would use pages of the Necronomicon to make a joint, I'm fairly certain he's the kind of person who would smoke it if offered, because why not? More problematic, though, is the druid. You may have noticed that her alignment has the Neutral part in quotations, and that's because she's that kind of chaotic neutral: her character is convinced that she's a wild animal that can turn into a human, and she attempts to use bloodshed and fire to solve all her problems; this is a player who has to be reminded at least once per game session that no, there are no rules for the effects of ripping off people's arms, and no, we haven't made any houserules for that either; this is a druid who had to be talked out of starting a forest fire while standing in the middle of the forest.

So when the player announces that she's seeking out an explosives store, I immediately made two notes for myself: firstly, the shopkeeper, as appropriate for somebody who sells dangerous weapons to people of questionable sanity, is himself a retired adventurer who's plenty capable of taking part in the fight I'm sure is inevitable, and secondly, if any explosives go off in the shop, they'll trigger the other explosives for a huge explosions equal to...let's say a Meteor Swarm DC 19. The negotiation over explosives goes about as well as it can, and they end up purchasing things...and it occurs to the druid that if this guy sells explosives for so much, he's probably got a lot of money here in the shop, so she decides to rob the place; the halfling at this point is just along for the ride, I suppose. The druid player, showing a level of situational awareness I'm ashamed to say I didn't think her capable of, decides to hold the shop up with cold magic, rather than her usual "fire/electricity" spells, threatening the shopkeep with surprise round and readying a spell.

First round comes, and the ranger wins initiative; he takes one of the grenade-like explosives they just purchased, triggers it, and then throws it at the shopkeeper's feet. The druid, once more displaying a level of common sense I didn't previously believe her capable of, turns into a cheetah and runs away like a bat out of hell...unfortunately only getting so far due to obstructions. The shopkeep attempts to stomp the explosive out, but it fails...and the place goes up. The ranger didn't try to run; afterward, the player said he figured they wouldn't keep tons of working explosives just out in the open, so that might be on me. The ranger failed his save and basically got disintegrated by the blast, and the shopkeeper survived due to both making the save and having quite the impressive pile of hit points. The druid, in her retreat, had made it to the edge of where the effect would be, so I figured she had 3/4 cover (since the explosion was inside) and advantage on the save, and she ended up making it...but the damage roll was high enough that it took her down to dying anyway...and then she flubbed the death saves before stabilizing.

I feel some of the assumptions I made (the skopkeeper being more capable than most NPCs, a huge explosion if explosives are used in the explosives shop) were solid, but some (making it a Meteor Swarm, not letting the druid ignore the effect even though she got pretty far away, having live explosives in the explosives shop on display) were less solid. Should I have done things differently?

[Psyren]

No specific Heist stories, but Pathfinder added guidelines for running them to Ultimate Intrigue that you may be able to leverage.

[Voidstar01]

Not sure if this is "Heist" but...

5e, be me Dragonborn sorcerer/warlock, be not half-elf beastmaster ranger
so we were in this kings keep after saving his town, rest of the parties off getting awards of somesort, me and ranger friend wander into the courtmage's lab, he wants us to leave but has to be polite about because we're the big damn heroes, we notice a book on the table the DM describes it as "Very important and magical looking". We decide we want it. Ranger has his bird make a distraction, while I make a sleight of hand to yoink the book.

NAT 20

We yoink the book and the court mage is confused as hell when we say "alright bye" and moonwalk out of the room humming smooth criminal.
(this was my first ever game so I wasn't taking it super serious)

Also this post should probably be moved to Roleplaying general.

[Captain Kablam]

Why is this in the 3.5e forum.

Force of habit, realized my mistake after posting and didn't know how to fix it.

Not sure if this is "Heist" but...

It's a small job but it counts. I think you might like my next story

Anyways, loving the stories I'm seeing so far guys, keep em coming. And if you know how I can transport this post from here to General, let me know.

Moving along, he's another story of larceny to add to the pile.

Spoiler: The Forever Diamonds Job

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Not long after the Silver Swords job we kinda ditched the anime sword guy, (it think the DM just had more fun running these sort of criminal adventures as opposed to the save the world plot that we dabbled in). We get word of a powerful wizard who makes and sells magic rings. Naturally we decide to rob the guy.

He ran a jewelry store called Forever Diamonds, it was in a wealthy Elven city, in the part of town where if you were walking around broke, it didn't take long for the guards to come up and ask what you were doing there. High class, with merchandise ranking up into the hundreds of thousands.

Here's what we had to deal with:

• 1 powerful wizard store owner
• 4 or so hired mercenaries
• 6 or so MIMIC display cases
• Alarm spells on all windows/ entrances/ fire place
• Magic safe that only opened with the wizard's blood
• 2 minute time frame before town guard response

What we had

• Francois Noir, swashbuckler rogue
• Osborn Highhill, Halfling bard
• Tilk, human barbarian
• Terra, human alchemist

So looking at this store was like dealing with a fortress, at least to our low to mid tier crew. Our biggest obstacle was the wizard, he more than likely having spells that would put him out of our reach and give us a hard time, at least long enough for the guards to show up and make life miserable. Smash and grab seemed like an option except the mimic display cases holding the merchandise would swallow the jewelery and turtle up the second anything went wrong. Killing them was possible but there was still wizard, mercs, and guards. We thought about filling the store with knockout gas GTA5 style but since these were elves we were dealing with, that wouldn't fly. So we decided to use our most powerful weapon in our arsenal, the power of lies.

First off we needed to deal with the Wizard. As rogue it was my job to shadow and follow the guy, see where he goes. His house was similarly guarded against intrusion same as his store. And while his place was locked up tight that didn't apply to the buildings around him. While watching his office from another building i saw about the Blood Safe (which was harder to deal with than say a lock i could pick or a safe i could crack), and that there was a couch in his office, this will be important later.

We hit up a tailor, letting them know we were actors needing the best costumes, one for a maid, another for a noble and his wife, and two manservant uniforms. They did not disappoint.

We started making our moves, first was to get the owner's blood. Not easy. but from following the guy I was able to learn he didn't go to a barber, he shaved at home. We prettied up our alchemist and sent her in to work as the guy's maid for cheap. A job he obliged to. This gave her access to the bathroom and well even unseen servants make mistake with rusty razors. With her medical know how she was able to get the blood we needed all under the guise of cleaning his house.

Next step was to get the wizard out of our hair, now that we had his blood we didn't need him. I was next up to bat (during this time the bard and barbarian were kinda looking into that end of the world thing i mentioned so it was okay they weren't as involved in the planning). I go to the wizard at his door dressed as the manservant to the Duke of Farlandia, holding an official looking letter from the duke himself no less! (lies) While I was in the store I looked around at the merch, my Keen Mind feat coming in handy as I photographically committed them all to memory. I let the wizard know that the Duke was to be married and that he wanted him there personally to make the rings, and that all his travel expenses for sailing had been set on the S.S. Amazing. (the ticket was real, and expensive, but worth it). It would take weeks, and was better than the wizard just teleporting there, another offer he gladly took.

With the wizard gone it was time for the show. The only bit of prep we had left was making a bunch of fake jewelry from memory with Terra's alchemical help, and setting up our contact at the local thieves guild to fence the goods, which is just good business practice.

Tilk, our barbarian, rolled highest and was granted the honor of being the Duke of Farlandia, with his wife Terra, his manservant me, and his emotinal support bard/interpreter Osborn. We surprise the staff in saying that the Duke wanted to travel with the wizard before his wedding and he was outraged the owner wasnt there to take our money, we nearly left, which was something the staff strongly objected to. The next few minutes went something like this, the Duke and his wife wanted to look at something, they'd ham it up in russian accents, and whenever someone started probing too deeply The Duke would intimidate them, and the bard interpreter would let them know they have greatly offended the duke. these stoic adventurers had become the worst Karens I had ever seen. Anyways while the staff was distracted and showing off the stuff, I would walk over, sleight of hand and swap the real jewelry for the fakes. The Duke's costume consisted of a fat suit that made it easy to store the requisite Bags of Holding for both our real and fake rings and diamonds

Once that was done, Terra shouted "I feel faint!" and collapsed in the daintiest way possible. The duke flew into a rage and started lifting tables, everyone flipped out and I asked the staff if there was anywhere the lady could lay down while the bard did emotionally supportive things. There was a place she could lay down. There was a couch in the office. Once they let us in we added some blood to the safe, took everything inside (it was the end of the day at the end of the week, we were taking the big haul).

We then gave the staff a HUGE TIP (we were thieves but we weren't monsters), and were on our way just a few minutes before the fake merch collapsed into garbage, allowing us to get out of our costumes and make off with everything, every enchanted ring, every necklace, every single diamond was ours, forever. The wizard came back some time later, relaxed but mad as heck. Turned out he had ties to a cult, and they were loaded too....were.....

[tstewt1921]

Not necessarily a heist but my DM would craft fantastic dungeons for us to crawl through. There would be intricate traps and puzzles for us to avoid before getting great rewards at the end. He was bragging about our next one how he spent hours planning it out with each room and puzzle. We were nearing the end of the campaign as we were 18 or 19 and we were only going until about 21-22. So we were stocked and ready for anything. Upon getting into the dungeon our diviner cast the spell "Find the Path" which was a spell he found and took when we gained our last level but hadn't used it. We were about 30 minutes in and entered the dungeon when he cast that spell. None of us were familiar with it and when he read the description I've never seen a person get so mad. The DM closed his notebook and we took what was supposed to be the entire session and completed it in a couple minutes and he said he would have to wait until the following week for the next part as he unfortunately wasn't prepared for it to go so quickly.