Epic Bank Robbery

[Carpe DM]

Ok, folks -- the well of inspiration runneth dry.

The sitch: My players, at around 22d level (it's a straight-up, no-holds barred, all-sourcebooks 3.5 game), need 144,000 soul coins from a vault maintained by a Knights Templar analogue. Here are the PCs. (Warning, link not particularly safe for work.)

I need an epic bank for them to rob. Questions that seem to elude me:

1. What in the fantasy world does the job of an epic teller?

2. What does a vault even look like at those levels? Time-stasis capsules?

3. What sorts of traps do I use -- they can adapt to pretty much any environment through abuse of shapechange spells and the like.

4. What else would be in an epic bank? Epic frescoes? Fountains? Musak??? I'm running on fumes here. What would any of that look like? What descriptions would really get them going?

Any ideas or inspirations or previously published material that you can point me to would be deeply appreciated.

best,

Carpe

[Mistah J]

Pick or build a high CR golem.

Now put a hollow inside their chest. Walking, self-defending, and hard to open safety deposit box!

[Thanael]

Do you by any chance run an Eberron campaign? But even if not the following links will give you some inspiration for sure:

My players want to rob a House Kundarak bank...

The biggest House Kundarak Bank in Sharn is guarded by a Slaughterstone Behemoth (MM3). It's a tourist attraction.

Rich and Jezz' Eberron Wiki / House Kundarak

The magewrights of the Warding Guild ensure that most entries to a Banking Guild establishment have a constantly functioning detect magic effect in play. A more recent upgrade has a targeted dispel hit anything that trips the detect upon entering.

Excellent gleemax post of an example (low level) Kundarak Banking Guild station

This is an idea for a medium-sized Kundarak banking establishment. It can either be a secondary branch in a major city, or else the main one in a smaller town. For sake of convenience, I’m going to assume that when you enter the bank through the main doors, you are heading north.

I have covered what I consider to be most of the common methods of infiltration. I make no claims at being able to outthink everybody, so add whatever defences you feel appropriate. I have left some holes that clever PCs or DMs can exploit. Any level of security can be removed to make the bank easier to infiltrate if necessary for your story.

Also
Trap design - Dwarf Fortress Wiki
The Throne Room
Protection vs Scrying/Teleportation
Long range alarm-type spell?
Locate Object

[Carpe DM]

Wow, those are some excellent resources. Thank you!

[aco175]

I remember a 3rd party book, maybe fantasy flight book of spells. Anyways they had a part on epic/grand libraries and it has a picture of of a wizard looking guy with a funky key opening a portal to the library. You could use this idea to gain access to the bank.

The PC's need to find a person who has an account first. Find a way to discover where the key is and finally get the key to open the portal to the bank. This solunds a bit like the Matrix movie with the keymaker and special keys that open doors to portals. There can be traps and monsters guarding the bank.

Two other ideas that come to mind, an epic regenerating dragon guarding the hoard of deposits, and what about the people who have just had their deposets stolen. Revenge at those levels can be sweet.

[lobsterGun]

Originally Posted by Carpe DM

I need an epic bank for them to rob....

How about the the Temple of [god's name]. [god's name] is the God of Commerce and Business. The bank president is the High Priest. The guards are high level Paladins. The tellers and managers are Clerics.

For normal business, they employ high security vaults (similar to what a royal treasury would employ), but 'special' business deposits are plane shifted to the home plane of the God of Commerce where it is protected by [god's name]'s heavenly chorus (or whatever).

Naturally, Soul Cookies would be considered a 'special' deposit.

They are open weekdays from 10am to 4pm and Saturdays from 12pm to 1pm. The bank is closed Sundays for services.

The PC's have lots of options for getting the cookies.

- they can impersonate the owner of the cookies and make a withdrawal.
- they can trick the owner of the account into making the withdrawal and then waylay him outside the bank.
- they can hire a priest of their own to plane shift them to the plane of Law (or wherever) and steal the cookies out from under the nose of [god's name].
- they can grab the Bank President's wife/children and extort the release of the cookies.
- they can make a giant wooden horse, climb inside, and have it deposited in the special vault.
- etc...

[tleilaxu]

as this is an epic level game, this is a great opportunity to use the 'Living Vault' which is a truly fiendish and awesome challenge. of course, the living vault is not sitting in the middle of a field, but perhaps at the center of a series of nested demiplanes, themselves inside the vault room of a heavily defended temple or mundane bank.

[Carpe DM]

Hmm! And where might I find this Living Vault?