D&D 5E I need to make a withdraw from the local Treasury

[Degwerks]

The big issue I see with your plan is that you're doing it in several trips. Your trips can't be close together, otherwise it will be really suspicious. (Court officials X,Y,Z all need 20k gold suddenly?)

Second, I think you're discounting gossip and chatter and courtly intrigue. After your first trip, the guard mentions what happened to his captain, his captain mentions it to his lover, the queen's maid. She mentions it to the queen, the queen tells the king. The court official is called to explain.

Secrecy in a royal court is a lot harder than in other places. Everyone is spying on everyone else, and any unusual actions that are witnessed will become common knowledge quite fast. Within a day of your first withdrawal, everyone in the court, including Official X and the king, will know that Official X was tasked by the king to withdraw 20k gold for some unknown purpose, which will cause massive speculation. What is the king up to? Which faction is gaining that much gold and for what purpose?

So basically, you will draw a lot of attention to the transaction with this method, even if you are not personally identified.

True, close trips together would create suspicion. Might have to space them out longer or take almost everything in one go. It will be weeks before the King would even be told, if someone told him, nobody in the capital knows exactly where to find him at the moment, but I guess he could be contacted magically. Even if he was, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it, except to hire some band of adventurers to look into it. The guy just got his Kingship and hasn't solidified any powerful contacts & allies other than our party. Sure he's got a kingdom, an army and commerce but really nobody but us has been called on to do anything dangerous around his city.

 

[Degwerks]

You still fail to recognize that a LE character doesn't steal things, particularly on the scale of which you are stealing from, for "giggles and bragging rights." Evil characters, and LE in particular, would go out of their way to stay under the radar as much as possible. You doing this is going to draw a massive amount of attention to the scene of the crime, setting off who knows what in consequences for you and your party. All because you wanted a laugh. You think Darth Vader, the epitome of LE, would do anything like this?

LE characters have causes they believe in, and their actions are taken to better their cause (and themselves along the way). They don't just do bad things because they're bad, they do them to accomplish something. You explicitly say you don't need anything from this heist, and, to a LE character, bragging rights shouldn't even be on your radar.

But sure man, that's totally not pooping on the spirit of the game. Hopefully, your DM has half a brain and won't allow this to go down as you propose.

Relax, it's just a game, and this is going on in my game, not yours. Also the Bragging Rights is for me the player later on maybe. The Ultimate Heist as a status symbol is just for the character personally, even if nobody knew he did it. Hell, this type of thing is right up a LE person's alley, he could offer to investigate the theft and recover the money stolen. Gain all types of fame & status & a small reward.

 

[Downlowd]

Relax, it's just a game, and this is going on in my game, not yours.

Thank every god in Faerun for that. As a player, if I knew you were up to this, I'd ask you not to OOC, and likely try to stop you as soon as I heard about it IC. You know little to nothing about your party, and you're making broad assumptions that they are ok with you doing something that can (and with a good DM, should) have massive consequences. As a DM, if I knew you were up to this and had any, ANY, thoughts the party wouldn't be ok with it, you wouldn't even be allowed to attempt it without boulders falling on your head. You are risking the good of the group for lulz, and that's a massive red flag for any decent DM.

Hell, this type of thing is right up a LE person's alley, he could offer to investigate the theft and recover the money stolen. Gain all types of fame & status & a small reward.

Show me one LE character that would do something like this just to do it. Show me one iconic LE character that does things for "giggles and bragging rights." You have no reason, and no cause that this furthers. You have nothing to gain from gold, and a reward of more gold is just stupid in the context that you've already given that gold means little to nothing to you.

Again, you're doing it because you're playing stupid evil, or chaotic stupid, and can't grasp/accept it.

 

[Degwerks]

Maybe I should implicate the rest of the party now, minus myself of course, since you're so concerned about them. Know that you brought their hardship on them by complaining my idea of a lone wolf excursion was Bad/Wrong/Fun & conflicted with how you feel my character should act without his party around. Apparently this game, in my campaign I might add, is causing you some unrest & hopefully you lose some sleep over it. Its funny to me that you're all bent out of shape about this. Its a game. Sure there could be consequences But there could also be Opportunities as well. You're making so many judgements based off my LE is wrong from your LE and you know nothing of my goals, ideals or causes. I see it as an opportunity, which could be bad, but I can make further opportunities spring out of it. Please relax and remember that its only a game with friends.

 

[GSHamster]

True, close trips together would create suspicion. Might have to space them out longer or take almost everything in one go. It will be weeks before the King would even be told, if someone told him, nobody in the capital knows exactly where to find him at the moment, but I guess he could be contacted magically. Even if he was, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it, except to hire some band of adventurers to look into it. The guy just got his Kingship and hasn't solidified any powerful contacts & allies other than our party. Sure he's got a kingdom, an army and commerce but really nobody but us has been called on to do anything dangerous around his city.

Honestly, in this case, I doubt the guard would just give you the money. Hand over a fifth of the treasury because you have a note from a new untried king? He's going to say it's above his pay grade, and call in his captain. His captain will probably call in the Chamberlain or other high authority to confirm.

 

[Rune]

If you can teleport, why go through all of the extra steps (and multiple visits)? Why not just pop in, grab cash, pop out?

 

[Rune]

[MENTION=6819340]Downlowd[/MENTION]: I can't say I agree with your assessment of Lawful Evil. People are complex. As a real-world example, I once had a boss who was textbook LE -- status-seeking, bureaucratic, gamed the system, talked about ethics a lot, adhered to an ideal -- but that ideal was that Knowledge is Power and she would regularly sow misinformation, fabricated rumors, and general chaos in order to keep those around her divided, confused, and powerless while she hoarding Knowledge.

As for your badwrongfun concerns, I totally agree that it wouldn't fly in a game I was running (unless all the players were in on the heist--that would be fun). However, lots of people play lots of different kinds of games and even sometimes enjoy the badwrongfun ones. In the right kind of sandbox, I'm sure it'll be just fine. I'm sure the OP is in a better position than any of us to determine whether this holds true for the game he's playing in. But what do I know? And who cares if I do, anyway?

 

[discosoc]

Here's something to consider...

If your world has magic users, then that's going to be taken into consideration when creating defenses for things. Don't be surprised to see your plan fall apart due to unforseen guardians, or mage hunter types hot on your trail.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

First of all, you need to make sure there isn't a permanent Forbiddance spell on any area you plan on teleporting to. It's unlikely, sure, but since it's completely and truly impossible to TP into such on area by any means (or Plane Shift, or Gate, etc.) it's worth checking for by detect magic if you have the time.

Likewise, just because all the notable peeps in the region are long dead or forgotten doesn't mean they haven't left defenses. Some of the treasury staff may actually be creatures with truesight, such as bound fiends/celestials. Glyphs of Warding can triggered by whatever the caster of the Glyph specifies, so those may become a pain if they're set to go off whenever somebody wearing a disguise enters their AoE. Trained creatures may be hiding on the Ethereal plane ready to pop back into the Material if they smell anything funny going on. Finally, any sufficiently attentive people may spot your illusory disguise doing something odd, like fingers passing through paper or a tabletop, insects flying through the illusory part of your head, etc. Keep your illusory disguises as close to the form of the person wearing it as possible for this reason.

Also, Illusory Script doesn't do what you think it does, it allows to write one message, but specify certain individuals to read the true message hidden by the first message.

 

[Ancalagon]

Is 100 000 gp a lot of money for a kingdom? No...

I picked up a historical, not too big but not minuscule kingdom - the kingdom of Sicily. In 1250, it had about 2.5 million people.

The daily expenses for a poor person is 2 sp a day. That's about 73 gp a year. 100 000 gp will therefore pay the salary of about 1 400 servants OR the living expenses of 27 nobles *at the most*. It's not even enough money to meet the expenses of a *single palace*.

So getting back to Sicily, if we assume that everyone is poor (but everyone can pay taxes), and the tax rate is a tithe (10% of income), that's close to 20 million gp...

If a kingdom has 100 000 gp in reserve funds, it's either very small, or broke. If the 100 000 gp is the "petty cash", well then expect the kingdom to have access to divination magic to identify the thief... better have an exit plan