D&D 5E Why is there a Forgery Kit?

[Ruin Explorer]

But they wouldn't be likely to specifically carry a selection of each grade and size of paper commonly used in official documents, either

There's no such thing in 95% of D&D settings.

or a selection of inks that can be blended to match the colour of ink used on a specific document

That's a skill in using something that they should, if they're a real calligrapher, have, so yeah they should. A calligrapher absolutely should be able to do that. He'll have experience doing precisely that. It's totally bizarre to suggest otherwise.

nor particular chemical treatments in order to artificially age or distress a document so that it doesn't look freshly penned.

This is non-renaissance nonsense. Not insult but that's not how forgery worked back then, and there's no such thing as "chemical treatments" to do this. Even in more recent forgery, where this is done, you have to work out precisely the right things for the specific thing you're forging. There's no generic stuff possible here.

D&D has a lot of overlap. Weapons, for example, have a lot of overlap. They tried hard to avoid having any that are entirely overlapping, but most are very similar.

Definitely fair. Trouble is, this is one of those situations where one thing is just better than another thing of equal cost.

Um, no. I was trying to describe a reciprocal situation: a sage with calligraphy trying to forge something, vs. an assassin with forgery trying to write some nice wedding invitations. Maybe a party member is getting married?

That was unclear. A forger should have no problem at all making nice-looking wedding invites to the PC's wedding.

No toilets, either. What can we extrapolate from that?

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Literally the first D&D adventure I ever played had loos in it, in the FR, and I know some DMs can't face (and this on them, I mean grow up) putting in latrines or the like, when they draw maps, but that's crummy. I've actually seen loos appear in plenty of settings - typically they're "Roman-style", or they're just latrines/outhouses/bedpans.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There's no such thing in 95% of D&D settings.

No toilets, either. What can we extrapolate from that?

 

[Fenris-77]

The main difference between the two is probably access rather than contents. The forgery kit isn't mentioned in many places, but a ton of classes and backgrounds have access to calligraphy. I would probably say something like all forgers are calligraphers but not all calligraphers are forgers. Just adding it to the calligraphy kit is fine too though, whatever works for your game. In a lot of settings and games it won't come up much anyway. In an urban intrigue game where it might be a key skill I'd be less likely to give forgery as a skill just to anyone with calligraphy, I'd let the appropriate PC take it and have his moments in the spotlight when it comes up.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In an urban intrigue game where it might be a key skill I'd be less likely to give forgery as a skill just to anyone with calligraphy, I'd let the appropriate PC take it and have his moments in the spotlight when it comes up.

In a setting where this really matters, going by kit proficiency alone doesn't really make sense. Forging stuff well is something a whole party can get involved in, because of the need to source components for the forgery, and a copy of something very similar to copy from. I think you'd want to encourage that in an urban intrigue game. What you don't want is a dude to go into his room for a few hours, make a check, and come out with a high-grade forgery without actually having seen the thing he wants to forge and so on (which I have seen DMs let happen before, albeit not in D&D). I mean, that's plausible in the modern day, with the internet and so on (probably peaked in plausibility in like 1992-2000), but not in the middle ages/renaissance.

 

[MarkB]

There's no such thing in 95% of D&D settings.

What are you suggesting, that each and every piece of paper used in 95% of D%D settings is exactly the same size and quality?

In most settings, any large bureaucratic organisation will get its paper supplied in bulk from a specific producer, even in medieval times, and each producer in each different region will produce a different type of paper, depending upon their skill, the trees from which their wood pulp was harvested, the chemicals used to bleach it, and what quality of product their client was prepared to pay for.

As a result, papers produced in one town will have a particular look and feel to them, that's different from papers produced in another town 50 miles down the road.

That's a skill in using something that they should, if they're a real calligrapher, have, so yeah they should. A calligrapher absolutely should be able to do that. He'll have experience doing precisely that. It's totally bizarre to suggest otherwise.

I didn't mention skills, I was talking about supplies. A forger needs to have a sufficient range of different inks that they can simulate the grade and colour of ink used on a specific document. A calligrapher does not.

 

[bedir than]

If your Monk with Calligraphy wants to forge a document, let them. Don't make them take Forgery to do it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As a result, papers produced in one town will have a particular look and feel to them, that's different from papers produced in another town 50 miles down the road.

Yeah and you don't see the problem here? They're not going to be consistent. They're not always going to have the exact same kind of paper even inside a specific castle or sherrif's office or whatever. It doesn't come out of a factory, all neat and precise and exactly the same colour every time. There will be kinds of paper that are common in certain, small geographic areas. The sizes, colours and so on will probably vary quite a lot. You seem to get this bit.

Problem is, a "forgery kit" cannot possibly deal with that, unless you are literally carrying hundreds of pieces of paper gathered from all over the region or even world (I noted this much earlier in the discussion). There's just too much diversity. Paper and parchment and so on are too varied.

But this is all still a red herring - the problem is that the proficiency is with a kit. What is in that kit is actually kind of beside the point, because that proficiency shouldn't exist as a separate thing.

I didn't mention skills, I was talking about supplies. A forger needs to have a sufficient range of different inks that they can simulate the grade and colour of ink used on a specific document. A calligrapher does not.

Yeah they do. Think about it. Think about what scribes and calligraphers actually do all day. In large part they copy other people's work and add to it. You think some medieval scribe wasn't an expert in mixing pigments so that his ink looked exactly the same as Brother Sadfael's did? That's literally in the job description, mate.

 

[Fenris-77]

In a setting where this really matters, going by kit proficiency alone doesn't really make sense. Forging stuff well is something a whole party can get involved in, because of the need to source components for the forgery, and a copy of something very similar to copy from. I think you'd want to encourage that in an urban intrigue game. What you don't want is a dude to go into his room for a few hours, make a check, and come out with a high-grade forgery without actually having seen the thing he wants to forge and so on (which I have seen DMs let happen before, albeit not in D&D). I mean, that's plausible in the modern day, with the internet and so on (probably peaked in plausibility in like 1992-2000), but not in the middle ages/renaissance.

The kit just lets you make the forgery, it doesn't cover the acquisition of exemplars or materials, so there's lots of room for the whole party to get involved. I'm also not interested in it just being a die roll, that's boring as dirt. A good forgery should be a key piece of an interesting bit of drama, not the equivalent of kicking down a door.

 

[bedir than]

The kit just lets you make the forgery, it doesn't cover the acquisition of exemplars or materials, so there's lots of room for the whole party to get involved. I'm also not interested in it just being a die roll, that's boring as dirt. A good forgery should be a key piece of an interesting bit of drama, not the equivalent of kicking down a door.

Would you do that for picking locks?

 

[Fenris-77]

Would you do that for picking locks?

Nope, not normally, but thieves tools and that ability are far more common, and more commonly in demand from session to session. In an urban intrigue game you might legitimately need more than one character who can pick locks, but you probably only need one forger. That said, for a special lock, you could treat it in much the same way. If it were a lock of legend lets say, forged by a master locksmith and reputed to be unpickable, then maybe you could have the need to get a specific key to study, or gain access to another lock forged by the same smith.