D&D 5E Dealing with rogue solo burglaring in town

Bloodcloud said:

Hey guys, looking for an idea for my group's rogue. I think it's a fairly common problem so I figured it'd be good to discuss it here, see what other DMs do.

See, the party recently went to Sharn (one of Eberron biggest cities) and of course the group's Arcane trickster wanted to do some burglaring in the nice part of town. Now, that has happened in past games and it usually takes a lot of time with the other players not doing anything and really derail the action. So, I said i would design some kind of burglaring table and deal with it mostly offscreen with a roll to next session. He agreed. But now I got to design that...

So, anyone did this before? Any ressource or existing table? How do you deal with the rogue wanting to go solo stealing stuff?

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Oh, man, do I hate this stuff.

So whenever one player wants to go off on his or her own and eat up game time, I make it clear that the 5/6 of the party is getting 5/6 of the time and the one guy by himself gets only 1/6 of the time. So if we have 3 hours remaining play time, Mr. Goalone gets about 30 minutes and sits there the rest of the time waiting for his turn. Otherwise, there are 5 players sitting there waiting their turns, and that's not fair. I am explicit about the fact that this is meant to discourage Mr. Goalones from going off alone. I make no bones about it. D&D is a group activity. If you want to be a loner, go find a DM who wants a one-person game. Or be able to handle a 5-minute diversion for your loner time and then get back to the rest of the group.

But I absolutely will not indulge "I want all the attention and playtime" shenanigans from one player.

I would make it clear to the player that he can go after the small stuff with ease (small stuff meaning a skill roll and some small change resulting from it), but if he wants a big score, he needs a crew. Much like the party of adventurers that he came to town with.

Simply put, rich nobles in a heavily magical setting like Eberron are not going to rely on a normal mundane door to take care of anything of serious worth.

Since I trust my group to make things interesting and not try and take advantage, I'd tap them for ideas and comedy. "You open the side room and find..." *look at player beside the rogue*. Which keeps them entertained and involved, and also saves me from being accused of picking on the rogue. Especially clever and amusing things get the player that suggested them Inspiration.

Otherwise, I'd tell everyone at the table to take a 10-minute washroom snack break and do a lightning round series of events.

I'd set up a matrix, with risk on the columns Low, Medium, High.

Low risk activities mean not much chance of a good haul, while high risk activities mean a possibility of a big payday, but also very bad consequences. Then roll a percentile dice and add appropriate modifiers. If you roll low, you run into trouble, if you roll high you get the maximum return. The higher the risk, the higher you have to roll to not hit trouble.

Modifiers would be based on advantages the character has or situational modifiers.

I'm at work, so I can design anything, but I think you could make something quite nice.

Quite honestly, these are the kinds of things I find 4E's Skill Challenges useful for. They're fast, they resolve the issue with some tension, and the PC feels like they've done something.

Want to steal from lower middle class homes? Available skills: Dexterity (Stealth), Dexterity (Thieves' Tools), Dexterity (Acrobatics), Strength (Athletics), Intelligence (Investigation). No more than 3 checks for any one skill. DC 15. Increase the DC by +2 for every burglary in recent memory. 6 successes before 3 failures. If you succeed, roll on the Individual Treasure: Challenge 0-4 chart (DMG p136). If you spend a day scouting, you can roll twice on the table and pick the higher result (only roll the percentile twice).

Want to steal from upper middle class homes? Available skills: Dexterity (Stealth), Dexterity (Thieves' Tools), Dexterity (Acrobatics), Strength (Athletics), Intelligence (Investigation). DC 20. Increase the DC by +4 for every burglary in recent memory. 8 successes before 4 failures. No more than 3 checks for any one skill. If you succeed, roll three times on the Individual Treasure: Challenge 0-4 chart (DMG p136). If spend three days scouting a location, you can roll twice on the table and pick the higher result (only roll the percentile twice).

Want to steal from a shop or noble home? Available skills: Dexterity (Stealth), Dexterity (Thieves' Tools), Dexterity (Acrobatics), Strength (Athletics), Intelligence (Investigation). DC 25. Increase the DC by +6 for every burglary in recent memory. 10 successes before 5 failures. No more than 3 checks for any one skill. If you succeed, roll once the Treasure Hoard: Challenge 0-4 chart (DMG p137), but you only ever find one magic item instead of 1d4 or 1d6. If you spend a week scouting, you can roll twice on the table and pick the higher result (only roll the percentile twice).

Anything richer than that, and it's an adventure all it's own.

What happens when the PC fails? This is entirely up to the DM's imagination. The player could be walked in on. The PC might complete his infiltration and simply find nothing of value, or find that someone has gotten to the loot before him. The rafters could break sending the PC through the roof and into the main hall where a group of guards was resting. How it's handled is entirely up to the DM.

Note, too, that this only talks about how difficult it is to get in and get out, not how to fence your stolen goods or prevent being tracked down (possibly by magical means). A prodigious burglar may find calls for adventurers to guard against invasions or locate stolen items. If you happen to steal something recognizable, you may not find anybody local that's willing to buy such a recognizable item.

That or you can get leverage that desire set up an elaborate heist that most take place that needs all the team like starting a bar room brawl to distract the guards, to lighting another building on fire or fighting the thief thugs from the local guild while he steals what ever is needed maybe something that is need to make their missions successful. Things like this may split the party but you have active encounters still going and people are less bored.

Makes a thief so much more fun to play

I like the table above s as a start. The carousing table is good for inspiration.

Roll a percentile die and add your level.

Some other possible entries:

You steal an secret scroll, a confidential message, or somehow learn a secret that someone would kill to keep hidden.

You fall off a roof or get caught in a dangerous trap. You take 3d6 damage.

Every place you target had already been hit by a more experienced thief. You earn nothing but shame.

You pick up a cursed magic item.

Captured by the watch. Spend 2d8 days in prison.

You pick pocket a fancy ball. Earn 3d6 x 100 gold pieces worth of jewelry.

You perform a feat so impressive, the local thieves guild holds you a party. You also earn 2d6 x 100 gp.

I think I would just use something along these lines:



PDF of the same thing:
Quick and Dirty Thieving Tables

It would be very easy to define out the Very Bad or the guards, but this leaves it more free form. Additionally, This could take whatever amount of time the DM thinks. I generally like the idea of a month of time, or at least a week of time for planning, or scouting... fleecing crowds, etc.

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lowkey13 said:

Great table. Needs more exclamation points. Also-

(1) not quite sure what the difference is between "Very Bad!!!"; "Very Bad!!"; and "Very Bad!"; and
(2) you could adapt this for carousing. Success! No luck. Caught by ... significant other. And, of course, very bad.

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Yeah, basically, more exclamation points == EVEN MORE VERY BAD!