Help designing a heist?

[bluesfella]

Here's the setup: The party needs to break into the manor house of a prominent (but EVIL) noble and steal a macguffin. They will see this evil noble and his bodyguard totally decimate a higher-level party via a flashback scene before they plan out this heist. So, they don't want to engage this guy directly.

I'm having trouble coming up with possible reasons the noble will either be gone from the house or distracted. I thought about having the cliche "villain throws a party" going on, so the group can sneak past the guards, etc. Or even the noble may take his family on a trip, and the group sneaks in when only the household staff is there. But neither of these seem very interesting, and I want to give the group a few different scenarios to choose from.

I also want to throw in some sort of unexpected "twist" to complicate things, but I'm having a hard time coming up with something other than "random unexpected person walks in on them".

I do have one interesting twist once they make it through the secret door in the basement to the vault - they will find an underground church, and discover that the noble is secretly worshiping Vecna along with a small group of others in the city. And he plans on raising a small army of undead to take over. All seeds for a later adventure arc, but nothing that really complicates their heist.

So, what have you used in your campaigns, or what can you think of to make this more interesting? My players (and I, of course) will be thankful for whatever you can come up with!

 

[Filcher]

They run into someone else trying to steal the same MacGuffin, but for different goals.

And she is cute.

And an hour ago, the party paladin swore to defend her honor at the masquerade ball going on downstairs.

 

[steeldragons]

I wouldn't GIVE the party the BBEG being distracted.

Distracting him to another part or out of the manor might very well be a nice tactic for the party to try...or come up with.

The "villain throws a party" might be cliched...but it's cliched for a reason...it works! It's a great set up for a lot of social/NPC interaction, stealth, et al.

That said, could be, perhaps, that the noble is otherwise occupied with other business in town. What does this villain "do"? He's a lord. Does he have businesses under his direct control? Has he ever been implicated in any other strange "goings on" in town?

Maybe the guard shows up to question him while the party is casing the place...or there's a disturbance at one of his warehouses or something.

That's they're opportunity. If they don't take it, then they're left to making their own distraction to get in.

Basically, really, if the party doesn't want a direct confrontation...then it's up to them to make sure there isn't one. How they do that...well, that's up to the wits of the PCs (or rather, the players....Your players do have wits, right? lol.)

If they don't or can't get him out of the house...then the noble is unlikely to address a problem head-on in his own house, with his guards all over. Let them take care of it. That's what they're paid/entralled for!

If the party runs into his office by mistake, then...oops.

There's the whole going in the middle of the night scenario...The noble does sleep, doesn't he? Get past the guards, into the house...don't make any noise or disturb anything...Sounds like a basic "cat burglary" scenario.

Get in, get the macguffin, get out. Don't fight or make noise if you don't have to...and if you DO end up in a confrontation or set off some alarm that would rouse the noble...one can never go wrong with a tried and true "RUN AWAY!" and return to fight/filch another day...maybe when the noble IS on vacation...but dealing with an "on alert" guard staff since there was "a breach" a few nights before.

You know your players and what they're capable of...are they likely to try to fight their way in and fight their way out? Let them come up with a plan. Why make it easy for them by sending the noble out of town?

Just a few coppers. Take 'em for what they're worth.
--Steel Dragons.

 

[bluesfella]

They run into someone else trying to steal the same MacGuffin, but for different goals.

And she is cute.

And an hour ago, the party paladin swore to defend her honor at the masquerade ball going on downstairs.

Actually, when they walked into town for the first time (this was our last session 2 weeks ago), they met a woman running from a group of thugs. It turns out the she is the daughter of a minor noble who owed this EVIL noble (his name is Greymoor, by the way) some money. Her father passed away 2 weeks ago, and Greymoor used this debt to foreclose on his property and basically take everything he owned. She was left with nothing (except intense hatred for Greymoor), so she disguised herself as a servant girl, infiltrated the house, and stole back the one family heirloom she treasured - her father's pocketwatch.

She didn't make it out cleanly, though...Greymoor's bodyguard discovered her making her getaway, and he and two other thugs pursued her through town. The PC's ran right into the middle of this situation and rescued her. She has promised to help them in return. If the PC's do go to her for help in this heist, she can provide a rough map of the first floor of the mansion.

The trick is, Greymoor's men now know what the PC's look like, and they also know what the girl looks like, so it would take something like a masquerade ball to allow them to walk into the house. They wouldn't be able to bluff their way past the guards.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Okay, first the party needs to hire some EYES - this can be street kids or be hired from the local theives guild, their job is to find patterns in the Big Bad schedule; who goes in and who comes out.

Next the bribe - get the big bad to come out. What event will the big guy go to? Slave market, meeting with the king, parties...players can bribe or forge him an invite. You just have to get him out.

Now, block the ways back or have his coach break down. Again, a job for the local guild. This can extend your time line, get to location - 30 minutes, getting back home - 90 minutes. Players have two hours.

Just think about a schedule for the big bad, wakes up around 10 in the morning, has a bite to eat. Meets with staff at 2, goes down to work on something at 4, out on the town to eat at 7, back home at 9, in the dungeon at midnight and bed at 4.

 

[bluesfella]

Just a few coppers. Take 'em for what they're worth.
--Steel Dragons.

Some good points, Steel Dragons, thanks! I guess I'm just trying to help them a bit. This is only our second session with this group, and some of these guys are new to RPG's. Maybe I will let them chew on it for a while, and only "help" them with info from other NPC's if they are struggling too much...

 

[Hand of Evil]

Oh, reasons for a big bad to go out:

• Ingredents - yes, maybe they would send some one but somethings no.
• Rare Book just came in or other such object.
• Meetings - not saying there is a big bad club but big bads like power and will be movers and shakers. They will have seats in the house of lords or such.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

This is only our second session with this group, and some of these guys are new to RPG's.

In that case, I'd remind them that they're basically playing characters in a heist movie (The Italian Job, The Bank Job, Ocean's #, etc.), and if they ever get stuck, they should just ask themselves, "What would Jason Statham or Seth Green or Clooney (et al.) do?"

And then, since you're the DM, make it reasonably possible for that to succeed.

I've always wanted to run a heist in reverse - start with the players having suceeded, and then have them tell, in flashback, how it all went down. It spoils the ending, but because you know how it all turns out, the players can get a little wackier, a little more daring, in their ideas.

Maybe tell the players that they've spent the past two weeks, in-game, planning the heist, and then give everyone a number of tokens equal to some stat bonus (Int? Wis? Cha? All of the above?) - and then fast-forward to the night of the heist itself. The players can spend a token throughout the course of the adventure to "Invoke the Plan."

E.g., the players find themselves up against a locked door which they can't pick, so the bard player spends a Charisma token to have, retroactively, seduced a chambermaid, giving him an opportunity to have a copy of her key made, which gives the party access to most of the back hallways and a couple secret passages, but not the private lockbox of Lord Greymoor.

That way, you skip a session of everyone essentially talking out what the plan should be, arguing back and forth, and get right into the action.

I've never run one this way, but it might be a fun way to try things out.

 

[fba827]

Scenarios / time of days that the PCs can try for:
* The villian is throwing a party (evening)
* The villian is -preparing- for a party that he will be throwing thus offering the opening for delivery persons and people setting up (day time)
* The villian is out doing business for the day (daytime)
* The villian is having a normal evening at home and the PCs expect to be very very quiet and possibly dress up as some of the house workers coming in to sweep/cook for the night (evening/night)
* The city is having a local event that the villian will be attending (day time)


Possible complications:
* The villian comes home early so need to be very very quiet
* Their exit strategy gets blocked (extra guard shift walking there for some reason, or they find that the room has anti-teleport magic going on, etc.all depending on the nature of thier exit strategy
* The object, upon seeing it up close, is just a fake he uses for show and now they must find the real object that they know must be hidden somewhere in the house (perhaps in a nearby hidden vault behind a painting, etc)
* Someone else is in the process of stealing the object
* Someone else has already stolen the object
* Someone walks in on them (it can be a guard, or a random servant, maybe the person can be bribed, or tricked into thinking tey're doing something else, or maybe the person needs to be beat down.... quietly)
* While trying to steal the object, they see some notes nearby that detail how the object was going to be used in some other (good!) way, such as loaned to the city for something, thus leading to an ethical delima of stealing it for the PC's longterm goals, or letting it get used by the city for whatever community-serving process (after all, the villian probably has a good face / community standing and is not known as the evil guy, so he probably has connections and that goes along with favors)
* the item somehow affects the mental state of the person that takes it (charms them or confuses them into amnesia or what ever)
* some trap in the room somehow affects the mental state or imposes some physical condition on the PCs that trigger the trap, thereby limiting thier actions/plan

 

[Lord Ipplepop]

One thing to remember while they are trying to old snoop and poop routine...
What kind of armor do the fighters/clerics have? How much noise does it make as they clank around "silently" trying to sneak past guards and such. Also... any combat or excitement they cause is likely to be noticed by the guards, the Lord, etc.

OK, OK... so that was three things.
Reality often makes things worse for the players, and more interesting for the DM as the players attempt to figure out ways around the hassles we put them through.