Hiring a Rogue

[Murrdox]

Okay, so here's the situation. I'd like some ideas from others on how this should be done. I'm not the DM, and I'm not an involved player, but as a group, we had a hard time coming to a concensus on this.

So one of our party members (A cleric/heartwarder)is possessed by a demon. He only recently became aware of it, and he doesn't quite know it's a demon. The demon asked him to steal a rod from another characeter, the leader of our party. He's a Cleric of Kelimvor, and right now he's the de-facto leader of the Kelimvor temple in Dragon Falls. The rod the demon wants to be stolen is an artifact, it is assumed to be quite important, but no one knows what it does.

Since he probably doesn't have a chance in Hell of stealing this rod himself, the heartwarder decided perhaps he could hire a rogue to do it for him. A couple of massive "gather information" checks later, and the heartwarder had sucessfully contacted the theives guild of the city.

The Kelimvor Cleric took no special steps to protect the rod... it's assumed to be sitting in a locked chest with the rest of his belongings at the foot of his bed in the Temple of Kelimvor. The Temple is a fairly large one, usually headed by a lvl 10 cleric... who is currently absent. Now, our PC (lvl 7) is the highest power there.

SO. FIRST of all... what would be an appropriate cost for hiring the rogue to do such a task? I suggested 500 gold X the level of the rogue hired. It was determined the most powerful rogue in the city is level 10, so that's 5,000 gp to hire the rogue to steal the rod. One of the other PC's pointed out that a rogue might not want to steal from a temple, no matter WHAT he was getting paid, insisting that theives guilds don't strike temples on matter of principal (offending the god of death is a BAD thing).

We then decided that since the Rogue is level 10, and the temple is normally headed by a level 10 Cleric, any wards, spells, or protections on the temple would probably be about equal in level to the rogue's ability to get past them.

So, we decided to give the rogue a 50% of getting into the temple, followed by another 50% chance of stealing the rod, followed by another 50% chance to successfully escape without being detected.

What happened was that the rogue got in, but then got caught before stealing the rod. Now the heartwarder is thinking of hiring ANOTHER rogue to follow us on the road (we're leaving the city soon) and steal it from the Cleric during the night.

Basically, we're thinking of re-doing how we did this whole rogue invasion thing, and whether or not the price was right, or whether or not the rogue would do it in the first place (since it is a temple)

Any suggestions?

 

[Saepiroth]

have the PCs taken any precautions to protect the rod?

if not, then multiply the original cost by the ratio of the difference in levels between the original rogue and the new one and then multiply it by two for danger money, and then multiply it by the ratio difference in DCs if the PC has taken precautions.

if the original rogue is doing it again (like, got off or escaped), then x2 for danger money, then x2 again (for a triple) for the rogue's natural reticence to be caught again, and then multiply by the DC difference ratio if the PC has taken precautions.

also, i reccomend that you make the PC bluff/intimidate/diplomacy/whatever to get the theives guild to work for him again, at all.

 

[Murrdox]

If we get some sort of a concensus that the way we decided to run this scenario is a good one, we'll stick with it... but we may "re-play" the whole rogue incursion, because we really have no idea if we even came close to doing this how it "should" be done.

And no, the cleric hasn't taken any special precautions to protect the rod.

If we stick with what happened, then the rogue will definitely require a lot more money and a really good diplomacy check to continue working for the Heartwarder.

 

[Zhure]

Write-up the rogue and have the PC play the part of the theft.

Use the Jamis Buck site if you don't want to actually write up a complete character, or at least use a random one as a basis.

http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc.cgi
Heo, male elf (high) Rog10: CR 10; Size M (5 ft., 0 in. tall); HD 10d6+30; hp 68; Init +5 (+5 Dex); Spd 30 ft.; AC 15 (+5 Dex); Attack +10/+5 melee, or +12/+7 ranged; SV Fort +6, Ref +14, Will +5; AL LG; Str 16, Dex 21, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 14, Cha 13.

Languages Spoken: Common, Draconic, Elven, Gnome.

Skill points: Rog 130
Skills and feats: Balance +16, Climb +14, Disable device +14, Disguise +14, Escape artist +17, Hide +16, Intimidate +14, Listen +4, Move silently +17, Profession +14, Search +4, Sense motive +15, Spot +14; Blind-fight, Lightning reflexes, Point blank shot, Weapon finesse (dagger).

Possessions: 16,000 gp in gear.

Primary motivation: A strong sense of loyalty to _____________ (person). The character feels that they owe them much, and will act to help them.

Secondary motivation: A strong sense of loyalty to the Good. The character feels that they owe them much, and will act to help them.

Recent Past: Nothing of interest has happened recently to the character.



Greg

 

[gariig]

My personal opinion of this is that rod would be GONE! This is a damn good thief, the best in a big city(being the highest level). Now a master rogue should have been briefed on the temple layout and some of the known traps in the temple. You gave the poor rogue a 1 in 8 chance of succeeding. From what you told us, this puppy was basically sitting out ready to be had. Also, the Heartwarder would be distracting people, offering spells, etc so the rogue's chance I would say 75%?

Gariig

 

[Murrdox]

Write-up the rogue and have the PC play the part of the theft.

See, the only problem with that is that in addition to outfitting the rogue and everything, the DM would also have to completely design the temple, including any wards, etc that it might have. WAY too time consuming an endevour for something that doesn't even involve the player's character.

Good point about the rogue "casing" the temple before attempting the robbery.

 

[Sinjin the Rogue]

Appropriate PC to get the job done:

First of all, if the rest of the PC's do not know that the Heartwarder is possessed, then it should be a simple thing for the Heartwarder to pay a visit to the Kelimvor Cleric at the temple. Once there, the Heartwarder could attempt to memorize the lay-out of the temple. If locating the rod or asking about it might raise suspicions, then perhaps the Heartwarder would consider hiring a wizard to accompany him under some false pretense and then cast locate object. Armed with the general location of the item and a map drawn from memory:

To make the map from memory, the PC might perhaps make an Intelligence check or a gather information check, DC 25 to make a map of every room, but that would not include traps. The wizard would have had to make search checks to find traps as he visited each room. If the PC failed by less than 5, then there would be a few missing rooms. If the PC failed by more than 5, then the map is terribly drawn.

Of course, the Heartwarder might have access to the spell Ethereal Jaunt. With this, he could take a rogue with him to spy out the locations of things. He might also take with him the aforementioned wizard, so that with the wizard's use of locate object, you could find the precise location and the means of getting to it. (i.e. behind a secret door)


Did the Heartwarder actually contract with the thieves' guild? If so, it should not matter that the first rogue failed. If the contract is with the thieves' guild, then the guild is contractually obligated to fulfill its promise. If the guild does not believe it possesses the talent to perform the task, then at the very least, they should offer the Heartwarder a refund, and perhaps a tip on how to contact a Temple of Olidamarra (or some similar deity) to look into the possibility of hiring a Temple Raider, who is uniquely qualified for pilfering the types of items you need. The cost may be a little higher, but to a possessed PC, bent on the desire for carrying out the mission, funds should not make a difference. In fact, the possessed PC might be perfectly willing to kill someone else to get his hands on the necessary funds.

Once the Temple Raider/rogue is hired, scoping out the temple for guard shifts, ceremony times, etc, would be up to him. This might take a day or two, or perhaps a week, but, once the rogue has gathered this information, let him do his best to carry out the mission. If he succeeds, then no one in the PC group need never know that the Heartwarder was responsible.

One thing though: you said that the cleric has taken no precautions to protect the rod, but now that there has been one attempt to steal the rod, I would think that the Cleric would be smart enough to figure out that somebody is aware of the rod and its location, and that the Cleric would certainly take some measure to guard or hide the item.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

In terms of pricing, remember that you're asking the rogue to go on a solo adventure. So the price should be competetive with what he could get by going on any other adventure. This can be easily estimated from the treasure-per-encounter tables in the DMG. The first conclusion from this will be that a price proportional to character level is not appropriate for this kind of duty: there should actually be a significant premium as character level increases.

 

[Ravellion]

The first conclusion from this will be that a price proportional to character level is not appropriate for this kind of duty: there should actually be a significant premium as character level increases.

Why not? PCs get a lot more treasure than NPCs anyway, so the treasure per encounter tables already have this premium built in. 5000 gp seems to be very generous IMHO.

Rav

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Why not? PCs get a lot more treasure than NPCs anyway, so the treasure per encounter tables already have this premium built in. 5000 gp seems to be very generous IMHO.

Whether 5000 gp is generous or not is wholly irrelevant, since I'm not talking about the price itself but rather about how it increases with NPC level.

The point is that the cost of hiring someone to go on an adventure should not be proportional to their character level, because it simply makes no sense, and has injurious consequences to your game. Yes, NPC's have less treasure than PC's, but we're not comparing NPC's to PC's. We're comparing NPC's of different levels to each other.

It is true, however, that the treasure-per-encounter tables are not the best estimator of this, because they are meant primarily for PC's. If you actually look at the NPC gear value per level, however, even assuming that NPC adventurers have no other expenses their average treasure per encounter goes from about 82 gp at 1st level to 3,750 at 20th. And first level is a bit of an anomoly - from 2nd through 6th level it would be about 20 gp per character level per encounter, but then by 19th level it's more like 200 gp per character level per encounter. Per-adventure earnings which are proportional to character level therefore simply yield nonsensical results by comparison.

In addition, treasure value for player-characters increases much faster than this, so unless you charge on some sort of non-linear scale for hiring out NPC's you'll find that PC's who could afford to hire out someone 3 levels higher than themselves one level can afford someone 4 levels higher the next, and so on. The size of that gap will increase as they progress.

That's why not.