One player is a woman who wants to play a vengeful vigilante rogue/wizard specializing in illusions and phantasms. The other player is my wife, who wants to play a rogue/wizard specializing in charm and seduction magic; that, and she really wants to have a cat familiar.General Barron said:
House rules to keep my "Thieves Guild" campaign from getting out of control
- Thread starter Azlan
- Start date
Sigurd
First Post
Good luck.
Have you considerred the new Theivesworld Setting by Green Ronin: it looks very pretty, the short stories in the original literature are great, its very thief centric and I think the magic is wierd enough that it might take a little longer to upset the balance of power.
I hope the level adjustment helps but you might find its just a bandaid that delays your pain for a couple of thousand experience.
Sigurd
Have you considerred the new Theivesworld Setting by Green Ronin: it looks very pretty, the short stories in the original literature are great, its very thief centric and I think the magic is wierd enough that it might take a little longer to upset the balance of power.
I hope the level adjustment helps but you might find its just a bandaid that delays your pain for a couple of thousand experience.
Sigurd
.
The Edge
First Post
Don't forget counter magics!
If an invisibility spell seems to powerful, have any important areas guarded by 'see invisibity zones' that prevent it spoiling inapropriate parts. And have these security devices cheep and easy to attain. An experienced thief will know how to get past or disable them, and know what that rune on the doorstep does, etc.
You don't necersaryily need to totaly remove the offending spells, also because they're are also the ones that are most interesting for your setting. You just need to find a way to control their use.
teleport preventers (banks, rich nobles houses, prisons etc)
polymorph inhibitors
Invisibility jammers
sewer guards (the sewers would be an interesting thing to consider for your campain. gets you past the wall but have to fight the greasel)
Anti fly walls
dispell traps
Magic detectors
Other ideas could be a special division of the town watch specificaly trained to deal with such theives. Changeing the matierial component so that it has a small cost or is rare, so avoiding over casuall castings but not removeing it and making it so that you can easily regulate it. eg black market shop keeper - "I've only got three smoke opals to sell ya right now, hope ye not be needin invisibility too much?".
Make most of it defeatable in some way, so that they can always be one step ahead provided they do it right. And draw up a list of special gear and equipment, no master theive should be without her toys; 'The Theives Toy Box' was an instant favourite with my players, and I loved the way they gazed down the list going "ooh, that will be usefull" and "hehheh, can't wait to get one of those". Smoke bombs, magic rope arrows (a classic), flash rocks, slip sheen (for throwning down a slipery trap for pursuers), and spy arrows. All favorites.
Hope some of this is helpfull.
If an invisibility spell seems to powerful, have any important areas guarded by 'see invisibity zones' that prevent it spoiling inapropriate parts. And have these security devices cheep and easy to attain. An experienced thief will know how to get past or disable them, and know what that rune on the doorstep does, etc.
You don't necersaryily need to totaly remove the offending spells, also because they're are also the ones that are most interesting for your setting. You just need to find a way to control their use.
teleport preventers (banks, rich nobles houses, prisons etc)
polymorph inhibitors
Invisibility jammers
sewer guards (the sewers would be an interesting thing to consider for your campain. gets you past the wall but have to fight the greasel)
Anti fly walls
dispell traps
Magic detectors
Other ideas could be a special division of the town watch specificaly trained to deal with such theives. Changeing the matierial component so that it has a small cost or is rare, so avoiding over casuall castings but not removeing it and making it so that you can easily regulate it. eg black market shop keeper - "I've only got three smoke opals to sell ya right now, hope ye not be needin invisibility too much?".
Make most of it defeatable in some way, so that they can always be one step ahead provided they do it right. And draw up a list of special gear and equipment, no master theive should be without her toys; 'The Theives Toy Box' was an instant favourite with my players, and I loved the way they gazed down the list going "ooh, that will be usefull" and "hehheh, can't wait to get one of those". Smoke bombs, magic rope arrows (a classic), flash rocks, slip sheen (for throwning down a slipery trap for pursuers), and spy arrows. All favorites.
Hope some of this is helpfull.
Li Shenron
Legend
Azlan said:
Two levels of Rogue each, and you have already attained something similar to +1 effective level of ALL spells
I agree with others that just raising the level is delaying the problem. Invisibilities and teleports will still be very useful and very used even with the increased "cost".
If you never want to see certain abilities, you can only ban them outright.
If you want to see them only in few specific circumstances, toss in a penalty which will tell the players "use only as last resort". I don't know which penalty could work best for you, but you could consider:
- material cost (gp/xp), will limit the average use
- specific ingredient not easy to replace (like say, a dragon's tooth), will limit the use to once, and then until you let them replace the ingredient
- drawback, chance or automatic, temporary or permanent (best way to control, but requires more DM's responsibility)
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