D&D 5E Thievery in 5e - still relevant?

[Micah Sweet]

<Engages OTT Russian accent> In Gygaxian Dungeons & Dragons, treasure gets you.

Ain't that the truth. I remember fighting a treasure golem once. terrifying but lucrative.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

You don't even need a rogue any more:
The wizard with proficiency is the best trapfinder
The druid with perception, likewise will find secret doors
Any dex-statted character (which is, like, half of them) with a Criminal or urchin background can pick locks and sneak.
And a bard can pretty much do what a rogue can do, skill-wise, using expertise.

The 'role' of rogue is easily doled out to a party. Despite this, I still think Thief archetype is the best rogue. There's way cooler things to sneak around to find and steal than money.

 

[Lanefan]

So right now I'm playing in a game where we're tackling a very large dungeon (Scarlet Citadel by Kobold Press). The first few sessions was about saving up money to get full plate for the Cleric. Then we had a small tangent about buying a cart and paying for rooms at the inn for a week in advance, followed by "where are we going to get healing potions, anyways?".

We're now level 6, and the only pressing use for gold is helping my Wizard add key spells to their book and paying for a few costly components (like the holy water needed for Protection from Evil/Good, which was absolutely vital in one encounter).

The DM keeps telling us that magic items can be sold in the major city, but enough stuff is happening locally that any such side trek would likely have dire consequences. We have a pile of treasure we can't even liquidate in town, and we've already basically warped the local economy around our party to the point that I think our leaving will cause a recession!

Not that we haven't attempted to invest in the town; I'm wooing two merchants who can provide low key magical goods, but I'm purchasing said goods faster than they can make them. The only reason I don't have a pile of scrolls is that I don't think taking a few days off when there are active factions of people up to no good in the lower levels of the ruins.

So it's an interesting situation where it's not so much that we don't have the ability to spend money on anything, as we simply don't have the time to do so, so it's been collecting in our coffers (my share being much lower since I try not to burden the party with my spell scribing fees- even if I'm starting to really resent the Cleric, who can pray for all kinds of 3PP spells on a whim, while I have to find everything and pay for the right to use it).

So in your particular campaign the issue sounds like a lack of downtime: you can make money but don't get any opportunity to spend it.

Sometimes the only way to solve that is to have the party simply make a hard-hearted decision to take some time off and not do any adventuring for a while, and if that means some things go badly then so be it.

Not everyone likes training-to-level rules but the one real benefit of them is they force parties to take some downtime.

So bottom line, in answering the question posted in the OP;

No, there's no real purpose for the classic "Imma gonna rob the countryside of anything not nailed down" character, let alone a Rogue by default. The PHB is mostly full of "level 1-3" purchases, and even enforcing trivial things like rations, ammunition, and lifestyle fees isn't going to matter by level 5-6.

The DM has to, in my opinion, present some of the following sorts of things to the campaign:

1) reduce the wealth of characters. Not a fan of this one, as adventuring ought to be a lucrative enterprise.

Agreed. Option 1 rejected. Nest, please.

2) every character should be made with a long term goal. Restoring your family name, investing in a side enterprise, rebuilding your home town; every PC should have a long term goal that involves them funneling some of their cash to achieve it.

I wouldn't want to force this paradigm onto players but having some mention of the idea in the rulebooks somewhere sure wouldn't hurt.

The fact that so many games have characters with sketchy backgrounds that basically come down to "yeah so I want to play this character with this group of weirdoes and not really stretch my brain to think of anything deeper" is a big contributor to the gold problem (where it exists).

Even groups of wierdos can come together on a common goal such as building a home base for themselves.

And that leads into the one place the rules could really help: providing a decent guide to stronghold or base building. 1e had this.

3) gold funnels should be investments, not taxes. I've played under a lot of DM's over the years who are happy to let players spend money to buy a base of operations only to send them on a grand tour of the cosmos. Or let the players invest in a town/church/orphanage/whatever just to take money off their hands.

The DM should always be working to make the players feel like these investments matter. Whether they are earning the favor of a divine, a particular faction, or even a worthy patron (lower case patron), investments now should lead to rewards (and interesting opportunities later).

Or at the least have there be a reasonable expectation that making those investments isn't just throwing money down the drain. Sure, there's random elements that say not every investment is going to work out perfectly, and that's fine.

I've often pitched to other DM's the idea of giving the party a patron who represents a guild or other faction, that can offer the players all the services they need, as well as a source of ongoing missions, where the players can earn "pull" by not only going on adventures, but investing in the faction itself, sort of like being paid in stock options that can pay off in dividends later. Unfortunately, this usually doesn't get anywhere...

That wouldn't get anywhere largely because the PCs would quickly end up feeling like faction employees or staff rather than independent protagonists. Having a patron (or two or three) is fine, but I think the relationship kinda has to be - and be known to be - on an at-will basis.

4) don't be afraid of magic items! So many DM's balk at the idea of players actually purchasing magic items that they want to have. Even in editions where this is the norm, I've had DM's act terrified that a player will find that one item that will totally break the game wide open as they get too much of something- be it damage, accuracy, AC, what have you.

I don't have to worry about this as much as in my game, if you're unlucky, magic items can be destroyed. End result: sure something might be a bit broken for now but odds are it won't be around forever; and I can more freely give out new toys.

I get some people like their low powered games, but D&D is at some point supposed to transform into more heroic, and even superheroic play at higher levels. Acquiring epic swag to give you the tools to deal with higher level adventuring (and as rewards for same) is part of the game's legacy, and can be a lot of fun.

I don't equate the first with the second, here. Heroic/superheroic play doesn't necessarily follow from getting epic swag; that swag could just as easily be used for anti-heroic or even villainous play. But yeah, bring on that swag!

And there's other kinds of rewards that aren't physical items as well. Boons, grandmaster training, bonus feats, a chance to raise an ability score beyond ASI's- the sky is really the limit, if you're not constantly worried that the players are going to actually win; too many people focus on the fact that it's difficult to make D&D characters lose, without realizing that's kind of a feature, not a bug. I personally have found that it's hard to have a long-running campaign for people to get invested in if their characters are always dying off and never succeeding! This doesn't mean that the meatgrinder low fantasy "bring 10 character sheets to a session" style of play can't be fun for some, but it's a very different experience than what the game has been about for some time (unless you're playing in a Ravenloft game, of course).

Here I think we disagree on a fairly fundamental level, in that IMO a game where the characters can't lose is going to collapse through boredom in fairly short order. Flip side, and speaking from long experience: a campaign where a few succeed and many fall by the road along the way has everything it needs to last for ages, in that players are more than willing to just keep on trying.

So if you want players to invest in purchasing their own ship, acquiring status with nobles, building a fortress with teleportation circles, or even funding other adventurers, the DM does, unfortunately, have to help the players come to the realization that these are actual options, and not just ways to make excess gold vanish without a trace.

Indeed, and this comes back to the game needing a bit more focus on downtime and-or non-adventuring activities.

In the game I play in, the company (a collection of about three dozen characters) currently owns a secret base (converted from a cleared-out dungeon), a warship, a merchant ship, a large-ish pleasure yacht, and a stolen zeppelin. Acquiring the zeppelin was an unexpected side effect* of some adventuring; the the rest - and housing/hiding the zeppelin - has all come about through or as downtime activities.

* - I suspect the DM thought we'd just destroy it rather than actually get it operational, figure out how to run it, steal it, and fly it halfway around the world!

But it's equally possible that you can help your players see that wealth is another way to engage with the setting, and really immerse themselves in the fantasy world being presented.

Now, should this sort of thing be more integrated into the game already? With the DMG giving out deep, meaningful guidance to new DM's about this sort of thing? Absolutely. It's a crime that it isn't, honestly, because it cheapens the experience for people who have never had the chance to engage with a game world on a deeper level than "here's this place where the adventures happen". There's not much we can do about that though; at some point, if you want your campaign to be more than a facade, you need to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Completely agree.

 

[Lanefan]

Did anyone in prior editions run a thief / rogue character primarily as a means of obtaining money during downtime? That certainly wasn't my experience.

Not primarily; I'm more talking about having that more shady element to a character at all, as a side hustle or character trait or whatever.

 

[Lanefan]

You are mistaken. It wasn’t in the original 3 books, but rules for selling and purchasing magical items during downtime were included in Xanathar’s Guide to everything.

Ah, good to know. I only have the original three, plus a couple of AP hardcovers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Did anyone in prior editions run a thief / rogue character primarily as a means of obtaining money during downtime? That certainly wasn't my experience.

Primarily, no.
Revel in it even though the gains were paltry? Oh, yes.

 

[James Gasik]

I don't find the archetype, as you detail it, to have been particularly strong. While folks like the image of the thief who goes off on their own and does crime, the game has never really supported it well - both in basic tactical terms, and in the meta-consideration of GM attention, it has issues.

"Let me split the party, and insist I go off on my own adventure that the GM has to run for ME," just doesn't work so well. Not that you can't do it, but it can present problems. That's why 5e relegates it to the "Crime" downtime action.

It's like the old Shadowrun Decker Problem. The Decker goes on a solo adventure to hack into something while everyone else has to guard him.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm guessing you don't have two teenage athlete boys! The 2nd cost can get quite high!

Certainly not IRL. Even if I did, level 6+ adventurers often have thousands of gold rolling around. That's enough to pay for a modest lifestyle for three for over a year, or enough to get a better lifestyle for several months at a time.

IRL, food is a serious concern. In-game, it's barely a footnote.

 

[bloodtide]

Yes. Thievery has been on a down hill slope starting in 3E.

The movement of making money far less important and a 'thing' got it's start in 3E. The big focus was on adventure and that was how characters got money.

And, of course, the general move away from "illegal activity" like theft. Even more so of the problems once you get to 5E and stealing from the wrong whatever they call races nowadays.

 

[James Gasik]

So in your particular campaign the issue sounds like a lack of downtime: you can make money but don't get any opportunity to spend it.

Sometimes the only way to solve that is to have the party simply make a hard-hearted decision to take some time off and not do any adventuring for a while, and if that means some things go badly then so be it.

Not everyone likes training-to-level rules but the one real benefit of them is they force parties to take some downtime.

Agreed. Option 1 rejected. Nest, please.

I wouldn't want to force this paradigm onto players but having some mention of the idea in the rulebooks somewhere sure wouldn't hurt.

Even groups of wierdos can come together on a common goal such as building a home base for themselves.

And that leads into the one place the rules could really help: providing a decent guide to stronghold or base building. 1e had this.

Or at the least have there be a reasonable expectation that making those investments isn't just throwing money down the drain. Sure, there's random elements that say not every investment is going to work out perfectly, and that's fine.

That wouldn't get anywhere largely because the PCs would quickly end up feeling like faction employees or staff rather than independent protagonists. Having a patron (or two or three) is fine, but I think the relationship kinda has to be - and be known to be - on an at-will basis.

I don't have to worry about this as much as in my game, if you're unlucky, magic items can be destroyed. End result: sure something might be a bit broken for now but odds are it won't be around forever; and I can more freely give out new toys.

I don't equate the first with the second, here. Heroic/superheroic play doesn't necessarily follow from getting epic swag; that swag could just as easily be used for anti-heroic or even villainous play. But yeah, bring on that swag!

Here I think we disagree on a fairly fundamental level, in that IMO a game where the characters can't lose is going to collapse through boredom in fairly short order. Flip side, and speaking from long experience: a campaign where a few succeed and many fall by the road along the way has everything it needs to last for ages, in that players are more than willing to just keep on trying.

Indeed, and this comes back to the game needing a bit more focus on downtime and-or non-adventuring activities.

In the game I play in, the company (a collection of about three dozen characters) currently owns a secret base (converted from a cleared-out dungeon), a warship, a merchant ship, a large-ish pleasure yacht, and a stolen zeppelin. Acquiring the zeppelin was an unexpected side effect* of some adventuring; the the rest - and housing/hiding the zeppelin - has all come about through or as downtime activities.

* - I suspect the DM thought we'd just destroy it rather than actually get it operational, figure out how to run it, steal it, and fly it halfway around the world!

Completely agree.

Training wouldn't really help in the campaign; while the DM hasn't admitted it, it certainly seems like there's a timeline of "if X time passes, Y occurs" when dealing with the factions occupying the Scarlet Citadel. Basically, they have a plan, and our current operations are disrupting them. If we had to take a week off to train, sure we might get some downtime in, but who knows how far our foes' plans would get along?

Now one could say "well see, that's a risk/reward scenario", but given that almost every encounter is a meatgrinder and we're already under leveled and (the DM has verified this, he noted that despite having completed all the content on the previous floors, we seem to be about half a level or so behind where the adventure says we should be. As a result, he added a large encounter where the bandits attacked the town while we were trying to take a long rest- it was grueling as we were low on resources, but we got aid from the townsfolk and we had an ally among the raiders), I can't really see how not training would give you any real advantage.