Vancian Scams and Tricks

[Kwitchit]

I've recently been reading Jack Vance's Dying Earth, and I love the various tricks the characters use or are victims of. I'd like to see some similar ideas, either taken from Vance or made up, for use in D&D- usually by minor villains. Here are some ideas:

The owner of a stable sells horses which (unknown to the buyer) are trained to go a certain distance from the stable, then throw their riders and gallop back. The owner makes money both from selling the same animals repeatedly, and from keeping whatever is in the saddlebags.

A shop is selling cheap "dragon scales" to wizards. However, most of the time, spells using these scales as components do not work. The party find out that the scales in question actually come from kobolds. The owner of the shop pledges to mend his ways, and hires the party to hunt a real dragon for him...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I *love* that series!

A reward for a quest is "as much gold as you can carry in a single barrel", however the barrel in question turns out to be two inches tall.

 

[Turanil]

I've recently been reading Jack Vance's Dying Earth, and I love the various tricks the characters use or are victims of.

Don't forget to also read Cugel stories and Rialtho the Marvellous.

A typical trick in these stories is to have strangers judged and condemned for having transgressed laws they couldn't possibly know about. Generally this applies to strangers so they, instead of the villagers, can be sacrificed to some demon.

Have magic shops tht sell fake and useless magical items. However, shop owner is an illusionist with spells to make them appear as if such item work in the first place, and then turn invisible when angry customers come back.

 

[Land Outcast]

Sounds intriguing, can anyone point me at some online narrative of said series?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Sounds intriguing, can anyone point me at some online narrative of said series?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312874561/103-8802073-4059017?v=glance&n=283155

http://www.strangewords.com/archive/dyingearth.html


.... it's really spectacular. Early D&D drew a lot of inspiration from these books including the magic system.

If you read this series, you will never look at spell names the same again.

 

[Kwitchit]

Don't forget to also read Cugel stories and Rialtho the Marvellous.

A typical trick in these stories is to have strangers judged and condemned for having transgressed laws they couldn't possibly know about. Generally this applies to strangers so they, instead of the villagers, can be sacrificed to some demon.

Have magic shops tht sell fake and useless magical items. However, shop owner is an illusionist with spells to make them appear as if such item work in the first place, and then turn invisible when angry customers come back.

I'm currently in the middle of the second Cugel book.

 

[Land Outcast]

thanks I'll look at those links