Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1690907" data-attributes="member: 3146">You're right that the guards are unusually good. However, I'm creating a situation that an 8th level thief (of any class) might actually be challenged by. A cave entrance staffed by a couple of drunk orc guards who are half asleep because it's midday is a challenge for a first or second level rogue or ranger, not an 8th level one. Similarly, a first or second level thief knocks over little orphan Annie's lemonade stand. An 8th level thief sets his aim somewhat higher. If you have stuff that's worth an 8th level thief's time, you have enough money to hire skilled guards.Assuming that the guards are humans with a 10 int, they have six more skill points to spend on something else (there are probably a few in handle animal to deal with the dogs and a few in random interests of the guards, bluff, diplomacy, or sense motive). Anyway, I could have made them Com 2/War 1's and boosted their spot and listen skills significantly (what with commoners having spot and listen as class skills). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />That doesn't help his Move Silently--I would guess that's still at the +21 range after using Reduce and the elixir, etc. +21 is good but still quite detectable when you're moving past guards with a decent listen check.Using a fighter/wizard who doesn't really have the possibility of being good at the skills automatically makes the case in your favor. He has to use magic because he's got no other option. However, keep in mind that this character runs into more than a few difficulties along the way:1. The duration of his invisibility scroll isn't enough to get him to the wall (assuming he reads it out of earshot of the guards), over the wall, across the courtyard, through the door, etc. He'll need two or three scrolls depending upon how quickly he negotiates the villa, finds what he's looking for, and safely takes it. Reading scrolls is (as I understand it) like casting spells: it requires speaking in a strong voice (DC 0 listen check).2. The knock spell will also require speaking in a strong voice (unless you meant a silent spell metamagic rod. (Said character had also better hope that he encounters no more than three locks on his way in and out too--and I would guess three locks is a minimum: one on the door to the villa, one on the strongroom door, and one on the strongbox itself--there might well be more).I was assuming that the individual simply waited until the dogs had gone past and then crept over the courtyard. Hide from Animals would be a good way to avoid them though.My idea is that the potions are not given for regular use but rather to drink if the guards believe that there's an invisible intruder on the grounds (on the basis of the dogs' actions, etc). They'd probably have glowpowder (T&B) too.That's probably a good way to do it. I'd probably equip all the guards with glowpowder though--that's much cheaper.Greater Invisibility is a great spell for a rogue, no doubt about that. However, it's usefulness tapers off after a certain point. It doesn't help against barbarians, other rogues, or foes with blindfight (in melee). Nor does it help against the top-shelf evil outsiders (most of whom have true seeing at will). It is also defeated by See Invisibility, Glitterdust, and Invisibility Purge. Feing works just fine against barbarians, rogues, foes with blindfight, foes with true seeing, foes with See Invisibility, when glitterdusted, and when in the area of invisibility purge.Greater invisibility won't let you lie your way past the mob boss or seduce the sorceress either. Bluff helps on both.It's not a matter of just saving spellcasting ability. Sure, spells can duplicate a good number of a rogue's abilities. However, they can't duplicate all of them (said wizard is in trouble if the villa's strongbox is trapped) and a good rogue is still generally better than a wizard pretending to be a rogue by using items and spells. (I note that your wizard has spent at least 8,600gp on gear that helps him be sneaky--probably 12,600 (including the gloves of dex he probably has) which is most of his equipment. A rogue can do the same thing better with less gear meaning that he has a magic sword and some other goodies too). Furthermore, the rogue can do all of this without special preparation (the wizard you describe can do most of it but only if he prepares his spells for exactly that purpose), can do it on a moment's notice, and can do it indefinitely (a rogue can scout ahead of the group for a few hours; the wizard's invisibility lasts only minutes).To the extent that it's a problem, however, it's a problem with having any magic at all. Unless you want to restrict magical characters to doing things that no other character can do, you're going to have this problem (you can't summon monsters to kill things, that would step on the fighter's toes, you can't shoot things with magical energy, that would step on the archer's toes, you can't make things invisible, that steps on the rogue's toes, you can't charm people, that steps on the diplomat and liars' toes, you can't teleport, that makes rangers and druids useless, you can't fireball, that makes whirlwind attack useless, you can't do anything because everything you want to do with magic is either something someone else does without it or something that lets you avoid the necessity of having someone else do something). Magic exists to do things. If it couldn't do things, there'd be no point in having it. If it does do things, odds are very good they're something someone else would do in a different way.</blockquote>

Verification