Mordernkainen's Eleven
October 14, 2013 9:03 AM Subscribe
My D&D 3.5 campaign is going to have a heist coming up and I'm in a bit over my head. If anyone has good reference materials, interesting mechanics and just anything else to make this be both fun and workable, it would help a lot.
The PCs came up with a plan, and I ran with it, so now they're going to be infiltrating the factory disguised as miners transporting ore, with their equipment and security countermeasures hidden in the mine cart. So what I need is:
-Interesting room-based security measures (i.e. complex, multi-part traps) and countermeasures that rely on player cooperation to use. The game a fair share of of re-contextualized modern day technology powered by magic. The countermeasures they are taken have been left totally vague so far, and I plan to have a Bond/Q-type scene where they are revealed.
-Ways to make a room full of guards descending on them more interesting than "kill all the guards by hand." Again, this is taking place in a factory so molten metal, swinging girders, stuff like that.
-A fun mechanism for the safe they have to crack. Something more involved than the rogue having to roll Pick Lock a bunch of times while everyone else fends off guards. Nothing with checkered floors, though, please.
-Any other ways to make this fun and thrilling in the same way a heist movie would be.
The PCs came up with a plan, and I ran with it, so now they're going to be infiltrating the factory disguised as miners transporting ore, with their equipment and security countermeasures hidden in the mine cart. So what I need is:
-Interesting room-based security measures (i.e. complex, multi-part traps) and countermeasures that rely on player cooperation to use. The game a fair share of of re-contextualized modern day technology powered by magic. The countermeasures they are taken have been left totally vague so far, and I plan to have a Bond/Q-type scene where they are revealed.
-Ways to make a room full of guards descending on them more interesting than "kill all the guards by hand." Again, this is taking place in a factory so molten metal, swinging girders, stuff like that.
-A fun mechanism for the safe they have to crack. Something more involved than the rogue having to roll Pick Lock a bunch of times while everyone else fends off guards. Nothing with checkered floors, though, please.
-Any other ways to make this fun and thrilling in the same way a heist movie would be.
The safe could require several keys to open, and moreover, the keys must be synchronized by hand and the locks are too far apart for one person alone to do it. Along the lines of the nuclear launch key trope you see in movies. This would tie up a couple of people at once.
Fritz Lieber's stories have quite a few heists in them and might have some good ideas.
For one, you could incorporate the face that your PCs are perhaps operating without the permission of the local Thieves' Guild. And after all, the factory owner has already paid his protection money, so what in the seven hells is going on anyway with someone breaking in?
This would complicate the getting out and away, of course. You have the factory owner, all his minions, plus some extremely angry NPC guild members in the vicinity.
posted by jquinby at 9:18 AM on October 14, 2013
Fritz Lieber's stories have quite a few heists in them and might have some good ideas.
For one, you could incorporate the face that your PCs are perhaps operating without the permission of the local Thieves' Guild. And after all, the factory owner has already paid his protection money, so what in the seven hells is going on anyway with someone breaking in?
This would complicate the getting out and away, of course. You have the factory owner, all his minions, plus some extremely angry NPC guild members in the vicinity.
posted by jquinby at 9:18 AM on October 14, 2013
Here's an idea. How about you make the breaking of the lock tied to some sort of physical puzzle the PC's can interact with like a rubik's cube, or one of those jumping peg games. Any character can make an intelligence, or pick lock check per round to get a number of moves/twists/etc. equal to their intelligence modifier.
posted by nulledge at 9:49 AM on October 14, 2013
posted by nulledge at 9:49 AM on October 14, 2013
If I were one of your players, and I were in a factory with molten metal, I would actively look for opportunities to bull rush. I might even get myopic about it..........
In heist movies, I find few things more tense than the sort of scenario where Member 1 (let's say a bard) has to distract Enemy X via bluffing while Member 2 (let's say a rogue) is in Enemy X's office trying to get something and get out before being discovered. Inevitably there's a complication when Enemy Y shows up, maybe to go into Enemy X's office or something, leaving Member 1 in a panic. The only way I can see this working in D&D is if the Enemies are sufficiently threatening/important/numerous to make direct combat a really bad idea. That or splitting up the party, which the players may be sooooo reluctant to do that they'd probably rather scrap the whole plan.
Are the (real) miners in any way disgruntled? Could they become unexpected allies if the heist turns especially violent? Like, helping the PCs find an alternate exit they didn't know about. Even better if taking their advice screws some other part of the plan up!
Can they use scrying to determine the layout of the facility beforehand? If so, can the facility include disguised portals (undetectable by scrying)...presumably leading to the guard barracks?
Suppose the safe isn't even unlocked in the same room, or on the same level, as the safe itself. You mention recontextualized modern tech. Is what's in the safe important enough that the designers would include such an elaborate safety mechanism? It could be quite tense if keeping the safe open requires Member 1 to hold something heavy in place on Level 3, such that if he's compromised, poor Member 2 gets locked in the safe on Level 19, and nobody knows Member 2's status because they're too busy fighting off goons or whatever.
Speaking of which...the spell status might be something to account for in advance, if they do realize they must split up (as in the above scenario).
As DM, I would come up with three or four big unpleasant surprises, because ain't no heist like a heist that goes wrong, especially in unpredictable ways.
posted by Z. Aurelius Fraught at 9:50 AM on October 14, 2013
In heist movies, I find few things more tense than the sort of scenario where Member 1 (let's say a bard) has to distract Enemy X via bluffing while Member 2 (let's say a rogue) is in Enemy X's office trying to get something and get out before being discovered. Inevitably there's a complication when Enemy Y shows up, maybe to go into Enemy X's office or something, leaving Member 1 in a panic. The only way I can see this working in D&D is if the Enemies are sufficiently threatening/important/numerous to make direct combat a really bad idea. That or splitting up the party, which the players may be sooooo reluctant to do that they'd probably rather scrap the whole plan.
Are the (real) miners in any way disgruntled? Could they become unexpected allies if the heist turns especially violent? Like, helping the PCs find an alternate exit they didn't know about. Even better if taking their advice screws some other part of the plan up!
Can they use scrying to determine the layout of the facility beforehand? If so, can the facility include disguised portals (undetectable by scrying)...presumably leading to the guard barracks?
Suppose the safe isn't even unlocked in the same room, or on the same level, as the safe itself. You mention recontextualized modern tech. Is what's in the safe important enough that the designers would include such an elaborate safety mechanism? It could be quite tense if keeping the safe open requires Member 1 to hold something heavy in place on Level 3, such that if he's compromised, poor Member 2 gets locked in the safe on Level 19, and nobody knows Member 2's status because they're too busy fighting off goons or whatever.
Speaking of which...the spell status might be something to account for in advance, if they do realize they must split up (as in the above scenario).
As DM, I would come up with three or four big unpleasant surprises, because ain't no heist like a heist that goes wrong, especially in unpredictable ways.
posted by Z. Aurelius Fraught at 9:50 AM on October 14, 2013
If it's in a factory, you definitely have a great excuse for putting at least one fight on a conveyor belt headed toward an incinerator/buzz-saw/stompy smashy hammer thing.
When figuring out the last safe, think about what the factory owner would do to keep it secure, and how he would open it. Maybe it takes two players turning two magical "keys" by casting divine/arcane spells, while a third enters a voice-coded password. Maybe he hides the safe but has it secured only with a mundane lock. Maybe he leaves a vault completely open, and depends on his tame [monster] to keep intruders out.
Whatever you do, make sure it all goes to hell halfway through. No carefully-planned heist is complete without a betrayal/unexpected problem. "What you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar." See also TvTropes: Unspoken Plan Guarantee.
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:53 AM on October 14, 2013
When figuring out the last safe, think about what the factory owner would do to keep it secure, and how he would open it. Maybe it takes two players turning two magical "keys" by casting divine/arcane spells, while a third enters a voice-coded password. Maybe he hides the safe but has it secured only with a mundane lock. Maybe he leaves a vault completely open, and depends on his tame [monster] to keep intruders out.
Whatever you do, make sure it all goes to hell halfway through. No carefully-planned heist is complete without a betrayal/unexpected problem. "What you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar." See also TvTropes: Unspoken Plan Guarantee.
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:53 AM on October 14, 2013
Response by poster: Can they use scrying to determine the layout of the facility beforehand?
Oh, this is probably an important point: they did recon (they stole a security manual) and they're getting rough maps of the floors beforehand, with the countermeasures.
Advice for What Could Possibly Go Wrong also totally welcome!
posted by griphus at 9:59 AM on October 14, 2013
Oh, this is probably an important point: they did recon (they stole a security manual) and they're getting rough maps of the floors beforehand, with the countermeasures.
Advice for What Could Possibly Go Wrong also totally welcome!
posted by griphus at 9:59 AM on October 14, 2013
Have the equivalent of a thumb print reader for access. Have various systems for automatically dealing with things like fire. Have an automatic dispel magic spell cast on people entering secure areas.
posted by empath at 10:01 AM on October 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by empath at 10:01 AM on October 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Advice for What Could Possibly Go Wrong also totally welcome!
- Another more amateur thief is breaking in on the same night. Tripping alarms and whatnot.
- There's been a tipoff and the loot is being moved.
- Guard recognizes one of your PCs from some embarrassing shared history
- It's raining or snowing
- Someone forgot that thing
- Outdated information - the stolen manual is 1 rev back
- Sabotaged information - the rough maps are deliberately wrong in one key spot
- The mine cart has one squeaky wheel
- Wait...do we go 1-2-3, jump or do we jump on 3?
- The rope is 10' too short
- Twisted ankle on the way in
- We're off by one, a la Indiana Jones.
- Your Bag of Holding? More like "Bag of Molding". A key tool breaks at exactly the wrong time.
posted by jquinby at 10:13 AM on October 14, 2013 [5 favorites]
- Another more amateur thief is breaking in on the same night. Tripping alarms and whatnot.
- There's been a tipoff and the loot is being moved.
- Guard recognizes one of your PCs from some embarrassing shared history
- It's raining or snowing
- Someone forgot that thing
- Outdated information - the stolen manual is 1 rev back
- Sabotaged information - the rough maps are deliberately wrong in one key spot
- The mine cart has one squeaky wheel
- Wait...do we go 1-2-3, jump or do we jump on 3?
- The rope is 10' too short
- Twisted ankle on the way in
- We're off by one, a la Indiana Jones.
- Your Bag of Holding? More like "Bag of Molding". A key tool breaks at exactly the wrong time.
posted by jquinby at 10:13 AM on October 14, 2013 [5 favorites]
A lot of the action in a heist film is often figuring out what the security system is like and how to overcome it. This should be doubly so in a magic rich world where, yeah, if you have the right spells and cantrips you could waltz right through just like having the janitors pass key. Don't have those and things get very hard very fast.
Doors where, where pressing the button to open the door down the hall traps the person who presses the button behind an iron gate. This keeps the full party of thievs from moving too far upstream without leaving one of their party trapped at each such door, but is only on minor inconvenience to one minor for a few minutes during normal operations (a half finished game of solitaire on a little table would be a nice touch). One of your Q-type reveals could be some item with charges of Bigby's dexterous hand (like the clenched fist but subtle and dexterous - suitable for pressing buttons, turning knobs and other basic non-crushy smashy activities). Only it's on charges, so use them sparingly. Oh, and surprise, there is some sort of anti-magic counter measure they didn't know about on some of the buttons and the dexterous hand will have to use a five foot stick to do the pressing with. Or maybe is caster line of sight so you need a mirror or clairvoyance. Only you don't have those things and have to improvise.
Also, steal ideas from real life systems and exploits. It's actually pretty easy to design a flawless security system - right until you factor in having to interact with the secure environment. Then things go downhill in a hurry. So rather than come up with your systems at first, start thinking about your workers and the workflow.
Do the guards know the miners? This makes it hard to pass as miners (without some sort of complex disguise or enchantment) but makes it easy for some group of miners to be in league with some group of guards to perform a heist of their own, or just run a low level skim off the top operation.
What is workflow like? Miners mine raw materials and bring it where? What happens from there? How far down the like could a miner go before someone said, "What are you doing here?"
Where does everyone go the the bathroom?
How does shift change work?
Who needs access to what? If it's controlled by keys, how are the keys controlled? If by spell, how smart are the spells?
Railing kills are a must.
If you're going to do the girder bit, the first time the hero should see it coming (and get to duck, while the bad guy get's blindsided.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:14 AM on October 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Doors where, where pressing the button to open the door down the hall traps the person who presses the button behind an iron gate. This keeps the full party of thievs from moving too far upstream without leaving one of their party trapped at each such door, but is only on minor inconvenience to one minor for a few minutes during normal operations (a half finished game of solitaire on a little table would be a nice touch). One of your Q-type reveals could be some item with charges of Bigby's dexterous hand (like the clenched fist but subtle and dexterous - suitable for pressing buttons, turning knobs and other basic non-crushy smashy activities). Only it's on charges, so use them sparingly. Oh, and surprise, there is some sort of anti-magic counter measure they didn't know about on some of the buttons and the dexterous hand will have to use a five foot stick to do the pressing with. Or maybe is caster line of sight so you need a mirror or clairvoyance. Only you don't have those things and have to improvise.
Also, steal ideas from real life systems and exploits. It's actually pretty easy to design a flawless security system - right until you factor in having to interact with the secure environment. Then things go downhill in a hurry. So rather than come up with your systems at first, start thinking about your workers and the workflow.
Do the guards know the miners? This makes it hard to pass as miners (without some sort of complex disguise or enchantment) but makes it easy for some group of miners to be in league with some group of guards to perform a heist of their own, or just run a low level skim off the top operation.
What is workflow like? Miners mine raw materials and bring it where? What happens from there? How far down the like could a miner go before someone said, "What are you doing here?"
Where does everyone go the the bathroom?
How does shift change work?
Who needs access to what? If it's controlled by keys, how are the keys controlled? If by spell, how smart are the spells?
Railing kills are a must.
If you're going to do the girder bit, the first time the hero should see it coming (and get to duck, while the bad guy get's blindsided.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:14 AM on October 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Give your wizard some work: alarm spells permanently tied to a key location like the vault door. A nice loud ringer goes off if they step into the zone of effect without dispelling it.
Give them a warning hint that the mark is known to employ wizards. After that, if none of them are casting detect magic they deserve what they get.
More sophisticated options: scrying traps. A permanent scrying spell would function like a security camera. Greater scrying traps can have even more sophisticated effects, like a "detect good" aspect. Your neutral thief doesn't notice or trip the trap but the paladin does. Note that there are ways to spoof the scryer, or counter-scry.
Here's a list of other permanent magical effects for your inspiration, including
- permanent fog. Make them plan how to stumble through blind (three steps straight, two steps left...classic heist trope)
- a wall of fire that can be turned off (for ten minutes exactly) with a jet of ice or water from switch #4.
- Mage's private sanctum. This room is dark, from the ouside. They'll be going in blind. What's inside?
- a permanently invisible lever
- etc.
also...
Every good heist movie needs some pre-missions. Let them see the chief of security in a bar the night before the heist and they'll start thinking about how to steal his keys, impersonate him, mind-control him, etc. Or if they do nothing (boring) maybe he'll remember them.
Ways to make a room full of guards descending on them more interesting
Oops, there's a lone sentry/factory worker in their way in the hallway ahead. How will they take him down silently? How long before his buddies notice he's gone?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:13 AM on October 14, 2013
Give them a warning hint that the mark is known to employ wizards. After that, if none of them are casting detect magic they deserve what they get.
More sophisticated options: scrying traps. A permanent scrying spell would function like a security camera. Greater scrying traps can have even more sophisticated effects, like a "detect good" aspect. Your neutral thief doesn't notice or trip the trap but the paladin does. Note that there are ways to spoof the scryer, or counter-scry.
Here's a list of other permanent magical effects for your inspiration, including
- permanent fog. Make them plan how to stumble through blind (three steps straight, two steps left...classic heist trope)
- a wall of fire that can be turned off (for ten minutes exactly) with a jet of ice or water from switch #4.
- Mage's private sanctum. This room is dark, from the ouside. They'll be going in blind. What's inside?
- a permanently invisible lever
- etc.
also...
Every good heist movie needs some pre-missions. Let them see the chief of security in a bar the night before the heist and they'll start thinking about how to steal his keys, impersonate him, mind-control him, etc. Or if they do nothing (boring) maybe he'll remember them.
Ways to make a room full of guards descending on them more interesting
Oops, there's a lone sentry/factory worker in their way in the hallway ahead. How will they take him down silently? How long before his buddies notice he's gone?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:13 AM on October 14, 2013
- One or more of the controls (a lever, maybe) is made of solid ice. Better not let the room get too warm.
- One or more of the controls is made of glass (I cribbed this from the movie The Score - details along with a spoiler warning). Too much force (or noise?) and the glass breaks, collapsing the doors permanently or maybe crushing our heroes.
- Which of these is the real loot? (ie, final scenes from IJ and the Last Crusade)
- The same night as the heist? The factory owner is hosting the local criminal head boss, with whom he's in cahoots. Turns out there are several new layers of security around
- One the way in, several characters touch a contact poison (door knobs, etc). The antidote is in the safe. The owner, obviously, knows how to retrieve it for those occasions that he's forgotten to wear gloves. Everyone else? Tick-tock.
- Double-cross, if you can collaborate with one of your players.
posted by jquinby at 11:31 AM on October 14, 2013
- One or more of the controls is made of glass (I cribbed this from the movie The Score - details along with a spoiler warning). Too much force (or noise?) and the glass breaks, collapsing the doors permanently or maybe crushing our heroes.
- Which of these is the real loot? (ie, final scenes from IJ and the Last Crusade)
- The same night as the heist? The factory owner is hosting the local criminal head boss, with whom he's in cahoots. Turns out there are several new layers of security around
- One the way in, several characters touch a contact poison (door knobs, etc). The antidote is in the safe. The owner, obviously, knows how to retrieve it for those occasions that he's forgotten to wear gloves. Everyone else? Tick-tock.
- Double-cross, if you can collaborate with one of your players.
posted by jquinby at 11:31 AM on October 14, 2013
Think of all the heist/caper movies and try to come up with fantasy equivalents. For instance, they should have to have a scroll with the spell Antimagic Field, to be used a particular place, to nullify the magical alarms/traps/watchdogs/etc. But it has to be done with perfect timing with some action occurring elsewhere. This is the equivalent to cutting the power.
Similarly, there needs to be someplace where an illusion has to be set up to fool the guards. This is the equivalent to faking a video feed.
posted by fings at 12:18 PM on October 14, 2013
Similarly, there needs to be someplace where an illusion has to be set up to fool the guards. This is the equivalent to faking a video feed.
posted by fings at 12:18 PM on October 14, 2013
Take a puzzle that must exist in our reality, and which must be manipulated in real time. Let’s say that it’s a Rubik’s Cube. The thing about this Rubik’s Cube is that it’s a timed exercise. There’s a countdown to solve it. There’s a real counter and everything. Something Very Bad will happen when the counter hits zero.
The thing about this counter is that, at the start, there is way too little time on it to solve the Rubik’s Cube.
But! There’s a way to earn more time on the counter. If somebody on the team sticks their hand in a sinister, Dune-esque box, they’ll earn (1d4)x10 more seconds on the clock.
The catch, however, is that the box contains pain. So much pain, in fact, that they’ll automatically be stunned for X amount of rounds after they do so. Worse, if they lose a saving throw, they lose 1d4 points from a randomly selected ability trait.
…
What if one or some of your adventurers has their alignment magically changed, especially at an inopportune time? What can the rest of the party do to keep them on-track?
What if the space in which they’re conducting the heist suddenly experiences something like an earthquake. Structural damage, plus the floors are heavily raked. What if this makes the heist weirder and more difficult, without making it impossible?
What if the authorities become aware of your party’s plans? What if bad guys disguise themselves as authorities, in order to either arrest your party or to wring information from them? If you really wanted to go nuts, you could have real authorities and fake authorities - with no obvious way to tell which one’s which.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:06 PM on October 14, 2013
The thing about this counter is that, at the start, there is way too little time on it to solve the Rubik’s Cube.
But! There’s a way to earn more time on the counter. If somebody on the team sticks their hand in a sinister, Dune-esque box, they’ll earn (1d4)x10 more seconds on the clock.
The catch, however, is that the box contains pain. So much pain, in fact, that they’ll automatically be stunned for X amount of rounds after they do so. Worse, if they lose a saving throw, they lose 1d4 points from a randomly selected ability trait.
…
What if one or some of your adventurers has their alignment magically changed, especially at an inopportune time? What can the rest of the party do to keep them on-track?
What if the space in which they’re conducting the heist suddenly experiences something like an earthquake. Structural damage, plus the floors are heavily raked. What if this makes the heist weirder and more difficult, without making it impossible?
What if the authorities become aware of your party’s plans? What if bad guys disguise themselves as authorities, in order to either arrest your party or to wring information from them? If you really wanted to go nuts, you could have real authorities and fake authorities - with no obvious way to tell which one’s which.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:06 PM on October 14, 2013
Time should be a factor. Part of what makes heist movies a lot of fun is when the heisters have to have excellent timing -- whether that's a certain amount of minutes from when the safe's alarm until the authorities arrive, a certain amount of minutes between guard shifts, the need to make it out at exactly the right time to meet a confederate on the outside, the need to creep down some corridor before it starts pouring with molten metal, etc. -- but find at least one way to put the characters on the clock. (And while it doesn't have to run at exactly the same speed for the players, don't let them pause the game clock too much to plan or collect their thoughts. The combination of careful planning and recon with quick-thinking and tight timing is part of what gives heist movies their fun tension.)
posted by willbaude at 2:13 PM on October 14, 2013
posted by willbaude at 2:13 PM on October 14, 2013
The cops raid the factory just as they're coming out.
posted by Sebmojo at 3:08 PM on October 14, 2013
posted by Sebmojo at 3:08 PM on October 14, 2013
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posted by blurker at 9:11 AM on October 14, 2013