Player Characters generally tend to be the ones of the "taking" end of robberies than being the victims of one. And should they have some belongings stolen, you are more likely to have them swear a vicious campaign-derailing oath of bloody vengeance by taking their favourite +1 longsword than you are by having a villain burn a dozen orphanages. So, fair warning: use this sparingly and with caution, as a theft like this can very much undermine your players' confidence in their own safety, and make them personally feel attacked.
While a simple smash-and-grab certainly gets the effect across, a real proper master thief who can get in and out unnoticed will quickly earn their ire, and they will almost certainly drop everything they are doing to retrieve whatever has been stolen, plot be damned. The variety of spells that can quickly locate a stolen object or even a person are quite wide from about 5th level onwards, and can quickly derail most thefts from anything other than a dedicated team of magically-equipped burglars. However, you can put this 'on rails' somewhat by offering to steer their quest for vengeance- perhaps the thief has broken some law of the local Thieves' Guild, and they offer assistance (maybe with some strings attached) to help track down the thief and recover their belongings. Another option would be having this rash of thefts affect another NPC- perhaps a noble or mage who can pool resources with the PCs and offer a clue. If you are going to spring this on your PCs, it would be wise to foreshadow this by mentioning that thieves are common in the area, and to demonstrate the levels of guard activity on the streets as they pass by. If you want to add further complication, you could take a leaf from other heist stories, and add extra teams of thieves, bounty hunters, or archaeologists who are trying to recover artifacts (possibly even ones that the PCs have just 'liberated' from an ancient ruin themselves). Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 2 October 2021. Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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