Firelock |
What kind of check would be appropriate for a character to determine if goods being examined in a store are stolen or not? What about being able to determine which goods in a pile are stolen? This is useful for shopkeepers buying goods as well as for PCs buying them from merchants.
As the GM I'm inclined to give the PCs a chance to detect that something is not right, but I'm not sure what kind of check that would be. Appraise? Profession, depending on the kind of items you're looking at? Knowledge?
Claxon |
I don't think there is a skill check that could determine something is stolen. You would need to know that an item was already reported stolen matching the description of something you're seeing.
I mean, can you just look at an object in the real world and say "Yep, that's definitely stolen". Maybe the condition of an object might give you clues, but you're never going to be certain.
That said, diplomacy and sense motive are probably useful when talking to someone to determine if they know if the goods are stolen.
So someone might try to fence stolen goods to a merchant. The merchant could talk to the person and try to use a combination of diplomacy and sense motive to determine if the goods are suspicious/stolen. If however the merchant fails to determine they are stolen he will believe they are legitimate and when he goes to sell them again, the purchaser would not be able to use diplomacy or sense motive on the merchant to discover it had been stolen because he doesn't know.
Orfamay Quest |
I agree with Claxon.
There's no physical property that will let you know that goods are stolen. The best you can hope for would be either that the goods are similar to other things that are known to be stolen, that the goods are the type of goods that are often stolen (and therefore one should be suspicious), that the goods are mispriced in such a way to suggest that they might be stolen, or that the person proffering the goods is acting like they are stolen.
Murdock Mudeater |
What kind of check would be appropriate for a character to determine if goods being examined in a store are stolen or not? What about being able to determine which goods in a pile are stolen? This is useful for shopkeepers buying goods as well as for PCs buying them from merchants.
As the GM I'm inclined to give the PCs a chance to detect that something is not right, but I'm not sure what kind of check that would be. Appraise? Profession, depending on the kind of items you're looking at? Knowledge?
Detect Magic for arcane marks, Sense Motive for purchasing goods known by the seller to be stollen, Appraise to determine identifying markings which make previous ownership known, Diplomacy/intimidate to gain information about who the previous owner was (like if the shopkeeper bought it from another).
Most shopkeepers will probably not purchase anything with an arcane mark on it. They probably aren't checking everything, but expensive or unusal items will get scrutiny.
Almost any hand made item will probably have a maker's mark, like a signature, that identifies the maker or the maker's organization. If the previous owner was in an organization, it may have a mark from that too. This would be appraise followed by the relevent Knowledge check, with common marks being DC 10 knowledge checks.
Depending on the item, it may even be sold with papers of authenticity, which present a lower value when sold seperately.
And remember that certain items just can't be sold because of stigma related to the item. Holy Symbols to evil deities, for example, probably aren't welcome to good merchants, no matter how much gold the symbol is made of.
UnArcaneElection |
Appraise skill with the Psychometry Occult Skill Unlock or the Object Reading spell should be able to help you. The latter has the advantage of working faster and being usable more than once per day, as well as giving you an +10 Competence Bonus on the check (so here is an example of where Spells > Skills).
Murdock Mudeater |
Appraise skill with the Psychometry Occult Skill Unlock or the Object Reading spell should be able to help you. The latter has the advantage of working faster and being usable more than once per day, as well as giving you an +10 Competence Bonus on the check (so here is an example of where Spells > Skills).
Good call. Yes, there are some very impressive psychic options regarding learning the history of items.
FascistIguana |
What kind of check would be appropriate for a character to determine if goods being examined in a store are stolen or not? What about being able to determine which goods in a pile are stolen? This is useful for shopkeepers buying goods as well as for PCs buying them from merchants.
As the GM I'm inclined to give the PCs a chance to detect that something is not right, but I'm not sure what kind of check that would be. Appraise? Profession, depending on the kind of items you're looking at? Knowledge?
I can see a knowledge local being used, for example, your character knows that the price is unusually low. Maybe a sense motive if dealing with the theif