I want to run a "Who Done it Scenario," where the PCs investigate the assassination of an authority figure. PCs are 10th level. Looking for advice on how to challenge the PCs. What tricks, both mechanical and not, would an assassin use to cover her/his tracks?
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Prestidigitation.
Seriously. Ignoring the 'I win' scenarios of scrying magic of the like (lets assume that the assassin is protected from all that if they are good enough to get to that level), murder is all about the little details. And prestidigitation covers that.
-Cleans up blood so you aren't caught red handed.
-Can soil other people with blood so they are caught red handed.
-Change the taste of less subtle poisons
- I've seen enough real life crime dramas to know that warming and cooling can be a big deal. How much of a cut off hand counts as '1 lb of nonliving matter'? Leave a warmed up finger laying around so people think the murder just happened. Leave a cold finger laying around so they think the murder happened a long time ago. Good for alibis.
-Coloring can help for a quick disguise. While the guards are looking for the guy in the bright red cloak, you can be chilling in your yellow cloak.
And one of the things I love about prestidigitation is that anyone can grab it. The trifler trait gives it 3/day (which is 3 hours/day due to its duration). And that is an SLA, which means no verbal or somatic components (a still silenced spell?). So you do not need to feel restricted in your class choice.
Watch a couple of Detective Conan (I think it's called Case Closed in English?) episodes, perhaps a couple of Columbo ones (Study in Black is so good).
Careful of the Spell blood Biography. I had a PC assassinate a political figure and the other PC's figured out it was him just by the spell blood biography which pretty much tells the following.
DESCRIPTION
You learn the answers to a specific set of questions about a creature so long as you have access to at least one drop of its blood. You can cast this spell on the blood of the living or the dead, but living or undead creatures are entitled to a Saving Throw to resist the spell. You can cast the spell on dried or fresh blood. Once you cast the spell the answers to the following four questions appear on any flat surface you designate (a wall, a piece of paper, and so on).
Who are you? (The name by which the creature is most commonly known)
What are you? (Gender, race, profession/role)
How was your blood shed? (Brief outline of the events that caused its wound, to the best of the victim's knowledge)
When was your blood shed?
These answers always appear in a language you can read even if the creature cannot speak that or any language.
(Disclaimer: I'm not the guy with the same icon up there)
A good and very classic way is to cause someone else to cause the murder, or at least to mess up the evidence in some way by being part of the events leading up to it.
For instance, there's a certain now famous (fictional) murder in which someone is tricked into very publicly wearing the murder weapon and then snuck out during the commotion. Even a lot of magic is fooled by these kind of tricks: "whose weapon is this?" etc. "Who was the last person to touch this?" etc.
But the best way is to remove the "guilty party" from the actual murder. I.e., the players can catch "the guy who stabbed Bob" almost immediately. Maybe it's the plan that he gets caught. It's much harder to find out who hired that guy.
Careful of the Spell blood Biography. I had a PC assassinate a political figure and the other PC's figured out it was him just by the spell blood biography which pretty much tells the following.
DESCRIPTION
You learn the answers to a specific set of questions about a creature so long as you have access to at least one drop of its blood. You can cast this spell on the blood of the living or the dead, but living or undead creatures are entitled to a Saving Throw to resist the spell. You can cast the spell on dried or fresh blood. Once you cast the spell the answers to the following four questions appear on any flat surface you designate (a wall, a piece of paper, and so on).Who are you? (The name by which the creature is most commonly known)
What are you? (Gender, race, profession/role)
How was your blood shed? (Brief outline of the events that caused its wound, to the best of the victim's knowledge)
When was your blood shed?
These answers always appear in a language you can read even if the creature cannot speak that or any language.
So you should knock the creature out, cast modify memory, and THEN brutally murder them, huh?
Well, assuming that the answers come from the creature, instead of an ambiguous all knowing magic thing-a-ma-bob?
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Do you want advice on how a high-level character would try to make someone die in a way that they believe is will let them get away with it in the face of other high-level characters, or do you want a mystery that the pcs will be able to solve with some difficulty?
The problem with mysteries in pf are that they rely on the players lacking information, that they will eventually recieve. Much of divination concerns itself with the gathering of said information, so divination can really ruin (some of the pesky players have the gall to say 'solve')a good mystery.
Divination spells can usually give you facts you do not know, but know 'of'.
If they know the guy was killed, they'll know there was a killer. This should not be the guy responsible.
Anonymously hiring an assassin is a posibility. They can talk if captured, though. A better plan would be to dominate an assassin while he isn't looking, and direct him to make the murder happen.
Even better, anonymously hire someone to dominate the assassin in such a way that the assassin never saw or heard who did him in, and then kill the guy you hired and disintegrate his corpse once the deed is done. Now we're looking at a plan that should stand up to at least casual divination. Depending on how your players think, attempt to frame someone else as well. Personally, I'd avoid this tactic, as it might tip the players off that this guy likes making it look like someone else done it. Political gain by framing may be worth the risk, though.
Making the murder look like an accident is cool as well, but may be hard to pull off, unless done well enough that no-one speculates that a murder happened in the first place.
Make sure the target has no idea who killed it. A crossbow bolt through a window while they slept will mean they only have knowledge of who wanted to kill them, now who actually did. Poison can kill someone where everyone can see. A knife in the back during a melee brawl leaves a room full of witnesses and suspects.
Drop the victim off a ship. No blood and no skull make contacting the dead very difficult.
Magical assassination is likely going to be difficult to follow up on, but I've never really looked into that one.
Locate object could put a cinch in the 'drop off a ship' plan, though.
Depends on where it is. Deep ocean is going to prove a challenge for most things to dive in. It could even form a part of the investigation - trying to make friends with some creatures that can swim down the fantasy equivalent of the Mariana Trench before the body is eaten by a passing Dire Lobster.
Which is another way to dispose of a corpse - feed it to something scary and not fussy. The corpse doesn't need to be dead first either.
Blood biography has a very clear weakness. It only answers the question related to the blood you got. So... if you have blood from an EARLIER wound the victim suffered, the answers will pertain to that wound. And blood from the kill can be prestidigited away, then the fake blood added.
You know, this could lead to the most ridiculously complicated murder plot ever.
The assassin can and should use disguise magic (disguise self, hat of disguise, etc.) to look like somebody else. Witnesses can honestly say "I saw the Blue Duke stab the King!"
Note that high-level divinations (e.g., commune, "Did so-and-so kill so-and-so", "YES!") will completely short-circuit a lot of these things. So you need to explain what high-level NPCs are doing with these spells about the death of an important figure -- maybe the local religion doesn't like false accusations, so they use such spells only to confirm the results of investigation; i.e. the PC's job is to build a plausible case which can then be presented to the gods).
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Another thing to consider is whether the challenge should be solely in finding the identity of the murderer? Perhaps the real meat of the investigation should be in proving that the individual in question is the murderer...
Consider making divination difficult, but not impossible (posts above give several good ideas to think about) and allow the players to go down this route if they choose. And then make the local constabulary simply refuse to consider the results as evidence, perhaps citing old stories about sloppy diviners asking poorly worded questions and getting innocent people executed as a result... Or a skilled illusionist framing others for his own crimes with public "seances" where the spirit of the dead fingers their killer.
From there, you're back to a relatively standard mystery set-up (well, for a high magic fantasy setting), though the PCs now have an edge in knowing whose alibi they need to break. Which just gives you an excuse to make it all that much harder to do so.
I'm curently in two evil games, I'm definitly going to be using this.
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Also, in addition to the question of "Whodunnit?", consider dividing their attention with the question of "Howdunnit?". While a properly-crafted "locked room" might be impossible given the vast array of magical effects, creatures, and phenomena that exist in the world, try using the nature of the murder to give players subtle hints as to the killer's capabilities (i.e. "In order to get into this room, the killer'd have to be able to walk through solid walls..."), as well as his/her identity.
Alternatively, you could turn matters around and use this to give them false leads simply by having the murder take place somewhere other than where the body was found. Perhaps the murderer moved the body? Perhaps it was a third party? Perhaps the victim suffered a mortal wound and fled, locking him/herself in a secure "safe room" before bleeding out?
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Anonymously hiring an assassin is a posibility. They can talk if captured, though. A better plan would be to dominate an assassin while he isn't looking, and direct him to make the murder happen.
Well, that assumes that they actually know their client.
Ignoring the possibility of a dozen middle men, there are disguises and ways to manipulate memories. And heck, the assassin could be the one to suggest such a thing (or at least the assassin's higher ups- confidentiality is valuable in this business, and you can charge premium).
Systematically taking down an network to find out information is technically investigations (just more of the hollywood action variety- players tend to be loose cannons)
The real thing here is that you need an insane disguise/bluff check, and you may need to have the assassin as someone that is 'supposed' to be there. Have him there for months before acting. That helps give you options. Then they can use a slight of hand to put the poison into the cup carried by the new maid with a shady past.
False leads are always a good place to go.
Blood biography has a very clear weakness. It only answers the question related to the blood you got. So... if you have blood from an EARLIER wound the victim suffered, the answers will pertain to that wound. And blood from the kill can be prestidigited away, then the fake blood added.
And imagine if the blood came from someone with a vaguely similar description
What is your name?
"John Smith"
Yeah, this is the victim (or a dozen other guys found at the local tavern)
This also gives the party a lead to follow up on (another random guy with the same name got killed in a similar way?)
Anyway, with all this fun, what about archetypes? I know there are like a dozen different flavorful archetypes that deal with this kind of subterfuge. For example, slayers have cleaner, which can mess with crime scenes. Swashbuckler has that vigilante one that lets them hide their true identity from magic. Inquisitors have the infiltrator archetype that lets them hide from 'detect lies', they can disguise their alignment, and they can even break normal rules of the class by casting spells against their alignment.
Using those weird archetypes is great, since it will fly under most people's radars. Since everyone is looking for the powerful options, they skip over the flavor ones. So you can use the fact that they forget these options are there, and then play upon their expectations of what the classes "can" and "can't" do.
Do you want advice on how a high-level character would try to make someone die in a way that they believe is will let them get away with it in the face of other high-level characters, or do you want a mystery that the pcs will be able to solve with some difficulty?
The problem with mysteries in pf are that they rely on the players lacking information, that they will eventually recieve. Much of divination concerns itself with the gathering of said information, so divination can really ruin (some of the pesky players have the gall to say 'solve')a good mystery.
Divination spells can usually give you facts you do not know, but know 'of'.
If they know the guy was killed, they'll know there was a killer. This should not be the guy responsible.
Anonymously hiring an assassin is a posibility. They can talk if captured, though. A better plan would be to dominate an assassin while he isn't looking, and direct him to make the murder happen.
Even better, anonymously hire someone to dominate the assassin in such a way that the assassin never saw or heard who did him in, and then kill the guy you hired and disintegrate his corpse once the deed is done. Now we're looking at a plan that should stand up to at least casual divination. Depending on how your players think, attempt to frame someone else as well. Personally, I'd avoid this tactic, as it might tip the players off that this guy likes making it look like someone else done it. Political gain by framing may be worth the risk, though.
Making the murder look like an accident is cool as well, but may be hard to pull off, unless done well enough that no-one speculates that a murder happened in the first place.
Yes. I want a mystery that PCs will be able to solve with some difficulty, but I'd also like to know what tricks an assassin would use to cover their tracks at 10th level. I think I am going to steal this from you.
I'm going with. The guy responsible anonymously hires someone to dominate the assassin. This should help with the mystery stuff.
Soliciting some additonal advice:
1.) How would a level 10ish assassin get into and out of a fortress undetected and assassinate some inside a small room with no windows guarded at the door?
2.) What spells would work best to dominate said assassin and wipe their memory?
These seem like a lot of reasonable in-character suggestions for how to obfuscate a murder. Can I interest you in an archetype that literally lets you roll a skill check to obfuscate a murder? Enjoy the Cleaner Slayer, obfuscating murders since whenever Advanced Class Guide was printed.
Remember, your goal isn't to make the players work for it, not to make it impossible to solve. And nothing ticks off a higher-level character like telling them the abilities they've worked hard to get just don't work. And if you hide the clues too well, the adventure can stop, hard. Remember the Three Clue Rule.
And now, some ideas:
Let the abilities work, but make sure that it isn't as simple as casting one spell. For instance, blood biography doesn't tell much if the victim was poisoned - the killing didn't cause the blood to be shed. Alternatively the answers 'I was stabbed' and 'Yesterday' might not tell the PCs anything they don't already know.
Have the assassin steal the jawbone after death to prevent speak with dead. However, let the players use locate object to find the jawbone buried in a nearby field, or something similar. That way, the answers from speak with dead feel like an accomplishment, not handed out on a spell-shaped silver platter.
The best way to get away with a murder in pathfinder is not to let anyone know that a murder has taken place. Inertia is your only real defense. With enough money, the investigators will get answers to any questions they ask, that is how the game works. So the objective of the murderer is to prevent people from asking questions. The easiest way to do that is if nobody knows that the victim is dead. So your assassin needs a doppelganger (possibly literally) to replace the victim. If the motivation for the assassination is to force others to react this won't work. So the next best thing is to have the victim go missing and not be found, kidnapping is much more effective than murder when death isn't permanent. If there has to be a body, the endgame should involve getting caught. Planning to frame whoever investigates you only makes sense, though setting up a third party to take the fall works too.
Of course you'll need to toss in lots of red herrings, as any good whodunit should do. I'm thinking of story hooks, not game mechanics.
You could have the assassin interacting with the party while they investigate. The assassin would be acting helpful, but subtly leading them astray: giving false clues, covering up his or her own tracks, etcetera. It would also mean the assassin is usually aware of the party's progress, or lack of it.
Motive? A true professional killer who likes to trip people up after an assignment. Would want to confound the party, and not kill them. Not for reasons of mercy, but simply to enhance his or her own reputation as a smart and capable assassin. Who better to advertise your craftiness, by word of mouth, than the people you outwitted?
Having a rash of 'suicides' is also a good method to avoid detection.
If it looks like they understand everything that is happening, why use scrying and methods of communicating with the deceased? Why try to raise the dead when they have already shown that they do not want to be alive?
Planting 'incriminating evidence' is a good way for throwing people off the trail. Make it look like they did something that would ruin them, and it was about to be revealed (thus they took the 'easy way out'). Maybe make it look like all the people killing themselves were involved in the same dirty secret.
This can be even more effective if there actually is a dirty secret. That is a good reason for assassination- revenge due to some terrible crime that has been hidden (for example, underground torture cult that makes young girls 'disappear', and the brother of one of the girls finds out and wants payback against the cultists).
This can be particularly effective against adventuring parties, because they would latch onto the 'terrible crime' as the first story hook. They will investigate and reveal the truth behind that, thinking it is the 'cause for the suicides'. Even if the assassin is later revealed, he might have already succeeded due to the party's efforts.
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May I draw you to the attention of the "Black Alibi"
The blade of this +1 short sword appears to be nothing more than a shadow, but is quite solid and as sharp as steel. Five times per day, the wielder can as a move action create a featureless black "mask" of illusory cloth on the face of a willing target he touches. This mask obscures the wearer's identity and lasts for 10 minutes. Once per day, the wielder can activate the sword as a swift action; 1 minute afterward, the sword completely erases the wielder's memory of the previous minute (as if using modify memory).
He could even use it on himself if he feared detection, so that he has no memory of killing him. He could also combine it with a mind compulsion/Charm effect. "That young Servant with the bloody knife, aw he's innocent, he doesn't have a memory of the thing." Or, for longer assassinations
"False Alibi"
Casting Time 1 round
Components V, S, M (emerald dust worth 100 gp)
EFFECT
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one living creature
Duration permanent; see text
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes
DESCRIPTION
This spell functions similarly to modify memory, except you can modify the target's memory only in a specific way.
In response to a triggering condition you determine, up to the last 5 minutes of the target's memory are eliminated and replaced with a memory of your choosing (or no memory at all).
For example, you could cast this on an assassin, set it to trigger when he completes his kill, and replace his memory of the murder with the memory of him discovering the body and picking up the murder weapon. You can cast this spell multiple times on the same target, even with the same trigger, affecting different memories. A single casting of false alibi affects a creature only until the specified condition has been triggered; once a condition has been triggered and the target's memory altered, that condition no longer triggers this spell unless the victim is subject to another casting of false alibi that specifies the same trigger.
And, if he wanted to throw his enemies off the trail, or at least discourage them. He could cast this spell either the way he fled, or down a goose chase passage.
"Night of Blades"
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
EFFECT
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect wall of blades up to 10 ft. long/level and 10 ft. tall
Duration 1 minute/level (D)
Saving Throw Reflex half; Spell Resistance yes
DESCRIPTION
Useful primarily to those who skulk in the darkness, this spell is a temporary trap for the unwary. You create an immobile wall of tiny black blades that whirl and tear into creatures like a cyclone. Anyone who enters this space takes 1d4 points of damage per caster level (maximum 10d4), though a successful Reflex save halves the damage. The spell cannot be cast so that it appears in a space already occupied by Small or larger creatures.
Those are cool spells! I could use them for my bard characters at a later date, I'm sure!
Yes, it is much harder to pin a crime on someone if they don't remember it.
Take a look at the Pathfinder Society adventure 5-22 "Scars of the Third Crusade" - it's essentially a murder mystery.
Also Murder on the Throaty Mermaid.
One of the best ways to hide a murder or any other crime for that matter is in plain sight. Have the victim be poisoned by someone obvious with a reasonable cause to kill the person, but have it be a frame job. For example have the duke be poisoned by his mistress, but the real killer is someone else. This unknown person used magic to alter her memories or some other way to cause her to unknowingly kill the duke. His mistress is some simple kind hearted maid that would never hurt a fly. But someone gave her something the duke would like that is poisonous and tricked her into giving it to him. Most forms of divination will detect that his mistress killed him, because she did. But she is not the one who really is responsible. The real mystery is figuring out there is someone else behind the murder and finding that person.
Do keep in mind that you want the PCs to find the killer, eventually.
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How about a frame job, where the PCs do start picking up clues that the Obvious Killed isn't the one whodunnit, but by then everyone is hysterical and waving pitchforks? Now the PCs have to find the real killer and protect the innocent person (who may not be a nice person at all) at the same time. That could be a good adventure.
Yeah, a lot of people agree- you should play upon your player's understanding of story structure and murder mysteries in order to keep them from even thinking about all their instant problem solving spells.
Make them think they already solved the case in Act II, so they do not even look into it further. That will keep them from messing things up until after Act III where the assassin has almost finished his plans. Act IV is when the players realize "damn, the murders are still happening", and Act V is "so it was the butler's mistress' long lost twin sister all along!"