Forgery in Avistan

[ShadowFighter88]

How common is it? Not just art forgery but even more unusual sorts like wine forgery*. And what skills would be involved in it?

Would it just be a Craft (Painting) roll to forge a painting? Would that include the other effort like making sure the paint and pigments match the real thing's time period, or aging the painting so that it looks as old as its supposed to be?

And what sort of measures, magical or otherwise, could a wealthy mark have access to in order to test the forgery to see if it's the real thing?

I'm mentioning Avistan in particular because I've been planning a con-artist and forger character for Hell's Rebels (or Council of Thieves... or any urban campaign like that, really) and just trying to work out the details.

*Making a bottle of wine seem like it's from a 60 or 70-year-old vintage and selling it to a wine collector for a lot of money, when it's really just a bottle of some cheap plonk you picked up last week.

[Simeon]

I imagine it would be some combination of a relevant profession skill, nluff, possibly sleight of hand, and on the side of the person who is buying the forged good, sense motive and perception.

[ShadowFighter88]

What about the fluff, though? A lot of the authenticity tests that get mentioned in shows like Hustle or White Collar use methods that wouldn't be around in a setting with Golarion's general tech level. Could there be spells that people have developed specifically for spotting forgeries? How would a non-magical forger get around them?

And just how prevalent would this sort of thing be in Avistan?

And to get back to mechanics, how do you keep this from being absolutely broken when the party gets a painting in dungeon loot and one player decides to forge five or six copies of it and sell all of them off as the real thing? Or just keep the real thing and crank out forgeries to sell to various travelling art traders or the like?

[Meraki]

There might be some sort of "Detect Forgery" spell, which I imagine would be opposed by the relevant craft check to make the forgery. There could also be spells that forgers use (either with their own talents, a team, or with scrolls) to guard against those kinds of things. You'd probably have to invent those, as I'm not sure they actually exist as spells currently. (If they did, they'd probably be in Ultimate Intrigue/Inner Sea Intrigue, though I can't remember those books having anything like that off the top of my head. The Intrigue books would actually be a good place to go for inspiration, now that I think about it.)

I'd imagine it'd be about as prevalent as forgery is in the real world, probably with stricter penalties for some sorts of forgeries than others. Things like counterfeiting, for example, have always carried pretty strict penalties because they have the potential to really screw up an economy, while things like art and wine forgery are mainly the concern of a rarefied elite that can afford those things in the first place.

As far as keeping it from being broken, spells like that and canny NPCs can act as safeguards, so there is some element of risk to doing this and it isn't just a gp machine. Also, if a bunch of copies of the same painting show up all at once, people will know that some of them are forged, especially since the market for those types of things tends to be rather small. There aren't going to be many people in the world wealthy enough to buy such things; you can't exactly sell them at Farmer Joe's General Store. At minimum, you'd probably have to wait months between each sale and travel around to different countries to sell them all, which would either require long journeys or using resources to teleport. Same with rare bottles of wine: if a hundred bottles of the 3702 AR Taldan Bronze vintage are showing up when as far as anyone knows only fifty existed and most of them are accounted for...there are going to be questions. Probably the result will be that no one will buy ANY of the Taldan Bronze or that painting for awhile until things get sorted out, and then your forgery doesn't make you any money at all.

And if your PC isn't careful, they'll probably have the Golarion version of Sterling from Leverage after them...which personally I would find really fun if I was your GM. :-)

(Side note: your character sounds awesome.)

[ShadowFighter88]

Well I figure there's dozens or even hundreds of spells that are never going to make it into a book - either their uses are too niche or specialised for your typical RPG campaign (like potential forgery-related spells) or are just redundant spells someone developed independently or as a proof-of-concept for something else. You are right about having to homebrew them up, although someone could probably whip something up using identify as a starting point. Not to mention that it's such a rare spell, the only ones who'd have it would probably be working permanently for museums, auction houses, art galleries and the like as authenticators (possibly while offering their services for private collectors on the side).

I figured narrative restrictions were probably going to be the biggest way to keep it from being broken - even if there are enough travelling art dealers, they'd be the kind to keep enough of an ear to the ground about various pieces coming on the market. Things like selling five copies of a painting at once might only work these days thanks to air travel and private negotiations with people who aren't going to do the research.

And Golarion's version of Sterling would interesting, assuming the GM can pull it off. That or Peter Burke, although I expect that the Chelish version of the FBI isn't quite as willing to cut deals. :P

Beyond that, I'm also trying to figure out where a forger and con-man would get started - I figure there's enough corrupt bastards in Galt with the right combination of money and wariness of the authorities. Ustalav could work as well, probably lots of nice pieces floating around from its glory days, or that could be 'found', and with a nobility greedy and crooked enough to con.

(And thanks; still trying to work out various cons, thefts and forgeries he's com- alleged to have committed prior to the campaign. Mostly just how much a level 1 Rogue could get away with on that front. I'm not expecting to go full Neal Caffrey - check the Criminal Career bit at the bottom - but just to have a few anecdotes to drop here and there.)

[Meraki]

Yeah, having spells like that would probably only be worth it for a very few people, most of them probably working as permanent authenticators like you say.

Varisia would also work pretty well if you're in with the Scarzni. Or Absalom (huge city, lots of tourists) or Taldor (collapsing decadent empire would be pretty good ground for forgeries and cons).

Things a level 1 Rogue would be capable of would limit you on the magic front...unless you used to be part of a team, I suppose. Which could open up some interesting backstory routes, but it depends on if that's the way you want to go.

I'd also suggest looking up some real world cons for inspiration. No magic required for those!

[Cevah]

Making something cheap look expensive and selling it for a lot of cash is a swindle, not a forgery.

A forgery should be high quality, to fool experts. I see that as a DC of X-5, where DC X is needed to make the real thing. That -5 represents the cheats you took to make it (or get it made) cheaply while being nearly foolproof. The more you beat the DC, the better the forgery. It is even possible that the forgery could be more valuable the original. Remember all those great paintings that had another painting over them? Some turned out to have the cover painting also valuable. Another was some Chinese fossils that were fakes, but created from parts of other fossils that turned out to be real and unique finds.

Another variation is the forged map. Quality of the map is not important. Although faking some markings on it might need to forge a known mapmaker. Story is very important. Planting rumors to be uncovered to make the map seem more authentic would be bluff for a tale, or linguistics for a document.

Spells like sow thought can come in handy as can high scores in bluff can also work. Best is to find someone who wants to believe as your mark.

/cevah

[ShadowFighter88]

Cevah wrote:

Best is to find someone who wants to believe as your mark.

And give them a reason to not look into it enough for them to see through it.

I admit; this is more aimed at high-end, tailored forgeries - the kind where you already have a buyer in mind before you even decide to forge something to sell them. You do your research on them, find who they'll contact about what sort of valuables, who they usually go to for authentication or if you can find a way that they won't bother and, above all else, how to keep them from coming after you or reporting you to the authorities if he realises he bought a fake.

And I did not know about that spell at all. Probably wouldn't help my planned character much (he'll be a Rogue), though I could say he'd used wands of the spell once or twice in his backstory. Still, nice to know such a spell exists.

Although, I just realised something; how is he going to study a painting/sculpture/etc well enough to forge it? Especially if the real thing's on the other side of the continent? Reproductions won't be close enough to the real thing for forgery (a good authenticator is going to be looking at the individual brush strokes while someone making a reproduction that's going to be sold as such probably won't care too much about matching it that precisely).

EDIT: Or should I just try to find a trait or feat that represents perfect recall? It's a bit of a cop-out, but it's all I can think of.

[minoritarian]

I find the idea of approaching an art lover who wants to acquire a piece 'by any means' offering to steal the piece and then selling them a forgery appealing. Getting paid twice, once for the risk taken in carrying out the theft and again in delivery of the artwork.

Works especially well if the target of the theft is tight lipped - your employer will never know it wasnt really stolen.

[minoritarian]

ShadowFighter88 wrote:

Although, I just realised something; how is he going to study a painting/sculpture/etc well enough to forge it? Especially if the real thing's on the other side of the continent? Reproductions won't be close enough to the real thing for forgery (a good authenticator is going to be looking at the individual brush strokes while someone making a reproduction that's going to be sold as such probably won't care too much about matching it that precisely).

EDIT: Or should I just try to find a trait or feat that represents perfect recall? It's a bit of a cop-out, but it's all I can think of.

If you're homebrewing anyway then the autohypnosis skill in Dreamscarred's psionics has Memorize as a function (DC 15 skill check to memorize a page of information).

A Cryptic also feels like the perfect class for a forger.

[Daw]

Shadowfighter88 wrote:

although I expect that the Chelish version of the FBI isn't quite as willing to cut deals.

Don't be silly, of course they cut deals, just what they cut deals with...

[ShadowFighter88]

minoritarian wrote:

I find the idea of approaching an art lover who wants to acquire a piece 'by any means' offering to steal the piece and then selling them a forgery appealing. Getting paid twice, once for the risk taken in carrying out the theft and again in delivery of the artwork.

Works especially well if the target of the theft is tight lipped - your employer will never know it wasnt really stolen.

It's a pretty classic blow-off - the mark can't go to the authorities without admitting that he was willing to engage in illegal activity. They used it a few times in Hustle, though the only example I can think of is the season 2 finale and explaining that one spoils the big twist of the episode (just about every episode of that show tried to con the audience as well, making them think one thing's going to happen when it's really something else entirely).