What are the best scams you made as a thief? Was it rewarding? Difficult?
Not exactly a scam, and not something I've done, but I read a greentext about a guy who carried a beartrap with him all the time and used a ridiculously high bluff check to convince people it was a really fancy hat.
And then they would put it on, and not have a head anymore.
I LOVE it! Maybe some disguise to smoothen the bluff check? Were they low level npc? I read a bear trap has 2d6+3 damage. Maybe it counts has a sneak attack for the rogue?
You can't go wrong with most of the classic cons. Some may require a little adaptation for a pseudo-medieval setting, but they're classics for a reason.
Magic aura + cheap ring = ridiculous amount of gold for a first level character.
I only did that once though. The look on the GM's face suggested that if I made those kinds of shenanigans a habit, there would be a lot of angry magic store owners chasing me down. And this scam generally requires leaving town for a good long time.
I've used ghost sound to create a "haunt" in a fancy mansion. Then we, a brave bunch of adventurers, stepped forward to banish the haunt. Turns out the criteria for banishing the haunt involved finding a bunch of treasure ("ill-gotten gains"), buried at a secret location (a day's ride from town). When the mark ran off to dig up the money, we ransacked his house, loading everything that wasn't nailed down into a wagon and riding off into the sunset.
NOTE: The magic aura scam was back in 3.0 days, when identify still cost a 100 gp pearl to cast and therefore wouldn't likely be a standard procedure for magic store owners. Nowadays, I'd figure they'd keep someone on retainer, if not prep it themselves.
I LOVE it! Maybe some disguise to smoothen the bluff check? Were they low level npc? I read a bear trap has 2d6+3 damage. Maybe it counts has a sneak attack for the rogue?
You could also argue that since it's puncturing the neck and not the leg it gets extra damage or counts as a called shot to the neck.
quibblemuch,
I like that fake treasure scam. It can be used in a lot of variations. It can also be used to isolate the mark into an ambush. Great one.
Dragonchess Player,
I just read the classic cons wiki, and it's fantastic! Some need a lot of thinking to actually be usable in a medieval setting like you said. It's really giving me a lot of possibilities to use in my game, thank you.
Anyone else? I would like more stories like the bear trap scam XD.