I have a Kitsune rogue and a Human Vigilante who want to scam the metropolis they're in. The Kitsune has the Realistic Likeness feat, and they want to impersonate bounties, get the money, then escape from the prison. I don't know how often they want to do this, but I'm not sure how to run it so they don't get ridiculous amounts of money and use this as a "get rich quick" scheme. The simple answer is to have low rewards, but the party is currently in Goka, so low reward bounties are incredibly unlikely.
The Kitsune has already proved himself adept at escaping prisons in the past, since he also has fox shape and a crazy high dexterity and CMD, so he slips out of people's grasps fairly easily.
Any suggestions? Should I just let it happen and have less loot from other encounters to keep it balanced?
If the bounties are low(low level criminals), it should be easy to escape...at first. But eventually the authorities are going to catch on. If they want to go for the big score (a vip criminal), they should be scanned and carefully processed. Perhaps have a 24/7 guard or antimagic jail. These are criminals known to have magic.
What is the clint eastwood movie where he does this sort of scam?
Let them have their fun, but if it gets out of hand. Use in game consequences.
The bounty hunter gets a reputation that the criminals he turns in always escape. Rumors spread that he turns them in then breaks them out hoping the city re-posts the bounty.
The Kitsune breaks out a half dozen times, then suddenly, they up their security. Will the heroes battle the city guard just to save their ally. Does the whole party even know?
If things really get out of hand...
The pair see a bounty they can't pass up. The kitsune takes his disguise and the bounty hunter turns them in to the city guard. The "bandit" is executed on the spot for his crimes. The kitsune is dead and reverts back. Now the guard is after the bounty hunter for his part in it. Especially the fact the guard just killed an "innocent" person.
Even if the bounty hunter escapes. VERY powerful bounty hunters would be after your bounty hunter because he is soiling the reputation of bounty hunters for all of them.
You might consider letting him get away with it a few times for low rewards and then really start upping the difficulty. Some examples that come to mind are:
- Regional magistrates have identified that an inordinate amount of prisoners have been escaping quite easily in the same fashion. Have them set a trap bounty and imprison him with magic of some kind.
- Disguise self doesn't alter your voice so have the victims or likewise the relatives of the bounty be used to verify that it is him. Maybe they have a secret password or handshake.
- Sense motive will still give you a good chance to detect bluffs. There are various truth telling effects or lie detection effects available. Some spells: Abadar's Truthtelling, Confess, Zone of Truth, detect thoughts, and Reveal True Shape. Some items: Ring of Truth, Elixir of Truth, Candle of Truth, Inquisitor's Monocle, Stole of Justice, Truthseeker Wayfinder. Combine with things that drop WIS or Will saves.
- If he only goes after low level bounties, have a surprise waiting where a higher up plot line character was severely inconvenienced and takes a particular interest making and example out of the PC. Maybe the shipment was waylaid due to a small time heist. This causes a high ranking/powerful/wealthy noble to lose a large trade contract. The noble then personally invests his abilities/wealth (maybe he has magic) or that of his subjects to make an example out of the thief (i.e., who your kitsune is pretending to be).
- Use better restraints than normal like: Manacles (quickcatch), Masterwork Straight Jacket, Shackles of Compliance, Manacles of Cooperation. Combine with things that drop DEX.
- Have the local magistrate start accusing and holding whoever else in the party brings the false kitsune in as being in on it and helping him to escape. This can rope in various members of the party making the tactic riskier if they can't all just shape shift away.
It worked for the Good, the Bad & the Ugly...
It would be quite fun to hand in the kitsune only to have another bounty hunter hand in the actual bandit shortly after too.
Looking across to the other cell at yourself may be a total pants changer.
Well, the Kitsune's disguise was a tad too good, but now has bad luck of after being turned in, a "Hanging Judge" arrives in town with an updated bounty list, upping the bounty from 3,000gp to 50,000gp and to be executed with in an hour of capture!
It's a fun idea but what judge ups a bounty of a guy already captured?
Sort of along the lines of the kitsune's alter ego of the criminal being sentenced to death, but since that would probably kill all the fun, have the guard/magistrate/bounty collector thank the bounty hunter and then mention that they didn't really need the criminal alive, an ear would have been sufficient. So quick as a lick, his straight razor takes the kitsune's ear off and he says, "Why don't you keep it as a souvenir?" Of course, it probably reverts to true form, or at least alters enough to be noticeable as he tosses it.
The confusion should allow the kitsune to slip free and their scam will be up for the time being, and they'll have something to remember the encounter by, at least until they can get a regenerate but it won't end in a PC death.
I do not think you should lower the loot for the rest of the encounters. Just because they found an illegal way to make money doesn't mean that the rest of the world would suddenly change. If they decide to go legit and working their way through the X cave of Xness doesn't provide what the illegal activities did, then they would just go back to illegal activities.
I think a lot of the ideas here have been fantastic on how to provide a consequence, but a simple way to make a consequence happen is have another prisoner narc on them for a commuted sentence. They then get a bounty themselves and the authorities change up how they arrest people in the future.
Basically the game assumes that reward will be commensurate with challenge, so if they are going after a large reward their will be higher requirements to both pull off the initial con and to escape afterwards.
If it was that easy to fool the city into giving out large bounties, everyone would be doing it.
It is certainly likely at the very least that even if they succeed after a few times the authorities are going to realize that they have had criminals that were in two places at once, and the bounty hunter it going to have a bounty on his own head.
Also, don't forget that the Kitsune has to have encountered the person they are going to imitate, so they still have to go through all of the work of tracking down the criminal, they are only saving themselves the effort of the actual capture.
It could even be something like an oubliette with no opening to the outside other than the trap door in the ceiling. And it could be a decent (10-15 foot) drop from the trap door to the ground. If this is in an area that will be constantly watched, it would be very difficult for a human or fox to escape.
And if they are doing this same trick in the same local area, maybe someone has noticed a fox running away from other dungeons, so the local constabulary has established a fox hunt, giving anyone turning in a fox pelt a few silver coins. This would up the risk for the Kitsune attempting to escape in fox form. And could possibly be worse if someone sees him/her shifting from fox to humanoid form. Now they might start having a werewolf scare on their hands.
As the scammers are standing in the donjon and the kitsune is being placed in the cell, in comes another bountyhunter with the actual criminal.
Thinking quickly, the actual criminal decries that he's been framed by a shapechanger or a mage and demands justice. The authorities are forced to conclude it was the kitsune framing others for crimes (they may or may not assume the PC bountyhunter was in on it, just thought they had caught the real one.) The real criminal is set free and kills several friends, allies, and acquaintances of the PCs. It is most definitely their fault when he otherwise would have been captured.
I think that after a time or two, word gets out that one/multiple of the criminals that were "Captured" kept doing crime when they had apparently been captured, and the authorities get wise to the fact. As opposed to doing something overtly harmful and apparently spite-driven to the PCs, the governments simply instate a 1-2 week holding period of the prisoner before the bounty is paid, to ensure they've captured the correct person.
When they pretend to be a criminal and get put in prison, even for a short time before escaping, who else is going to keep looking for someone already in jail. They've allowed that criminal 2-3 days at least to do more illegal deeds (again, not necessarily murders, but robberies, thefts, etc. or to get 2-3 days away from the law in that kingdom. Even after the PC escapes and the law starts looking for the actual criminal again, they're way off the trail, because they start looking at the prison and there's no actual trail leading to the bad guy. The PCs actually are aiding the criminals with their scams and, like Peter Parker had to learn, with great power comes great responsibility. It is entirely possible that one of the criminals that they've helped elude justice commits a crime to someone they love or know... or even if not, against an innocent person and they later find out about it. That is a living world, that is a game that takes the players' choices seriously and fairly. They have every chance to just be complete jerks, and say they don't care, no one is forcing them to play or act in a different manner, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore their actions. That would be bad GMing.
As suggested, there are many ways to go about trying to nudge players away from 'negative' actions. Some are just more effective than others at getting the point across how they are ultimately harming those around them.
Pizza Lord wrote: They have every chance to just be complete jerks, and say they don't care, no one is forcing them to play or act in a different manner, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore their actions. That would be bad GMing. Fair point, but I think it's equally bad GMing to twist the world just so that we can get some sort of poetic justice against these PCs. As you say, it's a living world and it takes the players' choices fairly. Saying that the one criminal they essentially kept from justice for a few days just by sheer coincidence ends up harming a PC's loved one isn't fair; what are the odds of that happening? Yes, all campaigns run on very long odds to some extent, but that just strikes me as spiteful. The "cutting the presumed criminal's ear off after capture" thing you proposed strikes me as similarly absurd. Who would even do that?
But making it clear to the PCs that innocents are indirectly getting harmed by their actions combined with sensible in-game consequences (investigation of recent escapes of prisoners brought in by the same bounty hunter, increasing security etc.) after letting them have their fun for a bit is totally fair and might dissuade them from continuing doing so.
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