Article: 75999 of rec.games.frp.dnd Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.bu.edu!news3.near.net!netnews.whoi.edu!stout.whoi.edu!user From: cvl@gause.whoi.edu (Craig Van de Water Lewis) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd Subject: Thieves Book III: Magical items Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 10:19:24 -0400 Organization: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Lines: 177 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: stout.whoi.edu I downloaded this from the net many years ago, and apologize wholeheartedly for not attributing it to the original author, whose name I do not know. I claim no authorship for any of this work, but any who pass it on should consider it copyrighted material. ____________ Thieving Magics Silver, Gold, Platinum Series The thieves in the western Empire developed a standard series of magic items for thieves. These items are ranked as silver, gold, and platinum; a thief needs a 50% to use silver items, 75% for gold, and 100% for platinum (our DM allows thieves to achieve percentages higher than 100%, with max success chance limited to 95% for any given attempt.) The higher ranked items perform all the functions of the lower ones, in addition to their new functions; a thief cannot fully utilize the item if his percentages are inadequate but he can use all functions up to his percentage. For instance a thief with a 50% open locks can use the silver abilities built into the gold lockpicks. The silver items are fairly common, but the gold items are rare, and the platinum items are an extraordinary find. In fact, one of our thieves suspects that the platinum items might actually look like the gold ones until the right command word is spoken. Rangers can use these items for move silently and hide in shadows once their city chances (half woodland chance) meet the minimum required level. Silver Items PP (armband): This item allows the thief to determine the location of an item on the target; if the thief passes his hand near the victim and makes a successful pick pockets roll he can determine which pocket the item is hidden in. The item can only be found if the thief knows specifically what the item looks like. Most thieves just visualize gold or platinum coins and hunt for them. OL (lockpicks): These lockpicks give the thief a half chance at doing wizard locks. They also allow the thief to pick non- standard locks (sphincters, etc) at full chance. FRT (thieves tools): These tools allow the thief to find area traps at half chance. MS (anklet--chimes without clappers): This item allows a thief to hide in shadows (at half his chance) while moving silently. HS (coin): This allows the thief to evade the spell detect invisibility (or other such spells) at full chance. DN (earplug): The item negates penalties from closed doors. CW (miniature silver rope): (needs 100%) A thief using this item gets his dex bonus even while climbing walls. RL (lens): This lens allows the thief to bypass concealment spells (secret page, etc) on documents, but not traps. Gold Items OL: Gold lockpicks allow the thief to open wizardlocks at full chance. Also the thief can bypass traps on locks at half his open locks chance. MS: The item allows the thief to hide in shadows at full chance while moving silently. It also gives the thief a half move silently chance at moving over area floor traps. CW: (needs 125%) This item allows a thief to walk on walls without hands at full movement rate, rather like spider-climb. Platinum Items We have no knowledge of what platinum items do. One of our thieves is wondering whether her gold lockpicks might be platinum ones triggered by the command word "Majmola" (we found a slip of paper with them saying "The command word is Majmola"). There is no way to really tell until one of our thieves reaches 100% in open locks. Just on a hunch our thieves think that the platinum items have command words related to thieving deities ("Erevan" (elvish) "Brandobaris" (halfling) "Baervan" (gnomish)). (Editor's note: None of the platinum items have been discovered by players in over 6 years of play so I am hesitant to post them to the world. I am confident that imaginative net DMs will have many good suggestions). Magical Thieving Items Our party has seen a wide assortment of thieving items in addition to the silver and gold ones. Different cultures and races seem to make different types of thieving items. In general the philosophy seems to be to allow the thief to use his existing percentages to do more, rather than have items that work equally well for any thief (rings of invisibility or knock etc). Bonus Items These items just give a straight bonus to thief percentages. These items almost never give bonuses greater than +20% and they are rarely usuable by non-thieves. The bonus confered by the items can never be greater than the thief's base percentage; thus if a thief has a 0% in a skill, he cannot use bonus items for that skill. Gauntlets of dexterity The black felt gloves confer a 15 dexterity and a +10% in pick pockets and open locks. This item is similar to the DMG item. Glasses of +5% read lang These glasses give a +5% bonus to read languages, but other versions of this item give 10%, 15%, or 20%. Shadow material We have discovered a number of items fabricated from strange dark material; all these items seem to give the same +20% bonus to hide in shadows in shadowy areas. I suspect the bonus is a byproduct of the material the items were fabricated from. All these type items function in dark, shadowy environments and are usuable by non-thieves. Examples are the drow cloaks, the void suit, and the shadow cloak. Drow cloaks These cloaks (in their uncharged state) confer a +20% bonus to hiding in shadows in dark, shadowy areas (not woodlands). They can be used by non-thieves. Void suit This bodysuit is worn over normal clothing and gives a +20 hide in shadows. Its principal use is for travelling though the void; after one use of void travel, the suit is destroyed. Other Aids Thieves tools of speed This item is actually a wrist extradimensional carrying case, similar to a quiver of Ehlonna. It allows the thief to call out tools into his hand as he needs them, thus allowing the thief to do locks and traps in d6 rounds rather than d10. Thieves hand The thieves hand is a small white glove which the thief wears on one hand. Three times per day the thief can project a ghostly hand from the glove which enables him to do fine manipulation at a 10 foot distance. The main use of the glove is for picking pockets; the target's chance of noticing the hand is reduced to 5% unless he/she can detect invisible objects. An item can be grabbed and hidden under a flap in the hand, thus rendering the palmed object invisible; the thief then reels in the hand. The thieves hand can also be used to deactivate simple external traps at a distance (fire trap mainly) but that is not the principal purpose of the item. If the hand takes any damage (physical or magical) it disappears. Lens of magical traps detection This item is possibly unique; it allows a thief who receives special training to deactivate magical traps at full chance. The special training is rare and difficult to come by. The thief can use the lens up to the percentage he has received special training in; thieves with less than 50% find/remove traps cannot be trained in this art. This item is elvish in orgigin, but other races have come up with different solutions to magical traps; for instance one gnome specially modified his eyeball to detect magical traps. Mini safecracking set This amazingly compact safecracking set was probably crafted in the East for the legendary Black Cat Assasins supposedly only six such sets exist. The set is contained in a matte grey box which does not show up on detect magic. By pressing on the box, the thief can activate secret compartments. The main treasure in the box is a complete set of miniature diamond tipped drill bits which can be attached to the box to form a powered drill. Although the drill is magically powered, it takes slightly longer to do safes with this drill because of its small size. The set also contains miniature lockpicks, a lens, mirror, magnetized mini-blade, coil of wire, and a focused light beam. When we found the set, one of the compartments contained a special magical poison (death or 25 hps dmg). Everfull bottle of poison Our party traded the mini safecracking set in exchange for this bottle which manufactures one dose of type D poison every day (death or 2-12 dmg). We believe that there is some kind of creature which lives in the bottle; the poison is the creatures' waste product. By adding water to the bottle, the thief can make liquid poison. The poison decays in one day outside of the bottle. If the poison is left to "ripen" inside the bottle, the potency increases at the rate of one category per week. Armor The main armor we have seen for thieves is fine quality (slightly magical) leather armor which gives the no armor thieving bonus. Real elfin chain is almost never found; most high elves wear specially lightened chain mail that allows them to cast spells but has the same thieving modifications as normal chain mail. Weapons Some weapons have been specially crafted to do extra things when wielded by a thief. Most often thievly weapons will be daggers, although supposedly here are short swords and knives for thieves as well. vampiric crysdagger This is a +1 dagger which sheds no light. When wielded by a thief, it does vampiric touch (3d6 dmg) once per day. thrown dagger of backstabbing This dagger allows the thief to backstab one category higher (from x3 to x4) once per day on a thrown backstab. It will return once per day and for the rest of the day will function as a dagger +1. Burnable Thieving Items magical disguise kit This kit allows someone with the disguise proficiency to disguise himself or someone else in a powerful illusion magic. If the thief succeeds in a disguise proficiency check, he can envelop the target in a powerful illusion that hides the person and their equipment within. potion of thievly heroism This potion temporarily gives a thief the abilities and hit points of a higher level thief, much like a fighter potion of heroism. The thief can allocate his percentages after quaffing the potion; the potion lasts a number of turns. -- Craig Van de Water Lewis Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Redfield 222; Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543 PH: (508) 289-4814 Fax: (508) 457-2169 Email: cvl@gause.whoi.edu