A system of thievery

[Chakravanti]

So I was thinking the other day and talkign to some friends about a system of thievery. This si not a fully hashed detail idea but rather loose concept sketch. Currently we rocgnize that the system is broken because it's basically a direct comparison of stats with tracking*2 vs stealth. This makes thievery virtually impossible to all but the most uber players who can more easily acquire their own shit than risk leaving their scent behind to anyone worth stealing shit from. It *seems* like any solution that increases the ability to steal and get away with it just creates chaos.

But I thought of somethign that plays off the current system. A good thief will obscure his tracks. Create false leads. This is a lot of work and effort.

Scents should only be trackable ONCE by a given players, and non tradeable. Related crimes in against a certain claim Would count as the same crime, and tracking them would simply add value to the scent you are currently in possesion of.

You must track your OWN SCENT. Run all over the hearth lands setting up and hiding false hearths and 'current locations' by spending the scents of your own crime that you collected. A dedicated tracker, of any level, may spend the time to track them all down and eventually find you. When they find a false hearth/CL they can gather what scents are left.

A person with high Exploration/PER/INT can attempt to 'discern' against these false leads which makes a comparison against the target's CHA/DEX/Stealth The differential would, via some formula, determine the cost of the scent to discern a cut through as many possible 'false leads' with a minimum leftover scent value that you can set before discernment. You would then of course not know how well you tracked against them, if you cut through all the diversions or if any at all. There would be a base cost of the discernment if you don't successfully cut through any scents based on the differential. You would have to track as normal and find out.

Setting up false leads shoulod not be easy. There is of course, firs tthe matter of arriving at the location to build the false lead. Then there is the cost of building it. It would of course cost some of the scent of the crime. A flase hearth would require a dream. We thought, Blood Stern + Dream = Nightmare for constructing false hearths.

Then of course, you could make a CL dummy with some linen, straw and sticks. Rub it with the scent. FOr all intents and purposes it would look like your character in game but it would just stand there. You coudl of course, equip it with some items if you wanted to further make it look real. Once the dummy is attack it will die in one hit and leave the constructing materials and equipement scattered about it's location along with the scent fo the crime.

Every time you successfully track a false lead you can acquire more of the scent of the original crime that the criminal left behind to construct the false lead.

Alternative formula. It may be up to the criminal to determine how much fo a scent to spend on a false leads. Discerning them would simply cost the tracker the amount you spent on building it. How much a criminal can spend on a diversion would be based on their DEX/CHA/Stealth and a tracker, how much he can discern against, based on the same forumla via PER/INT/Exploration.

This essentially mean that just about any level of player can track a given criminal if they take the time to hunt down all the false leads, just that it requires much less effort by a dedicated and experienced ranger.

It take one to know one. At a certain base cost of a given tracked scent, one can change the forumla for tracking to use stealth instead of exploration.

There are possibilities here, group thievery creating related scents and enabling partied theives to work together to create false hearths/Cl's faster. Partied trackers able to combine their skills of discernment and hash out the number of criminals in a given crime, and track them separately etc. Not to mention what the anscestors might lend their support to. And even a new belief slider! Order vs. Anarchy or some shit like that.

Let me know what you guys think!

[Lightning2]

I like this idea, now it's more fun to track thieves instead of walking to a red arrow and kill him.

[XkrikX]

i like

[Smithy]

I dislike.

The thing is there are so many fun things to do in Haven and Hearth. Right now I find thieves a nuisance. I don't bother tracking them down. I hire a ranger to do it for me. Your plan would mean I would have to learn ranging and do it for myself, it would take longer and be a much bigger nuisance. I don't want to have to learn that skill too. I want to specialize.

[Blaze]

The idea is fine, good even, but it does nothing to address the main issue with thievery.

STEALTH DOES NOT WORK.

[Chakravanti]

The idea is fine, good even, but it does nothing to address the main issue with thievery.

STEALTH DOES NOT WORK.

Yes, the problem with stealth not working is that it woudl create too much chaos to fix. Or so I am to understand. Fixing stealth wouldn't fix the game. What I'm suggesting ehre is a method by which stealth could be reasonably fixed.

[Jfloyd]

I like the concept of it.
This just seems to make it so it takes longer and pisses the reciever off.
I think someone should be able to animate their CL, and have it wander around, and do tasks. This way it seems like it's actually them.
Maybe put some fake items on it so they THINK they got their stuff back. One could put them in an old settlement and have them be fishing or something.

As for the "Nightmare", there should be a different proscess where you corrupt the dream, and it goes from it's cutesy purple to black. Corrupt dreams should also only last so long in ones inventory so they have to make them right after they steal, so a thief just cant have a supply of them at hand.

[Chakravanti]

No, a dummy just stands there. It's not magic. It's deception. It's not liek the scent doesnt name them.you would destroy it like any other construct after track it.


But that reminds me. Scents should decay at a certain rate even in the inventory. perhaps 1/4 of the speed after harvesting. They shoudln't last forever and be tools of blackmail.

[Onionfighter]

I have been thinking that there could be a special jar to hold scents in.

[Blaze]

I have been thinking that there could be a special jar to hold scents in.

Tobacco Pipe ala Sherlock Holmes.