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Old 10-12-2020, 07:59 PM   #1
phiwum
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
Default How does anything stay locked?

There are banks in TFT, so there are vaults. How the heck do you keep the vault locked if wizards have an IQ 10 spell for unlocking "ordinary" locks at ST 2 cost?

I am guessing that "ordinary" applies to all mechanical locks, no matter how difficult. Elsewhere (ITL 70), a "normal" lock is 3/DX for a locksmith to open, but I'd guess a 6/DX mechanical lock is still "ordinary" according to the Lock/Knock spell description on ITL 20.

Loading up a mechanical lock with five lock spells means it takes six knocks to open it, far as I can figger. Traps can help protect the vault, obviously, as can guards of some sort. Zombies would work, if you have an IQ19 wizard willing to waste his talents working for the man.

Spell Shield would prevent Knock, I reckon, but has a per turn cost that makes it prohibitive.

So how do banks protect their holdings? What am I missing?

Much thanks.
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Old 10-12-2020, 08:23 PM   #2
hcobb
 
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

Why bother unlocking the vault? Just summon a lesser demon (easy enough for a team of four starting wizards) to teleport inside the vault and retrieve whatever you like.
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Old 10-12-2020, 08:54 PM   #3
phiwum
 
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

It will be a shock to you, I'm sure, that in my games I'm not terribly concerned about wizards summoning demons to steal from a bank.

Your suggestion did lead to a quick perusal of summoning demons and then to Pentagram, which might be useful to protect a vault door (in its permanent form). But I'm not keen on having wizards doing grunt work like making permanent pentagrams to protect bank vaults. Just seems too pedestrian.

Also, "Permanent Pentagram" is found in the magic items section, but the description begins "This is the spell used..." I'm a little puzzled about that.

I hesitate to ask, but these four wizards summoning a demon to run an errand -- that demon can't be in a pentagram, since he's there to do an errand, right? So, the starting wizard with IQ at least 14 requires the other three wizards to buff up his ST and DX so that he can reliably cast the spell and not be attacked, I suppose? That brings the party down to a 1/20 chance of being pulverized by a pissy demon and if that happens, just tell the GM that it's okay, because I have four more characters at the ready, let me just change the names...
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Old 10-12-2020, 10:25 PM   #4
Skarg
 
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

Even without magic, in the real world as well as Cidri, few banks rely on locks alone. Guards, who alert local authorities/guards/etc, seem to me like the main answer.

There are other counters readily available to a Knock spell, too. As you said, traps (consider alarm traps, and traps that cause escape routes from where the door is, to be blocked), and doors/gates that don't involve an ordinary lock.
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Old 10-13-2020, 04:52 AM   #5
Terquem
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

It's conceivable that a world might exist where such things as vaults to guard money are not needed. When magic is part of the explanation for how things get done you have to look at everything differently. You can leave the bank unguarded and unprotected if magic is available to help you easily identify who took the money. The natural evolution is a culture where taking things that don't belong to you is not worth the effort
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Old 10-13-2020, 06:34 AM   #6
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Even without magic, in the real world as well as Cidri, few banks rely on locks alone. Guards, who alert local authorities/guards/etc, seem to me like the main answer.
This is an important part of it. And if you want to involve magic the bank could put up Wards which act as alarms.

The fact that unwatched locks are so unreliable on Cidri is probably why a great many of them are trapped. And why individuals may opt for a hidden door or similar for concealing their wealth instead.
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Old 10-13-2020, 07:46 AM   #7
phiwum
 
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

I suppose that if we rely on magic, a bank can secure its wealth using gates with an appropriate rule for entry (say, you must be employee X to enter). The real vault would be stored off-site, but the off-site location has to be accessible by other means to create the gate, so this ends up being security through obscurity to some extent.

My original question was posed because I was thinking of banks, but the same question applies to PCs storing their goods. I figured that in the world of Cidri, the safest way to store a chest of useful stuff is to do so at a bank, which accepts items as well as cash to be stored. Which, of course, led to the question of how the bank can secure this stuff.

And this, in turn, led to an adventure involving robbery of the local bank, but I realized I had problems. Here I was thinking that the robbers would tunnel in, like they do in so many movies, but it struck me that I had to think about how the vault would be protected. The use of wards and traps is good and guards are necessary as well. If you can imagine a bank adding a troll to hold the vault door closed whenever someone tries to fiddle with it, that might do some good too, but it seems a wee fanciful even for a world with magic.

Of course, it is easier to destroy than to steal, so I might stick with tunnels under the bank and a honking big petard just to cause mayhem. This would be thwarted by a gate-protected vault in an undisclosed location, but short of that, it seems like one could do some damage with enough gunpowder.

The threat of teleportation requires some trusted guard to be in the actual vault. While Henry's notion of a demon-summoning starting character doesn't concern me, he was totally right to bring up teleportation. Filling a vault with permanent pentagrams (the creation of which is a mystery to me) doesn't really fit my tastes.

You can see my pickle, I suppose. I want the baddies to be (1) something a party of 36 point characters can reasonably thwart and (2) able to pose a threat to a bank. But if banks exist and are reasonably reliable, this is a hard set of conditions to work out.
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Old 10-13-2020, 07:49 AM   #8
phiwum
 
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadekeep View Post
This is an important part of it. And if you want to involve magic the bank could put up Wards which act as alarms.

The fact that unwatched locks are so unreliable on Cidri is probably why a great many of them are trapped. And why individuals may opt for a hidden door or similar for concealing their wealth instead.
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wards only alert the casting wizard who has to be nearby, right? That means that a wizard would need to be present alongside any guards. I picture wizards generally being proud and concerned with more worthy pursuits than an hourly wage at a Savings & Loan. That's the flavor I'm shooting for anyway.
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Old 10-13-2020, 01:59 PM   #9
Anthony
 
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

Quote:
Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
I am guessing that "ordinary" applies to all mechanical locks, no matter how difficult.
Unless you add a component that makes them no longer 'ordinary' (pick your magical substance of choice). Which presumably anyone bothering to build a 6d lock is going to do.
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Old 10-13-2020, 03:19 PM   #10
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Default Re: How does anything stay locked?

Set the number of dice to cast the Knock spell equal to the number of dice to pick the lock. (Note that this is implied to be a 3d casting roll, but it is not specified.)
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