How does anything stay locked?

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Skarg

A successful Knock may never trigger traps, but then a smart mechanician doesn't rig the traps to go off when the lock is unlocked. The traps are set to go off when the door opens, or someone steps into the room beyond, etc, unless some other non-lock mechanism is used to disarm the traps. Or maybe, since some of the traps are alarms, the alarm can just be the usual "open for business" bell, which is understood as an alarm if it's not at the start of a banking day, and so there is no way to deactivate it.

The bold is what I've chosen to do, using some suggestions from the thread.

Or, as we discussed in the other thread, your engineers take Open Tunnel into account in wall & castle design.

Yes, I stumbled across that thread today.

Seems like an opportunity to make the situation more interesting to me.

Yes, what are they doing with the tailings? Could be quite amusing, interesting, provide logical clues, make the game feel much more real, get players to pay more attention in general to things going on in the game world, etc.

Really wish you wouldn't make me think so hard. Hauling the tailings out of a small town puts a crimp in things. I'm tempted to put a useful bottomless pit nearby, but that's pretty damned cheap.

A gate to the edge of the Grand Canyon would work, obviously, but just as obviously, it ain't right to think these bandits could build one.

Yeah, okay, Skarg, I'll think a bit about it, but you know what will happen? The party will stumble into the tunnels and discover the plot, thwart it (or join in) and move on with their lives and not once will anyone pause to wonder where all the dirt and rocks went. My oh-so-clever plans will be for naught, I tell you.

[Steve Plambeck]

My mother took a job at a pencil factory in Chicago in the 1960's. It was once connected by a secret tunnel that ran under the street to a nearby hotel that was owned by Al Capone. The tunnel was sealed and long gone, but one day the factory owner took my mom up a ladder to show her what was hiding on top the ceiling rafters. Row after row after row of vintage, rusty old coffee cans. And every one of them was full of dirt :)

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

My mother took a job at a pencil factory in Chicago in the 1960's. It was once connected by a secret tunnel that ran under the street to a nearby hotel that was owned by Al Capone. The tunnel was sealed and long gone, but one day the factory owner took my mom up a ladder to show her what was hiding on top the ceiling rafters. Row after row after row of vintage, rusty old coffee cans. And every one of them was full of dirt :)

That's a pretty good story. But the tunnel contained presumably less dirt in coffee cans than it originally held. They still couldn't dig much faster than they could dispose of dirt.

The mining bandits include dwarves, of course. There's a growing dwarf contingent in town. Add a conveniently placed dwarven stonecutter whose business naturally produces a lot of detritus that he has to dump somewhere (say, along the river to prevent erosion as a service to town) and then a tunnel to discard the tailings there. His hauling of detritus would increase rather a lot, but is unlikely to be noticed.

That's what I have so far. I'm not thrilled with the plan, because it involves even more tunnelling and the stone carver's neighbors really might notice an increase in the haul of stones. And a stonecutter may abet the bandits, but he's a businessman, unlikely to uproot when the heist is complete for a share of the profits. Now there's a tunnel to his place of business which would be rather a giveaway.

[Skarg]

How cloudy and therefore dark is it at night? And is there wind and rain to cover sounds? And do they have someone with Animal Handler or a route without barking dogs?

You may be able to reduce your exposure a lot by having people work (both dig and export tailings) at night, when most people sleep.

[phiwum]

All good points, but these points become so difficult to fully answer that it makes the fundamental premise (that one could tunnel into a bank) rather more implausible than I'd like.

I think I'd be happy to say so long as they can surreptitiously get the tailings to a stone carver's shop, the stone carver can deal with getting rid of them without attracting much attention. The entrances to the tunnel are hidden in other buildings so can be accessed without much attention.

The other big problem I face is that the tunnel will still be there after the heist. That means that the robbers will be identified. There's no clear way around that, so long as I cover up the entrance by putting it in a building. The bank end of the tunnel could be destroyed at the end of the heist with a honking big petard, which would slow discovery but not prevent it.

An adventure always includes leaving some details up to the suspension of disbelief, but striking the right balance is difficult. Deal with too few of the details and the nagging doubts will distract from the immersion. Deal with too many and interesting ideas become unworkable.

[Skarg]

Another notion: The best way to tunnel into a bank with minimal fuss, is usually for there to already be an old tunnel (or sewer, or foundation construction gap, and/or underground erosion gap) that happens to go by the bank, that most people have forgotten about.

That could also mean the robbers don't have to be identified by their tunnel, since it isn't their tunnel.

[phiwum]

That's pretty good. I already have ghoul warrens nearby, which is how the party will stumble onto the scheme (a simple ghoul hunt leads to a surprising discovery).

I also have other reasons for surreptitious tunnelling by the dwarves.

If I combine the two: the ghoul warrens are built atop an old labyrinth and the dwarves stumble into the old labyrinth for reasons of their own, then hatch a robbery scheme, then a lot of problems go away. It's still coincidence upon coincidence, but many interesting things are.

Or, since this is a town, I could of course add a rudimentary sewer system draining into the nearby river. Tapping into the system would allow an easier disposal of tailings as well as some nasty critters.

Ah, my adventures never end up small I'm afraid.

Thanks for that suggestion, Skarg.

[DeadParrot]

I put this in the same category as why do castles and other fortifications exist in a world where spell or effects like teleport, rock to mud, passwall, summon earth elemental, etc exist.

It seems most fantasy settings wind up being based on real life Earth history usually from between 500 ~1200AD (before gunpowder becomes effective in siege engines). The setting designers then add a layer of magic to that Earth based setting without thinking how different things would be on Earth if magic existed. Look how quickly Earth culture has changed with the addition of the magic of Electricity. I suspect that similar changes would happen on any world where magic existed.

Either there are effective defenses against magic or anyone that can use magic is either killed upon discovery or wizards wind up running the place. Or the magical power is so small as to be mostly useless.

On Cidri, most metals other then Silver inhibit wizards. Not unreasonable to think that a door mostly made of iron might prevent the use of a knock or other spell if the wizard has to get close to cast. Also might imagine that one could construct a type of magical Faraday Cage that would block the passage of magical spells such as teleport.

I see no reason why a GM can't just rule that a bank or castle or similar contains such defenses against magic without having to create detailed explanation as to how such things work.

[phiwum]

You actually made me think of another strategy.

As you say, the problem with fantasy is we think of historical settings and then add magic and try not to break things. It would not take too long before wizards find ways to make mayhem.

But it would take some time, so here's my solution: in my world, magic was discovered last Tuesday. The wizards are quick learners, but haven't figured out how to exploit their new power, because they're still having fun picking up chicks and studmuffins.

Problem solved, so long as the campaign falls apart fairly quickly, but it usually does in my experience.

Somewhat more seriously, the Faraday cage sounds interesting, but it'd be a pretty cheap Pentagram Lite.

[MikMod]

"The robbers will be identified"

Hmm. They probably used a patsy to rent the house, who will turn up dead, leaving no trail...