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.

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.

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...

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.

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

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Unless you take a starting character with SpellSniffer there's no reasonable way to detect an active Ward spell and no cost effective countermeasure to it.

I always design Gate Stations around the limitations of the Ward spell. Pity that Ward is a wizards-only spell.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

If the wizards don't already have all the money then just wait a few months.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

These thieving unstoppable wizards just push the problem back a step. Now you're positing that various groups of wizards will be extraordinarily wealthy. Fine. How do they hold onto their wealth, given that there are other wizards?

In any case, I'm not running a campaign dominated by unstoppable wizards with insatiable appetites. I'm trying to model a coherent and interesting world in which there is magic and swords side-by-side. If I have to make an unwarranted assumption that the vast majority of NPC wizards are just not dull examples of homo economicus struggling to win the social Darwinian game, I'll do that.

But I have to allow that some wizards are bound to be greedy and base and I have to take that into account when thinking about how to secure wealth. At least, I have to if I want to consider how a bank robbery might be both possible and preventable by PCs.

ETA: And, I might add, I don't want players to get the notion that they can pull off such a robbery!

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Oops, yah, there is the range limitation. Though I suppose a bank could theoretically underwrite the lifestyle of a shut-in wizard who is happy living above (or below) the vault. ^_^

Incidentally, a Proxy is a useful way for a powerful wizard to guard their stash. I've used them in a few adventures to good effect.

Oh, and you could arrange a nasty "guard dog" trap on a vault or other cache by using Summoning Gems. Since they activate when smashed, a simple triphammer trap could call wolves or myrmidons (or worse) to the scene when the vault is breached.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I think it is obvious that a resourceful and determined wizard has a number of ways he or she can steal money or objects from the unprepared, whether it's bank vaults or something else. As for what this means to your campaign, I can think of three responses:

1) Go for it; PC's are basically grubby thieves most of the time anyway, so why not let them try to raid a bank instead of a crypt?

2) Sometimes the people who already own money and goodies are also resourceful and determined; plan ahead how such people and institutions might prepare a stiff deterrence. In the case of the 'knock' spell in particular, the solution seems obvious: have someone talented cast a powerful 'lock'.

3) Run a realistic (or at least plausible) campaign, where PC wizards don't waste their time robbing merchants and banks for the same reasons I (and most other people) don't waste my time stealing. It is true that there is no immediate barrier to me walking out in the street right now and taking someone's wallet at gunpoint. But the long term consequences make it a losing proposition. I earn more per hour than anyone is likely to be carrying in their pocket, there is some small but finite chance the person I try to rob will be capable and willing to fight for their wallet, and it is unlikely I could continue living in my home and working at my job once the law got wind of what I did. It's the sort of thing a stupid, desperate person would do.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Ah, summoning gems! I was trying to think about simple magic traps that could be triggered. Blast Trap is an IQ 17 spell, a bit specialized for what I wanted, but summoning gems could totally work to make a mechanical trap with a magical effect. How to arm and disarm the trap without making it a key in a lock situation which could be easily Knocked? Perhaps a mechanical timer inside the vault, set each night to activate the trap for a number of hours. (A simple timeglass would do.)

Yes, that works reasonably well. Thanks!

Proxy doesn't work for my purposes, since it suffers from a similar problem as Ward. What self-respecting wizard capable of making a proxy would spend his evenings concentrating to detect intruders?

I'm starting to realize that the solution for my immediate problem is simple. The bank should be difficult but nowhere near impossible to rob. It's a small town bank and security measures should reflect that (as should the size of its holdings). I can go with a few traps and reasonably competent guards outside the vault.

Teleporting wizards, however, would remain an issue. I thought about random placement of barrels, thinking that it would make a hazard for a wizard teleporting blind, but the RAW says merely that "You cannot teleport into a solid object," not that you get annihilated when you do so.

Insubstantiality also makes casing the bank pretty easy to do.

And Open Tunnel seems to make expensive, thick steel vaults a cinch to get into.

But, I suppose, I should just accept that all life is dukkha and doubly so in Cidri. When it comes to stuff, the holding is not any easier than the taking. Perhaps the players will cotton to the idea of knocking over a bank, but let's see how long they hold onto their ill-gotten gains.

This capitulation at least makes my idea of the PCs thwarting a party of bank robbers reasonable. Best not to think too hard about broad economic implications.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I think you're right.

I guess, to be honest, I'm less concerned with PC abuse than what it means for banks to be vulnerable. But in the end, reasonably powerful wizards should have loftier goals than knocking off a bank. I just don't want a simple spell like Knock to have an oversized effect on basic economic security. I've given up on keeping even mildly powerful wizards completely out (Open Tunnel is IQ 13 and ST 10 to cast!). The only solution is try to throw a few bodies at them, some gas bombs, that sort of thing.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I particularly agree with Lars on 3). That is, Knock and even Open Tunnel do not cause a big adjustment to how hard things are to protect compared to the real world, where burglary can also break into almost any house, and explosive demolition can get through safes and walls, and even an unloaded or fake pistol, or a piece of paper threatening violence, can be used to rob a bank.

Again, security can be provided by guards, a building that's not just one simply-locked door keeping thieves away from the money, and the desire for self-preservation of would-be thieves. If you're smart enough to figure out how to rob a bank, mostly you're smart enough to figure out that you're liable to get your life destroyed if you do.

For example, a bank, even with zero magical protection, might be:

* Located in a safe / wealthy / noble part of a city, which has various vigilant people and a guard force capable of shutting down a group of armed adventurers or brigands intent on chaos of any kind. It might be fairly close to a palace or guild halls, etc, so starting mayhem there may be additionally foolish.

* The bank building may be large and stately, with an entrance with multiple doors leading to a foyer, with multiple doors and halls beyond that, and finding out where the vault is may be itself a challenge.

* There will no doubt be some sort of guards, whose number and locations may be non-trivial to discover, and their first job will be to raise an alarm somehow on intrusion.

* There may be various alarm cords or alarm traps that ring bells that the local authorities will recognize as the "bank under attack" bells.

* The approach to the vault may involve multiple doors.

* The doors for the vault may not be susceptible to Knock anyway. Surely a mechanician can design a vault door that isn't a simple matter to unlock, but involves doing a few things with levers/buttons/etc that a Knock spell wouldn't help with, and/or that may react if someone tries to open them improperly. In fact, it seems to me you could design a door so that a Knock spell will open one lock, but there's a device that responds to that lock being opened, by dropping a bar that no Knock spell will help with, and/or lowering a few portcullises in various places and setting off an alarm, neatly trapping everyone nearby.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

The ease of bank robbery shows why Cidri is feudal instead of capitalist.

You're not robbing the bank because there are no banks.

Instead you're robbing a guild or noble.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I'm trying to keep fairly close to the world described in RAW and there are banks in Cidri.

As well, I suppose, I could point out that there is nothing about feudalism that is inconsistent with banks and moneylending, far as I can reckon. A brief glance at the WP article on the history of banking shows that merchant banks were in Lombardy in the middle ages, which I presume was primarily feudal at the time.

But all of this is tangential to my interests. I have gotten good ideas in this thread and agree with the consensus that banks aren't impregnable to desperate folks willing to take the risk. Just make them risky to rob and the dangers afterwards commensurate with the offense and it will all take care of itself.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Unlocking a door doesn't disarm a trap.

Perhaps banks would have multiple vaults to make it tougher to take it all in one go.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

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.)

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

That's a reasonable option. Otherwise, Locksmith is strictly much worse than Knock. I don't think the text supports the variable number of dice for the wizard (ITL 40) however.

Suppose there's a 6/DX lock with two Lock spells. A locksmith rolls 8/DX to open it. A wizard (according to RAW and depending on what counts as "ordinary") rolls 3/DX three times. The locksmith with 15 DX has about 0.4% chance to succeed in one minute, while the wizard with 10 DX has 1/8 probability to unlock it in three spell castings.

If we instead suppose that the wizard has to roll the same dice as the lock, then he throws 3/DX twice and 6/DX once. In this case, if the wizard also has DX 15, he's still got a 9% or so chance to unlock the door, so still better off than the locksmith, but that's understandable since undoing a Lock spell ought to be easier than powering through it like the smith.

This might be a reasonable house rule. In the end, however, I'm not sure how much it matters, since Open Tunnel rules the day.

Anthony's suggestion is interesting too (a lock can be gummied by using some Unobtainium and preventing Knock from working at all).

So is Skarg's idea of a lock that disables itself if a Knock is cast on it. It seems to me that Skarg's idea sounds too much like triggering a trap, which a successful Knock never does.

Anyway, some things to think about. I appreciate all the advice.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I don't know; this is turning into one of those threads where we try to think of new rules to render useless something that's been in the game for 40 years (see also: bola, net, etc.). Wouldn't it be easier to decide that if you don't like a spell or item that much you can edit it out of your campaign and that's the end of it?

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

It's more a case of "given that these spells exist, how would a rational person interested in keeping his property secure accomplish it".

The lazy but annoying answer is that instead of a 6d lock you just put twenty 3d locks on the door and the wizard-thief runs out of ST long before he unlocks the door.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

At present, I'm planning on living with it as is. A vault by itself can't deter a stubborn wizard with the right spells. Locks by themselves are more or less like padlocks in the real world. They only deter folks who don't want to go to the trouble of buying bolt cutters. They are a nudge towards honesty, not an obstacle to determined thieves.

So I've been interested in the other deterrent means. Alarms, guards and traps are a little more deterrent, enough to keep the newbies out, but they also have their limits.

In the end, banks can be knocked over, especially the small town bank I'm thinking about. I'm fine with that, but I do like thinking about what an intelligent and powerful character with significant resources would do if he had something extraordinarily valuable that could not be carried on his person. It's a fairly natural thing to wonder, since our players are sometimes thieving scoundrels.

And, of course, so are some NPCs, even some fairly tough ones.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I think the problem with extrapolating what would happen if such and such a spell existed in a world in which Magic is not uncommon, is that the consequences can’t really be predicted with any certainty.

On another forum, I made a statement that “Castles (of the high fantasy medieval sort) would not exist if the Open Tunnel spell existed. This led to a spirited argument but no agreement.

I still have Castles in my games, even though I don’t think they would exist. And I’ll still have lock/knock although I agree that it’s existence would have unintended consequences. I just choose to ignore them.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Ignoring consequences is a pretty good option, one I take most of the time.

However, those consequences sometimes have to be dealt with, to at least some extent. My adventure was a bank robbery so I had to think about what kind of security a bank would have. My player's wizard has Knock, so he knows about that spell. I can't just totally ignore the consequences in that case, because the whole premise of the robbery would look silly.

In the same way, if you want to ignore the consequences of Open Tunnel when it comes to castle sieges, you had better not make a siege adventure. To be fair, you probably weren't going to anyway, since TFT is scaled at smaller battles.

Same thing came up with gates for me. I already had planned some material about trade routes when I realized that if gates are even kind of common, no one would haul very valuable materials by wagon or ship (because there would be money to be made producing gates for those purposes). Perhaps I could have ignored this consequence, but at some point, a player will realize that something is off. I'd prefer not to have that happen if I can avoid it.

I'm still ignoring a pretty big hole in my adventure. The robbers are digging a tunnel towards the bank. How the heck are they getting rid of the tailings? If my players think about it, I'll kinda look foolish, but I'm reckoning they won't and hoping for the best. Otherwise, this conspiracy is going to have to grow rather a lot and work slow rather a lot. (Fortunately, ignoring this detail has a long history in RPGs. There are often ghoul warrens beneath graveyards. Where did all the dirt go?)

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

There is an idea. Have the bankers invite a ghost (or other spirit) from UNLIFE to inhabit the vault at night. Have it warn the constablery if the safe is tampered with. Or perhaps Scare the theives.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

The current banker is the grandson of the miser ghost who is obsessed with counting exactly the number of each type of coin.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I think Knock may work on ordinary locks, but if a smart vault designers knows that, then they may choose not to use ordinary locks at all, or in any case not to rely on them.

In the modern world, with no Knock, a burglar can generally break into most places, as long as they're not caught. It's not that windows and doors can't be got through without Knock.

Again, in worlds without Knock, no bank or other secure place relies on the supposed unopenableness of a door to protect valuable things. Doors and even bank vaults are there to make theft slower and more difficult, but its the guards and police and the risk of imprisonment etc that are the main deterants.

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.

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


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.

In one campaign, we were trying to rescue someone from an underground cell in a city, and what we did was buy or lease a house somewhat nearby, which lacked attentive neighbors and used it as a base for mining operations. Yeah, it's not easy, even with some spells. Tailings do take up a lot of space. What to do? :-)

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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

Yes, I stumbled across that thread today.


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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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 :)

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

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.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

"The robbers will be identified"

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

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Wizards ARE running the place, aren't they?

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

My take is that the WG polices their own because they are in desperate need of warm bodies to power their enchantments. Ergo they must have that 90% approval rating and make public examples of any wizard who steps out of line in an obvious way.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

That would be good, except that there are details that require the bandits to be longtime residents who have personal incentives to strike at this particular bank. Following the robbery, they will have to leave town I reckon, but their identities will be known fairly easily.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Banks tend to have layers of security. Most of which has been already covered here: guards, locks, traps, alarms

And yes Knock spell is only 2 ST, but 5 different locks will still take 10 ST to get through. Layers. Many doors with many locks.

Has anyone mentioned Gates? "Control Gate" is a IQ 18 spell, so it would take an advanced wizard to alter the gate. That is, gates can have rules that governs who can travel through them and to which other gate, etc. A gate that only allows the bank manager through to a cavern without exit deep in a mountain will be hard to break into. And if that gate also takes anyone else to another cavern but the reverse trip is only allowed by the manager. Bank robbers will find them selves fighting their way out of a deep dungeon.

The would be bank robbers would have to defeat guards, locks, traps and alarms only to go through a gate to a far away place with no immediate return.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Yes, I've thought about gates as a means of controlling access to the vault. I haven't gone with that solution yet, just because it is a bit too much magic in a pedestrian enterprise for my taste.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Maintaining gates requires so much wizard power that the presence of a gate network requires 90% popularity for the WG.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Yeah, using a gate for an inaccessible vault for something valuable means you really want a gate wizard around every time you use the gate, in case it starts to flicker out...

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Problem is that a single gate wizard will require a 45+ powerstone for maintenance, which requires a $225 refill after every use, on top of the wizard's salary.

For high traffic areas (i.e. gate stations) you keep at least half a dozen apprentices around and in the usual case a dozen total wizards to handle double failures.

This is why I've found that nobody can afford to run a low-traffic gate network. (Tollenkar is losing massive amounts of money in his operations so go arrest whoever it is that is bankrolling him.)

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Only your ST 6 wizards need a 45+ powerstone.

Normal wizards only need about 40 other ST from some combination of sources, either powerstones, people casting Aid ST, or the new Legacy staff mana.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Right. An IQ 18 wizard will have up to 18 or 36 mana points in his staff. Together with his ST, that's only one apprentice needed (assuming he has Staff V and has spent a *lot* of experience on the staff).

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Yes. Although, the more mana and other power an IQ 18 wizard has access to, the less I'm liable to expect him to want to do routine bank vault safety duty.

Though one mitigating strategy, is to make sure there are always at least two gates to a otherwise-inaccessible treasure vault, and NEVER use the last gate unless you're in a position to create a replacement. (Because you might crit fail and use all your mana trying to stabilize the gate... meaning no second chance unless you had 100 ST available.)

If you have a backup gate, then you don't have to have the gate wizard present for every crossing. You just need him to make you a new gate to replace when one goes down.

Of course, it becomes a problem if circumstances ever develop that there is no gate wizard available, and you really need to access the vault...

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

I.e. that's the case for ensuring that each gate has at least one side at a gate station that has a dozen wizards on duty.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

A separate Transport Guild shouldn't need to worry about popularity because of its massive revenues (like Dune's Guild).

It would maintain a lock on the Gate and Control Gate spells through threats, and assassination, and divination.

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

Gate stations should have maintenance gates connecting to at least a few service hubs. When a gate starts to flicker, automatic systems alert a service crew. Redundant gates allow service to continue while a crew is on its way. They would use a Gate to get there, so that involves a risk of Gate failure of course.

In a dire emergency where a Gate station becomes completely cut off, the Guild would call in a special agent with knowledge of their Gate stations, Long Distance Teleport, Gate, and Control Gate, carrying power stones and several limited wishes.

These agents would be formidable but probably also make good hostages. Someone could probably lure one by destroying all the Gates at a station...

Re: How does anything stay locked?
 

The two spells backing every gate station are Create Gate and Ward.

Anybody with hostile intent who steps into your gate network faces a dozen alerted wizards and the muggle guards. And there is no saving throw against this alarm.

For a minimal defensive setup see Hexagram #4, page 32. Your orcs of ill intent step into a room that has 15 pacifists, 3 of whom are wizards plus a dozen unarmed heroes who lack weapon talents. The hardest part is finding the addresses to send letters to the families of these dearly departed orcs.