So you got yourself a rogue. either hes your standard crime and chaos type or hes something special one thing that comes standard for all of them is Thieves Cant. but theres often one major issue with your party. unless you have another rogue most everybody doesnt understand it. so heres the situation: your rogue suspects the NPC you are with is trying to kill you all and he needs to tell the others, but how can he when the NPC never gives you any chance? you attempt to speak in thieves cant to your ally and they pass their intelligence check to know its thieves cant now to decipher it. heres where my idea comes in. a second check to actually decipher the message should be made like a battle. the rogue rolls a d20. thats the roll to beat showing how intelligently they hid their message. the rogue can choose to add their intelligence modifier or not depending how important the message is. the NPC and anyone nearby who passed the check to know its thieves cant can attempt to decipher the message by beating the rogues roll. it adds a level of hardness to the thieves cant language. the easier it is to understand the message the more danger you could be putting your party in that an unintended recipient will understand it. what are your thoughts on this?
it might just be easier to say the rogue can teach each party memeber a few words of thieves cant, not enough to actually speak it or carry a conversation but words that might just give them a heads up.
limit it to each party member can learn one word of thieves cant per point of intelligence modifer.
For example, The rogue might then teach them the word for "Danger" "Untrustworthy" "Magic" etc that way the rogue just says or performs the thieves cant action and they get the gist, so the action for word "untrustworthy" may mean the rogue says "I trust him" whilst rubbing his left ear or "Magic" might be a sniff and a wink whilst rubbing the back of their neck and rubbing a hand over the hilt of his dagger to convey "Danger".
The trouble is you aren't supposed to be able to decipher "secret" langiages such as thieves cant and druidic without actually being taught it by some one who already speaks it.
You could use a DC system similar to the Linguist feat for a secret message (being Intelligence score + Prof bonus to set the DC) and then you can use passive checks which might speed things up a bit.
Keep in mind that the idea of thieves cant came from the British rhyming slang. It wasn't really a 'secret' language so much as something the lower classes grew up hearing while the upper class did not.
Blowing a Raspberry came from raspberry tart = raspberry fart.
During your rogue training you learned thieves’ cant, a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation.
...but (and I'm no Sage Advisor) it seems to me that it's intended to be too complicated for the uninitiated to decode outside of magical means.
Instead of all those checks and secondary checks, plan ahead. Work out signals among party members instead - your own secret code. That way, an opponent who knows the patterns of Thieves' Cant won't be any the wiser.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
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So you got yourself a rogue. either hes your standard crime and chaos type or hes something special one thing that comes standard for all of them is Thieves Cant. but theres often one major issue with your party. unless you have another rogue most everybody doesnt understand it. so heres the situation: your rogue suspects the NPC you are with is trying to kill you all and he needs to tell the others, but how can he when the NPC never gives you any chance? you attempt to speak in thieves cant to your ally and they pass their intelligence check to know its thieves cant now to decipher it. heres where my idea comes in. a second check to actually decipher the message should be made like a battle. the rogue rolls a d20. thats the roll to beat showing how intelligently they hid their message. the rogue can choose to add their intelligence modifier or not depending how important the message is. the NPC and anyone nearby who passed the check to know its thieves cant can attempt to decipher the message by beating the rogues roll. it adds a level of hardness to the thieves cant language. the easier it is to understand the message the more danger you could be putting your party in that an unintended recipient will understand it. what are your thoughts on this?
Just making opposed bluff and insight rolls would be much simpler.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
it might just be easier to say the rogue can teach each party memeber a few words of thieves cant, not enough to actually speak it or carry a conversation but words that might just give them a heads up.
limit it to each party member can learn one word of thieves cant per point of intelligence modifer.
For example, The rogue might then teach them the word for "Danger" "Untrustworthy" "Magic" etc that way the rogue just says or performs the thieves cant action and they get the gist, so the action for word "untrustworthy" may mean the rogue says "I trust him" whilst rubbing his left ear or "Magic" might be a sniff and a wink whilst rubbing the back of their neck and rubbing a hand over the hilt of his dagger to convey "Danger".
The trouble is you aren't supposed to be able to decipher "secret" langiages such as thieves cant and druidic without actually being taught it by some one who already speaks it.
You could use a DC system similar to the Linguist feat for a secret message (being Intelligence score + Prof bonus to set the DC) and then you can use passive checks which might speed things up a bit.
Keep in mind that the idea of thieves cant came from the British rhyming slang. It wasn't really a 'secret' language so much as something the lower classes grew up hearing while the upper class did not.
Blowing a Raspberry came from raspberry tart = raspberry fart.
Top of Rome meant 'home'
Etc.
Hiding in plain sight. Thieves' Cant
...but (and I'm no Sage Advisor) it seems to me that it's intended to be too complicated for the uninitiated to decode outside of magical means.
Instead of all those checks and secondary checks, plan ahead. Work out signals among party members instead - your own secret code. That way, an opponent who knows the patterns of Thieves' Cant won't be any the wiser.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.