Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Legerdemain

Legerdemain

Key Attribute: Dexterity

Legerdemain is an active skill involving distraction, deception, and dexterity. With it you can trick people in combat, lighten pockets, poison drinks, conceal weapons on your person, and perform other feats of misdirection. Return to Top

Check Modifiers

Situation	Check Result Modifier	Example

Untrained Uses

Feint

The legerdemain skill is used to Feint in combat, tricking your opponent into opening themselves to your attacks. Contrary to what the text says in the SRD, you do not use Bluff for this ability (at least not with this revision). See the section on feinting in combat for more information.

Rank 1 Uses

Conceal Object

Hiding contraband on yourself so you can walk it through a checkpoint or carry it into a peace treaty is a time-honored tradition. As a full-round action, you can hide an object on your person. Your check result, modified by circumstances as in the table above and the size of he item, sets the Perception DC for someone to find the hidden object while searching you. You can also hide object on any other willing or helpless target, but the adjustments for item size are made against their size.

Retrieving an hidden object is a full-round action unless the object was placed to be easily retrievable, in which case it can be retrieved with whatever action you would need to draw a weapon. Retrievable items are of course easier for someone else to notice.

Base DC: None.
Check Result: Your check result is used as the base Perception DC for someone to notice the object you are attempting to hide. Modify your check result with the above table.

Rank 4 Uses

Conceal Action

Things to conceal...

You can use the Conceal Action ability for a lot of things. Simple sleight of hand like coin palming, card tricks, swapping a card with the one up your sleeve, and cheating at Three-card Monte is well within the scope of the ability. You can use it for more nefarious things like slipping poison into a cup while carrying it, trying to pickpocket someone, or hiding the fact that you’re holding a knife to someone’s back from the rest of the public. You can use it to hide that you drank a potion or that you poured your mug into the potted plant behind you. You can use it to hide a quick item toss, though you must be able to actually move the item and the further you move the object the harder it is to hide that you did it. Yes that means you can hide a ranged attack with a dagger or flask; your target would know if it got hit but not necessarily where it came from. You can use it for more amusing things, like hiding the target of a non-weapon disarm attack so that your opponent thinks you missed right before their pants fall off, and you could probably kidnap fae with it as well (though they would certain know). Just as there are lots of stage tricks that rely on small misdirections, there are lots of things you can try to use this ability on.

Sometimes, you just don’t want people to notice exactly what it is that you’re doing. You can actually hide small actions while under scrutiny so that no one is the wiser. There are lots of example uses for this ability, and they are wide enough that it’s worth pointing a few of them out. You can find them in the sidebar. You can only easily conceal actions taken on targets three or more sizes smaller than yourself with this ability, so coin purses, cards, knives, someone else’s bootlaces, and the like are all fair game. The object may not be held by another person. You can attempt to conceal actions with larger items, but you suffer a -4 penalty for items two sizes smaller than yourself and a -10 penalty for items one size smaller than yourself.

Generally this ability is used at the same time as the action that is to be hidden occurs. As such it uses no action of its own; the check is simply made in addition to the action taking place. The result of this check sets the DC for a witness to notice the attempt with a perception check, and anyone paying attention to you gets to make this check as a free action. Note that perception abilities are continuously active in a “take 0” state, and it is possible that you could attempt to hide something and be spotted even without the crowd actively watching you. Your check result has no impact on the success or failure of the action that you are trying to hide, and onlookers can spot both failed attempts and successful ones.

Base DC: None.
Check Result: Your check result is used as the base Perception DC for someone to notice the action you are attempting to hide. Modify your check result with the above table.

Improved Feint

You can feint as a move-equivalent action. If you wait until next round to attack the target, you may not move more than 5’ before making the attack and they are only flat-footed against your next attack even if you take a full attack action. This ability replaces the Improved Feint feat.

Rank 6 Uses

Plant Evidence

Instead of concealing that you’re taking something from another person, you can conceal that you’re placing something on them instead. Planting something on a person is resolved as a pickpocket attempt, and follows that procedure. This otherwise follows all the rules of conceal action.

Ventriloquism

You can throw your voice so that it appears to come from someone or somewhere other than yourself. This ability has limits, your voice can not come out of thin air with this ability; you must pick an object to act as a source. This is a standard action, and you must succeed on a Legerdemain check with a DC of 10 + the distance (in feet) from you to the object you wish your voice to come from. If you remain stationary and do not change targets, you do not need to make any further checks. If you move or wish to send your voice from a different place, you must make a new check.

A successful check does not mean that no one can trace you back to the source. A successful perception check against your check result +5 allows a listener to hear through your trick and locate the source of your voice.

Base DC: 10 + distance to object
Check Result: A successful check also sets the DC, your result +5, to hear through your ruse.

Rank 8 Uses

Disappearing Pig Trick

You can conceal actions taken on targets up to one size smaller than your size without penalty. You can try to conceal actions taken on an object of the same size as you with a -4 penalty, and one size larger than you with a -10 penalty. This is useful for quickly shifting a friend out of sight of the guards or looting greatswords from barbarian chieftains, among other things. Hiding objects this large after the move may prove problematic, but as long as you can move them out of sight or just convince people that you’re not doing it there shouldn’t be any issues.

Possibly more useful, however, is that you can also conceal actions taken on objects that are being wielded or actively paid attention to by someone else. You can swap someone’s short sword with a rubber chicken mid-fight or exchange their potion of cure serious wounds with a nasty poison, if you want. The object must be three or more sizes smaller than you, though you can attempt to conceal actions on larger object with the standard penalties. This otherwise follows all the rules of conceal action.

Rank 12 Uses

I Can Work With That

You can also conceal actions taken on rather large objects that are being wielded or actively paid attention to by someone else. You can swap someone’s longsword with a cursed version to trick them into activating it mid-fight or even cut into a romantic embrace at just the right time, you really are that good. The object of your action may be no larger than one size smaller than your size, though you can attempt to conceal actions on larger object with the standard penalties. This otherwise follows all the rules of conceal action.