Use this skill to fake a written order from the duchess instructing a jailer to release prisoners, to create an authentic-looking treasure map, or to detect forgeries that others try to pass off.
Check: Forgery requires writing materials appropriate to the document being forged, enough light or sufficient visual acuity to see the details of what you’re writing, wax for seals (if appropriate), and some time. To forge a document on which the handwriting is not specific to a person (military orders, a government decree, a business ledger or the like), you need only to have seen a similar document before, and you gain a +8 bonus on your check. To forge a signature, you need an autograph of that person to copy, and you gain a +4 bonus on the check. To forge a longer document written in the hand of some particular person, a large sample of that person’s handwriting is needed.
The Forgery check is made secretly, so that you’re not sure how good your forgery is. As with Disguise, you don’t even need to make a check until someone examines the work. Your Forgery check is opposed by the Forgery check of the person who examines the document to check its authenticity. The examiner gains modifiers on his or her check if any of the conditions on the table below exist.
Forge Document Without Sample (Epic): You can forge a document without having seen a similar document or having a sample of the handwriting to be copied.
| Condition | Reader’s Forgery Check Modifier |
|---|---|
| Type of document unknown to reader | -2 |
| Type of document somewhat known to reader | +0 |
| Type of document well known to reader | +2 |
| Handwriting not known to reader | -2 |
| Handwriting somewhat known to reader | +0 |
| Handwriting intimately known to reader | +2 |
| Reader only casually reviews the document | -2 |
| Document was forged without having seen a similar document or having a sample of the handwriting to be copied | +50 |
| Make a false magic scroll or spellbook | +5 to Forgery DC |
A document that contradicts procedure, orders or previous knowledge, or one that requires sacrifice on the part of the person checking the document can increase that character’s suspicion (and thus create favourable circumstances for the checker’s opposing Forgery check).
Official documents can provide an excellent means of proving yourself and reinforcing your point. With properly forged documents — created with a normal use of the Forgery skill and opposed by the viewer’s Forgery check (or an Intelligence check for those without ranks in Forgery) — you can gain special bonuses to certain skills due to synergy.
You can forge documents that grant a +2 circumstance bonus on a specific Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate check. These false credentials become, in effect, the perfect tool for the job and provide a bonus much like the bonuses provided to other skills by masterwork tools. Unlike other bonuses, these apply only when you present the documents and the creature you are interacting with does not detect the forgery. If you present forged documents and they are detected as a forgery, the check you were attempting to use the documents for automatically fails. It is possible that there may be additional repercussions in such situations.
Action: Forging a very short and simple document takes about 1 minute. A longer or more complex document takes 1d4 minutes per page.
Try Again: Usually, no. A retry is never possible after a particular reader detects a particular forgery. But the document created by the forger might still fool someone else. The result of a Forgery check for a particular document must be used for every instance of a different reader examining the document. No reader can attempt to detect a particular forgery more than once; if that one opposed check goes in favour of the forger, then the reader can’t try using his own skill again, even if he’s suspicious about the document.
Special: If you have the Deceitful feat, you get a +2 bonus on Forgery checks.
Synergy: At the DM’s discretion, you can forge documents that grant a +2 circumstance bonus on a specific Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate check. These false credentials become, in effect, the perfect tool for the job and provide a bonus much like the bonuses provided to other skills by masterwork tools. Unlike other bonuses, these apply only when you present the documents and the creature you are interacting with does not detect the forgery. If you present forged documents and they are detected as a forgery, the check you were attempting to use the documents for automatically fails. The DM is also free to rule that there are other repercussions in such situations.
Restriction: Forgery is language-dependent; thus, to forge documents and detect forgeries, you must be able to read and write the language in question. A Barbarian can’t learn the Forgery skill unless he has learned to read and write.
Source: Player’s Handbook (Page 74), Complete Adventurer (Page 100), Epic Level Handbook (Page 41), Magic of Faerûn (Page 21)