Lookout (sage ability)

Lookout is an amateur-status sage ability in the study of Burglary that enables the character to distract outsiders while another character commits burglary or other criminal activity, while also giving subtle warning to the perpetrator of the crime.

The lookout may employ a number of strategies to ensure that they are not themselves noticed loitering around on a street, such as dressing up as a watchman, a beggar, a woman in distress (who will then ask for help of any passers-by, ensuring they are distracted) a waiting cabbie or as an injured person. The lookout will be very convincing, like an actor in a theatrical troupe. The lookout should also be ready to do whatever it takes to protect the burglar and help him or her get away — even to knock on the door of a residence that’s being robbed, if the inhabitants should awaken while the burglar is inside.

Signals of varying kinds will be set up as warnings: a bird call, a bright flag or flash of light, a lighted cigar, speaking in a voice a little louder than normal, calling out a fictional person’s name, as though the lookout were trying to find someone, the releasing of a trained animal and of course a host of possible spells that could be used by a multi-classed thief. The chance of the “inside man” identifying the signal is an intelligence check, which receives a bonus modifier of +1 per level of the active burglar.

The lookout will absolutely be able to buy 2-8 rounds of attention from up to four persons with some contrived story or distraction (a fifth person, however, is apt to wander off and seek their own answers; there is only so much a lookout can do.) After those rounds of attention expire, successive charisma checks (with no bonus for the lookout's level) will each buy another 2-8 rounds.