Pants Exploded

[Vhaidara]

So, I just had an idea. Sleight of Hand to reverse pick pocket an alchemist's delayed bomb to simulate the Pants Exploded trick from the recent Fallout games. Anyone ever tried this before? Advice for making it effective?

[Elricaltovilla]

You'd need a pretty high sleight of hand and stealth in order to pull it off. Probably want invisibility too, or greater invisibility if your DM rules that planting the bomb is an offensive action. There's a few tricks you can use to up the damage on the target too, like the Targeted Bomb Admixture.

I could see homebrewing a feat or alchemist discovery that lets you threaten a critical hit with the bomb if you successfully plant it on someone.

[Snowbluff]

... You could not use bombs, and just stab the guy.

Damage is most important. You're not killing the guy in one hit with the basic bomb damage.

Actually, I'll do you one better. Put a Symbol of Insanity on rock in his pocket, with a voice trigger. Let him walk into a mob, and trigger the Symbol. Make him wonder why he's cause insanity for 10 minutes per level.

[Vhaidara]

... You could not use bombs, and just stab the guy.

Damage is most important. You're not killing the guy in one hit with the basic bomb damage.

Actually, I'll do you one better. Put a Symbol of Insanity in his pocket, with a voice trigger. Let him walk into a mob, and trigger the Symbol.

Snowbluff, that is fundamentally unhelpful. The question here was how to reverse pickpocket bombs effectively, not how to stab someone.

Also, this is how you initiate. Reverse pickpocket bombs around a group of enemies, all timed to go off at about the same time (you get an 8 round window at minimum level for Delayed Bomb).

Like I said, this is for fun more than effectiveness.

[Extra Anchovies]

Alchemist bombs don't have size or weight statistics (an ounce of liquid catalyst is mentioned, but it's combined with other components to make the full bomb), so whether you can blow up someone's pants (and the Sleight of Hand DC to do so) is up to your DM

... You could not use bombs, and just stab the guy.

Damage is most important. You're not killing the guy in one hit with the basic bomb damage.

Actually, I'll do you one better. Put a Symbol of Insanity on rock in his pocket, with a voice trigger. Let him walk into a mob, and trigger the Symbol. Make him wonder why he's cause insanity for 10 minutes per level.

You're missing the point. Damage is not most important. Exploding pants is.

Exploding.

Pants.

[Vhaidara]

For perspective, the other inspiration for this was one of my fellow players in another game who was using explosive runes.
Sorc: Here's your new orders (super high Bluff)
Mook: Reads, explodes
Sorcerer: Oops, sorry, that one was for the traitor in the other post. Here are your real orders! (higher bluff check, opposed by very low Sense Motive)
Mook: Reads, explodes

Also, I think this might work as a reversed Steal Combat Maneuver

[Snowbluff]

Like I said, this is for fun more than effectiveness.

Actually, you didn't. In fact this statement is blatantly contradictory to the information given in the OP.

I think the problem is if you drop them on people, you can't count that as an attack roll, right? That limits the kinds of damage we can do. I mean, adding some damage is exactly what I said. Using the targeted bombs lowers the damage done by splash.

As for actually doing, Magic Jar to palm the bombs, then exit the body?

[ericgrau]

I think this is well within the rules already. Make a sleight of hand check with the same DC as pickpocketing against a flat-footed foe. Which often means this is done out of combat, during the surprise round, or if you were hiding before combat began. It's DC 20 unless PF changed it.

I say flat-footed because that's the closest approximation I have of when this would work by what makes sense. Actually it's up to the DM when the attempt should be reasonable. Probably not in open combat when you are fully visible.

Yeah the damage isn't that impressive anyway.

If I were DMing I would ad hoc it as automatic damage, pocket is gone and everything in the pocket falls out.

[Hamste]

You could also ask for a refluffed deceptive exchange?

[Vhaidara]

Snowbluff, the premise of a thread entitled "Pants Exploded" is attempting to make a character who explodes pants, and then make that as effective as you can. It's like someone saying "Make me a Wizard" and you go "hey, you should play a fighter!"

You could also ask for a refluffed deceptive exchange?

This would be?

[Snowbluff]

Snowbluff, the premise of a thread entitled "Pants Exploded" is attempting to make a character who explodes pants, and then make that as effective as you can. It's like someone saying "Make me a Wizard" and you go "hey, you should play a fighter!"

No, that really won't do. I gave you the solution, you just assumed I didn't over a miscommunication.

1) Magic Jar from a scroll, or from a build that has bombs and the spell IDC.
2) Possess Mook
3) Draw Bombs (techinically not on your person)
4) Set bomb on delay
5) "Palm" (or hide it in a pocket or something) bomb with sleight of hand
6) Leave body. Bomb is longer in contact with Alchemist, timer starts.
7) Pants explode.

Repeat steps 2 through 7 for the duration of Magic Jar. If you're fast you could do this to a lot of people at once, but I think you can have only 1 delayed bomb. The good news is that a build that can use magic jar can also probably substitute the bombs with a delayed blast fireball, which can probably break pants a little better.

The only problem is if the bomb is considered to be in the possession of the new holder, and if Delayed Bombs deactivate if that happens. If delayed bombs are deactivated that way, then the whole idea probably wouldn't work anyway.

This is assuming you won't ignore this post to so because it doesn't require reverse pickpocketing, even though it explodes the most pants. It does legally use Sleight of Hand, but you're not planting them on others so much as you're planting them on yourself.

[Reprimand]

2) Possess Mook

Wouldn't you then be using the (probably) crappy sleight of hand of the mook?

[ericgrau]

Wouldn't you then be using the (probably) crappy sleight of hand of the mook?

Nope. Your skill ranks are a mental ability so you use your own. You'd use the mook's dex but that only goes so far compared to skill ranks.

[nedz]

If you were to pull this off then you must remember to monologue "Liar, Liar, ..." at the appropriate moment also.

[Ashtagon]

... You could not use bombs, and just stab the guy.

Damage is most important. You're not killing the guy in one hit with the basic bomb damage.

Actually, I'll do you one better. Put a Symbol of Insanity on rock in his pocket, with a voice trigger. Let him walk into a mob, and trigger the Symbol. Make him wonder why he's cause insanity for 10 minutes per level.

Can't work. Symbol spells need to be clearly visible and in a prominent location to the intended subject(s) in order to take effect on them.