Torn Forgery Guide: Every Project, Skill Multiplier and Safe Route to CS 100

Every step costs 5 nerve

Projects run from 4 steps to 12, so a single completion costs between 20 and 60 nerve before any failures. Each step also consumes one or two components, meaning a full project can eat twenty materials.

Steps carry risk labels

Some steps are marked risky and are more likely to fail. Some are marked dangerous and are very likely to fail. These markers are the main thing separating a safe project from a nerve sink.

Some steps have cooldowns

Printing a document or waiting for paint to dry locks the project until the timer expires. You cannot rush it, so running several projects in parallel is the natural way to play.

Some tools lock during use

Printers lock during Printing steps, and Sand locks during Mold Forming and Casting. If you want parallel projects, you need duplicate copies of those two specifically.

Buy a second printer early if you intend to run projects side by side. It is the single most common bottleneck.

All regular steps pay the same

Regardless of risk level, project, step type or materials used, every non-final step grants identical crime skill. There is no such thing as a more valuable middle step.

Only the final step differs

Completing a project applies a multiplier based on which project it was. That multiplier is the entire reason to choose one project over another.

The multiplier cuts both ways

A critical failure on the final step is multiplied too. This is why the Passport, at 750%, is genuinely dangerous rather than simply slow.

Prescription is the hidden gem

Four steps, a 250% multiplier, and the only project above 200% rated safe. At CS 50 it is comfortably the best risk-adjusted option in the crime.

Passport is a trap for most players

Twelve steps at 5 nerve each is 60 nerve minimum, it is rated unsafe, and its 750% multiplier applies equally to a critical failure at the end. Losing a Passport at step eleven costs more than several completed Driver's Licences were worth.

Travel Visa is the sensible mid-game target

Five steps, 350%, unsafe but manageable at higher skill. It is the standard recommendation for CS 50 onwards precisely because it balances multiplier against step count.

Route 1: Driver's Licences all the way

Four steps, safe, and almost no material cost. You will reach maximum skill with very few critical failures. The cost is nerve, considerably more of it than the alternative, and you finish with none of the forged items used in later crimes and organised crimes.

Route 2: Licences to CS 50, then Travel Visas

Run Driver's Licences until Travel Visas unlock at CS 50, then switch. This maximises both progression and profit without the material costs of Passports. If you want License Plates for future crimes, swapping to them around CS 90 costs little progression.

Route 2 is the better default. Route 1 only wins if materials are scarce or expensive for you.

Avoid risky-step projects while levelling

Anything that reduces crit frequency speeds you up more than a higher multiplier does. Sticking to the first three projects early, then the safe higher-tier ones, beats chasing multipliers you cannot land.

Ordinary failures only cost materials

A failed step consumes whatever consumables it was going to use and nothing else. No jail, no hospital, no skill loss.

Critical failures roll back progress

How far depends on the project and the step. A crit mid-project typically undoes one or two steps. A crit at the end can scrap the project entirely, or for documents send you back to the printing stage.

You can lose the tool you were using

Occasionally a crit destroys the tool in play, such as a printer during printing or a perforator while finishing a concert ticket. Keep spares of the tools you rely on.

There is no jail in this crime

Forgery has no known jail outcomes, and going by in-game reporting it is not expected to gain any. That makes it unusually safe to grind while doing other things.

Documented Success: reach CS 100

Either route above gets you there. Route 2 is faster in nerve terms.

Assembly Line: ten of the same project on cooldown at once

Printing steps do not count. The clean method is to reach CS 25 and start ten License Plates, because step two, Background Painting, carries a one-hour cooldown. That is a comfortable window to line all ten up.

This is the one honor bar in Crimes 2.0 that can be finished in a single sitting once you have the materials ready.

Industrial burglary is your supply line

Most components come from burgling industrial targets, with the rest from city stores, overseas shops, or as unique outcomes from other crimes. Stockpiling before starting a project stops you stalling halfway through.

Counterfeiting medals are better farmed elsewhere

Forgery shares the Counterfeiting category with Bootlegging, which is far more efficient for medal counts because every action there counts regardless of nerve. Play Forgery for skill, products and honor bars.