Magic sales and security

[Undead Lincoln]

Any stable an reliable organization could branch out into security for magic sales. Governments proabably wouldn't, but other organizations might.

Assassin's guild: All exchanges take place in a guild approved trading area. Both parties are identified when the terms of the exchange are drawn up. Detect magic and patdowns are used to garuntee that their identities are known. If either party violates the terms, a contract is put on their head. This is probably not used by the law abiding or those with other sources of security.

Temple: The temple tresury is also used as a storehouse for magic items. When a magic item is sold, a bill of sale is drafted and given to the priests. The buyer then goes to the temple and his payment is deposited in the treasury and he is given the item in question to examine. If he goes through with the purchase, the seller can then pick up the payment from the treasury.

 

[FireLance]

Why limit the question to magic items? The same would apply for any other high-value, easily portable objects like jewelry and art. A player that casts hypnotism to steal a magic item worth 10,000 gp could do the same to steal a diamond-studded platinum tiara worth the same amount.

Frankly, unless your players really get their jollies from raiding merchants, fences, auction houses, or whatever mechanism you use to get magic equipment into their hands (Barton's Discount Dungeon?), it easier to just assume that everyone plays nice and handwave the transaction as "debit gp, credit item".

If they insist on turning a shopping trip into an adventure, then by all means make it an adventure. Too bad about all the time you sunk into preparing for their expedition into the Caverns of Unspeakable Doom, though.

Merchants pay taxes to the local authority. Merchants with the resources to handle expensive merchandise pay large amounts of tax. In return, the local authority uses part of the tax money to fund crack special operations teams to enforce rules like "no stealing from merchants that pay large amounts of tax to the local authority" with extreme prejudice.

Fences seldom work alone. Fences with the resources to handle valuable black market items ususally have skilled associates who get upset very easily and use phrases like "Prepare to die" a lot.

Auction houses usually have wealthy patrons or are wealthy institutions in their own right. They also employ teams of explorers to find rare and valuable items for auction in dangerous and distant lands. Occasionally, these teams are used to retrieve items and assorted body parts from adventuring parties who think that it is a good idea to rob auction houses.

Really, PCs stealing a magic item from those selling it to them shouldn't be the focus of a game or a campaign, unless your or your PCs want it to be, of course.

 

[arscott]

This being warcraft, most of your obtaining is probably coming from one of three places:


Either you're getting the goods from your side, your enemies side, or the neutrals.

The alliance and the horde are either on the brink of war, or in the midst of it. Either way, the prodution of magic items is of interest to the military. While you may buy one or two +1 axes, the remainder go to Thrall's elite troops. So it's perfectly reasonable to suppose that Thall will have troops guarding these strategically important shops, if he doesn't own them outright. Either way, when jojo headshrinker takes off with a +2 arcanite shortspear, he'd better take of with great speed, and not look back.

Alternately, when Durgrim Hammerfell steals a potion of flesh disolving from a dark apothecary, he's had to fight or trick his way past a city full of forsaken to do so, and deserves his reward.

Finally, a characther might steal something from the goblins. This is probably a really bad Idea. The Merchant Princes of Undermine are out for one thing: profit. Shrinkage cuts into their profit. Unacceptably. And they don't have to hold off Horde assaults, or protect the orcish settlements. They can concentrate every last one of their resources on brining malefactors to justice.

 

[FCWesel]

And they are trading them to people that tend to be very dangerous, generally more than most town guards can handle, with access to all sorts of mind control and teleportation spells. Unless the trader is a powerful character in his own right, what can he do?

Maybe a minor curse can be placed on items? Then after the sale, the curse is lifted.

Personally I like the way you handeled the situation. I am curious to hear how the group is going to have its collective butts handed to them by the original owner and HIS friends. It should hurt...A LOT.

 

[Arkhandus]

Magic item shops are likely to have several decent or excellent guards in the shop keeping watch, whether they be city guardsmen or hired thugs from some local rogues' guild, all constantly keeping Readied Actions prepared to either shoot a thief full of wholes or grapple them into submission (with plenty of saps or shortswords in use for a quicker take-down). If they're trading/selling items worth several hundred or several thousand GP each, the magic item merchants are going to be paying at least a dozen GP or so each day on hired guards, maybe a dozen GP or so per guard. They're going to make sure they hire very capable guards (likely 3rd or 4th level warriors at least, possibly higher; shops with very valuable wares likely have 8th, 10th, or 12th level fighters or warriors for guards).

Now, granted, there might not be a whole lot of 8th-level+ fighters or warriors around just hiring themselves out as guards, rather than serving in militaries or adventuring parties. Really high-end magic item merchants will have one or more clay golems or whatnot for guards. Or hired ogres, preferably trained as decent warriors/fighters. Ogres aren't likely to try stealing the goods if they're being paid several GP each day to just stand around lazily and beat the ever-loving snot out of thieves all day, because ogres aren't that smart in general and they tend to enjoy both laziness and random violence.

Now, individual magic item merchants are likely to keep a Wand of Hold Person (Heightened to 4th-level) on-hand tucked into one sleeve, and will be keeping a ready action prepared to lower their arm just so to slip the wand into their grasp and then zap any thief trying to attack or cast something. Will save DC 16, so a decent chance of working. Alternatively, a Wand of (Heightened) Sleep, a Wand of Bestow Curse, a wand of Enervation, a Wand of Summon Swarm, a Wand of (Heightened) Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or a Wand of Baleful Polymorph. Remember that a Wand can be acquired relatively cheaply if it only has a few charges left in it, so the magic item merchant could just buy/trade for a very-used old Wand and keep it hidden in their sleeve for emergencies. If it goes kaput, they just buy/trade for a new one.

Relatively high-level magic item merchants can keep a scroll of Antimagic Field on-hand, and a scroll of Summon Monster VII or something, and a scroll of Finger of Death just-in-case. Assuming they're decent magic-users themselves, they should have a decent chance of managing the caster level check or whatever to use such high-end scrolls.

As for identifying magic items, a combination of Detect Magic, a Spellcraft check, and a Knowledge (Arcana) check should give a merchant with those abilities (i.e. having 1 level of sorcerer and several ranks in those skills, both class and cross-class) a decent chance of noticing the general sort of item they're about to purchase/trade for. Appraise might be useful too in that respect. Analyze Dweomer and Legend Lore or Vision are useful for high-level magic-users in identifying items.

Personally, I'd prefer a psion for identifying stuff, with their component-less Identify, low-level Inkling and Augury to avoid a theft or avoid getting a cursed item, low-level access to powers that reveal information about previous owners and the item's past or its nature, and such...... {:^D

 

[Zappo]

The alliance and the horde are either on the brink of war, or in the midst of it. Either way, the prodution of magic items is of interest to the military.

And, in the case of really powerful items such as +4 weapons, they may be the property of some major character or relative thereof. Maybe one whose initials are "JP".

The question then has to be asked - how did the thief get the item without being powerful himself? If he was powerful, how did a simple hypnotism spell defeat him?

The thief got lucky. He acquired the information that the item was going to be poorly guarded for about one hour, in two days' time, and tried to make use of it. He was 5th level, and had a poor Will save. The PC took a risk, since he didn't know the thief's HD and Hypnotism is limited in that regard. But he got lucky, too (rolled a 5 IIRC).

That's a given seeing as he sold a +4 as a +2. Or forgot to have it appraised.

The same source told him that the item was known to be "moderately enchanted". Obviously, he was wrong. Normally, any thief worth his lockpicks would identify any magical item he steals, but this thief had never been in the magic business before, didn't have a wizard contact, and didn't want to waste time finding one since he needed to get rid of the item before the theft was discovered and the divination magic started to fly.

 

[Silver Jester]

I've found in my campaign that organized crime (for black market dealers) and government sponsered protection (for the normal, ex-mage merchants) are two really effective ways to control merchant-killing/stealing. None of my players really want to cross the mob, as the last time they did, they all got a visit in the middle of the night and, more often, its too tiresome to be running from city militia every time you want to drop by an inn for a quick ale.

 

[Ar'Salan]

Here's how an old DM I played with did it:

Work out the GP value of all items in Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, and then look in the DMG to figure out what level the shopkeeper has to be to own that amount of stuff. A +4 rapier alone is valued at 32,000 gold and a bit, which places the owner at around level 9. Assuming they have other stuff as well, you're looking level 10-11. That's just for one item, remember. An entire shop will have at a wild guess anywhere between 100,000 to 1,000,000 gold worth of stuff -- placing the owner, be they shopkeeper or merchant's guild, at between 13-22 level. These people aren't to be messed with. Your local Magical Item Merchant Guild's Total Net Worth would be in the multi-millions, and so could call on the aid of a half dozen or so epic NPCs (or equivalent) to laugh at your PCs and squash their heads between forefinger and thumb.

I remember this hitting home clearly when another PC in an old party wanted to roleplay the 'annoying arrogant bastard' type. When the Magic Shoppe owner gave him a low quote on a +1 sword he was trying to sell, he got angry and after exchanging heated words, picked up said blade and threaten the shopkeeper with it. The shopkeeper laughed, told him to put it away before he hurt himself, and when he failed to do so, the shopkeeper reached out with a bare hand and snapped the sword in two, smiling all the while. The offender was then informed that he should leave the shop immediately and his name would be blackened at magic shops across the kingdom.

Anyway, point is: think economics, work out the power levels.

 

[Arkham]

In any of the worlds I run the only magic shops I have are
attached to Magickal Universities. Considering the vast costs
involved in researching new spells, the mages need some way
( aside from their cut of taxes ) to fund it. They have student
mages making potions, scrolls, and wands of spells they know.
Should the prospective buyer be respected enough then some
of the senior wizards are willing to make higher power items
by commission.

There is a feat in the Netbook of Feats that makes this arrangement
work far better for the world, as with it the artificers can
take up to 1/2 the exp spent to make an item and use it to
pay the exp cost on another item, destroying the initial item
in the process. Thus even items that don't get sold quickly
are put to use.

Oh, and as for protections and such, they have vast amounts
of magic at their disposal including a floor that casts
disintegrate, hold monster, and feeblemind at will ( with the
controls operated by a guard that is out of the room )

 

[Darkness]

And, in the case of really powerful items such as +4 weapons, they may be the property of some major character or relative thereof. Maybe one whose initials are "JP".

Jaina Proudmoore? Don't know what use she'd have for a rapier but if so, I pity your PCs.

I play in the FR. In the current year of the setting, the Red Wizards of Thay have a large part of the magic item trade under their control. Someone who messes with them likely won't live very long.

I play in the past, though. Still, the FR has an abundance of high-level wizards who can sell items. No problem with security there.