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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 1988294" data-attributes="member: 13966">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</blockquote>

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