my PC's robbed a magic shop: consequences....

[Voodoo]

Whatever you decide to do I would be quite harsh on the individuals involved. If they get away with it then they will soon be planning there next heist, unless your happy for the campaign to head in that direction.

I feel that magical item shops either should be so secure that breaking into them isn't worth the hassle or need to be backed up by a powerful organisation. The temples of the gods of magic and trade may have an arrangement, or the local thieves guild may have been collecting protection money from the shop, and now need to keep there side of the bargain or lose face.

Also, what has happened to the body of the gnome? If the vampire spawn are intelligent they might be curious as to what people would be doing outside at night when its so dangerous. Assuming there is some mastermind behind the vampire spawn the gnome might be raised as unliving and tell the bad guys all about the party, and there new haul of magic items that might disrupt the BBEG plans.

As to what could be in treasure i would have mainly utility or entertaining items, the kind of things that local merchants or nobles might buy, i doubt most magic item shops make there day to day trade out of magic swords.
I'd also be tempted to throw in an item, like a rod, that allows you to touch 7 items and then for the next 7 days you can use the rod to act as a compass to any of the items. Not only does this item have plenty of uses in the kinds of conviluted plans players love to come up with but it should worry the players that the owner of the shop might have another of these rods and could track them very easily.

Though i'd throw a few nice items in as well or your players will definatly feel cheated, especially one item that everyone in the party will want just to get them arguing between themselves.

 

[VirgilCaine]

my 4th-level basically good PC's hatched a plan to rob a small magic shop in the middle of the night. Everybody stays inside because of a vampire spawn problem, so they weren't caught. they made off with a couple nice bows and a couple of magically trapped chests. On the way back to their inn a few vampire spawn killed the gnome mage, one of the most active in the heist.

I'm looking for ideas for cool things in the chests, and what appropriate consequences should be; here are the 4 that occur to me now:
...
I don't want to have them captured by the guard, though if that's the most plausible scenario then I'd be okay with jailing the 3 who went into the building.

The PCs are hunted by a group of bounty hunters (read: adventurers) who know who they are.

The PCs might have problems opening the chests without a new mage. Thus, the hunters will be watching any underground wizards or creatures who might be able to open the chests.

 

[Nightfall]

Sad merchant is actually a fiend in disguise that LETS adventurers steal his stuff.

It's all cursed in some way. *been reading WAY to much Ravenloft*

Or he's a member in good standing with the clergy of a god of wealth. God of wealth decides to send a representive of his to take back their stuff since it also contains a small but valueble item important to his church. The rest are just trinkets that the merchant kept as a way of paying homage to his god/goddess.

 

[tarchon]

"Insured? Ha! What for? All that crap I keep in the shop for display are the cursed items."

 

[VirgilCaine]

First off, those chests contain potions marked in a code or arcane language (I like Draconic) that the merchant used. The healing potion is clearly marked but also contains a non-magical poison. It is a very powerful posion. It should be lethal when quaffed by the injured character. THAT is the merchant's insurance. Of course, it could be another unique potion, like invisibility. Imagine the PC who goes invisible and is then stricken with a powerful poison. I honestly don't know why more potions in treasure troves aren't poisoned, but I'll use it on my players for that one good reminder to use detect poison from now on. You only get this dirty trick once as a DM.

So, of course the PCs left the unmarked bottle of white powder (neutralizing agent) back in the shop, right?

 

[Woas]

"Insured? Ha! What for? All that crap I keep in the shop for display are the cursed items."

"Insured? Ha! What for? All that crap I keep in the shop for display are the illusionary representations of the real items."

 

[SemperJase]

What would really happen

In the real world, shops have those little tags that trigger alarms when taken out of a store.

This is a magic shop. Would the owner really leave goods in his shop without a way to protect them? If they weren't trapped (why they wouldn't have been is a big question), he would definitely have some way to track the goods that would essentially make his scry check automatic.

He knows who has the stuff and where they are. Assuming he is legitimate, the town guard will be crashing in the door shortly. If he isn't legitmate, assasins will be crashing in the door shortly.

 

[Bryan898]

Said Merchant contacts a diviner, and through scrying they devise some portraits of the characters face and a quick description. He releases wanted posters all over town, especially to businesses, and a small fortune of a bounty (say 1,000 gp). Make sure it denotes that they want the perpatrators alive, as it seems this merchant is a forgiving type. The PC's will be confronted by bounty hunters everywhere, merchants refuse to offer services, people on the street won't talk to them and immediately call the guard, etc.

I don't know if said party has a house or shelter, but being shut out of all the inns in a vampire infested town seems pretty dangerous to a 4th level party. They stay in an inn (perphaps by a gracious bribe), the barkeep sells them out and the city guard is beating down the door at night. IMO fighting the law when the law is obviously in the right isn't a good act. They could quickly turn to fugitives, and their alignment could slip with them.

If they do get caught and sent to the city guard, what then? The answer seems simple, employ them to your benefit. The city guard has a problem with vampire spawn, and they have some capable adventurers right here at their disposal. Congrats, you now work for the city guard!

Either way I agree with most of the posts in regards to letting the PC's go free, this seems like an irresponsible decision as a DM. Letting the PCs get away with this without any reprecussions seems to imply that its okay for the PCs to break the laws and steal, and that doesn't help to create a real environment.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My take on this: there's no such thing as a "little" magic shop.

As soon as you start talking about permanent magic items--much less items above simple +1 swords and armor, you're talking 4,000-8,000gp each. If the owner of the "magic shoppe" has enough money to buy that kind of material on speculation, then he's not really a small business. I look at it more along the lines of fictional portrayals of arms merchants, or P. Schuyler and Sons in the Arcanum computer game. Even if their shop looks to be pretty small, it's the kind of shop that has a small but exclusive clientelle. The owner is going to be connected to the rich and powerful (after all, nobody else can afford to buy from him). If he doesn't appear wealthy and successful on the outside, that's either because he's:
A. a slob
B. hiding his money (perhaps avoiding taxes or avoiding attention from the local crime bosses)
C. Hiding his business (maybe it's illegal)

Either way though, the owner is probably the type to play hardball like the Casino owners in Ocean's Eleven or any dozen other similar movies. "You mess with me, I don't just come after you, I come after your family and everyone who even ever said "hi" to you on the street."

So, my suggestion: the owner hires a bunch of high level adventurers to track down and kill whoever stole from his store, to make their deaths semi-public, and to leave a calling card telling everyone who's attuned to that kind of thing: "This is what you get for messing with my magic shop." After all, we know the owner has a fair amount of money. (He bought the items after all). We know the owner has some good connections. (He has other customers). Etc.

Another suggestion, riffing off of option C--maybe the items were stolen in the first place. Not only will the owner of the magic shop come after the PCs. It may well be that their previous owners will come after the PCs as well.

 

[WayneLigon]

1. The shop owner hires an assassin to discover and kill whoever robbed him.
2. The shop owner circulates a story that the chests are terrible cursed items he was holding for disposal. Make that true, perhaps.
3. He hires a mage to send phantasmal killers and invisible stalkers after whoever did this. Nothing says 'Don't screw with me' like being ripped into gobbets by invisible demons in the town square.
4. He divines their names and turns that over to the captain of the town guard.