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

[IamTheTest]

I think itd be cool if one of the chests became a geyser when opened. Itd be hard to explain to the city guard why the town became flooded. The merchant could say the magic word and the water gets turned off. The PCs' punishment could involve cleanup. I dunno, water just seems cool.

 

[LazerPointer]

Ask the PCs "Hey, you're basically good guys, what's up with this stealing stuff?" Find out if the group is wanting to play less "heroic" characters - and let them know if you're not comfortable with that. For some campaigns it just doesn't work - and there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't mind them not being heroes all the time, I prefer a more morally grey game. The campaign setting doesn't have a lot of powerful groups fighting for good right now, so even neutral would try to restore the balance.

Think about how you would handle a group of PCs playing rogues that pulled this heist. Any of the ideas posted here that you wouldn't throw at this hypothetical group shouldn't happen to the PCs.

All in all, I think the caper was pretty cool. I don't want to punish them for it, I just want to show some real effects on the world. As a player I've never enjoyed the Arbitrary capture, where the DM leans over the table and says "there are way to many soldiers for you to fight" in a don't-be-stupid sort of way.

 

[Vorith]

1.) Jail them.
2.) Have them raped by an ogre with a huge grapple check.




end of story...lesson learned

 

[TheAuldGrump]

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

At least one cursed item of each type.

A fair number of Nystull's Magic Aura

And aside from scrolls and wands no actual items, it is all piecework made to comsission. Because 3.x has a wide range of what is available magically it is more likely that the shop will order custom made items rather than having them on the rack. Most items will be demonstrations only so the buyer can pick out what he wants. (Plus, do gun dealers keep loaded guns for sale in their show rooms? I don't think so.)

Or, every single item has a curse, one that can be gotten rid of easily by the shop owner. (Whomsoever uses this sword shall strike only upon his companions, til such time as it is polished with a cloth that has been blessed by a priest of the god of merchants. And before giving the item to the customer he gives it one last polish with exactly that.) One of the nice things in 3.x, cursed don't necessarily mean cursed!

And do not forget that whatever you let them keep you will have to live with. Do not let them become complete munchkins if you want the game to remain challenging.

The Auld Grump

 

[kigmatzomat]

What was the party's motivation to rob a magic shop? If they're after cash and aren't trying to save the orphanage, they aren't good.

I have 2 suggestions:

1) Someone else was robbing the shop, disabled the real traps, and allowed the PCs to take some relatively useless junk so they can be set up as patsies.

2) They robbed a low-end shop so assemble a number of minor traps. There's not going to be too much emphasis on vengeance or recovery given an easy theft. Cheap traps/defenses are:

*Arcane Lock on the box

*a shrieker in the box

*Magic Mouth on the bows triggered by knocking an arrow when anywhere but the magic shop. 1 minutes of saying "Thief!" loudly in all the common languages followed by 9 minutes naming, locating, and describing the magic shop and its owner.

*Arcane marks on all items saying "property of the So and So Magic Shop - Reward for Recovery" in large letters, visible to any who use detect magic.

Regardless of that, have the shop keeper ask anyone who is likely to be offered the items for sale to keep an eye out and offer a reward. This should involve the thieves guild, the guardsmen, other shops, mages, etc.

If any of the party has Knowledge:local, law, or nobility have them make skill checks of 5 or an Int check of 10 to know the penalty for stealing 500gp worth of stuff. Currently theft on that order is good for 5-10yrs in prison, historically that would range from having a hand cut off to lifetime slavery or death.

Remember, an unskilled laborer earns 1sp day or around 36gp/year. 500gp is enough for a peasant to live for decades. This is "Grand Theft" category, not a misdemeanor.
Heck, to the peasantry a reward of 10gp is a massive incentive to become suspicious of unfamiliar faces and consider hitting them over the head with heavy farming implements.

 

[LazerPointer]

yeah, its definately a serious crime. (though not warrenting ogre rape, methinks)

The arcane mark idea is a good one. They've already used the bows that night; could the magic mouth be be triggered by something like 'when the bow is in a crowd of 15 or more?'

I plan on giving major magic weapons and such out, but they have to earn it more than this.


I was just thinking about how powerful the divinations would have to be to automatically know the thieves, and I figure the seer could perhaps have seen a bit of their future as well; maybe enough to see that they will strike a serious blow against the vamp spawn if allowed to remain free.

so here's how I'm seeing the encounter:

The party has just fought the mercenaries hired by the noble w/ a grudge, and they're sitting in the inn having supper. the magic shop owner walks in, sits down opposite the two who robbed him, and puts a paper on the table between them.

he tells them the penalty for robbing the store like that, and that he'd like to see them staked to the city walls. but he went to a diviner this morning who had no trouble telling him who and where the thieves were. "The diviner saw something else around you, something big, and he asked me to report it as a dead end." He gestures to the paper, a legal record of the divinations which states that the thieves were masterfully warded against scrying. One copy went to his insurers, one to the local guard, who will be investigating.

He then asks that they return the [important item] to him, as it is essential for [something important]. If they refuse, he will get beligerent, and maybe threaten to turn them in anyway. If they kill him, he's arranged for a friend to tell the guard the real story.

I think between that and the grief-stricken uncle, they'd see that it caused serious repurcussions, and that they got really lucky in getting away with it.

thoughts?

 

[LazerPointer]

by the way, they still wouldn't totally be out of the woods; the guard would do the usual reward for capture signs, put the word out in the underworld, and maybe know that it was two halfling or gnome-sized people.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The arcane mark idea is a good one. They've already used the bows that night; could the magic mouth be be triggered by something like 'when the bow is in a crowd of 15 or more?'

Yes, magic mouth is quite flexible. It can have fairly complicated conditions so "Out of the shop and in a crowd" would be an easy one. MM can be confused by illusions and can't detect alignment, class or intent but a conditional any 4yr old would recogize would work.

I was just thinking about how powerful the divinations would have to be to automatically know the thieves, and I figure the seer could perhaps have seen a bit of their future as well; maybe enough to see that they will strike a serious blow against the vamp spawn if allowed to remain free.

Okay, that works.

so here's how I'm seeing the encounter:
.....
The magic shop owner tells them the penalty for robbing the store like that, and that he'd like to see them staked to the city walls. but he went to a diviner this morning who had no trouble telling him who and where the thieves were. "The diviner saw something else around you, something big, and he asked me to report it as a dead end."
.....
He then asks that they return the [important item] to him, as it is essential for [something important]. If they refuse, he will get beligerent, and maybe threaten to turn them in anyway. If they kill him, he's arranged for a friend to tell the guard the real story.

I wouldn't ask; I'd demand. Furthermore I'd require them to sign a contract agreeing to work for the shopkeeper at the guild-standard rates for (stolen stuff value) in gold, already paid in full. Time to start: 12 months from now.

"The Diviner said you'd do something important that would be to my benefit but that you didn't need the [important item] to do it. He didn't say you'd survive, either. If you live a year, you can work off your debt. If you welsh on me I won't accuse you of any theft but it will brand you an oathbreaker."

Oathbreaker isn't as fatal a crime as grand theft but it generally puts you in a social class where the slaves get to spit in your food.

 

[LazerPointer]

yeah, demand is more appropriate. I don't think I'll do the contract, cause I expect them to be long gone in a year, but I think he'll demand them sign a contract saying they won't rob him again.

 

[Hammerhead]

What would happen if a group of NPC thieves robbed a magic shop? Would there be fiends, diviners, bounty hunter death squads, and cursed treasure abound?

Assuming there were appropriate protections on the shop (and with merchandize in excess of 5K, there had better be!) let them get away with it. They cleverly (if immorally) exploited a dangerous situation to their own ultimate benefit. I wouldn't add on all kinds of new traps and complications to screw your PCs. If crime was so punished by karma and fate for everyone else in the game world, the Thieve's Guild would act more like the local Boy Scouts.