PAGING ALL MERCHANTS! How do you protect your wares? (This ain't Baldur's Gate!)

[Forrester]

No, this isn't a post regarding how you store owners protect your Warhammer miniatures from 12-year olds with sticky fingers.

It's how you small-town store owners, with your scrolls of 1st-3rd level and your +1 swords, protect yourself against:

Charm Person
Hypnotism
Suggestion
Detect Thoughts
Dominate Person

and protect your goods from thieves with:

Invisibility
Gaseous Form
Polymorph Self
Dimension Door
Teleport

and so on.

Many of these spells are accessible to a lousy 5th level spellcaster. And one of the biggest potential problem spells -- Charm Person -- is available right at first level.

So what do you small-town shop owners do? I'm assuming you carry some magic items, of course. But those of you who carry a nice selection of masterwork weapons and armor should likewise be concerned.

And how about you medium-sized town shop owners, that cater to adventurers and others of up to 9th or 10th level?

And how about you city shop owners, that might carry goods that are *extremely* valuable?

I ask because I'm in the midst of creating an Underdark society for my campaign, and there will be places that sell a few magic items, places that sell many, and places that sell almost anything you wish you could get your hands on.

And damn, but if this isn't a tough question. 3E seems to have been written by CRPG addicts, who believe that Magic Items Make The Adventurer, especially after 6th or 7th level. But there's no way in hell that a "Baldur's Gate" type of environment is realistic when it comes to magic shops; no shop is going to carry tens (or hundreds) of thousands of gold in items without needing very serious protections against the kind of thievery that a group of high-level rogues and high-level wizards, working in concert, might plan.

Perhaps the best answer is that there ARE NO MAGIC SHOPS. Someone posted, in an economics-of-3E thread, that in his campaign those who wanted to purchase magic items had to work through a "broker", who would track down the items. Because everything went through a middleman, the chance of theft was driven down.

But I'm uncomfortable with doing this all the time. It would seem to me that there have to be wizards out there churning out potions and scrolls in something other than complete secrecy. Ditto clerics.

So assuming there *are* shops . . . shops that sell a few cheap magic items, shops that sell a moderate amount, shops that sell a lot, and shops that sell EVERYTHING -- what should be the approximate resources of each of the merchants who run these shops, and how would they protect their goods?

Any suggestions? I don't want to limit you (us) to spells in the PHB or splatbooks -- if you have any ideas for new magic items that might be within these merchants' reach, or some new spells that make sense/would come in handy, shoot!

(Permanency on a Globe of Invulnerability, centered in the shop, is a possibility. Because it's based in a location, and not portable, it'd probably be cheaper to create than normal. What do you think?)

 

[Nightfall]

Lots of Anti-magic zones. Not to mention permanent detections along with Alarms spells that go off if they leave the premises. Finally, for mind control, the shop keepers wear special pendants that have mind blanks on them.

 

[Nightfall]

Another thing is Mage Guilds that work in concert with others along with special churches that ensure THEFT is handled quickly and swiftly. Oh and since you mentioned Underdark, toss in a few Beholders and a Illithid/Mind Flayer as body guards as well for those REALLY important magic items.

 

[Forrester]

The Mage Guilds idea is a good one.

However, the Mind Blank pendants/hiring of Beholders or Illithid is going to be very iffy for all but the highest level merchants. I would guess that a pendant that gave its wearer a continuous Mind Blank would cost 90k+. And the guards you would have to have around to protect you (and it) would cost almost as much.

Now, this is perfectly reasonable for a store selling 20k items every day -- absolutely reasonable! But that's only going to happen in the biggest cities.

What do the smaller-time merchants do, that have no items more expensive than 2k or 3k? They maybe have 50k to 100k to spend on protections (if that -- I'm completely guessing here). They can't afford to hire Beholders (except maybe really old blind ones ) or Illithid, and they can't afford those Pendants.

So what do they do?

 

[Broken Fang]

I've always thought that "magic shops" would only sell expendable items...potions, scrolls, dust, etc. Things that are good for one shot then gone. This requires the adventurers to come back and do more business with the store. The more impressive items are things that the PC's have to make or find someone to do it for them.
As for protection I go with a few dogs (bark at the invisible) near entry points, some guards (some may make saves), low level spells like Alarm and Magic Mouth, etc.
If you want high level defense you probably should go with things like Forbidance and Hallow or something like them. Depending on what they have in the store wou might just say to hell with it...if someone with Teleport + wants to break in let them. I mean come on, why would a 9th + level character break in to steal some potions and scrolls?

 

[Nightfall]

Find very nice priests/mages willing to to subsidize their services in exchange for any new stuff that might come along. Thus they could have the spell in place FOR FREE, as long as the merchant is willing to let them handle expensive/powerful magics/items. Or they could hire out abjurists with a lawful bent, as specializing in protective magics WOULD make them easy to help in lowering theft. Also other thevies guilds might help out, as they would specialize in protection rackets, ESPECIALLY when unwanted competition/other theives come to town. Thus they could protect against theft BY ensuring that no competition occurs.

That help any Forester?

 

[Forrester]

Depending on what they have in the store wou might just say to hell with it...if someone with Teleport + wants to break in let them. I mean come on, why would a 9th + level character break in to steal some potions and scrolls?

A 9th level character has, on average, goods equal to 36,000gp.

Imagine a store that had in stock a dozen potions, a dozen 1st level scrolls, six 2nd level scrolls, three 3rd level scrolls, and maybe a couple +1 swords.

That's about 3600+300+900+1000+4000 =~10,000gp worth of stuff. And that's a pretty lame shop.

And that doesn't include any MW weapons or armor he has around.

Imagine a bored 9th level wizard doing some Scrying to locate small magic shop owners -- with a week's time he could double his net worth!

I try to run as realistic a campaign as possible, and don't like shoving such possibilities under the carpet. How is this poor pathetic wretch of a merchant going to handle this?

 

[Forrester]

Find very nice priests/mages willing to to subsidize their services in exchange for any new stuff that might come along. Thus they could have the spell in place FOR FREE, as long as the merchant is willing to let them handle expensive/powerful magics/items. Or they could hire out abjurists with a lawful bent, as specializing in protective magics WOULD make them easy to help in lowering theft. Also other thevies guilds might help out, as they would specialize in protection rackets, ESPECIALLY when unwanted competition/other theives come to town. Thus they could protect against theft BY ensuring that no competition occurs.

That help any Forester?

Oooh -- the Mafia runs all magic shops. At least, the shops in the towns where the mages guild isn't running things.

Now that, I like! These are exactly the kind of ideas I'm looking for . . . doesn't help the independent shops in out-of-the-way places, but it's a great start.

 

[Nightfall]

Well if they are out of the way...perhaps there's a reason. Maybe they have ties to planars beings. Even BETTER way to spark a campaign if a local, seemingly unimportant magic shop is ACTUALLY a HQ for invasion force.

But yeah, mafia run stores are usually a good way to go. After all, even theives need good equipment AND some law and order.

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

A couple more ideas

Grimling guards. I'm sure there are some that could be trusted enough to do guard duty, and being Invisible won't help a bit.

Daily Castings of various Extended protective magics would keep the costs down, and help explain how some magic 'shops' keep thier financial heads above water. If the owner's high enough level to be 'cranking out' items then I'm pretty sure he'd be able to manage some protective magic of his own. When you don't have to 'fill yer head' with death-dealing magics that leaves a number of slots open for counter-thievery magics.

Divination, I think of this as the magical equivilent of survelience cameras in stores today. Just because you weren't caught in the act doesn't meant you won' be caught eventually. If there's a witness to the crime then a Detect Thoughts would let the 'detective' mage-type zero-in on the suspect. And if you can afford the types of counter-magics (spells or devices) that can stop this sort of thing from happening, chances are you're high enough level that you wouldn't really need to be stealing.

Hatchling Dragon