PC's not paying/stealing things

[Origomar]

How do you deal with PC's not paying for and stealing things from NPCs? Game is pathfinder, but general not rules related advice also welcome. Everyone in the party is level 6.

This ranges from them bluffing/diplomacying their way through a shop to convince them to either give them the items for cheap/free or them outright stealing stuff.

The town guard as i have currently written them, and in order to make sense within the confines of the story doesn't really have a way to stop them outside of the fact that they aren't high enough level to live in a pocket dimension(and they can't leave town/the area they are in for story reasons).

[Koo Rehtorb]

There being stores with expensive merchandise lining the walls at all is an anachronism. Really what they should be doing is finding a craftsman, paying them to make them the item, and then picking it up when it's done. And if you cheat/rob the people making you stuff then people aren't likely to make you other stuff.

[NichG]

Shops should have protections proportional to the total value of goods they keep on hand, just like the treasure/CR relationship for any encounter. This may mean that goods are not kept on hand (e.g. price is negotiated and the item is delivered a week later, giving plenty of time for Diplomancers/dominate/etc to lapse and for the shopkeeper to realize the error). Or, if goods are kept on hand, springing for protections like mind blank on employees, interacting through low intelligence elemental servitors (so that the salesman can detect that the diplomancer is in play without being affected directly), demiplane storage, cursed items fused with all goods, to be removed on sale, etc.

If the shop physically contains 2 million gp of goods at any point in time, that's roughly a CR 30 encounter.

[Mr Beer]

Depends on campaign setting, maybe they're supposed to be stealing stuff (heist campaign) or I just don't care.

Usually I play it as Actions Have Consequences and go from there.

If they pull off a quiet careful job for moderate stakes and then leave town, probably nothing happens.

If they're just wandering around openly grabbing items because no-one can stop them, well usually someone can stop or at least impede them. If not immediately, the town asks for help from a powerful noble or neighbouring town. Priests request divine help or at least the assistance of the wider church. Eventually other groups of adventurers show up to fight the marauding evil party.

In between ratcheting up the opposition, the townsfolk are likely to be uncooperative and unwelcoming to bandits living off their hard-earned stock. Expect sullen opposition; if the PCs escalate with violence, they will probably get frightened but reluctant cooperation; the good groups of adventurers will arrive more quickly in light of the worsening situation.

Also if the town has a group of powerful violent thieves living in it that no-one can tame, various unsavoury, manipulative people will see an opportunity to weaken or eliminate rivals or simply get revenge for some slight. Expect the party to get requests for help from various 'victims' that very much have their own agenda.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, let them steal stuff. Easy enough.

Though there are two basic spins:

1.Dark World: You basic want a world with nothing to steal. The shop has common mundane stuff...and that is it. Anything the players really want....is not in a shop. This is very easy to do.

2.Powerful World: If you have a magic shop....it's not a boring dull mundane shop with a boring dull commoner shopkeep. Instead the 'shop' is a Killer House Mimic, and the 'shopkeep' is an Illithid. Or there is the 'powerful law'.

Both work very well.

On the other hand, if you have stuff the PCs can take...just sitting out like dangling targets...you can expect the PC's to take them.

[Xalyz]

Personally I'd allow the diplomancer to get a discount (~20% maybe). But for stealing I'd have them become notorious for theft but warn them in game (bounty posters). If they continue, have shop keepers turn them away, raise prices, or have multiple guards. Have city guards be suspicious of them and follow them. Also try talking with them if they want to play fast and loose with the law, change the game accordingly.

[16bearswutIdo]

Actions have consequences is the best way to deal with stealing, IMO. Unless the shop that they go into is specifically owned by a wizard, it feels a bit cheap to have magic defenses at a simple item shop. It works sometimes, but it's case dependent. Sometimes it's best just to have the townsfolk alert the guards and do things the old fashioned way.


My PCs stole in their last group, then promptly all wiped when they left the town. The new characters in town have seen a bunch of WANTED posters with rough sketches of the past characters with a bounty out for them. Makes the only surviving member sweat a little bit every time they walk by one.

[NichG]

Actions have consequences is the best way to deal with stealing, IMO. Unless the shop that they go into is specifically owned by a wizard, it feels a bit cheap to have magic defenses at a simple item shop. It works sometimes, but it's case dependent. Sometimes it's best just to have the townsfolk alert the guards and do things the old fashioned way.


My PCs stole in their last group, then promptly all wiped when they left the town. The new characters in town have seen a bunch of WANTED posters with rough sketches of the past characters with a bounty out for them. Makes the only surviving member sweat a little bit every time they walk by one.

Well, the issue is that there really isn't such a thing as a 'simple item shop' given the way D&D economics works - even something like a shop that stocks one of each type of +1 weapon (about 50 types) is carrying around 100000gp of wealth, easily employ the population of a small town for a few years...

[Thinker]

Even if the town guard isn't able to do its job, the merchants might be getting upset at being taken advantage of over and over again. They can hire their own muscle/guards or take out a hit on the party. Also, don't let them get away with using diplomacy to get them to be gifted with these valuable goods. Even if the merchant really, really likes the wizard, the merchant won't go hungry to get in the wizard's good graces.

[Beneath]

Well, the issue is that there really isn't such a thing as a 'simple item shop' given the way D&D economics works - even something like a shop that stocks one of each type of +1 weapon (about 50 types) is carrying around 100000gp of wealth, easily employ the population of a small town for a few years...

That's a good reason why you wouldn't find a shop keeping a +1 everything on hand. Any one of those weapons is comparable in price to a house or a small ship (a keelboat will run you 3000 GP; a +1 longsword will run you 2315, a house, by the downtime rules, will run you 2580 if you buy it outright) and buying it in cash means dropping something like 50 pounds of gold, 64 years' income for a commoner earning 3 gp/mo, or about six years for a craftsperson or professional earning 7 gp/wk. Transactions of that scale are rarely done off the shelf even if you have the liquidity to afford it.

The way the economics look to me, also, I'd expect there's a large amount of off-screen labor going into making the components a wizard bought for 1000 gp to make each of those, too, which makes the existence of this store even less viable.

Even if the town guard isn't able to do its job, the merchants might be getting upset at being taken advantage of over and over again. They can hire their own muscle/guards or take out a hit on the party. Also, don't let them get away with using diplomacy to get them to be gifted with these valuable goods. Even if the merchant really, really likes the wizard, the merchant won't go hungry to get in the wizard's good graces.

Also this. A helpful attitude is "will take risks to help you", not "will take a guaranteed loss to help you", nor does it mean they'll risk their life or livelihood. Among freelancers I know (which is a similar situation), someone feeling entitled to a discount or free services for being your friend means they're not your friend. Applying that to your PCs, then, shopkeepers they've buddied up to might be willing to extend credit to them that they otherwise wouldn't, maybe give them items for half now half after the adventure, say, but then also in turn they'll expect their friends to extend them loans when their times get rough.

[thenucleus]

There being stores with expensive merchandise lining the walls at all is an anachronism. Really what they should be doing is finding a craftsman, paying them to make them the item, and then picking it up when it's done. And if you cheat/rob the people making you stuff then people aren't likely to make you other stuff.

I second this - it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that stores of this type began to spring up. If you are looking to emulate a medieval type setting, buying off the shelf would be extremely rare.

[Reversefigure4]

"PC walks in, slaps down 2000 gold, and walks out with a +1 Falchion" is an abstraction of the much less fun to play real version: "PC walks in, places order, deposits an agreed upon amount of gold, shopkeeper contacts wizard, wizard crafts Falchion, Falchion arrives by guarded caravan 6 to 8 weeks later". The abstraction is fine as long as players don't try to cheat the system by robbing merchants.

If the town guard are insufficiently powerful to protect the merchants (quite likely) and the merchants are unable to hire external adventurers to protect them (less likely, but possible depending on the circumstances and locality of the town), then you need broader solutions.

- If the PCs are stealing comparatively cheap and valueless things (rope, trail rations, soap), the merchants are likely to just sigh and put up with it. Perhaps they can begin treating the PCs as a Thieve's Guild, offering to pay them protection money directly to avoid the theft?
- If high-end items are going missing, then stock-outs begin to occur. Once you steal the Alchemist's Fire, the shop doesn't replace it. Why would it, if it's just going to get stolen again?
- Shops do not buy back stolen items (again, why would they pay cash for something that's just going to get stolen again?), meaning the PCs can only take things they can use, because their cash value is effectively zero in this town.
- If enough items are taken, the shop itself goes out of business. The merchant packs up and moves to another town, or closes up the store and stops selling. Since he's losing money operating, why would he continue? The PCs now have nowhere to buy and sell goods.
- If the only adventurers are the PCs, have merchants tried hiring party members to retrieve their stolen goods from other party members? Presumably moral scruples are not a big issue with this group.

First and foremost, those, I'd talk to the players about what type of game you want to have. A game where the players run a Thieves Guild, terrorizing a town can be a lot of fun, with threats coming from external adventuring parties, escalation coming from the town dying around them due to the choked commerce, and quest hooks in the form of merchants demanding service for their protection money ("If somebody doesn't stop those goblin raiders, I can't afford to pay you your monthly cut"). But it's worth making sure this is the type of game all the players - and the GM - want to play. If not, you need to clarify to the group that actions have consequences, and stealing will lead to this type of game (and if you don't want to GM it, then the game will end).

[Jaelommiss]

A master burglar (L15+) hears about this growing band of thieves. He comes along, steals EVERYTHING from them, and then goes back to his base. If the characters can track him down he'll give them jobs and teach them to become better. If they can't then he keeps their belongings as an application fee.

[LibraryOgre]

Bluff and diplomacy are not magic... they won't make a merchant give away his livelihood. They may reduce the price, but it should seldom result in free stuff, especially en masse.

But for an answer? Churches and guilds. Have churches preach against them. Have guilds refuse to deal with them. No kne is willing to touch them socially, since it brigs the wrath of the guilds

[Mystral]

How do you deal with PC's not paying for and stealing things from NPCs? Game is pathfinder, but general not rules related advice also welcome. Everyone in the party is level 6.

This ranges from them bluffing/diplomacying their way through a shop to convince them to either give them the items for cheap/free or them outright stealing stuff.

The town guard as i have currently written them, and in order to make sense within the confines of the story doesn't really have a way to stop them outside of the fact that they aren't high enough level to live in a pocket dimension(and they can't leave town/the area they are in for story reasons).

At that level, minor towns should have little to steal from that is worth the time of the party. Rich people have their own security measures, and when a wave of crime follows the party, the authorities will piece two and two together and get professionals on the job.

A shopkeeper would never give away items for free, no matter the bluff or diplomacy check. They might sell them at a slight loss at the most, but only as an exception.

[weckar]

There being stores with expensive merchandise lining the walls at all is an anachronism. Really what they should be doing is finding a craftsman, paying them to make them the item, and then picking it up when it's done. And if you cheat/rob the people making you stuff then people aren't likely to make you other stuff.

Anachonism? You know yhis has nothing to do with history, right?

[JNAProductions]

Anachonism? You know yhis has nothing to do with history, right?

D&D is, at least in theory, set in a medieval setting. Now, there are lots of anachronisms present, but this is a good chance to make it a little more realistic.

[Frozen_Feet]

Pathfinder, and all versions of D&D I know of, have fairly straight-forward rules for stealing things, so I'm confused of what's supposed to be the issue.

Seriously. Either they succeed in the requisite skill checks and make away with what they wanted... or they don't, and they suffer the full wrath of the merchant and whatever law enforcement is present. Rinse and repeat untill the players decide they have enough stuff or their characters have been hung from the nearest tree.

[Quertus]

... and this is why Quertus' precognitive "we know what you want, and have it ready before you ask for it" magic item shops will quickly push out all these inefficient, idiotic business models.

Have NI +1 weapons on hand? Well, that's a lot of gp you've got tied up in inventory, just waiting for someone like the PCs to steal it.

Don't have anything pre-made? Well, that doesn't appeal to the "want it now" generation, who, well, want it now, and aren't willing to wait a day per 1000 gp (let alone however much of a back-order the wizard has).

No, Quertus' precognitive sweat shops, which have the items ready by the time you have the money and the desire, are the only long-term viable business model in the "modern" D&D gaming environment.

Oh, but for those losers you're describing? Um, how about a nice "Locate Object" to hunt down their stolen goods?

[weckar]

D&D is, at least in theory, set in a medieval setting. Now, there are lots of anachronisms present, but this is a good chance to make it a little more realistic.

For fun I just cracked open my phb and dmg, but neither of these actually says that :p
I wonder where this mass perception comes from?

[LibraryOgre]

For fun I just cracked open my phb and dmg, but neither of these actually says that :p
I wonder where this mass perception comes from?

Swords, knights, and nobility tends to do this.

Personally, I like to look at it as a Western in Medieval drag.

[Lunali]

Pathfinder, and all versions of D&D I know of, have fairly straight-forward rules for stealing things, so I'm confused of what's supposed to be the issue.

Seriously. Either they succeed in the requisite skill checks and make away with what they wanted... or they don't, and they suffer the full wrath of the merchant and whatever law enforcement is present. Rinse and repeat untill the players decide they have enough stuff or their characters have been hung from the nearest tree.

The problem is that modern style shops are convenient for everyone, but modern style security and law enforcement is treated as unreasonable.

[Mr Beer]

For fun I just cracked open my phb and dmg, but neither of these actually says that :p
I wonder where this mass perception comes from?

Because D&D looks exactly like a quasi-mediaeval setting with an enormous grab-bag of magic, monsters and myths thrown at it.

[Beneath]

The problem is that modern style shops are convenient for everyone, but modern style security and law enforcement is treated as unreasonable.

Now I'm imagining a store with inventory control tags that have to be deactivated at checkout on their magic swords.

Or, a modern security mechanism that you'd be likely to see: valuable items kept in locked display cases that the merchant has to open for you. If you want to go fully magical it doesn't even have to be glass; you could use, say, iron, mithral, or adamantine that has been magically made invisible, or walls of force. Either way you can display items without removing them from your safe. With [i]Arcane Lock[i] you even get the benefits of a biometric lock.

In completely fantastic security: in 3e the Medallion of Thoughts costs 12 grand (so six swords) and allows you to detect thoughts at will. If you regularly deal in magic items, having a guard in the shadows to scan the minds of anyone who you don't have an established relationship with so that you can know who is contemplating theft (and expel them from the shop, or at least keep a closer eye on them)

Then there are traps. A Symbol of Persuasion makes a supremely effective trap while also not being too hazardous to yourself or your staff even if they weren't attuned to it at casting. Couple this with your items being displayed in invisible safes (invisible except for the latch on the door) with Arcane Lock and Symbol of Persuasion on the latch and a magic mouth spell on something triggered to go off when the Symbol does to command the charmed victims to leave a written apology (which you take as evidence), maybe trick them into reading something (leave a slip of paper with "lock passwords" as the heading, maybe) and put a Sepia Snake Sigil on it, and you have yourself a nice little heist adventure. Security is expensive, but if you're moving a substantial amount of goods and have a 100% markup, you can afford it.

[The Glyphstone]

Truly determined robberhobos will just see security as a potential for extra loot. They'll even find a way to steal the intact traps, then use them in combat later somehow.

[NichG]

Because of the power asymmetry, only security that literally makes it impossible to obtain what one wants if they misbehave makes sense to bother with. Detect Thoughts offers a save, adamantine can be overcome given time so long as the criminals e.g. steal the entire case, kill the shopkeeper, etc. A shop has to assume that the shopkeeper would be dominated/killed/etc, and that the culprits could get themselves hundreds of actions unopposed before a practical response can be mustered (and even that assuming the guards would be able to overpower them when responding).

That is to say, rather than having a cash register with a really good lock, it's better to empty it regularly and put up a sign 'clerk keeps less than 50gp in cash register'.

In the case of magic items, this simply means that you do not keep them on the premises, or even all in one location. Instead, the shop takes a percentage of the price up front, arranges delivery, then bills the customer for the remaining value at the point of exchange. If the customer e.g. attacks the seller and keeps their remaining half of the value, then the shop can determine this by e.g. the seller failing to report a receipt for the completed transaction and can (through a shared guild structure) suspend the rights of that customer to participate in business entirely until the discrepancy is investigated and resolved satisfactorily.

It doesn't require overly expensive fancy security systems, and its pretty hard to crack. Even for a Diplomancer, as long as the up-front price is high enough (say, 50%), it is impossible to practically make a profit by constantly talking one's way out of giving gold to the seller on delivery. Directly stealing from the shop would at most gain about half of the price of a single item, and that would depend on timing (since for very high value items, the shop might not actually have sold anything at that scale on a given day).

[Kardwill]

Or, a modern security mechanism that you'd be likely to see: valuable items kept in locked display cases that the merchant has to open for you. If you want to go fully magical it doesn't even have to be glass; you could use, say, iron, mithral, or adamantine that has been magically made invisible, or walls of force. Either way you can display items without removing them from your safe. With [i]Arcane Lock[i] you even get the benefits of a biometric lock.

Online shopping from the wizard's guild : the display case anly contains an permanent illusion of the item, and a certificate of autenticity from the enchanter. The actual magic sword has to be either delivered (or teleported) from a secure location, teleported, or is locked in some pocket dimension that only the merchant can access. It only happens after money has changed hands and has been secured in a similar way.

Of course, the merchant can still be dominated/put under duress, but if you did so, congrats, you just assaulted a low-leve-but-good-standing member of the kingdom's wizard guild, and they have a very dissuasive policy about this kind of things.

Or you just do away with magic items shops because the entire magic item economy is silly, apart from mysterious, dangerous, dimension-jumping, customer-choosing venues like Fritz Leiber's magic bazaar.

But more seriously, talking to the players might be the better option. "Hey, guys, your silly diplomancer thievery is getting to my nerves, so might we not do that anymore at every freakin' session, please? thanks."

[Pelle]

Insurance.

Just have a powerful insurance company that every shopkeeper pays fees to. If someone steals from them, they get paid back from the insurance company. The insurance company has access to divination spells, locate object etc, and will send someone powerful to reclaim the stolen goods. If they are effective and harsh enough, the threat will deter most people from stealing from insured shopkeepers, which makes this business lucarative and not too laborsome. Which means that a high level wizard can have it as a side business to generate revenue for his studies.

[Frozen_Feet]

Did "being hung from the nearest tree" sound especially modern to you?

D&D has explicit rules for how big a settlement has to be for certain value of items to be found there and how many characters of which levels you ought to find there. Pathfinder, as what's essentially a D&D retroclone, either has those rules too or they are easily ported back in.

So one look at the shop's inventory tells you exactly how many and how strong people the PCs have potentially pissed off by their thieving ways. The type of the shop and type of law enforcement don't really matter. Whether the PCs end up running from the sheriff, the police, the town guard, a thieves' guild, hired assassins, angry lynch mob or other adventurers requested to violently dispose of them, is a matter of taste.

[TeChameleon]

Well, speaking for myself, if I were DMing the game in question (and out-of-game talk hadn't solved things), I'd probably go the 'actions have consequences' route as well.

If they persisted in treating Diplomancy as quasi-mind-control, they'd find their favoured shops robbery targets had gone out of business, and if it the niche filled by said shop was vital enough to the town economy to have a replacement spring up, the owners of the new store(s) would be hostile and suspicious of the PCs, with a much steeper challenge rating for any diplomancy nonsense.

If that just shifted their focus to outright theft, then they'd find that there actually was a thieves' guild in town, and that said guild did not appreciate the PCs horning in on their territory. The first time the PCs are drugged and rolled might serve as a good wakeup call. If not, the knives in the dark might start coming out, and the players would learn to be very, very paranoid of unexpected Fortitude checks.