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In your world, how are mundane locations like manors and banks protected against magic? Like, the other day I was running a pretty funny game where my players were attempting to sneak into a manor. The manor was really simple, just a big house with a couple of guards and servants milling about, yet the players still had to rack their brains to bluff, distract and knockout the guards while evading detection. And sometimes they failed, which lead to even more fun.
But halfway through a player (a 2nd level Bard) realized that he had spells. I allowed him to pick his spells right there and he chose two uses of Vanish, which easily allowed him and an ally to bypass a large part of the manor.
I have no problems with my players succeeding, but what I do strive for is the creation of a logical and coherent world, and it seems really inappropriate that a wealthy person's home is not outfitted with protection from a 1st level spell.
So how could people's homes be protected against thieves using stuff like vanish, disguise self, or wild shape? Hell, I can even see 0 level spells like Spark and Mage Hand causing loads of trouble.
First off, might be worth reminding you that bards don't prepare spells: they are spontaneous casters who pick their spells as they level but can cast them many times in one day. You and your player might want to have a read of the bard class in more depth to suss out these differences.
Secondly, remember that at level 2 vanish is lasting for only 12 seconds. That is hardly enough time to get through an entire mansion!
Thirdly, animals with the 'scent' special quality can detect invisible creatures - any self respecting guard house should have some hounds on patrol for this exact reason.
At low levels it is somewhat expected that few NPCs will have many defenses against magic... but moving into higher levels there is an expectation that they WILL have defenses. The enemies have to fight fire with fire, to an extent: most useful anti-magic abilities are spells themselves. For example: see invisibility, detect magic, arcane eye, potentially anti-magic fields, dispel magic traps etc etc etc.
Soft dirt near doorways which show footprints. A water feature also works as guards can notice the splashes.
Trained hounds are a good choice, as Blakmane said.
Beaded or string curtains near checkpoints so that invisible people have to push them aside, alerting guards.
Bells attached to doors which ring when the door is opened, much like in many shops.
Latched doors with a guard on the other side, who only opens it if you knock/call out/tell password/otherwise interact (Won't stop the group if they're bluffing their way through, but limits the options for an invisible character sneaking around)
Choke point doors, observed by guards with pull rope flour or chalk dust traps. Almost impossible barring teleportation magic to sneak through an observed locked door.
Kill tiny animals on sight rules for guards as well, at least within observation range of any sensitive areas.
Pay for an annual Hallow with Invis Purge or Dispel Magic or even just Detect Magic (tough to use magic subtly when it highlights you in blue). Depending on the size of the structure multiple hallows with different abilities for different zones might useful.
Lead lined walls will block the majority of divinations.
Permanent spells like alarm, private sanctum, symbols. Gust of wind traps or permanent at windows might be useful for hvac air flow as well as blowing away tiny or gaseous infiltrators.
Costs range from negligible to prohibitive, so the trick is figuring out what CR you want a place to be. Nothing is impregnable, but NPCs should invest in safety as they can.
Secondly, remember that at level 2 vanish is lasting for only 12 seconds. That is hardly enough time to get through an entire mansion!
Definitely not enough to go around the entire mansion, but 58 feet is still a pretty considerable distance. Maybe it's not too much to get worked up about at this level but the problem will only get exponentially worse as we play higher level games. A fifth level bard would be able to travel 145 feet per casting and be able to use it nearly twice as much! And the bard is not even a full caster...
That said you guys have given some really excellent tips here. Hounds and doors with little bells will almost certainly be making frequent appearances in my games from now on.
The magic against magic is logical but is something I'm struggling with for different reasons. While I don't want magic users to have free reign, I don't want them to feel cheated out of their class features either. Something like guard posts and doors are impediments to stealth based characters, but its something they can struggle with and overcome. A lot of the anti-magic options seems all in or all out to me. Furthermore, some of these options (like alarm and arcane eye) then make magic a necessity in order to do any kind of infiltration.
But again, good ideas! Keep 'em coming!
Have drums, gongs, horns or other loud devices that guards can access, along with a code for invisible intruders. Horns are probably the most practical for patrols, while gongs are fairly hard to break and can be used quite effectively for alerting other guards.
If the guards have a code (1 means intruders, 2 means armed intruders, 3 means invisible intruders, 4 means magic intruders) then it puts the other guards on alert and gives a general area for them to search in. However, this can also be used against them by clever PCs with illusions and the like. I recommend that they only call in a magical threat if the PCs are using obvious magic, as any thief can and probably should buy a potion of invisibility if they're going to try and break into a manor or the like.
If you can make an item that unleashes an antimagic field when activated, that works.
It's a favorite of mine for corridors that are too small for the player races, but just big enough for shapeshifting druids...
I've been thinking about this a lot and reading up on the rules and I don't think dogs really works out either. Dogs counter invisibility by smelling out the intruders, but it counters mundane sneaking equally well. In fact it only shifts the game further in benefit of magical thieves as they'd have more tools to deal with them.
I was thinking maybe something without great eyesight but exceptional hearing, but then the spell Forced Quiet also exists.
What I'm thinking now is that I simply need to pile on a lot of different things that can all be beaten by mundane stealth but that each require different spells to bypass magically.
Now that I've considered it more that Hallow idea is really good. It also adds a lot of interesting politics. I only wish that Hallow had a shorter duration, maybe like a week or two. That would players could makes plans to delay the weekly hallow maintenance guy.
The feat 'Conceal Scent' should help rogues trying to evade dogs.
I would also remind you that picking a lock is a full-round action and disabling a device can be anywhere from 1 round to 2d4 rounds. Those can really eat up the rounds offered by vanish. And a barred door is especially hard to get through silently.
I actually made a change in my newest campaign, ruling that locks and traps take longer to pick and disable (at least the first time they encounter that kind of trap or lock).
Note, Hallow has whatever duration you want it to have. If you don't like tweaking the published stuff, you could create a 'Lesser Hallow' that has a shorter duration. Say it's more affordable and therefore more likely to be used.
Unless your heroes are especially pungent, dogs don't need to be a nuisance until they get very close to the PC. As long as the dogs are not 'on alert', they will likely walk by a silently standing hero holding her breath. There isn't really any 'downwind' indoors.
Also, I bet there are (or you could create some) alchemical solutions for defeating an animal's scent.
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Presumably one could have a trap made that triggers on detect magic.
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This is actually a great subject, as it highlights something that we sometimes overlook: how magic is used in a mundane fashion in the "ordinary" world apart from adventuring.
Fueldrop and Kimera actually mentioned two good ones: beaded or gauzy curtains. A "poor man's detect invisible". A clever wizard might combine this with a magic mouth spell ["sound the alarm when something disturbs the beaded curtain"] and a clever thief might notice a beaded curtain that is high enough to allow a mouse or a cat underneath without disturbing it.
Guard patrols are fun. Little things like flour left in hallways [Notice check DC:14] make for reasons why the guards are suddenly on alert.
- creaky staircase
- bats that are especially sensitive to visitors
- a child's squeaky toy left in a clever spot
- dogs
- that one weird cat that follows everyone around and stares (rumour has it it used to be a wizard's familiar or a druid or something)
For magical protection (for those who can afford it)
- magic mouth
- stone of alarm
- Instant summons
- prying eyes
Seriously, read the spell "instant summons". It is an entire adventure hook hidden in one little sapphire gem.
"prying eyes" is a special spell too. It acts like a "surveillance tape", as everything the floating eyes see is seen by the caster the next morning. Another good adventure hook as the caster and his employers may come after the thieves.
Thanks Owly, I've been searching around a lot and this doesn't seem to be a topic that a lot of people care about. It`s very frustrating since these kind of problems are appearing everywhere in my games.
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Presumably one could have a trap made that triggers on detect magic.
That's . . . beautiful.
Presumably one could have a trap made that triggers on detect magic.That's . . . beautiful.
I would really like it if someone laid out the spells that would make this possible, not because I scoff at the idea, but because if it IS possible, then it must exist in Golarion.
SO...if a DM pulls this on a player "The instant you cast Detect Magic, a trap door opens under your feet" you keep the verisimilitude of your world intact, and the player doesn't believe that you're just pulling stuff out of your wazoo.
Short answer: You're the GM. It's your privilege to pull stuff out of your wazoo, and your responsibility to adjudicate the result fairly. That doesn't necessarily mean explaining all of the mechanics to the player--only constructing those mechanics, assigning the CR and other relevant details appropriately, and playing them out.
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One of the biggest difficulties with a magical world is the fact that GMs and game creators are just not as motivated to be inventive as game world enterpreneurs and criminals would be. If Golarion were the real world, there would be simple, effective, and cheap methods of countering things like detect thoughts, detect magic, detect poison, teleport/dim door, hats of disguise, etc. What sort of military fortress or criminal enterprise would leave itself undefended against magic like this, most of it wieldable by your average joe or jane apprentice?
There would be spells in creation like Secure Walls, which counter or at least set off alarms when someone summons a creature within a radius or using a teleportation/dim door type spell. Perhaps a divination alarm spell to tell the user he is being scrutinized. There is very little counter magic in the game. Frankly, it should be even simpler than that...there should be very inexpensive one use alchemy items to block most detection spells, increase resistance to charm spells, or perhaps even cause the reaction of a high level creature (ie-high intelligence for Detect Thoughts, High level for Detect Evil) like stunning the detecting party.
The problem is that these have not been invented nor put in a Paizo book somewhere to add to the game, so they don't exist in most worlds. It requires a fair amount of world view thinking and extrapolation to figure out where the big holes are that some enterprising young inventor would fix.
I encountered some of these big gaping holes that existed in magical defenses when I started planning out my Kingmaker game.
No medieval fort ever had to plan for dragons or flying creatures attacking, folks teleporting in, or summoning critters inside the walls. Or even more simply, using Earth elemental types to burrow under the walls. So most of the time, your GM won't add these defenses in either. So this means these are not obvious standard options which should be added to fortresses. Which means that its easier to walk into a "secure fortress" as a 9th level party than it is to walk into the corner diner in the real world. Usually these are areas the GM things about only AFTER his party has started exploiting them, and if he fixes things then, the PCs will often cry foul(and not necessarily unfairly so).
I think GMs should consider some of these basic magics to add to their world, not to "screw" the players, but simply because it makes logical sense that they would exist and not be horrifically rare, expensive, or hard to get (mostly). In my Kingmaker game, I found I had to add a defensive treatment for castles and towns that blocked teleport/ summoning except within a limited space because it makes sense that any lord that is going to pay 200,000+ gp (58BP x 4k gp) for his castle would include something that didn't render that pricetag a waste of time.
I also found that it made sense for most nobles, merchants, or any other folks who carried around important info in their heads that was dangerous, conspiratorial, or sought after should have a simple and effective method of stopping most low level mind probing spells like Detect Thoughts. Enter the 500gp Ring of mind shielding, which blocks alignment detection, lie detection, and thought detection. Yes the party has them, but so does everyone else! Plus making this ring standard had the side effect of creating a whole new business...rogues who palm and swap out folks magic protection rings for fake magic aura rings. :)
Some great ideas above, especially the detect magic triggered trap :)
Keep the ideas coming of things that should exist that don't currently to counter magic exploits.
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You forget a couple of basic truths.1. PC classes are not the run of the mill threats... they are the exception.
Short answer: You're the GM. It's your privilege to pull stuff out of your wazoo
This may be well and fine in your games, but these ideas are antithetical to my style of play. My games operate under two basic principles.
1. The players are not special. Sure they might have some fancy class or a couple of levels over your run of the mill villager- but their enemies are typically even greater than that. The world does not revolve around them. It does not need them. It does not care about them. I do not fudge rolls or make special exemptions for them and they are free to die face down in a ditch like any other shmuck.
2. As a DM, I am not god. I am not the author, director, curator, or any of that shit. I am physics. I am not responsible for the players success. I am not even responsible for their fun. Sure I create a world and the evenings scenario, but once my friends sit down at my dining room table, cheap dice quivering in their dorito coated hands, my only job is to make sure the world acts in a logical manner. I write no special destiny for my players, I simply create a world and then try to figure out what happens when they f+#~ with it. I never think about how they might "win" the game, all I do is lay out the canvas and stand back to let them paint.
I am extremely new to this hobby, I've probably played in fewer than 20 sessions and DMed in less than half of those. But I am already sick of these disgustingly linear games where the player's only role is to guess what the DM had in mind for the next part of their precious plot.
I am not great at this. Not yet. I stutter and stumble and forget important details. I screw up rules and make mistakes. But I can already tell I`m on the right track. The look of intense engagement on my players faces as they frantically plan their next move. Their victorious shouts. Their heartfelt cries of sorrow. The fact that there isn`t a single f%~$ing cell phone in sight. This is the game I want to play and see played. One where the path is not simply found by the players, but created by them. When I play like this I am genuinely on the edge of my seat, excited to see whether the players live or die, whether they can evade the patrolling guards, whether they can make sense of this clue, and ultimately whether they`ll die sad and forgotten or overcome all odds and save the day.
So please, don`t me that I should just `pull something out of my ass` or that its the players right to run roughshod over the world like some sort of juvenile power fantasy. Hell don`t even tell me that it`s the PC`s job to be heroes. They are free, free to be thugs, low-lifes or villains. They are free to become the stuff of legends, or just another bunch of prats who bit off more than they can chew. They are free to earn these successes or fail despite their best efforts. Because that`s what real agency is and that`s what games should be about.
Well my games anyways. I`m sorry for the hostility but this is something I feel really strongly about. Too many nights have I spent drowning in linear corridors and `puzzles` that will only accept the DM`s one ordained solution. Drowning for hours with the beautiful experience this game could be just beyond my fingertips, almost blinding me with its brilliance yet invisible to everyone else.
You forget a couple of basic truths.1. PC classes are not the run of the mill threats... they are the exception.
Short answer: You're the GM. It's your privilege to pull stuff out of your wazooThis may be well and fine in your games, but these ideas are antithetical to my style of play. My games operate under two basic principles.
1. The players are not special. Sure they might have some fancy class or a couple of levels over your run of the mill villager- but their enemies are typically even greater than that. The world does not revolve around them. It does not need them. It does not care about them. I do not fudge rolls or make special exemptions for them and they are free to die face down in a ditch like any other shmuck.
2. As a DM, I am not god. I am not the author, director, curator, or any of that s$%#. I am physics. I am not responsible for the players success. I am not even responsible for their fun. Sure I create a world and the evenings scenario, but once my friends sit down at my dining room table, cheap dice quivering in their dorito coated hands, my only job is to make sure the world acts in a logical manner. I write no special destiny for my players, I simply create a world and then try to figure out what happens when they f~@~ with it. I never think about how they might "win" the game, all I do is lay out the canvas and stand back to let them paint.
That's all fine, and it's a popular way to play the game for some groups, but it isn't the game's default assumption, so expect that the system will deviate from your requirements from time to time.
Edit: Actually, I take exception to the "I am not even responsible for their fun". Fun is everyone's responsibility. If I find myself at a table where the GM doesn't actively try to facilitate fun, I walk, probably leaving few profanities in my wake. There are better tables, and I don't have enough free time to waste on a lazy GM. If I want a physics simulator, I'll stick to the computer.
During the time of 1st Edition my solution for the problem was to invent the missing "technology".
In a world with burglars people create better locks and doors, alarm systems, traps or employ guards. In a magical world we can safely assume that most spellcasters do not wish to be robbed by their less honest brethren and will invent magicks to counter the intrusion attempts.
In earlier editions there were a some spells designed for this, which are gone now or much changed. And to be honest, them being mostly level 7-9, not available to the broad masses. I recall spell engine, spelltrap, forbiddance, teleport diversion and something called homestone offhand. There were others which strengthened wood, metal and stone or made them proof to being phased through, a mortar that blocked out ethereal beings, and so on. You can probably find a lot of the stuff on the web still, including some articles in the Dragon about security in a magical world.
Used with care (not everybody knows the stuff, can afford it or has access to someone with the power to do it) you can come up with less easily penetrated palaces or at least more challenge :)
It is of course to be assumed that players have at least heard about such spells or methods. Being citizens of the gameworld they would have the same broad picture we have about such things.I have no idea how to break a modern lock, avoid seismic sensors or fool camera systems, but I know at least that they exist and where they are likely to be found.
You don't try and make the game fun for you players? That doesn't even compute to me. Aren't games supposed to be fun?
You must have a really hardcore group.
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It sounded like the OP sort of followed the Ed Greenwood style of GMing, where you create a fully fleshed out world, full of events and NPCs, and then toss the players in the mix(At least that was my impression of his description). Events happen in the world whether the PCs do anything or not, and they are not obligated to follow any particular thread. So you don't really do things to make them happy as much as expand and detail the story threads they happen to latch on to. I would however say that any GM sitting at a table has to at cater at least a bit to their PCs style of play if they want an enthusiastic and returning player base.
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Re: Fun. This is another really sore spot for me... I think this preoccupation with fun is really restraining the growth of games as an art. What would movies be like if film makers limited themselves to making films "pleasant"? What would the state of cuisine be if chefs only tried to make their food sweet?
That's not to say I hate fun. I love fun, just like I like candy bars. But candy bars don't make a meal, and simply "having fun" doesn't make a real engaging and enriching experience. This is a bit tricky as "fun" is such a nebulous concept but I think that if you look closely you'll realize that the best parts of your games are not just the fun parts. Just as I said in the previous post what I love to see is not just my players shouting in triumph, but also in despair. On a basic level you need struggle to have real triumph, ie the sorrow only makes the success sweeter but I think that there is something delicious in pain as well. Though obviously having all sadness and no fun doesn't make for a successful game either. Just like a good chef you have to present an interesting and nuanced blend of flavours.
My players are not hardcore, in fact the farthest from it. Most of them have about the same amount of experience as me but without the hundreds of hours studying the games and contemplating its design. Generally they don't know what adds to their roll when they make an attack and they sometimes forget what class the are. But that's ok, because that's not what's important to them. When I tell them that they smell a funny smell as they enter the house, the remember exactly how I described it. When I tell them they find a scrap of cloth caught on a branch, they remember exactly what colour, pattern, and material it is. And when their back is up against the wall and they have 10 zombies and an alchemist in front of them and 6 angry guards behind, you can bet they're putting every ounce of mental energy they can muster into thinking of a way out.
The tricky thing is is that I don't presume to know what is fun for them but I provide an environment where they can make their own fun. Think of your favourite moments from playing video games. I don't know about you guys, but for me and everyone I've talked to the best and most memorable times weren't that big high-polycount boss or that amazing fancy sword with many bonuses that the game designer placed specifically to wow and excite me, but it was the creative things I did, that I came up with on my own.
Again it's kind of tricky to explain as I'm not very eloquent and these are tricky concepts but I think that the way I make games fun is by not trying to make them fun. So like, I give them a fishing rod and make sure the lake is full of fish, but I'm not serving it up to them on a plate.
And aaaalso my world is not fully fleshed out, in fact the style I'n really trying to nail down is to improvise everything on the spot. That's why I'm so concerned with making things logical, because if I have all the logic down I can just plant a few seeds like "this guy is a greedy mage" and "this lady is a clever rogue" and when you toss in the actions of the players the story writes itself. All I have to do is think "well so and so has this disposition and this set of tools, so logically they would take this action".
Anyways I'm really derailing this thread now. *blush*
Vatras, I think you play the same kind of game that I'm trying to play. That last paragraph in particular. Another thing I really value is there being enough information to make informed decisions. It's becoming clear to me that magical defenses are the answer but it's difficult for me to envision how players would be able to detect and interact with them. How do you do it?
Magic makes the tough balance between keeping things thematic / relatable, covering plot holes, and pondering other checks and balances.
For example - pirate ships raiding merchant ships. Sounds fun, yet if magic was available such things wouldn't happen. It's the GM's job to somehow hand wave or explain how ships are still around when spells like teleport are available at a cheaper cost than building big wooden cargo ships. Castles and political campaigns would be handled much differently as well, yet that quickly derails the original question.
Try figuring costs for defense against magical intrusion. They certainly wouldn't be universal, yet banks and noble palaces would be able to afford good security. Let players get the hint beforehand, they live in that world and as long as they aren't country bumpkins they should be aware that palaces are routinely able to catch low level thieves using magic shenanigans (rumors in town that so-and-so was caught, and had an invisibility wand on their person). Maybe even rumors that some thieves actually avoid using magic in order to remain more stealthy in some rare instances. This way, the group can't just cry foul if they get caught every time.
Also, some places just can't afford the detection, or may be lax on a particular day. It happens, it just shouldn't be everyday.
If you're really mean, let the players keep getting away with it for a while, then have them run across a very high CR squad that hunts people that misuse magic, or are something like a magical secret service. That's when the other shoe drops, the squad should not be pushovers, and there should be every indication that even if defeated, more will look for the group, striking when they split up or sleep.
Re: Fun. This is another really sore spot for me... I think this preoccupation with fun is really restraining the growth of games as an art.
o_O
(I think I get where you're coming from in the rest of your post, but I'm still having trouble shaking my initial reaction.)
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Desidero: your style sounds similar to how I used to play shadowrun.
It does tend to be that permanent defensive magics are high level and/or very expensive.
There was a book called the Stronghold builder's guidebook that used to exist that has some simple non-magical ideas.
First; work out what you want to defend. Even with a castle there are probably areas they don't care about.
Many spells don't work through thin layers of lead.
Earth glide doesn't work through metal - any metal.
Inch thick walls of iron (relatively cheap spell) sandwiched between rock or wooden walls are a good way to do "standard construction". If an airtight seal (say clay) is used then you probably don't even need to worry about rust.
Traps can get around a lot of spells; triggers go up to true seeing, include sound and pressure.
The alarm spell is your friend. Even permanent it is only 2500gp+casting cost, prevents penetration by Tiny+ creatures, and has a password... it even has the option for a silent alarm. Most people in medieval times will live work and sleep within a mile of the same spot.
Flying creatures mean you have to treat the entire outer surface volume as perimeter. This is annoying, but gives an in-genre reason for important areas to be below the ground level. It also gives a good reason to "re-use" previously created subterranean stores.
More expensively...
Mage's private sanctum is awesome for stopping bugging.
Teleport Trap stops high level casters ignorning the entire thing.
At the top of the range is Create Demiplane so that should probably top out how much people are prepared to spend. For about 70K you can have a 4000 cubic foot area that is an extradimensional dead magic zone with a permanent portal to the real world. for twice that you can have 16000 cubic feet. Then all you have to worry about is permanent portal plane shifting, which I believe teleport trap will take care of.
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I endorse the use of mundane defenses; the beaded curtain/chimes idea was actually used in one of the FR novels I read. A drow priestess had a set of them hanging above a doorway, just in case someone tried to levitate invisibly into her sanctum. Which is exactly what happened. Might've been one of the War of the Spider Queen books.
I had a dwarven bank (long abandoned) that the party had to get into during a game. The door was locked with a pair of massive stone keys, each weighing several hundred pounds. The keyholes were between 10 and 15 feet off the floor. Normally, the door would be opened by commanding a pair of animated statues to pick up the keys and place them in the proper holes. No casual lockpicking was going to get the party past the doors. It was possible to do manually, but would take some creativity. The whole place was also "wired" with magical energy lines that "grounded out" teleportation and divination attempts. It was possible to TP into the place, but extremely dangerous. Teleportation within the vault worked just fine; just the outside worked like a sort of magical Farraday cage. I think there were 3 tiers of defense before the party got into the vaults proper. The "stun field" was my favorite; originally designed to allow defenders a chance to subdue hasty thieves, it was really just a chance for me to throw a quick puzzle room at the party. And watch them wince every time I said "BZZZZT!"
Back on track, though. Guard animals are a classic standby. Not only are they much more adept at detecting intruders than your average human War 3, but they can often fight pretty well. Even smaller animals, such as cats patrolling for stray mice and rats can help out. Substitute guard snakes or scorpions or spiders depending on your particular flavor.
Simple alarm-type traps are a great option, too. The default ones they list in the CR 1/2 traps are okay, but can usually be spotted pretty easily. Consider buffing up the detection DC while leaving the effects largely untouched for more sophisticated traps.
I feel your pain with the "one solution" often anachronistic puzzles that some GMs love. I've never liked the idea of using real-world riddles and word games and such to model puzzles and traps in the game world. Plus, most of my players HATE dealing with puzzles. In these cases, I just assign an appropriate DC and timeframe, and move on. For the "stun field" that I mentioned earlier, the solution was simply moving in a particular pattern, which was actually illustrated on the walls of the room, but repeated as a decorative element. Once one of the players figured it out, and another Dimension Door'ed across the room, I handwaived the rest of it.
Lead-lined walls (or really thick stone walls) are a good inhibitor for magical shenanigans. If the owner isn't terribly affluent, though, there are options.
An inch of common metal blocks most detect-type spells. Copper costs . . . coppers. I had an important item hidden in a decent-sized chest filled with copper coins. The item was buried in the middle of all that copper, and didn't show up on a detect magic spell. The party, being greedy buggers, found it anyway. They actually tried to haul the 500gp worth of copper coins out (remember, this was an abandoned dwarven vault. The dwarves left their spare change).
Sorry if I rambled a bit. Been a long day moving.
I think it's mostly a semantic difference. Based on the OP's explanations it's clear that he wants his players to enjoy the experience, he just prefers to accomplish that with tension rather than feeding player greed/ego. Of course, either one could be described as "fun", it all depends on how a given person perceives the word.
I don't mind my player's egos being fed. I mean, they're my real life friends- I want them to succeed. I cheer (inside my head) when they accomplish their goals. But I just feel that to give them the best game possible I need to draw upon more kinds of experiences. I do want them to "enjoy" the session overall in the sense that they are glad its a part of their life, but I explicitly want to include elements that they won't enjoy. Think about spicy food. I think most people probably enjoy a little bit of heat in their food at least once in a while. But the funny thing is, there is no such thing as a flavour receptor for spiciness. "Spiciness" is just pain.
If you're really mean, let the players keep getting away with it for a while, then have them run across a very high CR squad that hunts people that misuse magic, or are something like a magical secret service. That's when the other shoe drops, the squad should not be pushovers, and there should be every indication that even if defeated, more will look for the group, striking when they split up or sleep.
The more I think about this idea the more I like it. Even if one could think of complete defense against every form of magic, actually implementing this kind of setup would be prohibitively expensive and highly impractical for every day use.
What's even better is that this doesn't prevent heists from taking place, but simply adds additional elements to the adventure: covering your tracks and dealing with retrieval squad. In fact that itself would be a pretty fun campaign. CSI: Sandpoint!
Dogs are ordinary, often used and cheap ~ why wouldn't a guard group use them? They are not however infallible.
You can put any number of problems and the real joy is for players to work out how to get around them. Nobody wants to rob an ordinary house, where you can walk in and steal all the goods. All the good movies have "impossible odds" and ingenious solutions to get around them.
Don't be afraid to put in appropriate defenses into this place. Rich people should be more than willing to pile on the defenses to protect their treasure, especially more so in a world with magical possibilities.
Possible defenses to me are
Golems or Constructs: They never need to sleep, never need to rest and are immune to illusion effects.
High level Guards: It simply makes sense to hire wizards, inquisitors, rangers or other specialists to protect your belongings. Intelligent opponents exist and should never be "dumb" just so PCs can get away with things. Additionally specialists should be heads of guards, giving out orders to find players.
Undead: They have life sense and while not as aesthetically nice as constructs, do share excellent qualities for guards.
Antimagic rooms: If I was a bank this would be the thing I'd have on the very first door. If charm, dominate, suggestion and illusions were usable in banks then there would be no money left.
Spell Traps: dispel magic, true sight, dimensional anchor, alarm, summon
Pet Gelatinous Cube: Because it's hilarious
Empty passageways filled with noisy floors
Treasuries pumped full of poisonous gases while in lock down
Permanent Firewalls
~
Funnily enough I recently found the ranger spell "Allfood" and was immediately thinking of a ranger who robbed houses using the spell.
This is a little slanted, but price may not be the only consideration someone may place on anti-magic devices. What about the annoyance factor? False-alarms? For example, an alarm spell may go off even if the owner walks by. This would quickly get annoying. So the owner may not put one in, even if it is pretty cheap to do so.
I like the idea of a service that "clears out" magic periodically. Like insect-control. But there could also be security specialists who have preferences for certain techniques, even if they leave holes in the security system that an enterprising rogue would notice.