Alternatively, make vendors appropriately powerful and/or the consequences for stealing severe enough.
A vendor that has magic (or any valuable) items should probably be some combination of personally powerful, has hired guards, and/or owns a hard-to-pick lockbox.
A vendor that routinely notices stuff missing (things are stolen from them 2 or maybe 3 times while you're in the area) stops doing business with you and becomes significantly more wary when you're around. Possibly they tell the guards/locals their suspicions, decreasing everyone's attitude toward you.
The "problem" with all these good suggestions is that they start from the assumption that Larian wants to prevent or at least contain exploits. Disappointingly enough this couldn't be further from Larian's goals, which is to embrace and endorse exploits as a way to "reward" players for "being clever", as Swen Vincke confirmed explicitly in several circumstances, like his famous DOS 2 post-mortem presentation at GDC. Here it is, directly from the horse's mouth (57:36).
"We did it on purpose. We did it because we know players like to glitch the game, so..."
What this angle doesn't take into account, sadly, is that players will always find ways to break systems and exploit mechanics anyway, so ideally the designer's work should be to minimize the holes in the keg to avoid the spilling, rather than adding their own drilling on the wood to make it more amusing.
Last edited by Tuco; 20/03/2307:41 PM.
Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
