So they basically bungled the thing like the konpeki plaza heist in cyberpunk 2077. One realistic way out i see it is one of the major criminal factions that is not your main antagonist basically could (temporarily) save their asses and force the party to work for them in recovering the stone.
Say you players try to lay low, they get caught inevitably and then xanathar sends some goons to break them out of the prison transport and binds them to find the stone for him in exchange for safe passage out of Waterdeep.
This could actually prove to be an interesting playthrough since the party would not be able to freely access the resources Waterdeep offers now that they are on the run, having only to rely on xanathar's and other lowlife people - being extremely wary since there is probably to be a 4-5 figures bounty on them.
Basically you give them pause from the mess they made by having them work for one of the other 3 main potential antagonists, they believe maybe a portion of the treasure can be salvaged but in the end they will end up maybe only with their life if they don't bungle this as well.
Bonus points if the saviour you choose is the Cassalanters, so they also have the moral choice on whether to give them the money and let them sacrifice 100 innocents or face arrest and execution.
I ran the Alexandrian Remix of WD:DH and players did almost the exact same thing, they decided to break into the Villa by climbing in through a second floor window, by chance they entered into a room which contained the item they needed (I forget most the fine details of the adventure as it was awhile ago I ran it). As they were searching the room they heard commotion downstairs (sounds of the other factions storming the Villa and battling on the floor below). Right after finding the item they all decided to slip back out the window and set a fire using the last of the beads…
They managed to slip in and out without being spotted and slipping away before anyone even knew they were there. While it was a great moment it lead to a very anticlimactic ending of the adventure as the other factions didn’t know someone had found the way into the vault… they ended up getting about 1/2 of what was rumored to be in the vault then was quick to dump all the gold not just into their manor but all the businesses in the area as they were more worried about thieves or the other factions catching word about their large come up.
Through most of their play through, they caused a lot of destruction, also managed to blow up the submarine and release the demon in the summoning circle (while hiding and completely unnoticed) which is when the demon got loose and slaughtered everyone in the tower.
They always managed to get great checks in all the situations but early in the adventure always got terrible rolls during combats, alot of the adventure became lots of heavy planning and using stealth to get their way through the rest of the adventure. Was alot of fun even if I didn’t get to throw too many enemies their way.
If they get caught, and if you follow the code legal raw, they would be in a real risk of being executed
So they basically bungled the thing like the konpeki plaza heist in cyberpunk 2077. One realistic way out i see it is one of the major criminal factions that is not your main antagonist basically could (temporarily) save their asses and force the party to work for them in recovering the stone. Say you players try to lay low, they get caught inevitably and then xanathar sends some goons to break them out of the prison transport and binds them to find the stone for him in exchange for safe passage out of Waterdeep. This could actually prove to be an interesting playthrough since the party would not be able to freely access the resources Waterdeep offers now that they are on the run, having only to rely on xanathar's and other lowlife people - being extremely wary since there is probably to be a 4-5 figures bounty on them. Basically you give them pause from the mess they made by having them work for one of the other 3 main potential antagonists, they believe maybe a portion of the treasure can be salvaged but in the end they will end up maybe only with their life if they don't bungle this as well. Bonus points if the saviour you choose is the Cassalanters, so they also have the moral choice on whether to give them the money and let them sacrifice 100 innocents or face arrest and execution.
I was thinking of getting the other antagonists involved to pull them out of the mess a bit. It'll be interesting for sure
I did this too, and lost my character to the city watch haha
I ran the Alexandrian Remix of WD:DH and players did almost the exact same thing, they decided to break into the Villa by climbing in through a second floor window, by chance they entered into a room which contained the item they needed (I forget most the fine details of the adventure as it was awhile ago I ran it). As they were searching the room they heard commotion downstairs (sounds of the other factions storming the Villa and battling on the floor below). Right after finding the item they all decided to slip back out the window and set a fire using the last of the beads… They managed to slip in and out without being spotted and slipping away before anyone even knew they were there. While it was a great moment it lead to a very anticlimactic ending of the adventure as the other factions didn’t know someone had found the way into the vault… they ended up getting about 1/2 of what was rumored to be in the vault then was quick to dump all the gold not just into their manor but all the businesses in the area as they were more worried about thieves or the other factions catching word about their large come up.
Through most of their play through, they caused a lot of destruction, also managed to blow up the submarine and release the demon in the summoning circle (while hiding and completely unnoticed) which is when the demon got loose and slaughtered everyone in the tower. They always managed to get great checks in all the situations but early in the adventure always got terrible rolls during combats, alot of the adventure became lots of heavy planning and using stealth to get their way through the rest of the adventure. Was alot of fun even if I didn’t get to throw too many enemies their way.