The question becomes: To whack Crock or not?

Once your party gets all that they want from him: Spellbooks, Stiletto for your Rogue, Greenwood Bow for your Ranger, Wrist Rockets for your casters, Amulets of Healing and Mana Stones for everybody, he is an easy target, as he isn't part of any faction.

By whacking Crock,

1. You prevent a kidnapping of one of your party members.

2. You get access to his treasure chest (note that he is the only NPC guarding a chest)

3. He isn't part of any faction (he looks like a Human/Higardi, but nobody cares if you whack him).

My preference for what to do with Crock is this:
* Leave him alive
* As soon as I pick up the Idol, quicksave while the screen is turning dark.
* Quit out of Wizardry 8 entirely.
* Then, restart Wizardry 8 and load the quicksave.
* Continue on, seeing as I had the idol and Crock didn't kidnap anyway.

Yes, this is an exploit, but I prefer to do this rather than having to deal with Crock. When a part of the game is annoying (having to either be down a character or kill a shopkeeper), my preference is to glitch around the requirement entirely.

1) The party member only gets kidnapped if the idol is taken, i.e. stolen as its not owned by party,
(dunno how thats handled where you live, but here you do not automatically gain ownership of an item you find)
The idol is not reqqired, you could just relieve Marten by killing him,
instead of being able to leave voluntarily a few moments later
bc his curse is lifted when he passes the DD to someone else.
To avoid the effects of the CM, use the Renaissance Lute chest at sea caves.
Pick up all other items from martens drop 1st so only the CM remains.
Pick up the CM and keep it on the cursor, move to the chest and drop the CM. Set a portal.
Once in CM temple at AP, set another portal, pick up the CM from Sea Caves and keep on cursor,
teleport to CM temple, game will sense presence of CM and spawn the CM_Aletheides who opens the path.
That way your party doesnt go insane at all.

2) Its possible, although difficult, to lure hostile monsters into the shop
so Crock participates in combat and leaves his spot.

3) Yes in vanilla it doesnt mattter.
However in a mod its not that difficlt to trigger any stuff if Crock is killed by party,
e.g. swamp hous collapses and kills all inside, all traders or even whole factions go hostile,
weave him into the main plot in a way that the party now has to do a huge detour,
or must sacrifice a member to forever stay in the shop and do Crocks job, etc pp

Once you get all that you want from Crock, you don't need all of that ammo (all of those Mana Stones will replenish magic). There is no reason to keep him alive. Any ammo that you need for Ascension Peak will be covered by Ferro.

He automatically drops the Eau D Rapax perfume, needed for a T'Rang quest, upon his death, along with the 3 Gadgeteer gadgets.

I have found that the only reasonable kills are 5 guys: Rattus Rattus, Milano Calzone, Don Barlone (same faction, Rattkin Razuka), Crock, and The Rapax King.