This came up in the 1e vs. 2e vs. 3e thread, but I decided to put it in it's own so as not to derail that. It pops up often enough, but you rarely see a thread dedicated soley to this topic. Well, here's one!
3ed introduced this idea that you can buy magic items on demand at any sufficiently large settlement. It also made magic item creation a lot more straightforward, set prices on every item, set standard rates for hiring spellcasters, and gave each character level a recommended amount of gold.
It's awful.
Magic items aren't worth as much any more. They're just another aspect of min-maxing. Players aren't interested in any treasure unless it fits their character build. Treasure you can't use isn't worthless now that you can ebay it for half value in gold; it becomes a game of players noting down worthless vendor trash as party loot that nobody actually carries to trade in for magic items they want in an after-adventure shopping spree.
Players complain when their character is underequipped, as if getting their gold is a right, not a reward. If you give too little or don't let them buy wondrous items out of thin air between adventures they become angry that you're nerfing their character; if you give too much, they become either dismayed when later encounters don't give proportionally more, or become rapidly overpowered when they do.
Noting down vendor trash isn't heroic - it's a chore! Players get stuck writing down gear nobody wants, and DMs get handed at bill to itemize at the end of the game. Neither is it heroic to go shopping for equipment as if the legendary sword you just risked your life for can be cloned for a bagful of money!
I ran into that problem, too, but there are some things that can be done to counter this. The first is the actually enforce weight restrictions and carrying capacity (in volume, not just pounds). If the party persists in the dismal act of literally ripping the Dungeon to pieces for some extra gp, show why it's a bad idea (make them put in more gp than it's worth to buy the equipment they would logically need, which is then bulky and hard to carry, and any dungeons with intelligent foes learn of them coming a mile away; or, if they come back after the adventure, tomb robbers have carried out all that lesser stuff in the interim).
That can get really adversarial, however. Another way is to handle how you, as the DM, hand out loot. This could be as simple as condensing gold pieces to platinum for ease of carrying, or using more scrolls and potions and gemstones and other easily portable items so that it seems less like the party is "stooping" for more money.
Additionally, just play up the interaction between players and their magic item vendors. Just because the DMG never comes out and says it doesn't mean that the people who make these things don't really exist or can't be interacted with. Whether it's a wizard or cleric who makes items on demand, or a merchant who knows one and travels the lands, the party should be able to come face to face with these people and ask for their items. Then you can make it out to be a much more "heroic" event, as a magical sword is forged for whatever great hero has asked for it (if the players conduct themselves in this way).
Also, there's no reason this stuff has to be available right now; magic items take time to craft; and/or perhaps the town doesn't actually have a magic item crafter, but there is a supply line to someplace that does. And it makes no sense for the magic item makers to create junk and just leave it lying around, hoping there is a buyer for what they've made and that some theif or ethereal filcher won't come and take it before they can sell it. So, the party may well have to wait for their +1 swag, which isn't bad if you've got a wizard who needs some down time.
Finally, sometimes there just isn't access to magic. If you're in a frontier town a hundred miles away from the closest wizard and his laboratory, then you're just out of luck. Now, I'd recommend telling the players this bit of information before hand as an act of good faith, rather than waiting until they want that new doohickey. And, again, there's always paying a courrier and waiting the month or so for the item to come back from the crafter.
Now, I've never played 1e/2e (I'm a youngster compared to most people here), so this all seems more natural to me and I've never had to adapt my game from those models. However, this seems to be the way 3.x wants to work, and I just thought I'd offer my views to show that it doesn't have to involve destroying roleplaying and "heroic" nature of your players.
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A heap of good points you have, but it is also important to remember the setting you are playing in. In Eberron, low level magic is everywhere, in Birthright (cleverly updated to 3.5 at birthright.net) having a 5th level character get a +1 sword from his sickly father as an heirloom is appropriate.
Otherwise, yeah, the only time you get to take everything that isn't nailed down is when you get to make several trips in and out, you can't carry everything of value.
Although this creates a synthetic demand for bags of holding, portable holes, haversacks, and wands of shrink item...
I pretty much agree with waht saern said. I also never played 1st and 2nd edition so I cannot really compare to the good old times. But I can understand that selling/buying magic items can sometimes become a difficult task fot the DM.
I am currently DMing Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (which I adapted to 3.5 and modified quite a bit) and my players are facing that problem. I had to create a series of NPC just to handle selling/buying equipment. I must say that I am bending the rules when the players comes in town with a loot value of 100 000 gp, but if do not, how will they get the gp to buy potions, scrolls, etc... I have some difficulty beleiving that each and every guard should carry 25gp to give my players some gold.
There are some ways to control the ''realism'' of the mercantile aspect. I insist on the fact that everything is not available on demand and that some wands/scrolls/woundrous items are not available because no one is powerfull enough to them. It sure creates some tension between me and some players, but hey I am the DM and I decide what is going on.
To solve the problem of the higher level loot, I equip my NPC's with pieces of equipment that I am sure the player will keep.
I could go on for a couple of lines, but I don't want to bore everybody (and I should be studying for my exam)
Cheers !
I think the whole magic shop issue is mostly a DM b*@##ing problem.
But lets deal with the players ripping the dungeon up for money first.
make sure that stopping them is actually worth while. It could well be that the DM can play up the characters carrying furniture around for laughs. However, make sure to reduce how much gold they get later on to compensate for the fact that they sold the figgen doors - insure that they understand that this is happening, it may be that they would rather get their loot in the form of magic scrolls and such instead of doors.
If they still insist on selling doors and benchs try and get them to tell you why this is such a fun aspect of the game. More often then not I get this behaviour when the players feel that its the only way they can get any money in this game.
As for the magic item shop - If the players want a magic item shop type environment then I see no reason to deny them what they want in the game. If your players hate the magic item shop then the DM should not have any trouble eliminating it. The problem mainly seems to come up because the DM does not want magic item shops but the players do. Now that's a recipe for a bad game, make sure you and your players are clear on what kind of a game is being played. Knowing what kind of game you and your players want and coming to some kind of agreement is part of being a good DM. If its a magic shop light game that is desired then its the DMs job to sell this idea to the players. In the end we mostly get magic item shops because that's what most players actually like. They want to build their characters to fit their idea of what is cool and, generally, there is nothing wrong with that.
That said 1st and 2nd editions 'no magic shop' system had the neat aspect of the players always using the magic that came along and sometimes they came up with neat ideas for this stuff. The loot one found became a defining feature of the character as it grew and that could be really cool. If you have players that have not tried this style of gaming it might be worth giving it a whirl. You might be pleasantly surprised how shiny and sparkly a feather token can be when you can't trade it in and its impossible to buy one. Personally I especially liked it in that one tended to roll randomly to see what the bad guys had in terms of magic (since it was assumed that they where hoarding the odd crap they found as well). It could lead to some rather unique encounters. Just stress to the players that in this world nobody buys and sells magic (except maybe really weak magic like potions). The stuff is really, really, hard to make and extremely hard to destroy. The mentality is to horde it and that's more or less what everyone does (The players – the NPCs and even the bad guys).
Now if you go with this option, especially if you are randomly rolling the treasure you should serously reduce the amount of gold they get and increase the amount of magic (unless the theme is 'dirt poor' - and I'm near certian 'dirt poor' will sound a lot cooler to the DM then the players) When you can't really buy magic the value of gold drops dramatically. Keep it rather uncommon or your players will find ways to spend it that will seem to be primarly motivated to make your life miserable - the first time the players decide to bring a barn yard with them to the dungeon its kind of funny but it gets old real friggen fast. Keep the gp count down and the amount of magic up and everyone will lhave fun - especially the DM while watching the players squabble among themselves over who will get what loot.
I've got to agree with most of the points made here. I did have some difficulty with 1e's rules for magic item creation. Since nothing was standardized, it became difficult to explain why half-a-dozen +1 swords could be found in any dungeon, and yet a PC wizard had to spend his fortune in research to craft one. On the other hand, 3.5e's concept of any magic item being available if you've got the cash isn't much better.
I've reworked the concept in my own campaign thusly:
PCs can make any item they want according to the RAW. Of course, I monitor their wealth and time to make sure they don't take advantage of this.
There are "magic shops" that sell a few scrolls, a few potions, spell components, and the occasional (very) minor magic item. Anything greater than this has to be created or commissioned (or stolen, of course).
Economics drives the magic item market. If the average blue-collar guy makes about 1 sp/day, then the average magic vendor only has to sell one minor item/year to make his fortune. Also, customers who can afford magic items are few and far between. Therefore, wizards don't spend much time (or gold, or xp) making magic items because it's neither necessary nor economically wise.
Magic item prices are negotiable. If PCs ask the local magic shop owner to find them an item they have to pay a finder's fee, wait for negotiations to be finalized, and wait for the item to be crafted and delivered. If PCs commission an item themselves, they can of course skip the finder's fee - but not the rest. The final price of the item can be affected by the NPC wizard's attitude toward the PCs, the amount of time allowed by the PCs, and a million other factors.
Due to the large amounts of cash involved, the whole magic item creation process is subject to criminal interference. If payment for an item is left in the care of an agent, it can be stolen. The item itself might be stolen when it's finished. Bandits can steal payments or items as they're being transported.
The number and type of magic items found in any given dungeon is severely limited. I judge each item according to the affect it will have on the party. If the item has no significant place in the story, I simply replace it with an equivalent value in coins or gems. Alternately, I'll replace the item with something more appropriate for the party.
So far, this system has worked out pretty well in terms of game balance and player satisfaction. I'd seriously recommend that any DM carefully consider the math involved in the various DMG passages regarding treasure and wealth. They help a lot in keeping things workable if you apply them judiciously.
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I won't really address the ripping apart of the dungeon, but I do have 2 ways of handling the Magic Shoppe aspect:
1.) gloss over it as a "players have a few free days in town to shop, you guys can buy anything under the GP limit of the towne", and not get into too much detail. Or....
2.) Magic Shoppes have masterwork items ready to be enchanted and Magic-users that are on commission by shoppes to lay the final enchantments on an item and, depending on how much time the party has, this usually takes between 24 and 72 hours. If a PC wants enchantments added to an item then the PC can leave his weapon with the vendor to be enchanted and I usually have the vender give the PC a "loaner" weapon for the interim (a masterwork weapon if the PC has a lower level magic weapon of say +2 enchantment or lower, or a straight +1 or +2 loaner if the PC has higher enchantments than +2).
You need to hit different shoppes for different things obviously, like you can't buy a Periapt of Wisdom from a weapons dealer, you need to hit the Jeweler.
I always just think of item creation as you need to spend a certain amount of time getting the Masterwork item ready to accept the final enchantment. Soaking it in alchemical and mystical reagents and oil, using words of mystical might to imbue the metal with energies that will readily accept the enchantment, etc. Then after that is done the final casting of whatever spell (say flame blade for a flaming weapon) into the blade is a relatively quick process for the caster who prepped the blade and doesn't take more than a few hours. My 24-72 hour wait period is more to simulate the availability of said caster to work the casting into his/her schedule.
Sorry for the longish post but I like the method I use and thought it may help people get a better grasp on allowing PC to buy stuff whenever they wish. A 1-3 day wait is trivial in most cases.
FH
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Arghhhh - one my single biggest pet peeves in the entire game.
I like (and use) many of the above cited suggestions. I really tend to emphasize a low to low-moderate magic campaign. Magic is usually pretty special, as are magical items.
Problems with the PCs selling everything and looting the dungeon? How do they carry all those +1 suits of leather armor? There are obvious repercussions for being too weighed down with "bulk." I like Saern's idea to make them pay for and obtain a cart, wagon, etc. to actually haul the loot back.
When they get to town - who do they sell to? I really take a sharp eye to this - in Greyhawk or Waterdeep, no problem, you can unload a +1 sword. However, are you in a hamlet with a 900 gp limit? Does the town even have a weaponsmith? If he does, how does he know the sword/armor/whatever is actually enchanted like you say it is? Does he fear magic? I had one scenario where a town tried to string up a PC for trying to sell a magical wand - they wanted to burn him at the stake for selling "devil wares."
It really just depends on your campaign, how much you hand out, and how you treat the PCs' ability to offload what they don't want. I'll end now before I go into a spastic rant about magical 7-elevens that sell whatever you want whenever you want it.
(Really, did Bilbo sell "Sting" when he found it? "Oh, this is just a +1 short sword that detects goblins....it doesn't really go with my TWF frenzied berserker build that I was opting for. How much can get for it?" Argghhh.)
My first solution to this is something like Skie's: Stores actually have inventory. It's a lot (and I do mean a lot) of extra work for the DM, but if you like RPing shopping, it's worth it. For items not in stock, I assume that merchants can order things in from other warehouses or cities, with some percentage chance of not having immediate access to exactly what the PCs want. (Someone on the market will have it, or be able to make it, but the PCs may have to wait while the item is made, their contact searches, or go up the supply line themselves.) They more work the local merchant has to go through to get the item, a the larger premium or finder's fee they will place on the item in question. After all, if you just spent three weeks tracking down a +2 flaming wounding axiomatic halberd, had it shipped next-day (teleport), and only get a narrow markup because the other magic dealer didn't do wholesale, you're going to charge for the service.
Store inventoies are allowed to have an out for low cost/value items. For instance, a potion shop might be assumed to have at least 10 of every first-level potion and 5 of every 2nd level potion.
This system discourages 'buy whatever you want' syndrome while still allowing the characters to purchase items they need, which is important in 3.5 (A 10th level PC is sort of assumed to be wearing an amulet of natural armor, a ring of protection, etc.)
Another way to discourage just selling off the found items is to avoid making merchants too trusting. Sure, the party mage identified that sword, but why should the magic merchant trust them that it's a +3 sword instead of +2? If the merchant identifies it himself, that costs him money. So the party just had to pay for two identify spells. If the party tries to skip a step and just get the magic shop owner do all their identifications, they don't know that they are getting a square deal. The more work and less value PCs get for random magic items make them more likely to hang on to the little niche use (i.e. interesting) items.
I think the DMG rules on what is available based on size of town are a good guideline here. If you are in a metropolis that is a major center of the game-world economy, stuff should be generally available, except for the really big stuff (staff of power, holy avenger, etc.) which can only be created or found because there isn't enough demand to justify making the stuff and letting it sit around. If you are in a dirt-poor village where people hoard their coppers to buy seed grain for the next year's planting, if you're lucky there's a local witch who lives off in a hovel in the woods who is said to brew potions of various sorts, but has to be handled with kid gloves if you don't want to be turned into a frog.
In general, you can use the desire for better/custom magic items as a campaign and character development device. If the campaign is taking place in a backwards, isolated region, that is a great incentive for some of the PCs to take item creation feats (which you wouldn't waste your time with if you can buy everything). Or it can be a reason that draws the PCs to the big city at 6th or 7th level when you've actually given them enough treasure to make a shopping trip to the "Magic Mall of the Americas" worthwhile.
In general, tailor treasure so that you give out stuff that is either (a) immediately useful to one or more of the PCs, or (b) will be useful to them in an upcoming situation. This reduces the desire to convert everything to cash and go visit the Magic Shoppe. It's pretty easy to anticipate what most players want for their PCs and put some things in the adventure that fill the bill, along with a few things they're not quite sure what to do with but will find a use for later on. One of my favorite things to do is to give out items that have several mysterious functions that may be discovered over time through (increasingly difficult) knowledge checks or achievement of campaign goals. I don't use legacy rules, but I rig it so that the item becomes a plot device instead of just a small element of the player's min-maxing plans.
There are two more rules to keep in mind when addressing this question for your campaign:
1. Campaign balance requires the players to have a certain amount of magic items to face challenges appropriate to character level. If you don't hand out much magic, all your 9th level PCs are going to be able to deal with are a narrow spectrum of CR9 enemies (things like 9th level orc fighters or hill giants), and they are going to have to stop and rest often because they don't have the extra spellcasting resources to stay in the field when their daily spell alotment is burned.
2. Magic items, like every other aspect of the game, should be fun for both players and DM. When they become boring and mundane, it's time to minimize the amount of playing time spent on them. Typically, in the early stages of a low-level campaign, you don't get very much that is magical, and it can be enjoyable to play with items to see what they do, visit various NPCs in town in search of a buyer or seller for a particular kind of item, obtain a pearl so you can cast identify, etc. Treasure in general is harder to come by, so your players are understandably going to want to roll up the tapestries and cart off the barrels of liquor and the gilt furniture. it can even be enjoyable roleplaying the "how do you plan to actually do this" aspect of stripping the dungeon. The first time. Down the road, this gets old and wastes playing time that could be better spent advancing the plot or fighting adversaries. When the PCs start stripping the dungeon at 9th level, it's time to say "OK, session over. It takes you ten days and when you're done selling the loot you get 15,000 gp. Each person's share is 3,750 gp. Before our next meeting, please e-mail me with a list of anything you want to buy, and come prepared with updated encumbrance data."
One last note--I generally avoid having more than one quarter of an NPC's wealth tied up in any given magic item, and I take steps to discourage PC's from saving up all their gold for one big-ticket item as well. I don't mind it if I directly hand them the big-ticket item, though, because I will have thought out how it works into the campaign, and what they will have to do to unlock the item's powers. Even if these special items have a theoretical market value of 100,000 or more gp, the PCs will not be able to sell it for that (or even be aware of it's value), and probably won't want to because they'll know there's a mystery attached to the item that they ought to unlock first. And generally the item's power itself won't be locked up in one specific valuable function. The +5 holy avenger is a rare item indeed in my campaigns, but I often hand out a +1 sword with several strange runes etched into the blade that are the key to unlocking additional powers that the sword has, whether those are special qualities, additional points of bonus, or spell-like abilities, or waking up the dormant ego of the intelligent sword, or whatever.
In my longest-term homebrew campaign (continuous since 1e), we houseruled that the PC must pay the full XP cost for all his/her magic items. This has more or less eliminated the need to keep track of gold; characters are assumed to have enough for high living expenses, and that's that. This system works great for people who hate accounting, and for those who dislike the rapidity of advancement in 3e (paying xp for items slows advancement a tad as well).
The biggest disadvantage is that this sometimes creates a "disconnect" between gear and character level; occasionally I'll need to "fudge" things a bit for the 10th level parties with 5th level gear, usually by correspondingly reducing the gear possessed by major NPCs (the reverse situation--guys stuck at 5th level due to excessive items--is less of a problem because I don't let them lose levels to gain items; available xp only).
Has anybody else tried anything like this before?
Ohhhh... A tough topic. I am on the fence on this topic - I see both sides clearly.
General observations:
First, the DM's that have a problem with the way 3.x handles the purchase and sale of magic items tend to be "old school" DM's that are entrenched in the lack of "magic item shops" style game. This isn't absolute, but a good guideline.
The players that are dead set against the lack of "magic item shops" are either new gamers, or munchkins.
That would suggest that if said DM's and players can't reach an agreement or compromise, that will discourage new hobbyists. Not a good thing.
Personal observations:
If you limit the characters access to loot - to the point where the players are getting frustrated, you are hurting the game.
The best case scenario that I have seen is that the players become merchants. If you think the world economy can't support magic item trade, wait until your magic / psionic using PC's flood the market with masterwork items using Fabricate and such.
Also, setting up a "magic item shop" becomes a lucrative endeavor. And far less taxing than say, following the DM's cleverly written dungeon crawl that might net a few more gp's.
Neither are a good thing.
While I am certainly not advocating letting "anything go," I do caution against restricting your players shopping experience without giving them fair warning long before they start the game.
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As noted above, the default D&D setting assumes easy access to magic items tailored to your character. If your world doesn't have that, you'll need to do some extensive design work to understand and cope with the ramifications. That is not to say that I oppose low-magic campaigns. I'm starting an Iron Heroes campaign right now, in fact.
I wouldn't normally use D&D for such a world, though. Besides the above-mentioned Iron Heroes, most point-based games (GURPS, Hero, etc.) aren't dependent on PCs either finding or selling loot without the GM expending his limited time on reinventing the game system.
My experience, too, is that serious greyhawking* usually reflects a perceived lack of treasure for the party. I largely attribute this to designers and GMs hiding the good stuff in their dungeons (this is especially a dungeon-adventure problem). The first time you find the major treasure hidden in a secret compartment at the bottom of a fountain, or the first time the DM tells you that you missed that treasure after you leave, your attitude about searching starts to change.
For that matter, in the right circumstances, greyhawking can be fun. One of the campaigns I'm now playing in has been very resource-poor for story reasons. In that campaign, the PCs have made a sled using an Ankheg carapace and scrap weapons so we can carry food, water, and bulky treasure without being too inconvenienced. Balancing encounters against nominally CR-appropriate enemies has been difficult for the GM, though. (The game was originally designed for use with Hero System, but the system was changed to allow the other players a bit less difficulty in system-switching.)
* To greyhawk: To steal everything movable. Hammers and crowbars (and wagons and pulleys) are on the equipment list to allow you to redefine "movable". Ex: "We totally greyhawked that place. It turns out that it's probably more trouble than it's worth to sell goblin furniture. OTOH, if you hire an NPC on commission, ...." It has nothing particularly to do with what game system you're playing and it's certainly not new.
Excellent post Doug (as is usual) and this in general is a very good thread. For all the reasons above, I had entertained the idea of sinking money into the Iron Heroes system to run for our group.
Unfortunately I have players that have vested time and money into "The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game", and they would be very reluctant to shelf their investment.
Admittingly, I am the first to forget that "The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game" isn't LotR or Conan, its high fantasy where magic (and magic items) are supposed to be common place.
But I just don't like it.
By the way, "The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game" designers have commented that new magic item pricing policies are a little different than just a common formula. They now take into account practicality and relative utility. Speaking of which, I had a player seek a Tome to boost a stat. I charged double book price. In my head, I felt that the cost was not balanced (too low), but in game, I justified it by simple economics - its price is exactly what someone would pay for it. And he bought the tome.
I have no problem with players looting the dungeon furniture - Peruhain of Brithondy above gives a tidy solution to this.
If magic items can be bought, sold and trivially created, it has practical as well as thematic drawbacks. Players currently expect to be able to buy any magic item they can afford, treating the Dungeon Master's Guide like a shopping catalogue, and both player and Dungeon Master are burdened with accumulated vendor trash.
Pick-and-choosing your own magic items becomes an inherent part of the game, and players come to expect it. Whatever method you use to make magic items harder to come by, your players will complain that they're relying on random loot and DM fiat for their treasure. In the third edition game, unlike any previous edition, magic shops are effectively a reality.
The main two problems I have with easily available magic items are these:
- Magic isn't so special. A rare item isn't rare when you can buy it. Players will rarely be in the interesting situation of using sub-optimal equipment because it's better than their normal gear in some way.
- Vendor trash. Players have to nominate a guy to cart out all the worthless equipment they find - lets call this guy the garbage man - in order to sell it at a town, giving DMs a fun time adding up sale prices of equipment.
The secret to the success of the magic item shoppe is that its fun for the players. Sure all the magic items become part of a big shopping catalogue which the players pick and choose from, but this is the case because picking and choosing cool items for your character is an inherently entertaining thing to do.
your players are all excited about the loot because their dreaming of the day when they can finally afford coveted items that will make their cool character just so much cooler. As a DM do you tell them what race and class they must play? If you think about it this is really not much different. The magic their going to deck their characters out with is part and parcel of what they think about when their dreaming of their cool character. Its one of the draws that gets them to plunk down at your table every week.
So letting the players go shopping for highly anticipated loot does not really make it less special to them - really what we have here is that this loot is less special for the DM. What the DM sticks in the dungeon is suddenly not really so important because the players are not likely to prize it as much as some dreamed of item that they have read the description of half a dozen times.
Yeah OK, so maybe this is a bit of a blow to the DM. He's just handing out weird shaped gps really, but I suggest that 99% of the time the DM should just get over it. This aspect of the game is much more central to the players and their characters then it is to the DM. The DM has not been anticipating the day that he can afford a Ring of wizardry for the last six months, just let it go and let the players have their fun.
Sure your players are going to fight tooth and nail every time you come up with some story on why it is you can deny them their coveted items. Their doing this because your trying to wreck one of the really exciting parts of the game – the part when they transform their luchre into cool stuff their heart desires.
So as a DM you have to ask yourself why it is so important to you that your players have less fun? That's really what this comes down to. They want to do it because its fun and your trying to stop or at least impede them in this goal. 99% of the time this is just a bad idea. If you have a thematic problem with this then fix it - and fix it so they can have their loot. The less barriers to the players getting their loot the better most of the time. Sure if you have a system where the players have to wait a little for their order to be ready and generally in your campaign a couple of extra days to kick around town can be a fun (or quickly handwaved) way to spend game time then there is no issue. The players know they are going to get their stuff and you've explained this whole thing away enough to make the campaign seem 'real'. Hell occasionally it can even serve as a plot device and there is nothing wrong with that ("Flee the coming flood? Are you crazy, I already paid for an Adamantite Great Axe! Are you sure we can't just, uh tread water or stay on a roof or something until next Tuesday?").
Honestly - how many other places does one, as a DM, introduce mechanics into the game intending to make the game less exciting for your players? Hopefully none right? So why do so here?
Vendor trash. Players have to nominate a guy to cart out all the worthless equipment they find - lets call this guy the garbage man - in order to sell it at a town, giving DMs a fun time adding up sale prices of equipment.
So make them do it and run it by you. Its their loot - they can add it up. They'll probably even enjoy it.
Also, I've seen some mention of applying real economics to magic item prices and discussions of availability.
This is fine, but one must remember the context. There are two very distinct classes in D&D when it comes to NPCs: the wealthy and the poor (what a unique concept). The wealthy are wealthy. These guys, whether they be nobles or royals or priests or mages or whatever, handle thousands of platinum pieces. These are the guys building castles and dungeons full of traps. They can afford the magic stuff.
Then you have the poor. They are poor. They have little money. They dwell in a world where 5gp is a chunk of money that shouldn't be spent carelessly. Even in a good aligned society, this is what seems to be presented. There is very little middle class it seems; perhaps the categories go from "poor" to "less poor" to "obesely wealthy."
The end result is that there aren't that many of the wealthy (relative to the poor) and the poor aren't going to be affecting the demand for magic. The wealthy are more or less the only ones with a demand for that magic, and they may well have a saturated market, or close to it. So, even with the presence of magic item shops, which are a lucrative business, business doesn't always have to be hopping. And with such a relatively low demand, the shops wouldn't necessarily even be common. Just enough to keep the wealthy supplied and happy. And even then, that can easily be accomplished without having most people ever touch the "bigger" forms of magic- +2 weapons could well be the largest thing most stores ever deal in. You have to go to the world-reknown artificer or whatever to get +3 or better, and you're going to have to put up with whatever he wants, because he controls the access to magic.
The end result is that there aren't that many of the wealthy (relative to the poor) and the poor aren't going to be affecting the demand for magic. The wealthy are more or less the only ones with a demand for that magic, and they may well have a saturated market, or close to it. So, even with the presence of magic item shops, which are a lucrative business, business doesn't always have to be hopping. And with such a relatively low demand, the shops wouldn't necessarily even be common. Just enough to keep the wealthy supplied and happy. And even then, that can easily be accomplished without having most people ever touch the "bigger" forms of magic- +2 weapons could well be the largest thing most stores ever deal in. You have to go to the world-reknown artificer or whatever to get +3 or better, and you're going to have to put up with whatever he wants, because he controls the access to magic.
That's about how I usually run it.
On the low end, I have adepts with Craft (Alchemy), Profession (Hebalist), and Brew Potion selling useful substances, medicines, and the occasional 0-level or 1st-level potion (which are within the price range of a successful artisan or minor merchant, petty nobles, etc.). Even a 25gp potion of cure minor wounds can keep someone from dying in an accident before the local cleric arrives.
In the middle are the merchants who sell high-quality items (armor, weapons, jewelry), some of which (probably no more than one or two) may have minor enchantments (like a masterwork longsword that can be commanded to activate a magic weapon effect once per day; 675gp). These cater to the successful merchants, lower nobility, guildmasters, etc., as well as any adventurers who may be in the area (adventurers are notoriously poor clients, as they have the tendency to die, retire, or leave the area after a short period of time, instead of being regular customers).
At the high end, there are establishments in cities that specialize in magical wares. Usually, they are either associated with or regulated by a mages' or wizards' guild, order, or school. They cater to the mages' or wizards' guild/order/school, the nobility, wealthy merchants, and adventurers (because cities are usually the only place to buy and sell most magic items, there are enough adventurers buying and selling to make this worthwhile). Most of the items will be common +1 or +2 items and limited to the minor lists (as should the majority of the treasure found as loot).
Apart from that, the only other sources of magical items are churches, commissioning an item, or enchanting it yourself. Churches are likely to have a stock of items for use in emergencies, but convincing them to sell any of them will be tough going; a member of the church (or of the church clergy) will likely be able to request a few items on occasion if they can convince the church leadership that it is in the church's and deity's interest. It should also be possible to locate a spellcaster who is willing to create an item "to spec;" this should follow the pricing and time guidelines in the DMG; this helps keep the rest of the party from getting upset over "doing nothing" while the wizard scribes new spells into their spellbook; note that this can also be used an adventure hook, when the spellcaster requests special materials to meet the characters request... In the end, use of the item creation feats by a party member is always an option when looking for the perfect item; allowing other party members to contribute to the XP cost will keep things fair within the party, so the item enchanter doesn't lag behind the rest of the group.
This is fine, but one must remember the context. There are two very distinct classes in D&D when it comes to NPCs: the wealthy and the poor (what a unique concept).
Actually, there is a third class.
Adventurer.
Surely you don't think the characters of your fellow players at the table are the only ones looking around to get enough money to buy those neat items?
This is fine, but one must remember the context. There are two very distinct classes in D&D when it comes to NPCs: the wealthy and the poor (what a unique concept).Actually, there is a third class.
Adventurer.
Surely you don't think the characters of your fellow players at the table are the only ones looking around to get enough money to buy those neat items?
Have you looked at the treasure tables? The monsters are generally doing pretty well themselves. Some of them can speak common - surely they'd like a piece of that magic item action.
Have you looked at the treasure tables? The monsters are generally doing pretty well themselves. Some of them can speak common - surely they'd like a piece of that magic item action.This is fine, but one must remember the context. There are two very distinct classes in D&D when it comes to NPCs: the wealthy and the poor (what a unique concept).Actually, there is a third class.
Adventurer.
Surely you don't think the characters of your fellow players at the table are the only ones looking around to get enough money to buy those neat items?
To Disenchanter: the way I see it, adventurers start out as "less poor" and quickly sky rocket to join the obscenely wealthy. Also, as was pointed out before, while "adventurers" as a whole are a good target audience, they're also unreliable as customers. So, most people entering the "business" of magic items would probably aim for sating the wealthy, and either just consider adventurers as more such people or an occasional bonus on the side.
To Jeremy: I have a problem conceptualizing monsters doing "human" things. Look at nightshades- each and every one of these creatures is a genius, with the "dumbest" having mental scores as "low" as 18. They're not going to ever integrate into society, however. They're mosnters (in fact, nightshades are undead beings composed of pure darkness and hatred). That's a bit of an extreme example, but I don't really like seeing beholders, dragons, demons, or really anything more exotic than a kenku involved in societal practices that we consider would consider to be "normal."
It's just a personal preference of mine; the alternative seems ludicrous. Not sure how many share my views on the matter, though.
EDIT- Unless that was just a joke that I missed the humor on; in which case, disregard my previous two paragraphs. =/
Jeremy Mac Donald, you're totally correct. Magic item shopping might be new to third edition, but taking it away from players who have come to love it is just as unfair to your players as removing prestige classes, metamagic or non-human races.
The best solution, I suppose you are right, is to have the players manage their own magic item sales while glossing over the magic item buying and selling or handling it as a roleplaying event, in either case making sure players understand that even in a city it takes a little time to line up buyers and sellers for more expensive material.
Identifying costs 110gp per item, and once the items are identified, these players who are over-familiar with the Dungeon Master's Guide won't have a problem finding out magic item values on their own. The DM only needs to supply, which he can ad-hoc if he's forgotten or look up in his notes if it's a custom item.
I suppose in this case, the thematics can be made to fit and the players can pick up their own vendor trash. Much thanks for the good advice!
While I think you should be able to purchase or comission some magic items in a metropolis, I think the chart in the DMG is too high end in larger populations.
If we consider 25,000 adults to be the low end of a metropolis (for the sake of math calculations) Then community wealth while working out fine for lower populations, would have us believe we can walk into the metropolis and sell 125,000,000 gp worth of goods throughout the metropolis (1/10th population times 1/2 gp limit) So on average each person is going to be trading with 5,000 gp. More for the wealthy less for the poor. At what point do you flood the market?
Using the table for highest level locals(pg139 DMG) there are only 4 wizards, 4 sorcerers, and 4 priests over 10th level for any metropolis. What percentage of these individuals are willing to spend xp to craft magic items? Not all but definitely someone.
A similar quandry occurs with returning the dead. Who is going to cast the spell, are they available, would their god what them using their granted spells to raise someone of different alignment? What happens legally?
Looking at two 3+ edition worlds, Eberron and Ptolus. Eberron created the artificer to answer the question of who is spending all this xp to create magic items. Artificers have a craft xp reserve. Returning the dead is difficult in Sharn. The majority of faiths believe it is good to go beyond, negotiating a deal might involve a quest from the church. Ptolus has a magic shop that deals in lower end magic items for sale as well as shops for weapons and armor. There is an organization that crafts magic items on comission but does not have items readily available.
In the end, there should be items available to buy and sell, but adjusting the availablility of more valuable items should be different for each world and each DM. I think fine tuning the gp limit would have made for a fine Dragon article but alas the world will never see it.
I wrote something in March on magic item shopping:
"But who can create an item? Dungeon Master’s Guide pages 138-139 gives rules for how many of each character class typically live in a settlement and their levels. As a rough guide, assume that every wizard spends on average half his bonus feats (level 5, 10, 15 and 20) on item creation feats, and that every adept, cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard spends one third of their normal feats on item creation. A little rolling of 1d2s and 1d3s for each feat slot, and assigning feats to those slots, should give you a good idea how many spellcasters of each class and level exist who have the feat required to create your item."
Funny, I look at this issue from the perspective of a musician (guitar/bass player). I can go to any guitar center and find everything from student level (squire) to fully pro models (music man, etc) on the shelf. But I can only get that day what they have in stock. Smaller towns, I have less selection, bigger towns, more. In the biggest towns, i can search out a custom builder who will hand craft EXACTLY what I want, but at 3-4 times the cost of the fully pro but stock instruments I have seen before. The classical instrument market is perhaps a better model, as it is not uncommon for even a new instrument to cost $20K, and some older, legacy instruments (stradivarii) are owned by wealthy patrons who lend them to young, bright musicians for special performances, and appraise in the millions. I guess I don't have any problem with my players having GAS (gear aquisition syndrome) :)
How many guitars can you get in Los Angeles that allow you to generate an antimagic field?
;)