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The real issue is that some classes can run around naked with very little mechanical penalty -- an eidolon is partly balanced by *not having magic items* -- and some of them simply cannot. Take a summoner's magic items away, he'll shrug and his eidolon will continue ripping bad guys apart. Tell your level 10 fighter he can't have a magic weapon because you haven't invented a situation special enough to warrant it and you won't have a fighter in your game for very long.
If spellcasters and melee actually worked together you wouldn't need magic items.
Shallowsoul, your assertions about the "logical" consequences of the existence of "magic shops" is, imho, vastly exaggerated and relies on the most liberal possible assumption about magic items and how they are made, distributed and sold.
But if you are going to talk about "logic" and "impact to the world" then you are going to have to explain why your world has NO magic shops when all it takes to start making and selling magic items is a bit of minor education, some gold and a slightly above average intelligence.
If you are going to make some argument about verisimilitude, you're going to have to reconcile the existence of skills, abilities and a strong market demand with the total lack of that market. What, exactly, is stopping a talented blacksmith from becoming a master blacksmith and making magic weapons and armor and then selling them? You actually think it's more "believable" that people with the skills, abilities, resources and time to create magic items simply won't do it? It is precisely because I don't revolve the world around my player characters that magic shops exist. If I were to allow player characters to make magic items, but restrict that ability for every other person in the world, what possible reason could I provide for that other than "this world was made for you?"
The ability to make magic items and sell them does not mean the world would be flooded with magic items and the local middle school gangs would end up with +3 magical daggers. It costs a LOT to make magical items. That alone will keep the supply very low, even for "low end" magic items.
A fully agree. I especially liked your previous examples of Leer Jets. just because something exists, doesn't mean everyone can buy one. The game already has a mechanic that determines if a magic shoppe has the item you are looking for. There have been many times I was turned down an item due to this.
I believe shallowsoul made a comment earlier that bandits would raid magic supplies and then everyone would be getting thier magic items. Well sometimes they do, but that doesnt mean it happens to every magic shop. Most major shops are a bit more secure than smaller rural ones.
And you know what you call a successfull bandit? Player Characters. They kill, gather equipment to sell, purchase new equipment, just so they can go do it again.
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*snip*Well, there's an argument that video games are different in this case. Since everything is set before, there's no GM to tailor the loot to the party. If the original expectation is that the GM would arrange for characters to get stuff they can use, if not the exact item they want, that would be harder to implement in a CRPG, so stores would be a compromise.
A fair idea, but judging by the loot you do and don't get in that game, I don't think that's what's going on.
I mean, if the shops were a compromise like you describe, you'd expect that either the loot would be mostly gold, or it would cover an "average" party and outliers could sell/buy in order to tailor their gear.
But that's not what happens. For instance, there are a few scrolls for the mages and elves to learn spells from, but not for every spell level. If you ever want to cast ALL of your spells, you MUST buy them from the shop. If the shop were a compromise for the lack of a GM to tailor loot, you'd expect that the "default loot" would at least fully cover ONE arcanist. But it doesn't. The game requires the use of the magic shop.
There are also more magic weapons as loot than any party could possibly use. Yet the BEST ones generally have to be purchased instead (except for a secret one that you can find in a town that's not actually part of the plot - you have to go looking for it). Same goes for armor: you'll find more magic armor than a party can use, but MUST use the shops to get the best ones.
The feel of the game is that you buy the best gear you can, then enter a dungeon, get a couple of upgrades while you're there (via loot), then finish and go to town to sell off both your old stuff and the redundant loot so you can buy the rest of your magical gear. Repeat for each dungeon.
Seems to me that the ability to buy your gear has been a built-in assumption for longer than I've been into P&P RPGs.
I'll say that, while you're not wrong in asserting that TB doesn't necessarily have any place in a discussion regarding magic shops in (a by-the-Core-Rulebook) Pathfinder, this got started when I responded to a more universal assertion of yours:
The more universal assertion I made was that the big six are required and they need to scale.
Yes, it is true that there are ways to cooperate with other party members which can greatly reduce the need for the big six. However, for all practical purposes, the assertion is valid because the vast majority of players are going to use the big six items since they are part of the game. So while you are technically accurate in stating that the big six can be somewhat reduced in importance, in practical gaming terms, that is pure theorycrafting.
However, I do want to thank you for bringing up Trailblazer. I was too quick to dismiss it. I should have done some googling before responding instead of after. It looks interesting.
Sigh...
Yeah Alzrius, the fact that the vast majority of players are not going to do what Trailblazer suggests has no bearing whatsoever on how to run a campaign. You win.
This is another instance of you attempting to reframe the argument.
You don't need to buy something so that I can prove a point; I'm not trying to "prove" anything. I'm asserting that Trailblazer makes a proof regarding the topic of the "big six." If you're "suspicious" of that, you can settle your suspicions by purchasing and reading the book - whether you do or not is entirely up to you, but if you haven't read the material, then you're not qualified to comment on the material; the burden of understanding rests solely with you.
It's on that last point that I'll mention that I never said that the proof was either obvious or simple. TB spends several pages walking us through the various "big six" bonuses, utilizing a number of charts and explanatory notes, before coming to its conclusions.
You're entitled to your informed opinion, but you're not entitled to coming by that information free of charge.
I'd read it, I liked the boost it gave to Rogues and Monks (+2 hit when using their ability; Sneak attack/Flurry), but I didn't understand the magic item thing
I will say this: "Trailblazer".breaks apart the math of 3e, and provides lots of solid advice as to what sort of bonuses characters "should" have at which levels.I may not agree with it, but it does say this.
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I used to be one of those who hated the idea of a magic shop. But after playing with pathfinder (and just "putting up with it"), I've changed my mind.
Looking at it from an economic stand point, it makes perfect sense that there would be magic shops. Since anyone can learn, and not everyone is an adventurer, some people will just want to be able to create and sell. Some of those will do it for the money, some will do it simply because it is a reliable source of income and they can raise a family with it.
In my games, I tend not to let every item be available in every shop, but rather have a lot of common items that every day people would want to buy. My shops tend to have a lot of scrolls and potions and little of anything else; however, most other items can be specially made by request. You just have to wait out the time it takes to make it. And just because you want something doesn't necessarily mean the only crafter in town has that ability. So you might have to wait to get to another town (and likely the local crafter can recommend someone and point you in the right direction). Of course, when you're in a larger city, finding the right crafter might just mean walking across town rather than moving on to the next village.
I also like to throw in little magical trinkets, such as an everblooming vase so the kitchen table always has flowers, or a comb of hair cleaning. Little things that everyday people would want.
In Pathfinder, magic is common. Every little village should have at least one person who dabbles, and considering that most spell casting classes can either brew a potion or scribe a scroll it shouldn't be difficult to find certain items everywhere. Heck, that can even be a low level plot point - a group of nomadic orcs kidnapped our town wizard (presumably to force the wizard to make magic items for them), please rescue him!
As an aside: to counter the argument that most normal people make 5 silver per year, this person calculated it out and determined that a farmer can gross 360 gold per year (which nets him 240 gold after expenses). This shows that even normal people (aka NPCs) can afford simple potions and trinkets. Throw in a spouse that also works, along with some free labor (aka kids), and the family can purchase some decent items, such as a magic saddle to increase a horses stamina (so the animal won't get tired when they work the fields) or a magical washboard to help clean clothes.
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Shallowsoul, your assertions about the "logical" consequences of the existence of "magic shops" is, imho, vastly exaggerated and relies on the most liberal possible assumption about magic items and how they are made, distributed and sold.
But if you are going to talk about "logic" and "impact to the world" then you are going to have to explain why your world has NO magic shops when all it takes to start making and selling magic items is a bit of minor education, some gold and a slightly above average intelligence.
If you are going to make some argument about verisimilitude, you're going to have to reconcile the existence of skills, abilities and a strong market demand with the total lack of that market. What, exactly, is stopping a talented blacksmith from becoming a master blacksmith and making magic weapons and armor and then selling them? You actually think it's more "believable" that people with the skills, abilities, resources and time to create magic items simply won't do it? It is precisely because I don't revolve the world around my player characters that magic shops exist. If I were to allow player characters to make magic items, but restrict that ability for every other person in the world, what possible reason could I provide for that other than "this world was made for you?"
The ability to make magic items and sell them does not mean the world would be flooded with magic items and the local middle school gangs would end up with +3 magical daggers. It costs a LOT to make magical items. That alone will keep the supply very low, even for "low end" magic items.
A fully agree. I especially liked your previous examples of Leer Jets. just because something exists, doesn't mean everyone can buy one. The game already has a mechanic that determines if a magic shoppe has the item you are looking for. There have been many times I was turned down an item due to this.
I believe shallowsoul made a comment earlier that bandits would raid magic supplies...
I think where we disagree here is you are running games where the PC's are the exception to the rule. If you run your games like that then more power to you but I don't. I don't have 45 magic shops spread out amongst 16 cities for the sole benefit of the PC's. There are more than one wizard, fighter, cleric etc walking around the world. If I were to add a magic shop into my games then it would actually fit into the city as if the PC's never existed. Those shop owners have to make money, they can't sit there with merchandise in their cases waiting on the PC's to show up and buy it. The Ferrari and Leer Jet examples are not good because it's a lot easier, rules wise, for magic items to be created in a fantasy world than Ferraris and Leer Jets are in the real world.
Now because my games run realistically, magic item shops would disrupt things unless I wanted to run a very high magic type of campaign where everyone has some kind of magic item.
Let's discuss magic item creation on top of magic item shops. The items in shops have to come from somewhere, unless you are running a game that doesn't take those things into account and that shopkeeper has that cabinet stocked just for the PC's, so that is partly where your magic item creation comes into play. Shop keepers do rely on other adventurers to bring in the goods but they aren't as reliable as the items being created. Now if you combine the two then you have items coming in by the truckload.
You could have loads of spellcasters who sell their goods to different shops all around the land but at the same time, the shop keepers wouldn't be buying anything unless they had buyers which is where those outside the PC's come in.
Maybe I try to have things too realistic and "living" as I call it but that is how I have fun.
The more of something you put out there, the more common it becomes. Look at calculators, they used to be very expensive but now you can pick one up for a euro at a shop.
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You don't have to sell many magic items to keep your shop running, considering the prices.
Depends on your overhead.
You have to pay casters for making the items, you have to pay adventurers to find the items, you have to pay guards for guarding the items in shop, and you may have to pay the guards that escort the caravan or two that bring them over. All that can get very expensive.
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@shallowsoul - Are the PCs in your games the only people in the world who are wealthy/high-level enough to afford those magic items? Is the church of Iomedae full of Adept1 NPCs and a single ClericX PC? Is the town guard (and even the palace guard) staffed entirely by low-level Warriors with nothing but mundane weapons and armor? Do your PCs stop facing NPC foes after low levels, with all high-CR encounters being composed entirely of monsters?
If the church of deity X exists, then somewhere there's a 20th level (or whatever the max may be in your game, if there is one) high priest with loads of magic items. And under him are some 15th level clerics who oversee pretty important agendas, and have lots of magic items. And under each of them is an entire platoon of 13th-level paladins/antipaladins with magic gear. And so on, and so forth.
Then repeat those populations for every single deity.
And then there are the royals, guarded by high-level fighters and wizards with magic gear.
And monastic orders with high-level monks who need magic gear.
And thieves' guilds with high-level rogue leaders who need magic items.
And of course, nations have ENTIRE ARMIES, whose officers (i.e., everyone but the basic grunts) will be of levels ranging from 5-20 with varying amounts of magic gear.
And yet you say there would be no demand for a magic shop aside from the PCs? That makes no sense to me.
I think where we disagree here is you are running games where the PC's are the exception to the rule
Sigh, this first sentence indicates you either did not read or did not comprehend my comments, so there's not much point in repeating them in the hopes that you will read or comprehend next time.
Definitely haven't read the whole thread, but wanted to toss this out there:
I have an old TurboGrax 16 and a copy of Order of the Griffon. It's a D&D video game, using older rules (either 1E or 2E, I'm not sure).
It has magic shops.
Every single town has an armory containing (at the very least) some +1 weapons and armor and some potions. Some armories contain weapons up to +3 (surpassing the strongest monster-guarded loot) as well as magic rings, wands of fireball/lightning/cold, girdles of giant STR, and so forth.
Every single town has a spell shop where you can buy spells to teach to your mage or elf - the only other way to learn spells is from a found scroll, and there are spells which don't appear as scrolls and can ONLY be acquired by purchasing them at the magic shop.
You literally cannot make it through that game without spending loads of cash on magic items at the shops. There's certainly plenty of found loot as well, so they *could* have given you all the magic items in that way.
But they didn't.
And that's old-school D&D.
Just sayin'.
It's an old school VIDEO game where they did not have a live Dungeon Master, none of the video games, even the modern ones follow exactly the old rules set. The Video Game is a different genre and different concessions have to be made in order for it to be playable, especially in the faster place at which a video game takes place.
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It's an old school VIDEO game where they did not have a live Dungeon Master, none of the video games, even the modern ones follow exactly the old rules set. The Video Game is a different genre and different concessions have to be made in order for it to be playable, especially in the faster place at which a video game takes place.
Someone else (thejeff?) brought this up, and I replied to it. In short, this particular game doesn't feel like they went into it with the intent of magic shops making up for the absence of a GM. It plays like the intent is that magic shops are a normal part of the game.
I design my worlds to be consistent and "alive" per se. I don't run the "this is only supposed to happen to the players" or "only the players can take advantage of this".
If there are tons of magic item shops exist then a logical and realistic scenario is going to happen like I mentioned above. My worlds exist and continue to function outside the PC's, it's not the world revolving around the PCs.
That is how I run my games and why magic item shops would disrupt the flow of the world unless that was my intention.
If it were me, I would find it unbearably frustrating if as a "Dual Bladed sword specialist" I was unable to find or purchase enhanced versions of the weapon.
So, I would expect my GM to at least somewhat accomodate my chosen playing style.
You don't have to go the magic mart route, but players rightfully assume that they should have some sort of access to upgraded equipment that fits thier playing style. Anything else is the sign of a terribly vindictive GM.
Yes in 1E it was pretty much the unwritten rule not to take WP in odd weapons because it was sooo unlikely to find X weapon that was any good.
However, for example, a player with a double sword, could find say two decent normal swords and then tell the DM that he wanted to find someone who could forge them into a double sword for him.
The PC would go about asking and researching of in game peoples where he might find such a smith or wizard, travel to the destination, deal with the NPC, negotiate and get his sword forged.
Likewise, perhaps he has not found two suitable normal swords, but simply seeks out someone who can make him what he wants... I dunno frost on one side and flaming on the other?
Same process, informs the DM that his character is asking about and seeking such a person that can fulfill his wishes. Eventually, his RPing would lead him int he direction of such an entity as could fulfill his desires.
the more powerful or rare the item the more difficult the goal.
However this is not the same as wandering into random city X and buying something off the wall, because of the Argument "I am level X and my WBL states that I should be able to have N GPV in items and this is how i demand to spend it, so this magic shop MUST have my item, pronto!"
Magic Item Marts are a blight to a campaign.
Let's look at a few reasons why.
1: They essentially become expensive common items. You might as well go with 4th edition's design and put all magic items in the PHB.
You might as well put magic items into the standard gear column of the PHB and enable themto purchase the items at the start of the campaign.
Edit: It becomes an arms race.
K, I gotta ask.
Do you have a Pathfinder Core Rulebook?
Cause all the Magic Items ARE in there already.
They might not be in the "Standard Gear" column (well, some of them are already), but they are in the Book.
I might be missing your attempt at Sarcasm though. But its hard to translate it sometimes. Especially when you're using it as a Reason to defend why you dislike something.
It's an old school VIDEO game where they did not have a live Dungeon Master, none of the video games, even the modern ones follow exactly the old rules set. The Video Game is a different genre and different concessions have to be made in order for it to be playable, especially in the faster place at which a video game takes place.Someone else (thejeff?) brought this up, and I replied to it. In short, this particular game doesn't feel like they went into it with the intent of magic shops making up for the absence of a GM. It plays like the intent is that magic shops are a normal part of the game.
I played DnD based video games from back when frogger made them look like a joke.
I played this game in PnP nearly from the beginning, I am well aware and have been for years the (necessary) disparity between the Video and PnP version of the game and can tell you the Video game assumptions have invaded the PnP version, Not the other way around.
The more of something you put out there, the more common it becomes. Look at calculators, they used to be very expensive but now you can pick one up for a euro at a shop.
1) Galorian does not have factories and assembly lines.
2) Has the invention and wide distribution of calculators made the world a better or worse place?
3) There are a variety of calculators at varying costs. I can get one for a few dollars if I wanted. I also have a calculator that can perform calculus, and it costs hundreds of dollars.
Now because my games run realistically, magic item shops would disrupt things unless I wanted to run a very high magic type of campaign where everyone has some kind of magic item.
In a world where anyone could become a magic user (whether by training or bloodline or simple belief), why wouldn't they be common? Why is magic so bad in a fantasy world? Why wouldn't people have items that help them in their daily lives? Why doesn't the house maid have a magical washboard of cleaning and a magical iron to remove wrinkles from clothes? People invent things all the time to help them out (or to make a profit). What's the difference between a smith making a sword and an alchemist making a potion - both for sale? Heck, the potion is probably cheaper! Why is it acceptable for one person to make a specific item for sale but not acceptable for another person to make a specific item for sale? Are magic users in your world not competitive or greedy or in the mood to create and sell?
It seems to me that if you don't want magical items to be sold in a world, then you have to limit those who use magic. Magic users have to be rare enough that there aren't enough of them to want to be able to create magic items. I say this because as soon as you have people who are able to create something, you have people who want to sell it and make a profit. That's a fact. If you have people making things, you have people (sometimes the same person, sometimes someone else) who want to sell, and the more people who can make an item, the more items you have available in the world. You can't have one without the other, and denying this means that you don't really want your games more "realistic," you just want your games to fit your own version of fantasy (which is fine, it's just not realistic).
A lot to cover here:
I think where we disagree here is you are running games where the PC's are the exception to the rule.
What Rule are you talking about? The rule as I see it is there are many more people out there than just the PC's that need items.. Magic Shoppes can fulfill these needs.
I don't have 45 magic shops spread out amongst 16 cities for the sole benefit of the PC's.
That's a bit of hyperbole, I have yet to encounter an AP or even a homebrew game that has that many cities let alone that many magic shops. It's been my experience that magic shops tend to gravitate to the more populous regions, so you may find a few in the bigger cities, while none in the smaller ones.
The Ferrari and Leer Jet examples are not good because it's a lot easier, rules wise, for magic items to be created in a fantasy world than Ferraris and Leer Jets are in the real world.
The example wasn't just about the ease of creating the item, it was about the cost of owning said item. There is a demand for high priced items in both the real world and pathfinder. There will be shops that can fulfill these needs, but as the price goes up, the harder it is to find that item per RAW.
Now because my games run realistically, magic item shops would disrupt things unless I wanted to run a very high magic type of campaign where everyone has some kind of magic item.
The more I read from you the less "realistic" I think your games are.
Let's discuss magic item creation on top of magic item shops. The items in shops have to come from somewhere, unless you are running a game that doesn't take those things into account and that shopkeeper has that cabinet stocked just for the PC's, so that is partly where your magic item creation comes into play. Shop keepers do rely on other adventurers to bring in the goods but they aren't as reliable as the items being created. Now if you combine the two then you have items coming in by the truckload.
You could have loads of spellcasters who sell their goods to different shops all around the land but at the same time, the shop keepers wouldn't be buying anything unless they had buyers which is where those outside the PC's come in.
Again, per RAW, they may have the item in stock or may not. They may have items by the truckload (more hyperbole), but only those who can afford it will be able to buy it.
And yes, other buyers are assumed with magic shopps, otherwise none would exist. The PC's aren't the only ones needing items.
Maybe I try to have things too realistic and "living" as I call it but that is how I have fun.
The more of something you put out there, the more common it becomes. Look at calculators, they used to be very expensive but now you can pick one up for a euro at a shop.
Sure, that little masterwork pocket calculator may only cost a euro, but my +5 Shocking Burst TI-89 cost much more.
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I played DnD based video games from back when frogger made them look like a joke.
I played this game in PnP nearly from the beginning, ... and can tell you...
I kind of want to save your post for posterity; usually the "I'm so old, only I know the right way to play" mentality is masked, rather than explicit.
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Hmmmm. This is a world filled with Churches commisoning folks to go out and investigate strange goings on, where societies like the Pathfinder organisation exist, where various factions and nations employ folks to retrieve goods for them and interfere with other political parties.
In a worl like this, there seems to be a ton of folks running around looking for and presumably finding magic. In deed, after a certain level, many critters you fight have magic items in their loot.
When these treasture hunters get back to civilisation, they tend to sell off their gear in order to try and attain items that better sit their needs.
Tell me all you simulationist purists, where do they sell all this stuff? What happens to all this stuff when it's sold off? If there weren't "shops" or at least their Golarion equivalent, then this entire concept of looting the dead for their gear becomes meaningless. It certainly breaks verisiumiltude to state your players cant buy what they need, but they sure can sell everything they find.
In your homebrew world, you can make magic items as rare as you like, and make shops just non existant. That's perfectly fine, it's your world.
In Golarion however, I think you've fallen far short of the idea of a magic rich world if you believe that some sort of trade network and shop concept does not exist. Not only does it match the world perfectly, especially given PFS and all those characters running around in it, but it facilitates gameplay to the point where you can spend more time pursuing adventuring at appropriate levels rather than chasing down odd bits of magic gear so you can effectvely fight the dragon terrorising the town.
Imagine that, a large dragon is ravaging the area, but before we can tackle it, we must first seek out the 15 items of gear we need just to get close enough to its power level to hit it. We return three months later, fully geared up, only to find one fat dragon and no one left to defend. (I know, I know, hyperbole, but it was a funny image in my head and I wnated to share it).
Cheers
I kind of want to save your post for posterity; usually the "I'm so old, only I know the right way to play" mentality is masked, rather than explicit.I played DnD based video games from back when frogger made them look like a joke.
I played this game in PnP nearly from the beginning, ... and can tell you...
Well I think it's pretty amusing you are using a video game as the basis for your argument in PnP. That's like claiming a movie "Based" on historical events, IS a historical event.
The Ferrari and Leer Jet examples are not good because it's a lot easier, rules wise, for magic items to be created in a fantasy world than Ferraris and Leer Jets are in the real world.Missed this bit earlier, but it goes straight to one of my points:
It's far easier to make pretty much any magic item than it is to design and build the first Ferrari or Leer Jet (of a particular model). However, once you've got the design down and the factories build and the supply chains and assembly lines running, the 2nd Ferrari or Leer Jet is easy as is the 10th or the thousandth. The engineers and designers can go home and collect on the patent royalties or move on to the next project.The 2nd magic item is just as much work for the mage as the 1st. As is the 1000th. If his skill goes up, which is independent of how many he's made, he can make them faster, but he can't hand the work off to low paid factory workers.
Added: Every item must be made by the equivalent of an actual engineer or scientist who understands the principles. If Ipods would only work if Steve Jobs personally worked on each one, how much would they cost?
Well how does one make the first orb or awesome sauce? and how many orbs of apple sauce do they have sitting around their shack they made by accident before they got it right??
Does anyone play DDO?
There is a special magic shoppe in the ataraxia portion of the game in the spa resort, if you sell goodies there, they become available to anyone else who might want to buy them. the availability of goodies is directly influence by how many people are adventuring and selling in ataraxia at that time, if you wait a while and no one has adventured there recently, there is like NOTHING for sale (i dunno the stuff evaporates? or they move it somewhere else to be sold)
But you can't find ANYThing you want to buy, you can only find what's been sold there.
Things like potions and scrolls are always there.
The House Deneith Armory works the same way as does the market place vendors (which are much harder to use because instead of selling anything they only buy and sell specific things so you have to run around to every guy to shop, it's annoying)
But with the advent of the auction house, (which is basicially DnD ebay) hardly anyone sells to these vendors anymore anything that is "good"
So now in that game you need to go to the AH and buy what the Players DEMAND for the goods, and they can check themselves vs, other players on what is being sold for what. So there is literally a real life ebay type economy going on there.
I think the AH ruined a portion of the game, yea you can get a lot more for selling your unwanted gear now, but it just screws up the whole magic shop randomness buy being able to do a google like search for "sword I am looking for, useable by level 7 fighter"
Too robotic.
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will, everything you say is within the purview of the GM simply by creating custom magic items that do things you can't find in a catalog. I do that all the time.
And here you need to be careful. Creating significant numbers of custom magic items can throw off game balance more than just about anything else you could ever do (other than perhaps creating custom spells). Not a shot at your statement just a word of caution.
I 100% disagree with you on your point #1. I am lucky to be in possession of a particularly sought after telescope. It is just as special and wonderful to me today as it was when I bought it 12 years ago. The images through the thing are simply magical. I am sure I will treasure that scope until I die. I own other things that are equally special and I appreciate them just as much today as when I purchased them. My fly rod. My hunting knife. My fly tying vise. Lots of things.
No you don't. You do not treasure these items (Telescope, Fly Rod, Hunting Knife, etc.), you treasure the memories these items bring to you and the images, stories and experiences the items allow you to have.
Let me ask you a question, if I took your treasured telescope and dropped it from a 30 story building onto concrete to smash into literally a thousand different pieces, and then pulled out a BETTER telescope (one better in ALL respects) and gave it to you, would you really miss your old telescope other than, perhaps, nostalga? (given to you by a beloved family member or friend, first telescope you ever owned, paid for, got laid with, whatever?).
I postulate no. They are devices, objects, possessions. We covet possessions only because of what we believe those possessions will do for us, NOT for the possession itself.
And this is why there are those of us who cringe at your position that every campaign needs a magical emporium where every PC can walk in and spend their 20 gagillion gold on the latest and greatest magic item. (I realize that's overstating your position, it's hyperbole not intended to belittle your point or make my point better, simply hyperbole for it's own sake).
We see each of these items your PCs WANT and are willing to research and walk into a store and BUY as stories to be told, magical EXPERIENCES that you as the GM can augment your campaign with.
When was the last time you handed out a thousand gold to your PC party and got wide eyes and pounding hearts and that look we DMs have seen hundreds of times that says "No s@%$? REALLY? WE just FOUND THAT? OMG I want it!"
Well, that applies to your "rare and wondrous" magic items just as much. After a time your players will grow used to them and they will no longer be special no matter how they obtained them.
And you're ABSOLUTELY Right and this RIGHT HERE is where I feel you go off track. You're not going far enough with your thought process. If NO object, no matter how special and wonderful and rare, stays special and wonderful because they're already in possession, then what is it about those items that DOES stay special?
It's the OBTAINMENT of that item that the players will be telling stories about for years to come. You're right, eventually the Staff of the Magi is going to become old hat...but how do your PLAYERS, 5 years later, describe how they got it?
* Yea, so I got to level 15 and had something like 20M gold coins sitting around and said...what can I do with that...so I decided to spend something like 3 games weeks doing research in a library and finally managed to create the staff of the magi which I then used. It was really cool.
* Yea, so we came into UberCity01 in MassiveProvence03 around noon one game day and there in front of us was Dan's Dastardly Magical Monstrosity...the most well known magical emporium in this game world. So I walked in and there, sitting on a shelf in a glass case behind the counter, was a staff of the magi. I was like, no way? I asked how much, the owner said "oh, 30M Gold pieces" and I said "Really? That's it?" So I reached into my 15 bags of holding and simply dumped all the contents into a pit behind his counter to hold gold and walked out with my staff of the magi. It was great.
* So after 5 days of being chased by this pack of worg wolves being lead by some freak werewolf calling himself the king of wolves, we stumbled across what we felt was the entrance to the crypt of Gaia Nostroma, the last known holder of the Staff of the Magi. According to our research all sightings of the staff were lost when Gaia was defeated by the Lich Zerostomas. With the worgs close on our heals we were forced into the tomb, regardless of the dangers we knew were coming. And that's when we ran across the first trap...
Really, which story do you think is going to hold up to the test of time? Which experience are your players going to remember for years and decades and maybe even their lifetimes to come?
All your comments you're making in this thread sound very "ho hummish" about the game. You've been there, you've done that, you've saved the world a million times, you've killed just about every known baddy from liches to dragons to the great and powerful terrasque itself...that +3 sword just doesn't do it for you!
My friend, open your eyes and re-look at what Dungeons and Dragons and all of it's numerous predecessors is. In the age of MMO do it again's to continue grinding equipment mentalities, we've all forgotten that D&&D Isn't about the levels, it's not about the equipment, it's not about the stats.
It's about the stories, it's about the adventure, it's about doing greater things than you're able to accomplish in this life in a greater than the gods themselves character that you guide.
If it does nothing for your party to make them work for that +3 sword, then by all means send them to Dan's, I hear he's got some great +3 swords...or maybe it's just easier to have one fall from the sky and land point down at your PC's feet (Make a Raw Dex Roll for me please!).
But the game is about story, and before you start handing out weapons and armor and equipment that isn't as common as dirt, you might consider this:
If your party really wants that item, isn't this a great opportunity as a DM to create a compelling story around the obtainment of that item? By all means ensure that at the end of the night or the week of game nights, or whatever, your party comes out with what they want...but SURELY as a DM you can create a better method of obtaining it than "You walk up to the sales clerk and ask "Do you happen to have a..."
Every gaming group is different, but most of my players seem to enjoy the act of shopping for magic items and digging through the books than hoping they find what they're looking for as a random drop. Maybe it's because when it comes to magic item shopping, I roleplay the sequence, so you're negotiating with the vendors, haggling over price, trying to get them to fess up to their "special inventory". And, the players have the control (or at least, the illusion of it). I've never met a situation that wasn't improved by letting the players feel like they're in control.Random loot is not in their control. Shopping for items looks like it is in their control, and usually is at least partially there. This makes my players happy.
Why? Why is it always one or the other in these discussions? Why is it always either "Give players access to whatever they want or leave it up to the control of "random loot".
I don't think any loot in any campaign I've run in the last 10 years has been "random". I HATE random loot...rolling off on loot tables after a surprisingly difficult encounter due to the dice rolls and finding that the mobs dropped 5 silver and a potion of healing pisses me off just as much as it does my players.
You go up against that big baddy only to have him randomly drop the party's first ever +5 weapon!! A BATTLEAXE! Which no one has the proficiency to use. But that's ok, because he also dropped plate mail +3...sized for a halfling.
WOOT! MOAR PLZ!
Is it so hard for an INVOLVED GM to understand what would be upgrades for the party and to make sure that "random" loot drops aren't exactly as random as they should be? Oh sure, the handfull of potions and that ring or two (so long as my mages aren't hurting for armor class *cough rings of protection cough*) may very well be random...but...hey look, my main fighter is specialized in elven war blades...and wouldn't you just know it? Even though their isn't an elf in the campaign so far, this ogre's horde just happened to turn up a magical elven war blade...instead of a long sword...which no one uses....
--Illydth
Well I think it's pretty amusing you are using a video game as the basis for your argument in PnP. That's like claiming a movie "Based" on historical events, IS a historical event.I kind of want to save your post for posterity; usually the "I'm so old, only I know the right way to play" mentality is masked, rather than explicit.I played DnD based video games from back when frogger made them look like a joke.
I played this game in PnP nearly from the beginning, ... and can tell you...
Movies aren't history? What about JFK? (snark included)
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And yet it only goes up to medieval technology and medieval societal advancements?
Plate mail...kings and courts and virtually every picture of towns and cities uses medieval looking architecture..
when is the last time you saw a DnD parliment? DnD rise of the industrial revolution and labor unions? A DnD Age of Reason with people inventing microbiology and penicillin?
When is the last time you saw a DnD Rosseou or Niche? Regardless of it being paganistic it still has the feel of medieval Europe..
I'm sorry I have to stop you there. I didn't read any further past this and if I've been ninja'd then oh well. I run those types of games every week. I am currently running a Pathfinder year 2410 type of deal right now. My last campaign was Pathfinder Steampunk. The game before that was in a time period that barely had guns or cannons. Even in THAT game I ran governments that my friend who is a Political Science Major felt was a realistic and tangible government system.
So, yes. Me and my gaming group run different things ALL the time. In fact, I do not remember that last time I ran a cookie-cutter Pathfinder "dark ages" game.
And here you need to be careful. Creating significant numbers of custom magic items can throw off game balance more than just about anything else you could ever do (other than perhaps creating custom spells). Not a shot at your statement just a word of caution.will, everything you say is within the purview of the GM simply by creating custom magic items that do things you can't find in a catalog. I do that all the time.
Um... thanks?
I 100% disagree with you on your point #1. I am lucky to be in possession of a particularly sought after telescope. It is just as special and wonderful to me today as it was when I bought it 12 years ago. The images through the thing are simply magical. I am sure I will treasure that scope until I die. I own other things that are equally special and I appreciate them just as much today as when I purchased them. My fly rod. My hunting knife. My fly tying vise. Lots of things.
No you don't. You do not treasure these items (Telescope, Fly Rod, Hunting Knife, etc.), you treasure the memories these items bring to you and the images, stories and experiences the items allow you to have.
Let me ask you a question, if I took your treasured telescope and dropped it from a 30 story building onto concrete to smash into literally a thousand different pieces, and then pulled out a BETTER telescope (one better in ALL respects) and gave it to you, would you really miss your old telescope other than, perhaps, nostalga? (given to you by a beloved family member or friend, first telescope you ever owned, paid for, got laid with, whatever?).
I postulate no. They are devices, objects, possessions. We covet possessions only because of what we believe those possessions will do for us, NOT for the possession itself.
How does it feel all up there in my brain cells foraging around Illydth? Make yourself comfortable. I guess you know me better than I do.
One at a time:
Telescope. There is no better 92mm apochromatic refractor on earth Illydth. It is literally impossible to do what you say here. It is one of a handful of handcrafted telescopes made by a master telescope craftsman at the height of his craft. There is no better telescope of its design, and I love the design. It is more than just a device, it is a literal work of art.
The fly rod I have is also custom made. It's made for me. I suppose it could be reproduced, but there is currently no way to make a "better" one. It's made with the best materials by the best craftsman and does exactly what I want it to do. Again, it is more than just a tool. It is a work of art as well.
Now, I do have some things that I treasure for their sentimental value. But for you to tell me that the ONLY thing I treasure is sentimental value and I could care less if someone dropped a rare and precious device off a roof is pretty amazingly presumptious of you.
Finally, you are perfectly capable of stating your motivations behind things Illydth, but when you presume that everyone shares your view of the world and what makes something "valuable" you've presumed more than a bit too much.
And this is why there are those of us who cringe at your position that every campaign needs a magical emporium where every PC can walk in and spend their 20 gagillion gold on the latest and greatest magic...
Cringe all you like. I never said every campaign needs one and your description of one does not match what I've been describing. It's a straw magic shop that offers all the stereotypes you hate so you can attack it as efficiently as possible.
Play as you like. I'm not telling you how to play.
You, on the other hand, seem to be telling me how I should play. And how I think, and how I feel and what drives my appreciation of life in general.
Amazing stuff. Simply astounding.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Well I think it's pretty amusing you are using a video game as the basis for your argument in PnP.
I guess you've got a point. If we want to speculate as to the baseline assumptions of D&D, the most reliable method is probably for me to look at what my home group chose to do for the last X years, and assume that to be the default assumption. Looking at the baseline assumptions the creators of the game used in the few products where I didn't get to decide it for myself, well, that's just nonsense. Dunno what I was thinking.
How do you define "magic shoppe?" Seriously, what are we talking here? If it's as simple as "anywhere you can by magic items instead of finding them by chance" then please ban: the traveling gypsy trope, the cleric selling healing potions (a permutation of which happens in Keep on the Borderlands I think), fairies with magic beans, and ANY other fantastic place where you might buy magic.
Lookit, magic shoppes have been around in fiction, games and lots more for years, they just haven't been in shops. Going to a witch for a love potion? 13th century fiction...MAGIC SHOPPE!
The mundane can be fantastic if we let it; the fantastic can also be mundane if we stop playing and grow old.
Telescope. There is no better 92mm apochromatic refractor on earth Illydth. It is literally impossible to do what you say here. It is one of a handful of handcrafted telescopes made by a master telescope craftsman at the height of his craft. There is no better telescope of its design, and I love the design. It is more than just a device, it is a literal work of art.The fly rod I have is also custom made. It's made for me. I suppose it could be reproduced, but there is currently no way to make a "better" one. It's made with the best materials by the best craftsman and does exactly what I want it to do. Again, it is more than just a tool. It is a work of art as well.
So you didn't get them as loot, you went to a "magic" item shop and had them craft it for you?
You don't say.
Telescope. There is no better 92mm apochromatic refractor on earth Illydth. It is literally impossible to do what you say here. It is one of a handful of handcrafted telescopes made by a master telescope craftsman at the height of his craft. There is no better telescope of its design, and I love the design. It is more than just a device, it is a literal work of art.The fly rod I have is also custom made. It's made for me. I suppose it could be reproduced, but there is currently no way to make a "better" one. It's made with the best materials by the best craftsman and does exactly what I want it to do. Again, it is more than just a tool. It is a work of art as well.
So you didn't get them as loot, you went to a "magic" item shop and had them craft it for you?
You don't say.
I don't get your point. I ordered it from a catalog. The scopes from this company are so highly desired they announce a product run months, even years in advance, and you place your order in advance. Then they handcraft the telescope and ship it to you when it's done.
It was not a "custom made scope" but it was a "limited run" because the lenses for this scope are incredibly difficult to make and required special materials that are quite rare.
How does it feel all up there in my brain cells foraging around Illydth? Make yourself comfortable. I guess you know me better than I do....
An EXCELLENT Method for completely an totally avoiding any relevant points being made. Well done!
Absolutely, lets don't focus on the intent of the words in the post because that would be too troublesome for the argument, lets focus on ONLY the absolute interpretation so that I can continue to be right.
Seriously? I wasn't aware your OP was about telescopes...my apologies for not being an expert in telescopes, obviously nothing I have to say about D&D or why the game is played could be conceivably workable because, after all, your telescope can't be reproduced. DOH argument lost obviously.
I made the point I intended to make and expressed the view point I intended to express. To boil it down, experiences are what players play the game for. Items, all imaginary items that cannot be physically held and cared for, lose their value in a very short time. It's the story behind the item that will last for a long time. As someone's sig in the thread now identifies: "$28.99 at Sears" just isn't a very good story.
I'm happy to clarify if there's something you missed. If you believe I was arguing with you about how wonderful your telescope of fly rod were, you might consider going back and re-reading if you care to...you missed the entirety of my point...intentionally I imagine.
If you weren't looking for argument and/or discussion on your original point, why then were you posting here to request feedback on it? Or did you just want us all to agree with you?
Ok. Sure, Dragon, you have my permission to run a Magic Shop in your game world! I think it's a GREAT IDEA! There you go, permission granted...go forth and have fun!
--Illydth
Illydth - what a chuckle you give me.
I totally destroyed your points, so you say the points are not valid.
An EXCELLENT method for completely and totally avoiding any relevant points I made.
Indeed.
To recap:
You asked me a specific question.
Then you had the effrontery to answer it FOR ME.
So I gave you MY ANSWER and showed you how wrong and presumptious your "answer" was.
If you don't want to have your hand slapped, don't poke your finger in my eye.