Purchasable magic items when players have "downtime" ?

[Wall Of Terror]

How do you guys handle magic items when players have "downtime" ?

What I mean is what do you do with magic items they can buy ?

Are you following the minor/medium/major stat from the Sandpoint stat block ?

I was thinking of randomly roll, in advance, magic items that can be found in the different vendors using Sandpoint stat block.

As in the description: < Base Value and Purchase Limit: This section lists the community's base value for available magic items in gp. There is a 75% chance that any item of this value or lower can be found for sale in the community with little effort. If an item is not available, a new check to determine if the item has become available can be made in 1 week. A settlement's purchase limit is the most money a shop in the settlement can spend to purchase any single item from the PCs. If the PCs wish to sell an item worth more than a settlement's purchase limit, they'll either need to settle for a lower price, travel to a larger city, or (with the GM's permission) search for a specific buyer in the city with deeper pockets. A settlement's type sets its purchase limit. >

If I understand correctly, they can find any items worth 1200gp or less in the village of Sandpoint ?

[darkwarriorkarg]

Pretty much. They'll outgrow it pretty quick. In our group, two of us are crafters (one cleric, one wizard), so we can recycle the useless crap.

[Odraude]

I prefer crafting to magic shops personally. I follow the CRB for Magic Item Availability. Most of the larger cities that players encounter are towns or small cities. Most capitals are large cities, and very few in the world are metropolises. Obviously, as the players gain levels, I like to throw other ideas for cool magic shops, such as a wandering Mercane that brings along his selling supplies, or a mummy hidden under wraps and a mask that travels in a trans-dimensional tomb selling items. That way, the players don't have to waste time and money to travel to the few metropolises in the world.

[Superball]

I have a preset number of Magic a Items available for sale outside of their gp limit predetermined. I heavily support crafting. My house rule is: if the players are selling magic items they don't want in order to get materials to make what they do want, I allow them the full price in gp to "siphon the magic" out of the thing that they don't want.

I think that there was something like it in 4e, but aim not sure.

[Deadalready]

For sandpoint I've pretty much decreed that they can essentially get everything 4k and under. They pay full price, commission the goods and wait the 1k per day build time.

Personally I don't see how vaguely useful random rolling items is and it doesn't make sense in a marketplace like Sandpoint. Better to make custom magic items for the customer rather than waste thousands of gold making display stock.

[Skeld]

Instead of rolling for random items, I allow them to make a request and I roll to see if the item is available. Usually, some items are always available (like 1st level potions). Larger cities, of course, have more items of higher power available.

-Skeld

[Fromper]

I ruled that Sandpoint is close enough to Magnimar that the local merchants have plenty of connections there. So they can order anything that would be available in a large city like Magnimar, and it can be delivered to Sandpoint in a week or two (2 days for the message to reach Magnimar, 2 days for the item to travel to Sandpoint, plus crafting time) for the normal price.

However, they can only order one item at a time this way easily. If they want more than one expensive item at a time that can't normally be found in a town of Sandpoint's size, they'll have to either pay extra or actually travel to Magnimar themselves.

I came up with this when they had the downtime after finishing Burnt Offerings, and they were considering traveling to Magnimar to do some shopping, since it's close. I needed an excuse to keep them in Sandpoint for the start of The Skinsaw Murders, and most of what they were buying was cheap enough stuff to find in Sandpoint, except for one more expensive item.

[Digital Mystic]

Fromper, if you are about to head into Skinsaw, you might want to actually lead off with a trip to Magnimar to introduce the players to Justice Ironbriar (who is, otherwise, a rather obscure badguy), and to set the table a bit for the murders back home. Have the PCs be summoned to Magnimar to testify against Tsuto / Nualia / any of the other guys who were captured during the first module. If none were captured, then have them brought in to answer questions about them none the less (several of the badguys were citizens of Magnimar, and the powers that be will no doubt be curious about what is going on in their back yard anyway). You can introduce Ironbriar as a no nonsense judge and play up his righteousness (all the better for the reveal later), you can have the players meet some interesting NPCs (a bizarre Magic Item vendor is always fun to run, they could meet a fight promoter who ask them to fight in the Serpents run, they could contact their local clergy leader if you have a Divine, etc). You can also plant some seeds for later. Have them hear about the local murders - tho leave out the sihedron rune part... dead give away - anyway the local police, lead by Ironbriar, are likely keeping that bit of info secret anyway. You can also have them perhaps hear rumors about the Scarecrow. Muddy the waters a bit perhaps with rumors of Blue dwarves kidnapping people, and ancient evils entombed in the bridge. You can probably make a whole session or two out of it. Have fun, and plant seeds that will pay dividends later.

[Kalshane]

Another fun thing to do on a shopping trip to Magnimar pre-Skinsaw murders is to have them encounter some native Varisian children playing in the street as the party passes, singing the Mumble, Mumble Scarecrow rhyme.