As I read a lot of threads and people post "builds" I often see people specifying that the character would purchase certain items at certain levels. I know these are theoretical characters, but does anyone actually play like that?
If you GM, do you allow characters to know what all of the magic items in the book(s) are, or do they have to learn about them in character?
Once they know about an item, is it pretty routine for them to obtain the item at the price listed in the book?
In all of the campaigns I have played in, there's never been a free-for-all attitude on magic items. You had to find the item in a treasure trove or get lucky enough to find a magic shop that had the item you wanted.
Agreed. You're right to question availability of magic items. At the core of the argument, we've never read a great story where the hero bought his power.
I make my players work for it! and once they have it, I make them burn spells and money to identify the items.
Having said all that, it can be fun to place many minor items in a shop. Players like to be able to buy them, that's for sure.
I recently placed a major item in a shop, it was very powerful, only 1 character could wield it and it was well out of any one players price range. The single player who could use the item set himself to lobbying other characters to pool party resources. That item brought a fun new dynamic to our table. The party had to agree upon the use of their accumulated wealth. In the end, he could not afford the item, but I know he's thinking of it, even when we're not playing, and that is part of the fun too.
I've recently had good luck running a standard magic world were the knowledge of magic items are commonplace. Most villages have a potion of cure light wounds in the mayors home in case someone's kid gets hurt real bad, artisans of their craft have skill boosting items, The captain of the guard is real proud of his glowing magical sword. It may take a little asking around to find some of the oddities found in the ultimate equipment guide, but for half the cost up front there are magical crafters that will make you anything they have the components and caster level to make (1 day delivery time per 1000g, doesn't work weekends, and you may be on a waiting list if you are a stranger).
There are many ways to play this game.
The core system is set up around certain assumptions. If you simply create characters for an AP or for running them through various store-bought Paizo adventures, either as a campaign or as one-shot adventures, then you need to be aware of these core system assumptions.
The CR system is predicated upon these assumptions. If you have a group of 4 naked characters with no weapons, armor, gear, or spells, and throw a CR-appropriate encounter at them, you'll kill them. Obviously. But you'll kill them just as fast if they are wearing non-magical clothing, fighting with sticks, and have no spells. And you'll kill them almost as fast if they have cheap store-bought armor and rusty swords and only cantrips - certainly true at mid to high levels.
So, one assumption is that characters get a certain amount of magical gear as they level up, and that this gear is appropriate to what they need (a fighter with 27 wands of Read Magic might have the correct GP-value of magical gear but he is no better in combat than the naked fighter mentioned above).
So, if you play store-bought adventures, then you need to meet these assumptions. Of course, a GM could just put the right gear in the treasure piles of the monsters they fight so they always have what they need. Or he could have more verisimilitude and let the monsters have "realistic" stuff and sometimes lots of gold - this requires the players to convert stuff they don't want or need, and convert piles of gold, into useful gear.
If that's how you play, then magic-marts of some kind are almost necessary.
Or, a GM can keep his players nearly naked, make them work for everything and never have much at all - if that's how you play, then you need to understand that you're holding the PCs back, and consequently should also weaken the encounters to compensate, especially at high levels.
All of it is valid. It's all up to each GM and each group as to how they'll play.
So, to the OP, your style of play is to either find what you need or, worse, make due with the limits of what you find even if you don't find what you need. Awesome. Have fun with that. It works for your group, especially if your GM tailors and edits and creates encounters for you with your limitations in mind.
Other games don't work like that - I've played in games where the GM bought the adventure and ran it exactly as written with no changes. If we didn't have what we needed, we could and probably would die (or run away). Not very heroic. And, because it was a store-bought adventure, we didn't always find what we needed in the treasure (which is much more realistic, but frustrating when you keep finding junk you can't use). Our solution was to sell the junk and pool the gold and then buy what we needed - if our GM didn't allow that (he did), then we would have died or ran away from most of the encounters, or he would have had to start toning them down to our limited level.
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we've never read a great story where the hero bought his power.
I did have a great session were the warrior dueled his nemesis with a broken stool leg because his normal sword was getting upgraded to +2 and he was a) certain nothing would come up in the down time, b) too cheap to buy a replacement loaner, c) not the type of character to travel with a back up armory.
Nemesis is a strong word, more like cowardly toad that barred his cabin door on a sinking ship and took off with his share of the loot and the last row boat.
In summary, every item past the 100-1000g mark is going to be by commission only unless they are in an extremely specialist/wealthy shop or it is off someones corpse.
I make my players work for it! and once they have it, I make them burn spells and money to identify the items.
In other games, that might apply, but doing so in Pathfinder is only a houserule at best. Spellcraft is free and the Detect Magic cantrip is free and can be used all day long at no cost (other than the opportunity cost of not having a more useful cantrip in that slot, but really, there might not BE a more useful cantrip).
Still, I've played in games like that and it's fun. It's just not core Pathfinder.
I'm honestly confused that there are people who don't play with the magic item availability that Pathfinder suggests. Those who don't are going to run into a host of issues as suggested in DM Blake's post upthread. Realistically, magic items are very common in Pathfinder due to how easy they are to make and how long they will stick around after being made. I mean in a game with plane travel power, why would the fantastic be rare?
If you GM, do you allow characters to know what all of the magic items in the book(s) are, or do they have to learn about them in character?
That would require knowledge: Arcana. Although usually if you want something like "I need something that makes me stronger" you can easily just ask around and find out.
Once they know about an item, is it pretty routine for them to obtain the item at the price listed in the book?
Pretty much, unless there's some reason otherwise. In terms of roleplaying it might take a few weeks, or they might need to make a contact who can help obtain it, etc. However if they want a particular magic item, they're pretty much guaranteed to be able to get it.
The only games where I don't do this is games where it wouldn't match the campaign setting, for example I ran a game where magic was completely outlawed by the church so in that world magic was difficult to come by.
I generally follow the rules of cities, base values etc with the exception of scrolls/spellbooks.
I think the fact that the wizard can chose any two spells at each level is keeping the wizard pc from being nerfed/unbalanced compared to melee PCs for example.
And I find that restricting scrolls helps with the whole feeling in the game of 'yay, look an X spell scroll !!'
To add an extra feel of 'I found smth new!', I place scrolls from all kinds of books in the extra magic items cities are supposed to have (I know my casters are using the prd index to browse for spells, so I use spells from books not in the index to fill up the extra magic item list when scrolls pop on the rolls )
edit: Also, many times the base value rules will limit item availability on their own. We are playing Rise of the Runelords AP now and Magnimar, a large city has a limit of 12-15k or smth for example. The max for a metropolis is 16k gp maybe a bit more if it is 'rich' or smth, so at higher levels PCs kinda depent on loot when using these rules
Basically if you aren't keeping players in line with their expected Magic Item accumulation it's up to the DM to adjust his challenges down a notch.
Otherwise you get situations where the Party has to hold the Vampire down while the Fighter Beats it to death with the closest thing the group has to a magic weapon, his Shield. (That was one heck of a memorable fight but afterwards we all looked at the DM and said "WTF Man?").
A low Magic item campaign can still be fun though, it's just that the DM needs to pay very close attention to what the Players actually have and what they are going up against. I generally count the Players as being a level or two lower than they actually if they shorted on magic item and it tends to work out.
That said I'm work on a game where the world has Zero Magic so it's going to be interesting to see what happens when the gear shortage is a little more extreme.
That said I'm work on a game where the world has Zero Magic so it's going to be interesting to see what happens when the gear shortage is a little more extreme.
Lots of advice around here for that. Usually the suggestion is to give them certain bonuses at certain levels (e.g. every combat-type character gets +1 to hit and damage every 3 levels, etc.).
If you're not doing something like that then yes, it will get ugly fast. Once you get into mid-levels and deal with incorporeals (heck, you can get CR 2 incorporeals if you want) and there is NOTHING they can do to hit them, it could be very bad. Throw in high DR creatures or creatures with nasty liabilities with high saving throws (even poison can kill a high level character in just a few rounds if they fail their saves which they are likely to do if they don't have stat-bosting and save-boosting items) and it could be TPK-ville with every encounter at higher levels.
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I'm honestly confused that there are people who don't play with the magic item availability that Pathfinder suggests.
It can be really fun to simply have less magic items. As for the host of issues we'll encounter, that argument goes both ways. Haven't we all seen a game be less fun when the players are overloaded? I think every group's going to play it a little differently.
I banned magic item creation in my games (except for potion and scroll creation, "expendables"), but allowed for a "requested item" once per Chapter of an Adventure Path. The item can not exceed 1/3 WBL of the highest level the characters are expected to make in the AP Chapter i.e. first Chapter normally sees a character reach 4th, with WBL of 6,000 Gp, so they can choose an item no greater than about 2,000 GP value. I place the item in the chapter for them at some point (either in a horde, for sale in a shop, etc.).
This way, even though items aren't readily available, the player defintely can get six items throughout their career for that character, tailored to what they want.
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If that's how you play, then magic-marts of some kind are almost necessary.
Or, a GM can keep his players nearly naked, make them work for everything and never have much at all...
But surely there is a happy medium somewhere? Magic shops that have certain items, but not necessarily the exact item you may want.
Magic weapons are pretty obvious, especially common weapons. But if you choose to use an elven court blade, should you be able to expect that you can just find a magical version with whatever properties you want in whatever city you happen to be in?
Magical armor seems pretty obvious. Potions of curing or status remover (poison, disease, curse, etc) seem like they would be pretty common. But a Tome of permanent stat boost +3? How do you even ask for that? "I'd like the Tome of Super Strength +3." "Sorry, I have the +2 model in stock, but fresh out of the +3."
There was a neat way of doing it for the d20 version of L5R. Items of personal significance to the PCs could Awaken and become magical growing in power as the campaign progressed. Was in part to deal with the fact that looting the dead was socially frowned upon which cuts down significantly on the amount of treasure PCs could get.
The catch of course being that Only items of personal significance could do that. Your ancestral sword passed down father to son for generations was an obvious one but the hair pin you keep close to your heart in memory of your first love was also a valid option.
The DM could then bestow power on an item at dramatically appropriate moments.
Each PC begins at level 1 with all the maximum of the Big 6: +10 equivalent weapon, +10 equivalent armor, stat boosters +6...etc. Then announce to the players that they'll never find another magic item nor will they be able to make one. If any of your PCs begin play w/a crafting feat, swap it for skill focus, metamagic or whatever.
I enjoy extremes in these silly hypotheticals.
In the campaign that I run, I made sure that only minor magic items such as scrolls, potions and the occasional cheap wondrous items are available for sale. The reason for this is because I believe that wizards of high enough power would reasonably hoard magic items that they crafted for their own use (and their families, friends, underlings, etc. You get the gist.) Money could get you +1 weapons and armour, but you can only get the better ones via adventuring or sweet talking an NPC wizard or artificer (I converted it from Eberron for my own use :p). Anything beyond a CL of 6 will have to be found, crafted or bartered for.
My players usually love crafting their own items though (the party wizard ask for the full price and earn some pocket money from his fellow adventurers), and I usually have them run some sort of errands such as fetching schematics and materials, etc. For example, I remember when one of my players decided to make a Ring of Regeneration, I asked them to go get some troll brains. They decided to hunt one down, making a mess in the process. It's a good time for some light role playing too and to let the players familiarize with other possible options. However, I'm very generous with downtimes so it depends.
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In the campaign that I run, I made sure that only minor magic items such as scrolls, potions and the occasional cheap wondrous items are available for sale. The reason for this is because I believe that wizards of high enough power would reasonably hoard magic items that they crafted for their own use (and their families, friends, underlings, etc. You get the gist.)
Each to their own, of course, but it's not a reasonable conclusion from the core rules.
Not all magic items are made for the guy who makes them. Some wizards or other crafters might figure out that getting paid 1,000gp per day is a MUCH MUCH MUCH faster way to make a living than adventuring, and MUCH MUCH MUCH safer too. Some entrepreneurial crafters must have existed over the ages.
Heck, even if you're right, if a wizard wants to make a "hoard for himself" of 10 items but can only afford three, he can simply make 7 items for adventurers and use the profits to fund his own hoard-crafting.
Magic items are FOREVER. Well, not the expendable charged items, but everything else. Almost indestructible by core rules, unless someone deliberately tries to break them with, say, a Sunder attempt. And just about nobody EVER does that because they're worth too much to deliberately break (this would be EVEN MORE TRUE if magic items were rare).
Therefore, when some wizard makes a magical item, say, 8,000 years ago, it's almost certainly still in existence today. And ALL the hundreds of thousands of wizards who made millions of items over those 8,000 years will still have nearly all of their items in existence today.
Many of those items were for the guy who made them, but surely some of them were for sale to rich nobles and merchants and adventurers. Through the ages, many many many many items have been made and many, many, many people owned magic items.
Of course, most of those owners died. Maybe adventuring, in which case some monster got their items. And maybe that monster later died and someone else got those items, and then someone else, and someone else, and so on, and so on. Items circulating through the monster/adventurer economy down through the ages.
Many of those owners died of old age, leaving their items to family members or apprentices or guilds or charities or whatever. Those items were inevitably sold to random adventurers passing by who inevitably died, so some monster got some of those items, and then died, and so on, and so on. More items circulating through the monster/adventurer economy down through the ages.
Meanwhile, more and more wizards, clerics, and even master blacksmiths kept creating new items, either for themselves or for quick, safe profit.
More and more items.
More and more permanent items that last FOREVER.
Eventually, the world will be covered knee-deep in magical items. Well, it will be if people keep making them and they keep lasting forever - give us long enough, and you won't be able to walk out on your front porch without tripping on a +1 sword or two.
It's not that bad yet, but surely the prevalence of magical items in every orc hoard and zombie cache, in every town mercantile and traveling merchant's backpack, and even in the inventory of every sergeant of the watch, every moderately wealthy merchant, every successful tavern owner, every remotely prominent noble, and every fledgling adventurer is proof that these items are very very common indeed.
At least, they are in the official material published by Paizo.
Then again, as I said, each to his own.
+2 enhancement is only CL 6.
Why does limiting magic items make them any more special in a world where you let PCs craft items?
I've never understood the logic behind limiting magic items. The game is designed around having a certain wealth by level. Reducing the wealth of players only puts more work on GMs to balance encounters or risk unwinnable battles.
Have to agree with this position. Pathfinder's core gameplay mechanics assume that characters have some means of getting useful magic items roughly equal to their WBL. Sans magic items, the game starts breaking down at the mid-levels, and gets even worse at higher ones. Even a fighter in full plate with a tower shield using Combat Expertise and will have trouble getting past 30 AC without any magic items (and at that point, you have a character who's so defense-focused his offensive power is close to nonexistent).
Plus, all the other previously-mentioned issues of no/low item campaigns, like enemies who can't be hurt with non-magic weapons, damage reduction, and the fact that as level goes up enemies get more and more abilities that can't be countered without magic. When you hit the point where 75% of CR=APL enemies have flight, a melee fighter who can't fly is gonna start feeling a bit weak. Backup bows only go so far.
So, while I can understand wanting to run a campaign without a lot of magic items, Pathfinder just isn't the best system for it. You can make it work, but it would probably be a lot easier to use a different game system that was made for that sort of campaign. The Magic Item Treadmill is built into the foundations of Pathfinder.
Even a fighter in full plate with a tower shield using Combat Expertise and will have trouble getting past 30 AC without any magic items (and at that point, you have a character who's so defense-focused his offensive power is close to nonexistent).
Why is the argument "Magic items free for all" versus "No magic items in existence"? The argument should be "Magic items free for all" versus "Magic items available if you find them."
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Why is the argument "Magic items free for all" versus "No magic items in existence"? The argument should be "Magic items free for all" versus "Magic items available if you find them."Even a fighter in full plate with a tower shield using Combat Expertise and will have trouble getting past 30 AC without any magic items (and at that point, you have a character who's so defense-focused his offensive power is close to nonexistent).
The key there however is that Players and DMs often have a disconnect on what is considered a "useful" item. Setting aside the need to make certain that any weapons they find match up to what the PCs use (and sometimes stretches believability when they find their fifth Magical Spiked Chain) players that are stuck in a "Best Item" mentality end up ignoring anything that doesn't fit their wish list. Then they get resentful at the DM for not giving them anything good.
and when you tell them "You've had plenty of good items you just sold them all." they get all huffy like a kid who didn't get every single toy on his Christmas list.
The key there however is that Players and DMs often have a disconnect on what is considered a "useful" item. Setting aside the need to make certain that any weapons they find match up to what the PCs use (and sometimes stretches believability when they find their fifth Magical Spiked Chain) players that are stuck in a "Best Item" mentality end up ignoring anything that doesn't fit their wish list. Then they get resentful at the DM for not giving them anything good.
and when you tell them "You've had plenty of good items you just sold them all." they get all huffy like a kid who didn't get every single toy on his Christmas list.
DMs don't get to pick PCs' feats for them. We don't get to pick where skill points go, what spells wizards learn at each level, what rage powers a barbarian picks up, or any other character trait. Why then should we be dictating, deciding, or even influencing what equipment the PC uses?
There's a common feeling that equipment isn't something the PCs should be allowed to pick. Like it's a Christmas present the DM gives, without a gift certificate. Doesn't fit you? Too bad.
Players have a vision for their character. Maybe that involves sitting on a flying carpet. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it involves a flaming scimitar that talks or maybe it involves a keen thundering warhammer. Maybe it involves a headband of vast intellect so the enemies don't make their saves 80% of the time, wasting spells. Maybe it involves boots of striding and springing so that the mobility-crippling full-plate they envision the PC wearing isn't so bad. Maybe it involves optimized defensive gear so they're not getting smashed all the time or maybe it doesn't.
The point is that the player knows absolutely best what and who they want their PC to be. DMs can throw "neat" treasure out to see what sticks, but we shouldn't (normally) have an opinion on the choices our players make.
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In the campaign I run there's no magic. Period. Also there's no classes. Everyone has a profession though, like cube farmer or disc jockey. Now there is technology, like iPhones, but a new one comes out every year and they're available everywhere so they're not special. Even though, for some WEIRD reason, all my PCs plus all the NPCs get in these HUGE lines for the newest pieces of technology.
I mean, what makes them so special that the players get so excited for them? I have them on sale at stores EVERYWHERE and all I ever change is to upgrade the basic performance or some stupid image mod like a new color. I do the same thing with transportation vehicles, appliances, and other communications/computation devices.
It's almost like people get excited, even when something's readily available all over, just because its better??!!!
Anyway, thankfully everyone here has made magic in their game ultra rare so that none of their players can ever forget how awesome it is.
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My group plays by pathfinder core rules. There is nothing wrong with buying magical items. We are just limited by our WBL. The thing my dm and me do believe tho that there is a limit. In the world that we are playing, you would be hard pressed to find anybody who could craft above CL 12 magic items. My party has a couple of crafters and right now the APL is 12, me (cleric) and paladin are level 13, while the others are level 10-11.
What my DM likes to do tho is give a history to virtually every magical items, why they are there in the first place, who made them etc...so we end up looking for magic items after hearing of their legends/deeds. Some magic items are too generic to even be worth mentioning, like belt of giant strength...yeah every fighters and barbarians had one of those, so nothing too special.
Other fun stuff, in another campaign one of my character recently bought a composite longbow+5 (as in the +5 strength dmg bonus), the dm told me that they made the longbow as a challenge in the village, since nobody was superhumanly strong to do it. As I proved that I could pull it and use it, the villagers were impressed. This made me feel like Ulysses to be quite frank.
Basically what I'm saying the way you interact with items magical or not, depend on your dm.
Maybe it involves a flaming scimitar that talks...
So in this case, does the player determine the intelligent weapon's stats and such? Does the player then control what the scimitar says, how it acts, etc? Does the player roleplay both his character and his weapon?
Why is the argument "Magic items free for all" versus "No magic items in existence"? The argument should be "Magic items free for all" versus "Magic items available if you find them."Even a fighter in full plate with a tower shield using Combat Expertise and will have trouble getting past 30 AC without any magic items (and at that point, you have a character who's so defense-focused his offensive power is close to nonexistent).
Because its pretty much impossible to define 'if you find them', and what that means unless you give us numbers, percentages, values, difficulty in finding them etc. I have no idea what you mean by 'if you find them' or 'the pcs need to work for it'.
What I do know, is that the game as written assumes that characters will as they level up have access to a large amount of magic items, and that those magic items need to aid the characters in their particular tasks. If 'if they find them' means the fighter ends up with level appropriate magic weapons, armor, and other magic items then there isnt an argument. It doesnt matter how they get into the pcs hands. Whether the dm chooses the items, they are available in a magic mart, or the players craft them themselves, its not important, its simply important that they have them.
But generally people who say 'if they find them' mean that they want to limit the availability of those items and make them 'rare' and more difficult to find/gain access to. If thats the case, and the fighter doesnt have level appropriate gear that aids him in his task of fighting things, then the CR system and any published adventure becomes a balancing act after about 8th level, and is basically useless after about 14th. The game expects that a 10th level character has about 62,000 gold in magical items, and that those magic items help them do the things that their character is supposed to do, be it fight, cast spells, or sneak around, or some combination of those things.
Its not precisely binary, for instance, a 10th level character with 40,000 gold in items isnt precisely crippled, just under geared, and slightly weaker then the CR system assumes. But in general, either you are meeting the games expectations and can use the CR system and published adventures without too much difficulty assuming average characters, or you cant. Thats why its an all or nothing sort of argument.
Me personally, I HATE the abundance of magic items the game assumes. I've created a system of house rules to replace the 'needed' bonuses character get from gear with things they choose as they level up. That way I can just put a sprinkling of magic items in game without hampering my characters. It lets me make magic items rare and wonderous (permanent magic items anyway, scrolls, wands and potions are still generally available), without having to throw out the CR system.
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I've run several campaigns in the past decade; of these 2 were "low magic" where I tried to use either legacy items or extra traits/feats to pad the PCs and thus reduce magic items. The effort was to create an air of rareness and specialness around permanent magic items. Y'know what I got? Players who frankly didn't care.
My experience has been whether I make magic rare or common, my players regard magic and magic items merely as tools like they regard cell phones and tablets IRL. Sure, they enjoy receiving the items or the gold to purchase/craft them, but at the end of the day they just jotted them on the character sheet and moved on.
It's literally been decades since any player anywhere said "Oooo! I wonder what THIS does?" to a magic item. Who are these players that are mystified by the wonder of magic items and regard them with childlike curiosity and innocence? If they exist please tell any in MN to get to one of my games since I'd love to have one in my campaign!
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Agreed. You're right to question availability of magic items. At the core of the argument, we've never read a great story where the hero bought his power.
Lo! And then Kröd Mändoon the Mighty did wait in the queue. And longer than any mortal man could manage did he wait. But then, upon the 40th night of his vigil, did he approach the counter of the clerk. Being a man of few words, Kröd merely laid his Flaming Sword of Fire before the salesclerk and look at him expectantly. The clerk replied "12,000 gold pieces, sir." Kröd did then mightily reach into his pouch and produced brilliant gems of sparkling wealth. "Keep the change" did Kröd then mutter, and heroically took the sword and walked out the front door of the mystical and hallowed halls of Magic-Mart, Inc. (a subsidiary of Magical Emporium International Company).
Another suggestion for making magic items special: leave everything exactly as core is written, but then have the itmes appear. Ex:
Ftr: I go buy an axe +1
GM: the man behind the counter takes your gold, steps outside and asks you to follow. He then places your sack of gold in the middle of a toadstool ring where it promptly disappears. The ground bubbles and begins to part; erupting from within the circle comes an axe which shines with a magic aura.
The PC has no idea what force or entity crafted the item, where it's from or how it came to be here. This also allows you to have an angry orc appear in town a week later shouting about how an earth elemental robbed him of his magic axe...
If 'if they find them' means the fighter ends up with level appropriate magic weapons, armor, and other magic items then there isnt an argument.
Anytime I've compared my PCs WBL to what's posted in the book, they're way over. Especially when you factor in homebrew and campaign-specific items. But that doesn't mean they get exactly what they want. Magic stores in my campaign world are rare - it just wouldn't make sense otherwise (for campaign reasons).
I think the "Magic items free for all" style would really hinder organic character development and eliminate several good plot hooks.
But generally people who say 'if they find them' mean that they want to limit the availability of those items and make them 'rare' and more difficult to find/gain access to.
If the default is "Magic items free for all" then yeah, I definitely limit the availability of those items. It just doesn't make sense to me that every character would have the knowledge to know what all magic items are.
In addition, "Magic item free for all" really encourages game mastery, which my group definitely doesn't want.
Some of us feel that the "host of issues" people claim you will run into without magic items having a certain level of availability is greatly exaggerated.
I don't assign fault - but people get used to doing something a certain way and complete miss or forget that there are other ways - like if someone were to have their Maps app on their smartphone crash and/or their in-car navigation system stolen... that doesn't mean you are doomed to be lost, it means you need to go buy a map.
They really arent exhagerated at all. Can experienced GMs compensate for the lack of magic items in a party? Sure. But an experience gm can compensate for anything in this game. There isnt anything to discuss there.
Also, what you describe with your navigation example isnt applicable. If I go buy and learn how to use a map, I have gained a skill. In game that is an ability gained from a class or feat. So what you describe isnt simply the absense of magic items. It is the benefits of magic items being replaced by class abilties or other abilities gained by means other then magic item.
If you remove magic items and dont replace their benefits with something else, this is in fact the equivalent of someone who is simply unable to navigate trying to drive their car across a country. Strictly speaking its possible, but its going to be a lot harder, and far more troublesome then it ought to be.
Let's use food for an analogy: Some people want magic items to be a dish you can only get at one place that was designed by a master chef... and Pathfinder's default approach is to have magic items be sandwiches that you can buy just about anywhere you go in varying qualities, or get the proper bits to make a bunch at home pretty cheap.
Indeed, you are spot on both about what some people want and what the game's default expectations are. The issue is, if you want your magic items to be a rare dish, then you have to compensate. Either you provide their benefits in other means (as I do with bonus gained as you level built into characters) or you have to mess with the Challenge Rating system considerably at mid to high levels. Or the game becomes considerably harder (with greater chance of deaths, and a far more restricted set of options that can function character wise) then the game normally has. You can choose any of these 3 things, or some mix of them, but in the end you need to be conscious of the fact that there is a significant change in the game.
Each to their own, of course, but it's not a reasonable conclusion from the core rules.
What are the core rules? I've been using the rules for available magic items in my campaign and they are quite limited (certainly not omni-available).
There are perhaps four common ways to acquire magic items:
1) Purchase them from a shop.
2) Commission their construction.
3) Make them yourself.
4) Find them as treasure.
1 and 2 are limited by the size of the town, 2 and 3 are limited by time, and 4 is just limited.
Even with these limitations there are still enough appropriate magic items available for a party of adventurers to function. Even if they don't have exactly what they want.
If 'if they find them' means the fighter ends up with level appropriate magic weapons, armor, and other magic items then there isnt an argument.
Anytime I've compared my PCs WBL to what's posted in the book, they're way over. Especially when you factor in homebrew and campaign-specific items. But that doesn't mean they get exactly what they want. Magic stores in my campaign world are rare - it just wouldn't make sense otherwise (for campaign reasons).
I think the "Magic items free for all" style would really hinder organic character development and eliminate several good plot hooks.
I didnt say exactly what they want, I said items that are level appropriate, and aid the characters in doing what they want. Basically character need to obtain magic items that are useful to them and have some means of disposing of items that are no longer useful. Such as when the fighter finds a new +3flaming keen sword on the corpse of the big bad they just fought, and replaces his measly +1 sword, what does he do with the +1sword? Are you counting that in this wbl total?
If a character is playing a dwarven axe specialist, does he eventually obtain magic axes? Does the monk find hand wraps or whatever? If the answer is yes, then it doesnt matter whether they are bought, found, bargained for, given as quest rewards. They dont have to be precisely what the player wants, but they need to help the character do his job. Giving the wizard a magic mace doesnt add value to the character, but if he gets a staff instead of the headband he wants, that isnt a huge issue so long as he can make use of the staff.
But generally people who say 'if they find them' mean that they want to limit the availability of those items and make them 'rare' and more difficult to find/gain access to.If the default is "Magic items free for all" then yeah, I definitely limit the availability of those items. It just doesn't make sense to me that every character would have the knowledge to know what all magic items are.
In addition, "Magic item free for all" really encourages game mastery, which my group definitely doesn't want.
Certainly fair but again my concern isnt how they get them, or whether they know about all the items of the world, but simply that they get them in sufficient qauntity and usefulness. The fighter doesnt have to know squadoosh about wisdom belts, or magic staves. He just needs to have his magic arms, armor, and other items that help him fight stuff.
Like I said, I agree with you on my dislike of the over abundance of magic items in game. I just also think the basic math of the game is predicated on them being there, and if they arent, you need to compensate in some way. If you get them there by some other means besides buying them, thats just fine, they just need to be there.
As I read a lot of threads and people post "builds" I often see people specifying that the character would purchase certain items at certain levels. I know these are theoretical characters, but does anyone actually play like that?
If you GM, do you allow characters to know what all of the magic items in the book(s) are, or do they have to learn about them in character?
Once they know about an item, is it pretty routine for them to obtain the item at the price listed in the book?
In all of the campaigns I have played in, there's never been a free-for-all attitude on magic items. You had to find the item in a treasure trove or get lucky enough to find a magic shop that had the item you wanted.
It's basically how the game's 'math' operates; the CR numbers, loose as they are, assume you will have a +X weapon at a certain level, a +Y armor at a certain level, +Z to your main stat(s) at a certain level, There's a bit of give and take to the expected level, but generally, that's there. That's the game's default expectation.
I assume that anybody who lives in a world where the is magic knows something about it. Think of it like modern-day electronics. The vast majority of people know what a tablet is. Most people could operate one at its most basic level. Some people can make optimal use out of it. A few people know them inside and out and could make their own, or improve the one they have, and recite all the specs and capabilities and discuss theoretical applications.
That's how I think of magic operating, and this is keyed to the Knowledge (Arcana) and/or Spellcraft skill. The better you are at those, the more stuff you know about magic items.
As far as the 'magic shop' thing goes, I don't use them. Too hard to protect, too tempting a target for thieves, not enough sales frequency to warrant 'stocking' things. Instead, PCs can find people who can craft items on commission; you pay half up front, kill some time while he makes your thing, then pay the rest of it when he's done ... with a slight markup, of course.
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Running magic item availability/"magic mart" RAW leads me to a pretty pleasing place if your think it through:
Most towns have a purchase limit of about 10k, tops. Really big trade centers might get up to 24k. That means such places have a 75% chance to have most items below that value. That qualifies as pretty easy to acquire IMO.
So for a quick exchange for cash/gems, a "magic mart" equipped guy can fairly easily get:
a +2 weapon
a +3 armor and shield
+2 stat items
+3 cloak of resistance
+2 amulet/ring for AC
decent misc items like a haversack, +5 skill items, etc.
So any item above is pretty common, and anyone with funds can easily get them.
More expensive stuff, though, has a very low chance of randomly showing up for sale. Or the character can find it as loot (also pretty rare for any specific given item). Or they can commission it made.
So in general, the "easiest" way to get a truly great item is to have a crafter make it over the course of weeks or months. I'm okay with that. At that point you're no longer browsing a store and plunking down a horde of cash, you're commissioning a master craftsman to make your legendary item. To me, this is little different than the elves in LotR forging Anduril "off-screen" so Aragorn could take it with him. If you flavor it well, "buying" truly mighty magic items can have a legendary mysterious air not hinted at by the out of game action of a player erasing some money and writing down a new item.
Like I said, I agree with you on my dislike of the over abundance of magic items in game. I just also think the basic math of the game is predicated on them being there, and if they arent, you need to compensate in some way. If you get them there by some other means besides buying them, thats just fine, they just need to be there.
Yeah - I think we basically agree here. My campaigns always feature a mix of methods of the PCs obtaining magic items. Its just never a Sear's catalog where the player looks through the book, finds the item he wants, and then places his order.
I definitely don't send them up against the evil monsters with only a wing and a prayer :P
I also recommend house-ruling some method of inherent bonuses, so PCs simply don't need the generic +X items (and more specifically, they don't exist).
That's how I think of magic operating, and this is keyed to the Knowledge (Arcana) and/or Spellcraft skill. The better you are at those, the more stuff you know about magic items.
I do the same. So a character with 0 ranks in both skills has a very limited knowledge of magic items.
As far as the 'magic shop' thing goes, I don't use them. Too hard to protect, too tempting a target for thieves, not enough sales frequency to warrant 'stocking' things. Instead, PCs can find people who can craft items on commission; you pay half up front, kill some time while he makes your thing, then pay the rest...
Yeah - that was another thing I always hated about the magic shop. The amount of GP value of the items in there would make it a target for everyone with less than honorable intentions.
Crafters make sense. If a character already has the knowledge of the item (based on Kno(arcana)/Spellcraft), then asking someone to craft one seems reasonable.
Agreed. You're right to question availability of magic items. At the core of the argument, we've never read a great story where the hero bought his power.Lo! And then Kröd Mändoon the Mighty did wait in the queue. And longer than any mortal man could manage did he wait. But then, upon the 40th night of his vigil, did he approach the counter of the clerk. Being a man of few words, Kröd merely laid his Flaming Sword of Fire before the salesclerk and look at him expectantly. The clerk replied "12,000 gold pieces, sir." Kröd did then mightily reach into his pouch and produced brilliant gems of sparkling wealth. "Keep the change" did Kröd then mutter, and heroically took the sword and walked out the front door of the mystical and hallowed halls of Magic-Mart, Inc. (a subsidiary of Magical Emporium International Company).
ever read the Wanderings of Wuntvor.
In it, there is a Barbarian Hero armed with "Thought Taker, the cursed Club that Drinks the memories of men"
Cursed because he bought it from Braxx the sales demon on credit and now the Demon keeps coming by to collect by asking him to do evil things like Killing local kings or knocking down orphanages and other stuff the Barbarian keeps refusing to do. Despite what the demon keeps pointing out are the terms of the contract.
They really arent exhagerated at all.Yes, they are - proven by the fact that you just implied that it takes an experienced GM to compensate, when I know that all it takes is a GM that has read enough of the rules to know that 1) some monsters are very hard to deal with if you don't have certain kinds of weapons and 2) spells exist that make any weapon temporarily the right kind of weapons to deal with those monsters.
1) I think it is a more complicated issue then you think it is. Its not just about having the right kind of weapons. It is balancing out your saving throws, (at high levels certain effects are absolutely brutal, and saves go up very slowly without magic), it is being able to survive attacks as a front liner, and its making sure your abilities and attacks are sufficiently powerful to get past the enemies defenses. Its not about having one or two things that can be easily compensated for by spells. And different monsters stress that issue in different areas. Some do in more then one area.
2. Again its more then just a magic weapon, but that also is making a massive assumption about the kinds of characters present in the party, and devotes significant resources from one character, just so another character can function. If the party doesnt have a wizard and cleric, but instead has an alchemist and an inquisitor, your solution isnt one. Those classes cant offer that level of support. So no, having the magic weapon and greater magic weapon spells dont solve this problem.
Also, what you describe with your navigation example isnt applicable.You are too focused on the navigation part of the example. The point is that not having the easiest or best way to deal with a situation does not mean that you have no way to deal, nor that the remaining ways that you do have to deal with the situation are not easy enough.
No you do not have to have the easiest way to deal with the situation, but if there is a difficult or cumbersome solution to the problem of 'doing what your character is supposed to do', then something is wrong. I realize your answer is that the casters can buff the fighters so they can face down the monsters. But if the fighters cant actually face the monsters on their own merits there is a problem inherant in the game. It isnt going and getting a map, its in order to navigate around town, I have to go hire a trained navigator, otherwise I cant drive my car. There is a level of inconvenience that is rediculous. Saying that spell casters can replace the bonuses that a party needs in order to face higher level threats is rediculous.
The issue is, if you want your magic items to be a rare dish, then you have to compensate. Either you provide their benefits in other means (as I do with bonus gained as you level built into characters) or you have to mess with the Challenge Rating system considerably at mid to high levels.This is the exact exaggeration that I referred to before. Ask yourself this: If a character is expected to have a particular sort of equipment at a particular level in order for CR values to function as written, then why does adding defenses like "DR 5/Magic" alter the challenge rating of a creature?
Where in the monster creation rules does it state this? The only thing i can find close to that is
Special senses and resistances to certain energy types are common in creatures of CR 5 and lower. Damage reduction, energy immunities, and regeneration are more common in creatures above CR 5. Spell resistance and immunities become more common above CR 10. As a general rule a creature's spell resitance should equal its CR + 11.
All this is saying is that creatures above CR 5 generally have such abilities.
If you are talking about templates, I dont think there is any template that only adds a type of dr. For the most part dr is a function of creature type instead of CR. Specifically dragons have dr magic, outsiders have dr/good, fey have dr/cold iron.
DR/magic is a situational benefit that applies some of the time (when a pc doesnt have his primary weapon, or in specific cases like a wildshaped druid, or a monk that have more difficulty or greater expense for magic attacks). Generally templates add at least one other situational benefit at least, like energy resistance. So no just adding DR5/magic doesnt increase challenge rating on its own, nor should it.
Or the game becomes considerably harder (with greater chance of deaths, and a far more restricted set of options that can function character wise) then the game normally has.None of those statements have to be false in order for the game to still be easy enough, contain only reasonable chance of deaths, and have plenty of character options that function just fine.
Obviously everything is subjective. I am taking the standard game as written as 'normal'. Obviously your game can be harder and not be 'too hard' for your group or your game. That isnt something makes any sense discussing. Some people like playing absurdley hard games, some people dont. I am saying without magic items the game is altered significantly and it is, challenges dont mean the same thing they do as written.
Your preferences are obviously different then mine, but it is factual that without the assumed level of magic items, the challenge rating of monsters is no longer a useful guideline in pathfinder. It is subjective that despite this, the game functions 'just fine' for certain groups.
Maybe it involves a flaming scimitar that talks...So in this case, does the player determine the intelligent weapon's stats and such? Does the player then control what the scimitar says, how it acts, etc? Does the player roleplay both his character and his weapon?
It depends on if they want to or not. As long as it's within the rules, it's fair-game. Literally.
I know there's debate on if wizard players get to control their familiar so obviously opinions are going to differ, but the rules don't say "the DM gets a familiar" or "the DM gets an animal companion", so I'm perfectly happy to let my players control aspects of their character. If it's on the sheet, it's theirs.
It depends on if they want to or not. As long as it's within the rules, it's fair-game. Literally.
I know there's debate on if wizard players get to control their familiar so obviously opinions are going to differ, but the rules don't say "the DM gets a familiar" or "the DM gets an animal companion", so I'm perfectly happy to let my players control aspects of their character. If it's on the sheet, it's theirs.
Seconded.
Each to their own, of course, but it's not a reasonable conclusion from the core rules.What are the core rules? I've been using the rules for available magic items in my campaign and they are quite limited (certainly not omni-available).
There are perhaps four common ways to acquire magic items:
1) Purchase them from a shop.
2) Commission their construction.
3) Make them yourself.
4) Find them as treasure.1 and 2 are limited by the size of the town, 2 and 3 are limited by time, and 4 is just limited.
Even with these limitations there are still enough appropriate magic items available for a party of adventurers to function. Even if they don't have exactly what they want.
What are the core rules?
The core rules make it very easy for PCs to find, buy, or make whatever they need. The WBL chart says how much loot they should have, and the average treasure per encounter chart suggests how they should get there. Community wealth actually says that even small towns have magic items for sale and big cities have very valuable items for sale.
But the core rules I was talking about are the rules for crafting magic items and the rules for destroying magic items - it's much, much, MUCH easier to make them than to destroy them, normally, and certainly even moreso to WANT to make them than it is to WANT to destroy them. And they last forever, so they just keep getting made and made and made and made and they never go away, so with every year that goes by, this very old world of Golarion has more and more magic items floating around.
As for your limitations, here's how I see them:
2 is limited by time, but not the PCs time. So they commission a +3 weapon that takes 9 days, then they go off on an adventure for a week, back to town and spend a couple days selling loot, presto, they pick up their weapon. Heck, in a big enough city (again, 9th level Teleports make EVERY city available) every PC might commission 2 or 3 items at the same time from a total of a dozen or more craftsmen. 12 guys scattered around Golarion, simultaneously making a dozen items, all finished in a week or two, then run around and pick them up. So if the GM is limiting the time this much, well, that's definitely an option but it's NOT even the normal time constraint in most APs.
3 should never be limited by time. If a character invests in a feat, he should be able to use it. Letting the PC wizard invest in an Item Crafting feat and then NEVER giving him time to craft items is just as bad as letting the fighter invest in Power Attack then making a houserule that Power Attack only works against one-eyed, left-handed, bearded, half-dragon, orc mystic theurges - and not letting him swap the feat for something more useful. I sure hope that all GMs out there will either MAKE the time for PC crafters or make sure their players aren't wasting feats by taking crafting feats they'll never be allowed to use.
4 is not really that limited. If you play any AP with the recommended number of PCs, you'll pretty much always be over the WBL charts unless the players are utterly clueless about searching and finding treasure that isn't laying on the floor in front of them. This is because there is always hidden loot, I suppose to reward clever players who take the time to search, and if they do, the total loot goes above and beyond WBL. Sure, some of that is in coin, some of it is in junk items nobody needs, and if the GM really doesn't allow PCs to sell junk items and then use the first three options to convert their coin into useful items, well, then I guess their actually useful gear will be at or below the WBL chart - but for everyone else, it's very easy in most APs to be above the WBL chart.
So what you see as "quite limited", I see instead as rarely limited. YMMV, of course; just pointing out that there are different viewpoints.
Say, here's another thought: Smaller settlements.
This won't work in APs obviously, but if you're homebrewing or modifiying AP's it might. Go with a Western Marches kind of feel and have the largest settlement be a small town. The PCs after a certain level will have to find specialty buyers for all their magic gear and the remainder of their wealth will go to buying the stuff for making their own unique gear.
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honestly by the Core rules the DM should be rolling up randomly what items are available for purchase in a city and if the PCs can't find what they are looking for from those random rolls they are SOL
Even in a Metropolis you only get a 75% chance of getting the item you want if it's 16,000 gp or less. Anything more valuable than that and you pray to the Gods of random Dice rolls.
That pretty much caps "buy what you want" at +2 weapons, +4 armor and +4 single stat enhancement items.