Hi Everyone!
First time GM here. Running a solo-campaign with my partner. Having a lot of fun with it! I have a curious question for you all: What kind of house rules do you run for magic shop generation?
I don't mind the extra work that comes with generating items for magic shops, but I am finding the RAW a little overpowered for my taste. The main community the PC (LVL 3 Witch) is hanging out in is a Village, and I thought this would be satisfactory for a gritty, low-ish magic setting. But with a base value of 500 GP, this means every low level scroll and potion in the game has a 75% chance of being available. This seems a little too much like the K-mart of magic shops....
Also, being a witch with decent spell craft, she can learn a heck ton of spells from scrolls this way, so I don't want her just choosing from the whole menu. I am wondering how some GM's out there house rule this mechanic for a more interesting and somewhat limited selection.
I will also point out that she is finding very specific treasure and not just getting boring old GP off everyone, so she has a certain amount of useful good from looting... geared to her campaign as well.
It seems that this is an area of gameplay that folks handle in a variety of ways, so I am wondering what you all think on this subject. Thanks so much and look forward to replies!
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None. They don't exist.
They're too hard to protect, too tempting a target for thieves, and there's no enough volume of business to warrant 'stocking' things. The vast majority of the populace has no need for most magic items, can't activate most magic items, and most of all, simply can't afford most magic items.
If you want a magic item made, you buy it on commission. Pay half up front, wait for the crafter to make your item, then pay the other half upon completion and delivery. Though they do, of course, mark the price up some. Profits, and all that.
None. They don't exist.
They're too hard to protect, too tempting a target for thieves, and there's no enough volume of business to warrant 'stocking' things. The vast majority of the populace has no need for most magic items, can't activate most magic items, and most of all, simply can't afford most magic items.
If you want a magic item made, you buy it on commission. Pay half up front, wait for the crafter to make your item, then pay the other half upon completion and delivery. Though they do, of course, mark the price up some. Profits, and all that.
I like this solution, especially because it is well supported with story elements that justify it. I will probably use this approach in the future. You can also justify magic shops in only the biggest metropolises with this scenario which gives a good flavor...
However this is the opposite extreme of what I'm talking about, and I'm wondering if a middle ground can be reached.
Also, in our story it is already established that there is one magic shop in town, so unless the poor woman gets robbed... I'd like to find another solution for my particular scenario.
bump?
Why are you determined to nerf the witch? If she chose a sorcerer then she would have gotten to pick her spells. Downfall of a witch or wizard is they actually have to pay to learn there spells, if you only allowing spells you want her to have your nerfing a basic class feature and railroading her build for her. Items under 500gp are suppose to be readily available because there more necessity items than anything else. Like healing potions, cure scrolls, and scrolls to learn spells. She's free to learn a few spells as she levels up anyway so your just delaying the inevitable anyway, she's already free to pick a spell she really wants.
Being as she's a solo player anyway she going to need more options as she doesn't have a party to rely on.
Why are you determined to nerf the witch? If she chose a sorcerer then she would have gotten to pick her spells. Downfall of a witch or wizard is they actually have to pay to learn there spells, if you only allowing spells you want her to have your nerfing a basic class feature and railroading her build for her. Items under 500gp are suppose to be readily available because there more necessity items than anything else. Like healing potions, cure scrolls, and scrolls to learn spells. She's free to learn a few spells as she levels up anyway so your just delaying the inevitable anyway, she's already free to pick a spell she really wants.
Being as she's a solo player anyway she going to need more options as she doesn't have a party to rely on.
This is sound advice and after thinking about it I am going to go with the rules as written.
I've only ever played with one GM before and he house rules out magic shops. I've enjoyed that style of play because it made everything we found really exciting and made us use things we weren't anticipating.But, I think the opposite approach will be best for this solo-campaign. I don't want to do anything that limits her character. Also I think it will be good for us both to play a more standard approach when it comes to items.
Thanks!
I don't think I've ever used the core rules for town wealth. We always just asked our DM if there was a blacksmith or magic shop in town, and if so, then we bought what we needed. I can see it working alright with a normal 4 player group, but when you've only got one character, the majority of the items randomly generated in a town are going to be useless to that character, and you might be wasting your time generating them. If your PC is newer, or doesn't care as much about itemization, then I imagine it could be quite interesting to wander into the local magic shop and find that there are x, y, and z items available. I still think you should give them the option to buy whatever they can afford within the price range, even if that means there's a 25% chance it's unavailable, or they have to wait for someone to craft it for them.
Because witches have to learn (or rather teach their familiar) the majority of their spells from scrolls, like a wizard, then you need to decide how much you want to railroad her build through itemization. I think she should be able to buy whatever spell scrolls are available when she can afford them, and there's always that 25% chance that what she wants won't be available in that village. Also remember that she has to spend time burning and feeding all those scrolls to her familiar, so be sure to discuss what she's doing in her downtime. She is still greatly limited by the number of spells she can prepare per day, so you might as well let her expand her options to her heart's desire.
Still, I can think of a couple good options for you to limit the availability of magic items in your village.
The rules say that if you want a low magic world, you can just halve the wealth and number of items in a given town, so you can do that if you like. She'll still be able to buy any 1st or 2nd level scroll in your village though.
A really simple adjustment in line with the "low magic world" idea would be to decrease the availability chance of items she wants to 60% or maybe even 50%. You should let her try again though after a few days, if she's going to be staying in the village for a while.
You could also say that the 500gp limit for the village is the total wealth not counting the random magic items that you generate. As such, she could only buy up to 500 gp worth of items, with 75% chance of availability, before there's only the randomly generated items left. You can then restock the village every few days or so if she's going to be staying there a while.
Or, you could say that the 500gp items rule only applies to mundane items, and she can only get magic items like scrolls if you randomly generate them as part of the town's magic items. This could turn out quite badly for the PC though, because there's only a 35% chance that a minor magic item will be a scroll (even smaller chance for medium or major items), and then she has to hope that that scroll is of a witch spell!
Maybe instead of generating random magic items for the village, you just roll for the number of magic items in the village, and say that's the maximum number that she can buy, while still incurring the 75% availability chance. In your village, this would mean she can only buy up to 2d4 (average 5) minor scrolls (lvl 0-3) and 1d4 (average 2.5) medium scrolls (lvl 2-5) assuming she's not interested in any other magic items. At least in this case, you've set a limit to the number of items she can buy.
At 3rd level she should only have about 3,000gp worth of equipment. Assuming she's already spent about 500-1000 gp on her current gear, she can only afford about 2-2.5k worth of items anyway. You can limit how much she can spend by limiting how much money you gains from loot.
I really don't think you need to limit her access to scrolls past the 75% availability chance that's already in place, but hopefully I've given you some good ideas on how to go about it if you choose to.
Hi Everyone!
First time GM here. Running a solo-campaign with my partner. Having a lot of fun with it! I have a curious question for you all: What kind of house rules do you run for magic shop generation? (snip)
Hi Brooklyn85,
I'll give you two conflicting advices, cause I'm like that ;)
As a first time GM, the Rules as Written give you a good mainframe on which you can rely. It's not perfect, but its coherent as a whole and it's not easy to see how altering X will have an effect on Y because X changed the dynamic of Z. These rules have been around for a while and passed the test; you can trust them to a great extent.
But it's also YOUR game, and (as I understand, correct me if I'm wrong) you have a single PC, so its normal and expected to give your game its own signature. This entitles you to change whatever you deem fitted for you and your partner to have fun.
So back on the original question, I don't have rules for magic shops; I give myself some guidelines and tweak them as I go for campaign-specific or setting-specific reasons.
This town is known for it magic colleges; low-level and cheap to produce items, especially consumables, will be pretty common and easy to find.
This town is featuring high-level spellcasters competing for politics/powers/influence; high-cost commissioned items will be easy to order because these wizards/clerics need the funds.
This rural town has no famous sorcerers but a few hedge-wizards and wise-women; potions, charms and trinkets will be the only commodity available.
This town is a big cosmopolitan trading hub, there might be some curios' shop with a small selection of foreign magical weapons and jewelry, and fancy tradesmen might have a magical item in their "backstore" along the rest of their mundane ware.
"Shops" can also take the form of wealthy private collectors, covenant of wizards, temple, traveling adventurers auctioning at the local inn etc.
So while I don't like the concept of "everything magical", large-surface Walmart type of shop, I allow my players to shop around. I actually prefer to have players travel and look for items rather than commission everything custom-fitted. As a DM, I like to know what their "wish list" is and plant these items here and there, sometimes in treasure, sometimes in the hands of their enemies, sometimes on the self of a store somewhere. It's like Christmas with the kids and their list to Santa; they know I know what they want, they know they won't get everything that's on the list all the time, they know they'll get things that isn't on the list, but they know the party's going to be fun.