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Generally speaking, the basic magic items (+X weapon, ability boosting items, cloak or resistance etc.) are built into the challenge rating of a game. It is assumed that a ninth level character, for example, will have an appropriate number of them, and if you limit that, it will skew the difficulties of their encounters. You can adjust for that, but you have to be aware of it.
When I run games I make most things pretty easily available as long as the group has access to a large city. I find that rolling for availability of things, and having the players need to ask me for a list of everything that is available (or could be commissioned) just takes too much time for too little increase in realism.
There is a lot of variation on this though, and every GM pretty much does it differently, ranging from easily available to getting that +1 sword is a life-time achievement. None of them is 'wrong'.
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I just let them buy stuff, given that they're in a large enough city. RotRL takes place fairly close to Magnimar I believe, so they should be able to buy anything they want from there.
A little judicious tweaking of the loot never hurt anyone either. EX: If an enemy is using a longsword and nobody in your party uses a longsword...but they do use a Bastard Sword, no harm in changing that enemy to a Bastard Sword user.
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I let my players buy magical items within a certain gp limit (usually that indicated in the city statblock). Beyond that they have to commission magical artisans for them, wait until it becomes available on the market, or create it themselves.
Waiting for it to come on the market/Commissions usually require 1/2 the market price up front, and they have to wait a number of days equal to the time it takes to craft it (to have it built to spec, or to wait from such an item to arrive from distant lands).
This also can slow down the adventure a bit if you think that going from 1st to 20th level in a couple months is unreasonable.
Very Respectfully,
--Bacon
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There are rules about item availability in differently sized cities. They're mostly annoying, but you can use them.
Adventures are designed assuming you have access to adventuring staples. Not every item needs to be available to everyone, but between pulling things off of dead bodies, and dutifully checking the local magic item emporium, you shouldn't have level 9 characters unable to procure a Cloak of Resistance.
That said, if someone wants an Adaptive Acidic Holy Evil-Outsider-Bane Composite Longbow +1, that exact item doesn't have to appear in the shops. If you want that level of customization, someone should take up crafting.
Rynjin is correct for most games, particularly the published ones. You would have to continually adjust the module to account for the lack of magic items if your party hasn't got them.
One additional thing to bear in mind: loot that is exactly what they want is worth twice as much as stuff they will be selling since the rules only allow PCs to sell items for 50% of the cost and then they have to pay full price unless they craft it themselves.
Although we are allowed to buy magic items, my DM likes us to make in game contacts rather than having bricks and mortar magic shops for us to browse through. If we do a favour for the blacksmith, the blacksmith becomes a connection for magic armour, that sort of thing. He also likes everyone to be affiliated with a faction so that he can use them to hook us up. If we are looking for a particular piece of equipment, a faction member might find it or even make it for us and sometimes we receive the item we were looking to buy as a reward for completing tasks for them.
For my last campaign, I plan on handing out a wishlist at character creation and have them fill it in.
I can than decide, when and if to place certain items in the game tweak BBEG, so they have that weapon etc.. I also consider tweaking them to add some unique effects to them.
What? Doesn't everyone get the equipment they need by bashing their heads against blocks of stone?
the magic item market, with multiple stalls where you can eventually find the item you want, is the best idea to go with. another good idea Rynjin suggested, i will add onto is.
if you have nobody that uses a longsword, but one guy that uses a bastard sword, turning the longsword user into a bastard sword user won't hurt.
but more, for some obscure or regionally innapropriate weapons
lets say you have a PC that wields a katana, you don't want a bunch of eastern items for sale, and don't want to punish the katana wielder. you can include a tweaked NPC that wields a slightly heavier Sabre or slightly heavier Scimitar with stats of a katana that counts as for all intents and purposes, as a katana. it allows the fish out of water eastern guy to function in a primarily western setting.
Pretty much what Better_With_Bacon said. As long as there's a town with a high enough purchase limit nearby they can find someone in the bazaar/temple/mage's college/etc who can be commissioned for it. Then they just have to pick it up after the crafting period.
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Generally speaking, the basic magic items (+X weapon, ability boosting items, cloak or resistance etc.) are built into the challenge rating of a game. It is assumed that a ninth level character, for example, will have an appropriate number of them, and if you limit that, it will skew the difficulties of their encounters. You can adjust for that, but you have to be aware of it.Is this something that a GM should assure or is it something players, as long as they're allowed/not limited, will "automatically" do? What I mean is: Does a GM need to make sure they've got strong enough items or will it solve itself if they just get enough gp for their appropriate level to buy items?
The GM should make sure that the challenges the PCs are facing are appropriately challenging. If they're having a hard time, and you think they're light on items, you can give them more items OR tone down the encounters a bit.
Some players will automatically pick up the basic items because it's practical, and an AP will probably provide a fair number of these - though not necessarily the ones the PCs need, particularly in the case of weapons. But really the level of challenge is more important than the exact items involved (and challenge can be off a bit anyway if your party is particularly well or poorly optimized).
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My approach is that I don't want to devote game time to shopping when we could be doing heroic quests. I prefer a simple rule like "In this settlement you can buy any magic item with a value under 10,000gp." Then the players pick what they need, preferably between one game session and the next, and you move on. You might find the idea of such well-stocked magic shops implausible, but if you don't spend any game time on it, it doesn't feel as noticeable and has little impact on the overall atmosphere.
(It can also be a good idea to impose caps on spending in certain areas - for example, if you spend all your money on armor class bonuses, you can become virtually unhittable.)
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Me and my group are somewhat new to Pathfinder, and RPGs in general, we're learning fast and are finding it to be great fun. We're playing RotR and are about to start the second book this Sunday.
(This is just to set the scenario and situation of my group, just to state: we don't have that much player/GM experience).
As you're all somewhat new, I would suggest creating short lists of available magic items based on area. Like you, I really dislike the whole "any magic item you want to find is available" idea.
Asking new players to read through the magic item area of the book and learn them all so that they can figure out works best for their characters will encourage a certain style of play. In my experience, once you start down this path, its nearly impossible to come back from it.
I'm not sure what style of play that is, but it's the only type of Pathfinder I've ever known.
Some types of character are a lot more gear-dependent than others. It's not unreasonable for an archer to want a magic composite longbow with the correct strength modifier - something they're not likely to get if you just generate a few random magic items and say "These are the only ones that are available".
I think the style he means is PFS, maybe.
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Ive always had my players say make a list of their top five wants and order them, then I assign say percentages to them. Then I give them the option to roll to see if one is availible or if it isnt, or to take my roll. Some days +1 flaming sword is there. If its say close like they roll a 62 but needed a 70 the might find the +1 frost sword instead of the +1 fire sword and i let them decide whether its exactly what they want or not. A few sessions everything they wanted was right there just waiting.
Now i do it slightly different for things like wands and scrolls they are a bit more common, but i do make them roll on wands to see how 'used' it is. (discounts apply of course for usage) Its always seemed to be a more I guess organic feel to their shopping expeiances. and of course, they could always commision things as well.
People have posted several things in here that I agree with and I have favorited those post to demonstrate that. I would also like to add a few more thoughts.
In home campaigns it is feasible to implement the crafting system in the game, but if you actually implement it and enforce the crafting times you will realize that crafting items takes a significant amount of time. Crafting requires you spend 1 day per 1000 gp of the items base cost (not crafting cost). So that 30,000 gp item means you spend 1 whole month, 8 hours a day, crafting that item. Now imagine trying to supply an entire party with that? No way. It's not really feasible on the time schedule that most written adventure paths give you. Short of the Kingmaker Adventure Path there just isn't normally that much down time in a game that you could actually manage to craft anything. And once characters reach level 9 you better believe they're going to the largest city on the continent and going shopping for magical items. All courtesy of teleport. It may not be as immersive or real for some GMs or players but restricting characters to "drops" is just kind of cruel. "Oh look, another +3 blowgun! Put it in the pile of crap to sell."
Let's also talk about how martial characters are more reliant on magical items than casters. Casters can buff themselves and make up for deficiences in magical equipment. Of course, when they do they don't have spell slots to buff up everyone else also. This means that they don't suffer like your fighter, monk, barbarian, cavalier, etc do. They cast a buff or two at the start and off they go. God's help you if they're a full caster. All they're interested is a headband of their casting stat. Everything else is gravy for them. Meanwhile, the poor fighter is asking for magical armor to boost his AC, a magical weapon to boost his attack, he needs a boost to his saves to deal with all the magic that will be directed at him. He needs to boost his strength and con to deal damage and take a hit. And these are just things to keep him in the combat race. Meanwhile, the wizard with his headband of int is lobbing out the Black Tentacles and Stinking Clouds with nary a care about anything else.
Other than items found as treasure, crafting is the most common method of acquiring dearly wanted magic items. Normally this means one of the characters is doing the crafting - but it isn't too far fetched to commission an NPC to make an item.
It's a good idea to do randomly roll for about 50-70% of dropped loot. The remainder should be predetermined by you and not always favorably for the players.
Remember that smart monsters and npc's also hold many basic non weapons in high regard, my players never want for cloaks of resistance for example.
In my stories there is always a big faction cleverly named Ironforge. It generally becomes accessible when the players attain teleport or plane shift (yes they have a demiplane shop front). Iron forge is the best and most reliable shop network of all but also notably more expensive. They have near - infinite supply of classic magic items and crafters on standby for rarer orders. Exotic items can generally be shipped quickly if the players are willing to pay for magical transportation.
Under this system you'd know that iron forge is always ready to supply you with your longsword+2, but finding some local source of magic items is usually cheaper.
Local sources include: NPC wizards (who quite often live in towers) who are quite likely to possess at least one crafting feat. Blacksmith experts with the master craftsman feat. The decrepit adventurer whose bag of holding holds many surprises. And others.
Again Im confused why there arent more people on the craft it yourself train. Anytime I make a character who have cl 3 or higher...im like Craft Wondrous Item/magical arms and armor if martial...hello 2x wbl starting gold basically
Developers have established that allowing a character to have 2 times wealth by level is far too much to allow. It has been stated a reasonabel guideline is 25% more wealth by level for one crafting feat, and 50% more wealth by level for two crafting feats.
Also, if you GM doesn't enforce crafting time rules it becomes a big bonus. But in the context of most adventures you don't have time to craft many items because anything beyond the basic stuff takes too long to do so.
Developers have established that allowing a character to have 2 times wealth by level is far too much to allow. It has been stated a reasonabel guideline is 25% more wealth by level for one crafting feat, and 50% more wealth by level for two crafting feats.
I can understand that guideline for creating a high-level character, but if you created a character at level 1 and leveled them up naturally, how do you prevent a character from acquiring greater than these guidelines if they choose to craft a lot of gear?
You've mentioned enforcing crafting times, which should definitely be done, but how big of a hindrance that is depends on the campaign. If everything is rush, rush, rush, a GM should just tell the players not to take crafting feats because they won't be able to use them.
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Developers have established that allowing a character to have 2 times wealth by level is far too much to allow. It has been stated a reasonabel guideline is 25% more wealth by level for one crafting feat, and 50% more wealth by level for two crafting feats.I can understand that guideline for creating a high-level character, but if you created a character at level 1 and leveled them up naturally, how do you prevent a character from acquiring greater than these guidelines if they choose to craft a lot of gear?
You've mentioned enforcing crafting times, which should definitely be done, but how big of a hindrance that is depends on the campaign. If everything is rush, rush, rush, a GM should just tell the players not to take crafting feats because they won't be able to use them.
I agree. In my campaigns I've actually effectively done away with crafting because I state explicilty in my rules that there is a magical item encumbrance determined by the base gp value of an item and you're allowed to use an amount of gear based on the wealth by level. Effectively, you don't get to violate wealth by level. Even with crafting feats. Role play wise, it's because the magical forces imbued in the items will crush you if you attempt to use more than your body/soul can handle. It's also a means to keep power levels form escalating or allowing an indivdual in the group to gain a greater level of power over others.
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Another way you can mitigate the problem of PCs finding magic weapons they can't use is to allow them to transfer the enchantment onto a masterwork weapon of any kind more quickly and cheaply than they could buy or craft the desired item. (8 hours and 10% of item cost sounds reasonable, though my group has allowed it for free without problems.) That way you don't have to stretch suspension of disbelief in order to make sure a PC with an unusual weapon can use weapons he or she finds. The same thing can be done with armour, which is less personalized than weapons but still might pose a problem if your party is biased towards lighter or heavier armours.
Again Im confused why there arent more people on the craft it yourself train. Anytime I make a character who have cl 3 or higher...im like Craft Wondrous Item/magical arms and armor if martial...hello 2x wbl starting gold basically
If you start at level 3 or above that's great for starting gear, but as Claxon pointed out crafting does become increasingly time consuming as your gear becomes more expensive. You still might be able to make a few things, but depending on the pace of the campaign it might be very difficult to equip an entire party. So crafting can be part of the solution to getting a party the specific items they want, but not the entire solution.
Pretty cool idea. Doesn't stop people from going over via consumables though, does it?
Again Im confused why there arent more people on the craft it yourself train. Anytime I make a character who have cl 3 or higher...im like Craft Wondrous Item/magical arms and armor if martial...hello 2x wbl starting gold basically
Downtime. In my game, crafting characters end up sitting out adventures to stay home and make magic items because hand-waving crafting time is not something my DM is willing to do. I suspect this is true for many others.
Pretty cool idea. Doesn't stop people from going over via consumables though, does it?
No,well sort of, but I actually like that. Consumable require actions to use in combat, which means they're not actively doing damage or otherwise inhibiting the enemy and it also helps bridge the gap between those who can buff themselves and those who can't.
1. Magical items are limited to items available in the rulebooks. If there is a specific combination you may ask for the DM’s approval to commission such an item to be built, or to craft it yourself. You may not have such items without explicit approval.
2. All crafting is available, but please always keep your gear in line with the Magical Item Encumbrances Rules as outlined here and modified as below:
a. Non consumable magical items take 1 minute to attune to you normally before you can use them. An item can only be unbonded from you after a 1 hour ritual followed by 8 hours of rest.
b. Cursed items count against your encumbrance if they provide benefits and you ignore the penalties. Trying to find a cursed item that is useful to you but doesn’t inhibit you significantly is trying to find a way to game the system.
c. Do not figure in the base cost of non-magical weapons and armor including special materials.
d. Artifacts and Intelligent Items do count against your Magical Item Encumbrance.
e. Crafting feats do not in any way increase your Magical Encumbrance.
f. Please remember to pay full price for whatever you purchase unless it is crafted.
So you can give your characters excess gold, without having to worry about what happens when they purchase the Deathbringer +5 at level 7, because they can't use it till later levels. This also encourages buying other items that might not normally be used. Such as magical castles or orphanages, etc (without gimping your character) which don't count aginst your magical encumbrance as it's not something you wear/use on your person.
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I've done the following:
- modified adventure path modules to drop loot more relevant to the party. I don't modify gear from enemies but rather if I know a player uses 2-handed weapons and the module says the monster's hoard contains a +1 flaming scimitar, I might bump it to a greatsword. The writers have no clue what characters are coming to the table.
- Provide time for crafting. We use a house-rule to avoid the imbalance of "wealth by level" if too much crafting takes place by making anything but potions, scrolls, and wands craft at 100% cost. Players can "disenchant" same-slot items and convert the 100% cost towards a craft, such as disenchanting a Ring of Protection +1 to put towardsmake a Ring of the Ram. We use the Ultimate Campaign rules so players can continue crafting while on the adventuring trail.
- Encourage role-playing to find items. Rather than assume "Jake's Adventurer Bazaar" has everything the hero needs, I generally put magic items in the hands of other adventurers. Through asking around, they might find someone who has something they need and vice versa. If players abuse this by attacking/stealing, word gets around and no one will ever deal with them.
If your issue is that everyone is running around with run-of-the-mill "plus this" magic items, there are excellent solutions in the homebrew section.
we've been playing kingmaker for a while and are currently o book 6. So throughout the campaign it was like ok lets run a few months...aka craft all the things.
Pretty much every other published campaign is exactly the opposite.
I'm currently running Rise of the Runelords, and I haven't gotten to the point that I feel magic has taken over.
Our party Magus makes most of the magical arms & armor for the group, and they tend to purchase relatively cheap magical items from Magnimar.
I think the highest powered magical item they have is a +2 Breastplate. By cost, I think the most expensive item they have is a Ring of Force Shield.
I know that the Samurai is trying to get a Belt that will boost his STR and CON when they get back to Magnimar, assuming he has the funds for it, it is within the gp limit listed on Magnimar's stat block so it takes 1d4 hours and a DC 15 Diplomacy check to find one for sale.
If the item cost more than 12,000gp, he would have to decide if he is willing to wait the length of time it would take to make, and pay 50% of the market price up front to commission it from a spellcaster.
I allow all the items from the Ultimate Equipment book, and so far, it hasn't been too game-breaking.
Of course, almost Every PC has an animal companion, familiar, or cohort... so there are times I feel like I am DMing for a Suikoden campaign.
Very Respectfully,
--Bacon
I've dealt with it by developing a tiered system of access. Anyting up to roughly 3k to 4k is generally available in the appropriate sized town without any extra fuss, with exceptions for exotic and just plain weird stuff. Anything from there up to the top end of the medium wondrous items chart in price is available via commissioning, which may take additional time or money depending on the item. Anything higher than that must go through me, the DM, to acquire, through extensive rp, making contacts in the world, and/or letting me know what you want so that if an opportunity to place it as treasure happens to come up, I can do so. I do similar things for access to new spell scrolls; different levels and subschools have different levels of accessibility. I've found this generally allows for the built in assumptions of the game to operate with minimum fuss while keeping the mystery and rarity of the higher powered stuff intact.
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I'm tinkering around with a fairly restricted magic item economy.
- consumable items are widely available
- stores don't have a full selection available; roll for inventory
- permanent item creation is houseruled intensely. Basically, you don't need feats (because you're not likely to want to make many items in a single category), but making items is MORE expensive than buying them on the market. The advantage to crafting is getting access to obscure stuff that's unlikely to be normally available.
- characters receive a lot more additional ability points based on levels to compensate for having fewer magic items
- weapon feats houseruled to be less hyper-specialized; if a Greatsword fighter finds a Falchion it'll still be good for him.
Based on this thread, I've come up with two more aspects:
- shopkeepers are professionalls, and pay attention to their competition. If you're looking for something specific, they might know that the shop in the town next over has the thing you want. You can go there and negotiate. Or this shopkeeper can order it for you, but you have to do a quest...
- if the players want some specific thing, it gets a few % more likelihood for random generation. But not a guatantee.