Okay, so my PCs wanted to spend some money today. We're playing a 3.x/PF hybrid and playing Rise of the Runelords. (Base 3.5 edition.) I have been using the PF settlement rules for base value and purchase limit, whcih is fine as far as it goes.
What is a good solution to look at if my PCs want to buy a specific item that's above the purchase limit? (Things, specifically, out of 3.5's magic Item Compendium.)
In instances so far, I have said they'd have to import it.
This week, one wanted an item costng 15k gold, so I looked it up and said it could be brought in from Absolom (which has enough base value), he paid his pennies and I just rolled about 8D6 to see how many days it woud take (about a month, as it happens).
But what about items that the PCs might want which are above even Absolom's 25k limit? How do they go about buying those (or, if you play strictly to the rules, can they even?)
The next question is whether PF's magic item costs are broadly the same as 3.5's. (I've never actually looked.) If they aren't the same, then I might need to adjust the settlement values accoridngly.
I want to strike somehing of a balance between not just letting them buy everything they want all the time and being too rigid. (The 75% availability for base price work pretty great, as far as it goes.)
How do the rest of you handle this?
Absalom's purchase limit is 250k, not 25k (according to the Guide to Absalom). Your PCs still have a lot of room to go before they reach that. 25k may be the base value, which means that there's 75% chance that items no more expensive than that can be easily found; if they want something more expensive, it may still happen to be available, but it's subject of GM's discretion.
However it is to be expected that such powerful items aren't sbought and sold on a open market. More likely, a potential buyer needs to search on his own for someone owning the item, and then try to convince them to sell it (which doesn't have to be always possible, especially if the item in question has a personal or religious significance), or find someone able to craft this item and arrange for crafting it.
Since Golarion doesn't have that many high-level mages who aren't at the same time involved in politics or manage some big organizations, and therefore have time to accept crafting jobs, the PCs may even need to look on other planes. It happened in one of my games, that to obtain a scroll of teleportation circle (9th level spell, reltively cheap as magic items go, only 4825 gp), it had to be imported from the Plane of Fire, because there were no local mages of that power that would create scrolls for sale. I've found there's a city in desert of Qadira, Ehur, where a lot of genies have trading embassies.
"Peart of Syrinx". Awesome.