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View Full Version : [3.5] New DM: Wizard Spell Availability



hobbes1020
2010-08-04, 09:01 PM
As a new DM I have a group of adventurers returning to town after a long dungeon crawl. The party wizard, eager to spend his hard earned loot, has presented me with a list of spells he would like to purchase in town.

The town, specifically, is a coastal merchant town (metropolis in size) with a population of just over 34,000. As a level 8 wizard he is seeking various spells ranging from 1 - 4. I looked through the DMG and was wondering how I should determine spell availability given the circumstances? Should I roll to determine each spells availability or given that the town is a merchant town and a metropolis in size should I just tell him all of the spells are available?

Any assistance is appreciated.

0Megabyte
2010-08-04, 09:05 PM
If it's a metropolis, and he's just asking for 1st through 4th level spells, I'd say just let him have em.

The city's as big as you can get, pretty much. Now, if he was asking for 8th or 9th level spells, I might make it harder. But 4th? No way.

Private-Prinny
2010-08-04, 09:08 PM
First off, what are the spells on his list? As a DM, I generally detest cherry-picking at a Magic Mart, and instead I prefer to stick items into treasure hoards that I know my party will get some mileage out of. If it's spells like Celerity and Polymorph, have him pick them up himself with his levels, but if it's utility stuff like Knock, then it shouldn't be too bad to have a couple of scrolls lying around.

Kylarra
2010-08-04, 09:09 PM
Assuming magic is fairly plentiful in your setting, with a population that large he should have little to no trouble, barring particular setting-specific issues that might arise.

hobbes1020
2010-08-04, 09:14 PM
Thanks for the feedback. I'll review the spells again but as I recall there was nothing extraordinary there. As he looks for higher level spells I'll be more discerning. Thanks again for help. :smallsmile:

Marnath
2010-08-04, 09:15 PM
+1 to getting pretty much anything you can think of at a city that big. Seriously, unless the local mage guild is seriously unfriendly there's no reason to think they wouldn't have the spells your player wants. In fact, depending on how many other metropolises the world has, this might be THE place to gather arcane lore in the world, in which case they will have every spell known to wizard-kind. Getting them to share spells aboth 4th, however, might be a serious challenge. Maybe the most powerful spells are only known by one or two people in the whole world.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-05, 04:34 AM
Personally, I would give him some of the spells he asked for, and add some odd spells that he didn't ask for (because part of the fun of a wizard is getting weird spells and finding use for them), and let him search and quest a bit for the other spells he asked for (because some things are more rewarding if they require effort to obtain).

Tyndmyr
2010-08-05, 05:25 AM
Honestly, in a metropolis, by RAW, quite expensive things are available automatically. Getting a spell copied is comparatively cheap. Given the existance of organizations like the church of Mystra, who specifically exists to spread the knowledge and use of magic, I would imagine that quite a long list of stuff indeed would be available.

Tip for wizards with restrictive DMs. Join one such organization(details found in complete...adventurer, was it?) and you get bonus standing for every spell you introduce to them that's new. So, whenever your DM won't let you train a spell, pick it up on level up/by research, and enjoy your juicy new abilities and standing in a powerful organization due to your discovery. Win/win.

arrowhen
2010-08-05, 08:48 AM
I'd give him the spells and use the shopping trip as an excuse to introduce one or two helpful NPC contacts that I could use later to feed the party information or quest hooks.

Furnok
2010-08-05, 01:40 PM
I would say 1-2nd level 100%, 3-4th 50% chance, 5-6th 25% chance, 7-8th 10%, and 9th 5%. That’s roughly what my DM would do (yeah he is a ****) but he is fair if I really wanted one spell certain spell like a teleport or fireball he would throw that in a treasure or a found spell book.

valadil
2010-08-05, 01:48 PM
I set a loot level for each city the players visit. All loot below the loot level is automatically available. A metropolis would probably have a loot level of 6-8, depending on the campaign. I'd lean towards 8. (I'd consider 9 as well, but I like the 9th level of spells to have some amount of mystique, and that is ruined by making them all available).

Anything above the loot level will have to be rolled. No a naturally 20 does not necessarily find you a 9th level spell in a thorpe or small village.

Zeful
2010-08-05, 02:03 PM
I set a loot level for each city the players visit. All loot below the loot level is automatically available. A metropolis would probably have a loot level of 6-8, depending on the campaign. I'd lean towards 8. (I'd consider 9 as well, but I like the 9th level of spells to have some amount of mystique, and that is ruined by making them all available).

Anything above the loot level will have to be rolled. No a naturally 20 does not necessarily find you a 9th level spell in a thorpe or small village.

The DMG actually has rules to determine the availability of goods/NPC classes in each town type. Some of the rules are stupid (Epic level commoners show up quite often in metropolises) but they exist.

Of course, by those rules, 9th level spells are easy to acquire in a metropolis. Which is why, when concerning spell availability I just use the NPC guidelines to find the highest level Wizard and simply flesh out his spellbook by hand, make him the leader of all the other Wizards in town, and the guy you have to convince to let you scribe his spells into your spell-book.

JaronK
2010-08-05, 02:29 PM
He should have no trouble getting low level stuff. The DMG says there's tons of low level Wizards. Note he'd have to pay the Wizards some cash in addition to the usual spell scribing cost for their time, but that's about it.

JaronK

jiriku
2010-08-05, 02:38 PM
My general rule is that availability of spells is based on how dangerous the goods are that you want, and how well the supplier trusts you.

In a metropoliis, the default max level spell you could buy would be the max level you could cast. So your wizzie would get any of these he can pay for. Circumstances might modify it.

{TABLE=HEAD]
Situation|
Impact|
Examples
spell highly useful for theft/spying|-1 level|teleport, ethereal jaunt
spell primarily useful for theft/spying|-2 levels|invisibility, scrying
spell abnormally powerful for its level|-1 level|polymorph, planar binding
you have a reputation as a thug or crook|-2 levels|burn down an inn, jailbreak
seller doesn't know you or your reputatation|-1 level|you're not from around here
Seller is friendly|+1 level|Diplomacy can help
Seller is helpful|+2 levels|Diplomacy can help
Seller is fanatical|+3 levels|Diplomacy can help[/TABLE]

This is a general rule of thumb you might use. You can easily bend it for specific spells or specific situations.

Endarire
2010-08-05, 05:50 PM
I determine the highest level of spells available and the highest levels of casters and go from there. I assume these spells are available in general.

Over time, spell availability may change, usually to include more. The world changes, y'know.

Mnemnosyne
2010-08-05, 07:17 PM
One thing I would typically do in all but the largest and most trade-centric cities (Sigil, for instance) is limit what magic is available based on the reputation of the character. 1st level spells are probably commonly available and sold, 2nd level spells a little harder to find and such, and 3rd level spells maybe somewhat uncommon, but sufficiently available even if you don't have much of a reputation.

But 4th level and higher? These start to get pretty powerful. Mages that can sell these are probably going to be somewhat selective about who they sell them to. Random guy that they've never heard of? Uh...probably not. Who's to say that this powerful magic won't be used against them, their city, their interests, etc?

Now if the character is part of a mages' guild or something like that, and in good standing, then sure, they can pick up whatever they want. Or if they've built up a good reputation with the local people (by 7th level, when a character would be buying 4th level spells, a person should have some kind of reputation, for good or ill, in the area they're adventuring in, I figure) then local mages probably have no issues selling to them. But a mage that has built up a dubious or otherwise negative reputation with the locals would likely find other mages unwilling to sell more powerful magic to them.

I also agree that what the spell is primarily useful for would be a significant consideration. Spells useful for stealing, even low-level ones, would be less available to strangers. Consider that any spells that are especially useful for defeating other mages are likely not to be sold to anyone except someone who the seller trusts a great deal. Why would a mage sell a scroll of Antimagic Field to someone he doesn't know quite well?

Overall, it shouldn't be excessively hard for a player to obtain the spells they want, especially in a large city. But they shouldn't be able to walk in as strangers and pick up powerful magic, or magic that is easily used for subterfuge and covert lawbreaking, either, unless they are familiar to the local people who might make and sell such things, or unless the city is of such tremendous size and mercantile considerations that anything is available to anyone at the right price, like Sigil. Even size of a city is no guarantee that stuff should be easily available - some very large cities may still sufficiently regulated that you're unlikely to get spells that make it trivial to break the law. Indeed, in some such cities, the sale of such spells may be against the law, unless the caster has appropriate government licensing.

The same concept goes into magical items and any other form of thing the players want to buy. The more powerful it is, the more capacity for harm or illicit activity it has, the less likely people are to sell it when it could be used against them or their home.

Analytica
2010-08-05, 07:37 PM
As I see it, alignment descriptors and obscurity will play a factor. Suppose you have a sourcebook on lost empires? Their magic might be available in a large city, but then again, it might not. Unless the place is fairly evil-tolerant, spells for creating undead, torture, stealing souls and other unsavoury stuff would not be on an open market. Sure, someone at the mage guild might know them. She won't risk exposure by admitting to you that she does, though, and might report you to the temples if you ask about them, just to throw their suspicions in another direction.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-05, 07:45 PM
Why would a mage sell a scroll of Antimagic Field to someone he doesn't know quite well?

Let me consider your question while rolling around on this giant pile of gold. Ah, that feels good. Nope, no reason whatsoever. Keep up with your selective sales technique, my beloved competitor.

mostlyharmful
2010-08-05, 08:21 PM
Why would a mage sell a scroll of Antimagic Field to someone he doesn't know quite well?

perhaps because Anti-magic fields are so subpar at dealing with any fullcaster at the levels they become available and so very very effective at saboutaging any non-caster....

For me I'd gowith something of the opposite of some folks who've written here, magics mainly concerned with magic are easy, items of +casting stat, scrolls of whatever, pearls of power, etc... mianly because by the time you can afford them and they're useful to you you've got a built in motivation to be careful/intelligent with them (ie, casters are in power and don't feel like sharing) HOWEVER stuff that's not inherently about boosting casting or magic in general or is as useful to a caster as to a mundane (cloaks of +save, etc...) are in EXTREMELY short supply, like custom only, because no caster wants things that help random violent hobos and not themselves floating around. Sure there might be some useful +whatever swords but not high level and not useful specifically against casters without a damn fine ICC reason.