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Agrippa
2012-05-11, 05:37 PM
Magical items are at least a semi-common occurence in fantasy gaming. Some times magical items are common, if not quite everyday objects, other times enchanted items are so rare as to have no real commercial value (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1522&p=27496#p27496) and even the weakest among them are considered the stuff of legends. This can also be seen in how such mystical objects can be bought and sold.

In settings where magical items are more plentiful they might be purchased from merchants or even commisioned in cases of more powerful and difficult to make items. On the other hand there are settings in which magical items are always ancient relics, crafted in a distant and bygone age with magics and techniques lost to the world forever. At best attempting to sell magical items results something like the Venture Brothers Tag Sale You're It (http://www.venturefans.org/vbwiki/Tag-Sale_--_You're_it!).

So how do you treat magical items and the buying and selling of them in your fantasy role playing games? That's if they're featured at all.

Rallicus
2012-05-11, 05:47 PM
I hand them out as treasure, and allow them to be sold to certain vendors. Like... usually there's always a vendor in my campaigns that specializes in magic items and only magic items.

Basically, if a player wants a magic item, and they have the necessary funds, they ask. I have the final say but usually I'll allow them to buy it, so long as the item isn't overpowered or whatever. If it's slightly overpowered I might raise the price.

I feel that's the best option as a DM. You don't have complete control over what a character gets, but you still maintain a level of "mastering" the game by having the final say.

If that makes sense...

Morithias
2012-05-11, 05:47 PM
So how do you treat magical items and the buying and selling of them in your fantasy role playing games? That's if they're featured at all.

In world 1 (my setting) magic items are common and mass produced. If a +1 flaming sword is better at getting the job done than a mundane one, by god people are going to use them.

Magic is seen as just another form of technology, and when technology is useful it gets massed produced and sold.

I must admit I have NEVER understood the whole "wizards are super rare" thing. As if magic was some sacred power that only a select few could get.

No..all you need to have in order to be a wizard, or an artificer is a decent intelligence score and someone who's willing to teach you.

Hell you don't even need the intelligence score for artificer, just charisma.

There's a reason we teach kids to use computers at a young age, computers are useful.

So in the end, magic items are common in my setting, walk into your magic shop and hope it has what you're looking for. Hell go to "Recette's" store and pay her half a million gold pieces for that book of exalted deeds she has in the window.

Zarrgon
2012-05-12, 11:10 AM
A lot of magic is common in my game. Everyone has hot knives, cool cups, unseen dish washers and such. Plus most folk have things like continual light sticks, items that effect skills and other useful things.

Lots of protective items are common, like rings of protection or mind shielding. But only the weaker ones are common, like a cloak of protection +1.

In most places combat stuff is rare, high priced or regulated....or all three. And anything that has an 'illegal' use, like charm person is not normaly found for sale(the shop won;t have a wand of charm person for sale).

Depending on the alignment of the place, good or evil or lawful or chaotic items won't be available.

More complex magic is almost never for sale, except in high priced auctions.

My world has tons of uncommon magic, form simple things like 'this ring of protection can turn itself invisible' to 'this rod can change the shape of Force effects'. This is the stuff beyond value. And it's all rare, and might even be one of a kind.

dsmiles
2012-05-12, 11:22 AM
I don't use the 'Magic Mart' concept at all. There may be one or two 'Antiques Dealers' in the entire campaign setting that might be willing to take them off your hands.

Of course, there are also 'Individual Collectors,' and 'Those of Unsavory Reputation' who may also buy them. 90% of the time, however, you won't even get half of what they're worth from any buyer.

Trying to buy a magic item is equally as painful, as you'll usually end up paying 150% to 200% of the listed g.p. value for one.

Trying to buy or sell a magic item is a quest in and of itself.

Serisously, just go adventure and find some. Or make them yourself. :smallamused:

J.Gellert
2012-05-12, 11:48 AM
Magical items come in two flavors in my campaign.

1. Potions, charms, and other minor objects that walk the line between magical and mundane - they are common, they are cheap, and sometimes they don't even work.

2. True magic items - enchanted swords, armor, and magical rings are truly rare, always have more powers than simply being "+X", and almost always have an interesting story behind them.

Sometimes magicians carry other items that may be magical, but these are nearly always temporary enchantments that fade with time or (commonly) as soon as their creator dies.

All these mean that there are no magic-marts as expected in D&D. While the village witch or the church might sell healing salves and holy water, one can never find a Ring of Life for sale.

A true magic item rarely changes hands without one (or several) deaths involved.

Jay R
2012-05-12, 11:49 AM
Modern D&D makes magic items far more common than in any classical fantasy work. A human character with five or more magic items should be nearly impossible.

Gandalf had a staff, a ring, and a sword. Aragorn had a sword and a palantir. Boromir had a horn.

I don't have magic markets of any kind. The goods in a single magic market as many DMs play it could be used to conquer the kingdom. By fifth level, I think players should usually have 1-3 lower level items. By tenth level, players should have 3-4 items, and they should be the ones they've picked up, not something they chose.

In the current 2E game I'm playing, my 8th level elvish mage/thief has a +1 longbow and Boccob's Blessed Book, and is currently wearing the party's Ring of Regeneration. We all have broaches that communicate with each other. The party has two more magic weapons, and two more items in common, neither useful in a combat.

We've also destroyed three evil morning stars and four Unholy symbols, taken from priests of Lolth.

When we find a magic item, it's a major event.

I understand the desire to have more power, and to choose your magic items, but it doesn't match any fantasy novel, myth or epic I've ever had a desire to simulate.

Morty
2012-05-12, 12:21 PM
I vastly prefer games where magic items are something of a big deal. In fact, D&D 3rd and 4th edition are the only systems I can think of where they're commonplace and expected.
However, I'm somewhat willing to accept "minor" magic objects such as potions, charms, amulets etc. being more commonplace. Depending on what kind of game I'm running/playing, of course.

PersonMan
2012-05-12, 01:19 PM
Of course, there are also 'Individual Collectors,' and 'Those of Unsavory Reputation' who may also buy them. 90% of the time, however, you won't even get half of what they're worth from any buyer.

Trying to buy a magic item is equally as painful, as you'll usually end up paying 150% to 200% of the listed g.p. value for one.

Trying to buy or sell a magic item is a quest in and of itself.

This doesn't make much sense, unless the buyers are completely segregated from anyone but a handful of merchants. Otherwise...well, you should easily be able to find a buyer who will buy your +1 longsword for 2k if the competition wants 3 to 4 thousand for a longsword of the same type.

Of course, saying 'magic items are really expensive and everyone will screw you over if you try to sell them, adventure to find them' creates the problem of 'where are these items coming from, exactly?' Crafters would be poised to make a good living (if the competition wants 4k for a secondhand +1 sword and you can make one and sell it for 2.5k, you won't have much trouble), and unless the other merchants adjusted their prices, everything would be made by crafters or retired adventurers turned crafters.

Unless, of course, this happened and the crafters just want absurd amounts of money. It still begs the question of 'why can't I sell me good-condition +1 sword at 2k to anyone who can't afford a new one for 4k?', of course.

prufock
2012-05-12, 02:07 PM
The prevalence and use of magic varies by region in my setting, so there's no single, one-size-fits-all answer. For instance, I have a desert region in my world that is modeled significantly on Dark Sun (it's even called Athas). Arcane magic is exceedingly rare there, but divine magic is still available, and psionics is much more common there than anywhere else in my world.

For the most-used regions of my setting, though, magic is just slightly less available than per the DMG/PHB rules. The number and power of casters in a town are based on the town's size and wealth, but I just lower it a percentage and most of them are NPC classes. I usually reserve PC classes for, well, PCs and villains or important NPCs.

Magic items availability is based on town size and wealth, but I scale back a tad such that items within the GP value of the town but above a certain cost are only available by commission, not readily on the market. For found loot I usually randomize, then replace anything that's stupid or useless with something more tailor-made. Once in a while I will specifically drop something useful to a PC to fit their concept.

Tvtyrant
2012-05-12, 02:34 PM
This doesn't make much sense, unless the buyers are completely segregated from anyone but a handful of merchants. Otherwise...well, you should easily be able to find a buyer who will buy your +1 longsword for 2k if the competition wants 3 to 4 thousand for a longsword of the same type.

Of course, saying 'magic items are really expensive and everyone will screw you over if you try to sell them, adventure to find them' creates the problem of 'where are these items coming from, exactly?' Crafters would be poised to make a good living (if the competition wants 4k for a secondhand +1 sword and you can make one and sell it for 2.5k, you won't have much trouble), and unless the other merchants adjusted their prices, everything would be made by crafters or retired adventurers turned crafters.

Unless, of course, this happened and the crafters just want absurd amounts of money. It still begs the question of 'why can't I sell me good-condition +1 sword at 2k to anyone who can't afford a new one for 4k?', of course.
I think there is an alternative way to look at this; the amount of shelf-life a magic item will see. If a merchant buys a +3 ogre bane knife, they have to find someone who actually wants a +3 ogre bane knife. It has no inherent value for the merchant, and the likelihood of selling it in the near future could be exceedingly low (based on how many adventurers there are).

So for the merchant, the knife represents a risk, and they are giving you easily disposable wealth in return for an item they may or may not be able to sell. So they buy it as cheaply as possible, and once there is a buyer they sell it as expensively as possible. That matches normal economic practices in rare items.

But even more so, the adventurer is going to want the easily disposable cash more than the merchant is going to want the difficult to liquidate knife. The merchant gets to set the price, since they have the cash available to buy anything, but only the merchant will pay for your knife. Even a relatively wealthy noble wouldn't take the trade, because they aren't directly involved in the rare-items business, and the knife has a high likelihood of being pure loss.

When it comes to utilitarian magic items things change, because most people can benefit from them, but a +# sword is utterly worthless to most people.

Knaight
2012-05-12, 02:45 PM
I have multiple settings, of which a significant subset are fantasy (taking into account that I consider Space Opera a subgenre of fantasy and not science fiction). There's a fairly wide range of magical items, both in power and degree of commonality. A brief list:

Glyphs I: Magic items come in two types. The first type are fairly basic mundane items with a basic enchantment, and are reasonably common among those who have a decent amount of money. The other are full blown, high powered magical items that are borderline artifacts, which are somewhat rarer.

Glyphs II: Magic comes entirely in a few limited glyphs, which are often applied to all sorts of stuff. As such, magic items are extremely common, but for the most part limited - still, there are some very useful creative applications, which has put magic as technology in place to a very large degree.

Shallow Graves: Magic items again come in two kinds. One of these are blessed items/items dunked in holy water, which are uncommon but not extremely so. Most people don't have them, dedicated exorcists and similar almost certainly do. The other kind are holy relics, which are about as common, but have generally gravitated to churches and the very rich. These are produced at a much slower rate (being produced inadvertently at best), but unlike blessed items they stay magical, and as such tend to be similarly common.

Alchemquest: There are no magic items. That is not to say that there are no items produced by magic - there are, magic is starting an industrial revolution in one country and has been the major source of industry in another - but that all items produced by magic are still mundane. The upside is that magic tends to operate through material changes, meaning that magical production can easily work in materials that mundane production cannot.

Unnamed I: Magic items aren't really magic items per se. With that said, there are a handful of storied items that seem to have some sort of power picked up from their historic use.

Unnamed II: Magic items are relatively rare. They can be produced, but only very rarely are due to difficulties of production. Having even one magic item is a big deal. With that said, there are some items that have a role in magic, but aren't quite magic items that are a bit more common, though still expensive.

None of these are D&D settings, and as such the rules behind magic items vary highly.

maglag
2012-05-12, 05:38 PM
Modern D&D makes magic items far more common than in any classical fantasy work. A human character with five or more magic items should be nearly impossible.

Gandalf had a staff, a ring, and a sword. Aragorn had a sword and a palantir. Boromir had a horn.


A common misconception I must say. But taking a closer look at the books, we can see that Boromir actually has:
-Cloak of elvenkind that grants a big bonus to hide.
-Lemba rations that break the laws of conservation of energy.
-A golden belt that sounds awfully like a belt of Giant Strenght +X.
-And the mentioned horn.

Gandalf pulls a fair share of trinkets in The Hobbit. But it's Frodo as the main character that takes the cake:
-The One Ring.
-Two diferent magic swords over the adventure.
-Imba Chain Shirt that's worth more than the whole Shire put togheter.
-Super Lemba rations.
-Cloak of Elvenkind, which combined with his own sneakyness allows him to basically waltz everywhere undetected (except for that pesky monstruous spider with tremorsense).
-Star in a bottle.
-Holy rope of climbing.

And I probably missed some more, but that's your standard 8 magic items right there.

Vitruviansquid
2012-05-12, 05:54 PM
Depends entirely on the setting and system.

... How could it not? :smallconfused:

Agrippa
2012-05-12, 06:59 PM
"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items." (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1522&p=27550#p27550)

Not many here would agree with this notion probably.

Shadowknight12
2012-05-12, 07:01 PM
I run high-magic worlds, so magic items are very common. I reserve the whole "stuff of legends" thing for artefacts.

Crow
2012-05-12, 07:46 PM
"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items." (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1522&p=27550#p27550)

Not many here would agree with this notion probably.

But I do :)

Mastikator
2012-05-12, 08:00 PM
"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items." (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1522&p=27550#p27550)

Not many here would agree with this notion probably.

Same here.
I tend to avoid magic altogether if doesn't serve as a plot device. If I DM I put nearly all my effort into making believable and interesting NPCs.

A NPC that the players like is a gift that keeps on giving.
A magic item that the players like is a game-breaking time bomb.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-05-12, 09:39 PM
Personally, I tend to allow players to buy what they want, sell the loot they don't, because that's how 3.5 is balanced. I mean, at higher levels, that means they have to be in a really big city, and spend a day or two combing the markets, but it's easy to do, and generally doesn't even require rolling, because I just want to get on with the plot. I don't like it, though. Given my druthers, I'd rather ditch the item dependency altogether, and be grudging enough with drops that they have stories behind them.

"I pried this flametongue from the hand of Lord Bane, terror of the Nine Kingdoms, after defeating him in single combat on the dread fields of Rethica."

"This +1 animated shield? Make from a single perfect scale of the red dragon Arlsket'ka, whom my allies and I hunted to the ends of the earth after his attack on Brightvale."

tyckspoon
2012-05-13, 12:39 AM
I treat 'em basically the way whatever game system in question wants them to be treated. For D&D, this means they're all over the place. In 3.5 and 4, there are readily available markets- you might not walk into Ye Old Magic SuperCentre, but if you want to buy/sell a particular magic item you can do so, and the specific means of how you do that is left abstracted (unless a particular player group really digs the RP involved in hunting up the correct dealer, in which case whatever floats their particular boats.) If I ever got a chance to do older versions again, probably some style of 'consumable magic is common, permanent items are somewhat rare'.. although they'd still be reasonably common, because permanent means permanent and I'd have 'em be pretty dang hard to destroy. Which means that while the production of things like magic swords, shields, and Rings of Whatsit is relatively low, the ones that get made hang around. So over the years/centuries (and you need a fairly long timespan so you can have Ruins of Great Cities of the Past to loot) you get a largish amount of those durable goods.

Other systems that aren't so attached to their magic items.. what I personally favor, when workable, is the sort of staple fantasy/anime setup where there's a lot of minor magic, stuff that is generally useful but not terribly powerful, and then the Real Thing is rare and owning a significant magic item is a noteworthy trait of a character.

Jay R
2012-05-13, 08:23 AM
A common misconception I must say. But taking a closer look at the books, we can see that Boromir actually has:
-Cloak of elvenkind that grants a big bonus to hide.
-Lemba rations that break the laws of conservation of energy.
-A golden belt that sounds awfully like a belt of Giant Strenght +X.
-And the mentioned horn.

The golden belt is not described as having any magical properties. You can't decide to give it powers Tolkien never mentioned.

And yes, he had an elven cloak and rations for the last ten days of his life. But for most of his life, he had a horn, which was still one more item than his brother had.


Gandalf pulls a fair share of trinkets in The Hobbit. But it's Frodo as the main character that takes the cake:
-The One Ring.
-Two diferent magic swords over the adventure.
-Imba Chain Shirt that's worth more than the whole Shire put togheter.
-Super Lemba rations.
-Cloak of Elvenkind, which combined with his own sneakyness allows him to basically waltz everywhere undetected (except for that pesky monstruous spider with tremorsense).
-Star in a bottle.
-Holy rope of climbing.

And I probably missed some more, but that's your standard 8 magic items right there.

Yes, Frodo, the hero on whom the fate of the world depended, was given several items. As I said, "A human character with five or more magic items should be nearly impossible." "[N]early impossible" means an occasional rare character will have it. It is by no means "standard" in the literature.

Also, not one of the above items was purchased in a magic market. Not one.

King Arthur had a magic sword and scabbard. Aladdin had a lamp and a ring. The first four Narnian children had a cordial and a horn, as the only items with powers described in the book. And none of those were purchased in a shop either.

I repeat: Modern D&D makes magic items far more common than in any classical fantasy work. A human character with five or more magic items should be nearly impossible.

The-Mage-King
2012-05-13, 09:47 AM
King Arthur had a magic sword and scabbard.

...And dagger, and spear, and OTHER sword, and...


At any rate, I am firmly For the magic mart, at least for fairly cheap and generic items.

You may be able to find a +1 Flaming longsword fairly easily, but anything that costs more than 30k is going to take some work.

Morithias
2012-05-13, 11:46 AM
...And dagger, and spear, and OTHER sword, and...


At any rate, I am firmly For the magic mart, at least for fairly cheap and generic items.

You may be able to find a +1 Flaming longsword fairly easily, but anything that costs more than 30k is going to take some work.

Which is exactly why the GP Limit chart and calculations exist in the DMG....

Personally I never understood the whole "magic should be rare". Magic in these setting is basically TECHNOLOGY, there isn't some magical bloodline you need to be a wizard or an artificer.

To me saying "Magic should be rare maybe 2 items a person" is the equivalent of that guy who said "There is enough room in the world for five computers", aka you have NO IDEA how technology, economics, and the evolution of societies works (in my humble opinion).

JoshuaZ
2012-05-13, 12:00 PM
Which is exactly why the GP Limit chart and calculations exist in the DMG....

Personally I never understood the whole "magic should be rare". Magic in these setting is basically TECHNOLOGY, there isn't some magical bloodline you need to be a wizard or an artificer.

To me saying "Magic should be rare maybe 2 items a person" is the equivalent of that guy who said "There is enough room in the world for five computers", aka you have NO IDEA how technology, economics, and the evolution of societies works (in my humble opinion).

Wizards need to be smart, and to make a lot of magic items they need to be high level. Craft Magic Arms and Armor requires at least fifth level. Most useful magic properties of weapons require fairly high level spells. Also, not all settings play that way about everyone being able to become a wizard if they are smart enough- in some settings there's some innate talent that's relevant. Either one of these will have a substantial impact. Of course, some basic wondrous items and potions might be treated better, but that's a distinct issue. And even those can't have assembly line production in any useful fashion.

Crow
2012-05-13, 12:05 PM
Which is exactly why the GP Limit chart and calculations exist in the DMG....

Which is where modern ''Magic Item Entitlement'' sprang from to begin with. By tying it in with balance, it took away the DM's ability to make that conanesque adventure without a bunch of extra work.


Personally I never understood the whole "magic should be rare". Magic in these setting is basically TECHNOLOGY, there isn't some magical bloodline you need to be a wizard or an artificer.

In your setting.

Some people like to play in settings where magic is mysterious and rare. Where maybe you do have to have it passed from a specific bloodline. Not that it matters for the PC's, who get to be whoever they want. If I am going to treat magic as technology, I'd rather play a game where modern technology is the norm. Because honestly, why bother?


To me saying "Magic should be rare maybe 2 items a person" is the equivalent of that guy who said "There is enough room in the world for five computers", aka you have NO IDEA how technology, economics, and the evolution of societies works (in my humble opinion).

It comes down to how prevelant you want magical junk to be in your campaign. Some people don't mind characters who are lit up like christmas trees and are useless without their 'magitech' as you guys call it. Some people though, prefer their magic rare, mysterious, and special.

There's nothing special about an ipod, and I don't get excited or think anything of it when someone pulls one out. I don't want magic to be an ipod in the game I play.

Shadowknight12
2012-05-13, 12:24 PM
Some people like to play in settings where magic is mysterious and rare.

Maybe it's my personal experience colouring my preferences, but since I hate sci-fi or futuristic things, and I tend to stick very firmly within fantasy when it comes to media, I have yet to see magic being treated differently. It's always mysterious and rare. To me, the very concept of "magitech" is mind-boggling (though understandable), because I've been conditioned to see magic as some sort of wondrous thing.

That has led me to realise I have no idea what the appeal is about anything "wondrous" or "rare/magical/mysterious." My typical reaction to the very first symptoms of such treatment is to sigh heavily and go "Yes, yes, I know, it's wondrous and blah blah blah, now let's skip the seven paragraphs of characters gawking and drooling at the +1 dagger and get to the actual plot."

But like I said, it's probably my overexposure to the trope. :smalltongue:

hamishspence
2012-05-13, 12:32 PM
Magic can be common and still be somewhat mysterious in certain respects.

For example, in the Robert asprin Myth Adventures series we never get told how various magical things are made- the heroes just buy them from merchants, and even then they're not always reliable.

Crow
2012-05-13, 12:49 PM
blah blah blah, now let's skip the seven paragraphs of characters gawking and drooling at the +1 dagger and get to the actual plot."

Well you make a good point, and it hits on the number 1 thing IMHO that DM's get wrong when they try to make magic rare and mysterious.

A +1 Dagger is not all that cool. Even in a world with no other magic, the +1 dagger is lame. The key is to make magic rare, mysterious, and powerful. The people aren't gawking becasue they saw the first magic item they've ever seen, a +1 dagger. They're gawking because the first magic item they've ever seen is a +5 raging berserker sword of doom. They're not gawking because the wizard made a missile of light shoot out from a dinky wand. They're gawking because he just pulled out a glittering sceptre worth more than their entire village and used it to create a royal pavillion and a feast for 200 people.

Morty
2012-05-13, 02:21 PM
"Magic items are common place" versus "magic is mysterious" is a false dichotomy. Magic does not have to be mysterious, out-of-reach and whatnot for the characters not to be covered in magic bling. Often it's simply an aesthetical decision by the designers or players who want the characters to achieve success by their own merits. I know I dislike magic items not because I want my magic to be mysterious but because I hate it when my characters look like Christmas trees and can't function without their precious gear.
Mind you, that's a rather simplified picture as well. The sheer variety in fantasy settings means there's a ton of different ways to deal with "magic items", however we choose to define them.

Libertad
2012-05-13, 02:33 PM
I usually incorporate house rules to soften the "Christmas Tree" effect of magic items. I'm currently using the ones from the Book of Gears of the Frank and K Tomes.

Having magic items with numeric bonuses scale to level (or a fraction of it) helps encourage characters to keep signature magic items. You don't need to trade in that +1 Flaming Sword and a lot of gold for a +3 Flaming Sword: it grows more powerful as you do.

The Magic Item Compendium's great for cutting down on consumables. Why have scrolls or potions when you can have Eternal Wands, or Schemas from Magic of Eberron? Having limited uses of magic items that recharge the next day gives more value to equipment instead of splurging cash on one-use items.

There's also the option of making magic items beyond a certain gp limit not for sale (15,000+ gp in the Tomes). For those items, you need to find them by adventuring, trading other magic items of equivalent value, or using special forms of currency (Raw Chaos from the Plane of Limbo, human souls from Hell, etc.). This makes items like the Holy Avenger feel special, prestigious, and powerful while keeping minor magic items like healing potions common-place.

I actually think that these adjustments can be very good options for low-magic games, for they increase the usefulness of equipment without needing to constantly sell and discard them for better stuff.

kieza
2012-05-13, 02:38 PM
Magic in my setting is split between the old magic, which is an artform, and the new magic, which is a science. Old-magic items are rare and hard to make, although they last forever; they tend to have interesting, uncommon powers, and they're generally more powerful. (If the crafter is going to put all the energy into making a magic item, he tends to make it as powerful as possible.) Only Old-magic items can do things like charm or dominate creatures, create illusions, heal or use necrotic energies, or possess minds of their own.

New-magic items, on the other hand, are everywhere. They can be mass-produced, and there are lots of cheap, military-issue weapons and armor out there--but they tend to be simple "+X" weapons, with maybe a minor power on the side.

In an out-of-game context: basic weapons and armor, like a +1 flaming sword, are cheap and easy to get. Anything more complicated, like a luckblade or holy avenger, is probably rare and expensive.

Jay R
2012-05-14, 10:08 AM
Which is exactly why the GP Limit chart and calculations exist in the DMG....

Personally I never understood the whole "magic should be rare". Magic in these setting is basically TECHNOLOGY, there isn't some magical bloodline you need to be a wizard or an artificer.

Thank you for coming straight to the point. If I wanted to simulate a world where this is technology, they wouldn't be Fireball Wands and Swords of Sharpness, they'd be blasters and light sabers. Besides, the effects that kind of easily available technology would have would quickly destroy all monsters, settle all wilderness, and change the world to a modern one very different from what we see in D&D games. I can enjoy a science fiction game, but I don't confuse a technology driven society with a medieval fantasy one.

And when I'm trying to simulate a classical fantasy setting, I make it as close as possible to a classical fantasy setting.

The fact is that none of Lancelot, Aragorn, Conan, Sigurd, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Gwydion, Beowulf, Cuchulain, Orlando, Taliesin, Sinbad, or Prester John ever visited a magic shop, or had their choice of easily available magic items. So when I am trying to enter a world like theirs, I shouldn't do so either.

I know that argument will have no particular effect on people who were introduced to D&D first, and play it with no historical context, but for those of us who loved fantasy before the game came out, the purpose of the game is to enter the worlds we already loved, not to create a new type.

DeusMortuusEst
2012-05-14, 12:32 PM
There's nothing special about an ipod, and I don't get excited or think anything of it when someone pulls one out.

I take it that you've never tried to build one, or disassemble one to see how they got it to actually work. Try to think about it, what do you know about how an ipod (or any mp3 player really) works? How is the battery made? It certainly isn't a standard AAA. How does the machine translate the digital bits into music, and for that, how do it change the electronic signals into music in your headphones? And that's just scratching the surface, when diving deeper, modern electronics and science is amazing, and in many ways mysterious.

Just because there are people who can mass produce amazing things doesn't mean that they cease to be amazing. Even more so when you live in a world where there is no easy way of communicating the ideas, with no internet I know I wouldn't know half of the things I know about technology.

So, yea, there's nothing that says that magic items can't be mysterious and still used in everyday situations. Your mum might have bought one of Christopher the Amazing's Impressive Ingenious Dust RemoversTM, but she certainly doesn't know how it works, or even how it's made.

ILM
2012-05-14, 01:53 PM
In my game you can buy, commission and sell items inasmuch as you can find someone to deal with. I'm skewing the levels pyramid quite a bit, and while it's not too much work for a dedicated person to find level 7-11 NPCs, you'll have to do quite a bit of searching to find the rare level 12+ guy. 15+ would be practically unheard of. Of those level 12+ guys, only some are casters. Of those casters, only some have decided to go into crafting. And for cause: when a house costs about 1,000 gp (see Cityscape), a +4 sword buys you an entire street (even going by the DMG's 5,000 gp estimate, you're looking at a small block). Realistically, the market for that sort of item has to be tiny. So sure, you can trade +1 stuff easy enough, maybe +2 in a metropolis, but anything over 5,000 gp is going to be a right b***h to find.

The aforementioned metropolis would have, at best, two magic marts, and probably operated by organizations with massive resources and power to afford the costs and the protections for hundreds of thousands of gp's worth of items.

Morty
2012-05-15, 12:11 PM
Thank you for coming straight to the point. If I wanted to simulate a world where this is technology, they wouldn't be Fireball Wands and Swords of Sharpness, they'd be blasters and light sabers. Besides, the effects that kind of easily available technology would have would quickly destroy all monsters, settle all wilderness, and change the world to a modern one very different from what we see in D&D games. I can enjoy a science fiction game, but I don't confuse a technology driven society with a medieval fantasy one.

And when I'm trying to simulate a classical fantasy setting, I make it as close as possible to a classical fantasy setting.

The fact is that none of Lancelot, Aragorn, Conan, Sigurd, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Gwydion, Beowulf, Cuchulain, Orlando, Taliesin, Sinbad, or Prester John ever visited a magic shop, or had their choice of easily available magic items. So when I am trying to enter a world like theirs, I shouldn't do so either.

I know that argument will have no particular effect on people who were introduced to D&D first, and play it with no historical context, but for those of us who loved fantasy before the game came out, the purpose of the game is to enter the worlds we already loved, not to create a new type.

Magic items are just one of the myriad reasons why D&D can't portray such stories, though.

Verte
2012-05-15, 04:30 PM
Well, the short answer is that it depends on the setting and the system.

However, if I were running a game in Pathfinder or 3.5, in a custom setting, this is how I'd probably do it:

Small settlements don't have magic shops per se. Instead, the local wise woman might sell potions or limited use charms. If the PCs treat her respectfully, pay her appropiately, and maybe do her a favor, she could make custom items, too.

Medium settlements also don't have magic shops that sell everything. Temples have stocks of potions, wands, and scrolls that they may sell to the faithful. They may also create custom items for higher ranking clergy and knights, or for those who do a great service for the the temple. Local mages, who may make their living working for the local ruler, might be convinced to make a custom item - or sell an old one they don't want anymore - if it doesn't interfere with their other work and the PCs are polite. Members of mage's societies may exchange scrolls amongst themselves, if there is a certain level of trust between them. There are a few other people who will sell minor charms, potions, and a few pawned off minor magic items.

Large settlements are like medium settlements, except there are a few magic shops that might specialize in specific items. There may be a smith who crafts magic weapons for the duke's guard who may also have a stock of them available to the public. There may be a tailor who can also craft magic garments for the rich and famous and who will sell them to the PCs, too. Temples are larger and will have larger stocks of items. Mages's societies are larger and more numerous. There are dozens who sell potions, charms, and pawned off items that may or may not even work.

kaomera
2012-05-15, 09:42 PM
Every significant magic item is unique. You don't find a sword +1, +2 versus spell casters, you find the sword +1, +2 versus spell casters.