Magic item shops and avaliability

[Miriad]

My group recently switched to pathfinder. We are giving Only pathfinder a try and will start adding some 3.5 content when we feel confident we have tried everything pathfinder has to offer. There is one thing I am not sure how to work (I've also had this doubt in 3.5).


How to handle item shops / buying / selling of magical items.

According to PF rules every town has a purchase limit given by the Settlement statistics table. So a small town would have a purchase limit of 5000GP and 1000GP of Base limit. From my understanding they would not sell items above 1000GP. However, this small town also has magic items given by the table "Avaliability of Magic Items". Which for a small town is 3d4 minor magical items and 1d6 medium Magic Items. Now I am guessing these items can exceed the 1000GP Base limit mentioned before since many Medium Magic Items exceed that price. But, there is also the rule saying that a player has a 75% of finding an item he is looking for in a settlement as long as it does not exceed the Base Limit. So why am I generating 3-12 minor Magic Items when they can simply say "I go looking for someone who sells a XXX item" and have a 75% chance of finding it?

[BowStreetRunner]

Okay, purchase limit is simple. This is cash on hand available to purchase goods that the PCs are selling. Note that this is for the shops, and at DM discretion the PCs can go looking in the settlement for an individual with deeper pockets - i.e. some rich person who can actually afford something over the purchase limit.

Base Value is the max value of items that the PCs can find with little effort. Little effort means a 75% chance of finding something below this value.

Minor/Medium/Major items is the list of items in the settlement that are ABOVE the base value. These are not items the PCs can find 75% of the time. These are the full extent of all items above the base value for sale in the settlement. Often, this list will be pre-rolled by the DM.

So if you are looking for something above the base value, it has to be on the M/M/M list or it's not there. If you are looking for something below the base value, roll and 75% of the time you find it.