[3.5] Maximum price for 1 item

[Raezeman]

Coming weekend, i will the dungeon master for the first time for a group of 4 people that are completely new to d&d, as I myself have been a player for over a few years now. I think i have everything covered, except for one thing:
What would be the maximum price of a (magical) item they can buy?

I mean, the group start at level 3, and they start with a budget of 2700 gp, but i have heard from all around that it's not really balanced to let each buy one great item, or even worse, have them all put their money together and buy one monster item of 10800 gp. So what would be a good limit on how much they can spend on a single item.

i have heard that some make halve the character wealth per level (as stated in table 5-1 of the DMG) the max for one item, or even one-third, so i'm inclining to go for one of these. So which would be best, or maybe even a completely different method?

All advice is appreciated!
Raezeman out.

[Spore]

Look for the rules that the books give you for NPCs. 1/3 for offense, 1/3 for defense , 1/3 for commodities and cash money.

So I would say a third as guide line, maximum half. Remember them that wearing no armor (e.g. as fighter) or not having a weapon (e.g. as rogue) is a dangerous thing to do.

[Raezeman]

Thanks mate, great advice.
And yeah, i wasn't going to let them go out there without a weapon for the barbarian for example. But, you know, a simple longsword isn't that pricy and could get him some good hits already.

[Spore]

Think of anything. They could try to be the infamous ravenous killer hobos and strangle commoners for their butter knife just to save 1 gold piece. And for a level 3 barbarian activating rage this is easily achieved.

Also reactions like the following: CONAN NO NEED ARMOR! CONAN MUSCLE! CONAN SHOWING OFF TO LADIES!

[Raezeman]

Actually, the babarian character is a female, so it would be more like AVELINE SHOWING OF TO PRETTY GUYS. I would give all male humans and half-humans a -1 destraction penalty on attack roles if she would go into battle naked. If she roles high on beauty stat of course. And all the females a +1 jealousy bonus...

[Raezeman]

Also, just found in DMG, using magic items as gear, the DMG suggests that you can limit the cost of a single item to a quarter of the character wealth per level, which for my lv 3 team would be 675 gp. I'm going to have a look at armour prices before i make my judgment call. After all, i'm the DM, MY WILL IS THE LAW!

[molten_dragon]

Coming weekend, i will the dungeon master for the first time for a group of 4 people that are completely new to d&d, as I myself have been a player for over a few years now. I think i have everything covered, except for one thing:
What would be the maximum price of a (magical) item they can buy?

I mean, the group start at level 3, and they start with a budget of 2700 gp, but i have heard from all around that it's not really balanced to let each buy one great item, or even worse, have them all put their money together and buy one monster item of 10800 gp. So what would be a good limit on how much they can spend on a single item.

i have heard that some make halve the character wealth per level (as stated in table 5-1 of the DMG) the max for one item, or even one-third, so i'm inclining to go for one of these. So which would be best, or maybe even a completely different method?

All advice is appreciated!
Raezeman out.

I usually go with a max of no more than 1/3 WBL on a single item. Sometimes I'll let them go a little over that if there's something they really want that's just over a third.

[Belmikor]

I don't actually usually really put limits when buying magic items for new characters. People tend to rarely blow all their money on single items since it's most of the time more beneficial to get more of a bit weaker items. But of course YMMV.

And especially in this case, they can't really get anything super powerful with that 2700 gp. +1 weapon? Totally legit on a 3rd level warrior. And if we really want to split hairs here, they could just not spend ~2300 gp and then buy their weapon or whatever from the nearest magic item shop. (Of course subject to one existing and starting from a town to begin with)

[Raezeman]

The problem is wether or not the item they get is balanced within the team and balanced for the challenge rating.
And also, if i were to say: "no, you can't start with that item, but the first thing in the campaign you can do is go buy that item", well, that would be just stupid in my opinion.
It's not an availability thing, it's a balance thing. I can agree that getting a +1 greatsword for the barbarian would't be a big deal, but pulling all money together to get the sorcerer a lesser metamagic rod of empower, i would not let that fly. ok, this is a little bit of an extreme example, but then again, i haven't really read all the different magic items in the magic item compendium...

[Chronos]

Another reasonable guideline would be "no single item more that the difference between this level's WBL and the previous level". Yeah, you're starting now, but the presumption is that they had previous adventures before that, and that they had typical WBL for those adventures, too. When would they have bought an item that cost more than the difference? Surely they weren't going without before then to save up for it.

[AzureKnight]

As a dm I have never allowed players to buy magical items. I have looked at the players sheets before writing an adventure and seeing what would best beniefit them in the campaign that stills keeps the balance of power even and make sure it is in some nasty monsters horde.

They seem to get more pride in their accomplishments that way, plus it keeps game hold time at a minimum so there are no leangthy stops in a large city to try and have an item commissioned for them. Lets face it magic items should be harder to aquire.

The creating mage used many of theirspells components as well as exp to craft these. Not many mages would create magic shops at the expence of draining away their life force. But thats just my opinion and in no wayshould all dms do this. It is all on how we have our worlds set up.

[Belmikor]

The problem is wether or not the item they get is balanced within the team and balanced for the challenge rating.
And also, if i were to say: "no, you can't start with that item, but the first thing in the campaign you can do is go buy that item", well, that would be just stupid in my opinion.
Exactly. That's why I feel there is no need to limit buying magic items at start-up at any price as long as they can afford it. The only good reason would be almost complete unavailability in the campaign world.
Pooling resources like that is something I haven't ever come across to. I guess with numerous players it could create some kind of problem (like the case you mentioned), but I do feel it's still a bit corner case. Usually character/player greed is enough to stop it from happening. Why would they give up their toys so someone in the party would get an even better toy?


Another reasonable guideline would be "no single item more that the difference between this level's WBL and the previous level". Yeah, you're starting now, but the presumption is that they had previous adventures before that, and that they had typical WBL for those adventures, too. When would they have bought an item that cost more than the difference? Surely they weren't going without before then to save up for it.
We did have a rule that we could spend a maximum of ½ of WBL for one single item at character creation, but we ditched it at some point as a needless rule. Yours is a nice idea as well, but as WBL is kind of an abstraction (and an average to boot) I think that might end us too complicated for its purpose. Sometimes in the loot you might find something much more expensive than usual and be ahead in the supposed wealth. I've also had many characters who actually didn't really buy anything until like 4th level and had all the money gathered until then to use. Granted, most were wizards or other non-gear dependent classes.


As a dm I have never allowed players to buy magical items. I have looked at the players sheets before writing an adventure and seeing what would best beniefit them in the campaign that stills keeps the balance of power even and make sure it is in some nasty monsters horde.

They seem to get more pride in their accomplishments that way, plus it keeps game hold time at a minimum so there are no leangthy stops in a large city to try and have an item commissioned for them. Lets face it magic items should be harder to aquire.

The creating mage used many of theirspells components as well as exp to craft these. Not many mages would create magic shops at the expence of draining away their life force. But thats just my opinion and in no wayshould all dms do this. It is all on how we have our worlds set up.
I would be a really sad panda if I didn't get to buy magic items for my new above-level-one character. But if you can really go through that much work to plan what they're getting as loot, kudos.
We've pretty much always dealt shopping and ordering stuff as downtime activity. If you haven't asked about it from the DM and bought it outside game session then I guess you didn't go buy it. Goes as common politeness. As far as in-game time goes, lengthy stops are will and should happen for adventuring groups. Adventuring isn't exactly a low-stress job and with all that money it's logical that they might spend a week in a larger city just unstressing :smalltongue:
I do very much disagree on that magic items should be harder to acquire. D&D is (I feel) ill-suited for low-magic( item) system and having less items available usually drives a nasty wedge between classes which have spells and those which don't. It can work on lower levels, but if you choose to try it, be wary of the consequences.


Bottom line and my two cents: in this particular example I don't think you need to worry about the balance, but if you feel you might need to, it should be pretty simple and fast for you to check all the magic items characters have, to see if there's anything which might not be ok. There will probably be like about 3 per person plus maybe some consumables. Like at most. And that's if you have MIC with its truck load of cheap magic items available.
Oh, and while you're at it, have everyone buy a healing belt. It's cheap, it's great and can relieve player and DM headache. Hell, take two.

[Story]

Look for the rules that the books give you for NPCs. 1/3 for offense, 1/3 for defense , 1/3 for commodities and cash money.

So I would say a third as guide line, maximum half. Remember them that wearing no armor (e.g. as fighter) or not having a weapon (e.g. as rogue) is a dangerous thing to do.

Being a Fighter is a dangerous thing to do. But if I were doing a melee focused character, I wouldn't necessarily bother with armor.


As a dm I have never allowed players to buy magical items. I have looked at the players sheets before writing an adventure and seeing what would best beniefit them in the campaign that stills keeps the balance of power even and make sure it is in some nasty monsters horde.

They seem to get more pride in their accomplishments that way, plus it keeps game hold time at a minimum so there are no leangthy stops in a large city to try and have an item commissioned for them. Lets face it magic items should be harder to aquire.

The creating mage used many of theirspells components as well as exp to craft these. Not many mages would create magic shops at the expence of draining away their life force. But thats just my opinion and in no wayshould all dms do this. It is all on how we have our worlds set up.

Hello all VOP Druid campaign! But really, running a low wealth campaign just screws up the balance even father.

[Slipperychicken]

The creating mage used many of theirspells components as well as exp to craft these. Not many mages would create magic shops at the expence of draining away their life force.

Pathfinder did the right thing on this one -they removed XP costs entirely, (basically, wherever you see an XP cost, multiply at number by 5 and say it requires gold instead of XP). It's an excellent, sensible houserule for 3.5 too.


Being a Fighter is a dangerous thing to do. But if I were doing a melee focused character, I wouldn't necessarily bother with armor.


I usually go with Chain Shirt since it doesn't penalize movement. After 6th level or so, it really doesn't matter what you're wearing as long as your class features work and you can deck it out with enchantments.

(EDIT: Also make sure your armor won't drown you with excessive ACP. Thanks Sporeegg)

[Spore]

I usually go with Chain Shirt since it doesn't penalize movement. After 6th level or so, it really doesn't matter what you're wearing as long as your class features work and you can deck it out with enchantments.


Well, even an 15th level fighter can drown or die by falling damage because he failed swim or climb checks.

This is why heavy armors are bad. Not only do they impede movement but also impede movement :D