How do you handle the magic market ?

[kabreras]

The question rised in last game.

Got my players that drink from a water that cause memory loss (Road to Oblivion scenario if you know it).

And yet they instantly say "Lets TP to a big city and get that miracled out".

That started to make me wonder about the availability of the spellcasting on the market.
Should a miracle be as easy to find than a heal ?

[Flickerdart]

A miracle is harder to find than a heal because it's higher level. But it's not going to be all that hard to get - large cities tend to be hubs for religious activity, meaning high-level clerics and other characters (such as divine crusaders of the Luck domain) abound if they're anywhere in the world at all. Or you can just buy a candle of invocation and gate in a Solar to cast it for you.

[Agincourt]

I think any cleric high enough level to cast Miracle is within his or her rights to demand some sort of service to the church. At a minimum, a cleric would want the PCs to show themselves to have similar goals to the cleric's god. A cleric would want to make sure they are not actively hurting the goals of their church.

[Sith_Happens]

In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.

Of course, if you're going by the "Highest Level Locals" table on DMG pg. 139 then "isn't guaranteed" means "has about an 80% chance," but then you run into


The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spellcaster to cast a spell for you. This cost assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at his or her convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question).

Bolding mine. That 17th-18th level Cleric has at most four 9th level spells per day, and you can bet that they're in extremely high demand. Like, booked-up-for-months demand.

[Flickerdart]

Bolding mine. That 17th-18th level Cleric has at most four 9th level spells per day, and you can bet that they're in extremely high demand. Like, booked-up-for-months demand.
9th spells are an expensive item that not many people can afford once, much less repeatedly. The cleric is only going to be backed up if there's a huge population of incredibly wealthy characters who are not adventurers themselves (because adventurers usually have their own casters or can gain access to them in some other way, and are too spread out to affect any one place much) and are also up to really weird stuff that lower level spells can't cover.

[Psyren]

I'm not a big fan - I prefer players to let me know what items they might be interested in, and if I agree with them, weave them into the narrative or make them available at stores on a case by case basis.

I do however prioritize making the requisite AC, enhancement and resistance bonuses available to all PCs, using the guidelines noted in my sig under "WBL and Enhancement Bonuses Summary," because for the most part the game expects you to have those at a minimum.

[Curmudgeon]

The availability of a higher-level Miracle is largely dependent on finding a Cleric who has the XP available. You can't cast a spell if the XP cost would bring you down a level, so any Cleric at any XP total within 5,000 of their level floor is incapable of that casting.

[Psyren]

Note too that the listed uses of Miracle have no XP cost. Aside from duplicating a lower level spell that might do the job, there's also "undo harmful effects" which may apply depending on the nature of the magic water.

[Fouredged Sword]

Things that take a character of level 15 or over can't be bought for money. People that powerful don't care for money. If they want money, they get it easily without selling their most powerful class features. They ask kings for favors and or rule kingdoms themselves.

Getting a Cl15 or over spell cast means doing someone a favor, and first being powerful enough to have your favors worth something.

[Slylizard]

The question rised in last game.

Got my players that drink from a water that cause memory loss (Road to Oblivion scenario if you know it).

And yet they instantly say "Lets TP to a big city and get that miracled out".

That started to make me wonder about the availability of the spellcasting on the market.
Should a miracle be as easy to find than a heal ?

Aside from the good suggestoions on how to solve the issue of selling high level spells (I like the favor option). If they drank water that caused memory loss, how do they know they have memory loss? Or even remember that they drank the water? I'd question more that they shouldn't know that they need to go and have miracle cast, because they shouldn't even know they need it.

[BWR]

What everyone else has said: a Miracle shouldn't be as easy to find as a Heal.
I take Miracle at its face value: it's a miracle. And in a world where miracles tend to be commonplace (witness the tons of clerics performing miracles all over the place), anything caled a Miracle should be rare.

Casters of 9th lvel spells aren't that common, they tend to be terribly busy or uninterested in the hordes of people who want their time, probably have a horrendous backlog of work to do if they do hire themselves out, and most likely have all the money they could need. If this is 3.5 you will also incur an XP cost, and I really can't see people wanting to waste their hard-earned xp for just anything. IIRC, the xp cost will increase the cost of purchasing the spell by something like 125 000 gp.
And the guide to hiring spellcasting notes that any spell with a cost of more than 3000 gp is 'not generally available'.

[sleepyphoenixx]

It depends on the setting.
In the standard high fantasy setting full of fantastic monsters and adventurers any city of sufficient size will generally have clerics of the major religions either capable of casting the spell (not immediately but eventually) or selling the relevant scrolls unless there's a plot reason why they don't. That's doesn't mean that getting access to these resources can't be a quest in itself.

In a low-magic campaign that might be different but it has been repeatedly noted that D&D works rather poorly for a low magic setting without a lot of adjustment.