hammymchamham
First Post
Title says it all. In a session or two my PCs of 7th level will be going to a large town or small city to seel their gear. How do you handle this topic?
How do you handle buying and selling magic items?
Well, I don't have a "General Magic Items Store". If the town is big enough, there's probablysomebody in it who will want a paricular item. It may take a little bit of work to find said person, however.
This becomes a nice place to sink in plot hooks, btw. In order to sell off their items they'll have to come into contact with people, talk with them, barter, and so on. Good aligned characters may have to worry about who they are selling to. Evil ones have to worry about selling to rivals. Everybody has to worry about spreading the word that they're selling - and thus carrying stuff of great value that might be stolen...
This becomes a nice place to sink in plot hooks, btw. In order to sell off their items they'll have to come into contact with people, talk with them, barter, and so on. Good aligned characters may have to worry about who they are selling to. Evil ones have to worry about selling to rivals. Everybody has to worry about spreading the word that they're selling - and thus carrying stuff of great value that might be stolen...
Wormwood
Adventurer
My Realms game:
I do a quick rundown of the town using population, GP limit and highest level NPCs (DMG tables 4-40, etc). I make some quick notes describing the higher level NPC spellcasters (attitude, agendas, etc). I usually do this for the nearest towns before the game so that the information is readily available at play.
PCs can use Gather Information to find mages amenable to doing comission work, then use social skills to negotiate out a price for an item. The NPCs class and level (and the result of the negotiation), determine what items he can craft and at what price. Generally mages are willing to trade for items they can personally use. Same goes for high-level clerics.
Red Wizard enclaves and local temples handle the small stuff (under 2000 gp, mostly potions and scrolls), selling them openly.
Good social rolling (Gather Info, Bluff) may get you a private meeting with the local black market: usually rogues, smugglers, or Red Wizards going 'under the table'. There some of the more esoteric and dangerous stuff can be bought and sold (generally items that are close to the town's GP limit but the local mages won't or can't deal with).
I try to keep it brief, brisk and balanced.
I do a quick rundown of the town using population, GP limit and highest level NPCs (DMG tables 4-40, etc). I make some quick notes describing the higher level NPC spellcasters (attitude, agendas, etc). I usually do this for the nearest towns before the game so that the information is readily available at play.
PCs can use Gather Information to find mages amenable to doing comission work, then use social skills to negotiate out a price for an item. The NPCs class and level (and the result of the negotiation), determine what items he can craft and at what price. Generally mages are willing to trade for items they can personally use. Same goes for high-level clerics.
Red Wizard enclaves and local temples handle the small stuff (under 2000 gp, mostly potions and scrolls), selling them openly.
Good social rolling (Gather Info, Bluff) may get you a private meeting with the local black market: usually rogues, smugglers, or Red Wizards going 'under the table'. There some of the more esoteric and dangerous stuff can be bought and sold (generally items that are close to the town's GP limit but the local mages won't or can't deal with).
I try to keep it brief, brisk and balanced.
jgbrowning
Hero
I go "Do I want my players to have this item?"
If the answer is no, its not available. If yes, it is available, but often for more than just coin.
joe b.
edit: have I told you lately how much your name and sig crack me up? my wife thinks its by far and away the best one here.
If the answer is no, its not available. If yes, it is available, but often for more than just coin.
joe b.
edit: have I told you lately how much your name and sig crack me up? my wife thinks its by far and away the best one here.
Last edited:
Celebrim
Legend
Seems like thier was a very long thread on this subject a few months back that might be worth referencing.
In short, I generally allow gear of any type (magic or otherwise) to be sold provided that sufficient time is spent seeking a buyer (gather information check, usually one day per check with DC depending on how bizarre and expensive the item is), and the community is large enough and wealthy enough that it is reasonable that some buyer exists for the item. It has been known to happen that the PC's sell items that again appear in the hands of the villians - especially when they try to sell items particularly useful to the forces of evil.
Buying magic items is a much more difficult task, although potions are usually available in small quantities in most town sized inhabitations.
In short, I generally allow gear of any type (magic or otherwise) to be sold provided that sufficient time is spent seeking a buyer (gather information check, usually one day per check with DC depending on how bizarre and expensive the item is), and the community is large enough and wealthy enough that it is reasonable that some buyer exists for the item. It has been known to happen that the PC's sell items that again appear in the hands of the villians - especially when they try to sell items particularly useful to the forces of evil.
Buying magic items is a much more difficult task, although potions are usually available in small quantities in most town sized inhabitations.
In my game, it's handled mostly by barter. Trade in the extra +1 sword for a pile of healing potions or a CLW wand at the local temple. There's a lot of this, as the party is currently rogue, rogue, rogue/shadowdancer, monk, and fighter/paladin (a.k.a. "the bait"). With two less-often-attending players as barbarian and wizard. The only cleric is a half-the-party's-level hireling.
Minor items (stuff on the "minor" tables in the DMG) can be found for sale/trade fairly readily, at least in capital cities. You might wind up dealing with the local government to get at it, though. Or at least the local temple hierarchies or wizard's guilds. There's no "Roscoe's Energy Emporium" to load up on magic.
Better items are generally not available for sale, but there's usually a local wizard/cleric in bigger towns willing to make items to order, or to further enhance existing items.
Minor items (stuff on the "minor" tables in the DMG) can be found for sale/trade fairly readily, at least in capital cities. You might wind up dealing with the local government to get at it, though. Or at least the local temple hierarchies or wizard's guilds. There's no "Roscoe's Energy Emporium" to load up on magic.
Better items are generally not available for sale, but there's usually a local wizard/cleric in bigger towns willing to make items to order, or to further enhance existing items.
Bendris Noulg
First Post
I run an item-light world. This generally means that at lower levels (3-7) I tend to award/grant minor items that are more of the "miscellaneous" nature. Going into higher-levels (12-15), I pull out the heavy hitters (most of which are suitable for 20th Level characters). This is more inline with my taste in the genre, as the PCs fulfill quests and such which brings these items (often long lost and legendary) back into the world.
Items are not sold, but can be made by the PCs (at considerably greater expense and difficulty than the Core Rules indicate) or commisioned specifically from an NPC (again, at greater expense than indicated). Of course, spellcasters are almost as rare as items, so...
Items are not sold, but can be made by the PCs (at considerably greater expense and difficulty than the Core Rules indicate) or commisioned specifically from an NPC (again, at greater expense than indicated). Of course, spellcasters are almost as rare as items, so...
hammymchamham
First Post
jgbrowning said:edit: have I told you lately how much your name and sig crack me up? my wife thinks its by far and away the best one here.
um... thanks I guess
Well, basically what I did is for the 2 possible cities that they'll end up going to I used the DMG guidlines for GP limit, but adjusted it for the actualy population. I mean, why should a town of 4500 have a GP limit of 3k and a town of 5002 have one of 15000.
Then I created a DC chart for gather info rolls. For the smaller town the DC's are from from 10 to 20 and the larger town DC 15 to 25. I took the GP limit and divided it by 10. So if you get a result of 10 in the first town, you'd be able to find any item of up to 1/10 the vaule of the GP limit. Get an 11, and up to 2/10s.
Its sad, all of my PC's are low charisma, and have very few ranks in gather info. Oh well!
I let my players sell and buy pretty much anything they want, up to the community's gp limit. Well, that's not exactly true - other than scrolls, potions, and some other items that would logically be relatively common and in high demand (e.g. wand of CLW), they can't buy items "over the counter". They won't generally have much trouble finding someone who can make the item for the standard price, but they can't go buy a flaming shocking holy longsword +4 even in Greyhawk or Waterdeep - they'll have to wait almost half a year for the wizard or cleric to finish making it.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
I wish WotC would be more clear on this. Considering the 50% penalty for selling loot, and the fact that your loot is usually pretty wimpy, you should be able to buy reasonable items.
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