This is something that I feel divide older generation players and new generation players a lot. I think mostly people hate the idea.
I admit that I'm kind of hard-a$$ DM. That being said, I do make buying and selling magical items as hard as humanly possible for players.
My view is that even though creating a magical item cost X amount of gp's, it doesn't proove anything. I think the price is only used when creating high/epic-level characters and in that case the price is really valuable tool. I remember how hard and house-ruly it was to create high-level characters in AD&D 2e and assign the amount of magical items for them. Now it's fast and convenient.
However, if you try to buy magical items in-game, it gets complicated. Yes, sure the item has a price, but so do slaves, biggest pink diamond in world and a nice house in Mecca. It hardly means that you can buy something, even if it has a price.
In my game I use fantastic ingredients in magical items. For instance longsword +1 requires dragon blood, diamond dust, iron mined from the Elemental Plane of Earth etc. Sure, all this is worth about 1000 gp's, but still the effort and rarity of these components make it sure that they are not readily available. And even if someone would mass-manufacture them for sale, the component prices would sky-rocket.
Secondly, in my campaign magic items are seen as weapons of mass-destruction. If people can just walk around with magical items, it means that jerks can bring Orbs of Storms to the city centre or cursed items that haven't been properly identified. If your campaign has at least some restrictions about carrying weapons, it should have dire resctrictions about magical items. And besides, nobody has a list of magical items. So it's safe to assume that by allowing magical item business you allow anyone to buy items that can destroy the whole world. Sure wizards can create them and use them, but banning the open market at least provides some damage control.
In my campaign the clergy of Boccob opposes magical item sale, because it is not in their best interest that magic becames mundane. And Boccob is the strongest of all Gods, so whatever the Archmage of Gods says happens. After DM, Boccob is the strongest and most influental entity in the universe.
Divine magic is different. Clergies are open to sell low-level magical items to able worshippers, that have tithed massive sums and performed successful missions of faith. The same goes with divine spellcasting: Raise Dead is available only to the greatest of worshippers.
So all in all, any attempt to buy or sell magical items is hard in my game, expect that low-level divine potions and divine scrolls are available.
I admit that I'm kind of hard-a$$ DM. That being said, I do make buying and selling magical items as hard as humanly possible for players.
My view is that even though creating a magical item cost X amount of gp's, it doesn't proove anything. I think the price is only used when creating high/epic-level characters and in that case the price is really valuable tool. I remember how hard and house-ruly it was to create high-level characters in AD&D 2e and assign the amount of magical items for them. Now it's fast and convenient.
However, if you try to buy magical items in-game, it gets complicated. Yes, sure the item has a price, but so do slaves, biggest pink diamond in world and a nice house in Mecca. It hardly means that you can buy something, even if it has a price.
In my game I use fantastic ingredients in magical items. For instance longsword +1 requires dragon blood, diamond dust, iron mined from the Elemental Plane of Earth etc. Sure, all this is worth about 1000 gp's, but still the effort and rarity of these components make it sure that they are not readily available. And even if someone would mass-manufacture them for sale, the component prices would sky-rocket.
Secondly, in my campaign magic items are seen as weapons of mass-destruction. If people can just walk around with magical items, it means that jerks can bring Orbs of Storms to the city centre or cursed items that haven't been properly identified. If your campaign has at least some restrictions about carrying weapons, it should have dire resctrictions about magical items. And besides, nobody has a list of magical items. So it's safe to assume that by allowing magical item business you allow anyone to buy items that can destroy the whole world. Sure wizards can create them and use them, but banning the open market at least provides some damage control.
In my campaign the clergy of Boccob opposes magical item sale, because it is not in their best interest that magic becames mundane. And Boccob is the strongest of all Gods, so whatever the Archmage of Gods says happens. After DM, Boccob is the strongest and most influental entity in the universe.
Divine magic is different. Clergies are open to sell low-level magical items to able worshippers, that have tithed massive sums and performed successful missions of faith. The same goes with divine spellcasting: Raise Dead is available only to the greatest of worshippers.
So all in all, any attempt to buy or sell magical items is hard in my game, expect that low-level divine potions and divine scrolls are available.