Does your campaign have magic shops?

[Crothian]

Yes, although having traveled around a lot the party has only encounterds less then a hlf dozen. Shops usually only carry low level potions and scrolls and other single use realtively cheap items. All shops have a limited inventory, even the one attachyed to the famous MAge School and Guilds. Most powerful magical items have to be commissioned and they obviously take a while to make. And yes, they demand all cash up front.

 

[Bog97th]

I have had magic shops in my games for many years. A friend of mine came up with a magic shop that was a "magic" shop. Where it and the owner, Claviare would travel from town to town through out his world. I got to deal with him offen but many items were a "use at your own risk" thing. Some times it wasn't good. Kinda like a bag of beans crossed with a deck of many things.....I liked it!

 

[shilsen]

It depends on the campaign and the setting, but as long as the setting is fairly close to the core D&D setup, there will be magic shops (though there will be substantial variations).

My last campaign was set in Greyhawk in the country of Keoland, and the National Academy of Wizardry essentially had a monopoly on magic item sales and ran it through their chapterhouses in various cities.

My current campaign, set in Eberron, will have much less central control over magic item sales, but there will also be a resultant lack of clear locations to buy magic from and there will be greater need for locating individual sellers/traders.

 

[Psion]

IMC, you might find some witch or adept sells low end potions or scrolls out of her shop o' cures.

Potent, permanent magic items can generally only be had through comission, trade, or some sort of broker. Which items are available tend to be random.

AFAIAC, if one person has something and another person is willing to exchange something of value for it, saying that such an exchange could not occur in the world is arbitrary and illogical to me.

 

[Harmon]

Kinda something like- check the money level in the town, sell any itme to be sold for 50% (round down) then talk the GM into letting me buy something, he says "that will take a few days for the wizard to make." Generally this is done between campaign and few times have we had to delay campaigns while waiting for our fighter to get his breast plate magiced.

Its understood that some of the gold we get is in traded items, or in writs (sp- did I spell that right? Basically its a piece of paper thats worth something, you take it to someone and they will take it as trade or contact that merchant and make a trade with them).

So selling a +1 Short Bow and a +1 Studded Leather will net about 1.5k, well the group needs a wand of CMW, so we get 500 gp and 1000 gp worth of crafting materials, we take that to the church of Pelor and they take the 1k worth of materials and ask for 3.5k worth of materials. 90% of the time this is all done out of play thou.

Oh, and to answer your question- no shops of magic items on shelves, but the stuff to make is all there for the selling and the wizard/spell caster can either make or knows people that can make items.

 

[Desdichado]

I have no interest in "magic item shoppe" campaigns; either to run or to play in.

 

[FungiMuncher]

The magic shops in my campaign sell only potions, scrolls, alchemical items, or similarly powered one-shot items. These are only available in mid-sized towns or bigger. Rarely, I've had low level magic arms and armor available in towns near fortified bases. I've also had traveling merchants with odds and ends, but sometimes their items are bogus. Additionally, if the PCs have access to a friendly wizard or cleric, getting an item commissioned has been fairly easy, if time consuming and a little bit expensive.

I think the coolest idea for magic item access I've come up with is a guild of Mercane auctioneers. They occationally pop up in unusual locations. I populate the events with some other NPCs, and randomly determine their maximum bids for a small variety of items. When I first presented the Mercanes to one of the PCs, they had this "unusual deck of magical cards" that everyone seemed to be interested in, but no one could afford the opening bid. After encountering them a few times, the party members now scramble to get in on the bidding.

 

[The_Gneech]

I generally have merchants have mostly ordinary stuff, but occasionally have a handful of magic items. It makes sense: what do heroes do with items they don't want? They sell them! What does the merchant do with 'em, just sit on 'em? Of course not! They sell them to some other would-be hero.

Anything that exists, will be bought and/or sold by somebody. It's just the nature of society. And any large, specialized society, will have people who specialize in the exotic (and expensive) magic item business. Of course, that doesn't mean you can get anything, anywhere. I generally hand-pick the items available from any given merchant.

-The Gneech

 

[was]

I have no interest in "magic item shoppe" campaigns; either to run or to play in.

-ditto-

 

[Gilladian]

As several people have said, in my campaign the one-shot items are fairly easy to find from alchemy shops or from a local spellcaster. Even one or two herbal shops have had the occasional potion or whatever.

In one kingdom there is a series of alchemy shops run by the school of wizards. They don't "have" magic items for sale, but they know just about anyone who has an item, and will act as broker, often for people who wish to remain anonymous as sellers (after all, you don't want everyone to know you just sold grandfather's heirloom sword, do you?).

When PCs wish to buy, they approach the shop, the owner checks his contacts, and frequently an item "similar" to the one the PC wants can be found. Frex, for a person who wants a bag of holding, they may be offered a handy haversack, or a pouch of holding, or a glove of storing. Since my campaigns rarely go beyond about 10th -12th level, I've never had to deal with giving out highly powerful items. But they certainly would not be available for purchase, or trade, nor even likely by commission.

Gilladian