Magic Items available for purchace?

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Recently we had a new player join our group, and we helped him create a 7th level character (DnD 3.5 hybrid). We gamed for a few setting, and about halfway through the 4th they encountered a chasm with a rickety bridge across it. As I prepaired for a fun harrowing crossing which would have required both skill and ingenuity to safely cross, Beren the Scout activates his Ring and flies across.

The rest of us just blinked at him. Huh?

My gaming world isn't a low magic world, but one of the things I keep a very tight lid on are magic items - where they are, how they are gained, et al. I looked at the running list I kept on everyone, and he'd found an old leather quiver with four +1 arrows in it and a Potion he'd yet to identify. No Flying Rings.

DM: "Umm, where'd you get that?"

Scout: "Umm, where'd I get what?"

DM: "Your ring, that you are using to fly everyone - carrying them - one at a time across my nasty, dangerous chasm."

Scout: "Oh.. yeah, I bought it when we were back in town. You know when everyone was hanging out at the Inn and I told you I went outside?"

DM: "Ok, I remember you saying you go outside, you rememebr me asking you what you were going to do?"

Scout: " Umm" a troubled look on his face "well I was going to answer, but that's when Rayborn went Berserk"

Laughter

DM: "Ok, so you went looking for a shop that sold magical items, in the middle of the night, decided you'd find one in a town you're character has never been in on a gaming world you are still unfamiliar with, furthermore you decided on a fair price, paid it and viola, you've got a nice magic item?"

Scout: " What's the problem? I had the money, here look" he opens the DMG and shows me just exactly how much a Ring of Flight would cost "we were at a stopping point, and" .... wait for it .... wait for it ...."my OLD DM let us buy anything we wanted whenever we stopped in a town!"


I was only slightly surprised as the rest of my players layed into him with gusto. My gaming world, again not low magic, is controlled magic though. There are potent wizards and theurgists, alchemist and priests who are willing and able to assist in the creation of magic items... under various circumstances - they are well compensated, the requisite materials and spells are available, and more often than not "What's in it for them". Even the most minor works of magical item creation takes time, effort and luck - and the reason there is only one Ring of Gaxx, is the lore which the ancient mages and/or gods used ot make it are long -and forever- lost to the eons.

The truly mighty items generally can be found in one of two places: 1. In the hands of truly mighty PCs/NPCs, or as a part of the treasure found in truly dangerous areas. My restrictions of the party creating and controlling their own access to wonderous items stems to one of my earliest DMs. We were all 4th or so level when we came across "The Dungeon Master" on the trail outside the City of Specularum. Without any further ado, he handed us his Dungeon Masters Guide and dissappeared. We learned that if we turned to the correct page and touched our finger to the item we desired, it would appear. Up to and including the Artifacts pages.

Talk about Monty and his goat Haul.

By 10th level (1st Edition game) we were kicking Zeus's arse. If you recall the Gods in the original Dieties and Demigods had Levels, Hit Points, Armor Classes - and if you were sufficiently uberrific you could head on over to Mount Olympus and whoop up on some Greeks.

Ahem, I digress... to make sure at relatively low levels - and to ensure party and game balance all the way up to the Epic Levels; and to also ensure when and if they do eventaully encounter that Avatar, Celestial Diva, Demon Prince - etc, at least the encounter provides challenge.

 

[Sekhmet]

While it's a fun read, I don't see a question.
Your thread title suggests that there is a question.
I like questions.
I am a sad panda.

 

[anest1s]

It is easy to make a challenge even if the chars have every magic item they can get.

But you have to know exactly what they have. If someone buys items without you knowing it you can end up with some stupid encounters.

I let my players get whatever they want, but I know what they have.

 

[delericho]

Recently we had a new player join our group...

<... snip ...>

Scout: " What's the problem? I had the money, here look" he opens the DMG and shows me just exactly how much a Ring of Flight would cost "we were at a stopping point, and" .... wait for it .... wait for it ...."my OLD DM let us buy anything we wanted whenever we stopped in a town!"

<... snip ...>

I was only slightly surprised as the rest of my players layed into him with gusto. My gaming world, again not low magic, is controlled magic though.

Key question: did you tell the player that your setting was magic controlled when he was creating his character? If not, how was he supposed to know this?

Because for me, that's the crux of it - what you have are two competing assumptions about how the world works, and the player's does indeed line up with the assumptions laid out in the DMG. Now, it is absolutely within the remit of the DM to change it, don't get me wrong - but you have to communicate things like that to new players who join the group!

If you want my advice on how to handle it now:

1) Let the purchase stand.

2) Explain to the player that his character got really lucky this time, but that in general he won't be able to buy items in future.

3) I would also strongly consider letting the other players each pick out one item to buy for their characters, to even things up.

(Incidentally, the DMG guidelines do not say that the setting include magic item shops. What they say is that in a settlement of a given size, any item of up to the given cost can be bought somewhere - that may take the form of a shop, or it might mean some sort of travelling salesman, a collector of rare items, spoils taken in the last war and held by the soldiers as their retirement fund, or whatever.)

 

[Greenfield]

Bringing a new player into a game group can be an interesting experience. Many of our house rules become so ingrained that we might forget that they are house rules.

In your situation, I'd take a little time to think about them, all the aspects of game play that "go without saying".

Then talk to that game, and say them.

Explain that, at a minimum, players need to notify the DM when they're adding items, feats, etc., so they can be planned for.

Then go over whatever rules you have for buying or selling magic items or other gear. Let the player ask questions, and make sure that your answers are consistent and fair, and wouldn't leave the other players scratching their heads.

One good idea would be to find out from him how his old DM ran things, so you can spot the differences. He obviously ran a different style of game than you do, so look for those differences. Ask questions, and be careful not to make them a challenge to his style, just a search for information.

We had a player drop in once, with the stated intent of joining up long term. He found out that we didn't hand-wave skill checks, played by the rules that said you had to be a spell caster to actually make anything with Craft- Alchemy, and weren't a good group to play PVP in. He never came back.

He wasn't a bad player, and it's not like we were mean to him, but it was a culture clash for both of us, a square peg in a round hole kind of thing. He didn't fit, and he wouldn't fit until one of us changed. We didn't, he wouldn't, end of story.

 

[kingius]

I agree with you on the overall theme of the post. Low magic makes for more believable, gritty, challenging and ultimately fun campaigns. 3.5 really isn't geared up for this, though, as your new player is proving.

Incidentally, I'm heading back to the D&D Cyclopedia and away from 3.5 now with a new campaign focussed around a megadungeon. I've lost my enthusiasm with 3.5; the overall design decisions don't really make much sense to me. This thread helps to highlight part of the problem, because these things can be difficult to put one's finger on. You know when the system is geared around a certain approach or play style (assumptions like everyone having +x magic items by level y) and yours is different then it's easier to pick a different system than to fight it week by week.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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[Dyir]

Key question: did you tell the player that your setting was magic controlled when he was creating his character? If not, how was he supposed to know this?

Since the purchasing of the item took place not during character creation, but during play, without the DM's or other player's knowledge (or at least, that's how I read the OP), that's where I cry foul. It would be one thing to not realize the expectations of the setting when a player makes a character, only to be told otherwise when the DM approves the PC for play in the game. Honestly, if a player in my game had just announced that he or she had just happened to buy any items mid-game that she didn't have before ("Oh, yeah, I totally bought 27 flasks of alchemist's fire last night while everyone was hanging in the inn and just forgot to mention it"), I wouldn't let it fly. If there's downtime and someone says they are going shopping, no problem. But not saying so and to have items appear on their character sheet, no way.

 

[Omegaxicor]

I may come off as a bit stern so forgive me (I have had a similar situation as the player, although I got stopped at the buying of the item by the DM saying "this town doesn't have that" to several of my ideas )

1) the DMs guide is for the DM. if he wants to read it fair enough but noone is bound by law to follow those rules and noone is bound by law to tell the players when you deviate from those rules, it is the player's job to ask "can I buy this" not just assume he can. If it was in the PHB then that would be different...

2) EVERYTHING has to go by DMs approval, if the player's want to find an inn in the town to sleep in, they ASK the DM if there is one the same goes for everything else.

3) I would however mention to the player, carefully perhaps, that he is welcome to the ring of flight and you commend him on out-thinking the puzzle you laid out for him but the ring he bought was not DM approved and therefore unreliable and halfway across the gap his ring fails and he falls, it also turns him to stone and the player's have to break the ring from his finger to free him from petrification, you would have mentioned to him that the ring was unreliable had he told you he bought it...problem solved everyone lives and learns

either way I get the feeling from your OP that it was a genuine mistake rather than an attempt to Batman (is it Batman that always has the right tools for the job, I forget) his way through the game, so I would redact the ring and continue on, making sure to give him his money back of course.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

1) the DMs guide is for the DM. if he wants to read it fair enough but noone is bound by law to follow those rules and noone is bound by law to tell the players when you deviate from those rules, it is the player's job to ask "can I buy this" not just assume he can. If it was in the PHB then that would be different...

Sadly, this is an "outdated" notion which more than one version of D&D has made functionally untrue - and 3.5 would be one of those versions. Heck, it was functionally untrue in 1E AD&D because there was information contained therein which was practical information needed by players on a regular basis (saving throws, changes/additions to spell functions, character creation data, etc.)

While you and I would agree that by and large the DMG is strictly the purview of the DM and in particular that the sale and distribution of magic items is the strict purview of the DM, the practical teachings of 3E was that magic items were commodites for sale just as food, weapons, and equipment. What your character wanted and could afford he was allowed to simply BUY for listed costs.

It is not at all surprising that a DM and his veteran players would never make such a mistake, but it IS the obligation of the DM to inform new players how to handle this sort of thing.

Give the player a commendation for original thinking in changing the conditions of the test - but refund his characters money and POLITELY tell him, no, that isn't how we do things here.