Magic Items available for purchace?

[Jackinthegreen]

Echoing what pretty much everyone has said, it sounds like a case of miscommunication. Let him know how you handle magic items and things should hopefully work out fairly well. Hopefully you allow magic items to be upgraded by anyone with the prerequisites though?

 

[kingius]

i'm saying it is good DMing to work it into your campaign, rather than flat out telling them no they can't buy better items, you have to use what I give you and thats it.

No. You do not say, you get what I give you, that is ridiculous.

You say, you get what you /find/ in the adventures.

It is not DM - decided, it's the adventure that's being run that determines the loot. These might be published adventures or they might be custom adventures that the DM has designed. Even with those, there are random treasure hoards. Which makes it the decision of the dice as to what comes up. The DM rerolls on inappropriate choices for his or her campaign and may design their own items as specials, but by and large, it is not the DM who is deciding exactly what the party get, it's published adventures and dice rolls that do almost all of it.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Basically, you've got two camps here: one are the parents (DMs), who can see that giving access to everything a child ever wants will spoil the child (which is bad in the long run) and then there are the children (players) who want everything they ask for.

The buying of magic items undermines the treasure seeking route of adventuring. The game is built around adventuring as the core reason for people playing D&D instead of one of a multitude of games.

Therefore, giving players anything they ask for will spoil them and, in the end, ruin the game for everyone. Just don't expect most players to see that far ahead. All they see is 'magic items, I want, I want!'.

What? D&D isn't built around adventuring, it's built around roleplaying. Only munchkins use it as some sort of dedicated tactical combat simulator.

See here's the thing - you're both wrong.

And you're both right.

D&D can be played in any of a hundred (or more) ways and not one of them is right or wrong. That is the really great thing about D&D - it has the ability and strength to adapt (or be adapted) to just about any playstyle you care to name.

No. You do not say, you get what I give you, that is ridiculous.

You say, you get what you /find/ in the adventures.

It is not DM - decided, it's the adventure that's being run that determines the loot. These might be published adventures or they might be custom adventures that the DM has designed. Even with those, there are random treasure hoards. Which makes it the decision of the dice as to what comes up. The DM rerolls on inappropriate choices for his or her campaign and may design their own items as specials, but by and large, it is not the DM who is deciding exactly what the party get, it's published adventures and dice rolls that do almost all of it.

I would say the type of adventure determines the treasure certainly but I would hazard a guess that a big majority of DMs customize the treasure they put into it. Not saying that there aren't games out there with completely random treasure hordes ('what the heck was that Orc doing with a +2 sword of Orc Slaying?') or that some DMs follow published adventures as written with no input from themselves but I would think it is a tiny minority. Still cool it can be done that way but I would bet any money that it is not the majority.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

No. You do not say, you get what I give you, that is ridiculous.

You say, you get what you /find/ in the adventures.

It is not DM - decided, it's the adventure that's being run that determines the loot. These might be published adventures or they might be custom adventures that the DM has designed. Even with those, there are random treasure hoards. Which makes it the decision of the dice as to what comes up. The DM rerolls on inappropriate choices for his or her campaign and may design their own items as specials, but by and large, it is not the DM who is deciding exactly what the party get, it's published adventures and dice rolls that do almost all of it.

That depends entirely on whether and how much the DM is using the random loot distribution system. Nowhere does the book say the system absolutely must be used. Heck, there can and will be times where loot is entirely arbitrary, as the DM wishes and will hopefully make sense. In one of the campaigns I was in for example, the group got captured and stripped of everything but our weapons, and made to be slaves doing gladiator matches. You can bet we didn't even get random loot, though we did get the smeg out of there.

 

[Adimus]

i'm not saying give them everything they want in every treasure hoard, i'm saying make available to them the items that make their characters better, here and there; i'm not saying give them a +6 belt of giant strength at level 2, but maybe a +2 belt; I'm not saying give them everything they want upfront at all; i'm saying it is good DMing to work it into your campaign, rather than flat out telling them no they can't buy better items, you have to use what I give you and thats it. That kind of thinking leads players to want to drop their current character infavor of an artificer or other item crafter just so they can get what they want... and get it cheaper than what they were already willing to pay so they end up with more.

It's true you do have give them what they want sometimes. It's your job to make sure they enjoy the game. I try to stick to one item on someone's wishlist per hoard though, and only if it is believable that it would be there. Also, some items like stat boosters etc. are more common and likely to be found, so commonly show up on the lists I use. The more specific or obscure the item the less likely I'll use this trick though.
I had a player whose character exclusively fought with a scythe. After the first magical scythe they found in a treasure hoard I didn't think I could play that trick again. She eventually found a shapeshifting weapon with an ego (and a nasty personality) that took the form of a weapon of the owner's choice.They didn't seem to notice the reason I did that, which allowed her to get what she wanted and didn't upset their suspension of disbelief.

 

[Nezkrul]

so said scythe user was not allowed to spend their gold to upgrade their already found scythe? they had to depend entirely on what you gave them to get better stuff? see that's the kind of game I hate playing in, the one where you either get what you need randomly or you sit there with basic equipment till level 20 and a bunch of useless crap you'll never use (50% of it being potions and scrolls)

 

[Adimus]

so said scythe user was not allowed to spend their gold to upgrade their already found scythe? they had to depend entirely on what you gave them to get better stuff? see that's the kind of game I hate playing in, the one where you either get what you need randomly or you sit there with basic equipment till level 20 and a bunch of useless crap you'll never use (50% of it being potions and scrolls)

No, as a matter of fact. Eventually they came across a smith who enjoyed the challenge of working on strange and exotic weapons. This is how I got to the third iteration of the "weapons they should have at that level". But I used foreshadowing (an overheard conversation in the town nearby) and the party sought him out. This allowed the PC the chance to add to her old scythe, and use the shapeshifter for something else.

As I have stated several times now: No one is advocating that items should not be bought. I myself am saying that story > just buying stuff.

The scythe was merely an example of my most difficult challenge dealing with balancing 3.5's constant need to throw magic items at the party (weapons and armor especially) while maintaining the illusion that I'm not doing it just because the game said I should.

 

[Greenfield]

My approach to that has been indirect.

In any town of any size, there will be a local practicioner who handles supplies for others in the trade. That person essentially runs a shop.

If someone wants to buy an item, this is the guy they'll be directed to. And he almost certainly won't have it.

Oh, he'll have some scrolls and a few potions, maybe some alchemical stuff. Most of what he has though is relatively mundane, things commoners will like and can afford.

But if you want adventurer class gear, well, it's probably in the hands of an adventurer someplace. What he does is connect people with magic to sell or trade. You pay him a research fee, and he starts contacting people he knows in the trade. Get back to him in a week and he may know who has the item you want, or something close at least. Then he acts as broker for the deal, taking a slice of the action for his trouble.

Typically, such trades are done as trades more than purchases. You trade some magic, plus some money, for bigger magic.

What this does for me, as DM, is quell the appetite for instant gratification, while allowing such trade to go on in a reasonable fashion. It also gives me time to consider whether or not to let the PC have the item he wants. Sometimes he gets something close, sometimes the guy just comes up cold.

This is also the guy you go to to sell magic items and related loot.

Which takes us to the other side of things: He doesn't keep huge amounts of cash just sitting around, so selling items may take a week or so while he spreads the word to others like himself, seeking a buyer.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It is notoriously difficult to to sell a dungeon's worth of loot in a town of 67 people.

 

[Greenfield]

I suppose it depends on the size of the dungeon.