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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7038792" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Sure, this is good. The necessary and difficult concomitant to all this is you have to plausibly divorce the magic item 'economy' from the gold piece economy. This isn't super easy to do in a non-forced manner. I mean, lets face it, if someone needs food bad enough they're going to trade their +1 sword for some cash so they can buy rations. This is particularly true with a 'commodity' magic item like a +1 sword. Even if such an item is quite rare its still simply a small increment of power better than an ordinary sword, so its relatively straightforward to equate it to existing items and prices, and there's likely to be plenty of willing buyers (anyone that uses a sword, given the right price). </p><p></p><p>So, one thing that you would want to avoid is such simple commodity magic items. Or if they exist then they're a class of things that DOES cross over between gold and magic. To some extent that might not be a terrible thing, you COULD sell your +1 sword, or buy an extra one if you happen to get a LOT of loot. If its not a really critical thing to have though, it won't matter too much. So either these types of items could be very common and thus basically just ordinary items (albeit maybe significantly more expensive than mundane swords), or they could simply be incredibly rare ancient items that are almost never found and thus not something you can plausibly find for sale. </p><p></p><p>High end items aren't so much of a problem. The fire opal for instance is unique in all the worlds. Moreover whomever owns it has a big target painted on them. You probably COULD sell/trade it, at far below par, but buying such a thing is beyond impossible, and at best would represent an adventure all of its own on a par with looting it in the first place. </p><p></p><p>There might still be a problematic middle ground of items though. Imagine a 'ring of spell storing', it could be quite valuable, but in the right situation someone might sell it to you. Its probably not unique in most settings, though it could be quite rare. Again, you can make these things super rare, so they just aren't ever for sale, but you probably can't make them commodities, unless you're aiming for a very magic-heavy world (plus even if they are commodities their high utility means buying them is likely not optional for an adventurer). </p><p></p><p>Note that the same considerations now apply to creating items. I'm reminded of the 2e rules, which basically rule magic item creation to be impossible (you can do it, but it really isn't worth it 99% of the time). Clearly you would want to avoid 4e's Enchant Item concept.</p><p></p><p>Actually the current item rarity isn't so bad. If you assume that the items anyone can enchant (common items) are basically commodities and maybe even lower their costs so everyone just makes some, then the rare items are left as pure treasure awards, with enchanting them being only a plot device.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7038792, member: 82106"] Sure, this is good. The necessary and difficult concomitant to all this is you have to plausibly divorce the magic item 'economy' from the gold piece economy. This isn't super easy to do in a non-forced manner. I mean, lets face it, if someone needs food bad enough they're going to trade their +1 sword for some cash so they can buy rations. This is particularly true with a 'commodity' magic item like a +1 sword. Even if such an item is quite rare its still simply a small increment of power better than an ordinary sword, so its relatively straightforward to equate it to existing items and prices, and there's likely to be plenty of willing buyers (anyone that uses a sword, given the right price). So, one thing that you would want to avoid is such simple commodity magic items. Or if they exist then they're a class of things that DOES cross over between gold and magic. To some extent that might not be a terrible thing, you COULD sell your +1 sword, or buy an extra one if you happen to get a LOT of loot. If its not a really critical thing to have though, it won't matter too much. So either these types of items could be very common and thus basically just ordinary items (albeit maybe significantly more expensive than mundane swords), or they could simply be incredibly rare ancient items that are almost never found and thus not something you can plausibly find for sale. High end items aren't so much of a problem. The fire opal for instance is unique in all the worlds. Moreover whomever owns it has a big target painted on them. You probably COULD sell/trade it, at far below par, but buying such a thing is beyond impossible, and at best would represent an adventure all of its own on a par with looting it in the first place. There might still be a problematic middle ground of items though. Imagine a 'ring of spell storing', it could be quite valuable, but in the right situation someone might sell it to you. Its probably not unique in most settings, though it could be quite rare. Again, you can make these things super rare, so they just aren't ever for sale, but you probably can't make them commodities, unless you're aiming for a very magic-heavy world (plus even if they are commodities their high utility means buying them is likely not optional for an adventurer). Note that the same considerations now apply to creating items. I'm reminded of the 2e rules, which basically rule magic item creation to be impossible (you can do it, but it really isn't worth it 99% of the time). Clearly you would want to avoid 4e's Enchant Item concept. Actually the current item rarity isn't so bad. If you assume that the items anyone can enchant (common items) are basically commodities and maybe even lower their costs so everyone just makes some, then the rare items are left as pure treasure awards, with enchanting them being only a plot device. [/QUOTE]
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