RttToEE: Buying Loot in Verbobonc ***Spoilers***

[Xar666]

At the beginning of the module, under Buying Equipment, Monte states:

The city of Verbobonc lies about thirty miles northwest of Hommlet (see map 2). Treat this as a large city with a gold piece limit of 40,000 (see page 137 in the DMG). Verbobonc can offer the characters virtually anything they want to buy or have made with the treasure they gain in the adventure.

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1. Do you allow the players to buy/create any item they want as long as it is less than 40,000gp? I have been doing this and it leaves a bad taste. My players look up items in the sourcebooks and min/max their characters. The cleric has Karma Beads so he is casting his buffs 4 levels higher and the fighter wields a +1 Vicious Greatsword. Doing this seems to trivialize any loot they find, cause they know they can sell it for whatever they want.

2. What have been your experiences with this? Do you allow this?

 

[Roland Delacroix]

I'm preparing to run it and my take is that its not worth the time lost. The time the party spends traveling back and forth the temple will be using to recruit replacements for killed guys and fortify their defences. They will also be scrying about the PC's, and maybe setting them up in town. They have a dopplegander, easy enough to shift to look like party rogue while they are in Verbonoc and get seen killing some guards. If nothing else, the party will lose a few more days in jail while Elmo checks their story in Verbonoc.

Just play the temple NPC's smart and dynamic and the PC's should get the idea that this is an enemy they wanna take down ASAP, no time to dilly dally. Plus maybe you could drop some clues that the summoning of Tharzidun is getting closer.

You might wanna try posting this on Monte Cooks boards, ,he has a very active RttToEE section.

 

[TrizzlWizzl]

Well, number one I wouldn't rule the 'item for sale' gp limit of the town should limit the items the PCs are allowed to create. I would say the number that limits how expensive an item is to create would be the amount of ready cash in the community, which in this case would be unknown.

I can understand using the item-for-sale number as a benchmark for how expensive an item a character would be allowed to create, but I'm not sure it's a totally accurate assestment. I mean, if the PCs have the feats and the xp to make all this stuff I wouldn't necessarily impose a limit like that just because the loot is trivialized; if the PCs would rather spend gold, xp and feats to make exactly what they want then fine. I would just make sure all the limitations were correctly imposed and let the players rock out.

I have a group with an APL of 10. There's only one magic user capable of making stuff (Craft Wand), and she's made one wand... so I guess I can't really compare that experience to what Xar must be going through. However that 'bad taste' he talks about is probably from is own perspective, and I wouldn't, if I were him, close the door on these abilities just becuase of a bad taste.

To me, bad tastes often come from DMs cleaning bad tastes out of their mouths.

 

[IceBear]

I don't have the DMG handy, but isn't there also an entry for how much gold the town has in total? The GP limit was for the most expense item you could get but then the total gp for the town was also set. So, eventually, the town would not have any cash left to buy anything from the PCs.

IceBear

 

[Xar666]

I have a group with an APL of 10. There's only one magic user capable of making stuff (Craft Wand), and she's made one wand... so I guess I can't really compare that experience to what Xar must be going through. However that 'bad taste' he talks about is probably from is own perspective, and I wouldn't, if I were him, close the door on these abilities just becuase of a bad taste.

To me, bad tastes often come from DMs cleaning bad tastes out of their mouths.

Let me clarify this. They are just buying items straight out of a shop in Verbobonc. They look up a magic item in a book and ask to buy it. That's it. I wouldn’t mind that much if they were making items themselves or having them made.

 

[TrizzlWizzl]

Let me clarify this. They are just buying items straight out of a shop in Verbobonc. They look up a magic item in a book and ask to buy it. That's it. I wouldn’t mind that much if they were making items themselves or having them made.

OOOOOOOOooooooohh. Sorry Xar. Now I get it.

When I know my players are setting up shop near a settlement of some kind, I actually go through and create a few shops that sell magic items suitable to the gp limit in the DMG. I've sent you a couple word documents so you can see what I mean. I'm working on a similar document for a large city... I'll send it too you if you want.

Yeah, I agree that walking into a large city and just buying whatever you want under the gp limit is icky. My players think so too, and having actual inventory lists is cool. When they return to the towns after a few weeks or months of adventuring, they'll find a few items have come and gone, but by and large what's there is there.

So if a +2 defending rapier isn't in a store you can either wait or make one yourself. I agree.

 

[Xar666]

Great, thanks. That is a good idea. Do you create inventory lists randomly or select items yourself? If you select yourself, do you choose items that suit the party?

 

[Xar666]

Let me clarify this. They are just buying items straight out of a shop in Verbobonc. They look up a magic item in a book and ask to buy it. That's it. I wouldn’t mind that much if they were making items themselves or having them made.

Let me add to this:

My cleric has item creations feats and he even said, "Why the hell would I waste my XP and time to create items when I can just spend more gold and buy them? This makes my feats useless, can I swap them out?".

You like that?

 

[Vanye]

Do you allow the players to buy/create any item they want as long as it is less than 40,000gp?

It hasn't come up quite yet in my current campaign, but I won't let them get just anything. I think I'll assign percentage chances that an item may be available: something along the lines of 100% - (price/1000)%. Thus, an item of 40k value has a 60% chance of being available. That's for items that I don't want to make them quest for, of course.

[edit: added below section]
I also wouldn't allow them to go through the DMG and say "I want this, and this and this...", it's not a catalog, after all. I'd make them describe what they're looking for "Well, I want a sword that will pierce armor, and flames, and can hurt a spectre". Then I'd look it up (or price it out) then maybe decide if it's available....

 

[IceBear]

Yeah, just because an item is within the gp limit doesn't mean that is available to buy.

IceBear