D&D 5E The Case for a Magic Item Shop?

[Random Bystander]

And that's easy to do. It shouldn't be hard to add as an option. But it makes for a weird baseline.

I'm currently trying to remove all the stat boosting magic items from Pathfinder expected by the wealth-by-level and it is a LOT of work and super awkward. After playing a 1-17 PF campaign having thetable spend thirty minutes every few sessions working out the distribution of treasure and how much time it would take to craft the items from everyone's wishlists. Two-thirds of the time the campaign took in the world was spent crafting magical gear. The game even added the downtime system in Ultimate Campaign which amounts to "here's things the fighter and rogue can do while the wizard is spending six weeks making everyone new cloaks of resistance". Because, of course, everyone in the world uses the same cloak, because any other cloak is inoptimal.

Will you also remove the Magnificent Mansion, Teleport, and Magic Weapon spells?

 

[Jester David]

Will you also remove the Magnificent Mansion, Teleport, and Magic Weapon spells?

Likely not.
Teleport is handy but high level. So long as you're aware of it and don't plan on long travels it's not an issue. It's one of those spells that causes problems when DMs expect high level play to work like low level play with bigger numbers, which isn't the case.
Magic weapon is fine. It's a spell that never gets used because by the time you have the spell slots to bother memorizing it everyone has a magic weapon. It's mostly an NPC spell so they can spend more money on other gear for the one fight they have before they die.
I don't have a problem with magnificent mansion either. It's a 7th level spell. The campaign will be on its last legs by the time it gets cast. If they're willing to blow the spell to rest easy (when it's more resource efficient to teleport home and back) they're welcome to.

I'm just tired of handing out +1 items to 3rd level characters, everyone having the same cloak, belt, ring, amulet, and headband. And the mook NPCs all having 10,000 gold pieces of treasure and a half-dozen magic items just so their math works against the PCs with their dozen magic items.
I'm really, really looking forward to not worrying about any of that when I can switch to 5e and just ignore the existence of magic items except when I want to actually reward the PCs, when I think they've earned something special.

 

[Random Bystander]

Likely not.
Teleport is handy but high level. So long as you're aware of it and don't plan on long travels it's not an issue. It's one of those spells that causes problems when DMs expect high level play to work like low level play with bigger numbers, which isn't the case.
Magic weapon is fine. It's a spell that never gets used because by the time you have the spell slots to bother memorizing it everyone has a magic weapon. It's mostly an NPC spell so they can spend more money on other gear for the one fight they have before they die.
I don't have a problem with magnificent mansion either. It's a 7th level spell. The campaign will be on its last legs by the time it gets cast. If they're willing to blow the spell to rest easy (when it's more resource efficient to teleport home and back) they're welcome to.

I'm just tired of handing out +1 items to 3rd level characters, everyone having the same cloak, belt, ring, amulet, and headband. And the mook NPCs all having 10,000 gold pieces of treasure and a half-dozen magic items just so their math works against the PCs with their dozen magic items.
I'm really, really looking forward to not worrying about any of that when I can switch to 5e and just ignore the existence of magic items except when I want to actually reward the PCs, when I think they've earned something special.

Your explanation makes sense. However, I would suggest providing magic item-like benefits to non-casters (if you are not already doing so), to balance out the magic items they would otherwise get. Otherwise, certain monsters and opponents become impossible for them, without the intervention of magic-using classes. Which relegates non-magic using classes to "second-class", or even more so. No pun intended, but I do happen to like puns. I am assuming, here, that you are not playing D&D 4th edition, in which case removing magic items would seem to provide no real downsides that cannot be fixed by adding perhaps +1 to-hit, defences and damage per 6 levels.

 

[Jester David]

Your explanation makes sense. However, I would suggest providing magic item-like benefits to non-casters (if you are not already doing so), to balance out the magic items they would otherwise get. Otherwise, certain monsters and opponents become impossible for them, without the intervention of magic-using classes. Which relegates non-magic using classes to "second-class", or even more so. No pun intended, but I do happen to like puns. I am assuming, here, that you are not playing D&D 4th edition, in which case removing magic items would seem to provide no real downsides that cannot be fixed by adding perhaps +1 to-hit, defences and damage per 6 levels.

I'm giving points that roughly equate with 1000gp of treasure that can be used to "buy" static bonuses. Ability score boosts, skill boosts, save boosts, etc.
It's getting crazy though. At level 12 they get 27 new points for a total of 113.

 

[Random Bystander]

I'm giving points that roughly equate with 1000gp of treasure that can be used to "buy" static bonuses. Ability score boosts, skill boosts, save boosts, etc.
It's getting crazy though. At level 12 they get 27 new points for a total of 113.

That all seems to make sense. It is not the way I would run D&D, but it makes sense.

 

[aramis erak]

Pretty much every D&D world besides Dark Sun is gonzo with the magic items. Drizzt has over a dozen magic toys for instance, in Eberron there is everyday magic tools and even magically engineered animals, I don't understand how/why people want to expect low magic from a game where every single class gets spell access.

Not nearly as gonzo as Trollworld when run by Ken St. Andre, or in one of his solo modules. (Trollworld is the T&T default setting. MAJOR gonzo.) A 5th or sixth level survivor of Ken's solos is likely to have a dozen magic items, half of which as powerful as lower end D&D artifacts.

Nor as gonzo as several lesser known fantasy worlds, each with their own games.

Hell, in WFRP1E, magic items are fairly rare, but WAY more powerful proportionally than even most of the D&D artifacts... They run to +5, with all damages on 1d6+Str (and human Str is 1-7, starting of 2-5, average is 3).

And in Pendragon, if you are lucky, you start with one; if you don't start with one, you're unlikely to get one later. But about 1 in 10 PC's starts with a blessed sword. A particularly minor magic item.

D&D is fairly middle-of-the-road in terms of number, and fairly moderate on the power level. At least amongst fantasy RPGs.

 

[Random Bystander]

D&D is fairly middle-of-the-road in terms of number, and fairly moderate on the power level. At least amongst fantasy RPGs.

I once calculated that a 20th-level party could afford a Ring of Wishes, At-Will, provided they pooled their gold. Gameplay that would result from such a purchase certainly has interesting implications...