D&D 5E I don't care anymore! The Magic shope is OPEN!

[Lanefan]

In the aforementioned city I had the mage meet a rather shady character who deals in arcane items. Now myself, and most of the players are used to a 3E magic item world wherein you sold your sack full of stuff for half price and then bought whatever you could afford out of the DMG. Not so this time around.

This shady character has only a few items, most of which are uncommon to rare, but he's also got a couple of very nice pieces for sale, but they are VERY expensive. Plus, he's only buying items at about 1/5 what he'd be willing to sell the same thing for. So, for example, he had a +1 longsword he'd sell for 5000, but he only offered 1000gp to the dwarf that wanted to sell his own +1 sword. I'm also factoring in relative usefulness of items to their value. I'm kind of making it up as I go, but suffice to say, really juicy magic is very expensive.

And who are these shady characters? Why, they're just other adventuring parties trying to unload the magic gear they don't want or need.

How would you handle barter? Say for example said shady character had a +1 axe and the party's Dwarf had a +1 sword but would prefer an axe just because; if the Dwarf offered a straight-up swap what would happen?

Also, what happens if-when the PCs want to trade or sell magic items to each other? You had an example of a Dwarf trying to save up for a belt of dwarvenkind; could he sell his +1 sword to a fellow party member for the full 5000 in order to raise some of that cash? (in other words, buy it from me instead of from that shady character - at least you know you can trust the vendor!)

My plan is to make these shady characters very rare in the first place, with random wares

The rarity of the vendors doesn't matter. The key thing is that the items available for sale be either completely random, or random but logical by which I mean they be the sort of things other adventurers would probably be trying to pawn off.

There will be no set prices. Every shady character decides what his items cost and what his market can bare

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Be very careful, once the PCs have met one or two or five of these shady characters, that your game doesn't devolve into buy low-sell high economics as they play the market. (it's for this reason that I rather artificially made the price for any given item almost always be the same no matter what)

Also, if you do vary the sell prices it's only logical that their buy prices will vary too: "+1 longsword? Hell, the streets are crawlin' with 'em - last summer I'd have given 1000 for one, but now? 500, tops. But hey, lots of demand for magic maces - I'll drop 1200 if you got a plus-one you wanna part with." But this is where you can end up DMing economics instead of monster-bashing and princess-rescuing - be warned.

Has anyone else done something like this? I know that magic sales is deeply frowned upon in the 5E community, but I have to believe that I'm not the only one. I'm curious what others experiences were.

What do your PCs do now with any surplus magic items they end up with? If they're able to somehow convert 'em into cash that immediately means somebody's buying them; and if there's any other adventurers in your world beyond the PCs they'll be hitting the same problem - they'll have stuff they want to sell or trade - and boom, there's yer magic market.

Lanefan

 

[cthulhu42]

And who are these shady characters? Why, they're just other adventuring parties trying to unload the magic gear they don't want or need.

Loose underworld types. Maybe not criminal, but mysterious at least.

How would you handle barter? Say for example said shady character had a +1 axe and the party's Dwarf had a +1 sword but would prefer an axe just because; if the Dwarf offered a straight-up swap what would happen?

Also, what happens if-when the PCs want to trade or sell magic items to each other? You had an example of a Dwarf trying to save up for a belt of dwarvenkind; could he sell his +1 sword to a fellow party member for the full 5000 in order to raise some of that cash? (in other words, buy it from me instead of from that shady character - at least you know you can trust the vendor!)

That's entirely up to the PC's. As DM I don't, and shouldn't, have any say in what they do with their gold and items between themselves.

The rarity of the vendors doesn't matter. The key thing is that the items available for sale be either completely random, or random but logical by which I mean they be the sort of things other adventurers would probably be trying to pawn off.

The rarity of the vendors most certainly does matter. As it stands, there's no guarantee that said shady character will be there next time you come through the city. And even if he is, there's no guarantee his inventory will be the same. This lends a sense of drama and urgency to the whole process.

Be very careful, once the PCs have met one or two or five of these shady characters, that your game doesn't devolve into buy low-sell high economics as they play the market. (it's for this reason that I rather artificially made the price for any given item almost always be the same no matter what)

If they want to play Merchants & Moneybags, they'll have to find another DM. If they don't mind handing their characters over to me to become magic item vendor NPC's, that's cool, but I don't see it happening. I keep them pretty busy, what with saving the world and stuff.

Also, if you do vary the sell prices it's only logical that their buy prices will vary too: "+1 longsword? Hell, the streets are crawlin' with 'em - last summer I'd have given 1000 for one, but now? 500, tops. But hey, lots of demand for magic maces - I'll drop 1200 if you got a plus-one you wanna part with." But this is where you can end up DMing economics instead of monster-bashing and princess-rescuing - be warned.

Again, we're all there to play D&D. Monopoly is for other nights.

What do your PCs do now with any surplus magic items they end up with? If they're able to somehow convert 'em into cash that immediately means somebody's buying them; and if there's any other adventurers in your world beyond the PCs they'll be hitting the same problem - they'll have stuff they want to sell or trade - and boom, there's yer magic market.

They don't really have "surplus" items. I've been fairly stingy with magic items up to this point. They certainly all have one or two good ones, but not many that they'd want to get rid of. I think they sold off a drift globe and a +1 sword to the shady character, and only got about 1050gp for them.

 

[CapnZapp]

The minimum thing 5E needs to do, in order to meaningfully adress the complaints, is...

...to stop handing out all that gold!

I mean, obviously I would prefer it if people liking castles and church donations still get to do that (=downtime ways to spend gold) while I get to purchase a new shiny magic weapon (=uptime way to spend gold), at least if the heroes are kept perpetually poor, the game would at least still make sense, and they could be motivated by even paltry sums.

But the worst of all worlds is when high-level heroes bathe in gold but the devs don't fully support "uptime-only" campaigns like mine.

 

[happyhermit]

The minimum thing 5E needs to do, in order to meaningfully adress the complaints, is...

...to stop handing out all that gold!
...

My 5e books don't hand out any gold

There are some optional charts and stuff for treasure that I can use but left to their own devices the books just sit there.

 

[CapnZapp]

My 5e books don't hand out any gold

There are some optional charts and stuff for treasure that I can use but left to their own devices the books just sit there.

Tell that to Storm King's Thunder...

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[happyhermit]

Tell that to Storm King's Thunder...

I did, the response, which came in a booming voice straight into my mind was; "There is a place in the introduction that explains how within my pages there lies a vast amount of treasure, it gives guidance on adjusting the amount of GP depending on factors that the GM can perceive." it then added "As my creators have mentioned time and time again, the GM/table has the final say on the rules of the game, let alone details like this in a non-rulebook. They know (or should) the actual circumstances of the players and characters better than an object composed of paper can ever hope to. They might be continuing their dark research into animating us books or trapping spirits within, but until then these things are the job of the GM."

 

[Severite]

The minimum thing 5E needs to do, in order to meaningfully adress the complaints, is...

...to stop handing out all that gold!

I mean, obviously I would prefer it if people liking castles and church donations still get to do that (=downtime ways to spend gold) while I get to purchase a new shiny magic weapon (=uptime way to spend gold), at least if the heroes are kept perpetually poor, the game would at least still make sense, and they could be motivated by even paltry sums.

But the worst of all worlds is when high-level heroes bathe in gold but the devs don't fully support "uptime-only" campaigns like mine.

Well.....here is the thing though, as long as you minimize the +1 style equipment, the game handles magic items just fine. The only real danger that I have seen is for items that break the bounded accuracy of the game. As a side note, as for using gold to improve their characters. It is an interesting shift for me to consider your specific plight, as I run a strong mix of "downtime" and "uptime". My characters level up when they reach a sanctuary, and it takes a weeks worth of downtime per four levels. In my game, a wizard can literally turn money into spell options, for instance, but he needs time and laboratory to really "up production" enough to get more than his two spells a level, which is also part of the investment, with every other class beinble to spend investment capital on growth as well.

Always uptime.......does that mean that there is never any long term passing of time during the game, say, as an example, traveling by ship for a few weeks?

 

[Tallifer]

I also run a campaign in Eberron which is supposed to be rich in magic, so I provide magick shoppes, rituals from 4th Edition, elemental items, dragon shards, and various other stuff. I have also populated various places with cookie gnomes who bake magical cookies, talking beavers and dancing bears, a pumpkin spice dragon, ice cream dinosaurs, toothpaste golems, patchwork clothforged, turducken and many other creatures good for magical components.

 

[CapnZapp]

Well.....here is the thing though, as long as you minimize the +1 style equipment, the game handles magic items just fine. The only real danger that I have seen is for items that break the bounded accuracy of the game.

Well, the problem isn't on the back end (how the game performs with heroes wielding magic stuff).

The problem is on the front end. How the heroes gain said stuff. Finding it is one thing, but that's not what this thread is about. It's about buying it.

And 5th edition basically does not support it. (Rarity is useless as a pricing mechanism)

I get that they wanted to get away from 3rd edition's "magic mart" situation. But not supporting this in the core three books is one thing.

Not supporting it through an optional supplement even years after release is unforgivable.

Especially since the game defaults to handing out mountains of gold that you can't use for anything (unless you feature downtime in your campaign, which pretty much no official campaign supplement does, and some players simply has no interest in).