SweeneyTodd
First Post
As an entirely separate point, remember 4e is also a game where the DMG encourages DMs to ask the players what sorts of magical items they'd want to have eventually, and then to place those in a future treasure parcel.
I'm sure lots of people looked at that, said "Unrealistic, it's out", and moved on... but this is a whole new system and the parts are very much designed to work together. (I don't think it's unrealistic at all -- the PCs aren't magically wishing for a certain item, the players are making requests and the DM is incorporating their ideas into the game fiction. Lots of other games do that.
Look at skill challenges for another example -- in one example a player says "Let's sneak into the local wizard's college to get this info", and the DMG recommends the DM say, okay, I hadn't thought about whether there was a wizard's college here, but it's plausible... so there is one now.
So all this stuff kinda fits together. If you want to place magical items with no sense of whether or not they'll actually be useful to the PCs, then you're already not going by the rulebooks recommendations, so at that point what's the harm in doubling resale value but halving the amount of magic items found?
I'm sure lots of people looked at that, said "Unrealistic, it's out", and moved on... but this is a whole new system and the parts are very much designed to work together. (I don't think it's unrealistic at all -- the PCs aren't magically wishing for a certain item, the players are making requests and the DM is incorporating their ideas into the game fiction. Lots of other games do that.
Look at skill challenges for another example -- in one example a player says "Let's sneak into the local wizard's college to get this info", and the DMG recommends the DM say, okay, I hadn't thought about whether there was a wizard's college here, but it's plausible... so there is one now.
So all this stuff kinda fits together. If you want to place magical items with no sense of whether or not they'll actually be useful to the PCs, then you're already not going by the rulebooks recommendations, so at that point what's the harm in doubling resale value but halving the amount of magic items found?