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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 714215" data-attributes="member: 9254">I'm not sure how you can have a 3e game without the ability to  buy items per the DMG rules without a crapload of DM deus ex machina. Opponents have to be selected carefully and random encounters have to be less random.    Most DMs are too lazy/insufficiently detail oriented to do this well.   When I'm a player, nothing ticks me off more than to be up against purely randomly generated opponents in a game with serious limitations to the available items.  From an in-game perspective, are there no temples?  Do clerics not make and sell potions to increase their church's coffers?  Are there no cash-poor apprentice mages selling scrolls of identify to bards and rogues?  No mages past the adventuring age enchanting items in return for cash to live a golden twilight?  No adventurers selling off much of their gear to buy a nice villa on the coast?  Despite those opinions, I argue against ubiquitous magic shops.  Economics denies it.  Look, a shop where everything is even  slightly magical at all would have a huge GP/sq.ft ratio; as big if not bigger than a jewlery store.  The security must be quite effective and apply to both magic and mundane means.  Therefore the cost of entry barrier is high.  Temples and mages' guilds will likely have some, if not all, of those defenses already so they are merely optimizing their resources.  Anyone else has a high fiscal wall to climb.In my world, temples and guilds sell or act as clearing houses for magic items.  Most of their "inventory" is in potions and scrolls along with a few "standard" items (+1 or +2 longsword, shortsword, longbow, shortbow, chainshirt, halfplate, arrows, item of protection/resistance).  Truely neat things (e.g. shocking burst mace+1 of disruption) are sold at auctions, typically during fairs.  The players keep a list of which cities have fairs when and make plans to be present; in some cases paying for rooms at the inn months in advance.  They like attending just to get an idea of who else in the region has that much cash.   Security is incredibly tight and the local thieves' guild is paid to both stay away and offered a bounty for thieves caught in the act.Not to mention the plot hooks.  "So Mr. Bond, we meet again." "Bidding on the Vorpal Hat, are we Oddjob?"</blockquote>

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