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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 714617" data-attributes="member: 4937">My economy is largely based on real medieval economics.  Almost all manufactured goods are made to order.   This most certainly includes almost all magic items.  There is certainly nothing like a 'magic shop', but there are also equally certainly various expert craftsman who will for a suitable commission undertake to make just about anything. Now, that doesn't mean the thing gets made, or that the craftsman isn't a charlatan (appraisal!), or that the PC's can find someone skilled enough to do the work (gather information!), or that craftsman decides he doesn't like these PC's all that much and overcharges them (diplomacy!), or that the craftsman in question isn't already under commission by someone far more powerful and prestigious than the PC's, or that the craftsman doesn't do work for the general public and requires an appropriate referal, or that the craftsman doesn't require the PC's to perform some service first, or that the craftsman simply isn't interested in making things for anyone because he is to busy with his own personal projects, etc.I have alot of problems with magic shops.  First they harm the atmosphere of the game and drag it unnecessarily into a modern paradigm (and all of the usual lack of role playing that normally goes along with that).  Secondly, they tend to reduce NPC interaction in the PC's heads down to the level of menus, and in a larger way turn all of society into some sort of rule based machine that the PC's plan to exchange X input for Y output.  All of this is a fine mechanic for a CRPG, but frankly if that is the way you want to play you probably should be playing a CRPG.Thirdly, they kill the value of taking feats that allow you to craft items for yourself.  Why spend your own XP when you can pay some smuck to spend it for you?Fourthly, on a very basic level they fail my realism test.  In fact, I've often wondered why magic swords are all that common in the first place.   Think about it.  All magic swords are made by wizards.  Making magic swords requires alot of investment in time and money and in the intangible but all important things that XP represent.  Wizards can't use swords.  Wizards have no use for swords, and any wizard with a brain is going to realize that if those sword swingers didn't have magic swords they'd be alot less dangerous to wizards in general.  Why spend your time making magic swords, when you could be making wands and other equipment far more useful to yourself.  If you must sell something of yourself to raise some cash, sell your spell casting.  There is no end of practical labor you can accomplish with a few simple spells.  Selling spells makes alot more economic sense; if only because it keeps the customer dependent on you rather than putting the power in thier hands.  Hense we would expect there to be a rather large premium on non-wizardly magic items, and we would expect the largest producers of such items to not be wizards at all.  And we all know that the various churches are going to have thier own reasons for restricting access to magic items.Fifthly, they cheapen magic items to the point that they are no longer considered all that special.  I'm shocked when players talk about specific items as just part of thier standard kit sorta like rope and spikes and torches used to be.  Time was a +2 sword was a pretty special thing.  I started in 1st edition myself and time was that by 10th level you'd only expect 1 miscellaneous magic item for about every two party members.  The party would probably acquire its first +2 magic item sometime between 7th and 10th level, and noone in the party had expectations of getting hold of much better than a +3 at any point.  The assumption was that there might be only a few +5 items in the entire world, and they were the sort of items that a DM felt utterly ashamed of himself to place and would only with trepidation place them in some impossible to reach utterly deadly location.  Compare how well a 3rd. edition party is equipped to pregenerated PC's in 1st edition modules.  If I'm not mistaken, DL had 10th level characters that had only a single +1 magic item.  Tomb of Horrors is not a particularly nightmarish module for a very well equipped party.  It is a particularly nightmarish module for a party equipped similarly to the pregenerated characters in the back of it.</blockquote>

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