Avalability of Magic Items

[Paraxis]

According to the DMG you can buy items based on the size of the town you are in given a max gold piece limit. This makes sense as a start.
The problem that all D&D published worlds and to an extent most home games if you follow the list in whatever the big city in the world is the limit is 100,000 gold.
Thats the ability to go in to a store and buy almost anything in the DMG(this is stupid on the 2 main levels of the game)
1-Game balance, this is broken, makes item creation feats for characters near pointless, and lets everyone have not only MY maul of the titans but their own luckblade,ring of spell turning, or apparatus of kwalish.
2-Makes no sense in even a high magic, high population place like Sharn. Who gaurds these items, who even lets others know they have them to sell with the posibility of theft. Every one down on his luck would try and kill and rob the merchant.

The reason for the avaliblity is game balance at higher levels, high CR monsters need powerful items in party to defeat them. So you need to make items available to the party, and them always finding what they need as treasure is silly.

Anyway here is my idea.

First selling items, as per books get half cost on most items, trade goods should give you about 100% so gems and jewels give you full gp value like a sheep or barrel of wheat would.
Magic items should give you either full in low magic worlds to half in high magic worlds(like ebberon, where it should be easy to sell to an artificer they can cosume the xp if they dont want to resell it and use the xp to make other items)

Now about finding the items.
It is easy to find non-magical items up to 10% of the gold piece max of community.
So in a throp anyone can find an item valued at 4 gold or less just by checking the local market. In a metropolis up to 10,000 gold piece item, so anything out of PHB except for Galley,Longship,&Warship.

Next to find more expensive items requires a roll.
I am thinking of using Gather Information.
DC-10 item up to 25% of town gold limit.(no magic)
DC-15 item up to 50% of town gold limit.(no magic)
DC-20 item up to 100% of town gold limit.(wands,scrolls,potions)
DC-25 other magic items up to 10%
DC-30 other magic items up to 25%
DC-35 other magic items up to 50%
DC-40 other magic items up to 100%

This would mean for example in Sharn, that with a good roll or time even someone with no skill points in Gather Information can find potions,wands, and scrolls. It is harder to find a +2 sword but it is possible for a first level rogue. Gather info takes 1d4+1 hours and I think this is reasonable for shopping as well. Also in Gather info repeat tries might attract unwanted attention. It will get out that you are looking so spend 8,000 gold on that +2 sword and unsavory types will think you are a good mark.

Any feedback is welcome.

 

[drexes]

Removed because apparently I was tired and really really really stupid!

Drexes

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Paraxis.. I like this idea. It looks balanced and provides more character interaction in purchasing items. It also makes the social characters important to even a hard core 'dungeonsonlykillthemonster' party.
This is also a pretty good compromise between full blown trade/bargaining rules and the typical hand-wave style.

...Presuming, of course, that the rule is prefaced by a "Use of this rule does not guarentee that the looked for item exists in this town. If this is the case, a successful check will determine that the item is not present."

*yoink*

 

[drexes]

Doh!

I will now present myself for public ridicule and flogging. If none are willing I shall thrash myself soundly with a wet squirrel. Please hold on while I get in contact with my nasty inner masochist.

Seriously, I should know better than to read and post while tired. Upon further review I really like what you have up above and think I will use it myself. It seems balanced and uses an often overlooked skill. I don't know what I was doing earlier but it certainly wasn't thinking.

My apologies for not giving this the more careful and thoughtful review it deserved. I don't know if I'll allow taking twenty but I do like the rerolls might have consequences effect.

 

[Paraxis]

Thanks and yes taking out the (take a 20) is a good idea would attract to much attention and take 20d4+20 hours anyway. And yes, the idea is to streamline things abit, if the DM does not want to have an item avalible of course it won't be there and yes after a check thats what the players would believe (or know).

Do you guys use any random way of determining if an item is for sale in a town at all I would be interested to see them. I like what I have for the players finding the item.
I don't mind using my own judgement I just want something as a guildine.

 

[drexes]

You might add some kind of modifiers for appropriate locale and stuff. Like a sliding scale of mods For example:

You get a +2/-2 to the check for cultural stuff, locale, environment factors, etc.

+2 to find boots of elvenkind in elven city
-2 to find cold weather gear in a desert city

Honestly though I think if you did this you would lose out on how streamlined the system you originally presented is.

Hrmm...

I'll think on it some more...

Drexes

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, with local factors, do remember:

Sure, a cold weather get up is going to be rare in a desert....
But anyone who has one is liable to be perfectly willing to dispose of it.

Sure, elven boots are going to be more common in an Elven city....
But who wants to be caught dead at court without proper footwear?

They may be harder to find, but easier to convince someone to part with (effectively useless to the person) or easier to find, but less ready to be done without (Dang it! I use these! They aren't for sale!)

And, of course, there's always the possibility of not finding the item, but finding someone willing to take a comission (e.g., cold weather gear in the desert) in a reasonable amount of time.

 

[Clay_More]

I have to admit that I like these rules, almost makes me feel like they should have been implemented in the game from the start. I will definitely *yoink* them for my own use.

I think I might add some modifiers to various races etc. For example, the possibility of finding magic items in an Orc society will be decreased, the possibility of finding armor in a Dwarf society will be increased, etc.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Over in General there is a thread on Wal-Magic with a thought that would be worth unearthing this thread to see how to further tweak the HR..

Do your players sell magic items the same way? In on 2ed Forgotten Realms campaign I hand-waved magic item selling to 1/2 of its value, unless you take the time and money to find a seller.

Can we turn this table around for selling items?

 

[Paraxis]

The characters wish to sell some loot off after their latest haul.

Hand waving and doing the half the listed price is fast and easy, but is a little too simple if they don't want a +1 shocking/ +1 flaming gnome hookhammer made for a medium sized person who will, not that many gnomes with monkey grip or humans with the exotic prof.

First this depends on campain to campain, I honestly like what having an artificer does to this whole mechanic in a game, most would be willing to take it off your hands so they can gather the xp and add it to their craft reserve. So in worlds with classes like that, it should be a little easier.

Other off topic idea is to allow anyone with the same craft feat that made the item gather the xp and add to a craft pool, this would be good in games where there are no artificers.

But what if you just want to sell that hook hammer and we don't have either of the above two options in play. Well we could reverse engineer the chart from above and see if we could find someone willing to pay you half the cost like normal, basicly you make same gather info check as to find a seller but now you are looking for a buyer if found he will pay the normal purchase price that is in campain ( I would suggest the standard half base price).

But if you come up short you find someone willing to purchase it for say 30%(of total cost not 30% of the 50%) if DC is missed by 5 or less, 25% 10 to 6 less, and 10% if more (someone will know its a good deal) now this assumes that the town or city can afford to purchase item given guildlines for wealth by population.

What this does is make more chances for character interaction, more encounters with npc's (have a couple buyers and sellers of rare things pre-made, suggestions universities,churches,rich collecors, other adventurers, theives guilds, cult members, powerful wizards, ect...).

But the party never makes more then they should, keeps them from abusing the economics and trying to scam.

Still takes 1d4+1 hours and still will attract to much unwanted attention on multiple tries, rogues will want to relieve them of the shiny object they are trying to sell since they wanted to get rid of it anyway.

If these rules are used I would recomend letting others aid other to help out since its probably whole party trying to do this anyway and maybe open gather info to more classes since it now becomes something everyparty will want to have. That or have NPC fences who are good at the skill and have contacts that help but for a price (say 10% off the PC's cut either way, but this then realy negates the purpose of this system?)

I am just tossing stuff out there and seeing what sticks, what do you like and not like?