DMs against the Magical Wal-Mart

[Saeviomagy]

As a first-time acquaintance of mine on these forums once said, “This is astute.” The idea that magic items are commodities, more than mere products is a great place to start when designing a system of governance for their distribution and acquisition by PCs. However, this seems to hint at a lower-than-average power campaign world, because…


Azlan isn’t wrong here. In a society where magicians are common, magic items will be more common as well. Aas many have pointed out, the rules have built in control…


There are a few problems with even this model, though….


Great, but one question that arises from even this simple assumption is: Why would a wizard, who knows his rivals can gain actual spell knowledge from scrolls, sell anything but the most common spells? Some magicians would be loath to carry potent scrolls on themselves when traveling for fear of such an item falling into enemy hands. Even scrolls can be very powerful. It could be that….
EDIT: Added some space!

What rivals? Since when is every wizard in the world on some bizarre form of magical arms race? Look at the modern world - there ARE people out there who will not only SELL their knowledge to anyone, they will give away valuable intellectual property! To all comers! How many free RPGs can you download off the net? How many free programs can you download (genuinely free, not illegal stuff)?

Seekers of knowledge are also often people who enjoy sharing that knowledge.

Unless in your world magic carries some sort of paranoia-inducing taint, wizards are not going to (as a rule) refuse service on the basis of their competitors.

Its not the monetary value that I consider, its the value of it being a magical item. I view such things as being priceless really.

How? Someone makes them, they cost a finite amount of money and time to make, and as often as not, the creator will be unable to use the item he has made. Sounds like a standard luxury item to me.

I also do not like the "magic as technology" aspect of some campaign worlds. You can't just walk into a weaponsmith's and buy a +3 longsword. You would have to find a wizard willing to spend the time and effort to make one, or craft it yourself. Anyone who has a magic item is going to damn well keep it.

Bollocks. As soon as you own a +1 longsword, and find a +2 longsword, you can bet your bottom dollar that your players will be treating that +1 like it's trash. Statements such as "oh, it's in the bag with all our other crap" were commonly made regarding magical items in "there is no magical item market" 2nd ed D&D.

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

I got a question for all the haters here. What do you do when a player wants to get rid of a useless item?

"Ahh yea sorry Sam your just going to have to drop the flamming burst greatsword because I don't allow magic shops."

That's real nice. So you don't allow magic shops, so as the same rule applies it would be very difficult to sell magic items. Every adventuring group would/does end up with things that they don't want. By allowing them to sell it they can easily move on. After all wealth to some pc's is important. Weither they want to make their own items, build keeps, buy beer and ladies err.. company, or even pay their retianers.

For those of you who try to hamper your players who want to buy magic items by raising prices you only keep things equal. If the party sells the Flamming Burst Greatsword for a few hundred thousand gold, they can still afford the over priced items that they wanted to buy anyway.

In a real fantasy world there will always be trade in commodities that people want, like magic. By cutting out ALL magic shops you only hurt your players. The correct thing to do is to restrict content. "Sorry sir, no Helms of brilliance in stock." By doing this you allow for some items that they players want and still encourage them to make their own, IF they can. Not every group is going to have a wizard/cleric with ALL of the item creation feats. There's other things they probebly want to be able to do.

 

[Pants]

I got a question for all the haters here. What do you do when a player wants to get rid of a useless item?

Well, if I were to make a snarky, sarcastic, and possibly mean spirited reply to this, I'd say 'In such campaigns, magic items are NEVER useless.'
But I'd never say anything like that... *whistles*

Also, there seems to be the idea floating around here that most people who advocate the 'low magic' are really advocating 'rare' magic. So, adventurers are just as likely to find a +5 Flaming Burst Keen Longsword as they are to find a +1 Longsword. If this is the case, adventurers are most likely going to stick with signature weapons for a long time and will probably never need to buy or sell a magical weapon.

 

[Campbell]

I got a question for all the haters here. What do you do when a player wants to get rid of a useless item?

"Ahh yea sorry Sam your just going to have to drop the flamming burst greatsword because I don't allow magic shops."

That's real nice. So you don't allow magic shops, so as the same rule applies it would be very difficult to sell magic items. Every adventuring group would/does end up with things that they don't want. By allowing them to sell it they can easily move on. After all wealth to some pc's is important. Weither they want to make their own items, build keeps, buy beer and ladies err.. company, or even pay their retianers.

It's largely dependent on the campaign setting that's in use in our games, but generally PCs end up dealing with a fence if they're primarily after monetary compensation. This is espicially true if they came upon given items through less than suitable means.

Magical wealth can also be used as means of gaining political leverage with a variety of groups. Additionally,their supply of magic items may be used to outfit chosen retainers, and allies.

This also generally applies to dangerous mundane equipment, although such equipment is generally easier to come by since may be created without an expenditure of a caster's life force. Magic iteams might even cost less to purchase, but in our games the acquisition process will generally take more time.

In a real fantasy world there will always be trade in commodities that people want, like magic. By cutting out ALL magic shops you only hurt your players. The correct thing to do is to restrict content. "Sorry sir, no Helms of brilliance in stock." By doing this you allow for some items that they players want and still encourage them to make their own, IF they can.

It's not really the assertion that the commodities will be traded that is bothersome. It's the general assertion that people in a fantasy world can go to a 'shop' to buy magic items that gets to the people I game with, or that such items are mass-produced. It seems to me that potentially dangerous goods should not be traded on the open market in most places, espicially when such equipment requires master craftsmanship, and a partial heaping of a spell caster's life force.

Not every group is going to have a wizard/cleric with ALL of the item creation feats. There's other things they probebly want to be able to do.

The rules in the Artificer's Handbook have helped ease the burden in our group.

Summary: I understand your concerns, and I agree that DMs should receive player feedback on the issue, before they make any decisions. Issues like magic item shops are a good part of what I love about roleplaying games; if the group of people you game with likes to do things a certain way, that's the right way.

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

Well, if I were to make a snarky, sarcastic, and possibly mean spirited reply to this, I'd say 'In such campaigns, magic items are NEVER useless.'
But I'd never say anything like that... *whistles*

Never useless? My character concept calls for my character to weild an ax. How is a flaming sword useful. It's not, you sell it and then use the cash to have somebody make you an flaming ax, it that's what your after.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Then you could also look at game balance, if magic items can be bought and sold over the counter, whats the point of the DM putting them in the adventure to be found by the players?

Well, the simple answer is that it doesn't always make sense. If I clear out a den of dire wolves, I'm not expecting to find a +1 sword in their cave. Nor am I expecting to find a pile of gold...but if, say, I find one half-chewed suit of enchanted leather armor that's worth the amount of treasure I'm supposed to get from this encounter, I can turn it into something useful back in town.

Similarly, magic items are also usable by the enemy...magic items in the adventure usually make the adventure a bigger challenge because that +1 longsword is also useful to that goblin barbarian who's charging down the corridor at you, and you're only going to get it if you pry it from his cold, dead hands. And if your party has all the +1 longswords they need, they can then trade it in for something worthwhile.

There's also variance, and region. Magic items can be baught-and-sold, but the nearest place that sells the expensive items you want is a week away from this tough frontier town next to the dungeon. You can introduce unique magic items, magic items with a history, and magic items with significant campaign-building power (that +1 longsword the goblin is wielding is a part of history, forged by the dwarven smiths when they ruled the world long ago). And the wilderness or dungeon is not a great place to re-equip.....the enemy monk just sundered your favored weapon, and you've got a sacrifice to stop before sunrise, are you going to bother to hike back three days to town to get a weapon, or just take the flaming dagger from the skeleton's bony grasp and use it as best you can?

And, best of all, versatility. While you can insert magic items into dungeons, you no longer *have* to. You can insert a priceless portrait of a long-lost queen instead, and have no fear that when the PC's give this back to the family for their thousands-of-GP reward that they won't be screwed over in terms of power. You can make the gem fragments in the hearts of dire wolves that have been mutating them into the treasure, and still not worry about the wizard who decided to specialize in two-weapon-fighting finding a decent quarterstaff to wield.

So if there is no reason to insert magic weapons into the adventure other than 'it makes sense,' it's a good thing -- it means you don't have to come up for a reason why, say, a nest of cockatrice was sitting on hundreds of gold peices. They could just have been incubating a single gem as an egg, and the party would be no weaker for it.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Never useless? My character concept calls for my character to weild an ax. How is a flaming sword useful. It's not, you sell it and then use the cash to have somebody make you an flaming ax, it that's what your after.

The DM might put in a monster that's immune to axes (but vulnerable to flaming swords) just so he can 'prove' that you should have kept it.

Geoff.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmmm... a few cents of mine to rile up the flames

First off, it is not a matter of hating shops or not, but the type of campaign world. If heroes are a rare breed, then magic is prolly rare as well. If your average square mile contains three temples of elemental evil being 'camped' by twenty odd different adventuring groups taking turns to get in, you'll prolly have craploads of magic floating around which'll eventually end up at the local Magic Mart / Everything for a Dollar store.

As for a PC saying 'I built my character around an axe', what nonsense. Learn to improvise. Be a little flexible. And, in my own opinion, what a qaint way to build a PC. Does s/he have an axe fetish? Sure, maybe s/he likes the axe best, has all kinds of feats around it, well, go around trying to trade your +1 sword you just found for a +1 axe, in the meantime, either save the sword for trading or use it when necessary. Sheesh...

 

[Whisper72]

Trainz: that Order of the Stick comic is a good one... maybe I'll use it in an April Fools themed DND session ......

 

[hong]

Hmmm... a few cents of mine to rile up the flames

Okay.

First off, it is not a matter of hating shops or not, but the type of campaign world. If heroes are a rare breed, then magic is prolly rare as well. If your average square mile contains three temples of elemental evil being 'camped' by twenty odd different adventuring groups taking turns to get in, you'll prolly have craploads of magic floating around which'll eventually end up at the local Magic Mart / Everything for a Dollar store.

Irrelevant.

As for a PC saying 'I built my character around an axe', what nonsense.

The concept of a character who masters one weapon is one that's as old as the hills. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to want to play in D&D, in the absence of other information about the campaign.

Now a DM might say that weapon masters are a foreign concept for the world they've created, for social or cultural reasons. Such a culture would be one that's itself rather at odds with the usual expectations of a fantasy culture, and so would probably require more detailed justification than normal. Be that as it may, a DM can still set the parameters for a campaign world to their liking, within limits. But a DM who doesn't like weapon masters purely because it's "inflexible" is clearly being an obstreperous dickhead, on par with a player who always takes maximally-twinked-out prestige class combos for "roleplaying" reasons.

I HAVE BEEN TROLLED. I HAVE LOST. I AM NOT HAVING A PARTICULARLY NICE DAY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.