DMs against the Magical Wal-Mart

[DragonLancer]

What about other items that are much more expensive than most magic items but are completely non-magical, like some of the better armor types?

In our society, cars are pretty damn expensive, and yet we see dealers all over the place.

What about items like a ring of climbing, which is way cheaper than a large number of mundane items that most certainly can be found in most cities? Or is it that items of any type, magic or non-magic, cannot be found if over a certain price? Yet does that price really reconcile with the very cheap non-potion/scroll magic items?

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.

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.

 

[Faraer]

If it's a typical D&D "high fantasy" world, like Forgotten Realms, then I have no problem with magic items being sold in stores. With all those mid- to high-level adventurers running around, looking to exchange all that magic loot they plundered from dungeons and what not; and with all those dwarves, alchemists, and wizards looking to profit from the many magic items they create; then why wouldn't there be an open market for magic items? Especially in big, cosmopolitan cities such as Waterdeep.

The Realms pioneered magic items defined by their history and not +X commodities with Ed Greenwood's many "Bazaar of the Bizarre" and "Pages from the Mages" articles. In Volo's Guide to All Things Magical you see how complex and difficult making permanent magic items is, until 3E made the process simpler. If a D&D "high fantasy" world has magic shops, the Realms isn't one.

Forgotten Realms has specific magic shops set up.

One chain of them, employs a central storage location, with nodes that sell said items through what amounts to teleportation.

Aurora's? It doesn't sell magic items, and it doesn't fit the overall Realms anyway.

For myself, discovering and winning a magic item is far more satisfying than buying one. Did the D&D designers think otherwise? Why exactly did they make these changes -- to give wizard and priest players more 'options' and to match the CR/EL system?

Just as much, it's a genre matter. The official D&D-fantasy genre now has a magic item trade, whereas most kinds of heroic fantasy don't.

 

[Altalazar]

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.

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.

So a +1 magical longsword basically could be traded for ten million gold pieces, becaue it is essentially priceless?

Does it take a wizard a "priceless" amount of effort to make even a simple item such as that? Even if you increase the prices 10-fold, there are still going to be items that aren't all that expensive or difficult for a wizard to make - like the aforementioned +1 longsword. Or is there only one wizard in the world and do his efforts to make that one long sword take fifty years and nearly kill him, and now it is the only magical weapon in the land?

At some point, unless you have something like the above, economics dictates that there WILL be items for sale somewhere and the price will be reasonable, not 10 million gold pieces for a +1 rusty dagger.

Of course, if you truly do have a rare magic system like that where even the simplest items is worth more than ten kingdoms combined, you would start to ask yourself - would anyone really trade even one kingdom for it, when a regular army with regular swords would be more than a match for the hero with his +1 longsword. In other words, sometimes, things are worth far less on the market than they cost to make. Which means it is rather uneconomical to make them - but once they are made, they are rather cheaper than you would expect. Sort of like the fact that it can cost a huge amount of money to build a house in a wooded, swampy area, but once you are done, the cost to clear the area and make it suitable for the house may actually exceed the value you could get for the house on the market by a rather large factor - there is no economic rule that says someone is willing to pay a certain price for something in any ratio related to its actual cost.

So, really, how rare is magic? Could you could the number of magic weapons on one hand in the entire world?

And as for "damn well keeping it" - what if the said owner of that +3 longsword slips and falls off of a cliff. His possessions are then found and end up on the market - or even better, they are sent back to his 67 year old grandmother, who has no use whatsoever for a sword, magical or not. But she does need money to live out her retirement. So she sells it. I'm sure I could think up a thousand other such scenarios. An item, magical or not, is out there in the flow of commerce. And everyone has their price.

 

[DragonLancer]

As I say its not the material cost of the item, its the fact that it is magical. It has a magical effect as opposed to a MW plough that helps a farmer prepare his field.

It depends on the nature of your world, so the way you govern this is going to be different to myself or any other DM.

And as for "damn well keeping it" - what if the said owner of that +3 longsword slips and falls off of a cliff. His possessions are then found and end up on the market - or even better, they are sent back to his 67 year old grandmother, who has no use whatsoever for a sword, magical or not. But she does need money to live out her retirement. So she sells it. I'm sure I could think up a thousand other such scenarios. An item, magical or not, is out there in the flow of commerce. And everyone has their price.

Then she could of course try and sell it for as much as someone was willing to pay for it. I'm not trying to say otherwise, but this isn't going to be a common occurence.

 

[Altalazar]

As I say its not the material cost of the item, its the fact that it is magical. It has a magical effect as opposed to a MW plough that helps a farmer prepare his field.

It depends on the nature of your world, so the way you govern this is going to be different to myself or any other DM.



Then she could of course try and sell it for as much as someone was willing to pay for it. I'm not trying to say otherwise, but this isn't going to be a common occurence.

Yes, I understand the uncommon part. Uncommon doesn't necessarily mean all that valuable, however. It still boils down to economics. Perhaps I overanlyze things, but it always gives me an itch when I see things that don't quite seem to add up the way things really work.

I suppose one way to find out just how much a magical item is worth in your world would be to find out from your players - who have played with you a while and have learned just how rare magic items is - how much gold they would take to part with a particular item. You may find out it is a lot less than you think. Of course, part of economic theory is that certain things are more valuable to one person than another - it is, in fact, the reason we have trade at all - if I have an apple and you have an orange and if I value oranges more than apples and you value apples more than oranges, then we are going to trade apples for oranges (I'll leave the exact theory for how many of each for an exchange for someone far more ambitious than me). In other words, a magic ring of jumping might be pretty cool, but if you don't have any legs because King Arthur chopped them off in a duel, it really won't hold much value for you and you'll probably sell it - perhaps to get gold for a nice wheelchair and a servant to help take care of you in your legless state. The fact that the ring is "magic" still really doesn't mean it is useful for you. Even the Mona Lisa might not be all that valuable to a blind man.

Now I'm really off into theory-land...

 

[DragonLancer]

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?

But thats a different argument perhaps.

 

[Staffan]

In our society, cars are pretty damn expensive, and yet we see dealers all over the place.

From what I recall from my logistics class, almost all new cars sold today are made to order. In other words, Volvo doesn't make a car and hope they can sell it, they wait until someone has ordered a car (and decided what color they want it in, what optioins they want, and so on) before they actually make it. I view magic items (and other expensive things) in a similar way - it's relatively easy to find people who are willing to make them, but you may have to wait a while before you get it.

 

[Altalazar]

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?

But thats a different argument perhaps.

Whether they can be bought and sold over the counter is actually a different issue from how much they actually cost when you do manage to find one. There is some relation between the two, but not as much as you might think.

So you might look, rather in vain, for a specific item, but if you are just looking to buy a "magic item" of some type, odds are you will be able to locate someone in a big city who actually has an item for sale, and it may not even cost that much. It is another question entirely whether it is even worth it to you to buy the item - if it isn't something you can use, perhaps you wouldn't. Or perhaps you would, in hopes of using it, along with gold, to acquire another item later on. A chance to acquire an "orange" to later trade for an "apple". In my games, magic items aren't exactly abundant. Specific items are far easier to commission than find. Potions and scrolls are the only thing generally in "abundance" (if you can call it that). You may find the odd shop or person with a magical item for sale, but it isn't like it is over the counter. It is more like finding an old, retired Dwarf, who runs an inn, and has a battered old, yet definitely magical, shield hanging over the mantle in the common room of the inn. He certainly has plenty of stories to tell about that shield. And pehaps he'll even part with it, for some gold, or perhaps if you do something for him...

I like magic being reasonably rare and interesting. I try and place items (in treasure and as rewards for jobs) that the players will find useful for their character concepts such that they never really feel much need to go looking to buy a specific item. That has worked out rather well.

 

[WayneLigon]

In our society, cars are pretty damn expensive, and yet we see dealers all over the place.

Any comparison I can think of with our own economy isn't really valid. These people don't have a concept of economies of scale since they can't mass-produce things. They also have no concept of interchangable parts. Each and every thing crafted is unique, and craftsmen rarely if ever share trade secrets. Innovations take years, decades, sometimes centuries to manifest, if they don't simply die with the creator. Transport times are slow at the best of times; materials needed might take weeks or months to arrive.

Generally, I let people buy a number of things within limit; I'll go through the DMG when I'm looking at an area, and decide what artificers (casters that have decided to take the item creation feats) exist, where they exist, and what they are capable of. Most casters never get above second or third level, so low-level potions and the like are both somewhat common and within the average adventurer's price range. I look at them like fine wines; everyone has heard of them, but few people buy them because they are usually more than the normal person wants to pay.

For important items, I may roll up the artificer in question and see what spells he has access to.

To get what they want, they might have to go to two or more artificers, widely separated. Here, to get a masterwork sword magiced to +1, here to put Fire Burst on it, and there to get Keen put on it. Lots of time, dangerous encounters, possibility of the artificer saying 'sorry, the Duke has told me to craft six magical longswords as gifts for his leigemen; that, along with my regular duties, will take my time for the next couple of months'.

 

[Trainz]

I thought that today's Order of the Stick comic was really appropriate to this thread...