Do Magic Item "Shops" wreck the spirit of D&D?

[MerricB]

But I like to keep a tight reign on magic items anyway. A +1 weapon is a rare find, probably from a time long past. You'll want to keep it, especially since a magical creature may someday be encountered that requires such a weapon to hit it.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

Mind you, as Quasqueton will tell you, the idea of "rare magic items" in earlier editions is somewhat bunk when you look at the adventures.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Magic item shops don't ruin the spirit of D&D, as such, but making them as standard as the rules kinda sorta imply really strains an awful lot of settings.

Worth looking at the notes on magic item shops in the MIC.

Cheers!

 

[I'm A Banana]

But other magic? It's just too rare and expensive.

Part of me has never understood this mentality in a 3e D&D world (I can't speak with much experience to how common magic items are in earlier editions).

I mean, it's definitely possible to create a world in which magic items ARE rare and expensive, and they'll always be such to the "common folk" of the world, but for PC's? For adventurers?

I mean, in the real world, brave souls head into caves deep underground and emerge with something precious after risking life and limb. Say, gold.

In D&D, brave souls head into dungeons deep underground and emerge with something precious after risking life and limb. Say, a +1 sword.

Gold is melted down, turned around, transformed into art and jewelry and coinage.

Magic items are researched, distilled, displayed, and re-sold to those who want to buy 'em.

It seems to me that magic items are at least as common in a typical D&D world as gold, or platinum, or diamonds. Even assuming there's no one crafting these for market (which isn't a fair assumption, but it's not necessary to worry about here), just going with the trinkets recovered from dragon hoards and ancient ruins around the world....rare? Expensive? Yeah, I wouldn't expect Joe Commoner to get his paws on one, much like I wouldn't expect more than about 10% of the earth to get their paws on a solid gold watch, either. But they exist, there's a high-end market for them, and they are useful at least as displays of status, and often as much more (they are better-than-average items).

As far as the rules suggest (what with adventuring being not unique to the PC's), magic items don't seem to be very rare at all, among adventurers.

 

[Saladman]

Not for everybody, obviously, but for me they do. Actual stores with nothing but magic items on their shelves is something I have a hard time wrapping my brain around. Stores selling regular items with a handful of super-valuable items in the back is also odd. I am okay with players buying and selling magic items, but in a much more restricted way. Wealthy merchants, lords and high level wizards may have a handful of specific items they might be willing to part with for the right price. (Ditto the earlier poster on Gather Info, Knowl.-Nobility, etc.) In other words, I'll roll to see what's for sale if I need to abstract it; I ask my players to handle all magic item purchases at the table, and not just pencil it in out of session. This also means I don't make everything under X GP available in a city.

Parenthetically, I'm also open to the possibility of PCs selling items for anywhere from 50% to 100% of market price, depending on finding a motivated buyer. Practically speaking, they'll need to make some skill rolls and spend some time in game to get more than 50%. But its theoretically possible for a PC spellcaster to make money by crafting magic items on commission, if they have enough downtime to arrange it.

 

[Drowbane]

The only stuff I allow to be bought and sold anymore is potions. I've reduced the sale value of MI's to 1/10th of normal..it's a lower magic world anyways so it doesn't matter.

"Sure, you want 5 or 6 donkeys for that pretty sword, what did you call it? Vor-pallll? Whatever...I'll throw in my buck-toothed serving wench."
"Gee, thanks..how about a tank of ale too"
"Now, that's pushing it..how about as much ale as you can carry in your cupped hands?"
"DEAL"

jh

Hmm, you have a Vorpal sword and want his donkeys and ale. Seems pretty simple to me.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Okay midget, I see where you are coming from, but answer this then, if an escalatory situation as the one describe exists, then the market would plummet and the magic items would be worth less than the mundane.

My problem with magic item shops are myriad, first though magic is somewhat common place in the form of spell casters, even in previous editions the amount of resources to create an item was pretty hefty (scrolls and potions excluded - as the time and resources are both neglegible and plentiful). In 3.X the addition of XP cost even more so. (Merric, your argument is built on sand and amounts to because I said so... PCs are people too, if the rules cover them in a specific way NPCs are governed by the same rules in similar situations by default - and your point about monster slaying is valid, the only beef I have with the 3.X XP system is the lack of a 'real' alternate XP earning (the ones in the DMG don't hold much water))

The time and effort to guard against these items being stolen from a town full of mamby pamby NPCs (as pointed out so excellently earlier by Celebrim). More importantly as I stated in my first post is (by example) that if you own a +1 sword and find a +2 sword you should horde your +1 sword so when you have a retainer of some sort (I personally would want a house full of servants if I could afford it) especially a bodyguard or lieutenant to have that item and would guarantee their loyaty or at least make them more loyal. In a campaign I ran the party found a +2 set of Plate armor that no one wanted and a +3 longsword they gave them to a lowly 1st level fighter NPC - he immediately became the most loyal bodyguard (was just a highered 'gun') you ever did see. Offered to do guard duty, buy drinks, secure passage, etc because they just handed him a fortune in stuff.

And as an example of where rare and wonderous items end up in the real world - the go to National museums and become priceless artifacts. Think about this a second, inn the 14th century a folded steel samurai sword was uncommon, but nearly every peasant had seen one on the hip of a Samurai or Shogun to which they owed allegiance or a longsword in the western civilizations hung at the belt of every lord and knight as they rode off to the crusades. In the 20th century, each of these items if found are considered 'priceless' and if sold fetch 100s of 1000s and in some cases millions of dollars. So while the magic itself may be common or more to the point uncommon to the average person, the ararity of the items created by said magic shouldn't be considered ordinary or commonplace.

And as I said, items are out there, but not in a single location under a blinking neon sign that says 'Magic - slightly used, all sales final...' If so, I for one would be VERY wary about purchasing anything found there.

 

[MerricB]

Merric, your argument is built on sand and amounts to because I said so... PCs are people too, if the rules cover them in a specific way NPCs are governed by the same rules in similar situations by default

Which part of "PCs sell magic items for half-price, NPCs sell magic items for full-price" do you not understand?

 

[KiwiGlen]

I love magic shops, it's a great way to annoy the PCs with an irascible NPC owner, soak up excess cash in the form of good one-off magic buys (just in, 10 CLW potions, what, you want ALL of them?) and create adventure hooks

 

[molonel]

If it wrecked the spirit of the game, then doing so would hurt my game. Since my game has only improved because of magic item shops (which I used long long before 3e came out), I can confidently say that they do not wreck D&D.

There's a huge gap between "wreck the spirit of D&D" and "some people don't like it" that needs to be admitted here...

Amen.

Yes, it can ruin it for some in the spirit and flavor they are trying to create. Does it ruin it for everyone else, or make the games that use them into shallow, 1-dimensional entities.

I sometimes wonder what some folks mean by, "The spirit of D&D" because I played 1st Edition AD&D and Basic D&D, and we had magic item shops back then, or we would tell the DM what we wanted, and we'd go on an adventure to find it.

I particular enjoyed the story of the magic item shop, and the crazy elf who ran it. It's just proof that it's the story that matters, and what the characters and the DM want.

 

[Celebrim]

Which part of "PCs sell magic items for half-price, NPCs sell magic items for full-price" do you not understand?

The page number that that quote comes from would be a good start.

I also wonder if you are misidentifying what is going on. Let me use an example which I think everyone can be familiar. "Game players sell games for half-price. Game store owners sell games for full-price" Does this imply that there is some unfair principle at work which gives a game store owner some unfair advantage over me, or is it rather that the difference comes from the nature of the transaction.

Let's say I sell some MtG rares to a game store owner. If he's willing to buy them at all, he'll probably only pay me half of what he intends to sell them at. Why is that? Because he's accepting some risk in buying the item. The item may not sell at all. The item may not sell for quite some time, during which time his monetary investment in the item is tied up and useless to him. Before the item sells it might be stolen, or it might turn out to be stolen, or it might turn out to be fake. In order to find a buyer, the owner must pay for a property and advertising so that buyer can find him. This is called overhead. In the end, the owner may only realize a 4% return on his investment in purchasing your cards, and from this money he must then support himself and his family.

So is it unfair that the owner buys the card from me for only half of what he sells it at? Is it unfair that 'game players' sell games for half-price? Not really. If I wanted to accept the risks myself, I could go out and try to find a buyer for it other than the reseller. It might cost me significant time and a certain ammount of resources, but if I established myself in a business there is no reason in theory why I couldn't sell games for thier full market price.

Likewise with PC's, NPC's and selling magic items. PC's could certainly sell magic items for full price, if they set up a shop, established a business and a reputation, and waited around for a buyer. I don't see anything in the rules that precludes this. I don't see the rule "PCs sell magic items for half-price, NPCs sell magic items for full-price" anywhere in the DMG. But PC's are typically in the position of game players selling thier items. They have no real leverage and they want or need the cash now rather than later.

Incidently, this is yet another reason why magic item shops are unlikely, or at least that commisioned works are far more likely. I can't imagine crafters are going to be glad to risk dead inventory or not being able to sell the item at market price for lack of eager buyers. Not at least, if they are investing XP.

While I'm looking through the DMG, I thought I'd quote a few interesting passages:

"Magic Items are the hallmarks of a legendary campaign. They are gleaned from the hordes of conquered monsters, taken from fallen foes, and sometimes crafted by the characters themselves."

Oddly, no mention of large discount stores.

"Including magic items as part of treasure is a vital task of the DM. It's also a delicately difficult one."

Don't you think it particularly odd that it would say that, since if magic items are only commodities to be freely bought and traded, presumably a DM could forgo this delicate difficult task by just leaving around enough coin and letting the players do thier own shopping?

"Occasionally however you'll want to give your players items you have hand-picked as especially suitable to thier characters. Feel free to do this more and more often as you gain experience as a DM..."

Oddly, the DMG makes no mention here of letting the players hand pick thier items.