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

[MerricB]

Oddly, no mention of large discount stores.

You really need to get the MIC.

Page 231:
A player points to an item published in this book or the Dungeon Master's Guide and asks, "Can I buy this?" The answer should usually be "yes."

Page 232:
Large one-stop shop "magic emporiums" are unrealistic and rare even in metropolis-sized cities. Instead, a community's total stock of magic items for sale is widely distributed among dusty alchemist's shops, bookstores, scribers' boutiques, pawn shops, elixir brewers, the residences of retired adventurers, the old mage on the corner, and so on.

 

[MerricB]

The Player's Handbook states: "In general, a PC can sell an item for half its listed cost... Tradegoods are the exception..." (pg 112). So, that's the half-price rule. The full-price rule for NPCs can be seen by the fact PCs have to buy *from NPCs*.

Right.

The quote "Including magic items as part of treasure is a vital task of the DM. It's also a delicately difficult one" is because you shouldn't give out too powerful items - like a +5 vorpal sword to a 1st level PC.

However, the 3e game has evolved greatly since Monte Cook was writing that back in 1999-2000.

 

[S'mon]

This thread inspired me to start rolling randomly to see what MI would come on the market IMC (C&C rules) over the next few years. The PCs are ca 9th level, we took ca 35 sessions and two years real-time to play through Lost City of Barakus, and they are now 'movers and shakers' in Endhome, a metropolis of some 33,000 or so.

I used the 1e DMG treasure tables, here's what I came up with:

_______________________

Year / Season Item / Best Price (Brokered)

2746 YE

1d6-1/season

S3-4: 1

Potion – Speed – 450 gp

2747 YE

S1-2: 1

Ring – Invisibility – 15,000 gp

S3-4: 4

E5 – Rope of Climbing – 10,000 gp
Sword – Long, +4 Defender, 30,000 gp
Misc Weapon – 6 +3 arrows, 450 gp each
Scroll – Protection from Undead, 7,500 gp


2748 YE

S1-2: 2

Potion – frost giant strength (STR 21) – 1,000 gp
Armour/Shield - +1 leather, 2,000 gp

S3-4: 4

E3 Horn of Valhalla, 15,000 gp
Bastard Sword + 3 Frost Brand, +6 vs Fire Using/Dwelling, 8,000 gp
E1 – Amulet vs Detection & Location, 15,000 gp
Scroll – Protection from Lycanthropes, 5,000 gp


2749 YE

Goes to d6-2

S1-2: 4

Potion
E4
Potion
Armour/Shield

S3-4: 0

2750 YE

S1-2: 3

Estate of Sea Captain Mullar in Probate. Includes MAP to chest of pearls, under water in sunken schooner wreck, The Empress Wave – 100gp – Thanegioth - Isle of Dread? Refers to Rory Barbarossa’s journal, & a rough map. “Following the directions in Barbarossa’s journal, we navigated the eastern ocean for a thousand miles, and after two weeks at sea at last came to an archipelago of fertile, pleasant isles, the waters teeming with oyster beds…”

Sword
Scroll

S3-4: 2

Potion
Misc Weapon

2751 YE

S1-2: 1

Adventurer Shakri Jameson (?) offers MAP to the Treasure Vault of Larin Karr (Drow Knave-12), hidden in ruins in Quail Valley – 1000gp

_________________

I also allow PCs to commission stuff from friendly wizards etc they personally know; eg if the Wiz-9 guildmaster likes you you can get your sword upgraded to +3 by him. And +1 items (or many other things with book price under 3,000 gp) are common enough they can often be bought. So by 1e standards this is a high magic, munchkinny setting, by 3e standards it's low magic and I'm a meanie GM.

 

[S'mon]

You really need to get the MIC.

Page 231:
A player points to an item published in this book or the Dungeon Master's Guide and asks, "Can I buy this?" The answer should usually be "yes."

Jeez.

 

[MerricB]

Jeez.

Yeah, I know. The reasoning behind why you should say "Yes" is important, but I've copied enough out already.

Personally, I'd have no trouble in saying "No" to a player... but I do have to ask why I'm saying no. Is it to maintain the wonder in the game by just having the items appear from adventuring, or is it to be a control freak?

This is the same philosophy I use with Prestige Classes (and indeed, Classes and Races): If something will make the game more fun for me and my players, it's worth including. Some of the best adventures I've run have happened because a player has said, "Can I take...?"

One thing I've observed about D&D is that overall it is not a low-magic game... but it is astonishingly low-magic at lower levels. It may become a little less so now the MIC has some reasonable item costs, but up until about 8-10th level, PCs don't really have that much in the way of magic. Later it becomes more prevalent, but a lot of players (apparently) don't get to experience those levels.

Cheers!

 

[Brimshack]

Just responding to the OP:

I think it really depends on the type of flavor you want for a campaign. For my own settings, I prefer not to have magic that easy to acquire. I wouldn't say it ruins the game, but it is something that can erode the flavor I want to produce, so I control it a bit.

even without the stores, I prefer a much more low magic campaign to the general outlines of 3.5. Does the extra magic ruin the game? No. I just don't run it quite that way, and the players usually get along fine with lower quantities of magic than usual. I still have magic shops, but in most cases the availability is limited (this or that merchant only has up to level 6 magic, etc.) and inflate prices quite often. If the shop has significant magic, then just getting to it safely can be a game in itself. It's easy enough to contain it if you like. But I could just as easily see a campaign that works fine with that much magic. I just haven't

 

[molonel]

The thing I don't understand about low magic vs. video game arguments, and that's really all this thread is in another incarnation, is why the folks who oppose the game in its present form have to insist that low magic games are the only one preserving the "true spirit of the game" or whatever the catch phrase is ... this time.

Why are you folks so insecure about your gaming style? Because out of the 15 bazillion threads like this that I've read - there should be another two or three in the next ten minutes on this or the other gaming forums I read - these threads are almost NEVER started by high magic, high fantasy freaks going off on those stupid low magic games that DON'T have magic item shops.

I say this as someone who is playing in a low magic game, and running two of my own (one online, one FTF). I'm running my low magic games because that's the flavor I'm going for right now. That's all. I don't feel the need to start a thread about how it's the ONLY way to fly, or somesuch similar nonsense.

I'd much rather read a lot of rich, interesting threads about the mechanics about how people accomplish their low magic games. House rules, game tweaks, what rules set (Grim Tales, Conan d20, Midnight, Iron Heroes, homebrew, other), how you handle the game and how INTERESTING it is than read another @#$@#ing "ZOMG! Low magic games R the b3st! And UR gam3z 4 th3 suxx0rz!" thread.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

...I don't understand. The price of gold doesn't plummet, and gold watches aren't worth less than mundane watches.

Why would a magic sword cause markets to plummet? Why wouldn't a magic sword still be worth more than a mundane sword?

 

[rounser]

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).

The NWN solution to this is to have the storekeeper a powerful outsider, such as a genie, fiend or arcane, and the merchandise kept safe in a pocket dimension, or at the other end of a gate that only the outsider can use etc. The shopkeeper can be summoned from a given location or item. Assume the items can be demo'ed by illusion.

This solves multiple problems at once. Theft and violence become non-issues, because the item is only retrieved on payment. If the shopkeeper is threatened, he or she simply gates out, or turns out not to have really been there in the first place.

It also solves economic problems associated with justifying where the items are coming from or ending up, locally. The infinite planes would have trade enough to justify almost any item being available, at the DM's discretion. It's also an interesting hook into planar goings-on.

 

[Someone]

Really, it all boils down to:

1. What do the players want?
2. What does the DM want?

And also 3. What's good for the game?

Magic Marts where you can drive in your cart full of gold and come out with every possible magic item in existence, or where you can sell your magic items and drive out a cart full of gold are as corrosive to most games as having the King be a talking Yorkshire Terrier called Bob.

On the other hand, in most games it's incredible that nobody, no matter what, under no circumstances ever will sell a magic item.