Does your campaign have a shop that sells magic items?
- Thread starter Krug
- Start date
Furn_Darkside
First Post
Salutations,
It depends on the campeign.
I generally don't care for it, but I also have a small group that has an allergy to spellcasters. I make sure there are potion stores about to keep their death rate low.
Since most magic items seem to have a low profit return, I am not very fond of it in principle.
Of course, one campein I ran had magic tied to the life of the caster. Once a the castor creator of a magic item died, then the item becomes inert. Bingo- no magic item stores.
Respectfully submitted
FD
It depends on the campeign.
I generally don't care for it, but I also have a small group that has an allergy to spellcasters. I make sure there are potion stores about to keep their death rate low.
Since most magic items seem to have a low profit return, I am not very fond of it in principle.
Of course, one campein I ran had magic tied to the life of the caster. Once a the castor creator of a magic item died, then the item becomes inert. Bingo- no magic item stores.
Respectfully submitted
FD
Crothian
First Post
Your choices are really limited. None fits my situation. There are shops that sell minor things, different versions of potions called tokens. One use minor magic items. In large cities and metropolises one may find an official magic shop attached to the Mage Guild. There are strict laws and rules that dictact what can be sold and to whom such items can be sold.
I've never liked the "would you like fries with that?" aspect that always comes when you have Ye Olde Magic Shoppe in every town.
Potions are sold at temples/monasteries and by a few alchemists. Every magic item in my campaign has a background and reason for existing.
Magic items in my campaign (Scarred Lands) are created for a specific purpose -- the Black Dragoons have their dragoon crossbows, the Mithril Knights have their mithril longswords made from a part of the golem of Mithril, that +1 shortsword might have been made by request from a wealthy merchant as a wedding gift to his son, and so on.
Potions are sold at temples/monasteries and by a few alchemists. Every magic item in my campaign has a background and reason for existing.
Magic items in my campaign (Scarred Lands) are created for a specific purpose -- the Black Dragoons have their dragoon crossbows, the Mithril Knights have their mithril longswords made from a part of the golem of Mithril, that +1 shortsword might have been made by request from a wealthy merchant as a wedding gift to his son, and so on.
I'm not actually running, but I am designing a campaign setting and have given this issue some thought. Here is what I've come up with...
In backwater towns, villages, and settlements there aren't generally stores that carry magic items. Ocasionally there might be the "old hermit" who happens to make his living selling a meager selection of potions and/or scrolls to those that might need them.
In large towns or small cities there would maybe be a few shops. In most cases they would probably sell a selection of related items (scrolls and potions in one shop, armors and weapons in another). Since magic items have a gold piece value, you could just put a cap on the maximum price of items that shops in such cities carry. If it costs more, they won't have it. In large cities the cap would simply be higher. You could put an even higher cap on "trade cities" which are known for their fairs and bazaars, or even take away the cap completely.
Of course, it is really up the the DM and the kind of campaign he or she is running.
In backwater towns, villages, and settlements there aren't generally stores that carry magic items. Ocasionally there might be the "old hermit" who happens to make his living selling a meager selection of potions and/or scrolls to those that might need them.
In large towns or small cities there would maybe be a few shops. In most cases they would probably sell a selection of related items (scrolls and potions in one shop, armors and weapons in another). Since magic items have a gold piece value, you could just put a cap on the maximum price of items that shops in such cities carry. If it costs more, they won't have it. In large cities the cap would simply be higher. You could put an even higher cap on "trade cities" which are known for their fairs and bazaars, or even take away the cap completely.
Of course, it is really up the the DM and the kind of campaign he or she is running.
Roland Delacroix
First Post
If the town size can handle it, yeah pretty much. I'm running in Mystara though which is pretty saturated with magic. In a normal campaign there would be a shop for the common stuff but not the specific tailored items that PCs always want. For those I treat them, suggested here on the boards, as a type of rare art item. Takes a while to find the right buyer/seller and the prices can fluctuate wildly. This method keeps down munchkin-ism, a wildly un-realistic feel, and greatly enhances the usefulness of the item creation feats.
Celebrim
Legend
Hmmm... without delving too much into my house rules or my reasoning, in my campaign essentially only potions are readily available , and then usually in limited quanities and only the cheaper sorts. Sometimes you can purchase items with 0th level spell effects (a wand of Frost Ray for instance, but more likely a Ewer of Chilling for making iced tea), and ordained clergy often have access to scrolls through thier churches.
Ok, a little bit of my reasoning. In D&D since the beginning, 1 sp has been the daily wage of an unskilled laborer. Several, but not all, assumptions were based on this. This resulted in a highly unrealistic economy in which labor was by far undervalued and many other unwelcome things occured. Now that XP is completely divorsed from collection of gold (under normal circumstances), we are free to fix this if we want to take the effort.
One question we might want to ask is how much a gold peice worth in terms we moderns can relate to. The answer is I think surprising. If 1 sp equates to a minimum daily wage, then a sp is somewhere around 40 dollars in the US. This means that 1 gp is worth about 400 dollars in 3 ed., or 800 dollars if you are using the more realistic 1:20 1st ed. exchange rate (a rate used through much of history). I like to round that to $1000 because it is easy to use. Therefore, a magic item, say a +1 sword, is worth around $2,000,000 in modern terms, say a million dollars if we use the official 1:10 exchange rate. For a second, we can leave aside what it really should be worth giving the effort that went into creating it. The point is, giving the obvious value of the sword, no one is going to invest in the production of one and then hope that a buyer comes along (before a thief does!). All high priced items like that will be custom ordered.
So if a PC wants a +1 sword, he doesn't simply walk into a store with a few hanging on the wall and pick out one. First, he has to find someone willing to take the time (and spend the xp) to make the sword. Essentially, he has to find a high level mage with a need for cash and/or sympathy for the character who doesn't already have work to do. This involves a Gather Information check with a modifier depending on the size of the community. Then he has to meet with the wizard and make the sale, usually involving a Diplomacy check. Then he has to wait for the sword to be finished. And this assumes that it is legal for him to a) purchase a sword in the first place and b) purchase a magic one. Many cultures in my world restrict the use of swords to titled nobility, and some restrict the possession of magic weapons (and many other kinds of magic items) to members of the government or governing heirarchy.
Ok, a little bit of my reasoning. In D&D since the beginning, 1 sp has been the daily wage of an unskilled laborer. Several, but not all, assumptions were based on this. This resulted in a highly unrealistic economy in which labor was by far undervalued and many other unwelcome things occured. Now that XP is completely divorsed from collection of gold (under normal circumstances), we are free to fix this if we want to take the effort.
One question we might want to ask is how much a gold peice worth in terms we moderns can relate to. The answer is I think surprising. If 1 sp equates to a minimum daily wage, then a sp is somewhere around 40 dollars in the US. This means that 1 gp is worth about 400 dollars in 3 ed., or 800 dollars if you are using the more realistic 1:20 1st ed. exchange rate (a rate used through much of history). I like to round that to $1000 because it is easy to use. Therefore, a magic item, say a +1 sword, is worth around $2,000,000 in modern terms, say a million dollars if we use the official 1:10 exchange rate. For a second, we can leave aside what it really should be worth giving the effort that went into creating it. The point is, giving the obvious value of the sword, no one is going to invest in the production of one and then hope that a buyer comes along (before a thief does!). All high priced items like that will be custom ordered.
So if a PC wants a +1 sword, he doesn't simply walk into a store with a few hanging on the wall and pick out one. First, he has to find someone willing to take the time (and spend the xp) to make the sword. Essentially, he has to find a high level mage with a need for cash and/or sympathy for the character who doesn't already have work to do. This involves a Gather Information check with a modifier depending on the size of the community. Then he has to meet with the wizard and make the sale, usually involving a Diplomacy check. Then he has to wait for the sword to be finished. And this assumes that it is legal for him to a) purchase a sword in the first place and b) purchase a magic one. Many cultures in my world restrict the use of swords to titled nobility, and some restrict the possession of magic weapons (and many other kinds of magic items) to members of the government or governing heirarchy.
