Does your campaign have a shop that sells magic items?

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

I keep magic items rare, including making the creation of said items about 4x more costly and difficult than the rules indicate (which keep spellcasters from being the only runs running around with shiny trinkets).

Generally, if you want something, find a (rare) caster and commision its crafting. Might take a year or two, considering research, components, sympathetic creation, and such, but often worth it in a low-magic setting.

Of course, finding a large amount of minted gold coins just laying around waiting to be picked up isn't too common either, but why nit pick over details...

 

[Mallus]

Yes, but...

...they aren't like the mall, that's for sure {or the shops in a CRPG}.

My group{s} never found the basic concept of buying magic items to be a bad thing. Like any aspect of magic in the game; its all a matter of execution. If finding a reliable dealer in magic items requires making contacts, dangerous errands for mysterious people, essentially becoming adventures of the same calibre as the traditional "kill bad wizard in yonder tower and take his glowing stuff" ones, then I have no problem with it.

Magic looted from corpses isn't inherently more mysterious and exciting. As long as there is an element of risk and adventure involved, all I have to say is caveat emptor.

In my current game, characters can purchase all manner of enchanted items from a horribly disfigured, possibly mad alchemist named Riven Sugarglass, the scion of a once powerful family that have fallen into disrepair. And these purachases never sound like they're being read from a shopping list made made from the DMG. It's always like 'Riven, I this problem, I wonder if you could help". He's a great NPC, and fine as-of-yet-untapped source of adventures.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I don't have ANY magic stores in my Greyhawk campaign. You can buy scrolls and potions from a local wizard or cleric but that's pretty much it. I don't like the idea of players being able to go to Magic Weapons are US and buying a replacement +5 Holy Vorpal Greatsword. Seems like it cheapens magic more, makes it almost like the Forgotten Realms...

 

[Cloudgatherer]

I had *one* magic item shop in my campaign (essentially the entire continent). Every couple weeks I would roll some random treasure, and that's what the should would be selling. The most powerful item in there ever was some +2 fire resistant full plate, when the party was roughly 7th level. It didn't much matter, as they could not afford the prices!

In the other towns/cities (and the party visited most of them), there were not any magic shops. However, there was a slim chance of running into a guild wizard on business, and one could negotiate for item(s) that they sought.

 

[Greybar]

"Minor powered magic items, nothing more than +1"

My players just recently actually had a chance to buy blessed +1 arrows at a shop run by adherents of the craftswoman goddess. It was a special thing never before seen by them (they are now 8th level). It made it a scene worth noting. They only were offered the arrows to buy because the cleric there decided that they were good and worth folk.

That said, I expect them to soon find the Alchemist (a Wizard) who sells potions and other such minor things, and his cross-town rival (an herbalist).

Other than that, magic is made for specific people, so it only enters the economy (so to speak) when that person dies. On top of that, this means much of it is only available on the black market. A good person who found a sword inscribed up and down as the property of a holy order is pretty much expected to make some sort of good faith effort to return it to a representative of the rightful owner. Kind of like finding someone else's wallet with their ID and home address... a good person will at least try to return it. A greedy person... well, that's why some of the bad guys have nice equipment.

John

 

[Kalendraf]

In my world(s), adventurers tend to be fairly commonplace, and magic isn't super rare. Thus, as a party adventurers, they will find magical items - this goes for NPC parties as well as the main party. Over time, they are going to find items that they don't want or simply can't use.

The result of that is that magic items need to be sold off, and it's hard to unload these on the street. Magic shops fill that void. They aren't very common - maybe one or two in a big city, and they don't always have what you're looking for. They tend to buy stuff at about half the book price and sell it for at least book price, sometimes more. They need to pay for their security/overhead/etc, so that justifies the high mark-up. Also, many of these shops work on consignment and the item may not be in the shop at the time, only advertised there, and it may take weeks or months to get the item delivered.

As for potions and scrolls, those are sold in many other shops. An average city will have 2 to 3 alchemist shops and maybe even a few streetsellers in town at the moment. Temples and wizard guilds will sell scrolls, and perhaps even a minor magical item or two.

None of this leads to balance problems so far. I don't hand out tons of gold, so the magic doesn't get out of hand. But if they save up or sell a big item, they will be able to buy an item they want or can use. Works for my campaigns so far...

 

[Bagpuss]

No other option, very bad.

You can buy nearly any magic item in my campaign world, but you may have to commission it. IE: You want a +2 Flaming Sword. Then you will have to pay up front and not get it for some time.

You can bring down the cost by collecting some of the rare materials required yourself, thus linking it into quests and providing adventure seeds. Its never a case of just heres the money hand over the item, but if a player wants something and is prepared to make an effort they can pretty much get anything they can afford.

 

[Magic Rub]

In my game I allow;

- Healing potions (& there's a huge market for this)
- Only the lowest grade items/weapons (this is rare!!!)

The PC can have things made if they can find the right items & people. But that takes time & money as we all know. Things can always be found or stolen of course.

 

[Humanophile]

Depends on the item, really. For things like potions, scrolls, and alchemical goods, I don't necessarily have item shops, but there are alchemists, sages, and other people who make good money selling minor consumables. It's good money and you're almost guarenteed continued business. But then, I'm really loose with power components, because I want to encourage an abundance of low level items like that. Having the party wizard make a dozen Mage Armor potions feels far less McMagic to me than relegating the cleric to "would you like fries with that CLW?" status. At least the potions/scrolls require resource expendature.

When the cost of the item reaches a couple thousand or so, though, it gets to the point where your creator is definately going to lose some XP unless some massively rare and hard to get goodies are used, and I can't think of any caster who'd part with his life force on the off chance that someone would pay him good gold to do that. So when you get to +1 stuff, you can probably find someone with the knowhow who'll make it for you, but you'll have to comission it and wait. And as a house rule, if you don't cover his XP hit with appropriate components, you'll have to pay a little more than book price to cover his expenses. So it's not too hard, you'll just have to get a little involved in the story.

More powerful magic items, you'll either have to find someone really powerful to comission it from (and keep in mind that these people tend to be busy with their own affairs and tend not to need crude gold or piddling magic items; you'll have to do something major for these people), find someone who already has one and appropriate it by fair means or foul, or else find one that was put away someplace hard to get to either as tribute or for safekeeping. The typical adventurer ways, really.

And as a side note, I've played in "we don't let people buy/sell magic items, you'll have to loot the corpses" style, and I always wondered how if magic items were so rare, all the enemies you came across seemed to have some that were just a little less powerful than yours. And when the PC's had closets full of +1 swords, I'd assume that NPC's would have the same, so why not sell some of those useless things off for a little more working gold?

 

[GravyFingerz]

No, there are no magic shops in my games!!!

None!!!

Very bad experiences with magic shops!!!