Does your campaign have magic shops?

[Doug McCrae]

I always assumed 'Ye Olde Magic Item Shoppe' was just code for 'magic items can be bought and sold' rather than suggesting there was a store with racks upon racks of wands of fireball and longswords +3. The latter is ridiculous of course but I've never seen it in any game of D&D I've been in. In fact all I've ever been able to purchase was potions.

So I don't know what people are complaining about.

 

[Algolei]

"No. Magic items can be traded for only with powerful spellcasters, who are rare, and trading for gold alone is quite rare."

But then I play a 1E-based game, not 3E, so YMMV. Does that invalidate my vote?

 

[Doug McCrae]

You can't compare a Ring of Protection +5 to a private jet. Just because the DMG has prices for them (which are used to gage costs in creation and addition of abilities) does not mean such items are not effectively priceless.

Only things that aren't for sale are priceless.

And as a previous poster already pointed out, the DMG specifically uses the phrase 'market price'. From the DMG 3.5, page 215.

Market Price: This gold piece value, given following the word "Price", represents the price someone should expect to pay to buy the item.

 

[Doug McCrae]

From the DMG 3.5 page 142:

The magic items described in Chapter 7 all have prices. The assumption is that, while they are rare, magic items can be bought and sold as any other commodity can be. The prices given are far beyond the reach of almost everyone, but the very rich, including mid- to high- level PCs, can buy and sell these items or even have spellcasters make them to order. In very large cities, some shops might specialize in magic items if their clientele is very wealthy or includes a large number of adventurer [sic] (and such shops would have lots of magical protections to ward away any thieves). Magic items might even be available in normal markets and shops occasionally. For example, a weaponsmith might have a few magic weapons for sale along with her normal wares.

 

[shilsen]

I think you guys were being far too literal with my posts.

Let's see now...

Magic items are not meant to be everywhere. They are meant to be rare and wonderous, as I said. Even if a magic shop sells mainly potions but has a +1 sword, and a couple +1 Rings of Protection, you've lost something in the "magic" of the game.

You can't compare a Ring of Protection +5 to a private jet. Just because the DMG has prices for them (which are used to gage costs in creation and addition of abilities) does not mean such items are not effectively priceless.

Of course it depends on campaing settings, but magical items should be not be available like contemporary technology where everyone walks around with a mobile phone, laptop...etc.

How does one not take what you're saying (esp. the bolded parts above) literally? I see you as saying magic items should not be readily available, should be rare and wondrous, and if they aren't, the campaign automatically loses something valuable. Am I correct? And if I am, don't you think that's a little narrowly prescriptive about a game which one can play in a very large number of ways?

 

[DragonLancer]

Only things that aren't for sale are priceless.

And as a previous poster already pointed out, the DMG specifically uses the phrase 'market price'. From the DMG 3.5, page 215.

Yes, but as I have been saying, once you start buying and selling magic items, you are losing the "magic" of said items. Don't turn them into every day common things. You really do lose the magic and awe of magical treasures if you do that.

Read what I'm saying rather than being literal.

 

[reddist]

"magic shops" exist, but they typically sell only potions or single-use charms. Larger shops in "the big cities" might sell a few non-offensive wands with a handfull of charges.

Anything more than that is commissioned, crafted, quested for, traded, bestowed as gifts or rewards, etc. etc. Commissions require a darn good reason for the crafter to make the item, such as a trade or service, and crafting magic items almost *always* requires special components, which are often mini-quests in themselves.

There *is* and "underground" trade in odd magic items looted from ancient ruins or tombs, and there several wealthy collectors scattered throughout the land. These collectors don't care *what* the item does.... the prestige is in owning the item. My players haven't met any of these collectors yet, but once they start looting tombs and ruins, representatives might come find *them*! Of course, these collectors tend to be an unscrupulous lot, and "fair trade" isn't a term in most of their vocabularies...

-Reddist

 

[hong]

Yes, but as I have been saying, once you start buying and selling magic items, you are losing the "magic" of said items. Don't turn them into every day common things.

This is utterly stupid. Just because you can buy or sell items doesn't make them "every day" or "common". If you think they do, I have a few F/A 22 Raptors to sell you, now going cheap for a low, low US$350 million a pop.

You really do lose the magic and awe of magical treasures if you do that.

No. All you do is provide a means for PCs to turn their excess items and cash to their advantage. If that's what you have a problem with, then say it, instead of parroting some nonsense about items suddenly becoming cheap and nasty due to the prospect of money changing hands.

Heck, done right, the buying and selling of items can even be turned into a way to emphasise their exceptional status. Not everyone gets a look-in when a Van Gogh goes under the hammer, and you can do something similar in your game world.

Read what I'm saying rather than being literal.

Translation: someone pinged me when I said something dumb, and I don't like it.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The one item a magic item seller might always have in stoock would be healing potions. There will always be a high demand and when people need them, they need them now.

 

[Al]

This thread has really exploded over the last day or so...I can't deal with all of the various individual arguments, but I'll try and address the central themes of most the "anti-magic shoppes" posters.

Magic 'shops' don't exist, but magic item traders do.

This is a superficially fair argument. There are no "Lear Jets R Us", no "Land Titles Warehouse" or similar 'shops' for the extreme end of luxury goods. The problem is that there is the notion of magic item accumulation which has been ignored. The best medieval equivalent luxury good is land, but land is a finite resource i.e. once the land has been allocated, it cannot be re-allocated without the landowner forfeiting his claim. The same is emphatically not the case with regard to magic items. The supply of magic items is vast. As I have explained in my previous post, the sheer number of items in circulation entails that a professional service would exist purely on the basis of selling these items.

Let us extrapolate from the very good worked example that Non-human resources posited about the 5th level wizard with a 1,000 gp profit on his items. Now, he is singly ill-equipped with the requisite skills and networking to sell items of such quality, but he could hire a high-level middleman to sell it for him. Let us suppose that in a typical metropolis there are some fifty 5th level wizards all making these items on a reasonably regular basis (I actually substantially underestimated the population of wizards in large urban areas), and they have a mutual middleman professionally employed. It is thus a simple question of located that middleman and purchasing a good, and they are hardly likely to be elusive given their desire to make a sale.

Lack of supply isn't a problem, lack of demand is

This is one of the more sophisticated arguments put forward by the antis, but falls short. If nothing else, the vast wealth generated by the magic item creators themselves ensures that there is an "internal market" within the magic item creation community. A wizard might sell a couple of +1 swords and then buy a Headband of Intellect in order to benefit his studies. Furthermore, the vast income inequalities characteristic of a medieval (especially Byzantine-style) setting and the dominance of personality in the context of civic leadership does press a huge demand for magical items. The city that can ensure that its mayor gets a +6 Headband of Intellect is at a huge advantage in terms of civic administration as opposed to one that doesn't. Magical items aren't curios for the rich and decadent; they are real investment goods. The +6 Cloak of Charisma can turn an unpopular noble into a respected one, the homely prince into a desirable bachelor or the shy monarch into a confident leader.

I don't like magic shops, they make magic too common

The sentiments seem fine, but are illogical and arbitrary. Particularly in the form expounded by DragonLancer, they seem to place campaign feel over authenticity, which unfortunately then collapses feel. A DM is entitled to make all manner of arbitrary and peculiar decisions. He can place a 1st level commoners with 3s in every stat at the head of a conquering tribe, he can make all peasants perform a ritual Morris Dance every Friday, he can enforce a rules that all elves spontaneously combust at the age of 150 or he can say that there are no magic shoppes. Of the four postulations, all could have a campaign justification, but if suspension of disbelief is stretched too much in the name of "fantasy" it ceases to be credible. "Fantasy" doesn't mean that you can throw out human nature. "Fantasy" doesn't mean that you can deviate from rational norms. "Fantasy" doesn't mean "make-it-up-as-you-go-along". And it doesn't mean that there are legions of retired wizards twiddling their thumbs in penury and dreaming of the good old days whilst their magic item creation feats rot. Random-user has elegantly explained the motives behind magic item creation: money. Once you remove the profit-motive and the pursuit of money from the field of human calculation, you've not simply made a "fantasy" world. You've made an unbelievable one.