Does your campaign have magic shops?

[cignus_pfaccari]

But we're not talking about jets, cars or titles. We're talking about magical items, which are meant to be wonderous and rare, but they arn't because they are being sold dime a dozen in shops across your game world.

There is effectively no difference between a Learjet and a Ring of Protection +5.

They're both extremely expensive items that the vast majority of people will never be able to buy. Magic items, while certainly wondrous, are not meant to be rare to adventurers. The game would not work the way it did if they were meant to be rare.

Having magic items sold "a dime a dozen" does not happen unless you're in a super-duper-megalopolis style of city, like Sigil or Union. The GP limits are exactly what they are, a limiting factor on what you can spend your money on.

You can limit what items are available in your game world. That is, of course, your decision. However, it shouldn't necessarily be easy to find someone who'll buy or sell an item, but, logically, it shouldn't be impossible. Almost none of us could purchase a Maserati, but the fact that they are sold means that people can and do purchase them. The fact that there are peasants with barely two coppers to rub together does not mean there aren't people with more gold than they can spend in a lifetime.

If nothing else, think of it like this...there are other adventurers in the world, getting money from ruins and needing to spend it. Why not sell your excess items to them? Of course, having some sort of intermediary is useful, but instead of a guy with a shop, you can have your fixer, who can connect you with the guy who has an excess Ring of Protection, or even someone who'll be happy to build one on commission for you.

Brad

 

[VirgilCaine]

But who is buying the potions and scrolls from the 5th level wizard in the small town or village? How many adventurers pass through these places looking for potions of healing on their way to dungeons? If you have this many sellers, then you must have a large market - and that's where it all falls down.

It is simply ridiculous to assume that there is such a large market for even the most basic magic items (potions and scrolls) that it can support a 'magic shoppe' in every town/village/thorpe/hamlet/city. Common folk (ie, serfs/peasants) must make up AT LEAST 90% of the population. And you guys are telling me that this 10% support a purveyor of potions and scrolls (not to mention all the other stuff) in every settlement? How many dungeons remain undiscovered in your worlds? How many great evils rise up to be conquered? How many adventurers can you support in your world?

Sorry, it's ridiculous in the extreme.

A shop, yes...but I would say that that 5th level Wizard (IMO) would not have a shop, but is available to perform those services.
Well, he might have an *office* but not have a reserve of wares, except for those that would be in the very greatest demand...potions of magic weapon, fly, necklaces of missiles...eerr...fireballs...that kinda thing.

 

[FireLance]

So the 'pro magic shoppe' folk here put forward their reasoning for allowing such shoppes in their campaign world. Mostly, these explanations relate to the number of practitioners of magic with item craetion feats and so on.

But who is buying the potions and scrolls from the 5th level wizard in the small town or village? How many adventurers pass through these places looking for potions of healing on their way to dungeons? If you have this many sellers, then you must have a large market - and that's where it all falls down.

It is simply ridiculous to assume that there is such a large market for even the most basic magic items (potions and scrolls) that it can support a 'magic shoppe' in every town/village/thorpe/hamlet/city. Common folk (ie, serfs/peasants) must make up AT LEAST 90% of the population. And you guys are telling me that this 10% support a purveyor of potions and scrolls (not to mention all the other stuff) in every settlement? How many dungeons remain undiscovered in your worlds? How many great evils rise up to be conquered? How many adventurers can you support in your world?

Sorry, it's ridiculous in the extreme.

As I've mentioned, the presence or absence of magic shops is not an issue. Rather, it's how comfortable the DM feels about handing magic items to his PCs.

If your idea of a "magic shop" is an establishment that sells all types of magic items, and nothing but magic items, then I agree that it does not make sense that one would exist in every village. In a small farming thorp, you usually wouldn't have a magic shop, just as you wouldn't have a shop that sells furniture, or one that sells clothes, or paintings. At most, you would have a general store, or a trader on a wagon that comes by regularly. But, would such a store or trader have magic items for sale? Well, that would depend on the rarity of minor magic items such as potions of healing.

Even in the larger towns, would there be magic shops? Perhaps not, but again, there might still be magic items for sale. The local wizard or priest might make magic items for his own use, and may be persuaded to sell them or be commissioned to make them. A weaponsmith might have magic swords for sale in addition to his mundane stock, or could obtain them if requested (perhaps he has an arrangement with the local wizard or priest).

Perhaps magic shops still will not exist in most cities, but perhaps there are mage guilds and temples who can be persuaded to sell or make items. The thieves' guild might also run a black market in shady magic items. There could be auction houses or dealers who specialize in rare and precious items, including some which are magical.

Perhaps only the largest of metropolises would have something like a magic shop, but no magic shops does not mean no trade in magic items. There are a large variety of non-ridiculous options between the extremes of "magic shops on every corner" and "no trade in magic items at all".

 

[Desdichado]

People run car dealerships that only sell Bentleys or Lambourghinis. There are people whose entire business is to sell Lear Jets to private individuals. There are people who sell yachts. How big is their customer base?

Show me a D&D city with a population of several million, and yeah, I might accept your argument. Although I'll also point out that in most cases, even those guys don't have "Lear Jets R 'Us" shops, or what have you. Brands like Lambourghini and whatnot; actually do most of their sales at big-time auto shows Black Tie dinners, not because Mr. Lambourghini is manning a shop out in Podunk, Alaska -- the equivalent to where most D&D adventures seem to take place

 

[Tonguez]

So no one has come up with a world where magic isn't super scarce but magic shops don't exist and those two things co-exist?

I have. My campaign is full of magic, magic is common and it is entirely divine. Because magic comes from the angency of spirits, gods and powerful NPCs it is not possible to simply 'make magic items' instead you need to 'deal with spirits' and maybe you will get a wing feather from a coatl, or the Red Boar of Kora might give you its tusk (which works as a +3 Sword). The goddess Pele may have left her club behind growing amongst the ironwood trees - and a branch cut from it might make an effective 'mattock of titans' (if you can cut it).

 

[hong]

This is a silly poll, and a silly question to start with, because it conflates two issues: world design, and campaign management.

I don't have magic shops IMC. Okay, there might be alchemists who stock things like healing potions or spell reagents, but you're not going to find places where you can get a +5 sword off the shelf. There are item crafters around, but you have to find them and get works done on commission. Finding these people can be easy (if they're famous and you want something relatively straightforward done) or hard (if what you want has an obscure prereq).

That said, if a player wants an item for their PC, and it looks reasonable enough, I'll also just say they can have it: deduct the gp, and write the new item down on the character sheet. Playing out the process of getting items crafted simply doesn't strike any of us as a great way of using our gaming session time. We're here to do adventuring: going into dungeons, smiting monsters for great justice, rescuing innocents from vile demons, arguing over whether the paladin should kill the orc babies, and the rest of it. You know, the fun stuff.

Shopping around is something the characters can do on their own during off-hours, along with eating, sleeping, crapping, etc. They don't need the players micromanaging things along. There will be exceptions, but that's what the general rule is.

 

[coyote6]

Hong pretty much described how my campaign works, and what I thought when reading the poll answer options.

I therefore conclude that hong is an Evil Telepath, and has been reading my mind.

Wait -- he left out "looting the bodies" after "smiting monsters for great justice".

 

[random user]

Ah, maybe there is a disparity what what people think of when they say "magic shop."

When I talk about a magic shop, I envision a person whose profession or expertise is the transactions of magical items. The inventory of this person may be quite limited; however, he's the niche person who knows how to get ahold of items. He's also the person who usually buys magic items from the players. He's got a line on who can make what, and if he's in a large city, his contacts may help a lot.

For example, a local temple in a big city which can raise dead adventurers may occassionally receive payment in the form a magic item. The temple doesn't think it would look good if they opened a store to sell the magic items, so they quietly let the merchant know what their inventory is. The merchant doesn't actually have the magic item "in hand" but he can get it if a buyer comes along.

When I hear some other people talk about a magic shop, I get the imperssion they think it's a store with every single item in the DMG. I think even the most ardent magic shop defender doesn't believe that there is something like "Aisle 4, vorpal swords and scimitars" where there are hundreds of vorpal weapons to choose from.

Large magic shops start running into other problems -- if it costs 70,000 gold and the risk of getting caught to break into a magic store, thieves are going to look at a store with 50,000 gold in inventory much differently than if it has 800,000 gold in inventory. Once you start concentrating magic items, it's going to attract attention.

One thing that the town population and wealth indicators don't take into account is many adventurers, who may not have a base of operation, or whose base of operation is far away. These are the main people who would buy magic items.

I suppose there could be a campaign with few adventurers. But I have a hard time believing that any world with decently leveled NPCs (level 9+), who are generally rulers or perhaps the ruler's general and court wizard, and/or decently leveled monsters (CR10+) would not have adventurers.

If there are powerful monsters but no powerful humans, then why haven't these monsters overrun the realm?

The risk for adventurers needs to be fairly high (else it's so lucrative everyone would take up arms... even a paltry return of 100 gold is a fortune for a commoner), which means that the mortality rate is going to be non-trivial.

For every level 9 NPC, there were probably a lot who died instead. Given all these adventurers running around (who aren't yet dead), they need to sell their excess magic items somewhere.

There are those who think that NPC crafters wouldn't want to spend their xp to create items. The xp cost to make a 1000 gold item (1/25) is 40 xp, of which 500 gold is profit.

Let's say you've done some adventuring, and you decided to get out while you were still alive. Now you're going to settle down -- you don't really need your powers anymore, after all you retired. Sure you don't want to go back down to 1st level, but giving up some xp to net some gold isn't too bad.

If a 6th level wizard who stops halfway through his level retires, he can give up 2500xp before losing his level. That's 62,500 gold worth of items he can craft. That's about 25 +1 longswords or 31 rings of protection.

Do you think most retired people would be willing to spend a little xp at 12.5 gold per xp point, especially if it didn't drop them a level? Even giving up 100xp to get 1250 gold profit seems like an easy choice, especially given what 1250 gold gets you.

If he's willing to go down to being barely 5th level, that's 7500xp he can give up, or 187,500 gold worth of stuff he can craft.

When you look at these numbers, it's hard to tell PCs who have arrived in a big city that "oh, there is no one interested in crafting a +1 ring of protection for you."

The other problematic thing is that magic items rarely get destroyed. And yet the going price is supposedly the DMG price. This means there must be some demand out there, or the huge glut of magic items should cause the price to come down (which causes other problems so I don't think that's a viable solution).

Anyways, these are some of the things my players have brought up (there are more... trust me... but this post is getting long as it is).

Again, I repeat, I would prefer not to have magic item stores in my campaign; but I want to tell my players a plausible reason, instead of just saying "that's just the way it is; it's not realistic but deal with it." (I suppose if it were important enough, I might do that; but I don't feel strongly enough about magic stores to fiat that.)

 

[DragonLancer]

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

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.

 

[Gez]

I voted 4, but in fact it's rather between 4 and 5.

Magic item shops are not prevalent. However, the best (read: most expensive, and usually dwarven or gnome) shopkeepers often have enchanted items among their ware. For example, in my campaign, the PCs met a gold dwarf merchant who sold the best products of dwarven weaponsmithing, all sorts of weapons and shields (though no armors), having three dozen mountain dwarf craftsmen for him. He traded only in masterwork items, was more expensive than PHB price by 10 to 20%, and about 1/6 of his weapons and shields were magical.

Likewise, alchemists often trade in magical potions, sometimes scrolls, wands, and wondrous items too.

However, there are some limits going on. Any magical item worth more than 5000 gp will have to be specially commissioned, looted, or traded against more than mere money. Scrolls of spells above 4th level are not usually sold, instead they are traded for other scrolls of spellbooks. Staffs are rare (IMC, there is no "Craft Staff" feat, instead spellcasters with both Craft Wand and Craft Rod may craft staffs.)

Oh, and be wary of merchants selling you flaming swords. Usually, it's just a continual flame spell put on a masterwork sword (not even always a +1 sword!). Real flaming swords, being worth 8300+ gp, are among the things you just don't usually find in shops.