Does your setting have Magic Shops

[Treebore]

I don't have them in appropriately sized towns. Now potions, scrolls, and wands will be available anywhere a decent church is established. But Arcane stuff, and items more powerful than 3rd level are available in maybe a half dozen shops in the whole campaign world. This is because having a shop that is a sitting duck in terms of plunder requires so much protection and precautionary measures they are ran by a partnership in order to be affordable/profitable and to keep high level parties in check.

Even my FR (meaning my version) campaign had only 8 permanent shops that managed to keep from being destroyed by power hungry/greedy adventurers and NPC's. Plus every temple of Mystra and Azuth were essentially magic shops. So were many temples of Tymora.

Temples in my games are just safer for such "business". Only a fool steals/pillages a temple if no holy war has been declared. In my campaigns, anyways.

 

[Meloncov]

No magic stores per say, but most powerful government/guilds/churches hoard magic items and are willing to sell them to people they trust.

 

[Scarbonac]

I said "No", but to qualify there are always alchemists, hedge-wizards and "herbalists" who'll sell "potions", "charms", poisons and the like, but not in great quantities.

Magic items might occasionally be held by merchant or wizard's guilds, and made available for exchange (usually for rare spell components or other magic items); very rarely will there be a wizard or other caster who will take a commission, usually because they have better things to do than waste their life-essence and time on making a sword or armor for some muscle-bound illiterate dunderhead who'll just use it to kill wizards or whatever.


Especially just for money!


But no godammned Magic Shops!


Well, actually, there's always the Bazaar at Deva if you're willing to take big chances...

 

[James Heard]

Money makes the world go round, I don't expect my setting to be much different than my players:

"Dude, let's see if the Knights could use some of this crap."
"Yeah, I don't use any of it hardly ever and I'd like a new shield."

or

"WHAT DID YOU SAY HE WANTS FOR THAT SPELL?! @#$% !!! While I....Wait a sec, (flips through his character sheet) I wonder how many potions that adds up to? People always want potions, right?"

If a bunch of busy, save-the-world types are having this little conversation in their head or out loud then I think it's safe to assume that the rest of the world that's happy to let the players fight dragons while they put their kids through school are thinking it too, and a lot more thoroughly. Just because they exist doesn't mean they're common though, or that they'll trade with you directly...which means price markups for middlemen.

 

[catsclaw227]

Yes and No. For some things, generally in the Minor catagory, you can indeed hunt and find in the largest cities and probably find them for sale. And if you go back, they'll probably have restocked; people are always going to need things like curative potions, the lowest level of magical pouches, etc. For things like weapons, armor, shields you'd have to commission an artificer for anything more than a +1 or +2, or anything with any sort of special ability. Some they'll be able to do, some not. For things like rings, staves and rods, you're probably out of luck unless you get extremely lucky. Not even many commissions are done for things like that.

This is pretty much how I do it. I don't have medium or major items just laying around for sale (they're all out being used!) and if the PCs want something like that, they'd have to commission it or make it themselves. In either case the PC needs to do something special, like participate in the ritual, quest for a material component, or perform a task. And the item will likely be a bit more than what they where specifically getting. IMC, anything other than a minor item is unique and either sentient or can be unpredictable.

 

[SWBaxter]

Appropriate shops generally carry potions and scrolls; sometimes the shops are associated with temples, in which case they often have wands, too. Occasionally the owners of those shops will have something else available, such as a minor magic item, which they'll show to their preferred customers, but most of the high-value items (about 1000 gp and up) are traded among rich merchants, nobles, etc. who don't have storefronts. Through this network you can also get access to spellcasters who manufacture items on commission. Usually most or all of those involved at this level will be members of some kind of magic guild (or similar organization) and that's the best way to get in contact with 'em.

 

[Storyteller01]

Picked the second option.


Arcane scrolls are pretty much available everywhere, but it's similar to sharing scientific research; only a few people will get any use out of it. Its a 'Buy a spell, and support your fellow spellcasters!!' type of deal.

Everything else is by commission, including wands. Churches don't craft items for just anyone as a rule, so only the faithful get a shot at these items. And the reason better be good!

Bards tend to cover healing potions, but again, its on commission.

 

[Deekin]

It really depends. For my Eberron game, it matters on where you are. Since that just ended and my modern game took over, there are no magic items for sale. I mean, it's not like you can go on Ebay and Buy a magic Sword! (Hmmm..... :idea: Plot Hook!)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Magic shops? No.

Wizards 'floating around' who are willing to take comissions? Yes, but very rare. (A large city might have one, a village would not.) And you had better be willing to wait - it may take a month or so for them to get around to your 'order' - for which you will have paid, in full, in advance. (And as a matter of trust - I have never had the wizard take the money and run...)

This does not count scrolls, wands, potions and other expendables, while still only created by comission it is a lot easier to find folks willing to undertake the task. Mind you, the wizard may require you to obtain the spell that you want in the scroll/wand/potion. If he don't know it then he can't make it.

The Auld Grump

 

[FireLance]

Do you restrict PC access to magical equiptment then? More than the implied default level. Becuase PC's accrue a lot of fantastical, character defining gear, even its all 'stock parts'.

I've given up trying to scale back PC reliance on equiptment, its written into the core mechanics. All I try to do is give their stuff a little personality...

No, I don't restrict PC access to magical equipment. Quite the contrary, in fact. I use a non-standard method of equipping the PCs which I've elaborated on before in a few other threads. Essentially, every time a PC levels up, his equipment refreshes to the standard gear value for a PC of his new level, and the player can select whatever equipment he wants up to this new value, even to the exent of completely replacing his previous gear.

The player can justify this "windfall" however he wants: it's the treasure he found on his last adventure, it's a gift or a reward from the people he helped, he discovered a new ability of an existing item or one mysteriously acquires a new property (a player whose +1 longsword dealt a critical hit that killed a demon in the previous game might declare that his weapon has somehow become a +1 evil outsider bane longsword, for example). The standard in-game justification is that the PCs have patrons that keep them supplied with equipment appropriate to their level.

In a way, I'm trying to achieve a James Bond kind of feel where the PCs get access to nice equipment, but they still remain the stars of the show.