NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2903146" data-attributes="member: 14159">I always thought it was funny, the whole "Magic is rare, special, and unique, and magic items are all rare and priceless and nobody would ever sell them ever", when you could go into any random dungeon, kill a few dozen orcs, skeletons and oozes, and come out with a wheelbarrow full of magic items.  Magic is supposed to be mysterious and rare, but the local temple always has a few clerics who can cast Cure Light Wounds (but charge so much for it that only the very wealthy adventurers and nobles could afford it, so much for charity and helping the meek!).  At least 3rd Edition got rid of that contradiction.  Magic items are a commodity that is valuable, like high technology in the real world.   How to make them is known only to a few, and how they work is only vaguely known to most people, and how to operate some of the more powerful ones takes training and practice, but it's available to anybody with money and need.  This means that wealthy merchants, powerful nobles, or well-off temples can have whatever magic they need to protect themselves.  In my campaigns, I don't run "wal mart" style magic shops, but if it's the Forgotten Realms I'm running, in any major city you can find just about any standard item with enough time.  Thayan Enclaves will cast just about any (non-good) spell and make just about any (non-good) magic item for the right price, and even without them there are enough wizards, powerful churches, and large merchant companies on a high-magic world that getting pretty much any non-artifact item out of the DMG is only a matter of time and money.In other campaign settings, at the default level of magic, basic magic items like +1 weapons and armor, lesser wondrous items or potions, low-level scrolls and the like are still very easy to get.  A 6th level Adept can turn those out (especially if he has a semi-wealthy patron like a merchant backing him), which means that many places will have at least a few basic items available for sale, and in major cities you can still find just about anything with enough time and effort.Now, abstracting a few days of asking around and tracking down the item you want into just handing over a list of magic items and having the DM sign off on them isn't something I would do, but I could see how that could create the "wal mart" illusion.  Personally, I at least describe the process at least briefly, maybe roleplay out a key encounter if the PC's are asking for something major or that would raise eyebrows, and it does take a few days, if they want to rush it, that is a perfect reason for a Gather Information check to find the right people fast, and maybe a Diplomacy check to talk people into selling things they might normally keep.As for XP progression.  Back in the 2e days, with the gaming groups I was a part of after a year of gaming weekly, which was a typical campaign, would get the PC's to 12th to 14th level (depending on class and XP bonus from high Prime Requisite), maybe 13th to 15th for a high-powered campaign.  You wanted 20th level?  That would take a year and a half, or two years, which was the domain of rare campaigns people would remember for years to come.  Above 20th level?  That's reserved for rare, special NPC's only, because campaigns just never went that long.Now a year-long campaign gets you 18th to 20th level (although spending XP on magic items and spells means the casters are normally a level lower than the warriors at high levels IME).  20+ from 1st level isn't a practical impossibility, but it is still the domain of the rare and special campagin.  So, I don't think D&D has become "too D&D", I just think that it got over some of the contradictions in earlier editions, and it chose one side of the contradiction to side with.</blockquote>

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