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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 1982190" data-attributes="member: 1645">In <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=1981808" target="_blank">Players Whining that they Should be able to Buy Magic Items</a>, I described some of the difficulties in buying and selling magic items: There are plenty of persuasive reasons for why you wouldn't have a magic shop -- and especially why you wouldn't have one conveniently nearby, that you could easily locate, that had what you were looking to buy sitting on a shelf. Buying a powerful magic item is a bit like buying a man-portable F-22 built by da Vinci.  It's a tremendously concentrated store of wealth (i.e., it's easy to steal), it's a potent weapon (i.e., the state expects to control it), very few people can create anything like it (there's no mass production), and very few people can legitimately afford to buy it (and know how to use it).Kast expanded on those ideas: Permanent magic items (and to a lesser extent the charged ones as well) essentially have the same sort of market as art and antiques. 1) Unpredictable Supply and Demand 2) Low real utility 3) High inventory costs 4) High overhead for security, procurement and transportation of goods. In addition they have the problem that dangerous magical items (and maybe even weapons in general) are most likely a controlled product with stiff local regulations on their sale and possession. To ensure security, the shop owner wouls probably have to pay the local crime syndicate protection monies further raising the prices and limiting market access. Furthermore, items available for sale would vary wildy in price and certainly would not have a modern day walmart style pricing = intrinsic product value + x% margin markup (as they are presented in the DMG). There's no real way to judge the value of an item except through expectations on it's utility, which vary from individual to individual. In addition, many magic items might be bought by rich collectors who have no intention of using them and could afford t pay much higher prices than a PC, essentially removing many exisiting items from the market. The creators of these items, wizards and clerics, certainly would not create expensive items for anonymous sale. The opportunity costs are too high. They would only do so on special request, with all of the costs (or maybe the whole price) payed up front. Local conditions such as gov't regulation and organized crime might even prevent them from selling direct to the public at all. The kinds of entities that could actually afford to run a magic shop would have to have enormous resources and political clout to do so. This combined with the special treatment they receive by paying off the local mafia would mean a single entity would have a near monopoly on the market share. I could see maybe only one of these kinds of shops in a whole kingdom, certainly only one per large city or metropolis.</blockquote>

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