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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jdvn1" data-source="post: 5169719" data-attributes="member: 26424">I hand-wave the process. As long as the party has roughly the amount of gp/magic items expected by level (such that they're not over- or under-powered), I don't care what they have and how they got it.Further, I think that determining the inventory of a magic item shop is a good way to screw over your characters. Not being able to buy what you want isn't fun, and not being able to buy what you need isn't nice.On the other hand, if you want to rob the place or retrieve lost/stolen items, that link darjr provided is pretty neat, but I'd more likely just choose something roughly equivalent to an appropriate treasure bundle for the party.I don't even think determining inventory even makes a game more realistic: Once you start to raise the question at all, you start to get questions like, "How do you make a living selling magic items?" Certainly, you can't sell what amounts to a bazooka in any sized city or town unless you're dealing with the black market unless you happen to have a very high level of magic in your setting. Even so, you'd have to sell them periodically to make a living. And how was an NPC able to get such a large investment to pay for his magic item shop? That's very expensive, and not in the realm of most fantasy random Joes, it must be owned by a nobleman or something (even though one item brings the owner a lot of money, you have to think about his margin of profit--he had to acquire the item somehow--and he also has to eventually think about restocking his store). In which case, why is he in such a risky business? And if you do happen to have a very high level of magic in your setting, that'd definitely have some significant ramifications on the economy. Everyday craftsmen would have a guild or union that butts up with magic users, and the government may have price controls in place in order to protect jobs (as was the case in England during such a time) and outlaw some magic users' jobs.And, you can probably think of more problems. This would make for an awfully complicated game.But I digress. I would expect any magic item seller worth his salt would keep all of his items in a bag of holding--all you'd see in his shops would be a few bags lying around behind the counter. Your wares are easier to transport and it's easier to protect against theft.</blockquote>

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