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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8586778" data-attributes="member: 7026617">In practice.I mean, let's get real; technically there was some extremely broad examples even in OD&D about creating some magic items (besides the scroll-and-potion examples, there was, as I recall, a Ring of X-Ray Vision and maybe a +1 Magic Sword) listed somewhere in the books.  Yet outside of scroll scribing you virtually never saw it happen in the wild, in part because once it was doable there would have been no reason not to do it as regularly as possible (and the rules passively discouraged it because of an additional time requirement).  But one of the things that Old School GMs were obsessed about was magic item access control (which was simultaneously understandable and ridiculous; understandable because some higher order magic items could up the power level of characters significantly (consider the impact on the usual trap-and-treasure seeking process of that X-Ray Vision Ring, even with its limitations), and ridiculous because if you used the magic treasure tables as-was, you'd have more low to middle level magic items than you knew what to do with after a while (the number of magic swords you could have come across by mid levels was astounding (if people used followers they'd give the lower level spares to them, otherwise to their own or other's lower level characters because why not?)There was always a real fear in some circles that if you could convert gold into magic items, it'd turn into a double-dip of benefit for gold.  That's why the primary controller of magic item creation (rather than purchase, which could be controlled by the GM by simply not making a given item available) in 3e was experience, which people were generally far less interested in spending barring the trivial amount needed for some low end consumeables.Remember in the early days that what spells a PC acquired was not entirely within their control.  It was partly randomized, and nobody but the GM had to know whether he'd actually put anything on the table he didn't want.  As to why, see above.Not IME.  Staves in particular were logically a cost-effective way to significantly up your firepower.  Later on wands and staves tended to produce slightly substandard versions of most offensive spells relative to what a PC could do, but to the degree the gap existed at all early on, it was much smaller.Note, again, potions and scrolls (at least low end ones) tended to be the exception.You'd think, wouldn't you?  Yet in the wild it was often a one way (and thus, pointless, since there wasn't anything particularly useful to do with more gold) street.  Assuming the GM even allowed sales of items; I quite frequently saw people trying to rationalize the lack of ability to buy items by saying they were so expensive there was no meaningful market, so you couldn't sell them, either.Assuming you got to the level you could do so, and the GM permitted enough time to.  (Note Enchant Item was a 6th Level spell in AD&D, and Permanent Spell/Permanancy were 8th level spells in both OD&D and AD&D.  Plenty of people never saw characters get to those levels because of the progressive-cost slope of experience in those days (in fact I don't think I ever actually encountered a PC who could cast an eighth level spell).(And this is ignoring the "magic item creation other than consumables is a lost art" crowd who'd simply not have those spells researchable at all).</blockquote>

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