D&D 5E Magic Item Shops in Your Campaign

[Blackrat]

I really don’t know what to answer to the poll I run a pretty much special case by case situation with magic items. Similar to the previous two answers

So, sure, you can get low level potions pretty easily from any largish town or bigger.

You can also find people selling a small random selection of magical items, but the odds of finding anything specific are slim.

You can find skilled enough people to craft you a specific item, but the cost will be great and it will certainly include a quest to find incredients.

There’s even this travelling, planes hopping, eccentric, magical curio merchant who might have artefacts for sell. His prices will surprise you...

 

[BookTenTiger]

I don't have any magic shops. Occasionally a merchant, herbalist, warrior, or specific individual will have a common or uncommon item if it fits their concept.

Oh! There was ONE magic shop... the characters wound up selling all their stuff in order to buy a magic axe... which was cursed! It's a shame vampires took over that town so they could never go back and complain to the merchant.

 

[CleverNickName]

Some rough results so far...

• Looks like more than half of us allow Common and Uncommon magic items to be purchased in their games.
• The most common items are potions (50%), scrolls (40%), and other single-use items (40%).
• Only 2-3 people allow characters to purchase artifacts and other legendary items.
• Most of us categorize magic items by Rarity, then by Type. Magic Item Tables are used the least.

 

[J.Quondam]

Depends on the campaign, but typically "None."
However, it's not unknown to encounter a wandering peddler hawking trinkets, charms, or tonics, which might sometimes not be fake. And on rare occasions, a character might spot a glimmer of something magical in a mundane shop, like a spell scroll in bookstore or a mysteriously glowing pickle in ye olde sammich shoppe or something.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Only lesser potions and scrolls. I keep a close lockdown on which items get into players hand, and how. Buying powerful items is not only a game-breaking thing, but it destroys verisimilitude for my players. Nobles and kings would clean out the stores pretty regularly, or the stores would be robbed all the time, or burnt down by people scared of magic.

One exception is Captain Xendros in the Saltmarsh campaign, which is ok since he puts a scrying thing on any items he sells

 

[NotAYakk]

A magic item "shop" is just another treasure horde. You provide it with items, or roll on a table, just like you'd treat the treasure of a Kobold Dragon Cult.

To get the items, you'd have to plunder the shop (like you did the Kobolds) or pay the price in gold (like you could have the Kobolds) or whatever. Any and all items I add to the campaign world and the PCs are aware of, I expect the campaign to handle them using.

There is no (well, no absolutes; see below) magic mart with a huge stock of a variety of magic items to pick from.

A source of consumables, like, potions can exist; if I need it to exist and it didn't already, I might add in a quest to get the ingredients for the NPC to produce a bunch of healing potions. Then, in another continent, where mad wizard forged abominations spew forth from towers and dinosaur-riding herders rule the plains, healing potions are "easy" to come by (but watch out for side effects!).

Scrolls are the typical means most spellcasters use to cast spells (rather than the PC-like memorization and slots), to the extent that most wizard spellbooks are just books full of spell scrolls. Few spellcasters sell them; there are guilds where apprentices (very slowly) labor away and produce low level scrolls for higher tier members of the guild, but they aren't sold on the public market, but rather provided for dues and services to the guild. So gaining access to a supply of scrolls is either a black market thing, or a social status thing.

But paying a guild member for a few "excess" scrolls could probably happen. They don't want to get caught, and their supply is not arbitrary; so it won't be a regular thing.

The equivalent with priests runs into the problem that their scrolls and scroll-equivalents are literally invested with divine power. So selling them for gold to be used by some random person is sacrilegious. Selling the spellcasting service for a worthy purpose for a donation to the church is a different thing entirely.

Campaign phase changes, where what was previously impossible or difficult to find becomes easy, occur. For example, imagine finding the armory of an ancient high-magic kingdom, with literally 1000s of +1 enchanted weapons and armor. There is a civilization that arms its troops with sparkguns (magic weapons that fire lighting; these have advantage to hit on targets in medium or heavy metal armor; misfires are a shocking experience).

Getting a +1 weapon becomes impossible, then it becomes trivial.

As gold cannot be freely converted to/from magic items, this causes no direct game-balance economic issue; you cannot convert 1000 +1 swords into a staff of the magi. There is no market for 1000 swords at a "decent" price, even though you might have spent 1000 gp to buy your +1 sword only a few months ago and counted yourself lucky at the great bargain.

OTOH, those 1000 swords used to arm an army of soldiers could swing the result of a war.

 

[was]

some common and uncommon items...usually in the larger cities

 

[Fifinjir]

Jubilate is mildly magiteck-y, so Vitalia its capital has many magic items in circulation. There aren’t many dedicated shops for them though, if you want a magic item you generally have to look for it in the special inventory of vendors of the normal version of those items, so enchanted weapons are found with weapon smiths or importers.

It should be said that Jubilate is a fairly adventurer friendly culture, other countries might prefer to leave magic weapons and armor in the hands of their army.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think I've answered the question in the previous thread: D&D 5E - Sane Magic Item Prices

the tl,dr answer is "a quarterly auction in an ancient, wealthy and decadent city, where the ruling houses collect and sell items"

 

[Swedish Chef]

I have grown to hate the concept of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe in my campaigns over the years. But, my players view the magic item lists in the various books as simply shopping guides. Rarity? Bah, means nothing. Just a reason for them to moan that the "DM won't let them have really cool item X".

So, because the players want magic to be fairly common, it is fairly common in the larger cities. It may grate against my nerves, but it doesn't stop me from having fun running a campaign.

And when I'm a player, I just don't buy magic items. If I can make use of items found, great. If not, I purchase quality equipment. It may put my character at a disadvantage at times, especially compared to other player characters, but I enjoy it anyway.