D&D General Making a robust magic item buying system

[abirdcall]

So, 5e was not designed with buying magic items in mind. And there is good in that. Magic items are special and gold can be used elsewhere. But buying magic items is fun and is part of most stories with these sorts of fantasy worlds.

So what do.

1. Consumables cost too much.
2. Permanent items don't cost enough.
3. Magic items lose their specialness.
4. Buying and selling is a mundane activity.

Who would buy a consumable? The party will soon be outfitted with so many items.

Solutions:

Healing Potions costs 10gp. Limit 1/short rest but can always be used to restore 1hp when at 0. If the party wants more healing from their potions then they should buy higher quality healing potions.

Consumable items, on average, cost 50% their current recommended cost.*

Other potions are limited to 1/short rest (in addition to a healing potion) or the character risks strange things happening with the mixing of potions.

This will allow the party to afford and want to use consumable items.

Permanent items, on average, cost 200% their current recommended cost.*

*Cost by rarity is a guideline, the DM makes decisions based on the estimated demand. Some items are better than others.

Wow those items are expensive! Here are some drawbacks that are easy to apply to reduce their costs.

1. Poor enchanting causes the magical strands to be frayed, loose, or otherwise poorly constructed. These items cause magical interference of differing degrees and limit how many items a character can possess. This will allow even low level adventurers to have some magical gear but they're going to want to upgrade to well made items if they want to be fully equipped.
2. Precious gems are required to replenish charges. These items may cost a lot less upfront which will allow characters to get cool items earlier but they must use them sparingly as the cost will add up.
3. Poor quality materials results in a chance to break.
Use this one rarely, it's not typically fun to have this happen. I would allow for an enchanter to repair the item at a fee.
4. Some sort of lessening of the statistics. Instead of 5 charges, it could be 3. Instead of 4 different spell effects to choose from it could be 2 or 3.
This one should be somewhat rare too. The magic items should still feel powerful and fun.

Each of these drawbacks should be fairly easy to apply without much work on the part of the DM. Importantly, they don't involve a negative game effect that will interfere with what the character is doing like a penalty to some rolls or such.


Additional ideas and thoughts welcome.

 

[Tigris]

Have 2 ressources. One is gold used for non magical stuff. Lodging etc.


Have a second ressource Residuum which is used to trade for magical items. Of course for their work traders and crafters woeking with magical items would also need a (small) gold coin fee for their work.


You could have religious (the gods forbid to sell residuum for gold), or societal (magic is so rare you never get a magic item again, but you can always get gold) or you can trade msgical items and thete are soo many useful ones that having access to this trafing is more worth than gold.

 

[Lanefan]

A good item buying (and selling!) system requires the DM to go through and price every magic item on the list individually, with each item's price based on a combination of cost to construct/enchant, overall usefulness, real or perecived rarity, and likely demand (i.e. how long will the lineup be to buy one of these if it comes available).

Ideally this work should have been done by the game's designers but they punted, so you gotta do it yourself and believe me, it's a lot of tedious work. Blanket pricing by rarity level (a la 4e) is a joke; items of the same rarity are almost never actually worth the same in terms of usefulness or demand (e.g. by straight rarity a +3 longsword and a +3 sickle would be priced the same but the longsword will be in far greater demand).

Or, you could use an existing (if imperfect) price list such as the one in the 1e DMG (or UA), but there's been so many items introduced since then I'm not sure how much work this would save. A list like that would, however, give you a starting reference.

For simplicity, and to prevent your game's PCs from becoming buy-low sell-high item traders instead of adventurers, I highly recommend having items always sell for the same price they were purchased for, consumables excepted of course.

 

[touc]

Level Up: Advanced 5E has crafting magical item rules and each magical item has a cost. I'd use a combo of "downtime" rules (searching for sellers of items) and adjust costs for labor, and ultimately some items are so rare they can't be found or so valuable they can't be bought.

 

[aco175]

I'm not sure having potions be able to use 1/rest is an improvement. Then again, now you can take 1/round and only slowed by cost and DM handing them out. I just think that it would add more to the 5-minute work day (5MWD) problem once I take my potion and then out of luck until we rest.

 

[Krachek]

Any system will remove the « special » about magic item, and make buying a common mundane task.

Make buying, exchanging, crafting items an adventure. With risk of failure or big rewards.
Otherwise magic items just become an extension of classes features.

 

[abirdcall]

Any system will remove the « special » about magic item, and make buying a common mundane task.

Make buying, exchanging, crafting items an adventure. With risk of failure or big rewards.
Otherwise magic items just become an extension of classes features.

While this is correct, and why I liked 5e's original design and resisted the idea of magic marts, it is quite strange to say no one is buying and selling magic items in some campaign settings/stories.

There are still things I do to make them special.

1. Items found in adventures are random.
2. Characters can find special ingredients as is befitting the adventure and they can then pursue some crafting with the help of enchanters, smiths, and artisans.
3. What is available is highly limited. It's not just the DMG that players will choose from.

I suppose what my structure is doing is keeping the higher quality items special while allowing for a market of magical items of some sort.

I recently ran a Planescape campaign. Pretty hard to say that no magic items are available in Sigil. Current campaign also takes place in a metropolis.