D&D 5E No Magic Shops!

[Maxperson]

And I guess that leaves the impression that the DMG is saying "you can't buy magic" despite explicitly saying it depends on the setting.

I disagree and don't get that impression at all. 5e is rules light and let's you know in no uncertain terms with the rulings over rules and vague writing that the DM is there to create and come up with stuff for the game. It tells you that they are for sale if the DM wants, so come up with a price. It's really easy to come up with prices for magic items. It literally takes only a few seconds.

 

[Hussar]

No one has suggested players get to use the DMG like a shopping list. Advocates for "magic shops" just want baseline pricing for each item for those times PCs want to buy or sell a particular item as the opportunity presents itself. For instance, if the players meet a vendor of rare and spectacular items (with a small collection of randomly generated doodads), what would be considered a fair starting price for each of those items? You've been in this discussion almost the entire time, I'm not sure why you're putting such words in their mouths (or under the fingers, anyway).

Not saying I agree with their position. I stand by my assertion such prices should be determined WHOLLY by setting and context. If my PCs meet a knight who has been stranded in the wilderness for 2 weeks and is starving to death, he might sell his +1 longsword for a pack of rations. A +1 longsword family heirloom belonging to a noble seeking to fund his army might settle for no less than 50,000 GP.

The very idea that a baseline price exists suggests such items are traded with enough regularity to establish a price people generally agree is fair. That just doesn't happen in any of my settings, nor is it assumed to happen in the default game/world settings put forth by the developers. I can sort of see it happening with common and uncommon items, particularly +1 weapons/armor without additional effects, but how many Immovable Rods and Ioun Stones are in circulation that the inhabitants of the world can agree on their value?

But, how is a "fair" price then being determined? After all, we DO have a price list for magic items right in the DMG, based on exactly what you're describing - rarity determines price. A vender will more likely have a more common item than a less common item, thus, it's cheaper to buy an item that is more commonly found.

What's the point of having a different price list and magic shops if we aren't going to buy and sell magic items? I mean, [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] has specifically pointed to 3e as his inspiration here and complained that his playstyle (ie 3e fugible magic items) isn't supported by 5e. If that doesn't mean buying whatever magic items you can afford, then what exactly does it mean?

I don't think I'm putting words in anyone's mouth. Am I missing a part of the argument here? I thought the entire point of a new pricing structure for magic items was so that you could play 5e in a 3e style where you were expected to be able to buy whatever magic items you could afford that were under the GP limit of a settlement.

 

[delericho]

But, how is a "fair" price then being determined?

Leaving aside the question of why you would do this, the answer to how is surely the same as for balancing the monsters in the MM - you establish some baseline math, but then playtest them extensively to find the areas where expectations and reality don't quite match up. That's why WotC, who can call on some 100,000 playtesters, are far better placed to do this than anyone else.

 

[Coroc]

On fair Prices [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and Inflation [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] :

Fair Price is not a matter of Fairness but balancing "wealth per Level" more correct what the Party can afford with power Level (NOT DEFINED BY RARITY a la DMG) which can also vary - depending on the campaign style, -world, Party composition (healing pots in a Party where everyone has some cure wounds or the like spell available are worth much less than in a purely melee types Party e.g.) etc.

More examples:
-Some waterbreathing item is worth more than a +3 blunt weapon in a maritime / underwater campaign.

-A decanter of endless water would be considered gamebreaking by some in a dark sun campaign by the book

-Same goes a for a holy sword in a ravenloft game for purists

So rarity is only a very rough indicator for the Price of an item as i have clearly shown, you could make 100s of other example confirming this.

On Inflation:

For purists: there is None! and you are playing it most acurately based on RL history with that.

Prices for goods in RL middle Ages were quite constant sometimes over centuries at least in europe.
The reason for that is, there was no money system based on debt and interest, there were no unions and so on. An established Thing working would be kept so e.g. a loaf of bread in medieval Germany A.D. 12xx, 13xx, 14xx could cost quite the same.

For more gamelike Approach: Do you Keep book as a DM what mundane items are available at any time in, say a Metropole in your campaign world? so why would you care if the Party e.g. found a few magic items they decided they wont need and sell them of in that place?

Would the ordinary People be suddenly competition for the adventureres just because they bought themselves a +1 sword or a wand of fireballs with 3 charges left?

No they would not and even if, it would not be the parties main Focus, so if as a DM you go into that Level of Detail just introduce some more baddies to compensate.

If you care about power creep caused purelyby Magic trade your only issue should be: Would this or that item trivialise a challenge for the Party? Would it imbalance certain Encounters? If that is the case, adjust things, the item in question is not found anywhere on this plane of existence and if it is it is not for sale steal or whatever but well hidden.

Some ppl on this thread seem to think a Magic shop in game is like opening the treasure table in the DMG added with Prices no matter what.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Leaving aside the question of why you would do this, the answer to how is surely the same as for balancing the monsters in the MM - you establish some baseline math, but then playtest them extensively to find the areas where expectations and reality don't quite match up. That's why WotC, who can call on some 100,000 playtesters, are far better placed to do this than anyone else.

You're off by at least two and closer to three orders of magnitude for official playtesters. I think what you mean is "there are lots of people playing D&D who would be willing to provide their opinions."

But I don't think this is actually feasible. How many items can one group "playtest" accurately? What does that even mean? "In our group Bob was willing to pay 25,000 gold for a Ring of Spell Storing, and Sally was only willing to pay 5,000 gold for a +1 mace." If you are expanding the pool beyond trusted playtesters, how do you differentiate between authentic feedback and pure opinion. Or maybe you're happy just aggregated and averaging opinion?

And if you are, why not just rely on your own opinion?

Many things in this thread have puzzled me. If it's true that nobody is asking for a player-driven "magic mart" then I'm more confused than ever. Although I hate the idea of video-game-style "magic shops" with fixed prices, I can at least understand that such a thing would require good price lists to avoid player-DM debates. But if you're letting the DM decide what items are available then what's the point of having official prices? The DM is either going to make the thing available at the price he/she wants, or not make it available.

And considering that the amount of gold going around in each game is different, wouldn't you want the DM to set the prices? A price that makes sense in one game is likely to be either unaffordable or cheap in another game.

Now, I can agree that the rarity levels of the various items seem...strange. But you are free to change that.

The more I think about this...especially now that I understand that nobody wants on-demand shopping...the more I think it's a total non-issue.

 

[delericho]

You're off by at least two and closer to three orders of magnitude for official playtesters. I think what you mean is "there are lots of people playing D&D who would be willing to provide their opinions."

The D&D Basic rules state that playtesting was provided by over 175,000 fans of D&D. So the 100k number I gave was low, but not be orders of magnitude.

But I don't think this is actually feasible. How many items can one group "playtest" accurately? What does that even mean? "In our group Bob was willing to pay 25,000 gold for a Ring of Spell Storing, and Sally was only willing to pay 5,000 gold for a +1 mace." If you are expanding the pool beyond trusted playtesters, how do you differentiate between authentic feedback and pure opinion. Or maybe you're happy just aggregated and averaging opinion?

And if you are, why not just rely on your own opinion?

That aggregating of opinion is pretty much where the value of playtesting lies, because RPG design isn't a matter of pure math.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The D&D Basic rules state that playtesting was provided by over 175,000 fans of D&D. So the 100k number I gave was low, but not be orders of magnitude.

Ok, so you meant the massive group of anonymous volunteers who claim they have used the rules in an actual game and are willing to fill out surveys. Not what is usually meant by "playtesters", which is the much (much) smaller, trusted group that tends to get credits in the product. That's cool, but as I said and I'm sure you agree, you have to take those results with a large dose of salt.

That aggregating of opinion is pretty much where the value of playtesting lies, because RPG design isn't a matter of pure math.

I think you are missing my point about how the pricing of magic items is unlike, say, a rule for grappling or the mechanics of a spell. You can test the latter by saying, "Hey let's have a mock combat and see how grappling works and test Witch Bolt." But how do you do that with magic item prices? "Ok, I'm going to give you each 100,000 gold and 10th level characters. Let's pretend you're in a magic shop and haggle over prices."

I hope you see the problem.

Sure, you could ask only for data from actual purchases (or refusals to purchase) from long-term campaigns, but you would have to also ask for how much total gold was rewarded/won per character in that campaign, what other avenues for spending gold were provided, and what other magic items were available.

World of Warcraft, with millions of players doing frequent...sometimes daily...buying and selling under nearly identical conditions with very strictly controlled rates of gold generation still sees big price differentials across servers. How many times in a D&D game does one player actually buy a magic item?

I could go on...but hopefully do not need to. "Playtesting" is not a useful option here. Well, that's not completely true: the bizarre numbers that would result would at least make the current rarity pricing look logicial.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] Playtesters or WoW in game Gold, you got it right with what you wrote in #301

As i said two posts above, it seems to me many Players, those wanting an official price list in the phb/dmg and those fearing the Feature Magic item shop being included in the official rule set , seem to think:

If there is a Magic shop it must have any item in the DMG Magic item list (plus some more )

And that is the wrong assumption to begin with on that Topic. Is there an official rule that any item in the mundane item list has to be on sale at least somewhere in any game, no matter what campaign world, around?

Is the expectation a modern D&D Player has into the game: If i create a fighter character the DM has to provide a smithy somewhere in his campaign where i am 100% certain to be able to buy plate mail, a rapier, a great sword? If the answer to that is a yes, i can understand the different Points of view which seem to collide in this thread.

 

[Maxperson]

On fair Prices [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and Inflation [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] :

Fair Price is not a matter of Fairness but balancing "wealth per Level" more correct what the Party can afford with power Level (NOT DEFINED BY RARITY a la DMG) which can also vary - depending on the campaign style, -world, Party composition (healing pots in a Party where everyone has some cure wounds or the like spell available are worth much less than in a purely melee types Party e.g.) etc.

This requires WotC to re-write the entire game. The game does not assume magic items. In order to prepare a price list that is fair in a wealth by level format, they would have to re-write the entire game to assume magic items. You'd get a list that was "fair"(in quotes because 3e shows that WotC cannot properly value items anyway), but that would also devalue magic items by an incredible amount as they would now be assumed and countered by the game math, instead of strictly being a bonus as they are now.

 

[jasper]

[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] Playtesters or WoW in game Gold, you got it right with what you wrote in #301

1. As i said two posts above, it seems to me many Players, those wanting an official price list in the phb/dmg and those fearing the Feature Magic item shop being included in the official rule set , seem to think:

2. If there is a Magic shop it must have any item in the DMG Magic item list (plus some more )

3. And that is the wrong assumption to begin with on that Topic. Is there an official rule that any item in the mundane item list has to be on sale at least somewhere in any game, no matter what campaign world, around?

4. Is the expectation a modern D&D Player has into the game: If i create a fighter character the DM has to provide a smithy somewhere in his campaign where i am 100% certain to be able to buy plate mail, a rapier, a great sword? If the answer to that is a yes, i can understand the different Points of view which seem to collide in this thread.

1. yes added numbers in quote to make joke work.
2. go to 3.
3. in Sam Kinison voice, " YOU SAID WHEN I START I COULD BUY ANYTHING IN THE PHB. THE PHB IS OFFICAL! I WANT MY PLATE MAIL! YOU SAID THERE WAS A LARGE SHOP!"
DM Coroc "You are a the North pole and just looted Santa's Workshop. "
4.in Sam Kinison voice, "MODERN D&D PLAYER EXCEPTION! PLAYERS WERE DOING THIS IN 1980!"