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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeff Carlsen" data-source="post: 6031953" data-attributes="member: 61749">The purpose behind questing for magic items is to make magic item creation something that exists within the world, but that PCs rarely do without explicit need. When they do, it's a big deal. It's similar to "PCs can't make magic items," but in less absolute terms so that the setting makes sense.If the component you need for an acid sword is a green dragon scale,  given freely, then you have a solid explanation as to why acid swords  are rare, expensive, and very difficult to make.As for buying and selling magic items, It's not so much that there is no market for them. Instead, it's similar to the market for classic sports cars. Only a small percentage of the population has the spare funds to buy one. Of course, you could always sell your classic Ferrari for $3000, but you can get significantly more from the right buyer.So the rich and powerful within a society have magic items. That would be royalty, nobility, knights, adventurers, wealthy merchants, clergy, tribal chiefs, etc. I imagine that there are events in major cities where these people gather to buy, sell, and trade expensive wares. I'm sure there are some merchants that do the same.But, in order for magic items to be this kind of rare, they must be difficult to make and require rare components. You probably can sell those components, because they're in demand by anyone who does craft, but good luck buying them. That's why you can't just convert rare components to GP. You have to find those components, or hire someone to find them for you. At minimum, that will add a randomly determined amount of time to the crafting, and includes the risk that those you hired will run off with the money or die in the attempt.Regardless, the rare component system is also the method for modularity. If each item has a rare component as part of its construction requirement, then the DM can easily choose how vibrant the component market is in their setting. All that would require is an optional "component price" chart.</blockquote>

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