Players Whining that they Should be able to Buy Magic Items

[reanjr]

See that I would have a problem with. A completely undetectable curse worked into their magic items? Wow. What fun.

I'm with you. If I curse something, it's because there's an important story reason to do so. I don't do it just to keep the PCs in check.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I realize that I failed to express myself properly in my post regarding the purchase of office in the pre-modern world. My point was not that money was never a necessary condition to obtain office. My point was that money was rarely a sufficient condition.

I am not entirely disagreeing - it is simply that the Norse kings were perhaps the worst choice to make your point. They were arguably the most likely to do so, though also the most likely to change their minds and take them back again, or simply kill the poor sucker a few years later, Jutland being notorious in that regard.

Olaf Sandle did in fact sell patents of nobility to those who 'plunked down 50.000 GP' so to speak, though admitedly he was considered greedy and venal even by his fellows. Of course he was also 'king' of only one city.

Charlmagne would not have, but one of his sons if I recall did sell titles - one of the points of contention with his brothers.

Some, though not most, of the Norman kings were nearly as bad. (William Rufus, who on one occassion sold a title, then sent his army in to retake it...)

Other Norman kings of England refused to sell English titles, but were quite willing to sell titles in Scotland and Ireland. For what it is worth England still sells Scottish titles along with the land...

Buying commissions in the British Army continued into WW1, where it caused considerable problems. Many patents of nobility, in the lower ranks (Baronette, Knight Banneret, and arguably squire) were essentially military commissions as seen through the feudal eye, and were sometimes purchased.

As I said, I allow the party to find people to commission the creation of magic items from, but do not just have a magic shop. But it was the sale of patents of nobility that amused me.

 

[reanjr]

"So valuable that it will never be sold" and "plentiful" are mutually exclusive, in my book.

Hydrogen bomb.

 

[reanjr]

Seems like an irrelevant argument.

The price of a +3 Longsword in gold is much less important than the value of the sword compared to a +2 Longsword. The market for magic items does not exist because of my whim for a +3 sword, it must exist if I can acquire a bag full of +1 and +2 weapons. How coin figures into this is a minor detail.

That's exactly what I was saying. The cost in making the item does not necessarily increase the value of the item. Items have a marketable value cap, that when exceeded by the cost (as I was suggesting was the case when you have to pour your life force [XP] into it to make it), the number of items available in the world would plummet. You just reinforced the point I was making.

 

[reanjr]

Oh please I am old school too. I guess I played on the wrong side of tracks and with bad players. In the beginning magic shops were in every big town until we started knocking them off and stealing the loot. They did it to my world which in turn I did in theirs. Which then started either every magic shop being ran by a 20+ level wizard, or god. Then end with the magic shop from the n-dimension which would appear when you needed it and ran by a 20+ level wizard with lots of guards.
Sorry played in different editions, on different coasts, on different continents. It is the players not the system or computer games or immature players or current culture.

I certainly agree with that. If you have players who don't abuse the system, then it works out fine. But that is not what I have. People suggest adding history to magic items, giving them background and legends and names. This does not help if the players don't care. If I didn't describe a magic item's appearence, the player's wouldn't even ask. The only way to get my players to care where the item came from is to almost entirely nerf the identify spell (which I usually do, depending on the campaign).

I have issues with 3e's presentation of magic items, but not the mechanics of them. They present it in such a way that new players get the impression that that kind of stat mongering is what is expected of them in the game. There is almost no information in the Player's Handbook on how to role-play, just loads of information for how you can change your modifiers and DCs. I really feel that's the worst part of 3e, and it's almost a game-breaker for anyone who wants to play another way.

 

[reanjr]

Why did you let them have so much money? Buying gear shouldn't be a problem if they're not overloaded with cash.

If you have decent players then the typical, expected level of wealth in D&D allows players to take on creatures with CRs well beyond their level.

 

[reanjr]

In many cases people believed that certain things required portions of their life essence, or even their soul to make or do. And yet those things were bought and sold, just like any other valuabnle commodity.

Attempting to avoid the whole religious thing here, but the belief of loss of life essence is dramatically different from tangible loss of life essence.

 

[reanjr]

That's what having rogues and other information gathering types in a party are for.

Gather Information is the best way to avoid role-playing I've seen. It is not easy to find out this sort of information. And often, the information just isn't there. Just because the PCs want something doesn't mean it exists in the city they are in. For instance, IRL it is rather difficult to purchase tanks on the black market in most countries. Whether you have connections or not, some things are just not possible.

Even if they find someone dealing in such items, it is going to have ~400% black markup, and they usually won't want it, since they can get better things by just adventuring. And the people dealing in such items aren't going to be able to just take an order and come back with what you needed. If it isn't available, it isn't available.

Of course that players could do some such thing, but it really isn't worth it, so they don't.

In my experience, most PCs (who can) are willing to make magic items in exchange to trade, even just to trade for cash. Not all the time, but every now and then during their career. If you want to come up with an "xp limit", a good rule of thumb would likely be 1/25th of the gold piece limit.

I disagree with that being a good rule of thumb due to markets not being completely based on supply-demand (I more thoroughly discuss this in a previous post). I've never seen a PC who would be willing to sell their XP for gp unless they expected to purchase magic items with the gp. It's a critical mass issue, which, in my opinion, would not be reached due to many of the other factors I talk about.

This is an element of every market. Magic items should be no different in this regard. But it hasn't killed the market in any other commodity, it just makes buyers cautious.

There is a recent trend discussed on Slate (I believe; I wish I could find the link to the article, but my search-fu is failing me) how spam/adware/spyware/worms have gotten so bad that there is actually a small market backlash against always-on internet. These things do effect the market. A healthy, thriving market can bear such things, but - due to the many circumstances I've illustrated - the market has never become so healthy. so this type of activity is a significant detriment to the market.

It can, but on the other hand, masterwork swords can be sundered quite easily too, but there are plenty of them available for sale. In reality, cars wear out after a few short years of use, but we have millions of them available for sale daily.

Masterwork swords are not nearly as expensive as magical items for their worth. Cars do not wear out after a few years. A part wears out after a few years and the machine can be fixed by the purchase of a cheap part. The maintenance on a car is very reasonable for the first 10 years, after which many cars get junked when something minor happens. It's just not worth repairing when the part costs half of what the car is worth (as is the case with magical items).

Now think about all of the people around the world who have weapons. Especially in less than completely civilized areas of the world (which are usually analogous to the places that adventurers would spend lots of time in). Do you under stand just how easy is it to get weaponry in Afghanistan, or Sudan, or Somalia?

I'm not sure what you mean by civilized, but I guarentee the level of civilization has nothing to do with weapon availability. Germany began to remove weapons from their citizen's hands before WWII; does that mean they were progressing towards a more civilized culture? Weapons and warfare were always the domain of the civilized in feudal systems (knights in western feudalism, for instance, or samurai in eastern). America in the 1920s could arguably be counted among the most civilized of nations in that period, yet tommy guns were available by mail order to anyone who wanted one. I think on this point, you are just wrong. Maybe you should define civilized.

Gun control is a cultural decision that is based upon huge variety of factors. Again, this is just one of things that keep the magic trade down in the areas where "gun control" people are prominent, powerful, and active.

I believe that your understanding of feudal law is somewhat lacking. Note, for example, that contrary to your assertions, historical feudal rulers often had to borrow heavily from those in their lands to finance their wars and other ambitions (rather than, for example, just confiscating their property as you would have them do). The very essence of fuedal law was reciprocating rights: the lord had power, but he also had duties and responsibilities to his vassals. Many feudal kings were overthrown (such as Richard II) or curbed by force (such as John Lackland) when they were perceived to have trampled on the rights of their vassals. What you assert as an example of "feudal law" is probably more like the law applied by the pre-Hellenic asiatic emperors of the middle-east.

I did not make it clear, but I was referring to lords vs. serfs, not liege vs vassal. As most PCs can only be considered outlaws (or at best foreigners [there is a better term for this but I can't think of it] while adventuring), they would be at the full mercy of the lord on whose land they were.

 

[reanjr]

Actually, according to the original post, we're talking about whether or not the PCs should be able to buy magic items.

Which would only be impossible in an environment in which you posited that there would be no market for magic items.

Maybe the word buy should be more clearly defined from the original poster. Usually the word buy (dictionary.com) is used to refer to exchanges made with money, credit, species, etc. Exchange for magical items or services would not be "buy"ing in this sense, and would usually be referred to as bartering. And so there would be no market, even if the goods were able to be acquired.

 

[reanjr]

The risk aspect of buying magic items has popped up a couple of times in this thread. I'm not saying that it would be impossible, but, how likely would the Thieves Guild or whatnot to piss of characters who evidently have earned 50k (or whatever large sum they're spending) in adventuring?

It's about the same as a shady used cars salesman tried to sell a lemon to person he knew to be Magneto / Superman. The thieves know that these are very tough hombres. Maybe there would be easy pickings elsewhere ..

My NPCs don't metagame.