Players Whining that they Should be able to Buy Magic Items

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

IMC I want magic to be wonderful, amazing. I want players who get a magical item say "Woowww! Great!!". I don't see it being the case with "So, I have the money, lets get rid of this +1 sword and buy a +3, and if I bargain well, I may also get a healing potion".

What? Are you crazy?

I'd be much more likely to say, "Gee, this heirloom sword has served me and my family well. I am in a position to improve it. I think I'll ask the party wizard / Archmage of the City / the Armsmaster of Helm to help me reforge it. On the other hand, I have no use for the Longsword of Nigh-Infinite Pointiness that the BBEG was wielding; it means nothing to me, other than a memento of a slain foe."

Plus, it's cheaper in the long run - you don't have to keep paying the MW sword cost each time!

 

[Kast]

Another reason that magic items might not be bought and sold is a cultural bias against it. When magic is treated as barter, it cheapens it, angers its source and brings ill luck to the purveyors. The source not being the DM I hope, but maybe.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Just a point to those who think that 1st ed individuals wouldn't have lots of low-level magic treasure.

Once treasure gets identified as magic, any sane character would immediately throw it away. This would continue all the way until someone gets access to "remove curse", and potentially beyond that.

Why? Because some huge proportion of magical treasure is cursed, and cursed so bad that to use it or attempt to identify it is basically death for the character involved. So the smart thing is to leave it be.

And then once you've got remove curse, you can go back and collect it all. Possibly.

Or it's been nicked. By people who weren't fighters and couldn't defeat it's protectors. By people who are probably just going to sell it.

Oops.

 

[fusangite]

Unless you're playing D&D in some kind of weird Eberron, Faerun or Planescape kind of world where everybody is a modern liberal democrat and magic oozes out of everybody's pores, I'm guessing that the campaign world is the good old fashioned pseudo-medieval D&D world. If that's the case, the most important thing to realize is that in the pre-modern world, there aren't shops in the modern sense of the idea; anything expensive or worthwhile was commissioned. It wasn't part of the inventory. In a medieval-style city, you have skilled tradespeople who make things; they might have one or two display items in their shop or booth to show the quality of their workmanship but generally, there will be no inventory to speak of. Any item of quality will have to be commissioned.

And even if you somehow live in a world where there are modern-style stores with inventories, how many of them are going to have an inventory exceeding 1000gp? Very few if their owners have any economic sense at all. Who is going to use up xp to create items that sit on a shelf, depriving their creator of xp he could be using to level or brew potions or whatever? Who, furthermore, is going to run a shop with thousands or tens of thousands of gp worth of stuff that could be stolen? Nobody with an Int or Wis high enough to create the stuff! Any rational actor would wait to make a magic item until such time as there was a potential buyer for it.

Now, I suppose the characters could go to a local temple or mages' guild to commission magic items for a special purpose. The people at that place would not only be selling very expensive materials in exchange for gold; they would also be selling their XP. (I challenge anyone who thinks there should be magic shops to explain who would take valuable xp, convert those xp into items they were not using and leave them on a shelf not accruing any revenue.) Now let's imagine the rate at which a priest or mage would sell his XP to the characters and what it might take to persuade him to do so. You might even consider asking the players what they would sell their XP for; maybe doing so would give them the idea of just how ridiculous their demands are.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'm all for making the players happy. But sometimes you make your audience the happiest by cannily refusing to give them everything they want...

Yessssss, which is quite different than telling them no b/c you're the DM and if they don't like it they can leave. One scenario can be justified. The other cannot.

 

[Saeviomagy]

3. a mage who demands PC's pay the experance for items he crafts (assuming this is allowable), but wont lower the price much as he is the only source.

Well - this is kind of possible. The PC can participate in the creation, and be considered the 'creator' for the purpose of XP expenditure. Unfortunately the items caster level is also based upon the caster level of the contributing PC, so for many items, this isn't viable.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Now, IMC buying and selling magic items isn't the free and easy thing it is in other campaigns, but thats the price for safe, responsible magic use (so says the Guild and they are right).

But not allowing PCs to buy magic items at all makes no sense at all. In any context.

Sorry, I forgot to add [SARCASM]bag full of 50,000 gp[/SARCASM]

Which is why the Oath (magically binding vow that all wizards take before learning the trade) includes a coinage law--spells and items above third level cannot be paid for in coin. Gems, jewelry, art, land, titles, deeds, favors, or service. Not gold (or platinum. Eeugh.).

 

[arwink]

Should the players be able to buy magic items? Only if the DM says so.

That being said, the trade in magic items was one of my favorite additions to 3rd edition. As long as it's not treated as the magical equivalent of the super-market, you can actually use it to make magic more magical rather than less.

Suddenly Elves can lay claim to being magically unique among the mortal races, because their long lifespans and rich magical heritage leads to a vast amount of magic items they are willing to trade with other races in order to get "something interesting and unique." Players that want unlimitted access to magic items have to find places where they are traded and sold, often leading to back-alley fences that specialise or trips to once a year fey-moots where merchants from a dozen planes come to trade their wares on neutral ground in the prime plane. Commissioning items requires tracking the rumors about an artisan that may be able to craft what you're looking for, as well as finding something that they may actually want (GP values don't necessarily mean the players are handing over coins).

More importantly I started to see games where players finished the campaign weilding the same weapons that they started the game with, feeling a great sense of accomplishment that they'd managed to craft their masterwork axe into a legendary weapon of power. One player prefered to use the axe he'd built from the ground up to the more powerful sword the party found towards the end of the campaign. As a fighter, he'd relied heavily on providing service and goods to allied wizards and temples in order to enchant the weapon.

 

[Aaron L]

I pretty much find the idea that some kind of market for magic items WOULDN'T develop to be absurd. As has been said, most magic items are made for combat, and common people aren't all that concerned with combat. Adventureres, however, those people who go out risking thier lives for fame, glory, and MONEY, would certainly want those magic items that will benefit them, and to get a good money value of of those magic items that they can't use. And most of them will be smart enough to realize that someone somewhere will have a need for those things that they don't want.

Now that doesn't mean magic shops. I envision magic auctions, or an underground market with brokers, things like that. Or good old fashioned footwork and asking around with other adventurers if they have anything they'd like to buy or sell or trade for. But the idea that the farmer who finds a +1 sword is going to keep hold of it because it is valuable is kinda ridiculous.

 

[National Acrobat]

The point of the game is for everyone to have fun, not just the DM. If everyone in the group would like access to a magic shop, IMO the DM has an obligation to either accomodate them to some degree or give them an explanation why not that is more than "this is my game and if you don't like it there's the door." Talk about an egotistical, tyrannical attitude!

That doesn't mean they should be able to buy whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. But by the same token, having to rely on the DM to dish out what he feels like can be annoying after a while. And if you're not a spellcaster and there isn't an appropriate one in the party, once again the PCs are forced to rely on the benevolence of their DM to give them access to created magic items.

It's a team game folks!

There are 3 appropriate spellcasters in the group. None of the three has taken any Item Creation Feats at All. Zilch. One is a 9th Level Mage, One is a 9th Level Sorceror and the other is a 10th Level Mage.

The two players who whine run 2 of these characters.

I'm all for them creating things, but they won't.

Magic to me is special, as many have said. They have enough money to create items, but not enough with the mark up of the DM guide to purchase things.

And as I've said, six of the players have no problem at all with the way that the game is run, however of those six, none of them like to play spellcasters.

Perhaps next campaign I should make people play a class they've never played before.