Players Whining that they Should be able to Buy Magic Items

[reanjr]

How do DMs who don't allow purchasing magic items explain why no market develops for them? That would take some pretty bizarre behaviour on the part of just about everyone with any wealth to speak of in the entire campaign world.

It depends on the campaign, but it's usually a mix of the following:

- sale of magical items incurs heavy taxation in the region where it is sold. This is to the point where most selling would be underground and thus hard to find for the players anyway.
- One must never ignore the expenditure of XPs. While the DMG puts a value an XP (25 gp I believe?), it never directly addresses the "XP Limit" of a city (as it does GP limit). One can pretty much take this how one sees fit. In my experience (and this is my personal feeling on the topic as well), few players are willing to routinely expend XP just to make some money. A DM could try to extrapolate an XP limit from the demographics, but it would be mostly hunches and gut instinct anyway, and would ultimately lead one to whatever conclusion one is looking for.
- Shady merchants dealing in fake or inaccurate magical wares. This is a great deterrence to buyers, thus limiting a market for sellers.
- The more a group of characters relies on magical items (especially at higher level) the more likely those items are going to be destroyed by some intelligent enemy with a penchant for Disjunctioning everything the players have. While this is only available to higher level people, it can help explain why there aren't a slew of old magic items lying around.
- Think of wizards as the military. Think of magic as guns. Now think of all the people around the world that are for gun control of private citizens. There may be groups that seek out and destroy magic items, whether this be a diorganized lot of people who snap any wand in half that they find, to entire subversive powerful organizations who routinely mug, rob, and steal magic items to keep them out of the hands of those who are not properly trained to use them (wizards).
- Law. In feudal society (the baseline for most any campaign I've seen, and most of my own), the ruler owns everything on his land. He has full legal right to simply take your magic items, wish you a good day, and put you in the dungeon if you resist. While many rulers might not choose to do this, a king recently finding himself at war against a greater power might take any offensive magic items, while another might like to keep the populace weak (see gun control above, where the organization might now work for the law). These types of things not only might reduce the number of magic items, but would also be a serious deterrent for someone to start advertising (however discreetly) that they are selling magical items.

I find Turanil's argument equally bizarre. I've never understood this "magic should be mysterious even to its practitioners" attitude. It's got no basis in historical beliefs about magic, the fiction these games are based on, mythology, folklore, nothing. As far as I can tell this utterly weird idea - which implies that no-one should be able to cast spells reliably, for one thing - was invented from whole cloth by gamers around 1980. It has zero basis in anything from before then or in anything from outside RPGs, period.

There's also no basis in using magic along the lines of Wish four times a day. Things have to be balanced somehow.

 

[reanjr]

In 3e, so much of your character abilities are tied up in magic items (yuck!) that controlling what magic items players can get is a bit like telling a fighter he can't take Power Attack (sorry, can't find a tutor) or telling a wizard he can't research cone of cold as one of his spells.

Not true. The CRs might not work out right, but who cares? Players should learn how to run anyway.

Aren't there low-magic threads we could necro, or should we start another one?

Here's good.

 

[haakon1]

My question is how high is it before PCs are willing to sell things. Most of the players I've seen like having a backup weapon, so you figure they will keep the first two, or maybe even 3, weapons they come across. Likewise, a spare suit of armor doesn't hurt to have sitting at home. . . .
Also, when was the last time you saw a PC sell off a useful potion or scroll, as opposed to holding onto it "just in case". Now EVENTUALLY, I will agree that the PCs will get to a point where they will feel that selling some of their loot is worthwhile, but by this time they are usually mid level (or even higher). So my question is, how many people ever reach the point where they are willing to sell the stuff? . . .
Certainly not enough to create magical shops (although I could see some sort of auctioning being done, much like what happens today when a rare piece of art goes on sale, but this would be the exception and not the rule). The only other way for items to come into the market is if they are made to be sold. Considering the costs and time involved in making them, I doubt that many mages or clerics are willing to act as magical labor in creating the items.

I've been pondering these questions for years. I've often thought it would be fun to have two parties from similarly powered campaigns, but with different DM's and different players, be able to trade with each other, to see what would be exchanged, if anything.

In my main campaign, which is played very slowly over email, there is a magic item shop in the main city (Thornward in Bissel). It's run by a Sorcerer of about 2nd-4th level, whose main ability is casting Detect Magic and Identify for fees. I randomly rolled about 20 cheap to intermediate magic items for his inventory -- mostly potions and low-level scrolls, but also some weapons and miscellaneous gear.

For the better than potions and scrolls stuff, I fudged the random determination a bit towards the sort of things adventurers don't typically like -- items like a +1 scimitar (instead of a long sword, bastard sword, or great sword), a +1 club (when's the last time you saw a magic club, or a PC using a club?), horseshoes of speed, and +2 longspear.

What did the players do? They dumped a lot of the low-end magic they had, and wanted to upgrade. One was mad that he couldn't get a better magic sword than he had (+2 value), but the others accepted that the inventory is the inventory, and most of the white elephant items actually got bought, like a +1 hand-axe and some potions and cash going in to get the horseshoes of speed.

Also note the pricing rules -- full price for the Identification casting before you get to sell anything (caveat vendor), 80% of face value for most magic items (less for lame ones), and 120% of face value to buy, with at least half of the value coming in trade-in magic.

I think it worked out fun for everybody. They've been back to visit the magic shop, and I've had some turn over of the low-end items go on. I still love to see how the inventory would change if a party from someone else's campaign went thru the shop . . .

 

[Numion]

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". This is simply not how I do see magic. This is the normal behavior for modern equipment in a consumerist society. However, when I play a LotR / Viking / Dragonlance or else game, I don't want it that way. In these universes, getting a magical item is a great thing, an event of wonder, not going to the supermarket and get your +1 leather armor along your trail rations.

But there was magic item trade in Middle Earth. Enchanted toys were imported to the shire for Bilbos b-day IIRC.

Also, the wizard was quick to peg a moneytary value on the armor, even though its debatable if it would rate in as a magic item in D&D. At least it has the characteristics of one: very useful and very expensive. Now, if there was no market, how come there was a price?

 

[Turanil]

Perhaps you should look at Grim Tales instead.

You are kidding me, don't you? (You must know my love of Grim Tales if you read some of my posts...)

Then you shouldn't run 3e, because 3e is balanced with high magic in mind. In 3e, so much of your character abilities are tied up in magic items (yuck!) that controlling what magic items players can get is a bit like telling a fighter he can't take Power Attack

Aren't there low-magic threads we could necro, or should we start another one?

I think we need begin a new thread. High level D&D having to be played with magical items or being unplayable is an urban legend to me! All of this because of that CR thing. However, when I do want to use that CR stuff in my campaign, it invariably doesn't work (maybe I should use that of Grim Tales ). Now I am using monsters against my PCs as I feel it. If the monsters are too powerful the PCs can flee or else; if they are too weak I can adjust next time. Likewise for XP: I give them as I want (getting a level every two or three gaming sessions), not because of monsters slain.

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."

Listen: I totally agree with you. It's just that nobody seems to get my sarcastinc tone. I will add appropriate notes next time I speak in sarcasms.

 

[Turanil]

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.

Perfectly said! I totally agree with you. Many gamers, it seems, see their medieval gaming world as a modern consumerist society. However, while it is perfectly possible to play like that (Eberron), this is NOT to be the case in a world inspired by the Vikings, King Arthur, Middle Earth, or even Dragonlance.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

In my experience, it stretches suspension of disbelief when players can't buy magic items. When players say: "Ok, our party has sold 18 +1 weapons, 8 +2 weapons, 2 +3 weapons, 12 rings, even more of each plus of armor, and probably 40 different wonderous items, and we sold the excess 10 potions of cure light wounds by the time we were 12th level, we all have +3 weapons and armor as well, that was just our extra. After all that, you are telling us we can't find a +1 weapon for sale as a backup as no one sells magic items? We also ran into that adventuring party of 17th level characters last week, shouldn't they have sold even more than we did in this town considering you said they were based out of it?"

And why WOULDN'T magic shops start to come about in large towns? Adventurers are apparently pretty plentiful at the rate that PCs run into them in taverns, as villians, and in the standard demographics in the DMG. So, when they come back to town with 50,000gp, people are going to want to be there to provide them things they want to buy.

I used to be a staunch opponent of magic shops, mostly because it said they didn't exist in the books back in 2nd and 1st edition. I'd try to come up with reasons why people couldn't buy things constantly. I'd have to be constantly defending my position as my players kept arguing that with the amount of magic they were selling there must be others selling them too and who would be buying +3 swords of ogre decapitation except those who:

a) kill ogres
b) have the money to afford them

That pretty much narrows it down to shops that cater to adventurers or the adventurers themselves. So, if you allow the PCs to sell off their equipment without sitting around for months looking for a buyer, then the PCs should generally be able to buy something with as much ease.

I pretty much figured all it requires is someone with a bit of money to start up a shop and buy some low powered magic items for half price and then sell them to someone at full price and they're suddenly very rich. Adventurers love it because they only have to go to one place to buy and sell some stuff. Then, someone in a different town hears about this and does the same thing and suddenly its very wide spread. Sure, the shop keepers have a lot of expenses with magical traps and amazing quality locks and keeping expensive items off site to avoid thieves. But even with those expenses, you can make a tidy profit. Of course, this assumes there are enough adventurers to support this economy. Mind you, due to the extravagent prices of magic items, it wouldn't require many.

I once tried to go back to my old ways and restrict buying of magic items without restricting magic item creation. I had a player who would spend all his downtime making magic items for the party as they couldn't get it anywhere else. He'd pocket the profit between the creation cost and the market value. He started making all sorts of money with very little xp, strictly speaking. He has enough money to afford everything he wanted. So much so that he would make himself new items to replace old ones and sell off his extra items.

(EDIT: Adding a bit extra)I think the point is about the world making sense to the rules rather than the rules making sense to the world. In order to run a homebrew game that had no magic item buying, I'd have to house rule a decent portion of the D&D rules. Change the CR of almost every creature in the monster manual. I'd have to give new abilities to some of the classes to make up for what they lose due to not having magic items, spellcasters would be too powerful as they rely less on magic items. I can't think of all of them right now, but that one change changes the balance of the whole game and makes it a different game. That's alright as long as you go through the effort of really going through the ENTIRE rule set from beginning to end and considering each rule in terms of "If I assume the PCs may have limited or no access to magic items, does this rule favor one class more than others? If so, how do I fix that?"

 

[reanjr]

1) It's not a simple matter to "shop around" for a game/GM. Roleplaying isn't exactly an expansive hobby, and most people tend to play with their friends, rather than hop from game to game. Gaming usually isn't like street court basketball, where you can take your ball down and find a game most any summer day - it's far more insular than that.

That's kind of funny that you say that, because in my area it's a whole lot easier to find a regular RPGame than it is to find a regular basketball, football, or baseball game. The only way to play those games regularly is to spend money and join a league. If I wanted that much structure to my fun, I'd join the RPGA.

2) If you're creating a game primarily for your own recreation and enjoyment, and presenting it as my way or the highway, then you're very much "coercing" the players into being your personal entertainment center - and the consequence of too much my way/highway GMing is often a disfunctional group, where no one ends up getting the satisfaction they want out of gaming.

My friends are all poor, maladjusted members of society, so there's little they can offer in the way of life support (as in supporting me in my life's endeavors). If I can't expect them to entertain me, what good are they?

 

[Numion]

I have a player who plays a monk 2/fighter X/cleric 1/wizard 1 so that they can use any wand in the game, have fairly excellent saves, and get a few bonus feats and evasion.

...snip...

It's players like this that force my hand in removing things from the game and disallowing the purchase of magical items.

If your player wants to shoot himself in the leg with that sorry excuse for powergaming, why don't you just let him? It's not like a couple magic items could save that mess .. :\

 

[reanjr]

I've never seen anyone propose a magic shop in this sense, in several internet debates on the subject. Has anyone actually played in a game with one of these? I never have.

Some of my players propose this. And yes, I've seen games where this occurs.