Stocking up on cheap magic

[scourger]

I’m playing in a fairly low magic game right now, and let me tell you; as the front line fighter, it sucks. Tanks NEED healing and magic items. At low levels a non-spellcasting-PC (NSPC) stands in front of the bad guys and trades blows. The Spellcasters (SC) lob magic from the back row. At later levels, the SC are more powerful (new spells, higher DCs), the monsters are more powerful (better attacks, more damage, more HP better AC), and the NSPC are better at attacking (higher BAB).

BUT, the NSPC’s have NOTHING new for protection other than marginally more HP. They can’t boost their AC by themselves, they need items. They can’t heal themselves, they need healing.

I guess what I’m saying is that I hate DM’s who say “Well, in MY world, magic items are holy relics only given out when the DM wants.” because it absolutely trashes the balance between the classes. The clerics and druids become even more powerful, while the NSPC’s become even more useless. Can you imagine playing with a DM who told you “Clerical spells are rare, and even if you went up cleric levels you probably wouldn’t be able to gain access to them”? Can you imagine playing a cleric in that world? Randomly deciding to nerf the cleric by severely limiting cleric spells is the same as nerfing the fighters by limiting magic items/healing.

Now, I must confess, I have been guilty of this in the past, when I was a ‘young DM’. I made a system of training for skills, making the PC’s role-play where they were learning whatever they took for skills at each levels (and finding a teacher, Etc.). When the party rogue finally stopped yelling, I realized he was 100% right.

So would I allow my PCs to buy a town out of healing, or buy a city out of healing? Of course, just as I would allow them to buy a city out of chickens if they really wanted to. It’s not like a CLW wand is a useful thing in most battles at the levels we’re talking.

Would I send thieves after them or something vengeful like that? No, I try not to make this a competition DM vs. Player.

-Tatsu

Again, this is why I think the game now is like a paper emulation of a computer RPG, especially at higher levels.

 

[Storyteller01]

Not in D&D. From the DMG (page 130):
[bq]Self-sufficient: Cost 2 gp per month. Even if you own your home (or live with someone else), raise your own food, make your own clothes, and so on, you occasionally need to purchase a new pair of shoes, pay a road toll, or buy staples such as salt. Common laborers earn about 3 gp per month, so they usually have to be self-sufficient just to survive.[/bq]

In other words, one gp will last a single person for about two weeks, at most. Gold in D&D is significantly less valuable than it was in the real world.

Which is something I don't understand. A gold piece can maintian a family for two weeks (per the DMG) but a small ring (an art piece with signifcantly less gold content and no gems) is worth several gold pieces??

YMMV

 

[Quasqueton]

I allow PCs to purchase magic items according to the book prices and within the gold piece limits of the town or city. But it takes an amount of time equal to 3 days per 1,000gp in the price (minimum 3 days). This time includes the effort of actually looking for shops, brokerage firms, and/or guilds, and the wait for the item to be located or created.

Although I allow multiple different items to be "in process" duing the same period of time, buying duplicates would add on (or stack) to the time.

So, acquiring a +2 sword takes 24 days.
Acquiring a belt of ogre strength takes 12 days.
Acquiring a wand of cure light wounds takes 3 days.

Acquiring a +2 sword, belt of ogre strength, and a wand of cure light wounds would take 24 days total. The wand would be available to the purchaser after 3 days, the belt in 12 days, and the sword at the end of the 24 days.

Acquiring 30 wand of cure light wounds takes 90 days total. Every 3 days, the purchaser would get a wand.


The item(s) might be stashed away in some specialty shop, in some merchant's special wares, in some indepted noble's family treasury. It might need to be created by order through the wizards' guild, the local temple, a lone craftswizard. It might even need to be shipped in from another town or city.

Quasqueton

 

[smootrk]

I allow PCs to purchase magic items according to the book prices and within the gold piece limits of the town or city. But it takes an amount of time equal to 3 days per 1,000gp in the price (minimum 3 days). This time includes the effort of actually looking for shops, brokerage firms, and/or guilds, and the wait for the item to be located or created.

Although I allow multiple different items to be "in process" duing the same period of time, buying duplicates would add on (or stack) to the time.

So, acquiring a +2 sword takes 24 days.
Acquiring a belt of ogre strength takes 12 days.
Acquiring a wand of cure light wounds takes 3 days.

Acquiring a +2 sword, belt of ogre strength, and a wand of cure light wounds would take 24 days total. The wand would be available to the purchaser after 3 days, the belt in 12 days, and the sword at the end of the 24 days.

Acquiring 30 wand of cure light wounds takes 90 days total. Every 3 days, the purchaser would get a wand.


The item(s) might be stashed away in some specialty shop, in some merchant's special wares, in some indepted noble's family treasury. It might need to be created by order through the wizards' guild, the local temple, a lone craftswizard. It might even need to be shipped in from another town or city.

Quasqueton

I like your idea. This will probably show up in my campaign.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Which is something I don't understand. A gold piece can maintian a family for two weeks (per the DMG) but a small ring (an art piece with signifcantly less gold content and no gems) is worth several gold pieces??

YMMV

Is it the demonization of capitalism these days or do people not think of the cost of labor in these kinds of questions?

Again, this is why I think the game now is like a paper emulation of a computer RPG, especially at higher levels.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

[Romnipotent]

I think the best example I can give is just linking it.
http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=136
Its about as exact as you can get on Supply and Demand not meeting up.

 

[Storyteller01]

Is it the demonization of capitalism these days or do people not think of the cost of labor in these kinds of questions?

THAT cost differs in importance in the minds of the players. Nobles are still willing to pay more for a decent ring (or that CLW potion; how long does it take to make one?) than a bushel of grain (ever see what someone goes through to plant, grow, and harvest it?).


Yea, I know... stop the trolling.

 

[scourger]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Yes. It is not a facet of the game that I enjoy. If I could find a good solution, I would use it for a D&D game. But, so far, I haven't found a way to make the game less dependent on this kind of magic proliferation other than to play other games with the d20 system. The best alternative d20 games without magic I've found are Omega World and Judge Dredd. Unfortunately, neither of those are in the fantasy genre.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1. Roleplaying "shopping day" for mundane supplies is boring.
2. About half the party depend on having appropriate magical gear. The other half care not a whit. SR does not fix this. "I don't care that your character sucks, you made it" is a pretty poor attitude for a DM.
3. It's pretty easy to make magic 'magical' simply by introducing stuff that doesn't work how the books say it does. The players are hungry for magical treasure because it may turn out to be something beyond what they could buy.
4. It's pretty easy to say "no, there are not 30 CLW wands in this city".
5. Playing the game well is not being a 'munchkin'. Cheating and ruining the game is being a munchkin - get your terminology right.

 

[S'mon]

That kinda misses the point of wands, though. The idea of a wand in 3e is that it's like getting 50 scrolls at once, at a discount because, well, you're getting 50 at once. That, in turn, is because in most cases the fiftieth copy of something isn't as useful as one or two, it's called diminishing returns (the first lesser restoration you have is more likely to be used than the twentieth).

Well, obviously I disagree strongly with this analysis. 50 clws in a handy stick is far better than 50 scolls each with clw.