D&D 5E The Case for a Magic Item Shop?

[mcbobbo]

Check this out though... let's pin some things down:

Setting: Modern day Texas Walmart.

Item: Cotton polo shirt (common)

Odds of finding one today: Roughly zero.

Walmart always stocks for the coming season, so all the shirts around here have long sleeves.

So even something as common as a work shirt can't be had for the next three months.

 

[Elf Witch]

For me? Absolutely yes. If it isn't going to happen, I would never string the player along. In some campaigns it might be possible. Note, possible doesn't mean easy and doesn't guarantee success, but, if it is possible, then there is a chance of success.

Gaming story:

I played a 2e game as a magic user, years ago. At chargen I created a scholarly wizard and talked with the DM and got approval from him that I would be able to create my own spells using the Complete Wizard 2e book. Now, this is a pretty involved process - you need to find a location, need to buy a library to stock that location and need to buy ingredients to create the new spell and, even when you do all that, you have about a 30% chance of success. Not great and it's expensive.

So, I went through the whole deal - got a place, got the library, got the ingredients, spent several levels building this and a butt load of time. So, I try to create a new spell, a second level version of Unseen Servant (or maybe 3rd? I forget what level unseen servant is in AD&D) that lasted for an hour per level instead of 10 minutes per level and I think extended the range a bit. In 3e terms I was adding two feats, although, this was years before 3e, so, I was combining the two since I didn't think it was a huge deal. I think I extended the range to like 20 feet/level instead of 10. Something like that. Long time ago.

Fine, I get everything ready, go to the DM and get approval for my new spell (which wasn't a problem) and then, and only then, the DM announced that my chances were actually 3% per attempt rather than 30. IOW, I had pretty much zero chance of success and the price meant that I wasn't going to get enough tries to actually succeed. When questioned, he claimed that new spells, having a name attached to them was reserved for very powerful wizards, not my measly fifth or sixth level magic user.

So, basically, in one line, he nerfed the entire point of my character. Had I known from the outset that I would have had virtually no chance of success, I would have played a different character. I was, to say the least, somewhat put out.

From that point onwards, I've always been very frank and honest with players about their chances of success for doing something during chargen. It saves a lot of pissed off players in the end.

There don't have to be "cases of them" though. There only has to be one - the one the PC wants to buy. Anything else is pretty much immaterial. There was a trade in artefacts in the real world throughout the Middle Ages and art has been traded and dealt in for at least that long and probably much longer. All this despite the fact that both artefacts and art were far out of the reach of the vast majority of people.

If you don't want magic shops, that's fine. It's your game world, do what you want. But, I'm not really buying the justification here. Magic items are permanent, meaning that even if only one magic item per year is created in all of England (to pick a geographical location), by the time of the Middle Ages, you have a thousand permanent magic items floating around. More if you think that pre-Roman societies could also create magic items. That's more than enough to have an economy.

The issue, from a world building standpoint, is really that PC's often have FAR too much wealth. It's ridiculous that by about 7th level, a PC (and certainly a PC party) is wealthier than some kingdoms. At least in terms of buying power. They've got buckets of treasure. And the reason they have buckets of treasure is because adventures are designed to give out buckets of treasure. Why on earth would an orc tribe have a gem worth a thousand gp? Imagine if I said that every hamlet of 30-50 humans had several thousand gp worth of easily portable wealth. It would be ridiculous. Yet, adventure after adventure, those kobolds or orcs or trolls or whatever, are packing around thousands and thousands of GP worth of treasure.

Why aren't humans constantly raiding orcs? Orcs are pretty obviously richer than humans.

Magic items get lost or destroyed over time, though. Some might be buried with nobles (they might have dummy "burial" swords interred with them, and pass on the magic sword to their heirs, but don't count on it; they want to use that sword in the afterlife!). There are always ways to justify a lack of magic items, or indeed a surfeit of them. And of the magic items that are inherited: people aren't going to part with them - if there are only a couple of thousand in England (in your example), they're basically in the hands of knights and barons. Why would they hand these over to commoners, or to their potential rivals? Again, it depends on the social structure of the campaign. There's nothing wrong with a campaign having a trade in magic items (and indeed, in many campaigns it would be illogical for this not to be present) but it depends on the set-up of the game world.

I agree with you about PC wealth (again, in many campaigns; I keep my PCs relatively poor!). As far as I'm concerned, Monty Haul or grotesque power escalation should be avoided at all costs. However, there's no reason to follow the treasure tables as written* (actually, in BECMI, I often did, and they never seemed to generate that much treasure). It depends on the focus of the campaign. If the PCs want to build fortresses, or hire armies at higher levels (and I will be encouraging that if my campaign lasts that long), that stuff is expensive.

By the way, I'm not prescribing anything for the OP's campaign. It depends on the DM and players, and their particular tastes; I'm just trying to emphasise that there is no generic "right" way to do things - it's a great thing that every D&D game is different, and that the game supports wildly different assumptions by groups of DMs and players.


*As there aren't any treasure tables yet for 5e, I've been handing out what I feel like. In my new game, one player opined that the 30gp the local baron was offering for a short quest (for the entire party) wasn't very much, even after I pointed out that 30gp covers a typical person's living costs for a month, and this is for a day's work. Little does he know how comparatively generous that offer is in my game...**

**There are large treasure hoards out there, but they're long forgotten, or belong to nasties of unbelievable power. If the players find them, it will be a rare, and no doubt joyous event, and it will make them stand out (for good and ill) in the campaign world.

Hussar I would have thrown my PHB at the DMs head. Okay not really but I would have been very angry. I don't know why some DMs do this. As a DM I am always up front with players about things like this. It seems so petty to string a player along and that is what it is doing.

I am also of the school of thought that if the player wants to try something really outrageous let them try. Be honest about their chances of succeeding but be fair about it.

Grainger this is how I view magic items. Most of the powerful ones are in the hand of rulers, nobles, ex adventurers , high powered wizards and in the hands of clerics in temples. You are not just going to be handed these thing easily. If a player really wants something I want them to work for it. Research the item, gather info talk to people. This is a role playing game. Say you find out that Brad the Magnificent owned a pair of goggles of darkvision and he disappeared into the Blue mountains. Then go to the Blue Mountains and succeed where Brad didn't and you will find your goggles of darkvision.

There are so many ways that make the game more fun than just buying an item. I once wanted a a magic item a circlet of charisma the wizard I went to have it made said he would if I would get something back that was taken from him. This started us on a quest we found the guy who took it in the first place but he didn't have it. He would only give is the information in exchange for doing something for him. This led to another thing and another thing and it was a blast. I got my circlet and we got some other goodies as well as made some new allies and enemies. Isn't this why we play the game to have adventures?

 

[howandwhy99]

My options seem to be:
A. multi-classing into Warlock JUST TO GET DEVIL's SIGHT, which is not fitting with this character's concept and totally cheesy and the GM HATES multi-classing level-dips for features (and I agree with him).
B. Beg the GM to drop a darkvision item for me in some future treasure pile. I hate the very idea of this; that monsters will carry custom-made treasure for whiny PCs.
C. make it possible for people to buy some magic items.

I've got THOUSANDS of GP and nothing to spend it on, because we cannot buy magic items, even minor ones. What are we supposed to DO with all that gold, anyway? Buy hexes on the world map?

Option D - Try anything you can think of to acquire such ability.

• Pray at church and make an offering.
• Petition the city Merchant Guild showing your gold and offering a price you believe is fair.
• Hunt down a powerful wizard and barter for creation of an item.
• Put the word out you are looking for such an item or power and track down rumors.
• Think of everything or every who that may already have this power and find means to acquire it from them.

Basically, engage in buying and selling or finding and taking.

Magic shops are like building shops in our world. Are there stores where you can buy multimillion dollar buildings? Maybe. Maybe somewhere you can find a dealer at least. But those with great power are also greatly dangerous. My advice? Be prepared and treat them like a king ...because they probably are. Or a dragon. Or worse.

In my campaign, magic is rare and powerful. It stays so by not being a mass produced product. But that doesn't mean it cannot be acquired. And, oh yeah! lots of gold will help.

 

[mcbobbo]

Magic shops are like building shops in our world.

I like that anology. You can actually buy 'buildings' retail, but those are typically modular homes, mobile homes, storage sheds and the like. So potions and scrolls.

This also opens the idea of a realtor/broker. Someone who might be able to find an owner of such an item and arrange a negotiation.

 

[Paraxis]

Magic shops are like building shops in our world. Are there stores where you can buy multimillion dollar buildings? Maybe. Maybe somewhere you can find a dealer at least. But those with great power are also greatly dangerous. My advice? Be prepared and treat them like a king ...because they probably are. Or a dragon. Or worse.

In my campaign, magic is rare and powerful. It stays so by not being a mass produced product. But that doesn't mean it cannot be acquired. And, oh yeah! lots of gold will help.

There are building stores, you can purchase manufactured buildings like churches, barns, garages, sheds, large storage facilities, and so on. If you have enough money you can purchase an entire street of houses in a newly developed residential area, walk into a realtor's office with a cashiers check and you can own a home in a matter of hours.

But the analogy falls apart, because we don't find building or deeds to buildings just lying around all over the place. You don't get mugged by someone, fight back and they drop a new house for you to pick up.

Magic items are like fancy gadgets and weapons, people with money just have them they are rich peoples toys.

But every campaign world is different, in my Sunday game, the players are 6th level and a few of them already have all 3 attunement slots filled up.

 

[mcbobbo]

Magic items are like fancy gadgets and weapons, people with money just have them they are rich peoples toys.

This falls apart though when you factor in what 'rich enough to afford magic' actually looks like.

Doing wage based conversions you're pretty safe at estimating a single gp in the $200 range. This is a whole other topic, to be sure, but let's just start with this as a base assumption.

I believe then that modern car would price at roughly 165 gp (33k/200). Most magic items would come in way above that. E.g. a 2000 gp item would cost $400k.

You can find items of this sort on the odd person here and there, but they're jewelry. Not gadgets.

Assiming $1000 cash for a top of the line smart phone AND $1000 to cover the annual fees, data, etc, you're only talking about 10 gp.

Even if you cut the rate all the way down to $20/gp you're still looking at the most expensive gadget we'd buy weighing in at 100 gp.

Vis-a-vis weapons. Going all the way out, the highest-priced new gun I can find online is $820k. So 41k gp. And these are rare beyond insane, so we're talking about the tippity-top end here. Lvl 20 stuff.

 

[Paraxis]

Gold piece to dollar exchange doesn't work well, D&D economy is all kinds of nonsense.

Current gold price per ounce is roughly 1200, 1 lb of gold in D&D is 50gp, so (1200 * 16) = 19,200, 19,200/50 = 384 dollars per gold piece.

But a loaf of bread is 2cp, and about 1 dollar at the store, so 5 loaves is a silver, 50 loaves is a gold, so 1 gold piece = 50 dollars.

You can't start comparing swords and things because are current society doesn't see them as tools as much as decoration and art.

I never even consider the money of people in my game world besides the player characters, it works better that way.
A nobel has a bunch of magic toys, a blacksmith might have a magic anvil, a thatcher might have a magic ladder, and so on.
The players just murder hobo there way through monsters who drop magic items and gold, and the gold is used to by more magic items, and those magic items help them murder hobo more monsters.

 

[steeldragons]

Assigning monetary value to magic items was one of the worst ideas for the game ever.

1) It makes magic items a mundane commodity -whether there are actual "magic shops" or not, thinking of them as a commodity itself, the "feel"/attitude toward them becomes less "magic"/special.
2) With this mundanity is created the expectation that magic items are easily attainable [if not even "deserved"], as the premise of this thread displays perfectly.
3) Within these expectations on both a DM and player side, as well as the continuing of the "commodity" thinking/feel, there spreads [some might say "festers"] this concept of "quantifying" magic as some part reward: as some XP economy, as easily transferable to "monetary" treasure, as generally just another "x" in the equation. Is this X "equivalent" to the other batch of coins and gems? Is this X "worth" the risk of this or that monster?

It's magic. It is "worth" whatever someone who wants it is willing to pay or the owner of the magic is willing to part with it for, not what page 42 of the DMG says.

It's magic. It is "appropriate" for wherever the DM puts it/the PCs find it, not whatever CR a monster is supposed to be or page 263 says makes the "XP budget" total up to the "right" total.

It's magic. It is a product of creativity and imagination, stop making it some kind of measurable concrete "thing."

/rant.

 

[Paraxis]

Magic items are concrete things. They are apart of character builds.
My character gets to X level, gets Y feat, and the best tool to enhance it is Z magic item.

When the DMG is released, there will be random treasure charts and and expected number of encounters per level, with this we can extrapolate a wealth by level chart, heck they might even do the math for us like in 3rd edition.
The magic items will have a rarity assigned to them, somewhere there will be a guidline on how much a common, uncommon, rare item is worth.

I don't know about everyone else but I like saying "While my character is in Sharn I go purchase that +2 flaming frosting keen greatsword I have been saving up for, I will deduct the gold cost in the DMG, done and done, lets move on to more interesting things like killing and stealing airships."

 

[mcbobbo]

Gold piece to dollar exchange doesn't work well, D&D economy is all kinds of nonsense.

We first made the comparison to houses. You shifted it to gadgets and weapons. We need to address the difference in cost between those two concepts in some way if we are to make any sense of it.

But a loaf of bread is 2cp, and about 1 dollar at the store, so 5 loaves is a silver, 50 loaves is a gold, so 1 gold piece = 50 dollars.

If you read my post you'll see that not only did I reference wages, but I am also willing to undercut your 50 all the way down to 20. But go with your 50 if you want. See if my point still holds up.

You can't start comparing swords and things because are current society doesn't see them as tools as much as decoration and art.

Which is why I used a real rifle that you can actually buy today. And a rediculous one at that. Typical rifles wouldn't ever go over $15k, tops. $4 to 5k kits one out pretty well.

I never even consider the money of people in my game world besides the player characters, it works better that way.
A nobel has a bunch of magic toys, a blacksmith might have a magic anvil, a thatcher might have a magic ladder, and so on.

You may not, but the base setting does. Or at least has historically. We're likely to see it again when the new DMG comes out. Perhaps on page 94 where we see the costs of hirelings.