D&D (2024) Uncommon items - actually common?

[Kurotowa]

Not only, implicitly, is there a middle class of magical artisans who are making these magic items, but it is also implied that there is a wealthy enough middle class to justify the production of these items on a large enough scale to make them widely available.

If there's one thing that's special in the Eberron books, both the official ones and Keith Baker's DM's Guild releases, it's the more civilian oriented low level magic items. Those go back to 3e, but in 5e there's been a steady amount of common grade items.

Rising from the Last War had Cleansing Stones, Shiftweave clothing, and the first Prosthetic Limbs. In Exploring Eberron there's Drybrooches (magic umbrella), Staves of Cleansing (magic broom), Lightlighters (magic firestarters), Talking Wands (magic microphone), and more. Not to mention rules for Cosmetic Transmutation, ie going to a magic beautician to get temporarily alterations, starting at getting your hair dyed and going up through borrowed elf ears or more.

If there's one special thing Eberron still has, it's that proliferation of civilian magic options that adventurers might still find fun but isn't particularly combat related.

 

[Oofta]

If there's one thing that's special in the Eberron books, both the official ones and Keith Baker's DM's Guild releases, it's the more civilian oriented low level magic items. Those go back to 3e, but in 5e there's been a steady amount of common grade items.

Rising from the Last War had Cleansing Stones, Shiftweave clothing, and the first Prosthetic Limbs. In Exploring Eberron there's Drybrooches (magic umbrella), Staves of Cleansing (magic broom), Lightlighters (magic firestarters), Talking Wands (magic microphone), and more. Not to mention rules for Cosmetic Transmutation, ie going to a magic beautician to get temporarily alterations, starting at getting your hair dyed and going up through borrowed elf ears or more.

If there's one special thing Eberron still has, it's that proliferation of civilian magic options that adventurers might still find fun but isn't particularly combat related.

I just make up civilian based magical items that make sense to me. Do we really need to know how much a magic washing stone costs? Or a magic bake oven that some specialty shops have? Adding something like that to specific campaigns may make sense, but for default rules? It's less so.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just make up civilian based magical items that make sense to me. Do we really need to know how much a magic washing stone costs? Or a magic bake oven that some specialty shops have? Adding something like that to specific campaigns may make sense, but for default rules? It's less so.

I'm pretty sure 5.5 has explicitly told us we're not supposed to care any of that. The game is only about the "heroes" and their crazy adventures.

 

[Deset Gled]

I just make up civilian based magical items that make sense to me. Do we really need to know how much a magic washing stone costs? Or a magic bake oven that some specialty shops have? Adding something like that to specific campaigns may make sense, but for default rules? It's less so.

Need? Not really. Want? Yeah, kinda.

When I'm world building, knowing something like the basic economics of magic is amazingly helpful. It helps me understand how much magic healing the local priest should have access to. Or much that barkeeper will know about the magic used by highway robbers. Is Prestidigitation going to wow the local crowds, or get you laughed out of town?

YMMV. But I'd rather have that kind of world building than maps of continents I'll never visit, or hundreds of years of history I'll never reference.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Because the world makes no sense to me otherwise? I hate the idea that PCs are that divorced from the world they supposedly were born into.

Do you roll Persuade checks for NPCs to one another? Or did you just decide two NPCs are allies? Is your bad guy leveled? You didn't roll their attacks through all the adventures to level up. There's no craft checks to build a dungeon, or for whether or not the bad guy didn't die of a genetic condition that morning. Certain rules are for PC's. It's also OK just to decide stuff as the DM.

D&D has always talked out of both sides of its mouth with regard to how common magic items are. Gygax would pontificate on that they should be rare, then the treasure tables said differently as did the published adventures. where there's w wand of fireballs stuffed inside a random pillow, a brooch of shielding on the dresser and a rack of +1 swords lying around.

 

[Oofta]

Need? Not really. Want? Yeah, kinda.

When I'm world building, knowing something like the basic economics of magic is amazingly helpful. It helps me understand how much magic healing the local priest should have access to. Or much that barkeeper will know about the magic used by highway robbers. Is Prestidigitation going to wow the local crowds, or get you laughed out of town?

YMMV. But I'd rather have that kind of world building than maps of continents I'll never visit, or hundreds of years of history I'll never reference.

I'm sure there are plenty of price lists out there if you care. Are they "official"? No. Does it matter? It's not like people stop complaining about stuff just because it's in a book published by WotC.

 

[Parmandur]

I am really glad that the current game does not do the 3E approach to game rules as simulation for world building.

They are Uncommon purely for the party magic item tracker sheet. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you roll Persuade checks for NPCs to one another? Or did you just decide two NPCs are allies? Is your bad guy leveled? You didn't roll their attacks through all the adventures to level up. There's no craft checks to build a dungeon, or for whether or not the bad guy didn't die of a genetic condition that morning. Certain rules are for PC's. It's also OK just to decide stuff as the DM.

D&D has always talked out of both sides of its mouth with regard to how common magic items are. Gygax would pontificate on that they should be rare, then the treasure tables said differently as did the published adventures. where there's w wand of fireballs stuffed inside a random pillow, a brooch of shielding on the dresser and a rack of +1 swords lying around.

Its a goal, dude. An ideal. Nitpick all you want, I'm still going to strive for setting logic and verisimilitude.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

If there's one thing that's special in the Eberron books, both the official ones and Keith Baker's DM's Guild releases, it's the more civilian oriented low level magic items. Those go back to 3e, but in 5e there's been a steady amount of common grade items.

Rising from the Last War had Cleansing Stones, Shiftweave clothing, and the first Prosthetic Limbs. In Exploring Eberron there's Drybrooches (magic umbrella), Staves of Cleansing (magic broom), Lightlighters (magic firestarters), Talking Wands (magic microphone), and more. Not to mention rules for Cosmetic Transmutation, ie going to a magic beautician to get temporarily alterations, starting at getting your hair dyed and going up through borrowed elf ears or more.

If there's one special thing Eberron still has, it's that proliferation of civilian magic options that adventurers might still find fun but isn't particularly combat related.

Effectively, Eberron is the only setting to explicitly name and stat out "magewrights", that is, "blue collar working magicians crafting magic goods or selling magic services", but the default D&D setting implies their presence in the background. Maybe in smaller numbers than in eberron, but if common items are assumed to be available in every town, implicitly there's probably at least one guy in town or the next town over making them (in the same way that your average contemporary small town probably has an auto mechanic or one nearby), or there's some kind of industrialized center of magic item creation and an established distribution network (which is also kind of written into the lore of FR, with 4th edition's red wizard enclaves who were basically magic item factories).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Take the humble bag of holding. Can I imagine a world where they are "uncommon"? Of course!

What I have a hard time imagining is that it's worth 400 gp when it's trivial to demonstrate that a merchant using a bag of holding to transport valuable goods could make the bag pay for itself and more in less than a year.

thinking like this gets me into world building... "how much does it cost to ship items, how much less if you put it on a person with a bag of holding? How much less if you can reliably find star gate... I mean teleport circles?"