Wal-Magic, a question of assumptions

[Agent Oracle]

Funny thing, someone around here made a thread not too long ago about what the bare, minimum "hamlet" village probably has. With a population of 100 or lower, a hamlet has:

1 - 9th level NPC class (Most likely a multi class warrior / commoner or commoner / expert)
1 - 5th level PC class NPC(most likely a fighter, sent by the crown to be a guard)
4 - 5th level NPCs (experts or adepts, possibly)
16 - 2nd level NPC's of various NPC classes

I don't treat magic items like Wal-mart. I treat them a bit more like my local comic store.

Wizard: "Hm. I don't think I have any gloves of dexterity in stock..."
PC: (drops hefty bag 'o gold on the table)
Wizard: "But i can always take time to make 'em for a valued customer."

And then the PC goes off and tools around in the vicinity for a few days, before coming back to pick up his gloves.

 

[Hussar]

I recently did a poll on this. I found that the overwhelming majority of people who responded said that minor magic items were for sale with no problems, anything more significant could be ordered if you find the right person for the job and a fairly even split between those who have magic shops and those who have none.

The poll is here

So, basically, anything you come up with is fine. For me, it depends on the campaign as my current one doesn't have magic items for sale but, usually, I would be on the commission side of things. Potions and scrolls can be found most places, anything over about 1000 gp has to be order made.

It's surprising how often players will balk at waiting five or ten days for a magic item.

 

[ZSutherland]

It comes down to a few options, in my opinion:

1. Play the game with the as-is assumptions. If you don't like the WAL-MAGIC approach, keep it in the background. (Sounds like you're already doing this.)

2. Modify the game assumptions. Can be a lotta effort, especially if you use published stuff, but you can make it work.

3. Use a different system.

I tend towards option #1 because it works rather well. I veer a little into option #2 because I rarely use preprinted adventures and am skimpy on supplement use.

Primitive Screwhead's suggested HR seems like an excellent notion for games designed around the "series of unrelated adventures" module style that was the hallmark of early D&D. Otoh, I tend to use large, convoluted story arcs. It mitigates the feeling that the PCs are just one of many adventuring groups, which is a common problem (for me anyway) of the slightly more Monty Haul assumptions inherent in 3.x, so the potent plot-hook appeal of the HR is mostly lost in one of my games.

As for dismissing the CR system and it's accompanying wealth assumptions, maybe I'm a better storyteller than adjudicator, but I'm a little gun-shy about that. Early in my 3.x DMing career, through inexperience I let the party's level outpace their wealth. I wound up pitting them against a single monster, Half-Dragon (green) Troll, that was one CR above average party-level and figured it wouldn't me much of a contest since there were 6 PCs. I was sorely mistaken and only some quick thinking on their part and mind pulled the campaign's fat out of the frier. I've been careful not to repeat the mistake since, but sometimes feel I've come to rely on the system as a bit of a crutch. At lower-levels where the only real variables are damage output, hps, and AC I can adjust fairly easily. At higher levels where various supernatural and spell-like abilities or simply fights with larger numbers of monsters become more prevalent, I find it much harder to appropriately gauge all the variables. Suggestions in that regard would be welcome.

 

[jmucchiello]

I've had magic shops in my games sincee 1e but they have never ever looked like a walmart. They usually look like a travel agency: lots of "brochures", not a lot of goods. Making a purchase in a magic shop is like talking to a loan officier at a bank. You sit in an office with fat stuffed chairs and discuss what you want and what it will cost. If the shop has such an item it can be delivered from "the vault" in a day or two. Otherwise, they have to find someone to make the item. There are visible guards and invisible guard (and perhaps ethereal guards). Delivery of the magic item takes place a separate location, never the same one twice and it is delivered by a mage using teleport.

Obviously magic shops are run by groups as powerful as a mage guild in such a setup. And the setup is fully insured through the thieves' guild, i.e. the thieves leave it alone (and might even actively protect it) if they don't want trouble from the mage guild.

 

[Hussar]

I've been careful not to repeat the mistake since, but sometimes feel I've come to rely on the system as a bit of a crutch.

Perhap a little rethink might be in order?

When you follow the CR and EL guidelines, are your encounters fun? Challenging? Do they work? If the answer is yes, then the system isn't a crutch, it's a tool. Being able to drive nails with my fist might be kinda cool, but, at the end of the day, I think I'd rather use a hammer. The CR guides are tools, nothing more. Guestimates based on what the designers (and everyone else) thinks should work based on experience.

If those guestimates work in your game, then run with it. Revel in its glory. Heh. If it makes your life easier as a DM, it's good.

 

[Storyteller01]

I use the IK system for magic items, but everything is commisioned. Nothing is kept in stock unless it's for a big account (bards make quite a bit keeping the government in healing potions. ). Schematics, on the other hand, are everywhere. Mechanikal items get a 10% mark up due to labor. Arcane mechaniks are fairly common; wizards not so much. Sorcerers don't usually sulley their hands with crafts (being nobility and all). Churches don't make items unless its for their cause, but it more likely to be truely magical.

Truely magic items are exceedingly rare, garnering a 50% mark up (usully more). Most folks don't make more than potions due to the risk.

Scrolls are on the open market, but it's similar to scientists publishing in not so well known periodicals. Its there of you know where to look, only those in the field know where to look, and buying the scrolls supports the industry as a whole.

 

[Agent Oracle]

That's an interesting approach to take ST01. in my take, there are magic supply stores, but they are very much like any specialty item store. small, cool, and able to get you a piece of the moon if you have enough money. I also stated that sufficiently technical items are more difficult to enchant, which is why you won't find many "laser pistol +1", if you find one at all.

Though i find that Traveler d20 provides an excellent source of additional equipment for the Dragonstar universe. Sci-Fi things like "magnetic grappler" pistols and whatnot are necessities of Sci-fi that were woefully left out of the Dragonstar handbook.

 

[painandgreed]

p.s. I detest economics, and anyone who tries buying low in one city to sell high in another in my game is asking for a smackdown...or a new DM, 'cause I won't run it.

They can come play under me. I prefer PCs with initiative.

As far as economics goes, D&D is not any worse off than most modern games out there. Traveller being the only one that attempts to deal with anything beyond an equipment list with standard prices that I can think of.

As far as any buying any items, unless there is a large market, it must be manufactured in the town to be bought no matter what. In the case of magic items, it's pretty easy to figure out the spell casters in town and figure if they have the feats to make the items. If not, you must look around or go to a large city. Looking around involves making Gather Information checks to find somebody with an item you have or who wants to buy what you're selling. Once found, it's role played. In the large city, you've got more spell users to create more items of higher level. Some exist just to do that so many lower level items such as potions and scroll become almost trivial to find. There are two wizard colleges that do most of the buying, selling, trading and brokering of magic items. You must travel to one of them (or send and agent) and then I'll determine the availablity and who has it or can make it and then everything will be role played out. Should that not work, if you go west to the edge of human lands where the Horse Lords live and then travel another three weeks into the wilderness along certain trails that lead south of the Goblin Republic, you'll come to Murkin Sallik, a monsterous trade city run by a lich. Here, evil clerics come to sell their stolen goods, orcs to trade slaves and plunder for weapons, and the drow to trade with the surface. Most things can be found here or aquired for you if you can pay the right price. If the object of your dreams cannot be found, then for a price the lich will make it for you. It may cost many times listed price or things other than money, but he can make it and will, if only to alleviate his boredom for a bit.

 

[Storyteller01]

That's an interesting approach to take ST01. in my take, there are magic supply stores, but they are very much like any specialty item store. small, cool, and able to get you a piece of the moon if you have enough money. I also stated that sufficiently technical items are more difficult to enchant, which is why you won't find many "laser pistol +1", if you find one at all.

Though i find that Traveler d20 provides an excellent source of additional equipment for the Dragonstar universe. Sci-Fi things like "magnetic grappler" pistols and whatnot are necessities of Sci-fi that were woefully left out of the Dragonstar handbook.

I dunno. I kind of expected the Sunsword.

I must procure a copy of this traveller d20 [sidelong glance]. So far, books recommended here have never disappointed.

Both of Perpetrated Press' books (Factory and Arsenal) are great for adding a magic twist to modern items. I play heruistic processors as the next step up from IK cortex tech.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't treat magic items like Wal-mart. I treat them a bit more like my local comic store.

Wizard: "Hm. I don't think I have any gloves of dexterity in stock..."
PC: (drops hefty bag 'o gold on the table)
Wizard: "But i can always take time to make 'em for a valued customer."

And then the PC goes off and tools around in the vicinity for a few days, before coming back to pick up his gloves.

Nah, treating them like a comic shop means the PC asks for gloves of dexterity for months in a row, while the proprietor always pretends that "oh, yeah, we're making that now, come back next week" and when the PC and his friends decide to stop shopping there, the proprietor finds an infinite number of people to blame who aren't him.