Wal-Magic, a question of assumptions

[Drowbane]

I use Magic Shops, if yer not down with that... stay out of my D&D games.

 

[FireLance]

I pretty much handwave treasure acquisition. It's assumed that PCs of whatever level they happen to be know where to go and who to approach to get appropriate gear. If nothing else, I usually ensure that the PCs have patrons with the necessary contacts to get the gear they want.

 

[Pbartender]

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.

Or...

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 know a guy over in Saltmarsh who might have a pair... It'll take at least two weeks to get them here, and I'll have to charge you extra for shipping."

While potions and scrolls and minor triket magic items are fairly easy to find from your local shaman, witch or hedge wizard, I've usually treated more powerful magic items in a manner similar to artwork in the modern world... I've had "Magic Item Agents", who can Gather Information around for you at a price, talk to their contacts and maybe find somebody who has what you want (or something close to what you want) who is willing to sell. You might get a bargain, but it's not always exactly what you want, and it takes a lot of time.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Hola.

What I've done in the past is that when the PCs are new to a town and want to procure some magic items, they need to make some Gather Info checks to find out who is capable of making them and where they could be found. Then they meet with the person and some Diplomacy checks (and RP, duh) are made to convince the crafter that it's worth taking a couple days/weeks of their time to make it. The PCs use this down time to carouse, make plans, get involved in whatever intrigues tickle them, and generally live life. Once they get the crafter to go along the first time, they can use them again, and that crafter often becomes a contact and regular NPC, who can sometimes give quests, info, and other kewl stuff.

One PC in one of my games had unwittingly made a contact/crafter out of a wizard involved in a rather sinister organization. He had been the primary artificer on her sword, which was eventually made intelligent. It was a rapier of wounding, and could cure moderate wounds. What the wizard neglected to tell her was that the newly intelligent sword had a taste for blood, and wasn't quite the alignment the CG PC was. Unfortunately for me, life happened and the 2 &1/2 year game ended before she could discover it...

 

[Ibram]

Firstly I should state that I do not use magic item stores IMC, magic items are quite often hard to come by.

That being said... Rather then a Wal-Magic you could think of it as a very high end jewlery store, where a few display pieces give examples of what can be done but the real work is in the customization.

 

[ssampier]

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.

SMART. I'm just going to have to... (shifty eyes) borrow... this idea. Yeah that's the ticket.

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Yoink.
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[ssampier]

Or...

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 know a guy over in Saltmarsh who might have a pair... It'll take at least two weeks to get them here, and I'll have to charge you extra for shipping."

While potions and scrolls and minor triket magic items are fairly easy to find from your local shaman, witch or hedge wizard, I've usually treated more powerful magic items in a manner similar to artwork in the modern world... I've had "Magic Item Agents", who can Gather Information around for you at a price, talk to their contacts and maybe find somebody who has what you want (or something close to what you want) who is willing to sell. You might get a bargain, but it's not always exactly what you want, and it takes a lot of time.

Do your players sell magic items the same way? In on 2ed Forgotten Realms campaign I hand-waved magic item selling to 1/2 of its value, unless you take the time and money to find a seller.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I dont think I have ever had a player try to sell an item.. must be my low-magic approach...

I raised the HR thread to ask this question of the community Here

 

[evilgamer13]

You could also use wealth-by-level as-is, but remove the assumption that it easily translates into magic items. The problem with that is the ease with which magic items are created in 3E. Even if the PCs didn't have a high-level wizard with the right feats, such an NPC is sure to exist in major population centers, and if the PCs supply the monetary wealth, then BtB, that NPC could make the item. So you also have to modify the ease with which magic items can be created. Either make the feats rare, or allow the feats to be common, but build-in some adventure-based requirements beyond just X number of gold pieces (e.g. the breath of an honest thief, and things like that).

I tend to asume the monitary components represent stuff like that as well as the item to be enchanted. The asumption that boggles me is that wizards would treat making magic items lightly in the first place or that there would be mages who speshalized in enchanting objects. The reason for this is that in dnd 3.x making magic items coasts you xp. Now I want you to think good and hard about how one of the best forms of pactice you could do could cost you xp, then look in the book of vile darkness and see that they came to the same conclution I did. YOU ARE INVESTING A PART OF YOUR SOUL IN EVERY MAGIC ITEM YOU MAKE!!! So how on earth does a tower wizard manufactur magic items without leveling down? My answer is blackest necromancy or treating with creatures from the abyss.

This is not to say that nobody makes mgagic items but I just think it shouldnt be taken lightly. Wizards do make items but I think that comitioned items would be very expensive compared to that item that had been plundered from a ruin and then traded hands five or six times.

 

[rounser]

The best solution to this problem I've seen comes from Neverwinter Nights, where the magic item vendor is a djinn who can be summoned from a bottle, and who has his stock on another plane.

By going planar, this solves several problems - what's "available" is no longer dependent on the locality and can be changed at DM whim, and the "magic item store" cannot be robbed by the PCs (only the djinn can reach his or her stock, and items can be demo'ed through use of illusions).

Other outsiders also suggest themselves as merchants, such as arcane, rakshasa, and githyanki. Given that such dangerous beings are unlikely to be able to set up shop in a city, the PCs will probably have to travel to some middleman with planar contacts, such as a remote temple or mage's tower.