What Items Can a PC Purchase?

[airwalkrr]

Recently, I was looking through Chapter 7 of the PH and discovered a passage I had never noticed before. On page 112 under "Availability," the text says essentially that PCs may purchase any item worth 3,000 gp or less and that for more expensive items, it essentially depends on the DM. This is something that seemed to make a modicum of sense. Obviously the DM could overrule this text, especially as it pertains to oil of magic vestment +5 and similar items being available. But it seems like a good guideline overall for a medium fantasy world like the default Greyhawk. However, if you go beyond 3,000 gp items to more expensive items (i.e. the cool ones), it becomes stickier.

The DMG gives DMs guidelines on what can be purchased, basically boiling down to a simple formula wherein the bigger the city, the more expensive the items available. While this is reasonable in a broad sense, to give unrequitted access to any item under the gold piece limit is often a bit unrealistic. Even in a medium fantasy world like Greyhawk, the City of Greyhawk may have 60,000 people, but it does not have +5 weapons sitting on store shelves, much less any kind of +5 weapon. Unfortunately the DMG does not give much more of a guideline than the GP limit, which is woefully inadequate unless you want a frenzied magic item mart in your campaign.

It would seem to me the most "realistic" way to handle it would be to generate semi-random item lists for shops in a community by rolling on the treasure tables relative to the size of the community (ala Baldur's Gate and similar fantasy games). But this would hardly be practical, especially for a city like Greyhawk with probably at least a dozen or so magic item vendors, not to mention the 10-15 temples, Wizards' Guild, and University of Magical Arts. For that matter, if your PCs travel a lot, it would be difficult to generate lists of available items in every village, hamlet, and thorp they pass through if they just want to browse. But at the same time, just letting the PCs have any item they want within the GP limit can often promote powergaming, metagaming, and over-planning.

How do you judge the availability of items for your campaign? Do you just wing it, letting the PCs ask if an item is available and rolling dice to see if it is or deciding on the fly? Do you have charts for various localities listing the typical items available? Do you maintain special lists of items in specific store inventories?

 

[TheGogmagog]

The latest campaing I ran was run into a TPK before they had more than that to spend. So I never worked out the details. What I was going to do is use some kind of check balanced vs a DC based on the value of the item. This would represent a week of searching. In a small village you probably wouldn't have a retry, but in a larger town it would represent contacts and traveling merchants picking up word that someone was in the market for a particular item. The retries would have some culmative bonus to represent this word of mouth.

My base plan was DC is square root of item value. 10,000gp=DC100 100,000gp=DC316. This DC would be subject to modification for example if it's an unlawful or evil, assuming a lawful town. It would be a percentile roll plus relevant skill check usually gather information. This could also be modified by fame, or any other situational modifiers, like membership in a merchants guild or a good relationship with someone who is a member. So a 10th level character with +15 would probably take two weeks to locate a specific 10,000gp item. Rolls 48%+15=63 first week rolls 81%+15+63=159. It would probably take 3 more weeks to find a 100,000 gp item.

This could even lead to interesting plot lines, a nemisis hears you are looking for the item, or you find the item but the owner isn't ready to sell. The system could even allow the characters to take preventative measures taking a penalty to set the DC to keep it secret.

If characters just walked into a shop and said what's available? Then I would resort to the treasure tables.

 

[Darklone]

Same as gogmagog. Treasure tables in the rare case the PCs find a shop that has magical items. These shops are hard to find, extremely high Gather Information checks are required. And most often nobles with a lot of money are the preferred customers and the shop owner doesn't want to sell the real goodies to dirty adventurers.

Otherwise: I have less low level spellcasters around but more high level dudes. These prefer to stay hidden or out of the political arena, otherwise they are ... pretty occupied. If the players find some, purchasing magic items is done on a case by case basis... and usually not for money.

 

[Evilhalfling]

It is really dependent on where they are.
Even in large cities I try and keep track of casters over 12th lvl - and have a rough idea of
what crafting feats they have. The Pcs go to specific casters who they have gone to before and bargain for items, who then craft them on order, when they have time.

Weapons and armor, stat boosting of 2, wands, scrolls and potions are readily available in cities, with lots of >7th lvl casters who will take some time to make stuff. I also have people come bug the PCs to make stuff, which is sold at full price.

3k is fine as a limit until pcs get up around 11th, then it needs to be relaxed, perhaps only in one or two cities (easily reached by teleport/windwalk)

Unfortunately one unintended consequence of my rules of thumb is that many of the parties powerful items did not have the interesting backstories, instead being made to order, or just as likely crafted by the PC's themselves.

 

[airwalkrr]

Same as gogmagog. Treasure tables in the rare case the PCs find a shop that has magical items. These shops are hard to find, extremely high Gather Information checks are required. And most often nobles with a lot of money are the preferred customers and the shop owner doesn't want to sell the real goodies to dirty adventurers.

Well, in my case, I am running a campaign where the PCs are not just dirty adventurers. They are celebrities in the City of Greyhawk, one of them is a dwarven noble, and another is an agent of the archmage Tenser. They are 13th and 14th level so this is not really out of line for their level. But at the same time, I do not think they should be able to purchase just any magic item they wish, given the money. Lately they've been spending a lot of money on resurrections, but if they hadn't, they would have a lot of liquid assets and would be considering it. Currently I use a suggestion from Dragon magazine, that the store Maldin and Elenderi's sells scrolls and potions and can special order other magic items at a 20% mark-up. It takes 1d4 days for a minor item, 1d6+1 days for a medium item, and 1d8+3 days for a major item. Maldin and Elenderi have contacts throught the Flanaess so this is somewhat reasonable. They require payment up-front and there are no returns, exchanges, or refunds. But it still doesn't strike me as entirely tenable. It is a workable solution for now, but I feel it is lacking. And besides that, I have no simple and effective way to let the PCs browse.

 

[Wish]

In larger cities, I allow pretty much free access to things that I deem to be common items (things lots of people would want). Resistance, stats, common martial weapons (longsword, greatsword, composite longbow, etc.), common armors (chain shirt or full plate), wands of CLW, rings of protection, at least up to what a 10th or 12th level caster could create.

My judgement of what's "common" and "uncommon" is pretty subjective. Harder to find stuff might not be available, or might need to be commissioned, or the like.

I do like to give my PCs the opportunity to buy things at a discount occasionally, or sell at more than 50%, when they've reached higher levels. For example, the local warlord they've worked with for a while might give them a standing offer to buy any +1 arrows or bows they find at 60% of cost, or a group of lower level adventurers might offer so sell them some extra gear for 70% of full price to fund a raise dead for a fallen companion.

 

[Harm]

Same as gogmagog. Treasure tables in the rare case the PCs find a shop that has magical items. These shops are hard to find, extremely high Gather Information checks are required. And most often nobles with a lot of money are the preferred customers and the shop owner doesn't want to sell the real goodies to dirty adventurers.

Such shops wouldn't exist. The owners would have starved to death. For every +3 sword a noble would buy, adventurers would buy 100 of them. The reason they're nobles is because they live long enough to have offspring, who they give not only their title to, but also their family heirlooms, aka magic items. Adventurers meanwhile are constantly wanting to spend all their money on better items, and constantly dying, or losing them or breaking them or having them blown up, and also finding other ones they want to sell off. Adventurers are often not only a shop's best customer, but also the best supplier.

For magic item availability from towns I prefer a few limits. First DMG items only unless I explicity add something, often due to background like a nearby druid grove etc. Second the power level of town is the main consideration and not the size, i.e. Sigil is going to have a very high availability, but some huge town that is primarly commoners and doesn't have a mage guild or a major temple, forget it. Third, items tend not to be on shelves, availability may often mean that someone in the town can MAKE or get the item... assuming you can provide them the materials and convince them to do it.

 

[Darklone]

Such shops wouldn't exist. The owners would have starved to death. For every +3 sword a noble would buy, adventurers would buy 100 of them. The reason they're nobles is because they live long enough to have offspring, who they give not only their title to, but also their family heirlooms, aka magic items. Adventurers meanwhile are constantly wanting to spend all their money on better items, and constantly dying, or losing them or breaking them or having them blown up, and also finding other ones they want to sell off. Adventurers are often not only a shop's best customer, but also the best supplier.
...

Agreed about that supplier sentence at the end... the rest depends on the number of adventurers in your game world.
First: If it's not the typical D&D amount (100 adventurers per village), then you might easily have more nobles around.
Second: If the number of magic items is lower (balanced by fewer but more powerful items), the whole thing moves into the direction I like.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

In the past year on these boards I've seen at least fifteen threads devoted solely to how many or how powerful magic items should be available and how their availability should be limited. Every time it basically comes down to the DMs judgement because it's his campaign and his world. That said maybe we should consider maintaining the power curve but altering the formula?

This is my definitely fallible and imperfect suggestion.
PROBLEM: DMs have trouble deciding how to manage the sort of magic items that PCs have access to. This seems to be connected to their design as distinct physical items and the use of money as a balancing tool for how much PCs have access to. It also means that playing with the monetary wealth of parties or campaign worlds can create a non-trivial amount of work rebalancing encounters and entire campaigns to match the altered power level.
SOLUTION?:
1.) Partially this could be dealt with by removing money as a balancing tool for many sorts of magical enhancements, especially the weapon and armor enhancements in particular though not them exclusively. Instead of treating the bonus as applied to a specific object treat it as an enhancement to the character themself and any tool they use to which the enhancement may apply. It has the effect of making a character more innately heroic and the DM no longer has to drop the appropriate items at particular times or allow the PCs to buy them. This doesn't deal with items that are themselves magical those have to be handled differently.
EXAMPLE: A Level 11 fighter has chosen the following enhancements- +1 enhancement bonus, Ghost Touch, and Flaming. He applies those qualities to any weapon he uses. So whether it's a sword, or bow, or his fists they all get the bonus. On the other hand if a town guard picks up the sword it won't be anything but a normal sword to him.
2.) For objects that are magical in and of themselves rather than as extensions of a character seperate rules are needed. While I don't generally agree with Hong the Imbued Magic Items Rules are a good place to work on this from the aspect of object creation. The cost of magic item creation is not so much gold as its drain on the innate "soul power" of its creator. If mixed with the Artificer's Handbook so that exotic components can replace part or all of an items XP cost to create the system becomes more complex but also more robust and flexible.
POTENTIAL PROBLEM: The above rule handles creation not pricing. Basically since many kinds of effects normally seen in D&D as discete items would now be considered effects placed on characters instead fewer actual items would be necessary to maintain the same power curve. Of those actual items that would still appear many of those that are currently less expensive (mostly single use or charged items) would be made by the party more and at significantly lower cost in GP. Those innately magic items left that the PCs would have to seek out would be the more powerful ones which would make major magic items that PCs acquire less common but more powerful and unique.

 

[jeffman]

Connections

At the beginning of a campaign, I let the PCs know that you can't just walk into a magic shop and buy a +5 keen flaming greatsword. I allow the PCs to be able to buy anything up to the 1000-3000gp range (Unless they are in a small village).

I do want the PCs to have somwhat routine access to more expensive items (keeping up with the power curve). So, what I do is in-game introduce high level casters (the nutty old wizard guy who's experiment goes out of control and the PCs have to fix it) or organizations (wizards guilds, temples) in which PCs have the chance to associate with and befriend.

This helps build the campaign setting as something more alive and significant, provide some in-game content (and plot hooks), and a method of access to high valued items for the PCs.