What Should the Market for Magic Look Like?

[Kelleris]

Everyone seems oddly in agreement. Would anyone like to make the case for another kind of market for magic? Under what conditions would a MagicMart make sense?

Actually, I'd go with a mercane sort of arrangement, coupled with a plane with a super-fast time flow. So the proprietor can take your order, head into the back room to fetch it, place the order with his organization, have somebody on the fast-time plane make it from scratch, and then deliver it to the customer, only a moment later from their perspective.

It would also help if the power component rule were in widespread use, so that item crafters don't need to head out and get XP very often.

 

[Hussar]

Magic mart setting? You'd need a setting where you have some sort of creation engines that are capable of cranking out magic items IMO. In other words, to have a "magic mart", you need industrial magic.

 

[FireLance]

Everyone seems oddly in agreement. Would anyone like to make the case for another kind of market for magic? Under what conditions would a MagicMart make sense?

I kind of like the sterotypical cluttered, poky, disorganized shop staffed by the eccentric old man or woman. It's the kind of shop that looks like it could contain anything, and mysteriously does - at least, the shopkeeper is able to produce exactly what the PCs ask for after poking around for a while in the back room/attic/cellar/storage space (accompanied by the standard sound effects: bangs, crashes, and occasional cursing).

Whether the shopkeeper somehow divines exactly what items his customers will ask for and takes steps to procure them months in advance, or whether he gets them from some extraplanar marketplace, or whether the PCs are just incredibly lucky is never actually explained.

 

[Hussar]

Y'know, Firelance, that gives me a bit of an idea. Certainly various churches could use Divination spells and the like to make educated guesses about what future items would be of use. Then they could craft the items beforehand and have them ready for sale when the buyer comes.

Hey, a mechanical reason for the availability of magic items in D&D.

 

[mmadsen]

Certainly various churches could use Divination spells and the like to make educated guesses about what future items would be of use. Then they could craft the items beforehand and have them ready for sale when the buyer comes.

That idea -- pretty cool, by the way -- has a perfect real-world analog. Real-world companies spend tremendous resources forecasting demand.

 

[gizmo33]

I like the auction idea for items of a few thousand gp or more in value. Anything less would be common enough that there would be a shop somewhere specializing in it. 50 gp potions, for example. The customer base for the cheap magic items would probably be the same as that for weapons/armor.

However, IMO these "simulation" type issues always bring up the question of whether or not the core rules represent the sum total of all possibilities in the world, or whether or not they are just representative of what's out there. For example, are there only +1 swords, or are there "sword +1, except on weekends", "sword +1 against everything except gnomes", "sword +1, but breaks 2% of the time on a swing", "sword +1, but has other properties not identifiable by magic" and so on.

So if magic has an infinite number of manefestations, and magic items come in infinite variety, then what could a government or individual do to figure out what exactly they are buying?

Also, in a pseudo-medieval world maybe the structures, bureaucracy doesn't exist to track even the DMG-approved magic items much less the infinite varieties. Psuedo-medieval worlds are typically just recovering from some recent cataclysm, and government is in the hands of minor lords. Without the super-structure of some world-spanning guild, it's really a case of buyer beware.

Finally, is there a chance that some spell better than the 1st level Nystul's Magic Aura is out there that can make the situation even more of a nightmare. Conning people is pretty simple when it comes to magic IMO because it's a matter of greed.

People with the resources to take chances on investments, buy magic beans or snake oil and see what it does, hoping that some percentage of the time the item turns out to be beneficial, might be the typical customers in the worst case scenario.

And also, I think most magic items hardly qualify as nuclear weapons. I would imagine someone with 2,000 gp would rather hire soldiers than get a +1 sword. It's only the metagaming logic that restricts PCs from hiring help to the limits of what they can afford that skews the market for magic items in the eyes of players.

 

[mmadsen]

The customer base for the cheap magic items would probably be the same as that for weapons/armor.

Realistically, I don't think there would be shops full of arms and armor either...

I would imagine someone with 2,000 gp would rather hire soldiers than get a +1 sword. It's only the metagaming logic that restricts PCs from hiring help to the limits of what they can afford that skews the market for magic items in the eyes of players.

A wealthy warlord has two goals, I suppose: (1) to maximize his military might, and (2) to maximize his personal military might. He wants his side to win any war, but he really, really wants to personally survive any conflict.

Adventurers are presumably tackling challenges that are better tackled by a few good men, rather than a large army, so I can see why they'd prefer better equipment to more soldiers. (Of course, not all adventures really demand a small, skilled force to tackle...)

 

[Harmon]

Magical markets I can’t see there being a lot of need for, maybe a place where magic items are brokered and makers can sell their services. Perhaps something like-

Old Wizard- “looking for Haver Sack? Ya, Melcord has one for sale, or I can find you a brand new one? A new one. Okay, its gonna take a week, and your gonna need to leave me at least a thousand gold, rest when you pick it up.”

Low “cost” items- Potion/Scrolls of CL1 thru 3 and such (Tokens, etc) can be found in most cities (very few villages would have someone capable of making items), large quantities of anything no matter the value of the magic might take a few more days to get (whether they come from across the land or are made on site).

It just doesn’t make sense to me to have what I view as a rather expensive market item in stalls up and down a market place. Does everyone carry (Commoners, Experts, etc) carry ten pounds of gold about when most Commoners make just a couple copper/silver a day. Sure the Players need to know that their characters can buy what they need, and what they want when ever, but putting a delay of a couple days on it what’s the rush?

When we hit NightFang Spire we needed scrolls of Death Ward, and wands of lesser restoration, we hired a cleric to make items (scrolls and such) then when we returned days later we had the items made, sure it would have been nicer to just walk in and grab a couple wands and scrolls and slap them down with some gold, but we like to feel that some times you can’t always get what you need right now.

I guess it just feels more realistic to us, when there seems to be some real world views behind it.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I'd like to point out (Can't find the page number) the DMG says an NPC earns something like 150-300 Xp each year from day to day interactions. That means that NPC can make 4,000-7,500 gold worth of magic items without adventuring. (Which is a bit unrealistic; There's no way to "study" and become higher level, but slaughtering Orcs/Ogres/Trolls/Giants/Demons will whisk you magically to 20th level in about 2 months of actual work time. 4 EL +0 Encounters a day, 13 needed to level...)

Four to Seven thousand gold may not seem like many magic items, but that standard applies to all Npcs. Just get a bunch of neophyte clerics to brew potions for you. 10 3rd level clerics = 40,000-70,000 Gp worth of potions each year. That could also be 20 sets of +1 weapons or 40 sets of +1 armor. All possibly from one church. (Or wizard guild, etc) Granted, you still need the resources (Gold) to make all this stuff, but there definitely is no shortage of "possible" magic items.

Xp isn't really a limiting Factor (Especially if you use the variant rule that lets multiple spellcasters contribute XP 100 1st level wizards = 15,000 - 30,000 Xp! Enough for Hundreds of magic items, or, if lead by a potent caster, one big one!) The Limiting Factor for making and selling magic items is gold and time. (And, as others pointed out, storing it safely)

 

[JohnSnow]

There's no way to "study" and become higher level, but slaughtering Orcs/Ogres/Trolls/Giants/Demons will whisk you magically to 20th level in about 2 months of actual work time. 4 EL +0 Encounters a day, 13 needed to level...Xp isn't really a limiting Factor.

Except that realistically, those CR appropriate encounters shouldn't be as readily available as that. Sure, the DM can have the players always run into CR appropriate enemies, but if CR 10+ encounters are so common that you'll run into 120 of them in April, where were they back in March when they would have slaughtered you? Or January when you weren't even a 1st-level commoner?

Low-level encounters might be reasonably common, but the higher you get, the further you should have to go (or the longer you should have to wait) for your next challenging encounter. Does this mean you're idle between CR appropriate encounters? No, but we don't waste "screen time" showing every low-level thug you capture or sheep you retrieve.

By the time you're level 10, that raiding party of 4 goblins is something you can take care of without breaking a sweat.

But that's just my take.