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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9324325" data-attributes="member: 907">Trading of magic items makes more sense in 3e than in 2e. I don't know if 1e did things differently, but in 2e creating magic items was a mid-to-high level endeavor. You needed to have a lab and/or a forge, plus a library to research methods, and that necessitated a fairly settled life. You needed to be fairly high level – I think it was level 7 for priestly scrolls/potions, level 9 for wizardly ones, and level 11 for permanent stuff (though the game was rather silent on how you'd actually make those items without permanency), but I could be wrong on the specifics. After the ground work was laid, you needed to figure out how to make each individual item type, which would require long and expensive research and/or the use of dangerous magic like contact other plane. And once you had that figured out, you needed to acquire various more or less exotic ingredients, ranging from something relatively mundane like troll's blood to something esoteric like the dreams of an illithid. In other words, creating a magic item in 2e was likely to be the focus of not just one but several adventures all by itself. Would you go to all that trouble to make an item, and then sell it? You might still sell crap you found, but even that's going to be pretty rare.In contrast, item creation in 3e is far more transactional. First off, it starts much, much earlier: scrolls at level 1, potions and wondrous items at level 3, wands and weapons/armor at level 5. Sure, you need the appropriate feat as well, but that's just making a particular choice when leveling up. That means it's much easier to find someone who can make a particular item. Nor do you need any particular facilities – "a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to work" suffices. Once you have the feat, you can make pretty much any item as long as you can fulfill the casting prerequisites, spend the right money, and have enough downtime. Some items require more, but they are few and far between. You could argue that you're still using troll's blood and illithid dreams, it's just that you're paying someone to get them for you – but that's a big level of abstraction.So it makes perfect sense that 3e casters would sell moderate magic items, or at least have them available for commission, while AD&D casters would do no such thing.</blockquote>

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