How do you treat magical items?

[Agrippa]

I've already asked this question on Giant in the Playground forums so I'll ask it here. Magical items are at least a semi-common occurence in fantasy gaming. Some times magical items are common, if not quite everyday objects, other times enchanted items are so rare as to have no real commercial value and even the weakest among them are considered the stuff of legends. This can also be seen in how such mystical objects can be bought and sold.

In settings where magical items are more plentiful they might be purchased from merchants or even commisioned in cases of more powerful and difficult to make items. On the other hand there are settings in which magical items are always ancient relics, crafted in a distant and bygone age with magics and techniques lost to the world forever. At best attempting to sell magical items results something like the Venture Brothers Tag Sale You're It.

[kitep]

My worlds tend to be high-magic, with magic shops on every corner.  If you can afford it, you can buy it.

I did have one campaign that went the other extreme - no magic items at all.  That was a fine campaign, but it didn't last long before we moved onto other things -- not because people didn't like it, but because I prefer to play over DMing, and someone else had a game he wanted to run.

My usual DM prefers the magic items are rare and you should be impressed with any magic items you find -- he tends to give lots of potions and very few magic items, but the ones he does give tend to be quite powerful.

----

BTW, your links don't work.  You have an extra "http://" in there, and extra quotes at the end.  I'll do the wrong and right way, and you can quote this message to see what the code should really be.


wrong: no real commercial value
right: no real commercial value

wrong: Tag Sale You're It
right: Tag Sale You're It

Go Venture Brothers!

[Agrippa]

Thanks kitep, I just fixed the links. Here's my original thread if anyone would like to see it.

[bhu]

Mine varies.  Magic is easily and currently available in my current campaign.  In another I have run they're difficult to get and there's no market for them.  A mage makes you one, or you steal it from someone he's made one for.  Either way simple possession of one means you will have a target on your back for the rest of your life as everything you encounter will try to murder you to possess what you have.  Think Afro Samurai.

[Agrippa]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

[Wrex]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

Considering that unless you want your players to hit at CR -8, they absolutely must have magic items. So no, no we don't. If you run a low magic campaign, you have to keep in mind that PC's are horribly gimped, and won;t be able to fight anything but base humanoids, unless the entire party are tier one/two characters and can almost ignore magic items because of it.

[Agrippa]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

Considering that unless you want your players to hit at CR -8, they absolutely must have magic items. So no, no we don't. If you run a low magic campaign, you have to keep in mind that PC's are horribly gimped, and won;t be able to fight anything but base humanoids, unless the entire party are tier one/two characters and can almost ignore magic items because of it.

That poster is talking about old school D&D, where there's no such thing as CR, or JaronK's tier system.

[Arturick]

I would prefer to keep magic item shops relatively rare and have my players craft their own magic items.

I mean, magic items make a wizard somewhat cooler, but make a Fighter or Rogue barely viable.  So, either I'm playing a really borked world where they never fight shadows/demons/etc., I let them buy items, or they find exactly what they need to overcome the next tier of enemies.

Unfortunately, my players never seem to want to play crafters (despite my very lenient, no XP, houserules for crafting), so I either let them go shopping or have them submit "wish lists" where they are then supposed to be surprised when they find a +3 Keen Rapier.  I would rather just let them go shopping and equip my baddies with exotic magical weapons and quirky magic items with unusual uses.

As a player, I prefer DMs who are (DUN DUN DUN!!!) like me.  I like to pick up Craft Wondrous Item or Craft Magic Arms & Armor and get found magical items that allow for unusual problem solving mechanics (i.e. Gauntlet of Rust or Decanter of Endless Water).

[Wrex]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

Considering that unless you want your players to hit at CR -8, they absolutely must have magic items. So no, no we don't. If you run a low magic campaign, you have to keep in mind that PC's are horribly gimped, and won;t be able to fight anything but base humanoids, unless the entire party are tier one/two characters and can almost ignore magic items because of it.

That poster is talking about old school D&D, where there's no such thing as CR, or JaronK's tier system.

It's true, there is no such thing as CR in 2nd edition, but certain things were only reasonable match for a character of x level, which is where the CR system came from. Blasting was viable, and fighters and thieves did things that could not be replicated by magic, but the mage was still much stronger, provided he could survive the first few levels of being worthless. Cutting off player access to magic items was more viable, mostly because it was assumed you hand tailored treasure to the players. This dosen't change the fact that being utterly without magic items screws over anyone but the magic user.

[bhu]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

Depends on the system.  In some systems that's ok.  In some of D&D's iterations you can even get by with it as long as you restrict encounters as has been mentioned earlier.  But if you're playing 3.5 you either have them never fight anything but human npc's with the occasional animal or very minor monster, you fudge the rolls like mad as DM to keep them alive, or your players have to learn how to get really good at fellating monsters to stay alive.  The people who made 3.5 designed it so items are necessary for classes like fighter to keep up.  I havent played 4th so I cant speak for it, but in 2e and earlier a lot of monsters you can't affect at all without magic weapons.  In 3.5 you need items of all kinds just to keep up with the mages.

[Arturick]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

Depends on the system.  In some systems that's ok.  In some of D&D's iterations you can even get by with it as long as you restrict encounters as has been mentioned earlier.  But if you're playing 3.5 you either have them never fight anything but human npc's with the occasional animal or very minor monster, you fudge the rolls like mad as DM to keep them alive, or your players have to learn how to get really good at fellating monsters to stay alive.  The people who made 3.5 designed it so items are necessary for classes like fighter to keep up.  I havent played 4th so I cant speak for it, but in 2e and earlier a lot of monsters you can't affect at all without magic weapons.  In 3.5 you need items of all kinds just to keep up with the mages.

In 4E everything has a to-hit roll, so encounters are designed for each member of the party to have a +stat item and a +to-hit item appropriate to WBL.

[Unbeliever]

It's campaign and genre dependent for us.  In 2 games there are magic item shops.  One of those is b/c it's Savage Tides and we don't want to go on detours to get necessary gear, so we just mulch whatever we don't want/can't use.  The other is that some magic item creation, purchasing, and trading with people who essentially forage or mine for the stuff (it's a long story, but the short of it is that the world is alive and malevolent, but the flotsam of consciousness leads to it creating all sorts of things). 

In another game, though, we really wanted to preserve the feel that magic items are special.  Which, I think, is the only argument in favor of no magic item marts.  We did this with essentially no change to 3.5 D&D.  We just had some items defined as part of the narrative, they "existed," and others were just mechanics stuff on your sheet.  This went both ways, too, some of us defined some of our class abilities as the products of other items.  It worked fine b/c we were all pretty flexible about it, and what it did is it divorced wealth from power.  So, you essentially have two things:  gold, that is real in-game money that you use to buy things at inns and castles and stuff, and "treasure points" or "magic item points" that are used to acquire the stuff you need to make your character work. 

It's hard to imagine any world with a large number of adventurers without some sort of magic item economy, though.  In the Forgotten Realms, for example, there are tons of adventurers and tons of mages and tons of old loot lying around.  It defies imagination and verisimillitude that there wouldn't be someone in Waterdeep there to help some poor Fighter who has specialized in the Glaive Guisarme swap the Bastard Sword +3 he's found.  This isn't a magic item shoppe, per se, but it's the equivalent.  And, unless there's a real reason to role-play out finding someone and trading, it might just be worth it to hand waive it all and treat it like a magic item shoppe.  We generally do such things between adventures online with google docs anyway.

[Keldar]

So I doubt many of you, like me, would agree with this statement.

"I've never sold a magicitem to a player and won't start. The barbarians will be at the gates every session after that.

There is no buyer's economy for magic items."

Depends on the system.  In some systems that's ok.  In some of D&D's iterations you can even get by with it as long as you restrict encounters as has been mentioned earlier.  But if you're playing 3.5 you either have them never fight anything but human npc's with the occasional animal or very minor monster, you fudge the rolls like mad as DM to keep them alive, or your players have to learn how to get really good at fellating monsters to stay alive.  The people who made 3.5 designed it so items are necessary for classes like fighter to keep up.  I havent played 4th so I cant speak for it, but in 2e and earlier a lot of monsters you can't affect at all without magic weapons.  In 3.5 you need items of all kinds just to keep up with the mages.

In 4E everything has a to-hit roll, so encounters are designed for each member of the party to have a +stat item and a +to-hit item appropriate to WBL.

But 4E also has a nice optional rule system that move the very necessary Enhancement bonuses off the equipment and onto the characters.  Thus making a no-magic items game quite playable.  And a low-magic item game fun as the items can focus on being interesting instead of filling bland mechanical needs.  Removing Enhancement bonuses from items is the best thing to happen to D&D in forever.

[veekie]

I go with a mixture.
Theres standard magic items, which are strictly WBL limited, and run off personal attunements. Anyone can enchant equippables for their own use using the gp substitute, given time, though crafters proper are still necessary for expendable items, custom items, and for selling. You don't need to loot this, if you have the spare attunement points and any piece of equipment in the right slot used regularly, they can be turned into any stock magic item.

Theres Super Prototypes, which are created generally with Plotanium materials. They exist outside of WBL, but are generally made by NPCs out of some of the PCs more exotic and unique loots. These require non-generic materials to craft, and thus can't be mass produced, and generally the PCs don't want to sell their unique new toys anyway. Similar categorically to these are alchemicals and exotic mundane gear. They have no plot role, they're just cool gear I give out sorta as a loyalty bonus.

Theres also minor artifacts. Difficult to destroy, and either inefficient or risky to use, they're basically plot hooks in item form. The PCs won't trade these for the pure hazard of it.

[oslecamo]

Cheap trinkets (under 1000 gold) can be found almost anywhere.

Minor magic items (under 5000 gold) are relatively common in bigger cities.

Anything over that, you'll need to commission it and/or have the right connections. If your connections are deep enough, you may even get special custom effects and discounts, in particular if you bring them exotic loot, including rare enemy parts.

There's also the ocasional custom minor artifact, pried from the cold dead hands of a defeated boss, and will demand some bonding process to fully awaken its powers to the new users. In some rarer cases those minor artifacts may have a will of their own and be dangerous to the user, so experiment with them at your own risk.

[LordBlades]

In my group, we've usually done it the Magic Mart way (if it's in the books, not banned for this campaign and within the city's GP limit, then you can have it) and it hasn't really been a problem.

In the current campaign we're doing it a bit different however (the DM has a soft spot for economics and random generators). First of all, magic items shops work like actual shops, as in they have a given selection of items at a given time. If you want something special, depending on chance, skills and/or connections, the shop keeper might or might not be able to get it for you, but it takes some time. Secondly, the existence of Wish loops (wish has been amended with the 3.0 rule that it can't produce a magic item worth more than 15.000 GP) is acknowledged in the world. This means any mid-to-high level caster has access to all the gold, gems and magic items below 15.000 GP he desires. Which, in turn, means they are practically worthless to him. Whoever has/can make items above the 15.000 gp limit, is highly reluctant to trade them unless it's for something equally hard to get (that you can't simple wish for).

So far we've only seen the lower part of this system (we're only level 5 atm), but the premise certainly looks interesting.

[Rejakor]

I treat it how the world treats it.  So i've run all kinds.  Personally I don't really see any difference between running high magic and running low magic, when it comes to items.  In both situations it's equally easy to have items that the players get attached to, and equally easy to challenge the party.  There are benefits and downsides, but both are about equally superior.

One thing I do do is demand verisimilitude, so you can't just buy items in the middle of nowhere, and shit like 'you don't have the right kind of currency' (this kingdom doesn't care about magical fruit, they use electrum) and 'you can't buy it for love or money - only for an equal service' kind of stuff happens.  Basically, I don't allow people to ever go 'I can just buy anything I like unless *you don't let me*' I strive to make the access to any specific object, magical or otherwise, make as much sense as possible in the setting.


At no point do I ever worry about 'balance' in this kind of situation.  I might say there's no 'anklets of teleportation for 1400g' because that item is too good, i.e. I might change the ITEM, or change shivering touch, or specify that candle of invocation can't be used to get wishes, but that's more in the nature of fixing silly mechanics interactions than worrying about 'balance'.  Doesn't matter how powerful the party gets, I can always challenge them, easily, because I am the DM.

[Halinn]

About the time the party gets access to teleport, restrictions on shops becomes easily avoidable for them, though.

[Rejakor]

Overt metagamey restrictions on magic items are ime a terrible idea.  'Oh, the shop doesn't HAVE x' is just pointless timewasting or obvious DM blocking.  Unless it's for setting reasons, i.e. it is a low magic setting, they have like 2 wands and a potion, restricting access to magic items you don't like or consider 'too powerful' is silly.  Either change the item or let them have it, if the setting would have it.

If you want to run low magic, run low magic, don't try to artificially do it.

[Zionpopsickle]

I run magic shops as shops.  They have employees who have to run the shop, crafters who have to craft things, etc.  Thus common items are easily available because any idiot with business sense is gonna have apprentices crafting a crap load of +1 swords, anklets of translocation, etc.  Custom stuff just uses craft rules as normal. 

Personally, I think that the assumption that the people in the world are people is always the first you should make.   It works for Depeche Mode. Anywho, I like the idea that everyone works for a living and thus if you want a magic item you basically have to go to shop and have the "smith" craft it for you.  But at the same time, I assume that most smiths are going to have a spellbook that contains all the spells needed to craft basically everything, because that is just the most economical way to do it.  In a small town, you may find a smith who has a more restrictive spellbook, but that is only because of the nature of information flow in a semi-medieval environment.

A lot of this has to do with my preference for an organic world, in which the world evolves from a set state according to the players action.  If you can't tell, I am a physicist.