Custom Equipment

[NunoM]

Out of curiosity...
How do you guys handle custom armors, weapons and items in your games? Both time-wise and price-wise...

I'm currently playing a low to high level campaign in my group, and i'm absolutely sure there will be the need for some customization of equipment sometime along the way.
In the past, the DMs in my group ranged from the very lax ("Do whatever you want, as long as you comply with the rules of buying and selling magical equipment. The armor is ready when you leave the city."), to the very strict ("The city wizard is too busy to handle all your requests. He can only tend to two of you. Oh, and that Sun Blade you wanted is a local relic. You can't buy it, but the priests might loan it to you for an appropriate donation...").

Well, what say you?
Thanks

[Unbeliever]

I tend towards the "lax" end of things, recognizing that equipment is, more often than not, a character resource.  I don't require a 3 page explanation for why someone is picking Power Attack as a feat, and I don't want something similar when someone says "I'd really like a flaming scimitar."  I'm also really sensitive to players having a particular style in mind for their character.  This is probably b/c 2E scarred me:  the most common weapons were things like longswords, so god help you if you came up with a cool concept and you wanted to use a spear for a change.  It'd be hell to get a magical one.

I don't like all equipment being hand-picked by the PCs.  Part of the fun of D&D is gaining and finding a use for unusual wacky stuff you happen to come across.  But, I also don't want to put any roadblocks in front of concepts I think are cool and interesting.  Also, it's worth noting that a lot of this bites particularly on weaker character archetypes -- like fighters -- although there's a bit of it with spellcasters.  E.g., if someone really wanted to play a Fire Mage, then I'd call it a dick move to prevent them from acquiring fire-themed spells for their spellbook.

That doesn't mean it's necessarily effortless.  I'd reserve to right to make something a quest hook, like the Sunblade mentioned in the OP.  But, I also wouldn't want to derail the plot b/c the guy wants to add Keen to his Shamshir. 

[littha]

E.g., if someone really wanted to play a Fire Mage, then I'd call it a dick move to prevent them from acquiring fire-themed spells for their spellbook.

[offtopic]
I was once playing a sorcerer specialising in Cold damage blasting spells and Enchantment. The DM filled the entire campaign with Skeletons (immune to both), when I asked why he said it was to stop my obviously broken character from dominating because I had used quite a few books while creating her. Never mind that I specifically limited my character this way to prevent her being a dominating influence in an otherwise low op game but I could have easily stomped everything in the campaign with a core only druid...
[/offtopic]

In regards to magic item availability, I tend to give out a lot of GP (Or saleable items) to players so they can get whatever they like. I do still give out random interesting magic items but I prefer for them to not conflict with a characters WBL because save and attribute boosters or magic weapons are extremely important to the games playability.

[Unbeliever]

E.g., if someone really wanted to play a Fire Mage, then I'd call it a dick move to prevent them from acquiring fire-themed spells for their spellbook.

[offtopic]
I was once playing a sorcerer specialising in Cold damage blasting spells and Enchantment. The DM filled the entire campaign with Skeletons (immune to both), when I asked why he said it was to stop my obviously broken character from dominating because I had used quite a few books while creating her. Never mind that I specifically limited my character this way to prevent her being a dominating influence in an otherwise low op game but I could have easily stomped everything in the campaign with a core only druid...
[/offtopic]

Epic    This makes me so sad since, in my humble opinion, you were "doing it right."  Coming up with a concept, shaping your spells in response to it, and thereby restricting them to a theme.  The idea that more books = more powah! is a pernicious, though widespread one.

[RedWarlock]

I tend to get players making a lot of custom equipment, typically through new-character introductions, thus without the ability to make them deal with creation times. It's getting a bit out of hand, but there's not much justification for my limiting it without coming off as a dick. (I did manage to come down on static always-on bonuses, saying that even if it's cheaper with an always-on spell effect, if the static bonus values are more, use those. It's the at-will true-strike effect.)

[kitep]

I'm pretty lax, and will let the players get almost anything they want.  For custom items using item creation rules, I do pay attention to creation times (usually), but since they tend to get money at the end of the story arc, and there's a "take all the downtime you want" between arcs, the time doesn't matter.

Items that are in a book somewhere are usually ready immediately, or at most a 24-hour wait.

[veekie]

Personally, the published stuff, especially stat boosters and weapons are part and parcel of effective characters, so they're freely available. Other than those there's always special commissions and random loot though.

[Jackinthegreen]

I think most people on these boards would be relatively lax about custom items because we have a good grasp of what's powerful and what isn't.  At-will/always on True Strike is something we know will have a dramatic effect on the game and should be priced as such.

Time-wise is something that should probably be looked at depending on the game.  Requiring months to craft regular stuff and even years to make epic items can be rather difficult to work around if you want to keep the players interested, but it's all in how you handle the story of it.  What you'll probably want to do at later levels (I know I would) is introduce an Artificer that can craft items faster and cheaper than what other classes can do so that the players aren't bogged down by waiting for things.  Or you can always have them go on quests and such for rare items that may or may not be customized.

[NunoM]

Along the campaign, i'm sure there will be some downtime between instances, so i'm guessing that's when the equipment customizing will take place.

Being a long campaign, our group will take turns DM'ing the various adventures it's composed of (it's the "Age of Worms" adventure path, BTW). When my turn comes up, I'm inclined to use the "lax attitude" as well, mostly because i feel that buying and selling equipment, although necessary, isn't quite the most exciting portion of a game session.
I'll probably roll a die for "out of stock" issues, though, for example, in times when everyone in the party (6 characters) wants a "Portable Hole"... If such event happens, i sense an auction coming their way

[Alcyius]

I've never DMed, but the best DM I've ever gamed with had a unique system. He'd let you make almost any item, priced appropriately of course. If you wanted to buy a specific item, it was usually available. Stuff like relics, even the more common ones, were a luck roll(Player VS DM, high/low), with a modifier for large cities. Then he'd randomly roll loot, so we didn't usually find what we wanted in a dungeon, but might find something better. Nothing was broken, and he knew how to balance encounters to our power levels, so everything went rather well. In my experience, most of the DM's that limit items were either new to DMing, or not very good at DMing. In the right campaign, like a low-magic campaign, of course items would be restricted, but not in every campaign, and especially not to prevent someone from being "obviously OP", especially when they aren't.