Comments on: Magic Shop Syndrome, Revisited

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:34:31 +0000

With regard to TX’s concern, you could also have the players roll either a percent, with you having a basic idea of how you want to break that down for availability based on which city they are in. Maybe the city has a mage school that works in conjunction with a Royal Guard. They could specialize in Magic Item Creation (like a doctorate), but only of items that assist with fighting (armor and weapons). You would be hard pressed to find wands or wondrous items in said city.

You could also go with a “call high or low and roll a die” to determine if that item can be found this week/month or at this city vs. the next one.

By: Quicksilver

Quicksilver — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:51:44 +0000

As a player and a GM, i find it easiest to gloss over as much of that as possible while not at the gaming table. Usually by stopping in a city for a few weeks or months to rotate gear into and out of the system, or to build your own if you have the ability to do so.

As for TX’s concern that it doesn’t make sense that there’d be that much magic items in stock, thatls why its fantasy (if your not looking for an explanation). Even if you tried to make a logical claim out of it, rich people hold on to expensive crap all the time in order to be considered rich. They would likely try to get liquid assets instead, when the chance arises. All this magic gear didn’t spring up the day the pc’s graced the earth with player sentience either, so this is something like the building up of salt in the oceans of earth. It took time when it first happened, but its effects kind of stick with what we know now and the salt content isn’t going away anytime soon. Especially since salt can’t just dissappear, and magic items are supposed to last a very long time once made.

By: KasraKhan

KasraKhan — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:22:43 +0000

I engage my players in actual market practice – they must sell, buy, make diplomacy checks, appraise checks, bluff checks, sense motive checks, etc, etc. Of course, the bigger the magic item, the bigger the guy selling it, the bigger his checks will be as well.

By: TX

TX — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:45:08 +0000

I find it difficult to fathom that just because a city has a gold peice amount, that all, most or even some magic items are blaitantly available. Remember those items cost xp to create, and nobody’s sweat-shopping powerful wizards just to keep stock.