That’ll Be 180,000 gp, Please
It strikes me when reading through old Dungeons & Dragons manuals that back in 2nd edition AD&D, there was practically no such thing as buying and selling magic items. By contrast, in the current edition of the game you can travel to any city and expect to freely buy and sell any magic item save for the few most expensive things in the game. (Drop a comment even if you don’t read the entire entry, I’m interested in seeing what people think about this.)
The difference really changes how treasure works in the game. AD&D works like Diablo II, where huge amounts of gold are largely ineffectual for buying magic items because the kind of people who value magic items tend not to accept established amounts of currency for them. Magic items are so rare and difficult to create as to have no established price.
Come third edition, and any magic-using NPC or player character with the appropriate training can create magic items from scratch; similarly, by the rules at least, any magic item worth 100,000 or more can be commissioned or purchased reliably for gold, while players will find that they can consistently sell any such item for half market price.
The big difference is that unwanted or unnecessary magic items now suddenly gain special value, because you can reliably trade in stuff you don’t want for stuff you do. A spare +1 sword is no longer just a spare sword; it’s a convenient portable 1,000 gold piece ingot redeemable at any nearby town. Because they’re now tradeable for currency, anything that’s worthless to you in practice is still valuable, and anything you desire is attainable just by hoarding enough worthless junk and dropping it off at the city magic shop between adventures.
This can be a good thing, or a bad thing. Yes, it opens up new options for players, but I can’t help but feel that the game loses something by making magical equipment a commodity. It’s less heroic; I don’t remember the part where Frodo flicked through a magic item catalogue and got a trade-in on a bunch of enchanted amulets. It makes more work for the players; someone has to keep a list of the items nobody wanted, then add up the prices whenever they’re to be sold. It gives players a reason to look through the magic item list like a mail order catalogue, which makes items less mysterious. It makes magic feel more common, such that you can reliably stock up on consumables, base character builds around items, and remove the reliance on party spellcasters for buffs and cures. Finally, it removes the interesting hodgepodge element to the game, where an item is an item and you can take it for what it’s worth or leave it.
tl;dr: Do you think it’s better when you can’t buy and sell magic items? Discuss!
March 13th, 2007 at 8:42 am
In my games, magic items are usually not for sale for gold only. Particular items are offered by NPC mages and priests as rewards or in order to help a good cause. There are no ordinary shopkeepers in the business of magic items.
March 13th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Third edition PCs are a tough act to balance correctly. Giving them suboptimal items will have a huge impact on their relative power. Weapons, armor, attribute enhancers, items that provide mobility etc.
If a PC doesn’t introduce means to re-equip players with equpiment besides what they tend to find (or doesn’t fill his dungeons with just the right items), he has to do a lot of work to keep some underequipped players happy with their characters.
Having said that, I tend to regard the gp values rather abstract. No, you can’t walk in a Final Fantasy-like Item Shoppe. If the item costs 180000 gp, that’s the value of the service you have to do for the old Wizard/King.
In addition, I kinda prefer D20 variants with less emphasis on items, but if you want to play straight-forward 3E, you have to make some changes from the olden days.
(On the other hand: No stupid Str 9 fighters with belts of giant strength anymore)
March 13th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I think, it’s okay to buy and sell magic items. Think of Eberron: the world is full of magic by definition, so why shouldn’t there be a lots of magic items that you can buy and sell, too?
There are millions of magic users in Eberron and it would be illogical if they didn’t make magic items for sale. Basic magic weapons are quite common, and they are cheap. That’s ok, because it follows the laws of economics.
But when it comes to other magic items than armours or weapons (especially if you try to create them) it gets a bit ridiculous (to say the least),
Consider the prices for simple wands. My artificer has the feat to make wands among other stuff (got it at level 4?), but can’t create even the most simple one because they usually cost at least 20000 GP. A simple wand, with few charges of a very simple spell. He’ll never see that much money until a very advanced level, where the type of adventures that he can survive warrant getting that much money, so he can create a simple wand (that can be bought for only a little bit more money anyway). So the really desirable stuff is still unreachable, not because its rare but because it’s expensive.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I’ve found this to take a bit of the mystique in the games I run, so what I do is use both. There are conventional magical items that the party finds/purchases/trades just like any other loot, which works fine. But I also have a ton of unique, unknown magical items that the party keeps partially out of practicality, and partially because as players they are intrigued.
They yawn at trading away a +2 longsword, but a little pouch that magically produces little balls that explode into a Web spell when thrown? They’d sooner surrender their own mother.
As an added benefit, usually the players make extra effort to use these unique items or implement them into their plans, making them even more memorable.
March 16th, 2007 at 4:39 am
It depends entirely on the setting, as to how available magic is. Forgotten Realms has a high magic setting where I understand there is even the occasional magic item shop. In my games, they come across magic items.. But come time to sell them, the place they want to sell it better have an economy capable of paying the price. No 160,000 GP sale to the villagers please. It’s just another facet of how the DM wishes to control power/economics of the party. Use fair judgment and make sure the players are still having fun.
Of course, most importantly, any sufficiently powerful magic item, will have other people looking for it, even in the hands of your players….
April 5th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I’m all for the 2e approach. Minor items can be bought or sold, but usually at the local church/alchemist or other institution. “Ye old shop O’ magic” has no place in my campaign…save in the biggest, most wonderous city and even they would only handle low level items.
Our party went back to the 2e rules for magical item creation (without the con price for perminancy) which makes searching for the components and constructing the item a memorable, personal experience. In our campaign it is not easy to commission an item unless the party turns up on the door with all components for the item ready and a sack of gold for his time.
Minor items should be common enough to give the party a little help, but a character should be as uniquely recognizable by his items as by his name and deeds.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I’ve seen both types of games (always using 3.5), and I really think it does come down to DM control. I have one regular DM who tends to make relatively low magic worlds, where a +1 weapon/armor or minor item can be found without too much difficulty, but others require the aid of powerful mages that request more than mere gold. On the other hand, I’m running a game where magic permeates the entire world. Although it’s not to the point of Final Fantasy’s magic shop in every tiny town, a larger city in any of the major nations will have shops that specifically sell a variety of minor and medium items and some mage’s consortiums even have a sort of mail-order catalogue from which one could potentially order a +1 sword and receive it in the mail a week or so later. The question for the DM is really how magic works in the world they’ve created (or are using). More magic will often translate into more magic items (I’d pay a fair amount of money for something to make me smarter). But if magic is a rare thing, then those few magic items that do exist will be treasured posessions not quickly surrendered. In terms of balance, I had one DM who ran a low magic campaign but made available non-magical weapons that gave bonuses equivalent to a +1 or +2 item.
March 31st, 2008 at 4:54 am
While I think it should be somewhat difficult, I think it’s exceeding realistic to have items of fantastic value in any setting. I think the second temple in Jerusalem is the perfect example. Everything from the marble stones to the gold inlay to the very doors of an edifice that ultimately comprised a staggering portion of the entire walled city (the total area of the temple complex being larger than most of the neighborhoods in the city at the time) was crafted and imported. The Jews did not invent what must have been extremely uncommon commissions of hundreds of thousands of tons of finely dressed marble from other countries and moving carved wooden doors that according to legend could sink ships from Africa. Those economies and skills all existed already. So, just because 99.99999% of the population is completely incapable of accessing those markets, they clearly do exist and have existed throughout the world, for thousands of years.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I think of it in terms of a story. How exciting would it be to read about a hero going to the store to buy his magic sword to slay the dragon with? I think the buying and selling of magic items is very unheroic and anti-climatic. Questing for or even commissioning a magic item from a myserious wizard or priest is far acceptable to me, especially if the characters have to go on quests to collect the items or spells necessary for the item. The play is the thing. The buying selling and trading of magic items sullies the story-telling spirit of the game.