Tell me - how can I, as a DM, 'make my own ruling' to get the magic off of character sheets? Do I ban everything but fighters, barbarians, and rogues from my game and forbid any of the magic-y subclasses for the fighters and rogues? Can I tell the full spellcasters they're now on half-caster spell slot progression and they have to use hit dice to regain spell slots? How do I make the characters match the DMG's base assumption that magical equipment is outlandishly, impossibly rare and should all be treated as absolutely priceless ancient relics that will never be matched again?
I'm about to run a campaign with high magic presence, but it's not so prominent in certain races, such as human. However, elves, halflings, dragonborn, etc, are much more attuned to it. Also, magic schools for wizards exist in the major cities, and yes, there'll be magic shops, too. I've also envisioned wizards and sorcerers monetizing on their craft to mass produce ever-burning candles or perpetual frozen boxes (ie refrigerators) but that this seems to cause some social distress between the magic wielders and non magic wielders. We'll see how it plays out, though. May not even be an issue.
Think of this: according to Folks like Trent or Kotath, magic items simply cannot be purchased. They cannot be made/crafted. They cannot be sold. They cannot be traded, outside of different PCs trading amonst themselves. What the party rolls on the random loot tables or what they pull from the hands of dead bosses are the only magical items that exist in the whole entire world. Creating permanently enchanted magical items is a lost process, shrouded by the ages, and absolutely positively CAN NOT be replicated in any way, shape, or form, at all, PERIOD, in the game's current timeline.
Yeah, don’t put words in my mouth there, cap’n. I didn’t say or imply any of those things. I actually said the opposite.
I very explicitly stated that my players are crafting their own magic items, and that I agree with what the DMG, you know, one of the rule books for the game, says about buying and selling magic items at the equivalent of a high class art auction, or through a fence, or something of that like.
What I disagree with is the concept of there just being some magic item pawn shop in every major city where you can hock the magic items you just looted from a nearby dungeon, and buy something more suited to your character that, I guess some other adventuring party didn’t have a use for.
The thread is about magic item SHOPS, specifically.
DM's can decide to have any kind of Magic Shop in any worlds if they like.
WotC has published at least 3 official settings that have Magic Shops.
No matter what anyone here would like to say about it. Those are indeed facts. You can poo poo on the idea all you like, but it doesn't change anything.
DM's can decide to have any kind of Magic Shop in any worlds if they like.
WotC has published at least 3 official settings that have Magic Shops.
No matter what anyone here would like to say about it. Those are indeed facts. You can poo poo on the idea all you like, but it doesn't change anything.
No one is claiming otherwise. You’re arguing against a point no one has made. But go off, I guess.
Rampant spellcasting doesn't have to imply rampant magical crafting. Just because you can cast a spell doesn't mean you can enchant items as well. The DMG actually implies the ability to craft (permanent, as opposed to single-use) magical items is - in the FR, at any rate - a lot rarer than spellcasters are.
I think the underlying issue is the granularity: connecting a price rare to the different categories of rarity and only to those ends up with silly results because rarity is not the only factor in determining an item's value. The cast-off quality has its uses and thus has value, but it's nowhere near as useful - and thus as coveted - as a whole lot of common magical items (the thermal cube is a prime example). Demand for those items should be a whole lot higher, which in turn should mean the prices should be a whole lot higher. More than the 50-100 gp range allows for, certainly. Thermal cubes are arguably more valuable than a lot of uncommon magical items and are even comparable to some rare ones.
If prices reflected value a bit better, some items being "common" wouldn't really matter much: thermal cubes might be common, but their price would mean most of them will long since have been acquired by someone with considerable wealth who's unlikely to be willing to part with them cheaply. "Common" might mean "a significant number of these exist in the world" but that's not the same as "a significant number of these are for sale in the world". Costing only 100 gp (I know, for most people in any D&D setting thats still a whole lot of dough) at most however belies that sense of exclusivity.
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The thing I never get about all the virulent hatred of letting players buy/sell/trade/acquire/discquire magical items because "it breaks my fantasy immersion, these things just wouldn't be possible!" is that it feeds into one of the most awful and setting-breaking dichotomies of 5e.
Namely? Magic is absolutely freaking everywhere, and yet it's also supposed to be astoundingly rare and so difficult to come by that it almost doesn't exist in the normal setting of the game.
Whole thread TL;DR. However, I completely agree with this sentiment. Magic spellcasting dudes running around everywhere... Continual light... er continual flame... Give me a break, there would be so many enterprising people running around making all kinds of inventions and spells. Metaphysical research would be a principle industry.
Honestly if you were in a a typical DND world that is basically medieval, technologically speaking. The simplest thing like being a bee keeper would inspire people to make a spell that facilitates the business practices of making honey. Every single industrial endeavour, from stone masonry, to ship building, from agriculture to the local palace of pleasure would be prepared to pay spellcasters for their services.
You can't have magic be common (PCs and NPCs just willy nilly slinging spells around like its no big deal) and at the same time have magic items, magical technology, and metaphysical innovation be uncommon... It just makes no sense whatsoever...
You have three options as a world builder... Low magic - every spellcaster is rare and generally has to hide their powers from the average person. Suspicion, of being a spellcaster likely to bring out the mob or the authorities or both on you, your family and everyone connected to you. Your world is gritty and tough... like the dark ages - more like Greyhawk. High magic - just run with it and make magic as commonplace practices... This requires a hell of a lot of serious thinking about world building lest your world becomes a cartoon. Make magic so structed that it makes hardly any sense at all. Rely of dissonance, lack of imagination, and suspension of disbelief to play in your world... This is basically what WotC (and before them TSR) did all the time.
Haters are gunna hate... so have at it boys and girls. Shoot me down with your best shots. :-)
I can lift a heavy object with my body. I do not personally have the knowledge to create a device which can replicate that feat. A musician might be able to play an instrument, but that doesn’t mean that they can create a working cd player from scratch, even though the end result is the same, music.
The ability to perform a feat is not the same as being able to make a device that does so. One can absolutely be less common than the other. And the creation of the device is usually the less common, because it’s more complicated and more difficult to learn how to do.
The simplest thing like being a bee keeper would inspire people to make a spell that facilitates the business practices of making honey.
Bit of a surprising example, given that beekeeping is anything but a technologically advanced pursuit in real life.
And let's not overstate the number of spellcasters in the average D&D setting. PCs are by definition exceptional, not common, and its not like every little hamlet or backwater village comes advertised with a qualified arcanist either.
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I can lift a heavy object with my body. I do not personally have the knowledge to create a device which can replicate that feat. A musician might be able to play an instrument, but that doesn’t mean that they can create a working cd player from scratch, even though the end result is the same, music.
The ability to perform a feat is not the same as being able to make a device that does so. One can absolutely be less common than the other. And the creation of the device is usually the less common, because it’s more complicated and more difficult to learn how to do.
I mean that's how it works in reality. While we do have stores everywhere nowadays (at least in many parts of the world), that has less to do with pure tech levels and more to do with industry and economy. In the non-industrial past, there were still rare items of amazing technology, but you couldn't just buy such things at corner stores. Much of medieval Chinese history and a lot of Rome was like this.
I prefer in my settings to have rare and very rare magic items to be, well, rare or very rare. Common items mostly represent the level of "magic tech" that is well understood. Such items are still pretty expensive to make, mainly due to lack of good automation, but it can be done. Uncommon items are kind of the gray area in between.
I can lift a heavy object with my body. I do not personally have the knowledge to create a device which can replicate that feat. A musician might be able to play an instrument, but that doesn’t mean that they can create a working cd player from scratch, even though the end result is the same, music.
The ability to perform a feat is not the same as being able to make a device that does so. One can absolutely be less common than the other. And the creation of the device is usually the less common, because it’s more complicated and more difficult to learn how to do.
I mean that's how it works in reality. While we do have stores everywhere nowadays (at least in many parts of the world), that has less to do with pure tech levels and more to do with industry and economy. In the non-industrial past, there were still rare items of amazing technology, but you couldn't just buy such things at corner stores. Much of medieval Chinese history and a lot of Rome was like this.
I prefer in my settings to have rare and very rare magic items to be, well, rare or very rare. Common items mostly represent the level of "magic tech" that is well understood. Such items are still pretty expensive to make, mainly due to lack of good automation, but it can be done. Uncommon items are kind of the gray area in between.
In present day we also have quite a few limitations on technology and equipment restricted to militaries, paramilitaries (and the like) leading to varying degrees of difficulty of acquiring these items. It's not just weaponry either. While this doesn't have to be the same in Toril or other 5e settings, there are reasons the existence of magical artifacts may fall within normal expectations for the world, yet many of them would not be freely available for purchase.
I don't have a strong opinion on magic shops versus no magic shops. My biggest issue is that I don't actually find loot in 5e to be that much of a draw without homebrew. There are a handful of items I tend to want for a character, and there are definitely certain things that would be useful on certain quests, but I don't actually have an urge to shop for things at a store. I've started a new campaign and eventually I do plan to give the players the option of purchasing magical items if they want, but I have other systems in play for loot and and gear right now.
Also even in the military soldiers are not all treated the same, the rank and file don’t have most of the technology and safety equipment elite soldiers do due to cost. So you can expect an entire army won’t be armed with +1 swords and armpit.
Tell me - how can I, as a DM, 'make my own ruling' to get the magic off of character sheets? Do I ban everything but fighters, barbarians, and rogues from my game and forbid any of the magic-y subclasses for the fighters and rogues? Can I tell the full spellcasters they're now on half-caster spell slot progression and they have to use hit dice to regain spell slots? How do I make the characters match the DMG's base assumption that magical equipment is outlandishly, impossibly rare and should all be treated as absolutely priceless ancient relics that will never be matched again?
Rest-based character abilities don't have much bearing on your world's economy. For all I know, your five-man Wizard party is the only five Wizards in the whole world. PCs are exceptional by definition. And even Wizards can't make scrolls if you don't give them the resources or the time. Everybody else? How are they making magic items? Even Artificers can't produce things for sale unless they're unmaking those things after they've been sold, and I'm not sure that's good business practice.
But yeah, if you want to really commit to a full-on low magic setting, rather than the "magic items are hardly produced anymore, but casters still exist" kind of thing that's considered the default, then you probably should ban full casters from your game. As a DM, you have that power, certainly.
Rest-based character abilities don't have much bearing on your world's economy. For all I know, your five-man Wizard party is the only five Wizards in the whole world. PCs are exceptional by definition. And even Wizards can't make scrolls if you don't give them the resources or the time. Everybody else? How are they making magic items? Even Artificers can't produce things for sale unless they're unmaking those things after they've been sold, and I'm not sure that's good business practice.
But yeah, if you want to really commit to a full-on low magic setting, rather than the "magic items are hardly produced anymore, but casters still exist" kind of thing that's considered the default, then you probably should ban full casters from your game. As a DM, you have that power, certainly.
All right, I've had just about enough of the dumb stupid misunderstood "PCs are exceptions to the rules!" idiocy.
Yes, a PC is an exceptional person. That PC still has to be part of the world. PCs are not aliens planted in a world to nick all its best shit and solve all its problems for it - they emerge from their worlds, they're rooted in their worlds, they are part and parcel with their worlds. A wizard PC is not the only character in the entire world that has discovered/created wizardry. They had to learn the basics somewhere, ne? They had to learn magic even exists, somehow. They had a teacher, or at the very least they discovered a tome of arcane lore written by someone else, which is "having a teacher" at one remove. A warlock had to discover their patron somehow, figure out how to even speak to this entity that has granted them their knowledge and abilities. Every spellcaster except for the sorcerer has to've been given the basics of their abilities by someone or something else, and some classes speak deliberately and explicitly of groups of that class gathering and exchanging ideas. Druidic circles, bardic colleges, wizardly schools - all explicitly referenced as things.
PCs are exceptional, but they are not alien. Their abilities stem from the world they're in, and while they are outstanding examples of those ability sets, they are not the only such individuals that exist. The world does not work if a small group of yaybos from Random Small Village [X] all simultaneously develop overwhelming superpowers no one has ever seen or heard of and then nobody manages to notice or care save to offload dangerous work on them. It's just dumb.
That really all depends on why a person is playing D&D. Personally, yes. I want my characters to be part of the world, and I design my characters with that in mind.
I know that there are players who prefer just to strategize rules and do not much consider the lore in their gaming process. PCs can be an exception in those games the same way they are in video games. That is how some players view D&D. This is not my preference, but I'm not about to tell people they can't do that in their games. (I just won't be found at such tables.)
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Rest-based character abilities don't have much bearing on your world's economy. For all I know, your five-man Wizard party is the only five Wizards in the whole world. PCs are exceptional by definition. And even Wizards can't make scrolls if you don't give them the resources or the time. Everybody else? How are they making magic items? Even Artificers can't produce things for sale unless they're unmaking those things after they've been sold, and I'm not sure that's good business practice.
But yeah, if you want to really commit to a full-on low magic setting, rather than the "magic items are hardly produced anymore, but casters still exist" kind of thing that's considered the default, then you probably should ban full casters from your game. As a DM, you have that power, certainly.
All right, I've had just about enough of the dumb stupid misunderstood "PCs are exceptions to the rules!" idiocy.
Yes, a PC is an exceptional person. That PC still has to be part of the world. PCs are not aliens planted in a world to nick all its best shit and solve all its problems for it - they emerge from their worlds, they're rooted in their worlds, they are part and parcel with their worlds. A wizard PC is not the only character in the entire world that has discovered/created wizardry. They had to learn the basics somewhere, ne? They had to learn magic even exists, somehow. They had a teacher, or at the very least they discovered a tome of arcane lore written by someone else, which is "having a teacher" at one remove. A warlock had to discover their patron somehow, figure out how to even speak to this entity that has granted them their knowledge and abilities. Every spellcaster except for the sorcerer has to've been given the basics of their abilities by someone or something else, and some classes speak deliberately and explicitly of groups of that class gathering and exchanging ideas. Druidic circles, bardic colleges, wizardly schools - all explicitly referenced as things.
PCs are exceptional, but they are not alien. Their abilities stem from the world they're in, and while they are outstanding examples of those ability sets, they are not the only such individuals that exist. The world does not work if a small group of yaybos from Random Small Village [X] all simultaneously develop overwhelming superpowers no one has ever seen or heard of and then nobody manages to notice or care save to offload dangerous work on them. It's just dumb.
I will go one further and say in my worlds PC's are not the exception in the world, yes they are more powerful then many but there are universities full of wizards who are level 20+, there are mercenaries and warriors who have excelled in battle after battle and are level 20+, there are clerics who have dedicated a life to serving a divine being and are level 20+, there are Bards and Druids and Sorcerers and Artificers and Rogues and Barbarians and warlocks who have gone out, had adventures and reached the heady heights of achieving high levels of skill. And that is all while the party are still level 1, and then as the party grow through the levels still more heroes are coming behind them leveling up as they kill monsters and have adventures.So no the Party are not a unique set of individuals in terms of skill set or abilities, it is just they happen to be in that moment for that story but in the next valley a farmer is paying a warrior for killing the minotaur that threatened his crops, or a Liche is being hunted in a dungeon in the mountain range to the east.
Rest-based character abilities don't have much bearing on your world's economy. For all I know, your five-man Wizard party is the only five Wizards in the whole world. PCs are exceptional by definition. And even Wizards can't make scrolls if you don't give them the resources or the time. Everybody else? How are they making magic items? Even Artificers can't produce things for sale unless they're unmaking those things after they've been sold, and I'm not sure that's good business practice.
But yeah, if you want to really commit to a full-on low magic setting, rather than the "magic items are hardly produced anymore, but casters still exist" kind of thing that's considered the default, then you probably should ban full casters from your game. As a DM, you have that power, certainly.
All right, I've had just about enough of the dumb stupid misunderstood "PCs are exceptions to the rules!" idiocy.
Yes, a PC is an exceptional person. That PC still has to be part of the world. PCs are not aliens planted in a world to nick all its best shit and solve all its problems for it - they emerge from their worlds, they're rooted in their worlds, they are part and parcel with their worlds. A wizard PC is not the only character in the entire world that has discovered/created wizardry. They had to learn the basics somewhere, ne? They had to learn magic even exists, somehow. They had a teacher, or at the very least they discovered a tome of arcane lore written by someone else, which is "having a teacher" at one remove. A warlock had to discover their patron somehow, figure out how to even speak to this entity that has granted them their knowledge and abilities. Every spellcaster except for the sorcerer has to've been given the basics of their abilities by someone or something else, and some classes speak deliberately and explicitly of groups of that class gathering and exchanging ideas. Druidic circles, bardic colleges, wizardly schools - all explicitly referenced as things.
PCs are exceptional, but they are not alien. Their abilities stem from the world they're in, and while they are outstanding examples of those ability sets, they are not the only such individuals that exist. The world does not work if a small group of yaybos from Random Small Village [X] all simultaneously develop overwhelming superpowers no one has ever seen or heard of and then nobody manages to notice or care save to offload dangerous work on them. It's just dumb.
I will go one further and say in my worlds PC's are not the exception in the world, yes they are more powerful then many but there are universities full of wizards who are level 20+, there are mercenaries and warriors who have excelled in battle after battle and are level 20+, there are clerics who have dedicated a life to serving a divine being and are level 20+, there are Bards and Druids and Sorcerers and Artificers and Rogues and Barbarians and warlocks who have gone out, had adventures and reached the heady heights of achieving high levels of skill. And that is all while the party are still level 1, and then as the party grow through the levels still more heroes are coming behind them leveling up as they kill monsters and have adventures.So no the Party are not a unique set of individuals in terms of skill set or abilities, it is just they happen to be in that moment for that story but in the next valley a farmer is paying a warrior for killing the minotaur that threatened his crops, or a Liche is being hunted in a dungeon in the mountain range to the east.
Every published D&D setting and source book has this built into them.
Rest-based character abilities don't have much bearing on your world's economy. For all I know, your five-man Wizard party is the only five Wizards in the whole world. PCs are exceptional by definition. And even Wizards can't make scrolls if you don't give them the resources or the time. Everybody else? How are they making magic items? Even Artificers can't produce things for sale unless they're unmaking those things after they've been sold, and I'm not sure that's good business practice.
But yeah, if you want to really commit to a full-on low magic setting, rather than the "magic items are hardly produced anymore, but casters still exist" kind of thing that's considered the default, then you probably should ban full casters from your game. As a DM, you have that power, certainly.
All right, I've had just about enough of the dumb stupid misunderstood "PCs are exceptions to the rules!" idiocy.
Yes, a PC is an exceptional person. That PC still has to be part of the world. PCs are not aliens planted in a world to nick all its best shit and solve all its problems for it - they emerge from their worlds, they're rooted in their worlds, they are part and parcel with their worlds. A wizard PC is not the only character in the entire world that has discovered/created wizardry. They had to learn the basics somewhere, ne? They had to learn magic even exists, somehow. They had a teacher, or at the very least they discovered a tome of arcane lore written by someone else, which is "having a teacher" at one remove. A warlock had to discover their patron somehow, figure out how to even speak to this entity that has granted them their knowledge and abilities. Every spellcaster except for the sorcerer has to've been given the basics of their abilities by someone or something else, and some classes speak deliberately and explicitly of groups of that class gathering and exchanging ideas. Druidic circles, bardic colleges, wizardly schools - all explicitly referenced as things.
PCs are exceptional, but they are not alien. Their abilities stem from the world they're in, and while they are outstanding examples of those ability sets, they are not the only such individuals that exist. The world does not work if a small group of yaybos from Random Small Village [X] all simultaneously develop overwhelming superpowers no one has ever seen or heard of and then nobody manages to notice or care save to offload dangerous work on them. It's just dumb.
All I'm saying is that I don't see why the existence of magic has to necessitate the widespread availability of magic items. There's hardly any player features that produce magic items, so if your argument is that since PCs can make them, and since PCs are just people, then people in general must be able to make them, which means they must be everywhere... Well, no. That logic doesn't hold up.
The Realms is a "distant post-apocalypse" type of setting. Most people in it don't realize this, but their world is built on the ruins of ancient civilizations far more advanced than their own. And that's where the majority of the magic items are from. Nobody knows how they're made anymore. Most people can't figure out how to activate them. They were destroyed, and buried underground, and hidden, and stolen. They lie unexamined in dragons' hoards. Some of them probably crumbled under the vastness of time. Their magic faded or became dangerously unstable. They were taken to other planes of existence, sold to genies and to gith. This is why all the powerful collectors are historians and archaeologists and tomb raiders, rather than scientists or industrialists. Magic items are historical relics *and* they're incomprehensibly advanced future tech. That's just how the setting is.
There are eras in the Realms history that do follow your assumptions. When Wizards were all over the place, and you could use a teleportation circle to commute to work. The lost kingdom of Netheril springs to mind. They had all kinds of cool stuff. It's a perfectly valid way to set up your world, but it's not how things are in the Realms "today." Does that mean it's not the default assumption? Yes, it does, because the Realms today is where and when most of the adventure books are set.
The thing for me about this conversation, which has been interesting is the thought process behind it. Like I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but my take on it is this.
The players come to the table, they create adventuring heroes who go on quests, gain treasure, level up. This is a game about rewards for playing the game, there is an evolving story which of course is a big part of it, but it is still a game and getting rewarded is a big part of the fun.
I can't think of something more fun as a player than taking my character into the big city, walking into a magic shop with a big bag of hard-earned gold and going, what do you have for sale.
I mean, to me that is an essential part of what D&D is, that moment is kind of an important part of the experience, its... D&D.
I'm not sure I could come up with a justification as a DM to deny that experience to my players by removing it from the game.
Its such a defining moment and piece of D&D, I don't think I would ever have the heart to run a game without that experience awaiting successful adventurers in my game. Denying them that is almost.... cruel.
As I said, I think one of the difference here where I am concerned is that I started way back in the beginning before computer games started making such shops 'normal.'
It is right up there for me with smashing pots to get the gems out when you could just look in the pots. But in an action game, smashing pots is more dramatic.
It is also like saying that it is cruel to employ people in real life if they cannot afford a new top of the line sportscar when they come home from work. Or can't afford a new car of any sort a couple times a year. It is utterly silly expectations. If players are so unconnected with the worlds their characters are adventuring in that this is the only way they can stay entertained, to the point that it is somehow cruel to deny them this one tiny glimmer of enjoyment, well that does not speak well for the state of roleplaying.
I started to play in '84 so euh, I don't know why you would think us oldtimers are not used to magic shops? Our group always played with them. It was the DM that decided what was for sale and what was not. This was especially needed in those first few editions where otherwise your mages didn't have access to new spells and components, where half (yes it's an exaggeration) the monsters had some kind of immunity to normal weapons, were Mordenkainens Disjunction was a DM's favourite high level spell (whistles innocently).
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.
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Cool.
Tell me - how can I, as a DM, 'make my own ruling' to get the magic off of character sheets? Do I ban everything but fighters, barbarians, and rogues from my game and forbid any of the magic-y subclasses for the fighters and rogues? Can I tell the full spellcasters they're now on half-caster spell slot progression and they have to use hit dice to regain spell slots? How do I make the characters match the DMG's base assumption that magical equipment is outlandishly, impossibly rare and should all be treated as absolutely priceless ancient relics that will never be matched again?
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I'm about to run a campaign with high magic presence, but it's not so prominent in certain races, such as human. However, elves, halflings, dragonborn, etc, are much more attuned to it. Also, magic schools for wizards exist in the major cities, and yes, there'll be magic shops, too. I've also envisioned wizards and sorcerers monetizing on their craft to mass produce ever-burning candles or perpetual frozen boxes (ie refrigerators) but that this seems to cause some social distress between the magic wielders and non magic wielders. We'll see how it plays out, though. May not even be an issue.
Yeah, don’t put words in my mouth there, cap’n. I didn’t say or imply any of those things. I actually said the opposite.
I very explicitly stated that my players are crafting their own magic items, and that I agree with what the DMG, you know, one of the rule books for the game, says about buying and selling magic items at the equivalent of a high class art auction, or through a fence, or something of that like.
What I disagree with is the concept of there just being some magic item pawn shop in every major city where you can hock the magic items you just looted from a nearby dungeon, and buy something more suited to your character that, I guess some other adventuring party didn’t have a use for.
The thread is about magic item SHOPS, specifically.
DM's can decide to have any kind of Magic Shop in any worlds if they like.
WotC has published at least 3 official settings that have Magic Shops.
No matter what anyone here would like to say about it. Those are indeed facts. You can poo poo on the idea all you like, but it doesn't change anything.
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No one is claiming otherwise. You’re arguing against a point no one has made. But go off, I guess.
Dude. https://5emagic.shop/ is a great resource. My compliments.
Rampant spellcasting doesn't have to imply rampant magical crafting. Just because you can cast a spell doesn't mean you can enchant items as well. The DMG actually implies the ability to craft (permanent, as opposed to single-use) magical items is - in the FR, at any rate - a lot rarer than spellcasters are.
I think the underlying issue is the granularity: connecting a price rare to the different categories of rarity and only to those ends up with silly results because rarity is not the only factor in determining an item's value. The cast-off quality has its uses and thus has value, but it's nowhere near as useful - and thus as coveted - as a whole lot of common magical items (the thermal cube is a prime example). Demand for those items should be a whole lot higher, which in turn should mean the prices should be a whole lot higher. More than the 50-100 gp range allows for, certainly. Thermal cubes are arguably more valuable than a lot of uncommon magical items and are even comparable to some rare ones.
If prices reflected value a bit better, some items being "common" wouldn't really matter much: thermal cubes might be common, but their price would mean most of them will long since have been acquired by someone with considerable wealth who's unlikely to be willing to part with them cheaply. "Common" might mean "a significant number of these exist in the world" but that's not the same as "a significant number of these are for sale in the world". Costing only 100 gp (I know, for most people in any D&D setting thats still a whole lot of dough) at most however belies that sense of exclusivity.
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Whole thread TL;DR.
However, I completely agree with this sentiment. Magic spellcasting dudes running around everywhere... Continual light... er continual flame... Give me a break, there would be so many enterprising people running around making all kinds of inventions and spells. Metaphysical research would be a principle industry.
Honestly if you were in a a typical DND world that is basically medieval, technologically speaking. The simplest thing like being a bee keeper would inspire people to make a spell that facilitates the business practices of making honey. Every single industrial endeavour, from stone masonry, to ship building, from agriculture to the local palace of pleasure would be prepared to pay spellcasters for their services.
You can't have magic be common (PCs and NPCs just willy nilly slinging spells around like its no big deal) and at the same time have magic items, magical technology, and metaphysical innovation be uncommon... It just makes no sense whatsoever...
You have three options as a world builder...
Low magic - every spellcaster is rare and generally has to hide their powers from the average person. Suspicion, of being a spellcaster likely to bring out the mob or the authorities or both on you, your family and everyone connected to you. Your world is gritty and tough... like the dark ages - more like Greyhawk.
High magic - just run with it and make magic as commonplace practices... This requires a hell of a lot of serious thinking about world building lest your world becomes a cartoon.
Make magic so structed that it makes hardly any sense at all. Rely of dissonance, lack of imagination, and suspension of disbelief to play in your world... This is basically what WotC (and before them TSR) did all the time.
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I can lift a heavy object with my body. I do not personally have the knowledge to create a device which can replicate that feat. A musician might be able to play an instrument, but that doesn’t mean that they can create a working cd player from scratch, even though the end result is the same, music.
The ability to perform a feat is not the same as being able to make a device that does so. One can absolutely be less common than the other. And the creation of the device is usually the less common, because it’s more complicated and more difficult to learn how to do.
Bit of a surprising example, given that beekeeping is anything but a technologically advanced pursuit in real life.
And let's not overstate the number of spellcasters in the average D&D setting. PCs are by definition exceptional, not common, and its not like every little hamlet or backwater village comes advertised with a qualified arcanist either.
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I mean that's how it works in reality. While we do have stores everywhere nowadays (at least in many parts of the world), that has less to do with pure tech levels and more to do with industry and economy. In the non-industrial past, there were still rare items of amazing technology, but you couldn't just buy such things at corner stores. Much of medieval Chinese history and a lot of Rome was like this.
I prefer in my settings to have rare and very rare magic items to be, well, rare or very rare. Common items mostly represent the level of "magic tech" that is well understood. Such items are still pretty expensive to make, mainly due to lack of good automation, but it can be done. Uncommon items are kind of the gray area in between.
Also even in the military soldiers are not all treated the same, the rank and file don’t have most of the technology and safety equipment elite soldiers do due to cost. So you can expect an entire army won’t be armed with +1 swords and armpit.
Rest-based character abilities don't have much bearing on your world's economy. For all I know, your five-man Wizard party is the only five Wizards in the whole world. PCs are exceptional by definition. And even Wizards can't make scrolls if you don't give them the resources or the time. Everybody else? How are they making magic items? Even Artificers can't produce things for sale unless they're unmaking those things after they've been sold, and I'm not sure that's good business practice.
But yeah, if you want to really commit to a full-on low magic setting, rather than the "magic items are hardly produced anymore, but casters still exist" kind of thing that's considered the default, then you probably should ban full casters from your game. As a DM, you have that power, certainly.
All right, I've had just about enough of the dumb stupid misunderstood "PCs are exceptions to the rules!" idiocy.
Yes, a PC is an exceptional person. That PC still has to be part of the world. PCs are not aliens planted in a world to nick all its best shit and solve all its problems for it - they emerge from their worlds, they're rooted in their worlds, they are part and parcel with their worlds. A wizard PC is not the only character in the entire world that has discovered/created wizardry. They had to learn the basics somewhere, ne? They had to learn magic even exists, somehow. They had a teacher, or at the very least they discovered a tome of arcane lore written by someone else, which is "having a teacher" at one remove. A warlock had to discover their patron somehow, figure out how to even speak to this entity that has granted them their knowledge and abilities. Every spellcaster except for the sorcerer has to've been given the basics of their abilities by someone or something else, and some classes speak deliberately and explicitly of groups of that class gathering and exchanging ideas. Druidic circles, bardic colleges, wizardly schools - all explicitly referenced as things.
PCs are exceptional, but they are not alien. Their abilities stem from the world they're in, and while they are outstanding examples of those ability sets, they are not the only such individuals that exist. The world does not work if a small group of yaybos from Random Small Village [X] all simultaneously develop overwhelming superpowers no one has ever seen or heard of and then nobody manages to notice or care save to offload dangerous work on them. It's just dumb.
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That really all depends on why a person is playing D&D. Personally, yes. I want my characters to be part of the world, and I design my characters with that in mind.
I know that there are players who prefer just to strategize rules and do not much consider the lore in their gaming process. PCs can be an exception in those games the same way they are in video games. That is how some players view D&D. This is not my preference, but I'm not about to tell people they can't do that in their games. (I just won't be found at such tables.)
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I will go one further and say in my worlds PC's are not the exception in the world, yes they are more powerful then many but there are universities full of wizards who are level 20+, there are mercenaries and warriors who have excelled in battle after battle and are level 20+, there are clerics who have dedicated a life to serving a divine being and are level 20+, there are Bards and Druids and Sorcerers and Artificers and Rogues and Barbarians and warlocks who have gone out, had adventures and reached the heady heights of achieving high levels of skill. And that is all while the party are still level 1, and then as the party grow through the levels still more heroes are coming behind them leveling up as they kill monsters and have adventures.So no the Party are not a unique set of individuals in terms of skill set or abilities, it is just they happen to be in that moment for that story but in the next valley a farmer is paying a warrior for killing the minotaur that threatened his crops, or a Liche is being hunted in a dungeon in the mountain range to the east.
Every published D&D setting and source book has this built into them.
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All I'm saying is that I don't see why the existence of magic has to necessitate the widespread availability of magic items. There's hardly any player features that produce magic items, so if your argument is that since PCs can make them, and since PCs are just people, then people in general must be able to make them, which means they must be everywhere... Well, no. That logic doesn't hold up.
The Realms is a "distant post-apocalypse" type of setting. Most people in it don't realize this, but their world is built on the ruins of ancient civilizations far more advanced than their own. And that's where the majority of the magic items are from. Nobody knows how they're made anymore. Most people can't figure out how to activate them. They were destroyed, and buried underground, and hidden, and stolen. They lie unexamined in dragons' hoards. Some of them probably crumbled under the vastness of time. Their magic faded or became dangerously unstable. They were taken to other planes of existence, sold to genies and to gith. This is why all the powerful collectors are historians and archaeologists and tomb raiders, rather than scientists or industrialists. Magic items are historical relics *and* they're incomprehensibly advanced future tech. That's just how the setting is.
There are eras in the Realms history that do follow your assumptions. When Wizards were all over the place, and you could use a teleportation circle to commute to work. The lost kingdom of Netheril springs to mind. They had all kinds of cool stuff. It's a perfectly valid way to set up your world, but it's not how things are in the Realms "today." Does that mean it's not the default assumption? Yes, it does, because the Realms today is where and when most of the adventure books are set.
I started to play in '84 so euh, I don't know why you would think us oldtimers are not used to magic shops? Our group always played with them. It was the DM that decided what was for sale and what was not. This was especially needed in those first few editions where otherwise your mages didn't have access to new spells and components, where half (yes it's an exaggeration) the monsters had some kind of immunity to normal weapons, were Mordenkainens Disjunction was a DM's favourite high level spell (whistles innocently).
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.