That's the Eberron model, i.e. magical goods are simply the highest-end/highest quality versions of their mundane counterparts. Exploring Eberron goes out of its way to mention the fact that many magical items exist which are of no real benefit to adventurers but are of significant use to ordinary townfolk, and even mentions a few of them. The book cites (to the best of my knowledge, it's been a while since I've read it deeply cover to cover) that adventurers find the items they want to find, and a DM can assume most places deal primarily in more mundanely useful items. Adventuring gear is seen as surplus and/or salvage from the Great War, when it's available at all.
An ordinary guardsman may not be able to afford a +1 shortsword, no - but he might be able to scrimp for a Moon-Touched shortsword. Much less expensive, and provides the useful benefit of giving him light in dark places he might find criminals without obstructing his offhand with a torch or lantern, and an obviously magical glowing sword is great for intimidating drunken lowlifes. Individual guardsmen may not own +1 armor - but the guardhouse itself could own four to six Cloaks of Protection it issues as needed to guardsmen operating in higher-risk areas or who've been called on to raid a criminal stronghold. There's also items specific to law enforcement that could be fun to introduce. Things like signal whistles carried by guards that have a unique sound, and which produce noise out to three times the normal distance due to a minor Thaumaturgy-like enchantment. Perhaps the badges of high-level sherriffs or inspectors could allow them to cast Zone of Truth once a day. A guardsman's uniform might be glamerweave that indelibly identifies the unit and district the uniform is assigned to, so anyone immediately knows if it's out of place. So on and so forth.
There's a lot of really cool ideas that can come from integrating magic into the economy and into regular life, but people are just convinced that anyone having access to magical equipment at all, for any reason outside of "we found it in a dungeon", is just the worst thing ever. Ahem: blugh
You know, the more I think about it, the cooler that Moon-Touched Sword thing is. I could see that featuring prominently into a PC's backstory.
"My grandfather carried this blade while working as a guardsman in Port Damali. It took him two years to set aside enough coin to buy it, and he had it inscribed when he finally did. See, here - "Darkness is their shield no longer". He used this sword for thirty years, and by the time he retired, half a dozen other younger guardsmen had followed suit and bought their own. He never named it, though. Taught me that naming a weapon gave it romance it didn't deserve to have. "This thing's for killing", he told me when he showed me his famous old sword. "It's not your friend, it's not your buddy, it's not your lover. Don't give it a name - give it a purpose."
When he died, I thought he'd donate the sword back to the guardhouse...but he left it to me. With a letter telling me to find my own purpose, and not to let darkness stop me from searching for it. I miss him...but I can feel his hand on my shoulder, smell the spiced tobacco he used to smoke every afternoon, every time I wrap my fingers around this worn old leather."
I bloody dare you, as a DM, to tell me you couldn't make an allowance for Grandfather's Patrol Sword in your "no magic items allowed!" policies.
A super-expensive Dragonslayer doesn't have to be the only thing for sale in a magic shop. Most shops sell things that come in a variety of prices: a magic shop probably would be doing most of its business in low end stuff like potions and low-level spell scrolls. But behind the counter in a heavily locked and warded display case is a Frostbrand Scimitar. If Johnny ever manages to sell it, he's going to retire to some place tropical but until that day it makes a nice display item that people come into the shop and talk about and usually end up buying a Potion of Lesser Restoration while they're there.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Again, struck my previous post because it had been handled. Apologies, phone didn't update and show me there was an eleventh page of text.
Anyways.
One issue with the whole "buying/selling/trading/making/finding/interacting-with-in-any-way magic items should be a plot-driving Adventure!" bit - any given game has only so much room for Plot. Say the character's overarching goal is to defeat a powerful red dragon threatening their countryside, and the wizard decides she wants to try and make a cloak of fire resistance for the climactic showdown with the dragon. The druid can contribute some potions of fire resistance as well as a few potions of climbing to help make navigating its treacherous, rocky lair easier. The ranger wants to imbue a quiver of arrows with frost magic, while the cleric seeks to imbue his god's blessing into some charms the party can wear.
DM: "Okay, sounds good so far! So that's gonna be two sessions of Plot-Driven Adventurer(TM) per potion of climbing and four sessions of Plot-Driven Adventure(C) per fire resist potion. Cleric's gonna need six sessions of Plot-Driven Adventure(G) per companion to try and convince Pelor to give you all those temportary boons, looking like one Plot-Driven Adventure(R) session per one of those frost arrows, and I'm gonna want at least twenty sessions of Plot-Driven Adventure(IOU) for that cloak."
Players: "...dude. That's over a year of play just to try and make some basic shit to help deal with this giant ****off dragon, not counting anything else we have to do in the interim!"
DM: "Yep! It's great, isn't it? Think of all the Adventure you're gonna have going out on my scratch-built shopping lists to find the esoteric dire frog gonads needed to make even the most basic of temporary equipment! I know y'all want to feel like you're proactively preparing for this epic struggle against the terrifying boss monster I've got set to raze your village at any time, but we can't be having any of that so you'd best get to collecting ten orc scalps for the local brewer instead, buckos!"
Getting the idea yet? Yeah. COnstantly, constantly, constantly telling the players that they can't do or accomplish any-damn-thing without derailing the game for several months to get it done will swiftly lead to your players not bothering. The "Magnanimous" DM that can't understand why his players are so irritated by him letting them craft whatever they want...in exchange for a six-month subquest for the Golden Goat Dick of Alcatraz and assembling forty thousand gold coins from the Lost Empire of Buttwhistle as the price demanded by the Hermit of Ages in his lonely, CR23 mountain lair - and yes, the lair is challenge rating 23, not the hermit - before they're allowed to generate even a single green item may - just may, mind, but may - need to reassess his priorities.
This is why in my games common, uncommon and some rare items don’t need massively exotic ingredients to make.
This is why in my games common, uncommon and some rare items don’t need massively exotic ingredients to make.
I assume common items need common ingredients, uncommon items need uncommon ingredients, rare items need rare ingredients, etc. "You'll probably have to face a CR 1-3 monster to get this ingredient" (XGTE Common) is hardly massively exotic.
As I've been thinking about this, and I been thinking about it waaaay too much the past couple of days, I started wondering if we're not looking at the wrong side of the equation. The whole conversation has focused on supply and how easy it is to make items, but we're not considering demand. I'm thinking a big part of the issue might not be how high magic the setting is (though that's certainly a factor), as much as how many adventurers you have in your world. If adventurers are rare, then the vast, vast majority of magic items wouldn't have sufficient market to sustain a shop. Certainly, every member of the town watch would like to carry around a +1 short sword and wear +1 leather armor, hunters would love a +1 bow, a laborer could make good use of a belt of giant strength, an everbright lantern is going to be handy for anyone, and I'm sure there's other items that could be put to use by the average person.
But a ruby of the war mage, or a Brooch of shielding, or a holy avenger, or a rod of the pact keeper, or a tattoo that lets your punch count as magical damage, those are really only going to see use by adventurers. Even something as common as a spell scroll can only be used by people with some class levels, or at least a sidekick. So really, no matter how big the city, if there's not a good number of adventurers -- and realistically, mid- to high-level adventurers, since that's when they'll start having the money to actually afford the stuff -- there won't likely be a shop that could support itself selling them. Even that guard who wants a +1 sword is going to have trouble affording it, to the point that they're not likely to be a substantial part of the market. Maybe there's a general store that keeps the good stuff in the back, that might work. But a store needs customers.
I'm not trying to convince either side at this point. Personally, I don't care for magic shops, never have. Lots of people do, great, I'm sure you all have fun with them in your worlds, and I'm not going to try and tell you your fun is wrong. This post is more of me working through a thought experiment.
My argument through the whole of this has been the fact that many people will not be buying the magical equipment in the DMG, I use the same price list a +1 weapon is 1000gp, for 100 gold in my world You can buy a silver dragonfly that flies around the room in a circle. It has no purpose in game other then as an aesthetic magical item. Those are the kinds of goods that the majority of magic shops mainly sell. Trinkets and items that are for nothing more then a bit of fun to the purchaser something to wow and show off to other people.
The DMG includes only the items that characters are interested in, there are infinitely more magical items that people can create. A musical fountain, a full length mirror that tells you the weather today as your getting dressed, a lipstick that changes shade. These are just some of the things I have come up with to populate my magic shops.
As I've been thinking about this, and I been thinking about it waaaay too much the past couple of days, I started wondering if we're not looking at the wrong side of the equation. The whole conversation has focused on supply and how easy it is to make items, but we're not considering demand. I'm thinking a big part of the issue might not be how high magic the setting is (though that's certainly a factor), as much as how many adventurers you have in your world. If adventurers are rare, then the vast, vast majority of magic items wouldn't have sufficient market to sustain a shop. Certainly, every member of the town watch would like to carry around a +1 short sword and wear +1 leather armor, hunters would love a +1 bow, a laborer could make good use of a belt of giant strength, an everbright lantern is going to be handy for anyone, and I'm sure there's other items that could be put to use by the average person.
But a ruby of the war mage, or a Brooch of shielding, or a holy avenger, or a rod of the pact keeper, or a tattoo that lets your punch count as magical damage, those are really only going to see use by adventurers. Even something as common as a spell scroll can only be used by people with some class levels, or at least a sidekick. So really, no matter how big the city, if there's not a good number of adventurers -- and realistically, mid- to high-level adventurers, since that's when they'll start having the money to actually afford the stuff -- there won't likely be a shop that could support itself selling them.
Considering that if you sell a magical item to a store you get only half the nominal value, the profit margin on magical items is inferred to be about 50%. On items that go for 50 gp minimum, that's a tidy little sum - two weeks' pay for a skilled hireling. And magical items don't have to be a store's bread and butter meal tickets; it's not like jewellers or tailors typically sell their high priced wares on a daily basis either, the vast bulk of their sales are affordable items with the occasional big sale turning a good week into a great week. And while 50 gp is a steep asking price for the average citizen in most D&D settings, it's not "I needed to go to the swamps of Mass-Mordah to slay a dire troll and harvest its nose hairs" steep: if common magical items needed that kind of ingredients they wouldn't be common, regardless of how you choose to interpret "common" in the first place. I honestly don't see much of a problem with medium-sized cities being able to support a magic store. What they'd be willing to take off your hands for a fair price and what they might have to offer is another issue, but basic economic viability doesn't seem like it should have to be an issue.
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A super-expensive Dragonslayer doesn't have to be the only thing for sale in a magic shop. Most shops sell things that come in a variety of prices: a magic shop probably would be doing most of its business in low end stuff like potions and low-level spell scrolls. But behind the counter in a heavily locked and warded display case is a Frostbrand Scimitar. If Johnny ever manages to sell it, he's going to retire to some place tropical but until that day it makes a nice display item that people come into the shop and talk about and usually end up buying a Potion of Lesser Restoration while they're there.
In one campaign I once created a magic shop that was very similar to the pawn stars shop that is in Vegas, father grandfather and son and their idiot employee, amongst the normal tat they had there where magical items tucked away and in the center of the room protected in a jewel encrusted was a powerful sword. The father refused to sell because the story behind it was so cool. The party used to pop in to gaze at it, and even got to hold it one time. But they never managed ti persuade him to part with it
The entire premise of this thread misses the main point. Why on earth should players EXPECT magical items? The game designers built the various classes and subclasses to function totally fine without any magic items. Magic items only tend to imbalance the game, unless when one character gets an item, each other char gets an item that similarly improves each and every char the same.
Players should run their chars without magic, to get the full flavour of what that class/subclass is all about. Magical items are only a crutch that mask the purity of the char build. At higher levels, starting at tier 2, I can see the introduction of low end stuff, like Common items. But nothing that alters the balance of a party.
A game without magic items can be fun. A game with magic items can be fun. A game without balance can be fun. A game with balance can be fun.
The entire premise of this thread misses the main point. Why on earth should players EXPECT magical items? The game designers built the various classes and subclasses to function totally fine without any magic items. Magic items only tend to imbalance the game, unless when one character gets an item, each other char gets an item that similarly improves each and every char the same.
Players should run their chars without magic, to get the full flavour of what that class/subclass is all about. Magical items are only a crutch that mask the purity of the char build. At higher levels, starting at tier 2, I can see the introduction of low end stuff, like Common items. But nothing that alters the balance of a party.
Because the DMG has big lists of expected magic item types/ratios in its wealth progression tables. Because every published adventure is stuffed to the gills with magical equipment for the party to find, or even - gasp! - purchase. Because there's big books of magical equipment that excites the imagination and some folks really like their imagination excited. Because a lot of DMs like to homebrew and handcraft cool magical swag for their players. Because telling players to never expect any sort of magical bolstering will skew their character choices - martial classes suffer badly from a lack of magical gear, since most of the game is resistant or immune to their damage after fifth level. Because why not?
There's plenty of reasons. Your method is certainly valid, but it's also something I'd recommend bringing up with players in Session Zero. Otherwise you'll likely get confusion and frustration when you reveal that players will never find any sort of magical gear whatsoever in your world, which in turn absolutely ruins any martial character's damage output and also heavily skews and impacts spellcaster spell selection.
The game designers built the various classes and subclasses to function totally fine without any magic items.
Well, yes and no. In terms of pure numbers, the game is indeed designed to not require any magic items; however, it also assumes that a player will have access to some form of magical damage in higher tiers, in order to deal with monsters with resistance/immunity to non-magical damage. There's...a number of design decisions that directly contradict one another, which is very frustrating...
This has pretty much always been the case, though. Casters are traditionally the glass cannons with limited ammo/massive burst damage and melee the rulers of sustained damage. Melee traditionally does the heavy lifting to get the big guns into place, then the roles switch and melee play second fiddle to the casters.
But I am still failing to understand why this makes magic shops necessary.
It has more to do with making magic items necessary, and where they come from is not terribly important.
How is that different, though, from saying 'xps are necessary so we should be able to get them just by having our characters work day jobs? Or pay trainers?'
I'm not specifically a proponent of magic item shops, just as a matter of world building if they're common enough for PCs to encounter them it's hard to justify there being no people buying and selling them.
But again, I argue that if items are being found that frequently, not just by the party, then it begs the question where they are all coming from....
Not really. Yes, they obviously come from somewhere. It could be they're being crafted. It could be they're relics of ancient lost civilizations (which probably means someone crafted them at some point). It could be gods or demons or both are distributing them. It could be they're made from strange rocks that fall from the heavens. However, it doesn't terribly matter which of those is the case.
How is that different, though, from saying 'xps are necessary so we should be able to get them just by having our characters work day jobs? Or pay trainers?'
I'm not specifically a proponent of magic item shops, just as a matter of world building if they're common enough for PCs to encounter them it's hard to justify there being no people buying and selling them.
But again, I argue that if items are being found that frequently, not just by the party, then it begs the question where they are all coming from....
From the DMG: "The game assumes that the secrets of creating the most powerful items arose centuries ago and were then gradually lost as a result of wars, cataclysms, and mishaps. Even uncommon items can’t be easily created. Thus, many magic items are well-preserved antiquities."
This implies common (magical) items can be somewhat easily created. Common items, by the simple fact that they're common and relatively affordable, are logically the ones bought and sold most often, the ones that make up the bulk - possibly all - of a retailer's turnover. A 50-100 gp value limits how hard it can be to come by/create such items, and a 50% profit margin is certainly a financially interesting proposition.
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The game can easily be played without magic items. Read my OP. I said "pure" martial classes may have a tougher time at high levels. Read also where I said that especially in 5e there are a tiny fraction of the 100 plus sub-classes that are pure martial aka have zero magical attributes.
It's really not just an issue with classes that have 'zero' magical abilities. It's problem for all classes that are not pure spellcasters, because the difference in power granted by a magic weapon exceeds any equivalent bonuses that exist for spellcasters. Not to mention the mobility problems melee characters have without access to magic items that give them speed and mobility. Honestly, I'd be tempted to make attunement slots variable by class, with more slots for the limited magic classes.
1) Magic shops where items can be purchased is just plain silly ... from an ingame immersion perspective, ...
2) One of the reasons new DM's get into trouble is because they have no idea the force multiplier some magic items are in a game. Hand a Rogue a +1 Dagger, wonderful, they hit more often, with 1HP more damage. Hand that same Rogue Boots of Elvenkind, and have the Bard vast Invisibility on that Rogue, and the DM has a headache maintaining balance.
1) Seems more silly that in a setting where magical items valued between 50 and 100 gp (with half that value being profit for the seller, so procuring one either through crafting or sourcing them through other means isn't setting them back more than 25 gp in some cases) are common there wouldn't be shops selling them, if we're talking immersion. That's on average the price of a riding horse. Why would there not be people interested in making a (likely very decent) living this way?
2) Give DMs a little more credit than that, especially since half the buffs you describe come from a spell and the other half, that does come from an item, can be entirely superfluous when the character has decent Dex, Stealth proficiency, possibly Expertise, could have a buff to Stealth from another spell, and might have advantage from another source (like background noise).
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The game designers built the various classes and subclasses to function totally fine without any magic items.
Well, yes and no. In terms of pure numbers, the game is indeed designed to not require any magic items; however, it also assumes that a player will have access to some form of magical damage in higher tiers, in order to deal with monsters with resistance/immunity to non-magical damage. There's...a number of design decisions that directly contradict one another, which is very frustrating...
I keep on hearing this argument. "Weapon users need magic weapons, because some monsters resist non-magic weapons."
You know what? Some monsters resist spells, too. There's a feature literally named Magic Resistance. Some monsters have legendary resistances, and some have immunity to certain spells, or entire ranges of spell levels, or mechanics that can bounce spells back. Some have damage resistance for common elemental damage types. Some have immunity. Does this mean that casters need items that negate these mechanics? I don't think so. (Though I will acknowledge the ceaseless demand for ways to negate elemental resistances and immunities for one-trick elementalist casters.)
Not every monster is supposed to be handled the same way. If that were the case, why even have multiple kinds of monsters? Why not just increase the numbers on a goblin? A Fighter isn't somehow invalidated by the mere existence of monsters he can't hurt with his weapon, just like a Warlock isn't invalidated by the existence of the Helmed Horror (which has immunity to Eldritch Blast). Sometimes you have to change up your tactics. Sometimes you have to struggle. Sometimes you even have to retreat, or surrender. Sometimes you just have to let the other members of the party cover for you. Big deal.
And anyway, if you really want to bypass these damage resistances, every class has at least one option for you to do it without help from other characters. For Fighter, pick Arcane Archer, Eldritch Knight, or to a lesser extent Psi Warrior. For Rogue, pick Arcane Trickster. For Monk, pick literally any Monk. For Barbarian, pick Beast, Storm Herald, or Zealot, or even Ancestral Guardians if you're playing around level 14.
But that's all setting aside the fact that it's a team game and you have allies for a reason. Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Holy Weapon, Dragon's Breath, Magic Stone, and Flame Arrows all work to address these types of challenges. Artificers can also enchant weapons to become magical for you, and so can Forge Clerics. When was the last time you saw any of these things happen? Do you think that has something to do with the availability of magic items in your games?
In summation: 1. Not being able to deal optimal, or even nonzero, damage to some monsters isn't sufficient to support that you "need" magic weapons. 2. You can get the equivalent of magic weapons without actually obtaining magic weapons. 3. Having a bunch of real magic weapons devalues those features.
I would go as far as to say the game is more fun without easy access to magic weapons. One of my favorite moments was the time we left all our gear at an entrance and had to fight a dragon using just one spear, enchanted with Holy Weapon, that we all had to share.
Tangent: The "equipment creep" of 3.5e is not really a thing in 5e, and I'm so glad. It's so soul-sucking to have to waste your hard earned gold just keeping your numbers high enough to function. My 3.5e Fighter has four different items contributing to his AC (magic armor, amulet of natural armor, gloves of dexterity, ring of protection), and his AC is still garbage because none of those items have a big enough modifier for the level I'm at. It's so dumb.
Even if they can't directly affect a monster with any of their spells (which is rare unless they're badly overspecialized), casters can generally do something in combat, like buff party members.
A fighter who lacks a weapon capable of damaging an enemy is limited to pretty much just being a cheerleader. At most they can try to push or trip a foe, but if it's something that they can't damage even that's probably not a great option. They certainly can't do much to stop it from getting at other party members given that it can safely ignore the possibility of taking an opportunity attack from the person waving a useless hunk of metal around.
And saying "pick a different subclass" is not really an effective answer. That's just saying that people who want to play anything other than a few very specialized subclasses deserve to be punished for not doing perfect optimization.
How is that different, though, from saying 'xps are necessary so we should be able to get them just by having our characters work day jobs? Or pay trainers?'
I'm not specifically a proponent of magic item shops, just as a matter of world building if they're common enough for PCs to encounter them it's hard to justify there being no people buying and selling them.
But again, I argue that if items are being found that frequently, not just by the party, then it begs the question where they are all coming from....
We have already given you a partial answer to that, but you ignored it.
Even if they can't directly affect a monster with any of their spells (which is rare unless they're badly overspecialized), casters can generally do something in combat, like buff party members.
A fighter who lacks a weapon capable of damaging an enemy is limited to pretty much just being a cheerleader. At most they can try to push or trip a foe, but if it's something that they can't damage even that's probably not a great option. They certainly can't do much to stop it from getting at other party members given that it can safely ignore the possibility of taking an opportunity attack from the person waving a useless hunk of metal around.
And saying "pick a different subclass" is not really an effective answer. That's just saying that people who want to play anything other than a few very specialized subclasses deserve to be punished for not doing perfect optimization.
Resistance = half damage. So no, a non-magical weapon is fully capable of damaging an enemy. Just because that particular char can't do maximum damage, so what? Now, casters can be hugely limited, because of the various monsters that have full immunity to various damage types.
There are also monsters that have Immunity to nonmagical weapon damage. A fighter without a magic weapon is pretty much SOL against one. I've played a fire-themed sorcerer in a campaign where we ended up facing fire giants. I could still cast Slow on them, which was extremely effective, and I could still use Chromatic Orb and Ray of Frost to deal damage. Wasn't as much as I normally could have done but still contributed a fair amount. Contrast that to a game where I was running a fighter and the GM thought a Flesh Golem would be a fun challenge for a 3rd level party. Well, as I had no weapons that were magical or adamantine, I was completely useless in that fight, as was the rogue. The two of us did not have any ability to contribute to that fight at all- we just took the Dodge action every round. Was not enjoyable in the slightest.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
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That's the Eberron model, i.e. magical goods are simply the highest-end/highest quality versions of their mundane counterparts. Exploring Eberron goes out of its way to mention the fact that many magical items exist which are of no real benefit to adventurers but are of significant use to ordinary townfolk, and even mentions a few of them. The book cites (to the best of my knowledge, it's been a while since I've read it deeply cover to cover) that adventurers find the items they want to find, and a DM can assume most places deal primarily in more mundanely useful items. Adventuring gear is seen as surplus and/or salvage from the Great War, when it's available at all.
An ordinary guardsman may not be able to afford a +1 shortsword, no - but he might be able to scrimp for a Moon-Touched shortsword. Much less expensive, and provides the useful benefit of giving him light in dark places he might find criminals without obstructing his offhand with a torch or lantern, and an obviously magical glowing sword is great for intimidating drunken lowlifes. Individual guardsmen may not own +1 armor - but the guardhouse itself could own four to six Cloaks of Protection it issues as needed to guardsmen operating in higher-risk areas or who've been called on to raid a criminal stronghold. There's also items specific to law enforcement that could be fun to introduce. Things like signal whistles carried by guards that have a unique sound, and which produce noise out to three times the normal distance due to a minor Thaumaturgy-like enchantment. Perhaps the badges of high-level sherriffs or inspectors could allow them to cast Zone of Truth once a day. A guardsman's uniform might be glamerweave that indelibly identifies the unit and district the uniform is assigned to, so anyone immediately knows if it's out of place. So on and so forth.
There's a lot of really cool ideas that can come from integrating magic into the economy and into regular life, but people are just convinced that anyone having access to magical equipment at all, for any reason outside of "we found it in a dungeon", is just the worst thing ever. Ahem: blugh
You know, the more I think about it, the cooler that Moon-Touched Sword thing is. I could see that featuring prominently into a PC's backstory.
"My grandfather carried this blade while working as a guardsman in Port Damali. It took him two years to set aside enough coin to buy it, and he had it inscribed when he finally did. See, here - "Darkness is their shield no longer". He used this sword for thirty years, and by the time he retired, half a dozen other younger guardsmen had followed suit and bought their own. He never named it, though. Taught me that naming a weapon gave it romance it didn't deserve to have. "This thing's for killing", he told me when he showed me his famous old sword. "It's not your friend, it's not your buddy, it's not your lover. Don't give it a name - give it a purpose."
When he died, I thought he'd donate the sword back to the guardhouse...but he left it to me. With a letter telling me to find my own purpose, and not to let darkness stop me from searching for it. I miss him...but I can feel his hand on my shoulder, smell the spiced tobacco he used to smoke every afternoon, every time I wrap my fingers around this worn old leather."
I bloody dare you, as a DM, to tell me you couldn't make an allowance for Grandfather's Patrol Sword in your "no magic items allowed!" policies.
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A super-expensive Dragonslayer doesn't have to be the only thing for sale in a magic shop. Most shops sell things that come in a variety of prices: a magic shop probably would be doing most of its business in low end stuff like potions and low-level spell scrolls. But behind the counter in a heavily locked and warded display case is a Frostbrand Scimitar. If Johnny ever manages to sell it, he's going to retire to some place tropical but until that day it makes a nice display item that people come into the shop and talk about and usually end up buying a Potion of Lesser Restoration while they're there.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This is why in my games common, uncommon and some rare items don’t need massively exotic ingredients to make.
I assume common items need common ingredients, uncommon items need uncommon ingredients, rare items need rare ingredients, etc. "You'll probably have to face a CR 1-3 monster to get this ingredient" (XGTE Common) is hardly massively exotic.
My argument through the whole of this has been the fact that many people will not be buying the magical equipment in the DMG, I use the same price list a +1 weapon is 1000gp, for 100 gold in my world You can buy a silver dragonfly that flies around the room in a circle. It has no purpose in game other then as an aesthetic magical item. Those are the kinds of goods that the majority of magic shops mainly sell. Trinkets and items that are for nothing more then a bit of fun to the purchaser something to wow and show off to other people.
The DMG includes only the items that characters are interested in, there are infinitely more magical items that people can create. A musical fountain, a full length mirror that tells you the weather today as your getting dressed, a lipstick that changes shade. These are just some of the things I have come up with to populate my magic shops.
Considering that if you sell a magical item to a store you get only half the nominal value, the profit margin on magical items is inferred to be about 50%. On items that go for 50 gp minimum, that's a tidy little sum - two weeks' pay for a skilled hireling. And magical items don't have to be a store's bread and butter meal tickets; it's not like jewellers or tailors typically sell their high priced wares on a daily basis either, the vast bulk of their sales are affordable items with the occasional big sale turning a good week into a great week. And while 50 gp is a steep asking price for the average citizen in most D&D settings, it's not "I needed to go to the swamps of Mass-Mordah to slay a dire troll and harvest its nose hairs" steep: if common magical items needed that kind of ingredients they wouldn't be common, regardless of how you choose to interpret "common" in the first place. I honestly don't see much of a problem with medium-sized cities being able to support a magic store. What they'd be willing to take off your hands for a fair price and what they might have to offer is another issue, but basic economic viability doesn't seem like it should have to be an issue.
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In one campaign I once created a magic shop that was very similar to the pawn stars shop that is in Vegas, father grandfather and son and their idiot employee, amongst the normal tat they had there where magical items tucked away and in the center of the room protected in a jewel encrusted was a powerful sword. The father refused to sell because the story behind it was so cool. The party used to pop in to gaze at it, and even got to hold it one time. But they never managed ti persuade him to part with it
A game without magic items can be fun.
A game with magic items can be fun.
A game without balance can be fun.
A game with balance can be fun.
Because the DMG has big lists of expected magic item types/ratios in its wealth progression tables.
Because every published adventure is stuffed to the gills with magical equipment for the party to find, or even - gasp! - purchase.
Because there's big books of magical equipment that excites the imagination and some folks really like their imagination excited.
Because a lot of DMs like to homebrew and handcraft cool magical swag for their players.
Because telling players to never expect any sort of magical bolstering will skew their character choices - martial classes suffer badly from a lack of magical gear, since most of the game is resistant or immune to their damage after fifth level.
Because why not?
There's plenty of reasons. Your method is certainly valid, but it's also something I'd recommend bringing up with players in Session Zero. Otherwise you'll likely get confusion and frustration when you reveal that players will never find any sort of magical gear whatsoever in your world, which in turn absolutely ruins any martial character's damage output and also heavily skews and impacts spellcaster spell selection.
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Well, yes and no. In terms of pure numbers, the game is indeed designed to not require any magic items; however, it also assumes that a player will have access to some form of magical damage in higher tiers, in order to deal with monsters with resistance/immunity to non-magical damage. There's...a number of design decisions that directly contradict one another, which is very frustrating...
It has more to do with making magic items necessary, and where they come from is not terribly important.
I'm not specifically a proponent of magic item shops, just as a matter of world building if they're common enough for PCs to encounter them it's hard to justify there being no people buying and selling them.
Not really. Yes, they obviously come from somewhere. It could be they're being crafted. It could be they're relics of ancient lost civilizations (which probably means someone crafted them at some point). It could be gods or demons or both are distributing them. It could be they're made from strange rocks that fall from the heavens. However, it doesn't terribly matter which of those is the case.
From the DMG:
"The game assumes that the secrets of creating the most powerful items arose centuries ago and were then gradually lost as a result of wars, cataclysms, and mishaps. Even uncommon items can’t be easily created. Thus, many magic items are well-preserved antiquities."
This implies common (magical) items can be somewhat easily created. Common items, by the simple fact that they're common and relatively affordable, are logically the ones bought and sold most often, the ones that make up the bulk - possibly all - of a retailer's turnover. A 50-100 gp value limits how hard it can be to come by/create such items, and a 50% profit margin is certainly a financially interesting proposition.
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It's really not just an issue with classes that have 'zero' magical abilities. It's problem for all classes that are not pure spellcasters, because the difference in power granted by a magic weapon exceeds any equivalent bonuses that exist for spellcasters. Not to mention the mobility problems melee characters have without access to magic items that give them speed and mobility. Honestly, I'd be tempted to make attunement slots variable by class, with more slots for the limited magic classes.
1) Seems more silly that in a setting where magical items valued between 50 and 100 gp (with half that value being profit for the seller, so procuring one either through crafting or sourcing them through other means isn't setting them back more than 25 gp in some cases) are common there wouldn't be shops selling them, if we're talking immersion. That's on average the price of a riding horse. Why would there not be people interested in making a (likely very decent) living this way?
2) Give DMs a little more credit than that, especially since half the buffs you describe come from a spell and the other half, that does come from an item, can be entirely superfluous when the character has decent Dex, Stealth proficiency, possibly Expertise, could have a buff to Stealth from another spell, and might have advantage from another source (like background noise).
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I keep on hearing this argument. "Weapon users need magic weapons, because some monsters resist non-magic weapons."
You know what? Some monsters resist spells, too. There's a feature literally named Magic Resistance. Some monsters have legendary resistances, and some have immunity to certain spells, or entire ranges of spell levels, or mechanics that can bounce spells back. Some have damage resistance for common elemental damage types. Some have immunity. Does this mean that casters need items that negate these mechanics? I don't think so. (Though I will acknowledge the ceaseless demand for ways to negate elemental resistances and immunities for one-trick elementalist casters.)
Not every monster is supposed to be handled the same way. If that were the case, why even have multiple kinds of monsters? Why not just increase the numbers on a goblin? A Fighter isn't somehow invalidated by the mere existence of monsters he can't hurt with his weapon, just like a Warlock isn't invalidated by the existence of the Helmed Horror (which has immunity to Eldritch Blast). Sometimes you have to change up your tactics. Sometimes you have to struggle. Sometimes you even have to retreat, or surrender. Sometimes you just have to let the other members of the party cover for you. Big deal.
And anyway, if you really want to bypass these damage resistances, every class has at least one option for you to do it without help from other characters. For Fighter, pick Arcane Archer, Eldritch Knight, or to a lesser extent Psi Warrior. For Rogue, pick Arcane Trickster. For Monk, pick literally any Monk. For Barbarian, pick Beast, Storm Herald, or Zealot, or even Ancestral Guardians if you're playing around level 14.
But that's all setting aside the fact that it's a team game and you have allies for a reason. Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Holy Weapon, Dragon's Breath, Magic Stone, and Flame Arrows all work to address these types of challenges. Artificers can also enchant weapons to become magical for you, and so can Forge Clerics. When was the last time you saw any of these things happen? Do you think that has something to do with the availability of magic items in your games?
In summation: 1. Not being able to deal optimal, or even nonzero, damage to some monsters isn't sufficient to support that you "need" magic weapons. 2. You can get the equivalent of magic weapons without actually obtaining magic weapons. 3. Having a bunch of real magic weapons devalues those features.
I would go as far as to say the game is more fun without easy access to magic weapons. One of my favorite moments was the time we left all our gear at an entrance and had to fight a dragon using just one spear, enchanted with Holy Weapon, that we all had to share.
Tangent: The "equipment creep" of 3.5e is not really a thing in 5e, and I'm so glad. It's so soul-sucking to have to waste your hard earned gold just keeping your numbers high enough to function. My 3.5e Fighter has four different items contributing to his AC (magic armor, amulet of natural armor, gloves of dexterity, ring of protection), and his AC is still garbage because none of those items have a big enough modifier for the level I'm at. It's so dumb.
Even if they can't directly affect a monster with any of their spells (which is rare unless they're badly overspecialized), casters can generally do something in combat, like buff party members.
A fighter who lacks a weapon capable of damaging an enemy is limited to pretty much just being a cheerleader. At most they can try to push or trip a foe, but if it's something that they can't damage even that's probably not a great option. They certainly can't do much to stop it from getting at other party members given that it can safely ignore the possibility of taking an opportunity attack from the person waving a useless hunk of metal around.
And saying "pick a different subclass" is not really an effective answer. That's just saying that people who want to play anything other than a few very specialized subclasses deserve to be punished for not doing perfect optimization.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
We have already given you a partial answer to that, but you ignored it.
There are also monsters that have Immunity to nonmagical weapon damage. A fighter without a magic weapon is pretty much SOL against one. I've played a fire-themed sorcerer in a campaign where we ended up facing fire giants. I could still cast Slow on them, which was extremely effective, and I could still use Chromatic Orb and Ray of Frost to deal damage. Wasn't as much as I normally could have done but still contributed a fair amount. Contrast that to a game where I was running a fighter and the GM thought a Flesh Golem would be a fun challenge for a 3rd level party. Well, as I had no weapons that were magical or adamantine, I was completely useless in that fight, as was the rogue. The two of us did not have any ability to contribute to that fight at all- we just took the Dodge action every round. Was not enjoyable in the slightest.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.