I have never understood the issue with magic shops, either in lore or mechanically. I can still control what magic items are available to my players and if a product is in stock I can make sure the price is out of reach of the characters at that moment in time.
In terms of Lore, it is a world where magic users can make magic items, I mean there is a whole class that is created to be a magic item factory in some ways. You can't believe that every wizard will become a lecturer or an adventurer, I imagine many of them subsidise an income by making +1 weapons, bracers of defence etc, not to mention the magic items in circulation generally I mean the players are not the only adventuring party in the realm, they are not the only people who need/want/find magic items out in the world. Magic users might see the opportunity of opening a little magic shop to make some coin. It just makes sense from a logical point of view that magic shops will exist at least in large population centres.
Magic items do not break the game, yes as a DM they make you think a little more but really I have yet to find a campaign that became un tenable because my players where loaded down with magic items (in one campaign the barbarian had 9 magic weapons in his bag of holding, he would swap through them depending on what he was in the mood to use and that was by level 14).
The issue is the many questions they present:
1) Where do all the items come from?
Is there, as you suggest, some formal industry churning them out? Where are they getting the supplies? What is their production rate?
Are they coming in from other adventuring groups? If so, does the party have competition? Where are these other groups when there is a crisis? Does this mean everything local is already picked clean and there is nothing for the party to do?
2) How are these places secured?
What happens if/when the party decides they want to rob such a store? How well guarded are they?
If they are guarded better than the party can handle, why are the threats (those that the party can handle) threats?
3) Who are they selling to?
Is it other parties? If there are other parties working the area, then again, there is the question of why there is anything in the area left for the party to do.
Is the local government? Why wouldn't they contract directly? And why isn't there some sort of elite military unit with all the top gear keeping the region secure?
Is it the local civilians? If so, why aren't they forming other parties to work the area? Plus just how rich and well geared are the local civilians and what happens if the party decides to rob them?
Is it the party? Again, why not contract directly with the party? Why a shop?
Seriously, they only make sense in two settings: (1) incredibly high powered/high magic/relatively modern settings where everything is OP and everyone, including civilians, needs such gear to get by or(2) completely unrealistic computer game type settings.
The idea that if there are magic items i the world they will only be weapons is a bit silly, as per the rulebooks the items and spells described in the books are not the only magic in the DnD universe. So while the books may contain items that Adventurers find useful, the majority of low magic items in my world are trinkets, things that nobles etc would buy for their wife/mistress, or maybe to protect property. These items I consider less then common, 50-100 gold items that have no specific mechanical use (although in the past players have found unique ways to utilise such items). So these items get made in game, the elves are skilled at making things like bird ornaments that sing, or delicate mithril flowers that seem to bloom and grow. Dwarfs make toys that operate themselves.
If you think about lord of the rings there was magic throughout that which didn't need to be high magic, gandalfs fireworks for instance.
Yes in my world there are other adventuring parties, it makes no sense for the players to be the only hero's in the land, as for what are they doing, well in my games it is an open world, the party can do anything, but if they choose not to go to the mountains and deal with that black dragon attacking the dwarven settlements then eventually someone else will. I have even in one campaign had a rival party deal with one of the BBEG's because the party went off on a random tangent into the feywild. I have also had parties come across such other groups, in inns in cities, in fighting pits, or just competing for a job.
Magic shops can be secured a number of ways, for instance maybe it isn't actually in the same plane as the building it is in, Picking the lock or breaking through the window when the shop is closed results in the party walking into an empty room, covered in dust, unused for years, maybe centuries. It is only when the wizard opens the front door that the gateway to his pocket plane is created. Or maybe the magic items themselves get stored away. But also, as I stated above, I stock my magic shops specifically with items I find interesting, in a magic shop full of billowing cloaks, metal songbirds and dwarven toys there might be a cap of water breathing, or there might be a plus one weapon. All it takes is a bit of imagination as a DM and you can populate your "low magic" world with magical trinkets and still make the useful magic items feel special and unique.
Yes by the time they get to high level 15+, the defenses of that magic shop may be less dangerous but the rewards reduce as well as the stock doesnt shift in line with there power. the really powerful magic items are locked away, owned by collectors, or lost in the wilds. In my games I scale the story and threat to my players level so at levels 1-6 they are dealing with local issues that are not world ending, they are saving a town or simply making some coin and surviving. They are dealing with threats that could be faced by many towns in the world. Dealing with a cult in one city while hearing about a different cult that was taken apart in another sessions later. As they grow in power then the threats become more global, but with so much danger in the world why would a wizard in his shop care about going out saving the world even if he could. Player Characters are not the most powerful individuals in the world, even by level 20 there will be wizards, warriors, druids who far outstrip them in power. In the current campaign there is a druid in the town who is equivalent level 25, she is friendly to the party but, in her words, she doesn't cure headaches, so she does not get involved in events unless she absolutely has to and, as she explained to the party just this last session when they asked her why she is worrying about a difficult pregnancy she is going to have to help with, but not the large undead tomb they just cleared out. It was just a headache that the town dealt with without my help. The moment I start doing things for the town they stop ding thing's for themselves and I get no rest, no sleep and no time to crochet my blanket.
Finally who are magic shops selling, to, like I said not all magic items have to be top tier weapons, so, anyone with enough money. A farmer might spend years saving up to buy a small magical trinket that plays a piece of music for his wife on their anniversary. There are only so many magic swords and weapons in the world and yes some are bought up and owned by the town guard, or the the standing armies, but, no king wants to arm his army so powerfully that they could overthrow him. So yes you can make magic stores work, economically and in terms of lore without having some crazy high magic setting. You just have to think beyond the items in the book and realise that there is a whole host of magic items that are mundane in what they do, but still powered by magic and that is the magic shops bread and butter.
Your characters are people. If you cannot think of what they’d spend money in, you’re not thinking of them as such. If I had a big ch of money and already owned like… a sword and some metal clothes? I’d want somewhere safe to keep them and my other belongings. A home. That costs money. If I had more than I needed for myself, I’d happily spend some on my family and friends. And that’s just considering the family I was born to, that’s not considering taking care of a spouse, children, pets, etc.
Well-rounded Characters shouldn’t need money sinks. Life is a money sink
Narrative concept spending like this is not enough of a sink. I mean let say you buy a home, take care of a family... if this cost more than a few gold per month, no one in the world could afford a home. To an adventurer things like this are pocket change. Adventurers earn tens of thousands of gold in a pretty short amount of time, they become super wealthy from their exploits. If the game becomes about them creating lives outside of adventuring, the game loses its purpose.
Sorry I disagree, I think players MUST have ways to spend their gold on things that benefit their adventuring life. "spend it on story" is not a very strong logic and most players will reject that all the gold they earn should be spent on something other then their character.
Having their own castle and private army will not change their adventuring life? Sponsoring their own mage's guild will not benefit their adventuring life? These are things that a measly 10,000 gp are not going to so easily cover. You think way too small.
Well let's be fair, you said nothing about a Castle, Private army and mages guild, you said home and family.
Castles, Private Armies and Mages guilds goes to stronghold building and I totally agree that this is one of the big ways characters can and should spend their gold, its kind of a higher-level thing though (typically after 9-10th level). I think this is however a very different conversation and it doesn't change the fact that players are going to earn some gold at earlier levels and are going to be looking for ways to spend it on their characters.
Im also not saying "magic shops" is the only way it could or should work, but every setting has black markets, traders, powerful characters who might sell magic items. These things do exist in every setting, even ones in which magic items are indeed rare like Forogotten Realms and Dark Sun.
In classic D&D (I use Old School Essentials which is effectively 1st edition BECMI) characters would spend their gold roughly in the following ways. Now most of this stuff happens at certain levels, I added rough estimates when it typically happens.
1. Core equipment (1st-3rd) 2b. More advanced equipment (4th+) 2. Henchmen, followers, specialists. (1st to max level) 3. Magical Gear (if they can find a seller) (5th+( 3b. Magical Item Creation (Mainly scrolls and potions usually, but researching new spells and creating their own magical Items is often a player goal)(9th+) 4. Horses, Ships, Wagons and other traveling equipment to get around (3rd+) 5. Strongholds and Organizations (typically at higher levels) (7th-9th+) 6. Businesses (This isn't something that happens all the time, but many players assume their characters will retire). (5th+) 7. Empire Building (at much higher levels most characters will get involved in more global politics and become rulers of realms and people). (12th+) 8. Personal stuff (very often characters have something very specific they want to accomplish in a game that can cost money) (anytime)
I’m the one that said home and family, not Kotath, though while we are being fair 1) I brought up guilds back on page 1 and 2) if I’ve got “build a castle” money, I’m not gonna move my family into a little townhouse. I’m building us a castle.
I don’t think anyone, even the most vehemently anti-magic shop, are trying to argue that they shouldn’t be purchasable anywhere, from anyone, in any way, foe any amount. The DMG, right after saying how unfeasible a magic item shop would be, goes on to say buying them in something like an art auction could be an option. I think most of us are just saying you shouldn’t be able to walk into MagicStop and trade in last year’s MaddenSword +1 for credit toward this year’s MaddenSword +2.
This is the one key thing, Magic shops in my world do not stock on demand, they have what I stock them with at the price I define, which might (on purpose) be more then the party as a whole can afford. But it doesn't break the game in any way.
For those struggling to understand how a magic item shop could exist, I think it's best to compare magic items to cars, only they don't change value as they get older.
Uncommon magic items are your standard, run of the mill cars. A Renault, a Honda, a Volkswagen etc.
Rare magic items are the luxury, but still affordable, cars. A BMW, a Mercedes, an Audi.
Very rare items are the cars that make you say "Oooh" when you see one ahead of you on the motorway. Porsche, Ferrari.
Legendary items are the ones that you may not see in your lifetime at all, and probably only in the richest part of the wealthiest cities in the world. They look like things from the future.
These are all stealable, and you see them in shops. The more common ones are found in smaller urban centres.
Congratulations! You are comparing magic shops with a high powered/high magic/relatively modern setting!
Your post doesn't make any sense. If you can elaborate on what you don't understand, I can explain it to you further.
D&D settings are full of robots and airships. They have more advanced technology than we have.
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.
Finding awesomely cool items is a big part of the game. All the most memorable items should be earned through epic quests, taken from the hands of defeated foes, or forged in the fires of Mount Doom.
But I like to let my players customise their characters and have more say in their 'loadout' than just being forced to use the items that I insert into the game.
The last time I played as a player, we ran Curse of Strahd with some adjustments and I was running an Eldritch Knight. My character, an egotistical fellow, had grandiosely named himself "The Hammer of the South" and wielded a Warhammer. When he cast Thunderwave, he'd leap up and bring the hammer down on the ground, generating the shockwave. He dreamed of being a cleric or paladin but had a Wis of 9, but the hammer made sense.
Then I found a Battleaxe +1. It was the first time we found a magic weapon my EK could use. We never found another magic weapon he could use that wasn't better for someone else. We never found a magical warhammer. From the moment we found it, I was effectively obliged to use the Battleaxe over the hammer I'd imagined the character using since the start of the campaign.
And thats why I like magical item shops. Because I could have spent my gold getting the weapon I wanted for my character. I was never going to beg the DM to just drop them into the treasure pile, although I did eventually work with an Artificer to create a homebrewed Adamantine Shield. If the campaign had gone on, I'd have ended up trying to reforge the axe into a hammer. Magic item shops - reasonably priced - give the players the choice not to feel forced to use the things the DM drops on them.
Common rarity taken literally means things like Cast-off armour is common. So why would normal armour exist? Why spend all that gold for plate armour when one can pick up a magical suit for just 100 gp?
I assumed the enchantments are common, and the 50-100 gp cost is for applying it to a piece/set of armour.
Refridgerators aren't actually useful enough that a lot of households would pay one or two months' wages for them - typical D&D household economics seem to favour picking up fresh food almost daily. Thermal cubes are worth 10 times what their rarity suggests though. At 100 gp everyone who can save up for one and lives somewhere where it gets cold enough will absolutely want one.
Regardless, none of that is a problem with (some) magical items being common. It's a problem with some specific items existing in the first place.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
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.
It might be an essential part of what D&D is To You, and that’s great and super valid if that’s how you and your friends enjoy it, but it’s not that we are removing that element or denying anyone anything. You guys added it in, and got so used to it being there that if it isn’t in there, which is the default status of the game according to the DMG, it -feels- like we are taking something away.
I’m not trying to take anything away from my players. But I am sure that they’ll value and remember the Bag of Holding they had to go into the Shadowfell to gather exotic ingredients to craft more than they would have if I let them walk into a shop and buy it for 500gp.
Common rarity taken literally means things like Cast-off armour is common. So why would normal armour exist? Why spend all that gold for plate armour when one can pick up a magical suit for just 100 gp?
I assumed the enchantments are common, and the 50-100 gp cost is for applying it to a piece/set of armour.
Refridgerators aren't actually useful enough that a lot of households would pay one or two months' wages for them - typical D&D household economics seem to favour picking up fresh food almost daily. Thermal cubes are worth 10 times what their rarity suggests though. At 100 gp everyone who can save up for one and lives somewhere where it gets cold enough will absolutely want one.
Regardless, none of that is a problem with (some) magical items being common. It's a problem with some specific items existing in the first place.
Refrigerators aren't actually useful enough? Are you kidding? They improved food hygiene massively. And the alternative was iceboxes, which literally had to be refilled with ice.
Typical D&D economies are handwaved. If you are treating your world(s) as if there are no food or water supply issues, no housing issues, no such problems, of course gold is valueless! You have simply defined your world as a paradise. It begs the question why monsters are monstrous at all when the world is so plentiful. 'Because evil?'
H Sapiens is about 300k years old, refridgerators have been around for about 100 years. What refridgerators did first and foremost was allow mass production of foods that would otherwise spoil, to be sold and moved cheaply in bulk, to feed an exploding world population. As far as a faux-medieval society is concerned, picking up bread and some sausage daily is a far easier proposition than coughing up 50-100 gold for a food storage box you still need to buy food for.
As for your second point, what is it exactly you think should be done: handwaving economies in D&D or not? Because you seem to be saying it should be the latter while typically it's the former.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I handle magic items with semi-legal auctions. Works like this...
Common items and some uncommon consumables might be purchasable in large cities. Stocks are typically very limited.
Uncommon items, and all magical armor and weapons regardless of rarity, are illegal to buy or sell without crown approval. Importantly, these items are not illegal to own. It's just the buying and selling that's restricted.
Crown approval comes through various guilds, meaning you can safely sell your loot to a licensed guild. These only exist in big population centers. No one's (typically) preventing you from trying to sell an item in a smaller village but virtually no small villages can afford to pay you much for it. So if you want to sell, you need to go to where the money is, and that's where the law can be enforced.
You won't get a lot for your loot selling through a guild. And your name will probably get put in some ledger somewhere. You become part of "the system," which may or may not be what you want.
You can buy items from these same guilds but the selection is never great. The royalty and otherwise-connected wealthy folk get their hands on the good stuff, which is part of why this system exists in the first place.
So this is all to set the stage. The players know they can't just easily sell off the stuff they find while adventuring, nor easily buy stuff. This is where the auctions come in.
A traveling auction house moves through the kingdom. If you can learn about when it will show up in your city next, and where it is, you can purchase admission. I think I had it at 10gp per person last time I did it, but the price could vary depending on the current legal and political climate.
When you go there, you offer up one or more magic item in return for points. The number of points you get depends on the item's rarity. You can also cast spells into rings of spell storing (owned by the house) for points. Importantly, you cannot under any circumstances buy points with money. Even suggesting it is asking for trouble.
The house will then have various items on display, which you can "trade" your points for. I set it up so it's expensive, point-wise, to get things, so the party will have to give up a number of items to get one item of the same rough power or rarity.
As DM, I set the items available at a given auction just as I would for a dungeon or anything else. I usually set a bunch of random stuff with one or two things I think someone in the party might really like.
The house has a very strict no-fighting policy at the auction, which they need to enforce because competing criminal organizations and thief guilds will often go to the same ones at the same time (these are very time-limited events). The house has some pretty good weaponry at its disposal and are quite a force to be reckoned with. Plus they can perma-ban you for future auctions if you cause problems.
This approach turned getting and selling items into a minigame of its own. Last time we did this, I had an enemy NPC show up, who had killed the spouse of one of the PCs. The player had to resist causing a ruckus at the auction to get her revenge.
For those struggling to understand how a magic item shop could exist, I think it's best to compare magic items to cars, only they don't change value as they get older.
Uncommon magic items are your standard, run of the mill cars. A Renault, a Honda, a Volkswagen etc.
Rare magic items are the luxury, but still affordable, cars. A BMW, a Mercedes, an Audi.
Very rare items are the cars that make you say "Oooh" when you see one ahead of you on the motorway. Porsche, Ferrari.
Legendary items are the ones that you may not see in your lifetime at all, and probably only in the richest part of the wealthiest cities in the world. They look like things from the future.
These are all stealable, and you see them in shops. The more common ones are found in smaller urban centres.
Cheaper magic items - uncommon and rare - will be available in urban centres in any setting where there's a possibility of manufacturing them. At some point, all magic items were made and it makes no sense for people not to buy and sell them. What do you do when you're a 12th level adventurer retiring at the age of 65? You sell any magic items you don't need anymore. What use do you have for those Boots of the Winterlands? You don't plan to leave Sleepyville. So you sell them to someone who can afford their $90,000 price tag and retire to Fantasy Florida. Maybe our 10th level wizard is sick of getting covered in acid, or no longer wants to kill. He retires and starts making magical swords.
Will you find a magic item shop in a small town where there is little recourse to law? Unlikely - but mostly because there won't be any demand. The idea that "You would just rob them" implies that everyone is a villain at heart. They are not. All of us could get away with shoplifting stuff we wanted, and we don't. Only bad criminals get caught, people who are good at crime don't unless huge amounts of money are invested into taking them down.
"Shop" doesn't have to mean it's like a bakery with goods on display. Maybe it's like a Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, or hidden from view. Maybe it's Diagon Alley. Why don't the bad wizards steal all the wands? Because most people don't want to be criminals.
Ways to protect a magic item shop:
Golems. Powerful golems. In a city, a pair of Iron Golems seems pretty fair.
Every magic item shop should have powerful traps or golems to protect them.
The shop has actual security guards. Retired adventurers make perfect guards. Not everyone wants to fight forever. That woman sitting reading the newspaper in the corner? Yeah, try it punk and she'll Finger of Death you before going home to her kids and making them dinner.
Locks, vaults, doors.
Just because items can be bought it doesn't mean everyone wants them. That noble may well prefer an extension on his mansion to a +2 Longsword. How often will he really use it?
The more realistic you make a world with magic, the more likely there are to be people buying and selling items. If you inherit your father's Adamantine Plate Armour, but you chose to be a clerk, you'll want to sell it and get its full value.
I wrote an adventure once whereby the ruler of a city had bought a Deck of Many Things from another nation for 500,000gp. She set up a decoy of 100 guards to deliver it but really it was in the pocket of a man on a different ship. Before reaching the buyer, the man disappeared. The party then had to track him down and retrieve the deck.
For me there is another type of magic item, the ones that will give no benefit to an adventurer and are created purely as a piece of art or to allow a noble to show off their wealth. The Necklace they get their wife or mistress that sings like a canary when opened, the statue that changes colour based on the amount of sunlight. These items add nothing in terms of combat or abilities in game but in terms of the world are the way a wizard makes the day to day income without needing to wait for an adventurer to turn up.
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.
As someone who has been playing TTRPG's for 30 years magic shops have been part of all the fantasy settings I have been involved in in that time, so saying computer games made them normal does not track with my experiance. The reason I didn't used to play DnD in the early days is because a friend explained it to me as, we crawl through a dungeon, then go to a shop and buy a load of magic items and sell the magic items we have found, and then go into another dungeon. So yes for many Magic shops have been a part of TTRPG's for 30 years.
My very first D&D character was a wizard in 1st edition back in January of 1982. My uncle who was the DM convinced the group to let me play by having the Arch Mage give them a discount on the magic items they were buying if they would take his apprentice with them on their next outing.
Buying and selling magic items was happening then and it happens now. It isn't a new concept nor was it invented by video games.
And just in case you were wondering, my character died to a poison trap in the very first chamber of the dungeon. Damn Magic Users.
I feel silly for reading the initial post and answering the questions posed in the post. What do you spend your money on?
If we want to talk about magic shops ...
I don't like Magic Shops. I prefer to worldbuild a system that if you know the right people, you will hear there is a magic item for sale. Then you talk to the right people if you're interested and then you can see about purchasing it. It would be handled like a (semi) legal version of buying stolen art. I say semi-legal, because in my worldbuilding the nobility tries to keep control over the most significant items in the world. They're not always successful, but they do try, through intimidation and other various means. They likewise try to keep control on money, unsuccessfully.
So if a player wants a specific magical item, they can experience a sort of quest for the item, by navigating the process of bidding on an item in an underground economy of magic items.
But the thing I wouldn't do is have a building stocked with magic items that an adventurer can just stroll into with a bag of gold and pick out swords, armor and cloaks like teenage girls pick out shoes and jeans. I feel that would be too much of a target for theft, not by petty criminals, but medium level evilish PCs and NPCs.
But that is how I want to run my games. If others wish to run their games with Magic Shops, then rock on! Your choice to do it that way doesn't impact my fun in the least.
Potions of Healing are an exception, along with the purchase of scrolls. For these things, you can go to a temple and either purchase them or receive directions on how you might obtain them. Scrolls of Comprehend Languages, and Identify, are very desirable among PCs in my world, so I just let them trade treasure for those items. If players want something a bit out of the mainstream, questions will be asked and their inquiry will be reported to the authorities. So, I make a game of it and I maintain some control over where this is going. One time use items are much easier to work with.
If a party member wants a Rope of Climbing I will make that work. If the party wants six Potions of Water Breathing I will make that happen. But I am not going to just throw open the DMG and say "Buy whatever you want" because there are too many things that don't balance. I'm either going to dial the price up or I'm just going to limit the availability. There will be plenty of magic items and opportunities to use them in my campaigns, at least what I consider plenty.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
The reason I didn't used to play DnD in the early days is because a friend explained it to me as, we crawl through a dungeon, then go to a shop and buy a load of magic items and sell the magic items we have found, and then go into another dungeon.
For some people, that is the platonic ideal of the D&D Experience ;)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
What do they expect people to do with all that money?
Same thing we do with money every day, Pinky, try to conquer save the world!
Ships, castles or other strongholds, luxury resorts, research and crafting your own items, hiring people to help where needed. Tool and/or language instructors, festivals, actually doing things to improve peasant lives or otherwise improve the community and overall standard of living...
During my game where we played that adventure, my players' characters did buy some magic items, but they also...
- renovated a keep
- stayed in fancy inns for fun
- crafted potions
- bought their protection from a dragon
- rented a ship, twice, or maybe 3 times, idk
- built a homeless shelter
- tutored under a dwarf fighting master
- put on a festival to kick off a new holiday
... Among other things, I'm sure. What's more, I offered them access to the City of Brass, where they could buy any item for the right price, and they never went, because they didn't want to tangle with the kinds of people who would be willing to sell a Staff of the Magi. Because yeah, you'd have to be pretty damn confident in your power to willingly part ways with a powerful magic item, right?
Magic item attunement creates a hard limit in 5e that did not exist in previous editions (aside from possibly 4e which I fully admit I have no knowledge of as we were playing Pathfinder at the time it was relevant). While there are a number of magic items that don’t require attunement, we can likely all agree that the most useful and sought after pieces do, so, even if I stroll into Ye Olde Magic Shoppe and buy one of everything, I can still only make use of three of the things on most characters. As such, I do not see the harm in the existence of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. The game is hard-coded to prevent characters from becoming powerhouses via magic items.
Furthermore, some DM’s talk about having the characters quest for ingredients to craft or commission the magic items they seek. That is all well and good when your game is not already replete with tasks to advance the overarching plot of the adventure the characters have embarked upon. YMMV but I’m playing this game to be a hero, to save the world, to rescue the NPC’s, to solve a mystery, that sort of thing. I’m not playing the game to fetch up 8lbs of mithril ore, a ruby the size of my fist and a brick of carborundum so I can then search out the correct crafter and commission the sword I’d most like to use to be a hero, save the world, rescue the NPC’s or solve the mystery. Most likely, in the time I’ve used to get my precious sword, those opportunities will have lapsed anyway. If you then multiply that by a whole party of characters—my group is 4-6 players—when are they ever doing anything other than globetrotting to find ingredients for magic items? I can’t buy a giant-slaying sword so I guess never mind what those giants are up to in STK, I’m walking all over the Sword Coast for exotic ingredients and to find the right guy to get one made. Oh and then we’re gonna do the same for every other character in the party…? No thanks.
Buying and selling items sure. Harry Potter style wand or broom shops? Another matter.
Not sure that distinction is altogether pertinent. I recall very, very few campaigns or DMs allowing for magic shops with a comprehensive stock, so that's probably not the argument anyone's making.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Buying and selling items sure. Harry Potter style wand or broom shops? Another matter.
Not sure that distinction is altogether pertinent. I recall very, very few campaigns or DMs allowing for magic shops with a comprehensive stock, so that's probably not the argument anyone's making.
In fact, there were rules for what stock could be found in a shop and how much it would pay for stuff adventurers would sell to it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Another good use of a magic shop is getting rid of your magic items when you retire from adventuring, what you going to do with that +2 sword when you retire at level 10. Why you tell a magic shop you wish to sell said item they may not have the gold to cover it but they could tell interested parties that your selling for a price.
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.
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. Magic items are almost impossibly rare and should all be treated as ancient treasures of bygone ages.
Okay. Cool. Low magic, I can get behind a good low magic game. Throw some emphasis back on proper kitting up and use of mundane gear, get some grittiness back, and...
Oh.
Wait a minute.
That's right - temporary quick-cast spell slot-fueled magic is exploding from the party's ears. Odds are very good that any given five-man party will consist of at least four, and quite possibly five, spellcasters. Every single class in the game except the barbarian has access to the Spellcasting class feature through at least one subclass, and three quarters of the classes have Spellcasting baked irremovably into their core class. Most classes have access to cantrips, limitless quickfire minor spells they can toss off as casually as a fart. Everybody regains the entirety of their spellcasting power with a single night's sleep, and by seventh level a full spellcaster can throw out a dozen major spells a day. Many species are freaking born knowing how to cast spells, and there's hundreds of NPC enemies/monsters that have innate spellcasting baked into them or which say "this critter is an Xth-level [Class], with the following spells."
Okay. Cool. High magic, that can be fun. Magic is everywhere and commonplace, everybody's seen it or knows about it, and you can...
Oh.
Wait a minute.
See what I mean? The default assumption with items is a Low Magic game, where magic is so rare as to be essentially nonexistent, but the default assumption with classes/characters is that magic is easy, casual, and everywhere - a High Magic game. And no, the stupid dumb awful terrible "PCs are Adventurers! They're exceptions to the rules!" thing does not excuse the divide. There's half a hundred different spellcaster NPC stat blocks, and a first-level PC spellcaster still has access to casual, at-will magic via cantrips without being nearly so powerful and outrageous that one could never imagine more than, say...four or five of them existing in a single nation. Hell, most everybody's campaigns start at first level in a single town or village, where you find between three to six "Exceptions To The Rules" and can find another one whenever one of the original three-to-six ends up failing one too many saving throws in a row.
So. To make the world make any sort of damn sense again, you either need to get the magic off the character sheet, or accept that magical gear isn't so outlandishly godawful impossible to deal with as all that. And one of those things is not only orders of magnitude easier than the others, it's usually more fun for the players, too.
Like so many things in 5e, the dichotomy is here to allow (read: require) DMs to make their own rulings. If a DM wants to rule that magic items can't be bought, there's stuff in the books to back them up if they need it. And if they want to rule the opposite, same story. And anything in between.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The idea that if there are magic items i the world they will only be weapons is a bit silly, as per the rulebooks the items and spells described in the books are not the only magic in the DnD universe. So while the books may contain items that Adventurers find useful, the majority of low magic items in my world are trinkets, things that nobles etc would buy for their wife/mistress, or maybe to protect property. These items I consider less then common, 50-100 gold items that have no specific mechanical use (although in the past players have found unique ways to utilise such items). So these items get made in game, the elves are skilled at making things like bird ornaments that sing, or delicate mithril flowers that seem to bloom and grow. Dwarfs make toys that operate themselves.
If you think about lord of the rings there was magic throughout that which didn't need to be high magic, gandalfs fireworks for instance.
Yes in my world there are other adventuring parties, it makes no sense for the players to be the only hero's in the land, as for what are they doing, well in my games it is an open world, the party can do anything, but if they choose not to go to the mountains and deal with that black dragon attacking the dwarven settlements then eventually someone else will. I have even in one campaign had a rival party deal with one of the BBEG's because the party went off on a random tangent into the feywild. I have also had parties come across such other groups, in inns in cities, in fighting pits, or just competing for a job.
Magic shops can be secured a number of ways, for instance maybe it isn't actually in the same plane as the building it is in, Picking the lock or breaking through the window when the shop is closed results in the party walking into an empty room, covered in dust, unused for years, maybe centuries. It is only when the wizard opens the front door that the gateway to his pocket plane is created. Or maybe the magic items themselves get stored away. But also, as I stated above, I stock my magic shops specifically with items I find interesting, in a magic shop full of billowing cloaks, metal songbirds and dwarven toys there might be a cap of water breathing, or there might be a plus one weapon. All it takes is a bit of imagination as a DM and you can populate your "low magic" world with magical trinkets and still make the useful magic items feel special and unique.
Yes by the time they get to high level 15+, the defenses of that magic shop may be less dangerous but the rewards reduce as well as the stock doesnt shift in line with there power. the really powerful magic items are locked away, owned by collectors, or lost in the wilds. In my games I scale the story and threat to my players level so at levels 1-6 they are dealing with local issues that are not world ending, they are saving a town or simply making some coin and surviving. They are dealing with threats that could be faced by many towns in the world. Dealing with a cult in one city while hearing about a different cult that was taken apart in another sessions later. As they grow in power then the threats become more global, but with so much danger in the world why would a wizard in his shop care about going out saving the world even if he could. Player Characters are not the most powerful individuals in the world, even by level 20 there will be wizards, warriors, druids who far outstrip them in power. In the current campaign there is a druid in the town who is equivalent level 25, she is friendly to the party but, in her words, she doesn't cure headaches, so she does not get involved in events unless she absolutely has to and, as she explained to the party just this last session when they asked her why she is worrying about a difficult pregnancy she is going to have to help with, but not the large undead tomb they just cleared out. It was just a headache that the town dealt with without my help. The moment I start doing things for the town they stop ding thing's for themselves and I get no rest, no sleep and no time to crochet my blanket.
Finally who are magic shops selling, to, like I said not all magic items have to be top tier weapons, so, anyone with enough money. A farmer might spend years saving up to buy a small magical trinket that plays a piece of music for his wife on their anniversary. There are only so many magic swords and weapons in the world and yes some are bought up and owned by the town guard, or the the standing armies, but, no king wants to arm his army so powerfully that they could overthrow him. So yes you can make magic stores work, economically and in terms of lore without having some crazy high magic setting. You just have to think beyond the items in the book and realise that there is a whole host of magic items that are mundane in what they do, but still powered by magic and that is the magic shops bread and butter.
This is the one key thing, Magic shops in my world do not stock on demand, they have what I stock them with at the price I define, which might (on purpose) be more then the party as a whole can afford. But it doesn't break the game in any way.
Your post doesn't make any sense. If you can elaborate on what you don't understand, I can explain it to you further.
D&D settings are full of robots and airships. They have more advanced technology than we have.
Finding awesomely cool items is a big part of the game. All the most memorable items should be earned through epic quests, taken from the hands of defeated foes, or forged in the fires of Mount Doom.
But I like to let my players customise their characters and have more say in their 'loadout' than just being forced to use the items that I insert into the game.
The last time I played as a player, we ran Curse of Strahd with some adjustments and I was running an Eldritch Knight. My character, an egotistical fellow, had grandiosely named himself "The Hammer of the South" and wielded a Warhammer. When he cast Thunderwave, he'd leap up and bring the hammer down on the ground, generating the shockwave. He dreamed of being a cleric or paladin but had a Wis of 9, but the hammer made sense.
Then I found a Battleaxe +1. It was the first time we found a magic weapon my EK could use. We never found another magic weapon he could use that wasn't better for someone else. We never found a magical warhammer. From the moment we found it, I was effectively obliged to use the Battleaxe over the hammer I'd imagined the character using since the start of the campaign.
And thats why I like magical item shops. Because I could have spent my gold getting the weapon I wanted for my character. I was never going to beg the DM to just drop them into the treasure pile, although I did eventually work with an Artificer to create a homebrewed Adamantine Shield. If the campaign had gone on, I'd have ended up trying to reforge the axe into a hammer. Magic item shops - reasonably priced - give the players the choice not to feel forced to use the things the DM drops on them.
I assumed the enchantments are common, and the 50-100 gp cost is for applying it to a piece/set of armour.
Refridgerators aren't actually useful enough that a lot of households would pay one or two months' wages for them - typical D&D household economics seem to favour picking up fresh food almost daily. Thermal cubes are worth 10 times what their rarity suggests though. At 100 gp everyone who can save up for one and lives somewhere where it gets cold enough will absolutely want one.
Regardless, none of that is a problem with (some) magical items being common. It's a problem with some specific items existing in the first place.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It might be an essential part of what D&D is To You, and that’s great and super valid if that’s how you and your friends enjoy it, but it’s not that we are removing that element or denying anyone anything. You guys added it in, and got so used to it being there that if it isn’t in there, which is the default status of the game according to the DMG, it -feels- like we are taking something away.
I’m not trying to take anything away from my players. But I am sure that they’ll value and remember the Bag of Holding they had to go into the Shadowfell to gather exotic ingredients to craft more than they would have if I let them walk into a shop and buy it for 500gp.
H Sapiens is about 300k years old, refridgerators have been around for about 100 years. What refridgerators did first and foremost was allow mass production of foods that would otherwise spoil, to be sold and moved cheaply in bulk, to feed an exploding world population. As far as a faux-medieval society is concerned, picking up bread and some sausage daily is a far easier proposition than coughing up 50-100 gold for a food storage box you still need to buy food for.
As for your second point, what is it exactly you think should be done: handwaving economies in D&D or not? Because you seem to be saying it should be the latter while typically it's the former.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I handle magic items with semi-legal auctions. Works like this...
So this is all to set the stage. The players know they can't just easily sell off the stuff they find while adventuring, nor easily buy stuff. This is where the auctions come in.
This approach turned getting and selling items into a minigame of its own. Last time we did this, I had an enemy NPC show up, who had killed the spouse of one of the PCs. The player had to resist causing a ruckus at the auction to get her revenge.
For me there is another type of magic item, the ones that will give no benefit to an adventurer and are created purely as a piece of art or to allow a noble to show off their wealth. The Necklace they get their wife or mistress that sings like a canary when opened, the statue that changes colour based on the amount of sunlight. These items add nothing in terms of combat or abilities in game but in terms of the world are the way a wizard makes the day to day income without needing to wait for an adventurer to turn up.
As someone who has been playing TTRPG's for 30 years magic shops have been part of all the fantasy settings I have been involved in in that time, so saying computer games made them normal does not track with my experiance. The reason I didn't used to play DnD in the early days is because a friend explained it to me as, we crawl through a dungeon, then go to a shop and buy a load of magic items and sell the magic items we have found, and then go into another dungeon. So yes for many Magic shops have been a part of TTRPG's for 30 years.
My very first D&D character was a wizard in 1st edition back in January of 1982. My uncle who was the DM convinced the group to let me play by having the Arch Mage give them a discount on the magic items they were buying if they would take his apprentice with them on their next outing.
Buying and selling magic items was happening then and it happens now. It isn't a new concept nor was it invented by video games.
And just in case you were wondering, my character died to a poison trap in the very first chamber of the dungeon. Damn Magic Users.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I feel silly for reading the initial post and answering the questions posed in the post. What do you spend your money on?
If we want to talk about magic shops ...
I don't like Magic Shops. I prefer to worldbuild a system that if you know the right people, you will hear there is a magic item for sale. Then you talk to the right people if you're interested and then you can see about purchasing it. It would be handled like a (semi) legal version of buying stolen art. I say semi-legal, because in my worldbuilding the nobility tries to keep control over the most significant items in the world. They're not always successful, but they do try, through intimidation and other various means. They likewise try to keep control on money, unsuccessfully.
So if a player wants a specific magical item, they can experience a sort of quest for the item, by navigating the process of bidding on an item in an underground economy of magic items.
But the thing I wouldn't do is have a building stocked with magic items that an adventurer can just stroll into with a bag of gold and pick out swords, armor and cloaks like teenage girls pick out shoes and jeans. I feel that would be too much of a target for theft, not by petty criminals, but medium level evilish PCs and NPCs.
But that is how I want to run my games. If others wish to run their games with Magic Shops, then rock on! Your choice to do it that way doesn't impact my fun in the least.
Potions of Healing are an exception, along with the purchase of scrolls. For these things, you can go to a temple and either purchase them or receive directions on how you might obtain them. Scrolls of Comprehend Languages, and Identify, are very desirable among PCs in my world, so I just let them trade treasure for those items. If players want something a bit out of the mainstream, questions will be asked and their inquiry will be reported to the authorities. So, I make a game of it and I maintain some control over where this is going. One time use items are much easier to work with.
If a party member wants a Rope of Climbing I will make that work. If the party wants six Potions of Water Breathing I will make that happen. But I am not going to just throw open the DMG and say "Buy whatever you want" because there are too many things that don't balance. I'm either going to dial the price up or I'm just going to limit the availability. There will be plenty of magic items and opportunities to use them in my campaigns, at least what I consider plenty.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
For some people, that is the platonic ideal of the D&D Experience ;)
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
During my game where we played that adventure, my players' characters did buy some magic items, but they also...
- renovated a keep
- stayed in fancy inns for fun
- crafted potions
- bought their protection from a dragon
- rented a ship, twice, or maybe 3 times, idk
- built a homeless shelter
- tutored under a dwarf fighting master
- put on a festival to kick off a new holiday
... Among other things, I'm sure. What's more, I offered them access to the City of Brass, where they could buy any item for the right price, and they never went, because they didn't want to tangle with the kinds of people who would be willing to sell a Staff of the Magi. Because yeah, you'd have to be pretty damn confident in your power to willingly part ways with a powerful magic item, right?
Magic item attunement creates a hard limit in 5e that did not exist in previous editions (aside from possibly 4e which I fully admit I have no knowledge of as we were playing Pathfinder at the time it was relevant). While there are a number of magic items that don’t require attunement, we can likely all agree that the most useful and sought after pieces do, so, even if I stroll into Ye Olde Magic Shoppe and buy one of everything, I can still only make use of three of the things on most characters. As such, I do not see the harm in the existence of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. The game is hard-coded to prevent characters from becoming powerhouses via magic items.
Furthermore, some DM’s talk about having the characters quest for ingredients to craft or commission the magic items they seek. That is all well and good when your game is not already replete with tasks to advance the overarching plot of the adventure the characters have embarked upon. YMMV but I’m playing this game to be a hero, to save the world, to rescue the NPC’s, to solve a mystery, that sort of thing. I’m not playing the game to fetch up 8lbs of mithril ore, a ruby the size of my fist and a brick of carborundum so I can then search out the correct crafter and commission the sword I’d most like to use to be a hero, save the world, rescue the NPC’s or solve the mystery. Most likely, in the time I’ve used to get my precious sword, those opportunities will have lapsed anyway. If you then multiply that by a whole party of characters—my group is 4-6 players—when are they ever doing anything other than globetrotting to find ingredients for magic items? I can’t buy a giant-slaying sword so I guess never mind what those giants are up to in STK, I’m walking all over the Sword Coast for exotic ingredients and to find the right guy to get one made. Oh and then we’re gonna do the same for every other character in the party…? No thanks.
Not sure that distinction is altogether pertinent. I recall very, very few campaigns or DMs allowing for magic shops with a comprehensive stock, so that's probably not the argument anyone's making.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
In fact, there were rules for what stock could be found in a shop and how much it would pay for stuff adventurers would sell to it.
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.
Another good use of a magic shop is getting rid of your magic items when you retire from adventuring, what you going to do with that +2 sword when you retire at level 10. Why you tell a magic shop you wish to sell said item they may not have the gold to cover it but they could tell interested parties that your selling for a price.
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.
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. Magic items are almost impossibly rare and should all be treated as ancient treasures of bygone ages.
Okay. Cool. Low magic, I can get behind a good low magic game. Throw some emphasis back on proper kitting up and use of mundane gear, get some grittiness back, and...
Oh.
Wait a minute.
That's right - temporary quick-cast spell slot-fueled magic is exploding from the party's ears. Odds are very good that any given five-man party will consist of at least four, and quite possibly five, spellcasters. Every single class in the game except the barbarian has access to the Spellcasting class feature through at least one subclass, and three quarters of the classes have Spellcasting baked irremovably into their core class. Most classes have access to cantrips, limitless quickfire minor spells they can toss off as casually as a fart. Everybody regains the entirety of their spellcasting power with a single night's sleep, and by seventh level a full spellcaster can throw out a dozen major spells a day. Many species are freaking born knowing how to cast spells, and there's hundreds of NPC enemies/monsters that have innate spellcasting baked into them or which say "this critter is an Xth-level [Class], with the following spells."
Okay. Cool. High magic, that can be fun. Magic is everywhere and commonplace, everybody's seen it or knows about it, and you can...
Oh.
Wait a minute.
See what I mean? The default assumption with items is a Low Magic game, where magic is so rare as to be essentially nonexistent, but the default assumption with classes/characters is that magic is easy, casual, and everywhere - a High Magic game. And no, the stupid dumb awful terrible "PCs are Adventurers! They're exceptions to the rules!" thing does not excuse the divide. There's half a hundred different spellcaster NPC stat blocks, and a first-level PC spellcaster still has access to casual, at-will magic via cantrips without being nearly so powerful and outrageous that one could never imagine more than, say...four or five of them existing in a single nation. Hell, most everybody's campaigns start at first level in a single town or village, where you find between three to six "Exceptions To The Rules" and can find another one whenever one of the original three-to-six ends up failing one too many saving throws in a row.
So. To make the world make any sort of damn sense again, you either need to get the magic off the character sheet, or accept that magical gear isn't so outlandishly godawful impossible to deal with as all that. And one of those things is not only orders of magnitude easier than the others, it's usually more fun for the players, too.
Please do not contact or message me.
Like so many things in 5e, the dichotomy is here to allow (read: require) DMs to make their own rulings. If a DM wants to rule that magic items can't be bought, there's stuff in the books to back them up if they need it. And if they want to rule the opposite, same story. And anything in between.