With D&D 5E's move away from Magic Shops and normal items having a relatively low costs. What exactly does your groups spend their gold on? Do you have them spend it during campaigns on campaign related things?
I know you can add magic shops, but while I have allowed that. I started using 5emagic.shop to generate a shop quickly, but I actually much prefer they earn the items in the course of playing. I do like that the costs at the generated shops are very high which means they normally need to just find the items during session play.
Anyhow, what exactly do you spend your hordes of gold on?
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It gives something to spend gold on, and there really isn't anything else other than buying homes or businesses, which isn't suited to the campaign I'm running.
I like to enable my players to make choices for their own characters about their magic items. If the only ones they find are ones I've planted into the game, I effectively end up dictating what they have to use. I actively encourage them to craft items for this reason.
It gives something to spend gold on, and there really isn't anything else other than buying homes or businesses, which isn't suited to the campaign I'm running.
I like to enable my players to make choices for their own characters about their magic items. If the only ones they find are ones I've planted into the game, I effectively end up dictating what they have to use. I actively encourage them to craft items for this reason.
So your magic shops are open bazaars with all items purchasable? Or do you allow select items? (the way the magic shop generator works I linked to above?)
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A paucity of magic shops is more of an issue for selling than for buying, in my experience. It might be inconvenient for the PCs, but a lot of DMs will allow sussing out ways to get your hands on magical items somehow -not necessarily a shop, but there's also crafters and enchanters and whatnot. It will often involve something of a sidequest in and of itself and probably require a bunch of money, but it can be done if you really want it. Finding a buyer willing to part with a fair chunk of cash for your magical hand-me-downs on the other hand is usually not something a lot of DMs are indulgent about.
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I allow magic shops, they have a limited stock sometimes randomly rolled, other times tailored to broad areas the party has been seeking to strengthen, I also ignore the DMG price guide and use my own variation of the sane magic item price guide (I suggest you google it) usually reducing the prices in this guide still makes them significantly higher (a +1 weapon for instance costs 1000 gold).
in addition to the always charge my players daily rates for food board and alcohol while in towns etc even if they do not roleplay it out. I also charge them a subsistence fee for the wilderness instead of making them go and buy rations.
They have magic item components that may need buying, wizards need ink and paper and there are always taxes or levies you can charge them.
I would give the players enough money to meet their needs but not much more.If there are no magic shops/crafters you can either
Give most rewards other than money (anything from magic items to information to lead them to the BBEG) with the occasional cash top up to pay for the wizard's ink, diamonds etc.
Give them things that require large amounts of money. For example they might need to go to an island and the only way to get there is to charter or buy a ship. Of course some parties might choose to go to the docks and steal a ship to save the charter money but they they might have a bounty on their head and that might result in them getting arrested and having to pay a huge fine or paying someone to kill a few people that look a bit like them and claiming the bounty so they are thought to be dead.
You can motivate the characters with promises of obscene amounts of money, The party might spend 10000gp chartering (maybe paying a deposit) on a ship to get to the BBEG's island hideout if the king has promised 500,000gp for his capture or death (and the campaign ends with them getting the money so it isn't a problem)
My players are good at finding their own money sinks. Starting a guild (having to pay for that guildhall), learning new languages, crafting magic items. The latter is one of my personal favorites, as it leads to a good bit of content. They need the money, but also a formula for what they want to craft, and the exotic material. Each of those last two can be an adventure unto itself, like when I sent them into the Shadowfell to get parts of a monster for the creation of their Bags of Holding.
The Xanathar's rules do an alright job at making the magic item economy fit into the conceptual space where magic item shops don't seem to make sense. It's more believable, I feel. Unfortunately it's kind of annoying to waste money failing to find an item, and it gets a little cumbersome, trying to squeeze it into your session. But it does work reasonably well.
In future adventures I'll reevaluate how I do it. I think the idea of crafting items is a powerful one. It would make players feel a lot more invested in their gear, and they're always trying to do it anyway. That would be my starting point. Replace shopping with crafting. Replace treasure with materials. And then scatter those materials all over instead of just in treasure rooms. Let players feel smart for finding and recognizing them. You know?
To the question of what to do with money -- I like when an adventuring problem can be solved with money directly. Example: a dragon won't let you leave its territory without a tribute. A guard will look the other way for a bribe. That sort of thing.
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).
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?
There are lots of very rare things sold in the world that are valuable and not mass-produced, in fact, most things are. I don't think its logical to assume that just because something is not mass-produced, that the result is that there are no shops that would sell it. The most likely outcome in any fantasy setting is that if something exists, some people will figure out how to make a living from trading it. The only thing that would be illogical is if magic shops don't exist anywhere in the world. How is that possible? How can something valuable exist in the world and there is no one trading in it? I would challenge you to name 1 item in all of human experience and history that isn't bought and sold.
More importantly, if there is no one buying or selling magic items, why do they always have a gold value?
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?
The same way a jewelry shop or any other sort of shop with valuables is secured. A shop full of jewels is no more or less likely to be knocked off than a magic shop. Why would it be any different?
3) Who are they selling to?
People with money who can afford them. Same people that buy expensive clothes, jewels, fancy houses.
1) Yes they are, but usually by way of private option, not just some shop you wander into off the street. And that is in modern times where items can literally be flown around. See my comment about "incredibly high powered/high magic/relatively modern settings"
You are assuming that enough of these (as you describe them) incredibly rare items can be found in any one area to sustain a shop. Remember, the shop does not merely need inventory but needs sustainable inventory.
They always have gold value because everything does. Don't confuse an appraisal with something being available for sale.
2) Jewelry is generally much more common than magic items and can be as little as copper trinkets. Jewelry stores do get robbed, though. There is even higher risk for magic item shops. Why pay those prices when one can just take them?
3) Again, such people as can afford them would only be in the largest cities and/or have enough economic and political clout to simply take control of such resources for their own ends... unless of course it is an "incredibly high powered/high magic/relatively modern setting" where such people are much more common.
I really don't think this a very good argument as it literally applies to all business. What keeps the characters from killing an entire town and taking anything they want? What ever that is, also keeps them from killing everyone and taking the magic items.
I allow magic shop in my campaigns in very big cities and not all existing magic items are necessarily available for sale or trade, some mght not be available, others could require time to be be researched .
I also use wandering magic item merchants, such as the AD&D 2nd edition Arcane also known as Mercanes that can be encountered anywhere and have some magic items available for sales or trade. Arcane (race) | Forgotten Realms Wiki | Fandom
With D&D 5E's move away from Magic Shops and normal items having a relatively low costs. What exactly does your groups spend their gold on? Do you have them spend it during campaigns on campaign related things?
I know you can add magic shops, but while I have allowed that. I started using 5emagic.shop to generate a shop quickly, but I actually much prefer they earn the items in the course of playing. I do like that the costs at the generated shops are very high which means they normally need to just find the items during session play.
Anyhow, what exactly do you spend your hordes of gold on?
In which edition were formal magic shops actual RAW? Portrayals in games or isolated incidences in specific modules do not count.
I thought they were raw in 4e, though I might be mis-remembering. Of course in 4e, there were assumptions in the math that you would have a+1 item in each slot by a certain level, and the shops were there so players could fill in any gaps. I didn’t play 4e like that personally, but I know that was the math assumption, and I’m pretty sure it was kind of the shop assumption. I never liked them, for the reason above about why they don’t make much sense, but I think their existence was assumed.
And to the OP, this edition doesn’t really do a great job of giving the characters much to spend their money on, so it comes down to DM and player creativity. Someone above mentioned starting a guild, which is a great example. Others are some other kind of stronghold, a business, buying their way into the nobility, there’s some 3rd party support for this, but not a lot in terms of official rules. There’s some but not much. PCs could always just be saving it for retirement.
*Your world* is what you make it so making a declarative statement about the status of the world is a bit presumptuous since everyone's world can differ. As for the commonality of magic items. They aren't made on a factory floor, but by highly trained creatures capable of making them who are generally pretty rare themselves. That in itself would make basically any magic item uncommon at absolute best.
The more powerful the item, the more powerful it's creator must be and therefore far more rare and therefore their crafted items are even far more rare.
If you notice, even pawn shows rarely sell truly rare items. (Pawn Stars is a TV show) Most super rare collectible type items get sold at auction. Not in some shop.
But again. Each of our worlds are our own. You can have magic items pop out of a Pez dispenser if you like. lol
You are assuming that enough of these (as you describe them) incredibly rare items can be found in any one area to sustain a shop. Remember, the shop does not merely need inventory but needs sustainable inventory.
A magic shop doesn't necessarily (and is actually unlikely to) sell only magical items. They probably sell magic-adjacent stuff too (spell components, inks and paper, etc) and may offer some expertise and craft low-level items, like potions, on demand. Aside from that they might also sell rarities in general.
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I am saving up for a Stronghold using Matt Coleville's rules for Strongholds and Followers.
I am buying luxury items and an heirling or two to look after my stuff. I purchase top quality clothing and have the jewels we discover made into jewelry or added as ornaments to my weapons. I buy small things for the local townsfolk and trade for information. I buy spices, which I trade on the trail for information. Sometimes, I just buy food and spices and give them away to locals. I purchase sturdy clothes and give them to the kids in the poorer section of town. I buy gifts for the nobility when I come for a visit. I purchase small wooden flutes and give them to children after I teach them some of the basics of how to play.
And I often still can't spend it all, because although it sounds like I spend money left and right, most of it is an investment that is repaid 4-10x over.
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As a DM I include magic shops in my game partly because I'm playing with a group of players who expect to find them, and specifically save up money for them.
Still, I try to keep them from being just a "win the game" store. They're only located in large cities, they have a limited inventory, and I've got a sort of personal rule that each shop has one magic item of Rare value, and the rest are common and uncommon. I also play with a DM who includes magic shops, but she doesn't really pre-build inventories for each one... rather, when we get to a shop we basically just ask if we can purchase a specific item, and then she decides if the request is reasonable, and if it's reasonable she basically just rolls a luck check to see if it's available at that shop. I'm not sure where she gets her prices from, though... I personally just use the Sane Pricing Guide (or whatever it's called).
Honestly, though, I'm pretty generous with magic items in my game in general. I like giving out magic items, and I like homebrewing them as well. I usually aim more for stuff that's really useful tactically, but isn't just a straight damage boost. Like... for my Ranger they've really wanted a set of Bracers of Archery, but they're already a half-elf archer with the Archery fighting style plus both Sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy, and I don't need them to trivialize my fights even more (btw, be careful about letting your players take a feat at level 1 and letting them roll for stats.) What I did instead was give them a bowstring that can grant advantage on one attack roll per day, but also recharges any time they roll a natural 1 to attack.
A magic shop doesn't necessarily (and is actually unlikely to) sell only magical items. They probably sell magic-adjacent stuff too (spell components, inks and paper, etc) and may offer some expertise and craft low-level items, like potions, on demand. Aside from that they might also sell rarities in general.
I ended up with something like that scenario. In my current homebrew world, true "magic shops" only exist in the largest cities. In smaller towns, at best you might be able to find a 'magic-adjacent' shop (apothecary, pawn shop, something along those lines) that occasionally gets in actual magic items or trades in a specific kind of item such as potions.
My current party is in a large crossroads kind of town and are poking around the edges of a rumor that a jeweler has been known to enchant rings and such for people, even though he's not any sort of known arcane practitioner.
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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)
I myself have no issues with a magic shop, they are a great gold sink for the PC's they will never find the most powerful magic in them but will find the occasional +1 weapon/armor but most often the common magic items such as clothes of mending and whatnot. I mean the PC's live in a magical world and there should be shops selling it in big cities.
I agree with the “in big cities” statement. I consider buying and selling magic items similar to buying and selling Ferraris. Yes, there are Ferrari dealerships, but not many of them. I’ve only ever seen one in person. That’s how rare I consider shops that sell (and buy) magic items other than healing potions.
Besides the 5e mechanic really does suggest that magic items aren't really all that rare at all. I mean you have classes like the Wizards and Artificers who can make magic items with minimal effort which would suggest that Artificers and Wizards are then so rare they are rarely seen, which again is not what any of the D&D settings suggest at all.
I know DM's sometimes insist that magic items are "exotic and rare" but absolutely nothing about D&D the game or D&D settings suggest any such thing. If anything, most of the time they are at best uncommon.
“Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren’t available for purchase. Common items, such as a potion of healing, can be procured from an alchemist, herbalist, or spellcaster. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf.”
That is a quote from the D&D 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide. One of the Core Rulebooks. Available right here, on this very website. So there IS something about D&D that not only suggests but outright tells you that by default magic items are too rare to be purchased off of a shelf in a store.
The reason DMs “sometimes insist” that magic items are exotic and rare is because we read the rulebooks.
As for Wizards and Artificers, they cannot “easily” create magic items according to the actual rules. Artificers are highly limited in the number of magic items they can create easily via infusions, and other than that have to abide by the same crafting rules as anyone else.
Crafting magic items requires large sums of money, a lot of time investment, and a formula that explains how to create the item in question. Plus, it suggests that you can optionally add exotic materials they need to take from powerful monsters or dangerous locations.
Again, this is all in the DMG, one of the 3 main rulebooks of the game.
With D&D 5E's move away from Magic Shops and normal items having a relatively low costs. What exactly does your groups spend their gold on? Do you have them spend it during campaigns on campaign related things?
I know you can add magic shops, but while I have allowed that. I started using 5emagic.shop to generate a shop quickly, but I actually much prefer they earn the items in the course of playing. I do like that the costs at the generated shops are very high which means they normally need to just find the items during session play.
Anyhow, what exactly do you spend your hordes of gold on?
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I include magic item shops because:
So your magic shops are open bazaars with all items purchasable? Or do you allow select items? (the way the magic shop generator works I linked to above?)
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
A paucity of magic shops is more of an issue for selling than for buying, in my experience. It might be inconvenient for the PCs, but a lot of DMs will allow sussing out ways to get your hands on magical items somehow -not necessarily a shop, but there's also crafters and enchanters and whatnot. It will often involve something of a sidequest in and of itself and probably require a bunch of money, but it can be done if you really want it. Finding a buyer willing to part with a fair chunk of cash for your magical hand-me-downs on the other hand is usually not something a lot of DMs are indulgent about.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I allow magic shops, they have a limited stock sometimes randomly rolled, other times tailored to broad areas the party has been seeking to strengthen, I also ignore the DMG price guide and use my own variation of the sane magic item price guide (I suggest you google it) usually reducing the prices in this guide still makes them significantly higher (a +1 weapon for instance costs 1000 gold).
in addition to the always charge my players daily rates for food board and alcohol while in towns etc even if they do not roleplay it out. I also charge them a subsistence fee for the wilderness instead of making them go and buy rations.
They have magic item components that may need buying, wizards need ink and paper and there are always taxes or levies you can charge them.
I would give the players enough money to meet their needs but not much more.If there are no magic shops/crafters you can either
My players are good at finding their own money sinks. Starting a guild (having to pay for that guildhall), learning new languages, crafting magic items. The latter is one of my personal favorites, as it leads to a good bit of content. They need the money, but also a formula for what they want to craft, and the exotic material. Each of those last two can be an adventure unto itself, like when I sent them into the Shadowfell to get parts of a monster for the creation of their Bags of Holding.
The Xanathar's rules do an alright job at making the magic item economy fit into the conceptual space where magic item shops don't seem to make sense. It's more believable, I feel. Unfortunately it's kind of annoying to waste money failing to find an item, and it gets a little cumbersome, trying to squeeze it into your session. But it does work reasonably well.
In future adventures I'll reevaluate how I do it. I think the idea of crafting items is a powerful one. It would make players feel a lot more invested in their gear, and they're always trying to do it anyway. That would be my starting point. Replace shopping with crafting. Replace treasure with materials. And then scatter those materials all over instead of just in treasure rooms. Let players feel smart for finding and recognizing them. You know?
To the question of what to do with money -- I like when an adventuring problem can be solved with money directly. Example: a dragon won't let you leave its territory without a tribute. A guard will look the other way for a bribe. That sort of thing.
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).
I really don't think this a very good argument as it literally applies to all business. What keeps the characters from killing an entire town and taking anything they want? What ever that is, also keeps them from killing everyone and taking the magic items.
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I allow magic shop in my campaigns in very big cities and not all existing magic items are necessarily available for sale or trade, some mght not be available, others could require time to be be researched .
I also use wandering magic item merchants, such as the AD&D 2nd edition Arcane also known as Mercanes that can be encountered anywhere and have some magic items available for sales or trade. Arcane (race) | Forgotten Realms Wiki | Fandom
I thought they were raw in 4e, though I might be mis-remembering. Of course in 4e, there were assumptions in the math that you would have a+1 item in each slot by a certain level, and the shops were there so players could fill in any gaps. I didn’t play 4e like that personally, but I know that was the math assumption, and I’m pretty sure it was kind of the shop assumption. I never liked them, for the reason above about why they don’t make much sense, but I think their existence was assumed.
And to the OP, this edition doesn’t really do a great job of giving the characters much to spend their money on, so it comes down to DM and player creativity. Someone above mentioned starting a guild, which is a great example. Others are some other kind of stronghold, a business, buying their way into the nobility, there’s some 3rd party support for this, but not a lot in terms of official rules. There’s some but not much. PCs could always just be saving it for retirement.
*Your world* is what you make it so making a declarative statement about the status of the world is a bit presumptuous since everyone's world can differ. As for the commonality of magic items. They aren't made on a factory floor, but by highly trained creatures capable of making them who are generally pretty rare themselves. That in itself would make basically any magic item uncommon at absolute best.
The more powerful the item, the more powerful it's creator must be and therefore far more rare and therefore their crafted items are even far more rare.
If you notice, even pawn shows rarely sell truly rare items. (Pawn Stars is a TV show) Most super rare collectible type items get sold at auction. Not in some shop.
But again. Each of our worlds are our own. You can have magic items pop out of a Pez dispenser if you like. lol
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
A magic shop doesn't necessarily (and is actually unlikely to) sell only magical items. They probably sell magic-adjacent stuff too (spell components, inks and paper, etc) and may offer some expertise and craft low-level items, like potions, on demand. Aside from that they might also sell rarities in general.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I am saving up for a Stronghold using Matt Coleville's rules for Strongholds and Followers.
I am buying luxury items and an heirling or two to look after my stuff. I purchase top quality clothing and have the jewels we discover made into jewelry or added as ornaments to my weapons. I buy small things for the local townsfolk and trade for information. I buy spices, which I trade on the trail for information. Sometimes, I just buy food and spices and give them away to locals. I purchase sturdy clothes and give them to the kids in the poorer section of town. I buy gifts for the nobility when I come for a visit. I purchase small wooden flutes and give them to children after I teach them some of the basics of how to play.
And I often still can't spend it all, because although it sounds like I spend money left and right, most of it is an investment that is repaid 4-10x over.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
As a DM I include magic shops in my game partly because I'm playing with a group of players who expect to find them, and specifically save up money for them.
Still, I try to keep them from being just a "win the game" store. They're only located in large cities, they have a limited inventory, and I've got a sort of personal rule that each shop has one magic item of Rare value, and the rest are common and uncommon. I also play with a DM who includes magic shops, but she doesn't really pre-build inventories for each one... rather, when we get to a shop we basically just ask if we can purchase a specific item, and then she decides if the request is reasonable, and if it's reasonable she basically just rolls a luck check to see if it's available at that shop. I'm not sure where she gets her prices from, though... I personally just use the Sane Pricing Guide (or whatever it's called).
Honestly, though, I'm pretty generous with magic items in my game in general. I like giving out magic items, and I like homebrewing them as well. I usually aim more for stuff that's really useful tactically, but isn't just a straight damage boost. Like... for my Ranger they've really wanted a set of Bracers of Archery, but they're already a half-elf archer with the Archery fighting style plus both Sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy, and I don't need them to trivialize my fights even more (btw, be careful about letting your players take a feat at level 1 and letting them roll for stats.) What I did instead was give them a bowstring that can grant advantage on one attack roll per day, but also recharges any time they roll a natural 1 to attack.
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I ended up with something like that scenario. In my current homebrew world, true "magic shops" only exist in the largest cities. In smaller towns, at best you might be able to find a 'magic-adjacent' shop (apothecary, pawn shop, something along those lines) that occasionally gets in actual magic items or trades in a specific kind of item such as potions.
My current party is in a large crossroads kind of town and are poking around the edges of a rumor that a jeweler has been known to enchant rings and such for people, even though he's not any sort of known arcane practitioner.
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)
I myself have no issues with a magic shop, they are a great gold sink for the PC's they will never find the most powerful magic in them but will find the occasional +1 weapon/armor but most often the common magic items such as clothes of mending and whatnot. I mean the PC's live in a magical world and there should be shops selling it in big cities.
I agree with the “in big cities” statement. I consider buying and selling magic items similar to buying and selling Ferraris. Yes, there are Ferrari dealerships, but not many of them. I’ve only ever seen one in person. That’s how rare I consider shops that sell (and buy) magic items other than healing potions.
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“Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren’t available for purchase. Common items, such as a potion of healing, can be procured from an alchemist, herbalist, or spellcaster. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf.”
That is a quote from the D&D 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide. One of the Core Rulebooks. Available right here, on this very website. So there IS something about D&D that not only suggests but outright tells you that by default magic items are too rare to be purchased off of a shelf in a store.
The reason DMs “sometimes insist” that magic items are exotic and rare is because we read the rulebooks.
As for Wizards and Artificers, they cannot “easily” create magic items according to the actual rules. Artificers are highly limited in the number of magic items they can create easily via infusions, and other than that have to abide by the same crafting rules as anyone else.
Crafting magic items requires large sums of money, a lot of time investment, and a formula that explains how to create the item in question. Plus, it suggests that you can optionally add exotic materials they need to take from powerful monsters or dangerous locations.
Again, this is all in the DMG, one of the 3 main rulebooks of the game.