I share Matt Colville's view on magic items. They are cool to have, to find and to use. I have never considered NOT including them in my campaign.
That's not really what the player's complaint is about though. There was never any contention that the DM wasn't going to include magic items. The question was how freely available should they be in the shops of small towns? The canon answer appears to be "not very freely, if at all." The player complaining has, as his or her main argument, "that's not how Matt Mercer does it." This is not a valid argument.
Magic items are very cool to find and use. Let's emphasize that last part: find and use. Find -- not buy. If you can just buy whatever you want, that may make your stats go up the most efficiently, but it doesn't tie in at all with the adventure. Compare with finding a maybe not stats-perfect item but one that turns out to be awesome in an unexpected way, and the player then falls in love with it because it was unexpectedly awesome.
No one here is contending that there should be no magic items. But some of us are saying that the DM, having made the determination to follow the printed advice in the very adventure book they are using, and not make many items available for sale in the town, should stick to their guns. It's a valid choice, and the player shouldn't be allowed to override the DM in this regard. Especially not because "it's not how Matt Mercer does it."
I have nothing against Mercer -- he's a fine DM. But he has a totally different setting and is attempting to achieve specific things with his campaign that are not necessarily compatible with Rime.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I share Matt Colville's view on magic items. They are cool to have, to find and to use. I have never considered NOT including them in my campaign.
That's not really what the player's complaint is about though. There was never any contention that the DM wasn't going to include magic items. The question was how freely available should they be in the shops of small towns? The canon answer appears to be "not very freely, if at all." The player complaining has, as his or her main argument, "that's not how Matt Mercer does it." This is not a valid argument.
Magic items are very cool to find and use. Let's emphasize that last part: find and use. Find -- not buy. If you can just buy whatever you want, that may make your stats go up the most efficiently, but it doesn't tie in at all with the adventure. Compare with finding a maybe not stats-perfect item but one that turns out to be awesome in an unexpected way, and the player then falls in love with it because it was unexpectedly awesome.
No one here is contending that there should be no magic items. But some of us are saying that the DM, having made the determination to follow the printed advice in the very adventure book they are using, and not make many items available for sale in the town, should stick to their guns. It's a valid choice, and the player shouldn't be allowed to override the DM in this regard. Especially not because "it's not how Matt Mercer does it."
I have nothing against Mercer -- he's a fine DM. But he has a totally different setting and is attempting to achieve specific things with his campaign that are not necessarily compatible with Rime.
Totally agree, my position about finding items and consequently selling/buying them was mostly to clarify my overall view on the matter and perhaps give some perspective that IF the OP wants to introduce magic items in their campaign later, that's how I would do it (only in larger cities, limited stock etc.).
My previous post had the stipulation that Ten Towns is a poor place to find MI but I have since rewrote it and that passage went away by mistake.
I do not believe in magic shops. Even common items would not be for sale, people would cherish them. I think a player should earn is magic item from beating a monster or enemy. I am definatley old school and like magic items. But if the player gets a feeling of accomplishment when getting it, he will have a better experience of gaming for it. To just walk into a shop and lay some gold down, not as memorable. When an NPC in a bar asks where did you get that awesome sword, he will have a tale to tell, thus building on his notoriety throughout the land.
So place some magic items in the encounters. Home brew some items if you feel you need to. Give a limited use 1/day, 3/day, or mimi fireballs maybe 3D6. Find the balance. Good luck.
I do not believe in magic shops. Even common items would not be for sale, people would cherish them. I think a player should earn is magic item from beating a monster or enemy. I am definatley old school and like magic items. But if the player gets a feeling of accomplishment when getting it, he will have a better experience of gaming for it. To just walk into a shop and lay some gold down, not as memorable. When an NPC in a bar asks where did you get that awesome sword, he will have a tale to tell, thus building on his notoriety throughout the land.
So place some magic items in the encounters. Home brew some items if you feel you need to. Give a limited use 1/day, 3/day, or mimi fireballs maybe 3D6. Find the balance. Good luck.
Yeah, but that’s why you don’t sell a badass awesome sword in a magic shoppe. You sell a pole of collapsing and a rope of mending at a magic shoppe, and maybe some potions and scrolls. Those are the things that, with some fun RP, can turn a bit of shopping into a memorable experience.
There is nothing wrong with a store selling a Badass Awesome Sword, so long as it's definitively outside of the party's wealth bracket. It's "for sale", but not actually purchasable. They only way to get it would be engaging with the story, if at all.
I do not believe in magic shops. Even common items would not be for sale, people would cherish them. I think a player should earn is magic item from beating a monster or enemy. I am definatley old school and like magic items. But if the player gets a feeling of accomplishment when getting it, he will have a better experience of gaming for it. To just walk into a shop and lay some gold down, not as memorable. When an NPC in a bar asks where did you get that awesome sword, he will have a tale to tell, thus building on his notoriety throughout the land.
So place some magic items in the encounters. Home brew some items if you feel you need to. Give a limited use 1/day, 3/day, or mimi fireballs maybe 3D6. Find the balance. Good luck.
Yeah, but that’s why you don’t sell a badass awesome sword in a magic shoppe. You sell a pole of collapsing and a rope of mending at a magic shoppe, and maybe some potions and scrolls. Those are the things that, with some fun RP, can turn a bit of shopping into a memorable experience.
No you find a pole of collapsing on the body of a rogue who was in a party trying to kill you, or a rope of mending tossed in a corner of the lair of the BOSS you just killed. you earn the magic items. to a guy in the bar a +1 long sword would be bad ass. i was not talking Holy Avenger. having an alchemy store is different, potions maybe availble depending on town or city size. scrolls too.
So there is one key thing to remember here- PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS.
They are fun to find and fun to buy. Put them in your adventure. Lots of them.
Wherever I'm running a published adventure, there are two big things I change about it- I make the adventure significantly harder overall, especially the later chapters, by beefing up every encounter/making all traps more deadly/every puzzle more confusing etc etc, BUT make there A LOT more treasure, including magic items, and yes make it so shops sell them regularly.
The part where you said he threw up his hands and said "worthless", I can't help but agree as a DM. Unless you are saving up for plate mail or something, what is there left to buy at level 4? Not much.
So there is one key thing to remember here- PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS.
They are fun to find and fun to buy. Put them in your adventure. Lots of them.
There are two different philosophies about this... Yours is one. It's also called the "Monty Hall" method. Put tons of treasure in the adventure because players like treasure. Esp. magic.
However, the other philosophy argues that as much as they like the treasure, if you put too much of it in, if you inundate the players with it, the treasure will no longer be special. If everyone is walking around with +2 items for all their inventory slots, what does another +2 item matter?
I hold with the 2nd view -- that PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS quite literally because the items are rare, cool, and special. Make them "run of the mill" and players will not like them so much anymore. They might demand them, consider them "necessary" because that's all they know. But the items won't be special anymore.
I think a more accurate formulation might be that players like special items -- items no one else but their character has. If everyone is walking around glittering like Christmas trees with magic items, they'll find something else "special" to want instead.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
So there is one key thing to remember here- PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS.
They are fun to find and fun to buy. Put them in your adventure. Lots of them.
There are two different philosophies about this... Yours is one. It's also called the "Monty Hall" method. Put tons of treasure in the adventure because players like treasure. Esp. magic.
However, the other philosophy argues that as much as they like the treasure, if you put too much of it in, if you inundate the players with it, the treasure will no longer be special. If everyone is walking around with +2 items for all their inventory slots, what does another +2 item matter?
I hold with the 2nd view -- that PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS quite literally because the items are rare, cool, and special. Make them "run of the mill" and players will not like them so much anymore. They might demand them, consider them "necessary" because that's all they know. But the items won't be special anymore.
I think a more accurate formulation might be that players like special items -- items no one else but their character has. If everyone is walking around glittering like Christmas trees with magic items, they'll find something else "special" to want instead.
Sure. And just to be clear there is a ton of gray area between these 2 philosophies where the bulk of DMs would fall.
I think at the end of the day the important thing to remember is to plan out what your treasure hoards look like. Roughly how many items and gold is the party going to find on average, over the course of a levels worth of adventuring.
My personal philosophy is the “full fitted” model. So in 5e players can attune to up to 3 magic items at a time, and I can plan so that they will be on average attuned to that many uncommon (green) quality items by level 5, so they are finding on average about 2-3 items per level assuming a “standard” 4 person party, and will find enough gold to buy 1-2 more on average. Not all items require attunment, and that is fine, that’s what the item buying buffer is there for.
Now, at level 6 all of the sudden they are finding rares (blues) for the next 5 levels, then very rares, and finally legendaries. The idea and process is the same though. By the time the campaign climaxes at level 20, the players should be more or less fully fitted with legendary items.
You could be more stingy, or go the other way and over saturate them with items so they get their pick of the litter. To each DM their own.
In this particular situation, not finding any items by level 4 is just a joke. I personally would never run a game like that.
Having magic shop in a world is always difficult. Why pay when you can rob? But some common magic items could be found. no cups of always hot chocolate but others. Or you could do limited use magic items. +1 sword good for one combat a day.
Anyone who professionally keeps, makes, trades, or sells magic items can reasonably be assumed to have an over or covert ability to protect themself. Maybe they are a retired adventurer, have a patron, or all of the items on display are just replicas, so that the real magic items are hidden elsewhere.
Or perhaps the vendor is an artificer who needs to "activate" the magic after purchase.
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this, you have to decide what suits you as DM and your players.
Rime of the Frost maiden doesn't say they are super rare, it says they are only going to find common items not nothing at all, that suggests that you as DM decided to seed a few common items not that the players are going to find the common items they want. Personally I wouldn't go that far I would put in a few very weak items, consumables like potions.
If you have nothing for sale why are you rewarding players with gold? They have earned items they buy, they earned the gold, 5th is very odd about this and not consistent.
If you want to put in a magic shop go for it, if you don't then give the players items in loot or from NPCs. If you are going to give them nothing and not allow them to buy anything then you need to be very clear up front about this and not be surprised if the players don't want to play that and refuse that adventure, and if you are allowing magic why not magic items? You are going to need to explain that if you want suspension of disbelief.
You real issue though is the players exceptions, you can fairly say you aren't playing Critical Roll, but they also need to realize that their cantrips aren't as impact full because they have a whole spell book of other spells that do a lot more than just damage things, and when they do its more than a melee fighter, spell casters can be the most impact full characters in the game. At low levels a wizard might want scrolls to increase the choices, if you are feeling they need/deserve/etc an item maybe something they can only use a limited number of times a day? I would steer clear of anything that permanently increases their DC or damage out put unless I was give the other characters +1 weapons etc and scaling the encounters, I wouldn't at lv4 but its your call.
Spoilers
I am running HoDQ and if you have run it you will know that there is nothing in it for the players (if they do what the adventure wants and talk to one other enemies) until they have finished, and then they might get the sword off the boss at which point its over unless you plan to run RoT. On top they will accumulate a ton of gold with no way to use it, and pass though two of the biggest cities on the sword coast with nothing more than onto the next road trip. I decided to have them stop in both cities for a few days and give them options including shopping, and I had a few shops with a few magic items, nothing as powerful (or dull) as a +1 sword but things I had made, and one shop owner didn't know what the items did. Three of the players ended up with weapons with side quests to improve them, which wasn't the plan but they seem to like it, we are several sessions later it gave them some role playing and they have learnt a bit more the weapons have become a little more powerful and they have a motivation to investigate more side quests. I then gave them some items for completing a section in a well thought out way and these again are minor items with nothing that powerful, though they "earned" these the one weapon in there is less interesting to them than the ones they bought they haven't tried yet to work out what it does yet, and one is walking around in a mask even though I have hinted it has some penalties and he doesn't know the bonus, because he thinks his character would try to work it out that way and look cool at the same time. I think my point is that magic items can be fun bought or not and don't have to be +1 swords or holy avenger to inspire your players.
It's one thing to not have magic item shops. But currently playing in RotF and we are level four and have basically no magical items. We've found a gray bag of tricks and a lantern of tracking. That's it. It's just not fun or interesting when magic items are so scarce. There are so few ways to improve/advance. Level ups are already lackluster in 5e, but finding items can help fill in that gap a little, add improvements or fun options to gameplay. So now that we are 10 sessions and 4 levels in and still have basically no magic items, I'm getting pretty bored.
what you could do also is have "defective" magical items, for example a item of warning that warns them when they wake up but about bad weather or random lil things but don't tell them the exact thing that is gonna happen and then shuts up until the thing happens and says 'told you so".
The idea isn't from me but from a video that puffin forest made on youtube.
This might seem like a bad move but might make a point that magic items that are in shops aren't of the best quality has they are more or less mass produced.
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That's not really what the player's complaint is about though. There was never any contention that the DM wasn't going to include magic items. The question was how freely available should they be in the shops of small towns? The canon answer appears to be "not very freely, if at all." The player complaining has, as his or her main argument, "that's not how Matt Mercer does it." This is not a valid argument.
Magic items are very cool to find and use. Let's emphasize that last part: find and use. Find -- not buy. If you can just buy whatever you want, that may make your stats go up the most efficiently, but it doesn't tie in at all with the adventure. Compare with finding a maybe not stats-perfect item but one that turns out to be awesome in an unexpected way, and the player then falls in love with it because it was unexpectedly awesome.
No one here is contending that there should be no magic items. But some of us are saying that the DM, having made the determination to follow the printed advice in the very adventure book they are using, and not make many items available for sale in the town, should stick to their guns. It's a valid choice, and the player shouldn't be allowed to override the DM in this regard. Especially not because "it's not how Matt Mercer does it."
I have nothing against Mercer -- he's a fine DM. But he has a totally different setting and is attempting to achieve specific things with his campaign that are not necessarily compatible with Rime.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Totally agree, my position about finding items and consequently selling/buying them was mostly to clarify my overall view on the matter and perhaps give some perspective that IF the OP wants to introduce magic items in their campaign later, that's how I would do it (only in larger cities, limited stock etc.).
My previous post had the stipulation that Ten Towns is a poor place to find MI but I have since rewrote it and that passage went away by mistake.
I do not believe in magic shops. Even common items would not be for sale, people would cherish them. I think a player should earn is magic item from beating a monster or enemy. I am definatley old school and like magic items. But if the player gets a feeling of accomplishment when getting it, he will have a better experience of gaming for it. To just walk into a shop and lay some gold down, not as memorable. When an NPC in a bar asks where did you get that awesome sword, he will have a tale to tell, thus building on his notoriety throughout the land.
So place some magic items in the encounters. Home brew some items if you feel you need to. Give a limited use 1/day, 3/day, or mimi fireballs maybe 3D6. Find the balance. Good luck.
Yeah, but that’s why you don’t sell a badass awesome sword in a magic shoppe. You sell a pole of collapsing and a rope of mending at a magic shoppe, and maybe some potions and scrolls. Those are the things that, with some fun RP, can turn a bit of shopping into a memorable experience.
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There is nothing wrong with a store selling a Badass Awesome Sword, so long as it's definitively outside of the party's wealth bracket. It's "for sale", but not actually purchasable. They only way to get it would be engaging with the story, if at all.
No you find a pole of collapsing on the body of a rogue who was in a party trying to kill you, or a rope of mending tossed in a corner of the lair of the BOSS you just killed. you earn the magic items. to a guy in the bar a +1 long sword would be bad ass. i was not talking Holy Avenger. having an alchemy store is different, potions maybe availble depending on town or city size. scrolls too.
So there is one key thing to remember here- PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS.
They are fun to find and fun to buy. Put them in your adventure. Lots of them.
Wherever I'm running a published adventure, there are two big things I change about it- I make the adventure significantly harder overall, especially the later chapters, by beefing up every encounter/making all traps more deadly/every puzzle more confusing etc etc, BUT make there A LOT more treasure, including magic items, and yes make it so shops sell them regularly.
The part where you said he threw up his hands and said "worthless", I can't help but agree as a DM. Unless you are saving up for plate mail or something, what is there left to buy at level 4? Not much.
There are two different philosophies about this... Yours is one. It's also called the "Monty Hall" method. Put tons of treasure in the adventure because players like treasure. Esp. magic.
However, the other philosophy argues that as much as they like the treasure, if you put too much of it in, if you inundate the players with it, the treasure will no longer be special. If everyone is walking around with +2 items for all their inventory slots, what does another +2 item matter?
I hold with the 2nd view -- that PLAYERS LIKE MAGIC ITEMS quite literally because the items are rare, cool, and special. Make them "run of the mill" and players will not like them so much anymore. They might demand them, consider them "necessary" because that's all they know. But the items won't be special anymore.
I think a more accurate formulation might be that players like special items -- items no one else but their character has. If everyone is walking around glittering like Christmas trees with magic items, they'll find something else "special" to want instead.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
3rd option: Make every magic item cursed by design. More powerful items have worse drawbacks, so that everything is effectively at a neutral balance.
You can get that +2 Sword of Manliness, but it gives a level of exhaustion after every combat, so you'd better only use it if you really need it.
Sure. And just to be clear there is a ton of gray area between these 2 philosophies where the bulk of DMs would fall.
I think at the end of the day the important thing to remember is to plan out what your treasure hoards look like. Roughly how many items and gold is the party going to find on average, over the course of a levels worth of adventuring.
My personal philosophy is the “full fitted” model. So in 5e players can attune to up to 3 magic items at a time, and I can plan so that they will be on average attuned to that many uncommon (green) quality items by level 5, so they are finding on average about 2-3 items per level assuming a “standard” 4 person party, and will find enough gold to buy 1-2 more on average. Not all items require attunment, and that is fine, that’s what the item buying buffer is there for.
Now, at level 6 all of the sudden they are finding rares (blues) for the next 5 levels, then very rares, and finally legendaries. The idea and process is the same though. By the time the campaign climaxes at level 20, the players should be more or less fully fitted with legendary items.
You could be more stingy, or go the other way and over saturate them with items so they get their pick of the litter. To each DM their own.
In this particular situation, not finding any items by level 4 is just a joke. I personally would never run a game like that.
Having magic shop in a world is always difficult. Why pay when you can rob? But some common magic items could be found. no cups of always hot chocolate but others. Or you could do limited use magic items. +1 sword good for one combat a day.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
Anyone who professionally keeps, makes, trades, or sells magic items can reasonably be assumed to have an over or covert ability to protect themself. Maybe they are a retired adventurer, have a patron, or all of the items on display are just replicas, so that the real magic items are hidden elsewhere.
Or perhaps the vendor is an artificer who needs to "activate" the magic after purchase.
Another suggestion, if you consider selling magic items, check Xanathar's. It has guidelines for finding and buying. https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/xgte/downtime-revisited#BuyingaMagicItem
It takes time, money, and luck
Call me Knives.
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this, you have to decide what suits you as DM and your players.
Rime of the Frost maiden doesn't say they are super rare, it says they are only going to find common items not nothing at all, that suggests that you as DM decided to seed a few common items not that the players are going to find the common items they want. Personally I wouldn't go that far I would put in a few very weak items, consumables like potions.
If you have nothing for sale why are you rewarding players with gold? They have earned items they buy, they earned the gold, 5th is very odd about this and not consistent.
If you want to put in a magic shop go for it, if you don't then give the players items in loot or from NPCs. If you are going to give them nothing and not allow them to buy anything then you need to be very clear up front about this and not be surprised if the players don't want to play that and refuse that adventure, and if you are allowing magic why not magic items? You are going to need to explain that if you want suspension of disbelief.
You real issue though is the players exceptions, you can fairly say you aren't playing Critical Roll, but they also need to realize that their cantrips aren't as impact full because they have a whole spell book of other spells that do a lot more than just damage things, and when they do its more than a melee fighter, spell casters can be the most impact full characters in the game. At low levels a wizard might want scrolls to increase the choices, if you are feeling they need/deserve/etc an item maybe something they can only use a limited number of times a day? I would steer clear of anything that permanently increases their DC or damage out put unless I was give the other characters +1 weapons etc and scaling the encounters, I wouldn't at lv4 but its your call.
Spoilers
I am running HoDQ and if you have run it you will know that there is nothing in it for the players (if they do what the adventure wants and talk to one other enemies) until they have finished, and then they might get the sword off the boss at which point its over unless you plan to run RoT. On top they will accumulate a ton of gold with no way to use it, and pass though two of the biggest cities on the sword coast with nothing more than onto the next road trip. I decided to have them stop in both cities for a few days and give them options including shopping, and I had a few shops with a few magic items, nothing as powerful (or dull) as a +1 sword but things I had made, and one shop owner didn't know what the items did. Three of the players ended up with weapons with side quests to improve them, which wasn't the plan but they seem to like it, we are several sessions later it gave them some role playing and they have learnt a bit more the weapons have become a little more powerful and they have a motivation to investigate more side quests. I then gave them some items for completing a section in a well thought out way and these again are minor items with nothing that powerful, though they "earned" these the one weapon in there is less interesting to them than the ones they bought they haven't tried yet to work out what it does yet, and one is walking around in a mask even though I have hinted it has some penalties and he doesn't know the bonus, because he thinks his character would try to work it out that way and look cool at the same time. I think my point is that magic items can be fun bought or not and don't have to be +1 swords or holy avenger to inspire your players.
It's one thing to not have magic item shops. But currently playing in RotF and we are level four and have basically no magical items. We've found a gray bag of tricks and a lantern of tracking. That's it. It's just not fun or interesting when magic items are so scarce. There are so few ways to improve/advance. Level ups are already lackluster in 5e, but finding items can help fill in that gap a little, add improvements or fun options to gameplay. So now that we are 10 sessions and 4 levels in and still have basically no magic items, I'm getting pretty bored.
what you could do also is have "defective" magical items, for example a item of warning that warns them when they wake up but about bad weather or random lil things but don't tell them the exact thing that is gonna happen and then shuts up until the thing happens and says 'told you so".
The idea isn't from me but from a video that puffin forest made on youtube.
This might seem like a bad move but might make a point that magic items that are in shops aren't of the best quality has they are more or less mass produced.