Quote from: EOTB;1141970All I care about is a set of possibles and constraints that challenges 4-6 players.  I'm not particularly concerned with how well that supports the ability to use the world as a fantasy platform as an object independent of play/action at the table.  I'm unabashedly gamist.

That is all well and good inside the Dungeon.

Quote from: EOTB;1142000Rob, come now.  We were both present during the 1E phase of the hobby and read the same materials.

And some people disagreed with the conclusions of what passed for a consensus reading back then and went their own way based on their own interpretations of the rules and desires for a campaign world.

If one size fits all was the goal they never would have released different settings with different levels of magic and gonzo-ness to them.

I didn't enjoy "One True Wayists" then and I have even less tolerance for them now. I'm glad you have something that works for you. Others have different preferences and desires for coherent settings where things hang together better than the settings of early 2000's distopian YA novels.

Quote from: EOTB;1142000Rob, come now.  We were both present during the 1E phase of the hobby and read the same materials.  You know as well as I do that "magic shops" were quickly raised up in the periodicals and discussion areas of the day as something to be discouraged; that the inclusion of sale prices was not intended to turn the acquisition of magic items into a shopping trip for players; and that the acquisition of magic items through traditional adventuring was stated as the presumption in the writing.

Yes I was there, and like minis versus no minis, levels are specials versus no levels, there was no "consensus" around magic shop vs no magic shops.

In the DMG page 116

QuoteIt is an obvious premise of the game that magic items are made somewhere by someone or something. A properly run campaign will be relatively
stringent with respect to the number of available magic items, so your players will sooner or later express a desire to manufacture their own.

You are choosing to focus on

QuoteA properly run campaign will be relatively stringent with respect to the number of available magic items

As I am choosing to focus on

Quoteso your players will sooner or later express a desire to manufacture their own

along with this further down

QuoteThis still leaves an incredible range of magic items which player characters can aspire to manufacture.

To support your position we have this which you focused on page 120

QuoteThis random determination table needs no explanation. Because of its weighting, and the weighting of the MAGIC ITEMS table, most treasures will have magic potions, scrolls, armor and weapons. This is carefully planned so as to prevent imbalance in the game. Keep potent magic items rare. (Increase scarcity by destroying or stealing what is found!)

I in turn focused on this from page 121.

QuoteThe suggested experience point (x.p.) values are for characters who keep the items. Gold piece sale values are the usual sums which characters will be paid for magic items, and if so sold, the x.p. award should be based on the selling price of the items, not the x.p. value. Also remember that a character is assumed to retain an item, thus getting the low x.p. value for it, if he or she sells it to another player character. (See EXPERIENCE.)

QuoteThis isn't year zero, and I shouldn't have to go look up citations for this.  I might understand if it was some 18 year-old looking at all of this for the first time, but with you I expect a little difference.

Yes it isn't year zero, and now we have a fuller account what people did back in the day and why they did it. You cite Gygax, and I point to Bledsaw Senior. Sure Gygax was the author, but if it was setup to be run in such a specific way, why did so many of us figured it was OK to run it that way. Only to find out later in a Dragon article that we were going about it wrong?

I think Gygax didn't design AD&D to be as rigid as you make it out to be. Sure that how he ran his campaign, but he was smart enough know about Bledsaw and Judges Guild. About other styles of play that were not extremes but variations on the tools OD&D had. So he made sure that to maximize the appeal of AD&D that some, but not all, of that was retained. Fine if you are going to sell magic items here are some prices.

I'm not a big fan of 'The Magic Store' in towns.  Why bother adventuring when knocking over the store will probably be more profitable.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1141866… I was reinforcing the statement that I don't play in games where +1 swords are so common you'd expect to find more than one the entire length of the game; that such items are *that rare*…When I have used monsters like that in games before, usually the party must retrieve one specific magical item in order to have any hope of beating the creature. Having any old "junk" magic item simply will not do. When said monster is dispatched, the magical item is likely nothing special anymore beyond being a curio - its magic having been spent or rendered dormant…

I apply a similar style as well.  The magical item exists to serve its purpose for the thematic requirements of the adventure.  Something like the mythical Glaive in the film Krull, where it has a sole purpose for it to exist (plus its so cool!  Heh).  

If a +1 sword is boring, one can always go with the sentient rules and add personality to it, where it helps propel the adventurers cause in the narrative, or conversely, betrays them at the most inopportune time.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that the earlier editions of D&D made it easier to do this, where 3e onwards, it was almost expected the players would be carrying magic items for game balance.  It does feel in 5e and the like, magical items are almost expected to be accrued in every adventure and pretty common.  To be fair, I think a lot of the older 1e modules were too liberal with their magic items and I would remove them accordingly, unless they had a specific purpose in mind.

Quote from: S'mon;1141928In old-school D&D (like the FR game I'm running currently) PCs don't just go around in a group of 4 PCs, there are typically half a dozen NPC henchmen & such along too. Giving your henchman a magic sword is a great way to keep his loyalty! Plus it improves your own survival prospects.

Yea, if going with the magical items are more common, nothing makes a hireling more happy than a magical item bestowed to them.  Think of it as gaining the ability to have multiple strikes as a fighter at low level.
Everyone always forgets to tip the help.  Heh

I never said there was a consensus among the audience to anything stated by Gygax/TSR

I never said there was one true way to play

I didn't "focus on pg 120"

I didn't predicate my opinion on game references at all

I said "neutral" was a wishful and misleading adjective

I said I, me, EOTB, reject magic ships for the same reasons they were discouraged back in the day, which have borne out as valid for what I want out of the game - which is the adventuring to which finding magic items is traditionally a reward of

I said, in a secondary discussion, that direct world-building using AD&D rules as logic will always produce non sequiturs; that these NS are a tip off that the world/game wasn't built out of the rules like an equation, but that rules were ad hoc, addressing specific immediate objectives; and that at my table I respond to consistency arguments by grounding those rules not in their consistency but in my DM say-so


And all of my thoughts stand as originally stated (but not as paraphrased by others).  Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1142021Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that the earlier editions of D&D made it easier to do this, where 3e onwards, it was almost expected the players would be carrying magic items for game balance.  It does feel in 5e and the like, magical items are almost expected to be accrued in every adventure and pretty common.  

Items are actually far less common in standard 5e* than in 1e.  I think they're less common in 5e than in BX-BECMI, which tended to be a lot more magic-sparse than 1e IME (mostly due to how NPC magic items are generated in 1e). 3e & 4e are magic-soaked though. But I run my level 20 5e game using Pathfinder materials, leave in most of the items, and it works ok.

*My level 12 5e Princes of the Apocalypse group have no magic armour & almost no money, though they have some magic weapons. Recently the melee Fighter dragonborn was delighted when I let him don the plate armour from a dead Air Elemental Myrmidon - he'd spent the last 11 levels in his starting AC 16 chainmail!

Quote from: S'mon;1142074*My level 12 5e Princes of the Apocalypse group have no magic armour & almost no money, though they have some magic weapons. Recently the melee Fighter dragonborn was delighted when I let him don the plate armour from a dead Air Elemental Myrmidon - he'd spent the last 11 levels in his starting AC 16 chainmail!

They should have invested in a crowbar.  Solves most money issues.

Good discussion, guys, thanks! (And by all means keep it going!) And special thanks to estar for your tables. I likely won't be using them as-is but they are an excellent starting point for my own.

Personally, I've come to the decision that magic items will be sold in my world, but there are no magic item shops and definitely no magic item supermarkets - I've always hated them, even in 3.X where some of my previous DMs liked to include them - but instead they are sold by curio shops, pawn shops, alchemists and the like that are few and far between and possibly hard to find. Even then, the items for sale will mostly be potions, low-level scrolls and other relatively weak items. The good stuff the PCs have to quest for, either directly or to find some components or whatever so that someone can craft it for them.

Also, I suppose they can craft their own stuff eventually, but they're so low-level and poor now that I won't have to worry about it for a long time yet.

Thanks also for bringing up the GP values in the 1e DMG. I haven't read the book much (I know, I know; it's on my list of things to do) since I don't run 1e, but now I know and can and will use it as a reference.

Quote from: Shasarak;1142084They should have invested in a crowbar.  Solves most money issues.

I don't see how - there just isn't much money in the campaign area of the adventure. The PCs spend all their time fighting dirt poor evil cultists.

I came up with this today for crafting items in my 1e AD&D/OSRIC Forgotten Realms game. It can be used as a guide to what NPC wizards might be able to make, or what might be buyable in a city (setting a level/XP cap per city, then rolling on items tables). I like using the 1e DMG XP values as a limiter, you get some interesting effects like magic daggers being quite powerful for their rarity. NPC references are IMC - I halve official listed FR NPC levels.

Magic User Arcane Crafting
Level 4 - create potion (with alchemist)
Level 6 - create scroll
Level 7 - create potion (no alchemist)
Level 9 - enchant minor magic item via item crafting
Level 12 - create major item via 'Enchant Item' spell.
Level 16 - create major permanent item via 'Permanency' spell.

Magic Item Crafting
Wands must be crafted with at least 20 charges (& meet spell prereqs)
Staffs must be crafted with at least 30 charges (& meet spell prereqs)
Level 9: Item of up to 250 XPV (eg +1/+2 dagger, +2/+3 dagger, magic ammunition, +1 shield)
Level 10: Item of up to 500 XPV (eg +1 sword, +1 spear, +2 shield, +1 leather)
Level 11: Item of up to 1000 XPV (eg +2 sword, +3 shield, +1 platemail, bracers of defence AC - eg Emelyn the Gray
Items of over 1000 XPV require the 'Enchant Item' spell (plus any spell prereqs)
Level 12: Item of up to 1500 XPV (eg +3 sword, +4 shield, bracers of defence AC 7)
Level 13: Item of up to 2000 XPV (eg +4 sword, +5 shield, +2 platemail, bracers of defence AC 6) - eg Elminster, Khelben Arunsen, Larloch
Level 14: Item of up to 2500 XPV (eg hammer of thunderbolts, bracers of defence AC 5) - eg The Simbul
Level 15: Item of up to 3000 XPV (eg +5 sword, +3 platemail, bracers of defence AC 4) - eg Halaster Blackcloak
Permanent items of XPV over 3000 require the 'Permanency' spell (plus any spell prereqs)
Level 16: Item of up to 3500 XPV (eg +4 platemail, bracers of defence AC 3).
Level 17: Item of up to 4000 XPV (eg +5 defender sword, bracers of defence AC 2)
Level 18: Item of up to 4500 XPV (eg +5 platemail)
Level 19: Item of up to 5000 XPV (eg Plate Mail of Etherealness)
Level 20: Item of up to 6000 XPV (eg Robe of the Archmagi)
Level 21: Item of up to 7000 XPV (eg Drums of Panic)
Level 22: Item of up to 9000 XPV (eg Tome of Understanding, Book of Infinite Spells)
Level 23: Item of up to 12000 XPV (eg Vorpal Sword, Staff of Power, Rod of Resurrection)
Level 24: Item of up to 15000 XPV (eg Staff of the Magi) - eg Karsus

Quote from: MorblotSo... Do you allow your PCs to buy magic items? If you do, how do you price them? Do you have magic item supermarkets where everything can be found or are traders of magic items few and far between? Do you only allow certain magic items to be bought, such as potions or scrolls?

Generally, no buying of magic items... but you might be able to pay the local cleric a ton of coin for a single healing or cure poison potion every month (once a week at most). In a very big city, like the biggest city in the realm, there might be an antiquities dealer that secretly sells/buys the one-off magic item or two (not a regular selection though!). Perhaps a king or powerful sorcerer might buy one from you or be willing to trade items. And it's not that I'm stingy on magic treasure or anything - it's that I think having it for sale makes it less cool, less fun to find out in the wilds. YMMV.

Quote from: Chainsaw;1142231Generally, no buying of magic items... but you might be able to pay the local cleric a ton of coin for a single healing or cure poison potion every month (once a week at most).

My big complaint on making the potions so unavailable in earlier editions is that in my experience it led to the very unfun "who's going to play the cleric?" because magic is the only thing in those editions that can prevent weeks to months of bedrest to regain lost hit points and survive many poisons and diseases.

That (i.e. needing a pagan priest whose powers were dependent on proselytizing the party) was probably the single biggest thing that caused the groups I was in to abandon D&D until 4E and 5e with its explicitly non-divine healers (the 3.5e bard eventually got enough tools via WotC splats to be a functional replacement, but only if you allowed the non-core material... it also requires allowing them to buy wands of healing for roughly list prices).

Potions on the other hand don't have any religious connotations and also don't require someone to play something they really don't enjoy... plus it's a good way to suck excess money out of campaign via continuing expenses. Make those potions not worth the price means many people won't even bother (how many hirelings you can throw out as meat shields could you get for what you're paying for "regain 1d8 hp one time"?).

Frankly, 4E is bar none the best system for allowing you to completely skip magic items (even potions); you either flip the inherent bonuses switch or just treat the PCs as 20% lower in level (i.e. treat a level 10 as a level when considering what PC's can handle and you don't need any items at all.

A lot of it has already been gone over, but I'll put in my $0.02.

I figure that magic items are often "priceless" in the same way that people say that various artwork in "priceless", but is still sold in auctions and through various art dealers. They're not something that's in the price range of Joe Schmoe foot soldier, but not something that is super rare amongst knights (often as heirlooms) and semi-common amongst adventurers.

As to the monsters immune to non-magic attacks (though I will point out - the aforementioned wight could be taken out with sufficient holy water) I always figured that immunity (and later DR) was partially a worldbuilding factor to make sure that low-tier adventurers were always in demand, as opposed to a militia with few dozen longbows being more effective and much cheaper.

Quote from: Chris24601;1142234That (i.e. needing a pagan priest whose powers were dependent on proselytizing the party) was probably the single biggest thing that caused the groups I was in to abandon D&D until 4E and 5e with its explicitly non-divine healers (the 3.5e bard eventually got enough tools via WotC splats to be a functional replacement, but only if you allowed the non-core material... it also requires allowing them to buy wands of healing for roughly list prices).

I'm sorry, what? Since when have clerics been required to do that in exchange for healing?

In any case...

Obviously, a lot of it depends on the campaign world. A high magic world will make it easier to buy (and sell) gear, but it won't be worth as much. In low magic, even a magical sword +1 will command top dollar (particularly in any campaign where you're facing critters with 'needs +1 or better weapon to hit' or 'damage reduction 10/magic').

That being said, expendable low-level items like potions and scrolls shouldn't be too hard to purchase.

Quote from: Chris24601;1142234My big complaint on making the potions so unavailable in earlier editions is that in my experience it led to the very unfun "who's going to play the cleric?" because magic is the only thing in those editions that can prevent weeks to months of bedrest to regain lost hit points and survive many poisons and diseases.

Well, the hard part of answering any of these types of questions to every reader's satisfaction is that we all tend to have a mix of house rules and standards that complement our answer, not to mention we're not all even using the same base "OSR" game. For example, in my games, I tend to have lots of potions as treasure (as I said, not stingy on magic treasure). I also include buyable non-magical healing salves and poultices. I have also been playing AS&SH where every class can recover its a HD of HP each night.