@@Khaons I copy the Guild Rank system from the Runesmiths Guild section for crafting magic items. A Journeyman Rank can create a Common tier item, an Artisan Rank can make a Rare tier item, and so on. Combine that with the crafting materials stuff
@@moquips I see... Is there some kind of guideline you use for deciding those materials? I've read the Angrygm article about princing and crafting magical items and found it pretty interesting, tho this doesn't really solve my main gripe with the dnd magical items is that rarity doesn't classify how strong/useful a magic item is. Like a broom of flying, an uncommon magic item or a potion of invisibility, a legendary magic item. As a gm who likes to be consistent with my pricing, I find this the most dificult part of all.
@@Khaons Ya, the inconsistency of an items rarity vs its power is kinda tricky. I use this as a reference for what makes an item Major of Minor, and that helps, but some items (like the broom of flying) just aren't balanced the same as others. Sometimes you need to just up the rarity of an item for your world rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/139831/is-there-a-proper-way-to-categorize-magic-items-as-minor-or-major-magic-items Edit: also check out The Complete Crafter from GMBinder
Ghosts of Saltmarsh included a merchant who sells magical items, and even tracks down specific items by request, to sell the players at set prices based on rarity.
"You don't want to sell me a Vorpal Sword" "I don't want to sell you a Vorpal Sword" "You want to go home and rethink your life" "I want to go home and rethink my life"
I find this section a bit odd and not in the general spirit of 5th edition, or at least not what 5e typically is perceived as. It seems like 5e tends to favor a fairly high magic epic fantasy style of play, and the rules tend to be pretty straight forward and inviting, but when you get to magic items, suddenly they are super rare and nearly impossible to buy or sell, and crafting them is portrayed in such a way that you really need to be desperate for a particular item to try and make one. I mean, obviously, you shouldn't be able to buy a Holy Avenger at your local general goods store, but this system just makes it more of a hassle than it's worth to try to buy magic items, which also limits what you're going to use your gold for (typically nothing)
Yeah I find that aspect of 5e a little weird. At turn 9 you have wizards flying and shooting fireballs like crazy, but they try to say that FR is overall low magic for some reason.
Easy treasure ruins the shine.If they were truly common armies would be outfitted with them.Try to remember by the time your level 18 your a demigod able to pose a serious threat to a large city.The magic items your done with make excellent bribes for generals and gifts for kings.
It's what early playtesters wanted and, frankly, I'm on their side. It's one thing to have spell casting be widespread. That's still a finite resource. Magical items are either infinite or tend to add to your existing resources in the form of charges. In my games, I don't really like having magical items be something you spend your gold on but instead be something you can quest for specifically or claim from treasure/loot. I can already imagine a fun quest for gaining a cloak of displacement. It allows you to make a +1 weapon, the thing that finally damage werewolf, a bit more special because you can give it a story rather than it being something every member of the town guard ought to have access to.
I don't think you're understanding 5e really. It's very much a "PCs suck and rely on luck to accomplish anything" system. Characters are horribly incompetent compared to previous editions (whether you like 2nd edition, 3rd, pathfinder, or 4th edition). They aren't mechanically much better at 20th level at anything except surviving getting hit by an axe, compared to first level. They've gotten a whopping +4 (on a d20 scale) to their attacks, a handful of skill checks, and two saves. Probably also another +1 or +2 bonus from ability score increases. That's a tiny increase. They're no better at their other saves. A 20th level fighter is _maybe_ 5% more likely to shrug off a hold person spell than a first level fighter (if they use one of their precious attunement slots for a +1 save bonus item). They're marginally better at hitting things, but not significantly. They're not really any better at non-combat things like skills unless they're bards or rogues. Fifth edition PCs pretty much suck at everything, and will for their entire careers. It's all about how well you can roll a d20.
I've been treating magical items like fine art, they can only be bought in special locations, through the proper channels and are often auctioned to the affluent. Magic items that are very rare or legendary will never be available this way, but this allows for the purchase of uncommon items in a somewhat reliable way.
While I like having magic shops in my setting, they usually offer intentionally underpowered or overpriced items (to have a realistic economy). It also depends on the areas, high elven kingdom and magic university faction will have better prices, offering and quality. This in turn leads to some wandering merchants speculating on the difference. I say intentionally underpowered so they either don't overshadow the "dropped" ones or they have to spend the whole gold loot to get one up to par (this way it still feels like like you worked for it but you also get the one that you like)
Heck you could have them sell cursed items that nobody wants too... Or have the magic items be sold at the shops that sell the non-magical versions of that or similar items.... (Such as maybe having a chance of finding magic armor at a shop that buys and sells armor, or a magic sword that might turn up at the used sword shop... or magic items or jewlery occasionally turning up at a pawn shop mixed in among various similar mundane items....)
@@minnion2871 particularly good blacksmiths have the possibility of making +1 weapons if they know rudimentary magic (although rare) or an enchanter. I like the old rusty weapon at the general store that turns out is a +1 after restored High quality magic shop would probably break lesser curses and sell the item, low quality shops might unknowingly sell cursed items tho
They could sell consumable magic items but even they would be 50 gold pieces, that is A FREAKING LOT of gold, that is 1 pound of gold. That is 25’000 US Dollars. A magic shop selling only common magic items would be like a car showroom.
For those looking for an alternative to Sane magical item prices, take a look at "Blackball’s Treasure", it's items pricing is pretty good and it has recommendations for at what level the adventurers could be getting those items without major impacts to the game.
Thank you for breaking it down. I will definitely seek out the Sane Magic Items doc. I understand that WotC was streamlining D&D in 5e and cutting back on magic items was a part of that. I enjoy a good low magic or cast magic only campaign but, feel that high magic campaign settings like FR and Eberron now feel disjointed and cobbled into the current rule set. Could have been executed better IMO. 3.5 Eberron (built entirely on a magic item based culture & economy) was my favorite campaign setting OAT. Eberron lost its special flavor with the 5e stance on magic. The advantages of 5e has made the Edition ubiquitous in my area so I play what others are willing to play. On that note I am currently developing an Eberron campaign storyline in which the Day of Mourning warped the previous (3.5 level) connection to magic such that it more closely matches 5e rules. Already crafted magic is held onto. Previously high power items are now a muted version of their former selves (maybe to be reawakened by a PC). Charged items are losing charge potential and or gaining mishap chance. No more Warforged can be made. Continuous magic requires a power source (e.g. bound elemental, Lightning Rail) High magic requires power input (e.g. X-level spell slot burned to use, etc). That sort of thing. Will help keep the origial flavor of the setting and makes for a more desperate, gritty, post war environment. Rush to recover high magic and research to reverse the Mourning. Interested in input, so feel free to comment.
I do technically use the DMG, however I’m prone to home brewing new mechanics from 3rd party sources or “me brain!” Auction house mechanics I use for players to sell their unused magic items, and I put a magical “salesmen” who will take the parties magical items and give them a different magical item or material for trade. Sometimes the salesmen will be more interest in specific kind of items that the players can discern from encountering them multiple times. However, he never purchases with wealth a magic item it’s a trade of some kind. I originally put this in my game to try my own magic items out and because we are running a massive game encompassing all published D&D modules together. Personally, I understand Wizards mentality on magic items being bought and sold. Though I agree it is common for many DM’s to add their own touch in the game about magical items. As always, great video Ted! Also, hit the nail on the head on that published work comment! Just ran Lost Mines recently and IcePeak and everyone is running around with a lot of magic items!
I like the gochapon system, where the players have a powerful ally that either gives tokens for achievements or sells tokens to roll on a random magic item table. I also like making the table personalized for each character.
For a Wildemount game I'm running, we ended up with an NPC team of 3 echo-fighter halflings (Hickory, Dickory, and Doc - at ye soivice, scavenging for yew foiters on them front loines!) that essentially travel between towns and scavenge requested magic items. You are almost guaranteed to run into one of them or their echo copies at any popular bazaar, and anyone who wants to shop rolls a d6 to see what they've come up with. 6's are a successfully procured item (or a lead if they're too poor), 4's/5's are random magic consumables, and 1's are the item as requested but very obviously cursed. I'm a pretty new DM so criticisms welcome, but it feels like a fun system. Echo copies means there are 6 halflings roaming from town to town (infinite range echo copies are reserved for these NPCs only) Usually they get a shot at SOMETHING in every port/town, and the halflings purchase the party's excess weapons and such to redistribute to the front lines of the war effort.
If you don't have a market for magic items, your party of paladin, wizard, rogue, fighter will find instrument of the bards, two handed axes for your dex warriors, and warlock implements. Nice. Now what. YOU SELL THEM or exchange for useful things. If I find a legendary item that no one in the party can use, and I can't sell it, it's kindling. I mean it's like I've never found it, and the problems of having it means it will go up in flames. Or down a volcano.
My DM got really annoyed because he rolled randomly and gave the sorcerer an Infernal tack right after rolling and giving him a +1 Yklwa. While I, on the other hand, had the dragon queen's crown and the sword of Zariel. He rolled randomly for 5 dragon hordes... I kept getting 100's. He was really really annoyed with my luck that day.
After reading oh-so-many eastern fantasy novels, I am a big fan of having common and uncommon magic items available at specialty or high-end shops while any rarer items are best bought and sold at highly-secured auction houses. This slows the trade in magic items quite a bit or can if the auction house only has sales say once a month or twice a year, introduces a new potential risk if the players try and make a big sale without using the auction house and gives the players a place to try and fail to rob... once. For obvious reasons, this set up works best in settings like Eberron, but I think the auction house idea in general is adaptable to most settings. I am also a fan of being able to break and maybe repair magic items.
At our table we relay a lot on the Sane Magic Item Price. You can apply a coefficient to the price if the availability of magic items isn't the same as the classic 5e setting and you're good to go. Those prices seems most of the time pretty fair. (GM finds it too affordable, players find it too expensive haha) I think it's a very good indication for the GM of how powerfull/usable a magic item can be. Not all GMs play often as a players, so sometimes they don't see an item full potential or they overestimate the value of the loot they prepared. We used that also a lot when we run one shots when a player take the GM role. The main GM can just say "okay you have a quota of 15k gp of loot, pick whatever". It helps balance things a lot.
14:22 you read that wrong. It says tool proficiency OR the Arcana skill, not AND the Arcana skill. So you still can make that magic sword without knowing how to make a regular one...
@@NerdImmersion I prefer to use the Arcana skill only for Spell Scrolls, and lean heavily into the materials for Magic Items plus including the 5 tiered ranking system for "proficiency level" in the tool, taken directly from the Runesmithing section of The Complete Armorer's Handbook
It would be correct imo, think of the 2nd level magic weapon spell for an hour a weapon becomes +1 to +3 depending on the spell slot. You would effective be using the spell to make the effect permanent via imbuing.
Think of it as buying the sword you're enchanting. Now, not needing arcana to do so, a little more odd, but legendary craftsmen making legendary equipment without ever learning magic is a trope that exists
@@NerdImmersion I would work it like this. If your just doing enchanting it can be smithing or Arcana. If your trying to forge something like a flame tongue. You need to use both or hire someone who can help you with it.
The Ghosts of Saltmarsh has a good example of a magic item dealer the characters can access from a fairly early level: Captain Xendros. The section includes pricing for different rarities and direction for DMG magic item tables to determine her stock at a given time, as well as a price to even meet with her. It also has guidance on what she'd offer to purchase items from the players.
I like the idea of an Auction House or similar. You can make a small event out of selling magic items the party doesn't want or need anymore along with a chance to buy new, interesting stuff.
The lack of magic items and magic item shops in 5E is sort of explained in the lore. The Spellplague event and then Second Sundering did a major number on magic in Toril and the planes in general. Ten's of thousands of spellcasters died and certain magic items were destroyed. "Most permanent magic items, such as artifacts, were left intact at the end of the Spellplague but charged magical items were either destroyed, warped, or simply ceased to function. Items with dormant magical qualities, which were manually activated, were largely unaffected by the Spellplague." - Wiki
Everyone I know that runs the game, regardless of whether they started in 3.5 or in 5e will have magic shops in their campaign. It just seems like a logical staple for a fantasy setting with magic.
I think The Discerning Merchant's Price Guide is a lot more helpful - and since it's my Tales of the Yawning Portal party that wants to do the most business, it's nice that the DMPG covers several prewritten adventures.
I feel like in medieval settings any magic items not owned by the characters would be owned by whatever the royalty is because they don't want people to have them who would use the magic items against them and they would only bestow them or sell them to someone they trusted or if they were in dire straits.
Personally, I've loved how it's done in 5e. In 3.5, the players were assumed to be able to get their hands on whatever crazy crap they wanted from any of the 21,398 (slight exaggeration) official books that were released for that edition.
I figure if the items are scattered around the world then there should be some sort of economy around magic items. I like that it kinda suggests you get creative with how those shopes operate
This is one of the things I really liked about 5th ed that they brought back from OLDER editions. I usually do not have magic item shops. It would be rare and have to be worked into the lore or story. So I pretty much agree with how they wrote it in 5th ed. I absolutely HATED how 3.5 watered down magic items so badly that it basically took them out of the hands of the DM and you were expected to buy +this and +that at certain levels.
Disjunction of Magical Item Pricing Divination 9th Level Components: Verbal Casting Time: 5 days of out of session prep work Duration: Instantaneous or Until a player becomes salty All text concerning magic equipment prices and sales is translated to Common and becomes comprehensible to the caster. +5 vorpal bastard swords become inaccessible and common sense rules are implemented.
A friend of mine runs a game where essentially the gods have a big presence, and you can like talk to them directly. So in that game he has created a "favour points" system, where if you do things to please the gods, you earn favour, and that favour is what is used to purchase magic items - the rarer the item, the more favour it costs
I was never conviced by the 3e magic item rules, I like the 5e much more. I do allow for players to buy less flashy more practical magic items like lesser healing potions and bags of holding but i'd never just put a holy avenger for sale in some shop.
My rule on that is simple, you can't buy legendary items, they must be specially crafted and then are gifted to you by your guild. So if we were to use your Holy Avenger example, the paladin must prove to the temple/clergy he works for that he is worthy of such a powerful item, and upon doing so they will have an in house smith create a new one specifically designed for that character.
Can attest to the Bag of Beans. Newly made character got the nest of ASI eggs 3 times for 9 eggs total, 2 eaten by party members and failed, my fighter ate 7 with success. then planted another bean and got the bean stalk, so much for Lost Laboratory of Kawalish. We were 5th lvl btw when we started.
This sounds like a good time to have a high-level campaign dive into the ruins of the lost world to recover lost magic item knowledge, but all but a few the magic items are cursed, power degraded, or hidden and lock behind puzzles. In a way doing the Legends of the hidden temple gauntlet. With guardians roaming around and could one-shot a party if they don't run away. Thus the objective isn't just to conquer the dungeon as it is too big, roughly the size of Manhattan Island divided into sectors and units where guardians patrol, as well as numerous other monsters. If that isn't enough this place has an eerie time/space distortion where parts of the place have a super-thin vail connecting to other planes. Where monsters can randomly slip through and be instantly dominated by some unknown force. This place is death incarnate it is up to the players to make do with a bad situation. As their corpses will be added to the dungeons many foes using any of the items that they already found with no problems from when they were living. This depending on the success rate of the magic item collections could help set the magic item influence in your campaign world as this place can exist connected in a multiverse hub.
I personally think organizations and major cities with adventures(waterdeep) could have a rare magic shop that sells common and few uncommon. You can get them to search for higher ones, and they can take a finders few in selling your.
I had an auction planned with magic items in a large city, I was gonna do a heist (an npc group working for an underling of the bbeg).. the players found out about this and had some magic items they wanted to sell up there, among them was the ''Book of Vile Darkness'' .. Alas They only knew the book was magical (it was sealed magically, and they had not been able to find a way to open it, nor had they been able to identify it, (nondetection).. the BBEG was present at the auction (he sets it up and has his minions steal items, then he collect gold for stolen shit from the security company that didnt protect the wares etc.) The BBEG whos currently a cultist and an old oathbreaker paladin, disguised as a businessman, entrepeneur and the like.. Hire thugs to do work for him in his quest to find old artifacts that may help him free his ''great old one'' master from imprisonment.... so ofc hes mega interested when the book of vile darkness shows up on his doorstep, (the auctioneers are able to identify every magic eitem that goes up for sale, but only after the people gives it up for auction, there are no takebacks. so that lead to a pretty fun adventure.
I keep changing my mind about this. A while ago (the first time I watched this video) I was annoyed by the fact that 5e is designed not to have magic shops and confused by why that would be the case. However, as a dungeon master who overthinks everything, I think I finally started to understand *why* there wouldn't be a shop stocked with magic items when I started considering the answer to another question: What kind of security measures would a shopkeeper need to have in place to keep power-hungry people from breaking in and stealing them? The first answer I thought of to this was a more powerful version of a Glyph of Warding that could encompass the entire shop. Then I realized that such a glyph would theoretically be vulnerable to Dispel Magic and before long it becomes an Arms Race to try and come up with a way that the shop could even realistically exist in the first place. The two good answers I thought of however are that they are either housed within and protected by a powerful organization (government, magic academy, etc) or that all of the magic items are stored inside of a Bag of Holding which is hidden off-sight. The first of these two cases might be very well known by the public whereas the second would probably not openly advertise their wares. Anyone else thought about this question before? What are the compelling answers you have come up with?
I hate magic items, both as a player and as a DM, but my players love them, so I use the Sane Magical Prices document. My personal wrinkle is an "Availability Roll" based on where the party is shopping. A place like Neverwinter might have a specific Common item available on 10+, an Uncommon item on 13+, a Rare item on 15+, and a Very Rare item on 18+. Once a week, the players roll for the availability of each item they want to buy, and if the roll fails, that item just can't be found. One player was so dead-set on a particular item that they burned a point of Inspiration to reroll on a particular item they'd been seeking for months and hadn't managed to find yet. So it did end up enhancing the game a bit, because "I can't find the whatsit I want!" became a driving force in getting them to go from one town to another.
when i make the magic scroll do i make the paper or parchment. i would think no just use stuff already made. so why can't i use a sword thats already made and add magic to it like the parchment?
I’ve been playing on and off since the original d&d and i always viewed magical items and magic itself as rare. A +1 sword would be a great heirloom handed down from father to son and all magical weapons would be treated like the named swords in the sagas with wonder and awe. There would never be enough of them in one place to open a specialty shop, if your lucky a big shop might have a prized dagger or a couple of potions, and you could sell your +3 long sword but you’ll never get what its worth without great trouble as no ordinary people have that kind of money. Of course great heroes and adventurers have them but they are a rare breed of person that probably make up less than a fraction of 1% of a regions population. Well living and successful ones, there are lots of adventurers that have done nothing of note or who’s bones litter the lairs of monsters. PCs should have to work hard for their magical items. If they can just walk into shop and buy whatever they want then wheres the reward? It then just becomes a crappy pay to win online game. And if a DM ever lets their players accumulate enough magic items that they become over burdened well then thats when they become the victims of thieves or windup naked in someones dungeon or something like that.
It’s interesting to see people in the comments seem to be off put or unused to the idea of buying and selling magic items cause the main dnd games I’ve played take place in settings where buying and selling magic items is just a normal everyday thing
In Baulders Gate, there is even a magic item shop listed in the lower city that has 3 uncommon magic items Players get hold of magic items by level 3, so it is a bit ridiculous to imagine there isn't a trade in them. Oh, and also, the lore on Elves also describes how they ritually create boots and cloaks of elvenkind. Plus, I'm just gonna state my opinion - players love acquiring magic items. shops allow the whole party to acquire magic items simultaneously, but also to offload any random items that noone can use - like a Dwarven Thrower in a group with no Dwarves. Italso means that a GM isn't shoehorned into offering out items that coincidentally just happen to match their players' desires and skill-sets perfectly. WotC getting away from having things with 30+ AC and stuff makes sense, taking away this aspect of their magical worlds does not.
I actually prefer the invitation only auction house route. Magic items of considerable power should be earned, not bought. Common items and most potions, arcane foci, or resources are easy enough. Any town large enough has apothecaries and scriveners. Wizards can get their papers and ink. Casters can restock material components. PCs with herbalism kit, medicine, alchemist supplies, or other tool proficiencies can buy the stuff needed to make health potions even if the area might not have a potions shop. Uncommon to rare magic items are found in boutique auction houses in the mega cities, if they can be found at all. To get into the auctions you need an invitation. To get an invitation you or an ally need high enough renown with a faction that can get you invited to the auction house. Or you need to befriend a ranking noble who cam send you to the auction as his rep, gopher, or bidder. Or your group patron noble needs to send you there to do his shopping. Auctions are auctions. The prices vary and can be driven up by npc rivals or villains who also have the clout needed to bid. Very rare, legendary, and artifact items can not be bought. Players who find the right instructions, ingredients, recipes, or manuals can craft very rare items though questing and downtime. Or if you get high enough renown your faction of choice might send you to a master craftsman who will accept commissions in exchange for quests they need done. Tier 4 artificers or wizards might be able to craft legendaries. Maybe. It's not going easy. Other tier 4 classes might be able to make a legendary if they have expertise in the specific tool proficiencies needed, and the character has been crafting regularly at all earlier levels. Anyone can craft magic items, it's just easier and expected of the Int classes. The vast majority of legendary items are legendary. If you walk around with one slung over your shoulder in broad daylight you will be confronted about it. Having what is essentially a weapon of mass destruction on you will set locals on edge, especially if you don't have enough renown in that region to be effectively above the law. Artifacts are asking for trouble. They can't be crafted and every important faction in play wants to own at least 2 specific artifacts. If you find an artifact and decide to keep it, you are making a choice that will alter all random encounter tables going forward. A choice that might double or zero out all the renown you've earned so far with certain powerful groups. Lots of big organizations will happily take an artifact off your hands and reward you for your generosity. Whatever you do with any artifact you find, you will make enemies. You might make friends, but enemies are a given.
To give you an idea of the price of things, Boots of Flying cost 500 gold pieces to craft, that's 10lbs of gold. In our reality, 10lbs of gold is $250'000 (USD). It would have taken 10 spellcasters working together for 4 years to make it. This is like the most amazing sports car you could buy these days. Rare magic items are into the realm of luxury yachts or private jets.
I like the idea of auction houses Black market and underground trading. The military would want to be collecting all of the magic, or possibly high-level government officials.
Why do you need a blueprint? How did the item get created the first time? All but the most powerful items should be able to be researched then created. That has been the narrative for 50 years in all of the novels and item descriptions. Can blueprints be found? Probably. Would it make it cheaper and easier to make an item? Probably. Should it be an absolute requirement? No. Obviously the comment is intended to be brood and general, not to try to say how things should work in a private campaign.
I use Xanathars with exception that an uncommon goes up to 2K GP... that way the most powerful uncommons like flying or immovable rods or pearls of power cost similar to plate mail.
I have always just used the prices from 2nd edition. In my campaigns,depending on how prevalent magic is, I always place magic shops. I also have a monastery where magic items and be reduced to Residium (4e). I hate 4e with a passion, but I steal from all editions. :P
Unless you're playing certain subclasses, not having magic items means that any weapon based characters are either not going to pull their weight in combat against enemies with resistance or will be completely useless beyond maybe taking the Help action. A +1 weapon is nice for a random NPC to have, but for an adventurer who anticipates fighting creatures that are immune/resistant to mundane weapons, it's pretty much mandatory.
I am playing an Artificer in a campaign and I am frustrated by the lack of clear prices. Even in this video you site the one seller in Eberron with +1 magic weapons for 500 gold and then the Sane Magic Item Prices which lists +1 magic weapons at 1000 gold without really addressing the part where that is a 2x price difference. Thoughts on how to present prices to my dm for the purposes of craft costs and times?
for my games the adventure guilds all do sell common or uncommon magical. higher they do it more on trade or with people able to trade with some gold to have items crafted for them. mind you selling is only at ½ value so you are effectively losing to get exactly what you want.
I like the rarity of magic items in 5e. Items should be random and found in monster hoards (except maybe the less powerful potions). Specific powerful items should be quested for perhaps and not something to buy over the counter at Magic Morrisons. 5e is so weighted towards players as it is and while it is frustrating as a player to come up against a monster you cannot hurt, more than one party member will be able to do enough to kill it. Don’t forget, in 5e it is really tough to die so the rarity and randomness of magic items is a fair trade off. Rooting through a dragon hoard and not finding what you are looking for with regard to specific magic items should be the norm. There will be some fantastic bits and bobs there, but not what you have put on your list for Santa. Speak to your DM about the specific items that you covet and they will be overjoyed that they can include a side quest where the easiness will reflect the power of the item. Good hunting
in ghost of saltmarsh there is a seller of magic item too that traven on ship so can be move to other places like baldurs gate or waterdeep PS: Magic shop are fun and game master have control over what people find in the shop so balance is always in GM hands
If I where to have a business that sells, buys, and possibly trades in magical items, it would have to be owned by an Artificer. This is the only official PC turned NPC that I could see being in the game as a merchant of magic items. You can make it where a tinkers caravan that travels between cities and places and may have a store in which they would set up sales. An apprentice would run the stores, while masters and journeyman are running the caravan teams; possibly collecting news as well, so that a party would get information about the place there in, and a new potion bottle.
Well I looked over the Sane Pricing and then played by year after getting a good idea. Also I have been just running Eberron games lately so maybe that’s influencing me. Also I watched a video a while back that said they treated magic items like guns and stuff in our world. So first I completely filtered out any item that I would consider military grade and only make it possible to get those through treasure rolls. All other ones though I make available at shops through some random tables. Prices are played by year tho and a bit higher than probably normal because of course the play would want to haggle probably
Actually the most popular part of a new book is Race or Sub-class option, at less for me. I rarely look ad Magical item in New books with Theros being an exception
Hey Ted, thank you as always for the videos. Could you please do a video on buying/selling spellbooks? JC has confirmed on twitter that "normal" spellbooks aren't magic items. I'm currently playing a wizard who is finishing CoS. When he's back in the real world he'll have a bunch of spellbooks he's copied from that he could sell/trade. Any thoughts/ideas/resources would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Don't want to contradict that 5e wasn't designed to have magic item shops, but, as others have stated before me, their own settings have them. Forgotten Realms and Eberron both have active economies based upon the sale of magic items (Thay, House Cannith - both do not only sell common magic items), and I am pretty sure, but not certain, that Greyhawk and Ravnica have those too. So when they say, that 5e is not designed to have magic item shops, then they designed a system that does not support their own settings ...
Personally, i think Warlocks, Artificers, Druids/Rangers, and Forge Clerics should get a bit of a boost in magic item crafting. Specially Warlocks and their auto-upcasted spell slots.
I have an artificer that I'm playing and i made friends with the charismatic Rouge. Put infusions into a bunch of common weapons and had her sell those items to shops to earn gold. Leave town and stop infusing those items so they become normal again. Stonks.
Funny; I wrote up a Forge Domain Cleric whose backstory revolves around being forced into a similar scam. He and a bunch of other people with similar powers were forced by the shop's owner to enchant mundane weapons and armor to make them magic items, per one of the Forge Cleric's level 1 features. Owner would sell the gear to adventurers, but had a paid assassin on hand whose job was to kill the poor saps before they realized they were duped. Nobody finds out it's a scam, and the owner and their assassin friend get rich quick, as they're able to sell a dozen +1 items every couple of days.
The sane magic item list is generally pretty good. It makes items that could break a low-level game (Boots of Flying, for instance) unavailable until higher levels. But some things are just weirdly priced. Some of the items go *down* in price, like the Ioun Stone of Mastery, which seems really weird to me. Meanwhile, even the cheapest Instruments of the Bards goes from 500gp max to 27,000. While 500 is way too low, 27,000 goes too far in the opposite direction. The Decanter of Endless Water is 270 *times* more expensive. WTF? If you know your players are going to destroy the economy using it, just don't give it to them. But overall, it's a good thing, that list.
I have a group I play with and all the dms have it in their mind that magic item shops should not be stock based but you say i want this and 2 seconds after you give the gold you get it. And DIRT cheap prices, I could get a flame tongue for 600-700 gp. And people minmax super hard then dms wander why 5 level 5s can 1 round like a 150 hp target. Also when we said that we felt like we weren’t being adequately rewarded (less that 10 gold for the whole party 5e dm decided we needed 3000 each.
I use Sane Magical Prices in all of my games as the baseline for things. I'm as guilty as any other GM for using "magic item shops," though mine tend to be a little more nuanced (like the one merchant that travels in a heavily armored caravan with a limited selection of items).
"...or the Arcana skill..." Not 'and', though I appreciate the weird feeling at a wizard who cannot forge metal creating a magic sword. In a world where even common magic items are so difficult to buy or sell encounters with creatures resistant or immune to non- magical weapons just became far more deadly.
it never made any sense to me that you could have an uncommon magic item and it be pretty much just as rare as a very rare item, which is exactly what the dm's guide tries to tell us. If my players have the gold and are in a fairly large town/city, they can find many magic items. I might not let them have an endless supply of magic items, but most magic items can be bought if you have the gold for it. Otherwise, everyone gathers a ton of gold with nothing to buy, unless you wanted to completely upset the political order of the world when everyone buys their own castle.
I always found it a flaw that 5e doesn't account for buying and selling magic items and instead opts for crafting. Crafting is fine and all but much of the crafting rules supplied require a ton of time if you're trying to make something substantively powerful. My group lately has been running through modules, STK, CoS, RotFM and all of them have a level of urgency that isn't conducive to large periods of downtime where the PC's can stop and craft a big impactful weapon to prepare for a climactic showdown. What's the result? Either the DM has to figure out which items are best for players and add them in or, as is most common, makes a friggin magic item shop where players can buy, sell, and request items they want that the merchant can potentially find. TLDR - WOTC: Magic item shops are intentionally left out of the design of 5e Literally all DM's ever: I'll ignore that
If most people choose to homebrew in magic item shops clearly the way they 'intended' is not preferred by most players. I think allowing buying and selling for common and uncommon is a no brainer due to the function of the play itself. and how people who actually play ... well ACTUALLY play the game... now Rare and Very Rare Items should be very odd to find even in a metropolis and likely back to the art auction/arms dealer level. And almost never should a legendary item be for sale. I figured out spell scroll prices for my games, and have a d% chart next showing what needs to be rolled on a d% for a magic item seller to have that spell 'in stock' for example. with only a natural 100 yeidling a 9th level scroll and NOT WISH. I also encourage DMs to veto items 'no one' would sell (items that grant wishes for example) and also just don't put any items for sale that would 'break' your individual campaign. MOST players prefer tons of magic items; they just do its MORE fun! And with a limit of 3 attunement slots whats the issue?!? Also if 'balance' is the issue; just make enemies more powerful... double the HP and add stuff; its simple actually. I also advise restricting items for world/ lore-story purposes ONLY is the players agree at session 0. Very often you find they ALL want to buy and sell at the very leas;t common and uncommon items AS WELL as getting lots as treasure. I see more players upset with too few magic items ( A VERY common complaint from players); I have NEVER seen a player upset with 'too many' magic items in over 20 years of DMing. Do what is fun and functional for your group!
What's wrong with the existing system? Are you suggesting that +1 full plate (or mithral full plate, or adamantine full plate) being cheaper than non-magical full plate is illogical? Though I'll note that even in the "sane" system pdf, every suit of full plate apparently comes with a free +1 enchantment.
I guess one thing I don't understand about 5E not being designed for buying magic items is then what are players hoarding gold for? Sure, you can buy / build buildings, buy mundane equipment, pay off debts / bribes, repairs, etc. But what better incentive than those shiny magic items?
A big part of the problem is that a lot of people play in established campaigns. Whether Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, or your own campaign you already have a way that magic exists in that world. 5e can state that buying magic items is nearly impossible, but it doesnt change the world over night. They should have included rules and charts to fit the 5e magic items into the older systems just as an easy way of balancing. One of the biggest problems with 4e was that it was so nearly impossible to adapt old content to 4e and 4e doesn't adapt to 5e. By limiting 5e buy/crafting rules so harshly, they have forced us to spend so much time trying to figure out how to balance the system. It just comes across as lazy.
While I agree with abolishing 3e's magic item economy, I also think that the fact that everyone makes Magic Item shops, and we all like magic items speaks to the ignored demands of magic items
5e crafting/buying and selling mechanics are in dire need of overhaul or homebrew. Its one of the most popular subjects (and likely dowloads) on the DM guild
I guess I have an unpopular opinion but so far I have never had a magic item shop in my games and kept the game low to mid magic overall. It works perfectly well imo and adds importance to the items you find in adventures. Most magic items in the books are boring anyway lol a lot of +1s with nothing else
I think magic items should be tied into the lore of the world or into character backstory/development. I think players value them more if they're earnt and personal.
I have never allowed the buying and selling of magic items. If I am running a published adventure I customize loot to insure that my players are discovering things they can use.
i do not generally have a shop where you can buy or sell high level magical items other than a few healing potions. My players will find magical items on adventures. It is easy to exchange one item for another in official published modules. I do not allow my players to find a mother load of magical items, I give them one here another there. A sort of reward, should they find it. As for selling such items any good rouge should be able to both buy and sell such items. Selling at a loss and buying at a premium when in any large city Which traveling to can be an adventure in its self
i personally think any rare or lower item should be buyable in a major city (like waterdeep) uncomon and comon easily acsessible. anything higher percentiles/ dm disgresion +1 wepons are 100 +2 wepons 500 +3 wepons 1000 costs more if u want a +1 frost brand ect.
Sounds like we should all be treating magic shops more like Art/Arms dealers and less like Final Fantasy shops....I'm not against it because it opens up a ton of potential story hooks and interesting NPC plus participating in magical auctions is a great way to spend some downtime. If you cannot sale your more expensive magic items outright maybe the royal bank (Or the loanshark who is secretly a blue dragon) will provide you with a line of credit.
I like the decerning merchants price guide.
Resources for Magic Items
DM's Guild: Materials of the Realms
DM's Guild: Magical Cosmetics
DM's Guild: Magic Potions & Ingredients
DM's Guild: Hamund's Harvesting Handbook Vol. 1 & 2
DM's Guild: Creature Harvest Index Vol. 0 thru 6
DM's Guild: The Complete Armorer's Handbook
Edit: GM Binder: The Complete Crafter
Edit: GM Binder: Wilderness Survival Guide
from this list, I only know and use the complete armorer's handbook and I can't recommend it enough
@@Khaons I copy the Guild Rank system from the Runesmiths Guild section for crafting magic items. A Journeyman Rank can create a Common tier item, an Artisan Rank can make a Rare tier item, and so on. Combine that with the crafting materials stuff
@@moquips I see...
Is there some kind of guideline you use for deciding those materials?
I've read the Angrygm article about princing and crafting magical items and found it pretty interesting, tho this doesn't really solve my main gripe with the dnd magical items is that rarity doesn't classify how strong/useful a magic item is.
Like a broom of flying, an uncommon magic item or a potion of invisibility, a legendary magic item.
As a gm who likes to be consistent with my pricing, I find this the most dificult part of all.
@@Khaons Ya, the inconsistency of an items rarity vs its power is kinda tricky. I use this as a reference for what makes an item Major of Minor, and that helps, but some items (like the broom of flying) just aren't balanced the same as others. Sometimes you need to just up the rarity of an item for your world
rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/139831/is-there-a-proper-way-to-categorize-magic-items-as-minor-or-major-magic-items
Edit: also check out The Complete Crafter from GMBinder
Ghosts of Saltmarsh included a merchant who sells magical items, and even tracks down specific items by request, to sell the players at set prices based on rarity.
I prefer the 3.5 rules that have a set amount for items and sale half book value and buy at book or a little more
I prefer to. 👍
*Looks at Thumbnail*
"Hey buddy, wanna' buy a Vorpal Sword?"
"You don't want to sell me a Vorpal Sword"
"I don't want to sell you a Vorpal Sword"
"You want to go home and rethink your life"
"I want to go home and rethink my life"
@@Jacob-qr8pl That death stick dealer actually had a happy ending.
@@supremecaffeine2633 the only person in the prequels who did...
I find this section a bit odd and not in the general spirit of 5th edition, or at least not what 5e typically is perceived as. It seems like 5e tends to favor a fairly high magic epic fantasy style of play, and the rules tend to be pretty straight forward and inviting, but when you get to magic items, suddenly they are super rare and nearly impossible to buy or sell, and crafting them is portrayed in such a way that you really need to be desperate for a particular item to try and make one. I mean, obviously, you shouldn't be able to buy a Holy Avenger at your local general goods store, but this system just makes it more of a hassle than it's worth to try to buy magic items, which also limits what you're going to use your gold for (typically nothing)
Yeah I find that aspect of 5e a little weird. At turn 9 you have wizards flying and shooting fireballs like crazy, but they try to say that FR is overall low magic for some reason.
Easy treasure ruins the shine.If they were truly common armies would be outfitted with them.Try to remember by the time your level 18 your a demigod able to pose a serious threat to a large city.The magic items your done with make excellent bribes for generals and gifts for kings.
It's what early playtesters wanted and, frankly, I'm on their side. It's one thing to have spell casting be widespread. That's still a finite resource. Magical items are either infinite or tend to add to your existing resources in the form of charges.
In my games, I don't really like having magical items be something you spend your gold on but instead be something you can quest for specifically or claim from treasure/loot. I can already imagine a fun quest for gaining a cloak of displacement. It allows you to make a +1 weapon, the thing that finally damage werewolf, a bit more special because you can give it a story rather than it being something every member of the town guard ought to have access to.
I don't think you're understanding 5e really. It's very much a "PCs suck and rely on luck to accomplish anything" system. Characters are horribly incompetent compared to previous editions (whether you like 2nd edition, 3rd, pathfinder, or 4th edition). They aren't mechanically much better at 20th level at anything except surviving getting hit by an axe, compared to first level. They've gotten a whopping +4 (on a d20 scale) to their attacks, a handful of skill checks, and two saves. Probably also another +1 or +2 bonus from ability score increases. That's a tiny increase. They're no better at their other saves. A 20th level fighter is _maybe_ 5% more likely to shrug off a hold person spell than a first level fighter (if they use one of their precious attunement slots for a +1 save bonus item). They're marginally better at hitting things, but not significantly. They're not really any better at non-combat things like skills unless they're bards or rogues. Fifth edition PCs pretty much suck at everything, and will for their entire careers. It's all about how well you can roll a d20.
I've been treating magical items like fine art, they can only be bought in special locations, through the proper channels and are often auctioned to the affluent. Magic items that are very rare or legendary will never be available this way, but this allows for the purchase of uncommon items in a somewhat reliable way.
While I like having magic shops in my setting, they usually offer intentionally underpowered or overpriced items (to have a realistic economy).
It also depends on the areas, high elven kingdom and magic university faction will have better prices, offering and quality.
This in turn leads to some wandering merchants speculating on the difference.
I say intentionally underpowered so they either don't overshadow the "dropped" ones or they have to spend the whole gold loot to get one up to par (this way it still feels like like you worked for it but you also get the one that you like)
Heck you could have them sell cursed items that nobody wants too... Or have the magic items be sold at the shops that sell the non-magical versions of that or similar items.... (Such as maybe having a chance of finding magic armor at a shop that buys and sells armor, or a magic sword that might turn up at the used sword shop... or magic items or jewlery occasionally turning up at a pawn shop mixed in among various similar mundane items....)
@@minnion2871 particularly good blacksmiths have the possibility of making +1 weapons if they know rudimentary magic (although rare) or an enchanter.
I like the old rusty weapon at the general store that turns out is a +1 after restored
High quality magic shop would probably break lesser curses and sell the item, low quality shops might unknowingly sell cursed items tho
@@christianacquasanta1472 And really sketchy shops or street vendors might knowingly sell cursed items....
They could sell consumable magic items but even they would be 50 gold pieces, that is A FREAKING LOT of gold, that is 1 pound of gold. That is 25’000 US Dollars. A magic shop selling only common magic items would be like a car showroom.
For those looking for an alternative to Sane magical item prices, take a look at "Blackball’s Treasure", it's items pricing is pretty good and it has recommendations for at what level the adventurers could be getting those items without major impacts to the game.
I love the RE4 references in the thumbnail and intro. Masterpiece 👌
Thank you for breaking it down. I will definitely seek out the Sane Magic Items doc.
I understand that WotC was streamlining D&D in 5e and cutting back on magic items was a part of that.
I enjoy a good low magic or cast magic only campaign but, feel that high magic campaign settings like FR and Eberron now feel disjointed and cobbled into the current rule set. Could have been executed better IMO.
3.5 Eberron (built entirely on a magic item based culture & economy) was my favorite campaign setting OAT. Eberron lost its special flavor with the 5e stance on magic.
The advantages of 5e has made the Edition ubiquitous in my area so I play what others are willing to play.
On that note I am currently developing an Eberron campaign storyline in which the Day of Mourning warped the previous (3.5 level) connection to magic such that it more closely matches 5e rules.
Already crafted magic is held onto.
Previously high power items are now a muted version of their former selves (maybe to be reawakened by a PC).
Charged items are losing charge potential and or gaining mishap chance.
No more Warforged can be made.
Continuous magic requires a power source (e.g. bound elemental, Lightning Rail)
High magic requires power input (e.g. X-level spell slot burned to use, etc).
That sort of thing.
Will help keep the origial flavor of the setting and makes for a more desperate, gritty, post war environment. Rush to recover high magic and research to reverse the Mourning.
Interested in input, so feel free to comment.
I do technically use the DMG, however I’m prone to home brewing new mechanics from 3rd party sources or “me brain!” Auction house mechanics I use for players to sell their unused magic items, and I put a magical “salesmen” who will take the parties magical items and give them a different magical item or material for trade. Sometimes the salesmen will be more interest in specific kind of items that the players can discern from encountering them multiple times. However, he never purchases with wealth a magic item it’s a trade of some kind. I originally put this in my game to try my own magic items out and because we are running a massive game encompassing all published D&D modules together. Personally, I understand Wizards mentality on magic items being bought and sold. Though I agree it is common for many DM’s to add their own touch in the game about magical items. As always, great video Ted! Also, hit the nail on the head on that published work comment! Just ran Lost Mines recently and IcePeak and everyone is running around with a lot of magic items!
I like the gochapon system, where the players have a powerful ally that either gives tokens for achievements or sells tokens to roll on a random magic item table. I also like making the table personalized for each character.
5th edition seems to have forgotten about Thayan enclaves in FR
Life saver man, thank you 🎉
For a Wildemount game I'm running, we ended up with an NPC team of 3 echo-fighter halflings (Hickory, Dickory, and Doc - at ye soivice, scavenging for yew foiters on them front loines!) that essentially travel between towns and scavenge requested magic items. You are almost guaranteed to run into one of them or their echo copies at any popular bazaar, and anyone who wants to shop rolls a d6 to see what they've come up with. 6's are a successfully procured item (or a lead if they're too poor), 4's/5's are random magic consumables, and 1's are the item as requested but very obviously cursed.
I'm a pretty new DM so criticisms welcome, but it feels like a fun system. Echo copies means there are 6 halflings roaming from town to town (infinite range echo copies are reserved for these NPCs only) Usually they get a shot at SOMETHING in every port/town, and the halflings purchase the party's excess weapons and such to redistribute to the front lines of the war effort.
If you don't have a market for magic items, your party of paladin, wizard, rogue, fighter will find instrument of the bards, two handed axes for your dex warriors, and warlock implements.
Nice.
Now what.
YOU SELL THEM or exchange for useful things.
If I find a legendary item that no one in the party can use, and I can't sell it, it's kindling.
I mean it's like I've never found it, and the problems of having it means it will go up in flames. Or down a volcano.
My DM got really annoyed because he rolled randomly and gave the sorcerer an Infernal tack right after rolling and giving him a +1 Yklwa. While I, on the other hand, had the dragon queen's crown and the sword of Zariel. He rolled randomly for 5 dragon hordes... I kept getting 100's. He was really really annoyed with my luck that day.
After reading oh-so-many eastern fantasy novels, I am a big fan of having common and uncommon magic items available at specialty or high-end shops while any rarer items are best bought and sold at highly-secured auction houses. This slows the trade in magic items quite a bit or can if the auction house only has sales say once a month or twice a year, introduces a new potential risk if the players try and make a big sale without using the auction house and gives the players a place to try and fail to rob... once. For obvious reasons, this set up works best in settings like Eberron, but I think the auction house idea in general is adaptable to most settings.
I am also a fan of being able to break and maybe repair magic items.
At our table we relay a lot on the Sane Magic Item Price. You can apply a coefficient to the price if the availability of magic items isn't the same as the classic 5e setting and you're good to go. Those prices seems most of the time pretty fair. (GM finds it too affordable, players find it too expensive haha) I think it's a very good indication for the GM of how powerfull/usable a magic item can be. Not all GMs play often as a players, so sometimes they don't see an item full potential or they overestimate the value of the loot they prepared. We used that also a lot when we run one shots when a player take the GM role. The main GM can just say "okay you have a quota of 15k gp of loot, pick whatever". It helps balance things a lot.
14:22 you read that wrong. It says tool proficiency OR the Arcana skill, not AND the Arcana skill. So you still can make that magic sword without knowing how to make a regular one...
Well i like that less
@@NerdImmersion I prefer to use the Arcana skill only for Spell Scrolls, and lean heavily into the materials for Magic Items plus including the 5 tiered ranking system for "proficiency level" in the tool, taken directly from the Runesmithing section of The Complete Armorer's Handbook
It would be correct imo, think of the 2nd level magic weapon spell for an hour a weapon becomes +1 to +3 depending on the spell slot. You would effective be using the spell to make the effect permanent via imbuing.
Think of it as buying the sword you're enchanting. Now, not needing arcana to do so, a little more odd, but legendary craftsmen making legendary equipment without ever learning magic is a trope that exists
@@NerdImmersion I would work it like this. If your just doing enchanting it can be smithing or Arcana. If your trying to forge something like a flame tongue. You need to use both or hire someone who can help you with it.
The Ghosts of Saltmarsh has a good example of a magic item dealer the characters can access from a fairly early level: Captain Xendros. The section includes pricing for different rarities and direction for DMG magic item tables to determine her stock at a given time, as well as a price to even meet with her. It also has guidance on what she'd offer to purchase items from the players.
That pricing pdf is so helpful!
TY for the download - much appreciated
I like the idea of an Auction House or similar. You can make a small event out of selling magic items the party doesn't want or need anymore along with a chance to buy new, interesting stuff.
The lack of magic items and magic item shops in 5E is sort of explained in the lore. The Spellplague event and then Second Sundering did a major number on magic in Toril and the planes in general. Ten's of thousands of spellcasters died and certain magic items were destroyed.
"Most permanent magic items, such as artifacts, were left intact at the end of the Spellplague but charged magical items were either destroyed, warped, or simply ceased to function. Items with dormant magical qualities, which were manually activated, were largely unaffected by the Spellplague." - Wiki
Everyone I know that runs the game, regardless of whether they started in 3.5 or in 5e will have magic shops in their campaign. It just seems like a logical staple for a fantasy setting with magic.
There's also stuff in Ghosts of Saltmarsh...
I think The Discerning Merchant's Price Guide is a lot more helpful - and since it's my Tales of the Yawning Portal party that wants to do the most business, it's nice that the DMPG covers several prewritten adventures.
I feel like in medieval settings any magic items not owned by the characters would be owned by whatever the royalty is because they don't want people to have them who would use the magic items against them and they would only bestow them or sell them to someone they trusted or if they were in dire straits.
RE4 reference got to me,here's a thumbs up. :D
Personally, I've loved how it's done in 5e. In 3.5, the players were assumed to be able to get their hands on whatever crazy crap they wanted from any of the 21,398 (slight exaggeration) official books that were released for that edition.
I figure if the items are scattered around the world then there should be some sort of economy around magic items. I like that it kinda suggests you get creative with how those shopes operate
This is one of the things I really liked about 5th ed that they brought back from OLDER editions. I usually do not have magic item shops. It would be rare and have to be worked into the lore or story. So I pretty much agree with how they wrote it in 5th ed. I absolutely HATED how 3.5 watered down magic items so badly that it basically took them out of the hands of the DM and you were expected to buy +this and +that at certain levels.
Disjunction of Magical Item Pricing
Divination 9th Level
Components: Verbal
Casting Time: 5 days of out of session prep work
Duration: Instantaneous or Until a player becomes salty
All text concerning magic equipment prices and sales is translated to Common and becomes comprehensible to the caster. +5 vorpal bastard swords become inaccessible and common sense rules are implemented.
A friend of mine runs a game where essentially the gods have a big presence, and you can like talk to them directly. So in that game he has created a "favour points" system, where if you do things to please the gods, you earn favour, and that favour is what is used to purchase magic items - the rarer the item, the more favour it costs
I was never conviced by the 3e magic item rules, I like the 5e much more. I do allow for players to buy less flashy more practical magic items like lesser healing potions and bags of holding but i'd never just put a holy avenger for sale in some shop.
My rule on that is simple, you can't buy legendary items, they must be specially crafted and then are gifted to you by your guild. So if we were to use your Holy Avenger example, the paladin must prove to the temple/clergy he works for that he is worthy of such a powerful item, and upon doing so they will have an in house smith create a new one specifically designed for that character.
Can attest to the Bag of Beans. Newly made character got the nest of ASI eggs 3 times for 9 eggs total, 2 eaten by party members and failed, my fighter ate 7 with success. then planted another bean and got the bean stalk, so much for Lost Laboratory of Kawalish. We were 5th lvl btw when we started.
14:13 XtGE actually says tool proficiency OR the Arcana skill. I might also homebrew it to AND though.
There is a shop in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book that also sells magic items.
This sounds like a good time to have a high-level campaign dive into the ruins of the lost world to recover lost magic item knowledge, but all but a few the magic items are cursed, power degraded, or hidden and lock behind puzzles. In a way doing the Legends of the hidden temple gauntlet. With guardians roaming around and could one-shot a party if they don't run away. Thus the objective isn't just to conquer the dungeon as it is too big, roughly the size of Manhattan Island divided into sectors and units where guardians patrol, as well as numerous other monsters. If that isn't enough this place has an eerie time/space distortion where parts of the place have a super-thin vail connecting to other planes. Where monsters can randomly slip through and be instantly dominated by some unknown force. This place is death incarnate it is up to the players to make do with a bad situation. As their corpses will be added to the dungeons many foes using any of the items that they already found with no problems from when they were living. This depending on the success rate of the magic item collections could help set the magic item influence in your campaign world as this place can exist connected in a multiverse hub.
I personally think organizations and major cities with adventures(waterdeep) could have a rare magic shop that sells common and few uncommon. You can get them to search for higher ones, and they can take a finders few in selling your.
I had an auction planned with magic items in a large city, I was gonna do a heist (an npc group working for an underling of the bbeg).. the players found out about this and had some magic items they wanted to sell up there, among them was the ''Book of Vile Darkness'' .. Alas They only knew the book was magical (it was sealed magically, and they had not been able to find a way to open it, nor had they been able to identify it, (nondetection).. the BBEG was present at the auction (he sets it up and has his minions steal items, then he collect gold for stolen shit from the security company that didnt protect the wares etc.) The BBEG whos currently a cultist and an old oathbreaker paladin, disguised as a businessman, entrepeneur and the like.. Hire thugs to do work for him in his quest to find old artifacts that may help him free his ''great old one'' master from imprisonment.... so ofc hes mega interested when the book of vile darkness shows up on his doorstep, (the auctioneers are able to identify every magic eitem that goes up for sale, but only after the people gives it up for auction, there are no takebacks. so that lead to a pretty fun adventure.
I keep changing my mind about this.
A while ago (the first time I watched this video) I was annoyed by the fact that 5e is designed not to have magic shops and confused by why that would be the case.
However, as a dungeon master who overthinks everything, I think I finally started to understand *why* there wouldn't be a shop stocked with magic items when I started considering the answer to another question:
What kind of security measures would a shopkeeper need to have in place to keep power-hungry people from breaking in and stealing them?
The first answer I thought of to this was a more powerful version of a Glyph of Warding that could encompass the entire shop. Then I realized that such a glyph would theoretically be vulnerable to Dispel Magic and before long it becomes an Arms Race to try and come up with a way that the shop could even realistically exist in the first place.
The two good answers I thought of however are that they are either housed within and protected by a powerful organization (government, magic academy, etc) or that all of the magic items are stored inside of a Bag of Holding which is hidden off-sight. The first of these two cases might be very well known by the public whereas the second would probably not openly advertise their wares.
Anyone else thought about this question before? What are the compelling answers you have come up with?
I hate magic items, both as a player and as a DM, but my players love them, so I use the Sane Magical Prices document. My personal wrinkle is an "Availability Roll" based on where the party is shopping. A place like Neverwinter might have a specific Common item available on 10+, an Uncommon item on 13+, a Rare item on 15+, and a Very Rare item on 18+. Once a week, the players roll for the availability of each item they want to buy, and if the roll fails, that item just can't be found. One player was so dead-set on a particular item that they burned a point of Inspiration to reroll on a particular item they'd been seeking for months and hadn't managed to find yet. So it did end up enhancing the game a bit, because "I can't find the whatsit I want!" became a driving force in getting them to go from one town to another.
when i make the magic scroll do i make the paper or parchment. i would think no just use stuff already made. so why can't i use a sword thats already made and add magic to it like the parchment?
So how would you run an auction in d&d?
Buying magic items by Location
village - Common
small town - Uncommon
big town - Rare
small city - Very rare
big city - Legendary
What about ghost of salt marsh? They have rules about buying?
I’ve been playing on and off since the original d&d and i always viewed magical items and magic itself as rare. A +1 sword would be a great heirloom handed down from father to son and all magical weapons would be treated like the named swords in the sagas with wonder and awe.
There would never be enough of them in one place to open a specialty shop, if your lucky a big shop might have a prized dagger or a couple of potions, and you could sell your +3 long sword but you’ll never get what its worth without great trouble as no ordinary people have that kind of money.
Of course great heroes and adventurers have them but they are a rare breed of person that probably make up less than a fraction of 1% of a regions population. Well living and successful ones, there are lots of adventurers that have done nothing of note or who’s bones litter the lairs of monsters.
PCs should have to work hard for their magical items. If they can just walk into shop and buy whatever they want then wheres the reward? It then just becomes a crappy pay to win online game.
And if a DM ever lets their players accumulate enough magic items that they become over burdened well then thats when they become the victims of thieves or windup naked in someones dungeon or something like that.
There's rules for magic items to buy in Ghosts of Saltmarsh as well. P.19
Did you make a top 10 common magic items?
Yes
It’s interesting to see people in the comments seem to be off put or unused to the idea of buying and selling magic items cause the main dnd games I’ve played take place in settings where buying and selling magic items is just a normal everyday thing
Is there a directory somehwere that can guide me to what official books have what magic items?
5etools does, if it's something you're happy using
Ancestral weapons, that stuff is super cool.
In Baulders Gate, there is even a magic item shop listed in the lower city that has 3 uncommon magic items
Players get hold of magic items by level 3, so it is a bit ridiculous to imagine there isn't a trade in them.
Oh, and also, the lore on Elves also describes how they ritually create boots and cloaks of elvenkind.
Plus, I'm just gonna state my opinion - players love acquiring magic items. shops allow the whole party to acquire magic items simultaneously, but also to offload any random items that noone can use - like a Dwarven Thrower in a group with no Dwarves. Italso means that a GM isn't shoehorned into offering out items that coincidentally just happen to match their players' desires and skill-sets perfectly. WotC getting away from having things with 30+ AC and stuff makes sense, taking away this aspect of their magical worlds does not.
I actually prefer the invitation only auction house route. Magic items of considerable power should be earned, not bought.
Common items and most potions, arcane foci, or resources are easy enough. Any town large enough has apothecaries and scriveners. Wizards can get their papers and ink. Casters can restock material components. PCs with herbalism kit, medicine, alchemist supplies, or other tool proficiencies can buy the stuff needed to make health potions even if the area might not have a potions shop.
Uncommon to rare magic items are found in boutique auction houses in the mega cities, if they can be found at all. To get into the auctions you need an invitation. To get an invitation you or an ally need high enough renown with a faction that can get you invited to the auction house. Or you need to befriend a ranking noble who cam send you to the auction as his rep, gopher, or bidder. Or your group patron noble needs to send you there to do his shopping.
Auctions are auctions. The prices vary and can be driven up by npc rivals or villains who also have the clout needed to bid.
Very rare, legendary, and artifact items can not be bought. Players who find the right instructions, ingredients, recipes, or manuals can craft very rare items though questing and downtime. Or if you get high enough renown your faction of choice might send you to a master craftsman who will accept commissions in exchange for quests they need done.
Tier 4 artificers or wizards might be able to craft legendaries. Maybe. It's not going easy. Other tier 4 classes might be able to make a legendary if they have expertise in the specific tool proficiencies needed, and the character has been crafting regularly at all earlier levels. Anyone can craft magic items, it's just easier and expected of the Int classes.
The vast majority of legendary items are legendary. If you walk around with one slung over your shoulder in broad daylight you will be confronted about it. Having what is essentially a weapon of mass destruction on you will set locals on edge, especially if you don't have enough renown in that region to be effectively above the law.
Artifacts are asking for trouble. They can't be crafted and every important faction in play wants to own at least 2 specific artifacts. If you find an artifact and decide to keep it, you are making a choice that will alter all random encounter tables going forward. A choice that might double or zero out all the renown you've earned so far with certain powerful groups.
Lots of big organizations will happily take an artifact off your hands and reward you for your generosity. Whatever you do with any artifact you find, you will make enemies. You might make friends, but enemies are a given.
To give you an idea of the price of things, Boots of Flying cost 500 gold pieces to craft, that's 10lbs of gold. In our reality, 10lbs of gold is $250'000 (USD). It would have taken 10 spellcasters working together for 4 years to make it.
This is like the most amazing sports car you could buy these days.
Rare magic items are into the realm of luxury yachts or private jets.
I like the idea of auction houses Black market and underground trading. The military would want to be collecting all of the magic, or possibly high-level government officials.
if your makeing a magic item you need a plan bule print whear would you source that from? and awesome video again 👍👍
Temples, guilds, libraries of lords etc... maybe the occasional collector of knowledge.
Why do you need a blueprint? How did the item get created the first time? All but the most powerful items should be able to be researched then created. That has been the narrative for 50 years in all of the novels and item descriptions. Can blueprints be found? Probably. Would it make it cheaper and easier to make an item? Probably. Should it be an absolute requirement? No. Obviously the comment is intended to be brood and general, not to try to say how things should work in a private campaign.
I use Xanathars with exception that an uncommon goes up to 2K GP... that way the most powerful uncommons like flying or immovable rods or pearls of power cost similar to plate mail.
I have always just used the prices from 2nd edition. In my campaigns,depending on how prevalent magic is, I always place magic shops.
I also have a monastery where magic items and be reduced to Residium (4e). I hate 4e with a passion, but I steal from all editions. :P
Unless you're playing certain subclasses, not having magic items means that any weapon based characters are either not going to pull their weight in combat against enemies with resistance or will be completely useless beyond maybe taking the Help action. A +1 weapon is nice for a random NPC to have, but for an adventurer who anticipates fighting creatures that are immune/resistant to mundane weapons, it's pretty much mandatory.
I am playing an Artificer in a campaign and I am frustrated by the lack of clear prices. Even in this video you site the one seller in Eberron with +1 magic weapons for 500 gold and then the Sane Magic Item Prices which lists +1 magic weapons at 1000 gold without really addressing the part where that is a 2x price difference. Thoughts on how to present prices to my dm for the purposes of craft costs and times?
for my games the adventure guilds all do sell common or uncommon magical. higher they do it more on trade or with people able to trade with some gold to have items crafted for them. mind you selling is only at ½ value so you are effectively losing to get exactly what you want.
What are you buying???
I like the rarity of magic items in 5e. Items should be random and found in monster hoards (except maybe the less powerful potions). Specific powerful items should be quested for perhaps and not something to buy over the counter at Magic Morrisons. 5e is so weighted towards players as it is and while it is frustrating as a player to come up against a monster you cannot hurt, more than one party member will be able to do enough to kill it. Don’t forget, in 5e it is really tough to die so the rarity and randomness of magic items is a fair trade off. Rooting through a dragon hoard and not finding what you are looking for with regard to specific magic items should be the norm. There will be some fantastic bits and bobs there, but not what you have put on your list for Santa. Speak to your DM about the specific items that you covet and they will be overjoyed that they can include a side quest where the easiness will reflect the power of the item.
Good hunting
I like the updates too! The only thing I find weird is that healing potion should be alchemy, not herbalism. They are magic items, not medicine.
in ghost of saltmarsh there is a seller of magic item too that traven on ship so can be move to other places like baldurs gate or waterdeep
PS: Magic shop are fun and game master have control over what people find in the shop so balance is always in GM hands
If I where to have a business that sells, buys, and possibly trades in magical items, it would have to be owned by an Artificer. This is the only official PC turned NPC that I could see being in the game as a merchant of magic items. You can make it where a tinkers caravan that travels between cities and places and may have a store in which they would set up sales. An apprentice would run the stores, while masters and journeyman are running the caravan teams; possibly collecting news as well, so that a party would get information about the place there in, and a new potion bottle.
Well I looked over the Sane Pricing and then played by year after getting a good idea. Also I have been just running Eberron games lately so maybe that’s influencing me. Also I watched a video a while back that said they treated magic items like guns and stuff in our world. So first I completely filtered out any item that I would consider military grade and only make it possible to get those through treasure rolls. All other ones though I make available at shops through some random tables. Prices are played by year tho and a bit higher than probably normal because of course the play would want to haggle probably
Saltmarsh has a magic item shop as well.
Actually the most popular part of a new book is Race or Sub-class option, at less for me.
I rarely look ad Magical item in New books with Theros being an exception
Very confused on the candle of invocation thing
Hey Ted, thank you as always for the videos. Could you please do a video on buying/selling spellbooks? JC has confirmed on twitter that "normal" spellbooks aren't magic items. I'm currently playing a wizard who is finishing CoS. When he's back in the real world he'll have a bunch of spellbooks he's copied from that he could sell/trade. Any thoughts/ideas/resources would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
I’d assume it’s the base spellbook price, plus, like, the scroll of each spell in the book’s price
Don't want to contradict that 5e wasn't designed to have magic item shops, but, as others have stated before me, their own settings have them. Forgotten Realms and Eberron both have active economies based upon the sale of magic items (Thay, House Cannith - both do not only sell common magic items), and I am pretty sure, but not certain, that Greyhawk and Ravnica have those too. So when they say, that 5e is not designed to have magic item shops, then they designed a system that does not support their own settings ...
Personally, i think Warlocks, Artificers, Druids/Rangers, and Forge Clerics should get a bit of a boost in magic item crafting.
Specially Warlocks and their auto-upcasted spell slots.
I have an artificer that I'm playing and i made friends with the charismatic Rouge. Put infusions into a bunch of common weapons and had her sell those items to shops to earn gold. Leave town and stop infusing those items so they become normal again. Stonks.
Funny; I wrote up a Forge Domain Cleric whose backstory revolves around being forced into a similar scam. He and a bunch of other people with similar powers were forced by the shop's owner to enchant mundane weapons and armor to make them magic items, per one of the Forge Cleric's level 1 features. Owner would sell the gear to adventurers, but had a paid assassin on hand whose job was to kill the poor saps before they realized they were duped. Nobody finds out it's a scam, and the owner and their assassin friend get rich quick, as they're able to sell a dozen +1 items every couple of days.
The sane magic item list is generally pretty good. It makes items that could break a low-level game (Boots of Flying, for instance) unavailable until higher levels. But some things are just weirdly priced.
Some of the items go *down* in price, like the Ioun Stone of Mastery, which seems really weird to me. Meanwhile, even the cheapest Instruments of the Bards goes from 500gp max to 27,000. While 500 is way too low, 27,000 goes too far in the opposite direction. The Decanter of Endless Water is 270 *times* more expensive. WTF? If you know your players are going to destroy the economy using it, just don't give it to them.
But overall, it's a good thing, that list.
What about the magic the gathering D&D book i think it's called ravnica they have magic
What about it? they do have magic of sorts wildy used but the items aren't priced in it.
I have a group I play with and all the dms have it in their mind that magic item shops should not be stock based but you say i want this and 2 seconds after you give the gold you get it. And DIRT cheap prices, I could get a flame tongue for 600-700 gp. And people minmax super hard then dms wander why 5 level 5s can 1 round like a 150 hp target. Also when we said that we felt like we weren’t being adequately rewarded (less that 10 gold for the whole party 5e dm decided we needed 3000 each.
I use Sane Magical Prices in all of my games as the baseline for things. I'm as guilty as any other GM for using "magic item shops," though mine tend to be a little more nuanced (like the one merchant that travels in a heavily armored caravan with a limited selection of items).
Ghost of salt marsh has an NPC who takes all the leg work out of buying/selling items and also offers flat prices.
"...or the Arcana skill..." Not 'and', though I appreciate the weird feeling at a wizard who cannot forge metal creating a magic sword.
In a world where even common magic items are so difficult to buy or sell encounters with creatures resistant or immune to non- magical weapons just became far more deadly.
I got lucky and sold a dagger of venom at full price. Then I gave half since the dagger was a gift from another party member and I felt bad
it never made any sense to me that you could have an uncommon magic item and it be pretty much just as rare as a very rare item, which is exactly what the dm's guide tries to tell us. If my players have the gold and are in a fairly large town/city, they can find many magic items. I might not let them have an endless supply of magic items, but most magic items can be bought if you have the gold for it. Otherwise, everyone gathers a ton of gold with nothing to buy, unless you wanted to completely upset the political order of the world when everyone buys their own castle.
I always found it a flaw that 5e doesn't account for buying and selling magic items and instead opts for crafting. Crafting is fine and all but much of the crafting rules supplied require a ton of time if you're trying to make something substantively powerful. My group lately has been running through modules, STK, CoS, RotFM and all of them have a level of urgency that isn't conducive to large periods of downtime where the PC's can stop and craft a big impactful weapon to prepare for a climactic showdown. What's the result? Either the DM has to figure out which items are best for players and add them in or, as is most common, makes a friggin magic item shop where players can buy, sell, and request items they want that the merchant can potentially find.
TLDR -
WOTC: Magic item shops are intentionally left out of the design of 5e
Literally all DM's ever: I'll ignore that
If most people choose to homebrew in magic item shops clearly the way they 'intended' is not preferred by most players. I think allowing buying and selling for common and uncommon is a no brainer due to the function of the play itself. and how people who actually play ... well ACTUALLY play the game... now Rare and Very Rare Items should be very odd to find even in a metropolis and likely back to the art auction/arms dealer level. And almost never should a legendary item be for sale. I figured out spell scroll prices for my games, and have a d% chart next showing what needs to be rolled on a d% for a magic item seller to have that spell 'in stock' for example. with only a natural 100 yeidling a 9th level scroll and NOT WISH. I also encourage DMs to veto items 'no one' would sell (items that grant wishes for example) and also just don't put any items for sale that would 'break' your individual campaign. MOST players prefer tons of magic items; they just do its MORE fun! And with a limit of 3 attunement slots whats the issue?!? Also if 'balance' is the issue; just make enemies more powerful... double the HP and add stuff; its simple actually. I also advise restricting items for world/ lore-story purposes ONLY is the players agree at session 0. Very often you find they ALL want to buy and sell at the very leas;t common and uncommon items AS WELL as getting lots as treasure. I see more players upset with too few magic items ( A VERY common complaint from players); I have NEVER seen a player upset with 'too many' magic items in over 20 years of DMing. Do what is fun and functional for your group!
What's wrong with the existing system? Are you suggesting that +1 full plate (or mithral full plate, or adamantine full plate) being cheaper than non-magical full plate is illogical? Though I'll note that even in the "sane" system pdf, every suit of full plate apparently comes with a free +1 enchantment.
I guess one thing I don't understand about 5E not being designed for buying magic items is then what are players hoarding gold for? Sure, you can buy / build buildings, buy mundane equipment, pay off debts / bribes, repairs, etc. But what better incentive than those shiny magic items?
A big part of the problem is that a lot of people play in established campaigns. Whether Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, or your own campaign you already have a way that magic exists in that world. 5e can state that buying magic items is nearly impossible, but it doesnt change the world over night. They should have included rules and charts to fit the 5e magic items into the older systems just as an easy way of balancing. One of the biggest problems with 4e was that it was so nearly impossible to adapt old content to 4e and 4e doesn't adapt to 5e. By limiting 5e buy/crafting rules so harshly, they have forced us to spend so much time trying to figure out how to balance the system. It just comes across as lazy.
While I agree with abolishing 3e's magic item economy, I also think that the fact that everyone makes Magic Item shops, and we all like magic items speaks to the ignored demands of magic items
I prefer to make my own magic items. Taking commissions to make magic for others is a good living.
5e crafting/buying and selling mechanics are in dire need of overhaul or homebrew.
Its one of the most popular subjects (and likely dowloads) on the DM guild
I guess I have an unpopular opinion but so far I have never had a magic item shop in my games and kept the game low to mid magic overall. It works perfectly well imo and adds importance to the items you find in adventures. Most magic items in the books are boring anyway lol a lot of +1s with nothing else
I think magic items should be tied into the lore of the world or into character backstory/development. I think players value them more if they're earnt and personal.
the hair looks good
I have never allowed the buying and selling of magic items. If I am running a published adventure I customize loot to insure that my players are discovering things they can use.
i do not generally have a shop where you can buy or sell high level magical items other than a few healing potions. My players will find magical items on adventures. It is easy to exchange one item for another in official published modules. I do not allow my players to find a mother load of magical items, I give them one here another there. A sort of reward, should they find it. As for selling such items any good rouge should be able to both buy and sell such items. Selling at a loss and buying at a premium when in any large city Which traveling to can be an adventure in its self
i personally think any rare or lower item should be buyable in a major city (like waterdeep) uncomon and comon easily acsessible. anything higher percentiles/ dm disgresion
+1 wepons are 100
+2 wepons 500
+3 wepons 1000
costs more if u want a +1 frost brand ect.
Not first but just as awesome.
Sounds like we should all be treating magic shops more like Art/Arms dealers and less like Final Fantasy shops....I'm not against it because it opens up a ton of potential story hooks and interesting NPC plus participating in magical auctions is a great way to spend some downtime. If you cannot sale your more expensive magic items outright maybe the royal bank (Or the loanshark who is secretly a blue dragon) will provide you with a line of credit.