Of Magic Shops and 10th Level Bartenders - Part 2

Taking a break from pro. cartography work and some campaign writing to drop more thoughts about this topic into the blog.

Without Magic Shops, where do you buy magic items from?

Herbalists and Alchemists

Herbalists are a good bet for buying a low power potion, especially minor potions which can slow poison, slow disease or heal you for a few points of damage.

Some DM's (like myself), really dig the idea of brewing potions from natural ingredients.  I was greatly inspired by the Skyrim video game and wrote up all kinds of plants and herbs which can be combined in various ways to make potions.  This sort of thing can greatly flesh out what an herbalist might have for sale.

I think of herbalists as the natural healers in a community.  I usually have herbalists double as physicians for the village where they dwell.

Alchemists

Alchemists to my mind are more like crazy scientists, combining strange chemicals with the blood of monsters.  If you want a potion that can do crazy things like possibly...maybe...20% chance for sure, turn you invisible, these are the guys you go to.  Alchemists are sometimes the guys making poisons to sell in the Underground market.

I would be less inclined to trust what an Alchemist brew to put into my actual body BUT sometimes you need to drink a potion that makes you as strong as a Frost Giant for a few minutes, so what are you gonna do?

When it comes to Herbalists and Alchemists I usually keep them with a very minimal stock on hand plus maybe two or three really wiz bang potions which are the current focus of their experimentation.  Herbalists and Alchemists are more likely to brew a potion up "to order" for a customer rather than try to keep a stock on hand. 

I also like the idea that potions are always a one and done kind of deal.  None of the potions in my world can be broken into individual sips which can be metered out.  In my world you've gotta down the whole thing and see what happens.  Potions purchased in shops don't always work either.  You might purchase a complete dude, in which case most shop keepers will provide you with a 50% return on what you spent, provided you make it back alive to claim it.

Smiths

There are no smiths, anywhere in the world, who can make you a magical weapon.  None.  Zip.  Zero.  Maybe a really talented Dwarven smith could craft you a Dwarven weapon of quality but that will always be a custom, made to order affair taking at least a month to complete and costing in the hundreds to thousands of gold pieces. 

There are thousands of individuals living in the fantasy world who would love to get their grubby fingers on a magic weapon, or a magic shield, or magic armor.  The demand for these items so totally outstrips their numbers in the world that nobody, nobody is offering to sell them.

Really powerful, high level Clerics and Magic-Users create magical weapons and armor and it can take months and years.  Usually when they create these items they are doing it for a very specific purpose - they are not about to make one for some chowder head group of adventurers, no Bill, not even for 10,000 gold pieces.

If, by way of example, a vampire turns out to have a magical +3 scimitar of gore in their treasure trove the vampire is going to be wielding it.

So how do you get magic weapons and armor?

You pry them out of the cold dead hands of their current owners, be that monsters or other types of enemies OR you can sometimes come across one in the horde of an actual dragon.  That is about it.

Magic Items and Charges

In my campaign I like magic items which have charges.  If there is going to be a flying carpet in my campaign then there probably will only be one.  One in the entirety of the world.  That flying carpet will probably run off of charges.  Sure, there will be a way for a major magic item like this to be recharged.  It might require that you place 500 gold piece diamonds on the rug and watch as the run absorbs them for one use to be recharged.

Major magic items usually have a way to recharge them which is both inconvenient and very expensive.  More minor items like say a wand of webs, will have a finite number of charges, say six.  When the wand is out of charges it crumbles and disintegrates into nothing - the end.

Permanent Enchantments and Magic Items

Sometimes a high level Magic-User or Cleric wants to enchant an area with a certain effect and they want to make the effect permanent.  They need to use the spell permanency to do so but in addition, the spell requires the material component of at least a +1 magic item of a value of no less than 1,500 gold pieces.  A +1 magic item will grant you a permanent enchantment on a location which lasts for up to 25 years.  No forever, but a long time.  That +2 cloak of protection will allow you to enchant a location for up to 50 years.  Permanent magic items used to create permanent enchantments on Wizard Towers, Temples and Palaces insures that the world stock of permanent magic items is always being drained, at least a little bit.

Of Magic Shops and 10th Level Bartenders

Its 1984 and my High School friends and I are scoffing at a published TSR adventure with magic shops and bartenders who were "retired adventurers" of 10th level or even higher.

Why wouldn't any magic shop immediately be a top priority on the hit list of every Lich, Dragon and major bad guy within a thousand miles?

How were the player characters, supposedly the heroes of the current campaign, supposed to feel remotely heroic if every Joe bartender and Sally shop keeper was a retired adventurer of a high enough level to easily thwart whatever adventuring task was at hand?

Today, the Magic Shop has become a staple in many published settings and high level shop keepers are running half of the blacksmith shops, taverns and emporium within a hundred miles.  How did we get to this state?  My High School friends and I and I suspect many of you who were playing D&D in the late 1970's through the 1980's used to look with absolute disdain on the appearance of a bonafide Magic Shop in a homebrew campaign as a sure red flag that the campaign was going to be another "Monte Hall" affair and not the sort of game we were hoping to play.

Nearly as bad was the bar fight which ended when the NPC, 10th level retired Fighter took his +3 magic sword down off of its place of honor above the bar and obliterated the party Half-Orc for breaking one of his chairs over the head of a patron who had accused him of cheating at cards.

"That guy is supposed to be off building his own keep somewhere on the frontier", we protested.  What the heck is he doing cleaning mugs and pouring out ales for a couple of gold pieces a day in some back water village at the ass end of nowhere?

The creep of high magic and high level characters populating the published campaign worlds of the Dungeons and Dragons universe had begun in earnest.

So, how do you sell magic items your party doesn't need or want if you don't have a magic shop which buys and sells magic items routinely in every major city in the campaign world?

Easy.  You offer to sell them to one of three places.  The Temple, the Guilds or the Underground.

Temples are a good first bet for selling magic items you don't have a use for.  If the item is something the Temple can actually use, a magical mace that they could give to a Cleric or a magical shield they could give to a paladin, you can usually get close to 75% of the full value of the item.

Guilds are another good bet for selling off undesired magic items.  They may not be located in every large city but a Magic-User's Guild will usually offer 80% to as high as 90% of the listed value for magic scrolls, wands, staves and items useful to their members.  The Magic-User's guild is also a good place to sell off valuable components you might have gathered during your adventures.  Valuable gems, jewelry and the strange poison sacks, fangs, tails and hearts of monsters you've decided to stick into jars and haul out of the dungeon might find a buyer at this guild.

The Fighter's Guild or local Mercenary company is another good place to sell the martial types of magical items.  As a general rule a Fighter's Guild is not as flush in coin as the Magic-User's guild and so you can expect to be offered 50% to 75% of the value of a useful item.

Last on the list is finding a connection to the underground markets, the slimy under belly of the campaign city.  With the right Fence you can sell almost anything through the Underground market but don't expect to receive a fair value for your hard won loot.  The Underground will offer you anywhere from 25% of the value of an item up to, at the very maximum, 50% of the listed value of any magic item.  Remember, the Underground market may take some time to find a buyer for your magical item and the middle men in the transaction all need to put a little coin into their pockets along the way.

When it comes to high level NPC characters, my recommendation is that you keep the common folk, common.  The vast majority of the population in any village, town or city is the common, zero level variety of their race pulled straight out of the monster manual. 

Let's establish some guidelines for how numerous certain NPC character types are within your campaign world.  For the purposes of our example we will stick with the Fighter character class.

1st Level Fighters     Some of the City Militia and Royal Guard are 1st level Fighters.  Perhaps as many as 50% of the entire force is made up of this power level of character.
2nd Level Fighters    Tougher Hired Guards for shops which trade in valuable goods.  City Guard members who are corporals or sergeants in the ranking structure.  A half dozen freelance adventurers for hire might be available at this level in the entire city.
3rd Level Fighters     Commanders of local brigades of the City Militia, Sergeants within the Palace Guard, the personal bodyguards of important NPC personalities within the city may be of this level.
4th to 5th Level         Captain of the entire city guard.  The personal bodyguard of the King. An instructor at the regions Fighter's Guild Hall.  Your Fighter that decides to settle down and buy an Inn to operate instead of trying to climb the ladder of power into the nobility is usually from this tier in the Fighter class level scheme.
6th to 8th Level         Head of the region's Fighter's Guild.  Captain over the guard for a large temple of one of the richest and most powerful and influential religious sects in the campaign.
9th and 10th Level    9th and 10th level Fighters have risen to such a height of influence, wealth and prestige that they are widely considered to be a member of the lower noble class.  These characters are usually working to establish Keeps, Forts and other strongholds at the borders of the Kingdom.  They may carry the title of Knight and be called by the title of Sir.  These characters can meet out the King's justice in lower court cases within the territory of their established Keep.
11th to 15th Level      This is a rank rarely achieved by an adventurer but characters of this power level are often granted a permanent rank and title within the government of the Kingdom.  They might be declared to be a Duke, Baron or similar title.