Buying and Selling

[Knight Otu]

(this one was born from a discussion in General discussion, as a way to limit purchases in a reasonable way without impacting the idea of an open market overly)

From vibrant markets to common stores, Orussus and many other cities have various places where people leave their money, and obtain diverse items or services in return. Yet not everything may be available, even if it fits the gold piece limits.

The city of Orussus itself has a gold piece limit of 50,000 gp. Most items and services of that price or lower are available in Orussus. The one thing that limits this is the rarity of those who create the items and provide the service - outside of the player characters, people of 10th level or higher are very rare, though they do exist. The result of that is that items or services requiring a 10th or higher level character are not readily available, barring special circumstances (PCs opening a shop for them, special shop mentioned in city writeup, DM/judge approval).

A small list of what this entails is the following:

• Magic Weapons and armor with an enhancement bonus of +4 or higher are out, since a character has to be at least 12th level to do that. Weapons and armor with a +3 bonus and abilities are still available, as long as they are below the gp limit.
• Items requiring 6th or higher level spells to create are out - a more detailed list will follow.
• Items requiring 4th or higher level bard spells are out.
• Items requiring 3rd or 4th level paladin or ranger spells are out.
• Staves, rings and psicrowns are out, since the creation feats require 12th level. <Alternate: These things are rare enough that the gp limit for them is ¹/₅ or ¹/₁₀ of the normal limit.>
• Items that read Caster Level 10+ generally are available unless they fulfill the 10th level limit in other ways. (As per the DMG errata, the Caster Level line is no prerequisite)
• Items that in some cases could be bought, and in other cases not (such as items requiring a spell that is 5th level for one class, but 6th in another) remain available.

Comments? Questions? Other Ideas?

 

[Knight Otu]

*post reserved for list*

Magic Items II file:
Animated shield (animate objects, 6th level spell)
Etherealness armor (ethereal jaunt, 7th level spell)
Fortification armor/shield (limited wish/miracle, 7th/9th level spell)
Ghost Touch armor/shield (etherealness, 9th level spell)
Invulnerability armor (wish/miracle, 9th level spell)
Reflecting shield (spell turning, 7th level spell)
Undead Controlling armor/shield (control undead, 7th level spell)

Breastplate of Command (mass charm monster, 8th level spell, or 6th level bard spell)

Absorbing Shield (disintegrate, 6th/7th level spell)

Dancing Weapon (animate objects, 6th level spell)
Disruption Weapon (heal, 6th/7th level spell)
Spell Storing Weapon (Creator must be 12th+ level)
Vorpal Weapon (Circle of Death, 6th level spell)
Wounding Weapon (Mage's [Mordenkainen's] sword, 7th level spell)

Dwarven Thrower (Creator must be 10th+ level)
Luckblade (wish/miracle, 9th level spell)
Nine Lives Stealer (finger of death, 7th/8th level spell)
Slaying Arrow (finger of death, 7th/8th level spell)
Sword of the Planes (plane shift, 7th/8th level spell)

 

[Zweischneid]

Well, the most obvious limitations would be to go by the treasure table lists.. i.e. only Scrolls that could be rolled for on the Minor & Medium treasure table or only Rings that could come from the Minor treasure table, etc...

I didn't conpare on how that would synergize with your npc lvl cap, but it might be easier to understand and much easier to doublecheck.

 

[Knight Otu]

The minor/medium/major distinction pretty much works by the item's price, and this would in most cases lead to a doubled price restriction (your suggestion and the gold piece limit). It would not really be synergetic with the npc limit.

 

[Patlin]

This all makes a great deal of sense, but I don't think it accomplishes enough to warrant weighing down our house rules with another addition. Seems to me that the more house rules we have, the harder it feels to jump in as a new player. A gold piece limit seems fully satisfactory to me, and much simpler. I therefore vote no.

 

[orsal]

This all makes a great deal of sense, but I don't think it accomplishes enough to warrant weighing down our house rules with another addition. Seems to me that the more house rules we have, the harder it feels to jump in as a new player. A gold piece limit seems fully satisfactory to me, and much simpler. I therefore vote no.

That's a reasonably argument against unnecessary house rules which affect character creation or low-level character activities. But this proposal only proscribes some of the more powerful items, which no character would be able to afford immediately anyway. What's the cheapest item which is unavailable by virtue of the character level requirement? Anything below, say, 10,000 GP?

 

[El Jefe]

Even if this gets voted down, I hope we decide to keep the flavor of Orussus having a high gp limit for a city of it's size, yet high-level NPC's being relatively rare. We discussed in another thread that EnWorld was once full of great heroes, but years of relative peace have allowed the truly great to either die off or go into hiding. This is a new age of emerging heroes, namely the PCs. I don't have a problem with items that have high spell requirements being available if they fall under the gp limit. But I think these should be great treasures that are not fully understood by their owners, and if anyone still knows how to make such items of power, they keep themselves and their knowledge well hidden.

What that means in game terms is that high-level low-gp ("low" being relative) items are available, but nobody can commission Joe Wizard over in the merchant's quarter to magic up a few new ones.

 

[Patlin]

That's a reasonably argument against unnecessary house rules which affect character creation or low-level character activities. But this proposal only proscribes some of the more powerful items, which no character would be able to afford immediately anyway. What's the cheapest item which is unavailable by virtue of the character level requirement? Anything below, say, 10,000 GP?

I don't disagre with you, Orsal, and perhaps my issue *is* too minor. However, it does take a simple one measurement test and change it into a somewhat complicated test with a measurement for not only the original gp value but also for each item prereq -- an arcana which I expect recieves little attention from anyone but rule geeks like myself. Let me ask a question, and perhaps you can change my mind: what items could be purchased under the current rules but not under the modified proposed rule that would have a negative impact on EN World as a whole?

My position is that a simple rule that works is better than a more complicated but more internally consistent rule.

Might I suggest an alternative? If there is a problem we are anticipating here, could we handle it with a mechanically simple list of banned items, rather than with a general rule that might be complicatd for some to figure out?

A luckblade, for example, could be outlawed. I'd note, however, that a luckblade with *any* wishes remaining in it would allready be over the gp limit and thus unavailable. A luckblade with no wishes left doesn't really bother me in the hands of a PC that can somehow afford it.

 

[Knight Otu]

Unstickied for now.

 

[Velmont]

It is true that the money limit have one great disadvanatge: If you have a limit of 3000gp for example, you can buy most scroll of 8th level, can find a spellcaster that would cast you a 9th level spell but you would have difficulty to find a shield +2...

The level limit correct that. Now, the only downside of that is you must check the prerequisit of the item creation each time you want to buy it, which make things more complex... I like to keep things simple, but the cash limit is also bugging me. Choosing between the best of the two, I would go for the limit level.