The Thing About Bling....

I saw an excellent posting from Adam Carriere and Fencing Frog Gaming Adventures that really sent my mind to thinking! (I know BAD idea!) The post talked about ways to address the acquisition of magic items,spells and potions! I thought it was well thought out and very thought provoking. In case you missed it I copied and pasted it here: This was inspired by a post on the Lead Adventure Forum and I wanted to see what you you guys think of this. I don't think the official way of doing it is bad but this approach might give us more flavor. The Idea: Limit the Purchase of Magic Items Rational: It seems odd that people go crawling around a ruined city risking life and limb when anything you can find there can be bought for cold hard cash. The group will have to determine for it self exactly what is available to buy but here are my suggestions: Potion: all potion except for Elixir of Life should be available for purchase as all can be created by the spell Brew Potion presumably there are witches and other wizards who make their living brewing and selling them to their more adventurous brethren. Elixir of Life of life cannot be produced with Brew Potion so presumably the secret has been lost and the only way to get it is to find it in some long dead wizards potion cellar. Scrolls and Grimoires: All of these should be available by the same rational as that governing potions above, the can be produced by known spells so it stands to reason that someone out there is going to produce them. Weapons and Armor: any Weapon providing a +1 to fight should be available as should any armor or shield providing a +1 to armor should be available as they can be produce using spells from the Enchanter list. Rings and Cloaks of protection, and any weapon or armor with an enchantment of greater than +1 should not be available for purchase as they cannot be produce with a know spell. Magic Items: None of these should be available for general purchase as there are no know spells to produce them clearly they are great artifacts left over from the old days. If a player has an item he doesn't want say a staff of casting for a spell he doesn't have or doesn't use he or she can sell it (as per the book) and it would then be available to other players for purchase (at the price indicated in the book). As I pointed out the player must weight the value of cash over the risk of giving an advantage to an opponent Objections: Someone will have to do the record keeping, good luck could give a player a special item that no one can match because they don't roll it up on the treasure table. Also the logic I have applied above may go out the window as more supplements (and spells) appear. I don't have a problem with the official approach just thought this might be more interesting. I liked it and it got me thinking about bookkeeping and ways to minimize what for some is a tedious job. GREAT READ Adam! So I had a thought. What is the ONLY things available are the actual items that get sold back out of game? It would cut down tremendously on the availability of stuff. It would make witches, enchanters and sigilsts who could sell off unused products a bit more interesting. At the beginning of a campaign of course no one would really sell anything that was helpful to their cause but that unused potion or scroll could be a handy way to increase a Warbands cash flow. Magic items are ...well first of all Adam had the right of it. The magics used to create them are lost to time. Personally I think having only twenty to choose from is a PITA and very restricting but I get it. At some point game balance is paramount. But this idea clearly has room to grow.