"Wha'dya need the stupid fuckin' rope for, huh?"
Everyone knows I'll defend magic item shops to the death. There's two reasons for this: The first is that in Dungeons and Dragons 3.X and Pathfinder, your magic items are a core part of your character's build and the player should have some level of agency over this. The second is that I fucking love custom made magic items. They add serious flavor to characters and I try to start with one or two every time I make a character. It'd be a shame to give a flat "no" to such cool stuff just because nobody in the group has the magic item creation feats, especially given that they're willing to pay full price. I mean, the alternative is the magic item creation rules and feats and...let's just...gently guide you away from that disaster.
But there's another reason people like making their own magic items. It's because a lot of the magic items in the books are retarded. I don't like using that word lightly, particularly because I've met plenty of mentally challenged people who wouldn't want to be associated with the items I'm about to talk about. So, without further adieu, let's get on with a bald-faced attempt to convince you guys that sometimes people want to make their own magic items because the ones presented in the book aren't worth even close to what they cost!
Efficient Quiver. Yes, this is the magic item that inspired this whole post. It's my poster child for terribly designed magic items. For 1800 gold, it can hold 60 arrows, 18 javelins, and 6 bows. You can flex within these definitions to anything similar in shape. So, does anyone see the problem yet? Can anyone tell me any reason why someone in any pen and paper game ever made or even real life would carry a bow AND javelins? No? That's what I thought. So, for 1800 gold, this quiver holds less arrows than you want it to, up to 6 bows, a compartment which you will never in your life fill to capacity, and one third of it remains completely empty because nobody in their right mind would carry a javelin if they had a bow. Not even people whose only ranged combat option is the javelin carry javelins. And yeah, there's magic javelins that do lightning or whatever, but they're never going to BUY those. Bets are that if they find them in random treasure, they fucking SELL THEM because consumable magic items without spell trigger or spell completion are inordinately expensive. And finally, when have you EVER bitched about how many arrows the archer has on him? Have you ever even looked at his sheet? Would you even know how many arrows a quiver held without looking it up? In Pathfinder, QUIVERS COME FREE WITH THE ARROWS!
Decanter of Endless Water. Okay so, this is kind of a good magic item that's on the list because it's famous for its implications. For 9k gold, you can create up to 30 gallons of fresh or salt water a round. That's every six seconds. That is an ecology ruining amount of water. Given enough time, it could destroy a city. An ecology. Probably a planet. Given the right dungeon, it could probably flood and drown whole encounters. I mean, a decent GM would never let that happen, but as soon as that bright idea comes up, your game becomes an episode of Benny Hill for at least an hour. The decanter is exactly like the Robe of Useful Items: In the hands of a party whose only ever going to use it for obviously intended purpose, it's nice. In the hands of a creative person, though, this item is insane.
Apparatus of Kwalish. This is called Apparatus of the Crab in Pathfinder and is the same item. This thing is so classic that it's honestly pretty unfair that I'm putting it on this list. For a whopping 90k gold, it's a submersible. That's it, for 90 thousand gold you can go under water and slowly derp around at 20ft per round like a complete idiot for three times more gold cost than a permanent Water Breathing item or helm of underwater action, or over twelve times the cost of a Bottle of Air. That's assuming your game ever goes underwater enough to justify those items in the first place. Go on, count up the number of times this item, or ANY underwater item, would have been useful enough to justify the cost of it. I've got 20 years of gaming experience, and lemme tell you: my answer is less than ten.
Rod of Lordly Might. 70k gold. What does it do? Fuck me, it'd probably be easier to list what it doesn't do. Hold person once a day. Fear once a day. 2d4 damage touch attack once a day. It can turn into a +2 light mace, a +1 flaming longsword, a +4 battleaxe, or a +3 longspear. It can turn into a climbing pole, be used to force open doors, and determine magnetic north and approximate depth underground. IT CAN FUCKIN' JULIENNE FRIES AND KEEP YOUR WINDOWS SPOTLESS!
The Rod here is a stand-in so I can point out a common problem. Basically, the more random capabilities you stack onto an item, the higher the price goes and the less the player actually cares about the fucking thing. Many, many items do a cool thing then ruin it by providing a spell or something the player will never use. The Rod of Lordly Might is one of the worst culprits of having a giant laundry list of shit nobody will ever actually use it for. All it does is inflate the cost of the item.
Rod of Alertness. This is an item the size of a light mace that costs 85k gold. You leave it sticking in the ground. Up to like 120 feet away from you. It's not magically sealed to the ground, it's just sticking up out of the dirt. A reliable, huge-range alertness spell or a 1HD goblin's biggest payday ever? You decide.
Elemental Gem. Blah blah consumable item blah blah spell. Nobody's going to buy this overpriced consumable bullshit. Not even if they don't have any other choice. They're so expensive that they often rival the price of an item that lets you use a spell once a day. Players will always, ALWAYS lean toward buying non-consumable items, and the only consumables that will ever see much use are potions, scrolls and wands: all much less expensive than book listed consumable wonderous items.
Chime of Opening. Sure, ten +11 disable device checks is worth 3k gold. Okay. You know, you can easily buy locks that are DC 25? Those would reduce your chances to open the lock on a single charge below fifty percent. So, basically, this is a chime that's for opening the locks on poor people's houses? Because DC 25 is an average lock. Like, the town baker's house would take you two or more charges on this thing to open. Unless you think "Average" implies something other than the majority of people using this sort of lock.
Oh, and yes, I DID gloss over its ability to automatically dispel Hold Portal and Arcane Lock.
Feather Token. 50 gold to make an anchor that disappears in 24 hours? 300 gold for a single use of Animal Messenger? 400 gold for a tree? A boat so big no PC will ever effectively use it AND it STILL fades after 24 hours? These are great! I'm buying ten.
Hand of the Mage. Actually, I secretly love this item. "Hey, can I get a version of this magic item that isn't a severed mummified hand hanging from a chain around my neck?" / "No. No you can't, This is a mass produced magic item and they all look like that."
Robe of Eyes. An incredibly powerful and expensive(120k) magic item that can be disabled with no save by a 0 level spell. Slow clap. Also a shoutout to poor wording that leads the reader to believe the person wearing the robe is blinded and not just the robe itself.
I could go on. I even will, in later posts. However, for now my point is made. A lot of the items in the books are stupid, or created without thought to what an average person would actually want. Imagine the Efficient Quiver is a mass produced consumer product, and it's got a competitor. We'll call it the iQuiver. The Efficient Quiver holds whatever dumb bullshit I explained above, and the iQuiver just straight up holds 180 arrows. Nothing else. Same cost. Which do you really think would get better sales? Exactly.
So, take this to mean that if magic item shops and custom items don't exist, the players are always settling for second best. Instead of going to Longhorn Steakhouse then seeing Die Hard at the movie theater, you're eating at Applebee's and seeing Lethal Weapon IV. You're creating a vague but palpable feeling of frustration and dissatisfaction. Players aren't ever getting what they really want, and all because you think it "makes sense". This will be addressed in a future post, but "That's life" is the worst justification you could make for your actions in a Pen and Paper game. Let's leave it at that for now.
You can mitigate this by talking with the player and trying to provide things they want. Or, you can restore their agency and let them do it themselves with the gold you've given as a reward. To me, it's just simpler.
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