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Magic Shops

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 106
No issue epitomizes the advantages and drawbacks of a high-magic game like the question of whether to place magic shops in your world. Players, especially those toward the right end of the rewards continuum, love ready access to stores where they can purchase items they need, sell the ones they make, and trade the ones they find and don’t want. On the other hand, this makes magic items seem as prosaic and interchangeable as modern consumer goods.

If you consider this a problem, you can simply declare that magic shops don’t exist in your setting. Allocate items according to the wish list method. The PCs must always overcome plot obstacles to swap, sell, or buy major items they don’t find themselves. Minor or disposable items, like potions and scrolls, might be available for sale from itinerant traders or at general stores.

Alternatively, you can assume that magic shops exist in the background of the world, entering into a social contract with players not to focus on them or make them a part of the story. If the PCs pay too much attention to them, including planning heists, they go away, leaving the group without a way of buying, selling, or trading desired items.

Archives of Nethys

Rules Index | GM Screen

Magic Shops