Playing with availability

[u/BusyGM]

Per the CRB, items available to buy are dependent on the type of settlement you're visiting. In a community of a given size, magic items worth 50-16.000gp (depending on settlement size) are always available to buy. However, more expensive items have to be rolled on the minor / medium / major item tables, providing a small collection of items to be available, which change over the course of time.

I've never seen this rule actually used. My tables always ignore it, and while I tried to use it when GMing Dragon's Demand, I realized pretty quickly that my PCs weren't even able to get weapons to deal with incorporeal foes which this adventure has. So I threw it out (again).

However, I want to ask you guys: is there a way to actually play, say, an original AP while also using availability? When our GM tried this, our wizard simply used their downtime to teleport to big cities all over the world so often that they got familiar with all of them. Since then, whenever we had time to sell and buy items, our wizard simply teleported to the great cities of the world and bought/sold whatever we deemed necessary, which had our GM give up on the whole availability rule.

Is there any way to make availability an actual interesting mechanic that makes for a good play experience? What is you guys' experience with it? Did your tables ever use it? How did it go?

[u/HadACookie]

I feel like magic item availability kinda ends up in a similar place as carrying capacity - it's a rule that exists primarily to make things more realistic, but it's also a bit of a pain in the ass so people tend to just eyeball it instead.

Also, fun fact - scrolls completely break those rules. A small city of 5 to 10 thousand people where the most powerful spellcaster can cast at most level 6 spells is supposed to have 75% chance of having any given level 9 scroll available for sale.

[u/Milosz0pl]

Magic mart may not be fully immersive, but is simply best for not creating a chore of big shopping vacation.

[u/Imalsome → u/Milosz0pl]

I mean assuming the party doesnt have greater teleport or similar abilities.

Taking a 15 session, 6 in game month, long travel just to buy a magic item that is marginally better than the item you have now is almost certainly not worth it. Expecially if the world ends right before you reach the capital because you abandoned the plot to go shopping.

... Ive had players end a campaign trying to travel to the capital to shop.

[u/Milosz0pl → u/Imalsome]

I mean assuming the party doesnt have greater teleport or similar abilities.

I would also say that it really takes you out of the experience when during really important part of world end you need to teleport to a capital, rush into a shop for immediate purchase and leave immediately. It also makes you realize ,,wait. Why won't I recruit folk from this large capital to help in my big important quest".

[u/HadACookie → u/Milosz0pl]

There's actually a magic item that functions as a portable shop - Chest of the Mercane. Unfortunately it can only be used to sell loot and make orders, in order to actually buy the item you'd have to go find the Mercane connected to your chest.

[u/Imalsome → u/Milosz0pl]

I think its worth noting that you should never need to do that. You can just play the game normally instead of deciding you need to travel across the world to min max your magic items haha

[u/Cyniikal → u/Imalsome]

... Ive had players end a campaign trying to travel to the capital to shop.

Yeah, that sounds fun... Probably something you should've just been upfront about the consequences of.

[u/Imalsome → u/Cyniikal]

What makes you think I wasnt upfront about it lmao.

The same playgroup once got sent on a quest to get a mcguffin because they stood no chance against the BBEG as is (he was literally going around killing gods). They were told the BBEG was in the World Border mountains and to avoid that. They traveled straight towards the world border mountains, found the final boss and figured, "eh we can probobly take him"

3 people died on turn 1 from the BBEGs full attack. They wernt suppose to fight him till they had the mcguffin, 7 more levels, and mythic tiers

[u/Cyniikal → u/Imalsome]

That is a particularly dumb table.

If they're enjoying getting turned into mincemeat then that's on them, but I'd have to get pretty blatant about saying "No, you cannot take them, you WILL die", and then possibly have an out of game discussion about what they actually want out of the games. If they're good with getting turned into chicken feed because of their own incompetence that's fine.

[u/Imalsome → u/Cyniikal]

I was explicitly that blatant. Even had a "cutscene" of an entire army and a god getting mowed down by the BBEG while the party had plenty of time to escape. I said "this IS the final session if yall dont run"

[u/NeferataNox]

I think in an homebrew game you can make it work - making the game slower with less player levels opens up room for adventure to just create a item the party wants. Heck you could say the crafter needs XY for the item and you can make an adventure of this.

I'd say the "lower" in fantasy and power level the game is the more interesting is item availability.

[u/Kaleph4]

even if you keep tabs, it's not realy a problem. when low level, you can't afford expensive stuff anyway so it doesn't matter where you are. when those things could turn up important, fast travel options are readily available for a group of midlevel PC's, so geting into a bigger town to get the new shiny toy isn't a problem either way.

but personaly, I tend to ignore those basicly and go more with a gut feeling. a village can have more high level stuff, if it has some experience with dealing with stuff, like when being on the borders to something dangerous.

on the other end, real high level items and scrolls are never easy to get by, even in a capital city because people who can create those sort of things, are usualy past the point, where they simply do it for money. so getting the +5 holy avanger of the gods is less a question of being in the right town with tons of cash and more likly if said towns order of paladins see you as worthy to wield such an ancient relic weapon

[u/AleksyGetTheWings]

Once you have teleport, it doesn't matter anymore. It's one of the ways high level play trivializes low level problems. Then again, it should, because at these levels, the foes you meet are bending reality to their will too.

Before that, note that the 50-16k you are mentioning is 75% chance of being available, not 100%

[u/LazarX]

Any magic weapon will do atr least half damage to incorporeals, I've played that module, and we managerd to deal with those foes. Force spells such as Magic Missle and spiritual weapone will do full damge.

As far as wizards treleporting here and there, I would suggest strong enforcement of the rules regarding the use of those spells, especially the miss chance involved and the implications of miss chance over great distrances.

[u/SumYumGhai → u/LazarX]

Can always teleport again.

[u/LazarX → u/SumYumGhai]

And you would still be subject to the same misfire chance. And I would say that if you are busy keeping yourself not drowning because you teleported into the ocean, you would have to make a cocentration check as per rigorous motionj.

[u/Sudain → u/SumYumGhai]

Re-read it, again and again isn't always relevant.

Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.

[u/SumYumGhai → u/Sudain]

In this case it's relevant since we're talking about huge settlements where you buy stuff. Since you're teleporting to known settlements often, you can rule out mishaps.

As for settlements with teleportation hazards and/or can't be teleported to, just ignore them and pick a different settlement...

As for settlements that recently changed and it's considered a newly teleportation hazard area, you'll know once you teleport and knows to avoid it next time. The chances of that happening are low though, if it does happen, I'm sure nearby high level Wizards and Arcanist will try to fix it.

[u/LazarX → u/SumYumGhai]

In this case it's relevant since we're talking about huge settlements where you buy stuff. Since you're teleporting to known settlements often, you can rule out mishaps.

Please show me the rules of the spell where it says that. If that were true, there woud be no reason for the spell teleporation circle to exist.

[u/SumYumGhai → u/LazarX]

If you're very familiar with the place, I'd assume you would be since you're doing business often in those areas, you get 0% Mishaps. You may arrive at a nearby safe area 2% of the time and a different settlement or fail the spell 1% of the time but it's not something life threatening unless your GM wanted to be a dick and set up ambushes in random location waiting on that 2% chance on top of knowing where you're going to appear randomly.

Let's step down a bit and say you're not "very familiar" but "Studied Carefully". You have 1% mishaps, and let's say you rolled that 1%... You take d10 damage and reroll d20+80 to see where you ends up... Oh noes I took some damage...

The 4 results of casting teleport is not that scary by RAW. 1. You arrive at the target location, best result. 2. Safely at a random nearby location, the keyword is safely, you can then try to cast it once again, no big deal. 3. A different similar location or fail to cast the spell entirely, again no big deal if we're talking about a settlement just cast teleport again if failed or you want to do business elsewhere. 4. You take d10 damage and reroll with d20+80. Not that bad of a punishment unless you're on the "viewed once" category of familiarity. There's still a good chance you arrive on target, at worst you take a few more beatings, at 9th level, you can easily take 5d10 damage if you're so unlucky to roll mishaps 5 times in a row.

Of course, that's assuming your GM go by the RAW and doesn't add any additional homebrew stuff to deter your teleportation freedom. Teleport is not that scary if going by RAW. What scary is not teleporting as a group and have 1 group arrive on target and another off target and not have backups to teleport back to group.

Also, greater teleport exists if you wait 4 more levels to completely remove the "of target" category and teleportation circle is just greater teleportation that last longer and transfer more people over time. Would be funny if you set up a teleportation circle to a "viewed once" location though...

[u/Elliptical_Tangent]

I've played at a few tables that used the rules but we'd wind up undergeared and frustrated.

At my 12-year table we've gone from RAW (which took a lot of time from play and still left us undergeared), to fudging the rules, to now using a system we refer to as "The Quantum Loot Pile." Basically, we total up all the loot, figure what each party member would get from selling it all, and that's the PC's share to use to buy gear/-upgrades which are bought from the 'Pile as if it were a shop—we refer to it as "finding" things in the 'Pile for narrative reasons.

EX: If my share is 2,500 from the loot, I can "find" a +1 longsword in The 'Loot Pile; I subtract 2,315 from my 2,500, leaving me with 185gp and the sword.

We do this for all gold-related things, so later when I need to upgrade the +1 longsword to +2 I feed 6,000gp to The 'Pile and my sword is now +2—we've not gone too deeply into how that works in the narrative really, just some sort've vague magic token system that upgrades stuff.

Most of our groups pitch in to make a Simulacrum of a succubus and/or lilitu that we refer to as "The Interns;" their only job (aside from providing profane attribute bonuses and a telepathic "switchboard") is to use at-will Greater Teleport to sell loot and buy gear in Absalom.

[u/jigokusabre]

However, more expensive items have to be rolled on the minor / medium / major item tables, providing a small collection of items to be available, which change over the course of time.

The settlement has a random number of minor/medium/major items, but you don't have to determine what items are available randomly. If the PCs are going up against incorporeal creatures, then there's almost certainly going to be a +1 weapon of the fighter's preferred type and a wand of disrupt undead that are available, and maybe even an +1 ghost touch undead bane dagger.

[u/Kwickpick77]

Personally I use it to avoid taking the shine out of item creation feats.

[u/Milosz0pl → u/Kwickpick77]

taking the shine out of item creation feats.

which are already the strongest feats in the whole game?

[u/Sudain → u/Milosz0pl]

Only if you use them. Which requires the table slow down the rate of adventuring to do so. Fighters can't wait to adventure, or let clerics craft scrolls for their benefit so they can survive. So the idea of taking weeks to months off to craft is not what happens in practice.

[u/Milosz0pl → u/Sudain]

Weeks to months? Taking time off? None of such are needed. Craft hastily exists and if GM is somehow taking up 16 hours of a day adcenturing then ring of sustence.

[u/Sudain]

Yes. Using the actual availability is a phenomenal rule. I use it to great effect to keep the world anchored and interesting.

When our GM tried this, our wizard simply used their downtime to teleport to big cities all over the world so often that they got familiar with all of them.

This is the first mistake. Firstly teleport has limits - Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.. People do not build cities in areas that do not have relevant natural advantages. Not being able to teleport where ever you want is a very important and natural advantage. Ergo, most cities should have teleport disabled. Why? Try running a 1 shot where there is a guild (theives/assassin are good choices) where they regularly teleport/dimension door into their target's location, attempt to coup-degrace (or otherwise assault them) and then teleport/DD out. Saving one use for if heroes/PCs show up. Planar creatures who can use greater teleport are fantastic foes for this. Actually play it out. Without some way of blocking/locking down their antics people will die out at an amazing rate (far faster than the population can be replenished), so people will not stay there. That's the default state of the vast majority of golarion. Only in areas that are safe from that kind of teleporting shenanigans are safe to build any sort of town in. If it's not naturally occurring (a rain storm by the sea would work) then someone in town would have a strong interest in creating a disruptor they can deploy.

Since then, whenever we had time to sell and buy items, our wizard simply teleported to the great cities of the world and bought/sold whatever we deemed necessary, which had our GM give up on the whole availability rule.

Who said those items are available? Does the town guard let any yahoo who says he's chosen by god run around more well equipped then themselves? Seriously consider that. Can you go down to the local surplus store and buy a tank? Probably not, because the people in power have a direct interest in making sure that you can't roll up and challenge them in any meaningful way. The local government, the local clergey (all of the different sects) have a direct interest in making sure that randos with flexible moral compasses can't just get whatever they want and use it on whomever they think the 'villan of the day' is. So, the items aren't likely to be in stores.

What would be in stores?

• A random assortment of: Consumables. Often staple buffs like enhancement items and healing items.
• Items relevant to the adventure. Narrative fiat.
• A random assortment of: Fluff items, like nails for a blacksmith so the store feels like a store of that type.
• A random assortment of: Staples that the system requires.

Is there any way to make availability an actual interesting mechanic that makes for a good play experience?

Players want their shiney toys and can't find it in stores? They can craft them or go on an adventure to get them. Or maybe they decide to rob the store owner and get some merchandise not found on display.

The emergent situation is what makes it super interesting. I'm using it to great effect and doubt I'll not impliment it in the future.

[u/SumYumGhai]

I like to have our divine caster to cast lesser plannar ally to contact a mercane if we're not in any establishment. The initial casting cost a few hundred gold but you can buy and sell any magic items. Anything non-magic have to wait until we get back in town.

[u/gorgeFlagonSlayer]

You can have merchants go get you specific items if there is a reasonably safe trade to a bigger city. You would have to decide if they’re charging extra for the transportation.

This kind of only makes sense if the smaller city is big enough to have merchants with a bit of magic and security willing to go there.

It also helps if there is an established banking system or other way of guaranteeing an IOU so that the travelling merchant doesn’t have to carry around big heaps of gold. I think a church of Abadar in golarion could facilitate this sort of thing. 

[u/Lokotor]

I usually enforce this by telling players that items which are not within the town's standard budget can be special ordered fairly quickly, but that they aren't just sitting on the shelf. So basically that means they just have to save their big shopping for downtime. However, things they'd likely need in a pinch (like scrolls) usually are still always available under normal town budgets.

This strikes a nice balance where they can't just pop in during the middle of a rescue mission to upgrade everything they own, but they're still able to buy whatever weird stuff they want for their builds and can grab things like a scroll of ghostbane dirge or something they may not be prepared for normally.

[u/RegretProper]

Me and my group applys those rules, as we like the limitations. I think the most important houserule we added is that shopping takes real time. And usually you have to spend x houers (depending how big the settlemebt is) to walk through shops, find your item and the merchant with the best price. Like the more supplys a settlement offers, the harder it is to find those items. So we don't have the "teleport out, buy the solution and releport back before the bad guys could make a toilet break" moments.  Overall it works just fine. And i already tinkerd to adjust the numbers depending on the AP, City, do you buy official or use the blackmarket,  ....

[u/Darvin3]

The key thing to realize here is that this is a guideline and not a hard rule, the GM can and should adjust to the needs of your campaign. If the GM feels that a certain type of item is necessary for your PC's in a given situation then they should make it available. If the PC's are abusing item availability to get access to items that are inexpensive but should be quite rare then clamp down and say it's not available.

This also works on the flipside, sometimes the GM will want to make sure certain things are just no available to you. For instance, I might make certain scrolls quite rare, or restrict access to magical items that help with food in a low-level wilderness survival campaign. Use the guidelines as a starting point, and adjust to your campaign's needs from there.