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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Yeah. I tend to view NPCs choosing to attack an adventuring party more like a planned bank/train/armored-truck heist than the more traditional "attack of opportunity" present in most bandit encounters. This is why I mentioned the concept of raiders or other groups acting on specific orders for some other purpose. A group of NPCs attacking an adventuring party should never be a spur of the moment thing (well, not if they want to succeed), but a planned attack, often not just "because we want their stuff" but because some other powerful wealthy person has hired them to do this (even if it's not the PCs specifically, but "kill any people in this area who might become a threat to me" type orders). Or they are defending their territory maybe.
Actual on the fly bandit attacks on a group of PCs should almost always be presented as a monumental mistake by the bandits. Either the party has taken some steps to disquise their nature (my table quite often uses the "pretend to be a merchant with some guards" bit when traveling around), or actually are relatively low level, or the bandits have just completely failed their "spot easy money" skill roll.
The problem is really one of scale. The power level required to even have a chance of successfully taking on a decently experienced adventuring party is so great, that the same group would be vastly better of using their own skills and abilities doing something other than hanging out along the side of road waiting for random people to come by to rob them (again, folks specifically being paid/ordered/forced-by-their-dark-lord to interdict some area for some other reason excepted). But I have actually seen GMs try to do this. I distinctly recall one GM who really really wanted us to have trouble dealing with some group of NPC bandits in the area we were travelling thorugh, but we were running a really powerful group. So he just kept ratcheting up the power level of the bandits we ran into, to the point of absurdity. At the point where your bandits are wielding sufficient force to tople most small to mid sized kingdoms, you have to wonder what the heck they are actually doing there in the first place.
EDIT. Adding this bit as well:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beelzebub1111
Consider otherwise, a merchant is guaranteed to have commodities and liquidity. A travelling noble you can ransom for a fortune to make it worth the risk.
More to the point, the very fact that the merchant has goods on wagons and is traveling somewhere with them means that the goods are expected to be in-demand and sellable at the destiation the merchant is heading for (or may even be a consignment and payment is waiting upon delivery). The point is that the odds are nearly 100% that "someone just down the road" is wiling/able to turn those goods into cash for whomever shows up with them. If it wasn't, then the merchant would not have had those goods on those wagons and been heading in that direction in the first place (or, I suppose, the merchant is just really bad at merchanting).
Assuming said bandits have any contacts at all in nearby cities/towns to offload their stolen goods (and why wouldn't they?), it's a pretty much guaranteed/fast turn around profit for them. The goods get to where there is demand for them, but just travel through different hands along the way. I suppose we could imagine some form of bandits who hang out deep in out of the way places, living off the land and whatever they steal from people who pass by, but IMO that's leaning more into the "we're protecting an area we live in and control" than traditional banditry.
Similar point about ransoms. I tend to think of NPCs in these sorts of professions as part of a larger whole. The bandits don't do everything themselves. They do their part "waylay travellers on the road", and then use contacts elsewhere to deal with what they get. So in this case, the bandits are probably not going to be the ones managing the ransom at all. They happen upon some valuable people to kidnap, sell them to some group in town with the contacts and resources to handle kidnapping and randoms, pocket their cash and move on. That other group then puts out the ransom demands because that's the part of the criminal spectrum that they are good at.
Subtle little aspects of how NPCs behave in a game world can go a long way to making that world feel more real to the players. And sure, we might think that "going after the bandits and getting the kidnap victims back" may make for a satisfying story, but "finding out that the prisoners have been moved to a nearby town, where the notorious <insert evil org name here> gang have taken them and are demanding X gold pieces, and now you've got to deal with these guys, and along the way maybe find other criminal activities and prisoners to be freed" IMO makes for an even better gaming experience and allows for a much deeper and more detailed (and easy to put new story hooks into) setting. Dealing with an isolated group of bandits is just dealing with a single group. When those bandits are just one cog in a larger wheel of crime and "evil things" going on in the world around you, that creates the opportunity for depth.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Bandits forced to desperation by social injustice or disaster.
"It's the only way we could feed our children..."
Bandits who can be recruited to a good cause (EG the Ronan from Servant of the Empire)
Bandits who have been cursed to live as bandits. Or think they have
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gbaji
More to the point, the very fact that the merchant has goods on wagons and is traveling somewhere with them means that the goods are expected to be in-demand and sellable at the destiation the merchant is heading for (or may even be a consignment and payment is waiting upon delivery). The point is that the odds are nearly 100% that "someone just down the road" is wiling/able to turn those goods into cash for whomever shows up with them. If it wasn't, then the merchant would not have had those goods on those wagons and been heading in that direction in the first place (or, I suppose, the merchant is just really bad at merchanting).
Assuming said bandits have any contacts at all in nearby cities/towns to offload their stolen goods (and why wouldn't they?), it's a pretty much guaranteed/fast turn around profit for them. The goods get to where there is demand for them, but just travel through different hands along the way. I suppose we could imagine some form of bandits who hang out deep in out of the way places, living off the land and whatever they steal from people who pass by, but IMO that's leaning more into the "we're protecting an area we live in and control" than traditional banditry.
Historically, fencing bulk goods has never been as easy as this, to the point that even legitimate privateers (who have a license to steal from a government, and thus don't face nearly as many obstacles as outright pirates) would often not bother to keep such a cargo unless the ship it was on was valuable in and of itself - separating out the crew needed to man it was considered a greater problem than any profit it would bring.
The same is true of pirates of the land, aka bandits. Taking a merchant caravan needs a lot of manpower to handle the cargo, and that very cargo will slow your movements. If anybody escapes to raise an alarm, trying to hold onto that cargo will make you an easy target for pursuit even if you have enough guys to drive the wagons and capture/provide enough animals to tow them.
Then you run into the issue of actually disposing of it. As a rule, townspeople do not like bandits. If you just stroll into town with your stolen goods, and somebody happens to realize that you did, in fact, steal it, they're likely to raise the militia against you because your very existence is a threat to their lives and property. So either you have a specific patron that can "launder" the goods, or you divide it into small packets and sell it "retail" to avoid raising a fuss. Both have enormous time costs.
Meanwhile, in your typical fantasy world having some guy show up with some fancy weapons and slightly damaged fancy armor is Tuesday.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Bandits at various points on a continuum with other groups:
Freedom fighters
Cultists
Mercenaries
Refugees
Tax collectors
Smugglers
Locals of a different cultural group ( tribe, species, people, nation, clan etc)
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gnoman
Historically, fencing bulk goods has never been as easy as this, to the point that even legitimate privateers (who have a license to steal from a government, and thus don't face nearly as many obstacles as outright pirates) would often not bother to keep such a cargo unless the ship it was on was valuable in and of itself - separating out the crew needed to man it was considered a greater problem than any profit it would bring.
The same is true of pirates of the land, aka bandits. Taking a merchant caravan needs a lot of manpower to handle the cargo, and that very cargo will slow your movements. If anybody escapes to raise an alarm, trying to hold onto that cargo will make you an easy target for pursuit even if you have enough guys to drive the wagons and capture/provide enough animals to tow them.
Well, sure. You'd focus on higher value cargo. You leave the bags of grain on the wagon, and take the box of gemstones, for example. Or the money box. Rare textiles? Silks? Spices? All could well be considered worth the effort of carting off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gnoman
Then you run into the issue of actually disposing of it. As a rule, townspeople do not like bandits. If you just stroll into town with your stolen goods, and somebody happens to realize that you did, in fact, steal it, they're likely to raise the militia against you because your very existence is a threat to their lives and property. So either you have a specific patron that can "launder" the goods, or you divide it into small packets and sell it "retail" to avoid raising a fuss. Both have enormous time costs.
Yeah. This is why I tend to assume that if there are bandits operating outside some decent sized town/city and along a reasonably well travelled road, that they would almost certainly have to have contacts in said city/town specifically to manage the goods they steal. Bandits will not long operate if they have to physically carry the goods they steal into town and then try to sell it themselves. But... if they know a guy who already handles smuggled and/or black market goods, then it's an easy matter to sell it to that guy instead. The middleman involved makes this slightly less profitable per haul, but makes for much faster turnaround of the goods that are stolen.
And sure, we can just run bandits as "folks in the hills stealling stuff for their own use/sale" if we want. And that's perfectly legitimate. But I find the the whole "bandits on the road have contacts in town who sell stuff for them" to make for a much more interesting set up from an adventuring point of view. Now, the bandits aren't just an isolated encounter, but become a hook that leads to other things as well. And that can lead to yet more things: Does that smuggler only deal in goods brought in by the bandits, or get stuff from other sources as well? Is that smuggler/fence operating as an isolated thing, or is that part of a larger set of criminal operations in said town/city? Lots of potential here that can spin off from a simple "there are bandits here" starting point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gnoman
Meanwhile, in your typical fantasy world having some guy show up with some fancy weapons and slightly damaged fancy armor is Tuesday.
Eh. Maybe. I guess this depends on how vigorous the purchase/sale of magical weapons and armor is in the setting. In the game setting I play in, magic weapons and armor are super rare items and their owners aren't likely letting go of them (while still alive). So someone showing up wanting to sell stuff like that is going to garner far far more attention and suspiciion than the same person showing up with a box of finely cut gems, or some exotic spices, or whatever.
Also, at least in the setting(s) I tend to run, sales of such things are quite slow. They are expensive. Very few people are walking around with the kind of cash needed to buy them. So very specialty items, that move very slowly. It's like stealing rare art. You'd need more/better contacts to sell that stuff than you'd need to sell more normal goods.
I'm not at all a fan of the "magic mart' in games I run. So that may certainly color my perception of "Bandits can just kill the party and take their stuff and sell it". The bandits, if they could take the party out, would likely keep their stuff and use it for themselves. Of course, if they are powerful enough to take out the party in the first place, I really have to question if they qualifiy as "bandits" anymore. But that's a matter of definition I guess.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
I'm about to run a bandit encounter in the middle of a civil war. The bandits had been an army unit until they realized that they weren't getting the profits from their raids.
I assume that if bandits occasionally show up at the army camp with extra food and weapons to sell, the commander will buy them, without worrying too much where they came from. [And may even be more supportive if the goods had originally been intended for the enemy.]
If the goods were originally bound for this army, the quartermaster may not know (or even care) who was supposed to make the delivery.
---
In most D&D worlds I've created, the earlier civilization is breaking down, or has already broken down. There has to be a reason why a small group pf adventurers is dealing with the problem, instead of the soldiers and bureaucrats. Dungeons with treasure abandoned in the wilderness imply that a larger civilization had been established there before, and then fell apart.
In Tolkien, Khazad-dum and the Greenwood had been flourishing places before they fell, and became Moria and Mirkwood. Jonny Quest and company often explored ruins. Tarzan found the degraded remains of the fallen empire of Opar. Indiana Jones researched lost treasures of fallen civilizations.
In this kind of environment, bandits can prosper.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gbaji
The power level required to even have a chance of successfully taking on a decently experienced adventuring party is so great, that the same group would be vastly better of using their own skills and abilities doing something other than hanging out along the side of road waiting for random people to come by to rob them
Well most PC wealth comes from looting
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bohandas
Well most PC wealth comes from looting
Maybe the game should have been called A&A:
Archeology and Awl Pikes.
(Given Gygax's fascination with pole arms).
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bohandas
Well most PC wealth comes from looting
But not by looting the goods off of random people traveling along a road, right?
Come to think of it, that would be a pretty interesting campaign to run though. The party is a low level group of bandits, trying to make a living in the world. Have to figure out which folks to attack, and when/where (and how lethal they choose to be), then deal with evading and/or defeating any law enforcement types, gaining notariety perhaps, dealing with competition, thieving middlemen, etc. Hmm.... I'm pretty sure I could make that interesting and challenging.
Knowing me and my penchant for giving PCs heroic opportunties though, I'd probably eventually introduce some kind of evil folks moving in and have their bandit group get involved in that at some point. I just don't see a high end ramp up for basic bandits. At some point, they will either get caught/killed or move on to bigger things. Even Robin Hood eventually either gets stomped or inspires/leads an uprising against the Sheriff, right?
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gbaji
But not by looting the goods off of random people traveling along a road, right?
Come to think of it, that would be a pretty interesting campaign to run though. The party is a low level group of bandits, trying to make a living in the world. Have to figure out which folks to attack, and when/where (and how lethal they choose to be), then deal with evading and/or defeating any law enforcement types, gaining notariety perhaps, dealing with competition, thieving middlemen, etc. Hmm.... I'm pretty sure I could make that interesting and challenging.
Knowing me and my penchant for giving PCs heroic opportunties though, I'd probably eventually introduce some kind of evil folks moving in and have their bandit group get involved in that at some point. I just don't see a high end ramp up for basic bandits. At some point, they will either get caught/killed or move on to bigger things. Even Robin Hood eventually either gets stomped or inspires/leads an uprising against the Sheriff, right?
That sounds like a fun campaign. Although probably not a D&D campaign with the way characters scale up. It feels to me more like a WFRP campaign to me.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
What if the bandits were a stereotyical murderhobo adventurer group
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bohandas
What if the bandits were a stereotyical murderhobo adventurer group
AD&D was full of that, as was the original game.
Set up the NPCs as needed to reflect some "adventurers" who have decided to make their current or future living by robbing and kidnapping. (Hostages bring in money). Party needs to find a way to stop them.
The "good guy" who led the bandits originally (a Robin Hood sort) died of the plague, or of an over ingestion of steel arrow heads in his gut.
The group has gone bad in absence of his leadership.
Standard fare.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
These aren't common bandits but a band of Robber Knights
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gbaji
But not by looting the goods off of random people traveling along a road, right?
Come to think of it, that would be a pretty interesting campaign to run though. The party is a low level group of bandits, trying to make a living in the world. Have to figure out which folks to attack, and when/where (and how lethal they choose to be), then deal with evading and/or defeating any law enforcement types, gaining notariety perhaps, dealing with competition, thieving middlemen, etc. Hmm.... I'm pretty sure I could make that interesting and challenging.
Knowing me and my penchant for giving PCs heroic opportunties though, I'd probably eventually introduce some kind of evil folks moving in and have their bandit group get involved in that at some point. I just don't see a high end ramp up for basic bandits. At some point, they will either get caught/killed or move on to bigger things. Even Robin Hood eventually either gets stomped or inspires/leads an uprising against the Sheriff, right?
I have played a bandit character and have played in thieves' guild theme games and pirate theme games so I could definitely see running or playing in a game where the players are bandits. Bandits are basically pirates with camping instead of sailing.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gbaji
I'm not at all a fan of the "magic mart' in games I run. So that may certainly color my perception of "Bandits can just kill the party and take their stuff and sell it". The bandits, if they could take the party out, would likely keep their stuff and use it for themselves. Of course, if they are powerful enough to take out the party in the first place, I really have to question if they qualifiy as "bandits" anymore. But that's a matter of definition I guess.
To focus on this a bit,
This gets into why purchasing magic items makes a lot more sense.
Magic items are both valuable and due to the difficulty of creation have inherent notoriety.
This means things like unlooted ruins and things are going to be rare. But mages making a living of valuable commission pieces is going to be relatively easy to find (time consuming and expensive, but present)
That does also mean alot of stuff just being in the hands of robbers, thieves and looters. Elven blade isn't going to be in some abandoned crypt, it's going be in the cave the trolls keep stolen valuables.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Witty Username
This gets into why purchasing magic items makes a lot more sense.
For a video game, yes.
Quote:
Magic items are both valuable and due to the difficulty of creation have inherent notoriety.
And are very hard to make, as well as quite expensive.
Quote:
This means things like unlooted ruins and things are going to be rare.
When the ruins hold monsters that eat the lotting parties, yes, but the key for the genre is: rare and dangerous. Few who go there ever come back to tell the tale.
Quote:
But mages making a living of valuable commission pieces is going to be relatively easy to find (time consuming and expensive, but present)
Except when the attempt at making a magic item fails, or it kills the crafter, or it has unintended side effects. (see the various properties of artifacts for some examples).
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
KorvinStarmast
Except when the attempt at making a magic item fails, or it kills the crafter, or it has unintended side effects. (see the various properties of artifacts for some examples).
If an item is as valuable as that implies it will be of even greater importance to either recover it or not lose it in the first place.
Simply finding one in a dungeon should be next to impossible.
One being rumored to be in an area would reasonably have individuals martialing entire armies to find them.
I would argue these kind of items could only be crafted or already in the hands of individuals/groups that have invested the effort to do so.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Remember that in context of D&D, "dungeon" is a wastebin category including almost any kind of enclosed hostile environment. Natural caves and ruins of lost civilizations can be "dungeons", yes. But so can an enemy fortification or a bank. Additionally, given the existence of undead and curses, the distinction of "abandoned in a crypt" and "held by enemy monsters" can be next to nill. There is nothing "simple" about finding anything in a dungeon; chances are you are going to the dungeon to fight the last owner of any given item.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vahnavoi
Remember that in context of D&D, "dungeon" is a wastebin category including almost any kind of enclosed hostile environment. Natural caves and ruins of lost civilizations can be "dungeons", yes. But so can an enemy fortification or a bank.
Now I want to see a bank done up as a stereotypical impractically laid out fantasy dungeon.
EDIT:
Whai. That's just Turnip Boy Robs A Bank, isn't it?
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
One important variant to the flavor of bandit encounter is what they are. Bandits harassing and seating from nearby down could be a group of cover confident goblins with a broomstick or a bunch of down on their luck villagers manipulated by a litch. It's not just why they act, but how they act. Goblins might think themselves immortal, but quickly lose that confidence when it comes to actual fighting. Meanwhile, humans will be a more calm, calculating danger of the fight against danger of failing their boss.
The second case being one of my favorites. Bandits are harassing and steeling from a village, mostly livestock. The nearest down is a few days away, so in their haste, villages rescue adventuring passing by. When the party comes, they ambush bandits while try are smoking the meat from livestock. They might launch a sneak attack or go catching it. Regardless of that, they do. The boss shows up in mid-fight, and uses the campfire to summon a fire spirit. Different things can happen during combat, but afterwords they will find the latter from big boss. Giving them specific instructions, where to show up, how long to stay, and to swiftly leave to a rally point somewhere in the wilderness. All with specific time frame, (and while non 3 groups I ran it for realized it, they were schedule to leave the day before guards would show up). The instructing also mention a significant waiting period between leaving and reinforcements coming, as the rally point is an ancient tomb holding a powerful magic BBG wants. The time delay is there to give plays time to explore and potentially snatch it first.
And all of this, is just one flavor of bandits.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Bandits who are actually powerful Assassins specifically targeting the PCs.
Bandits led by a Half-Ogre, whom you can kill in unarmed combat to take over leadership, forging the core of an army to lead against the nearby Dwarven stronghold.
Bandits running Heists in an always dark city surrounded by lightning towers keeping out the spirits of the dead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Satinavian
bandits, but they are only a couple of teens being stupid.
This use to be my go-to for bandits until I had one too many ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Quertus
Bandits, in media res, after you’ve killed all the other bandits, and interrogated the survivor(s), the Paladin kills them.
Vengeance Paladins. Last one was Vlad, whose parents were killed by vampires. A young captured bandit was begging for its life to the (very Lawful Good) Cleric. Vlad stabbed him in the back. :smalleek:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
KorvinStarmast
One nice thing about bandits (or pirates) as core encounters is that it allows the DM and the group an option beyond "go kill some goblins" as a way to enter into adventuring...unless some of the bandits are also goblins.
Aren't all goblins bandits?
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Re: How many flavors of "bandit encounter" are there?
It might be a bad sign that I'm interested more in the economics of fencing off some stolen magical artifacts more than the actual scene where they were stolen. But that is very setting dependent. There are settings where every little village has some magic items, and others where every magic item is named and known to the people who care about those things. But I do have one insight that has been present in earlier posts but doesn't seem to have been called out.
You can count flavours by the possible of reasonable responses to them. And "richer" flavours will have more reasonable responses. A bandit encounter that can only end with the complete slaughter of the bandits will be relatively bland compared to one where you can fight, scare them off, buy them off, negotiate or just escape.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tanarii
Bandits running Heists in an always dark city surrounded by lightning towers keeping out the spirits of the dead.
I'd try that system.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Witty Username
To focus on this a bit,
This gets into why purchasing magic items makes a lot more sense.
Magic items are both valuable and due to the difficulty of creation have inherent notoriety.
This means things like unlooted ruins and things are going to be rare. But mages making a living of valuable commission pieces is going to be relatively easy to find (time consuming and expensive, but present)
That does also mean alot of stuff just being in the hands of robbers, thieves and looters. Elven blade isn't going to be in some abandoned crypt, it's going be in the cave the trolls keep stolen valuables.
I get where you are going with this, but the problem is one of both scale and power. While I have no issue with low to mid level stuff being available for purchase somewhere (potions, minor enchanted weapons, etc), the problem with more powerful stuff being available to purchase is that realistically those running such magic marts would be killed and looted for their stuff before they'd ever get to be what many consider to be a magic mart in the first place. If I can get myself some +5 (or equivalent) weapons/armor/whatever by knocking over a store rather than spending years risking my life taking those items out of the dead hands of their previous (powerful) users, that's kind of an obvious direction to go.
So either the magic marts are run by literally the most powerful people in the setting, or they don't exist (or only have very minor items). And anyone powerful enough to defend all of those items would not be running a magic mart. Not just a "bring me money or trade and I'll give you powerful items you want". They would be off doing their own thing, and be the subject of a "quest to find the mysterious wizard on the hidden island of myth, rummored to have the <item of power> you want", and he'll only trade/give it to you in return for a major task (which will... not surprisingly, be just as difficult as defeating some powerful evil guy using the item directly so you can loot it from him in the first place).
I tend to see magic items (at least relatively powerful/rare ones) to be a sort of economy all of their own. Those who have such items have them because they were powerful enough to defeat whomever had them previously. If they're willing to trade/sell them, it'll be for something either similarly powerful (but which maybe they need more), or some very important task they want/need (or, sometimes, some sort of grant of something money can't buy, like titles or grants or whatever).
As you point out, powerful items are rarely just left somewhere, unguarded. The vast majority of them will, over time, settle into the hands of those who took them from their previous owners. Which somewhat precludes a simple magic mart style economy. Because that itself will balance out over time. If folks are buying items more powerful than they could gain directly, then they aren't powerful enough to have "earned" the item anyway. Someone else will come along, gank them, and that person will have the item instead. It's kind of a self balancing equation really.
That's not to preclude scenarios like "powerful warlord equips his followers with the magic weapons/armor of his defeated enemies". Which can absolutely serve as providing the PCs with items for themselves while opposing said warlord, but you can bet that the stuff he's handing out to his minions are going to be far less powerful than the stuff he's using himself (and still somewhat balance reward to risk all the way through). I just tend more towards a model where those powerful enough to have obtained that many magic items will find uses for the excess items other than just putting a price tag on them and selling them.
Dunno. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the magic mart concept. At best, it could be a direct private market of collectors. And being said collector, and not being powerful enough to hold onto those items personally, would be a huge risk (so... very very very secretive). Certainly, the idea of walking into a mid sized town and finding a shop set up on main street, with shelves full of powerful items, conveniently there for the sole purpose of allowing PCs to trade in a few +1 swords for a +3 one (or an amulet of protection, or whatever), just seems.... wrong. Such a magic economy in a world would almost require a ridiculous inflation that would radically depower the PCs. If the magic mart has so many such items, what does the local garrison have to secure it, and the town itself? And if that's their power level, what about the powerful nobles/rulers in charge of them? And the kings and their personal guards? And their spell casters on their payroll? The PCs rapidly become outstripped in that model IMO.
And I guess it loops back to banditry in that "why on earth wouldn't they be robbing the magic mart?". Or... why aren't the magic mart owners running the world?
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Re: How many flavors of "bandit encounter" are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cluedrew
I'd try that system.
Just in case you missed the reference: https://evilhat.com/product/blades-in-the-dark/
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Re: How many flavors of "bandit encounter" are there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tanarii
I got it and I chuckled. Our crew remains on hiatus, RL scheduling has become a serious issue.
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Re: How many flavors of “bandit encounter” are there?
To Tanarii: I did not. It echos pretty closely how I describe Blades in the Dark. Although I usually tack on one more detail, that the lightning is powered by the blood of demons, but I think you hit the important points.