Dungeon Master Assistance

Using Settlement Size to set Item Availability

In their travels, the PCs often find themselves in a settlement that is unfamiliar to them. While there they want to buy supplies. I have spent countless hours in the past deciding on what shops are in the town. What each shop has for sell. How many of each item, and its cost. Not to mention shop names and the names and stats for the shop owner and others who work there. How about a description of what the shop looks like and what patrons may be there.
This is what is expected of the DM. Right? Well … most of the time, the PCs only want to replenish their ammunition, upgrade their armor and maybe buy a couple of healing potions. They just want to know if what they want is available in this settlement, and how many can they buy. So here is what I have come up with.
I don’t enjoy role-playing a haggling session, and my players have never been much into that aspect of the game either. So I simply use the prices that are in the Players Handbook. When running a game where buying magic items is allowed, I typically use the prices found in Sane_Magical_Prices.pdf and I often don’t allow the purchase of certain items. Of course you can modify these however you think is appropriate for your campaign, but I have found that that is an unnecessary complication. I thought there could be a simple table to find how many of any particular item (if any) are available in a settlement based on how large a settlement it is. The result of my attempt to create that table is what I am presenting here.

There are two tables. One for mundane (non-magical) items, and another for magical items.
There are also Spellcasting Services and Spell Scrolls at the end.

How to use the tables.
1) Find the cost of the item you are seeking to purchase. This should be the cost of a single item unless it is commonly sold in a bundle consisting of several identical items, such as arrows for example.

2) Refer to the Mundane Item Availability table for anything other than a magic item, magic scroll, or potion. For those refer instead to the Magic Item Availability table.

3) Find the row on the table that corresponds to the settlement size.

4) If the cost of the item is higher than the value in the MAX Value column, there are none of these items available for purchase here. Otherwise, continue to step 5.

5) Refer to the value in the # Available column (for magic items refer to the die roll indicated under the items rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare or Very Rare). This indicates the roll needed to determine how many of this particular type of item is available in this settlement.

 A note regarding the Availability Roll.
This is expressed in the standard format for making modified die rolls. Treat any negative result as zero.
If you are unfamiliar with this: Dice rolls are described with expressions such as “1d4-2,” which means “roll one four-sided dice and subtract 2” (resulting in either -1, 0, 1, or 2). The first number tells you how many dice to roll (adding the results together).  The number immediately after the “d” tells you the type of die to use (a 4 sided die in our example). Any number after that indicates a quantity that is added or subtracted from the result.

Max Value: There is no single item for sale with a value higher than this.

# Available: For any specific type of item (other than a magic item), if the value of the item is the Max Value or less, the modified die roll indicated determines how many (if any) are available for purchase.

Purchase Limit: This maximum total that the entire party can spend on items, including magic items.

Max Value: There is no single magic item for sale with a value higher than this.

# Available: For any specific magic item, if the value of the item is the Max Value or less, the modified die roll indicated in the column for the items rarity determines how many (if any) are available for purchase.

Spellcasting Services
The following is a rough pricing guide to have someone cast a spell for you and the smallest settlement in which you might find a spellcaster to cast a spell of that level. It also requires you to find someone that is capable and willing casting it for you. To these prices you must add the cost of material components (if any).
Cantrip (Thorp) – 15 gp; 1st Level (Hamlet) – 25 gp; 2nd Level (Village)- 100 gp; 3rd Level (Small town) – 150 gp; 4th Level (Large town) – 1,000 gp; 5th Level (Small city) – 1,500 gp.
It is not typically possible to hire someone to cast a spell that is higher than 5th Level, but they may be persuaded to cast it in exchange for some item or service that the PCs could provide.

Spell Scrolls
The cost of a spell scroll is double the cost of having the spell cast for you.