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About the economy of magic item creation. In my 4E campaign, one of the players decided they would accept having their main attack item being one point below the expected value for their level - this was in the 20-25 level range. The money saved made them extremely rich. Building their own...

Yeah, the church is the great exception. They maintained an international infrastructure during the dark ages when no-one else could. Greyhawk lacks this kind of church, and doesn't have any equivalent in another field. Nor is wizardry really equivalent to any other guild. The journeyman system...

My point is that my version of Greyhawk is more cosmopolitan and a more open society, not as tightly regulated by guilds, not so dominated by very local feudal interests. Something similar happened in Japan, but I was thinking more of Germany/Italy in the 12C.

This is true. It is also one of the problems with 3.5. :)

Sorry, I cannot follow your argument. I don't understand what you're trying to convince me of. This is also a part of my renaissance development, where bankers, and in this case magic item traders, can outcompete feudal lords.

Right! He even turns blue in honor of Boccob, the god of magic! :D

For me this is one of the differences between a medieval and a renaissance setting. In the medieval setting there are few standards, little trust, and wizards live alone in isolated towers with their apprentices. Trade between wizards is either very suspicious or highly regulated by guilds. In a...

Very much this. A secondary effect of all this gold spent on magic items is that the talismongering business is thriving! The gold will still be in circulation, and thus an abundance of gold could still cause inflation. On the other hand, gold is usually considered magical in itself, so if there...

From my provincial background here in Sweden, adventurer (äventyrare) is basically anyone who goes out of their place and class of origin and out into the wide wild world. I guess this idea of what an adventurer is comes from the 19C, a time of colonialist opportunity for Europeans. Further...

I come back to my favorite DMG1E quote (from memory). When trading with another magic-user to be allowed to copy spells from their spellbook, you may have to give them a minor magic item, such as a girdle of giant strength. :D

Most of your post is excellent, I am just nitpicking. If I recall, you get 20% of your investment back when you reduce items to residiuum. This means that magic marts selling used magic items are still worthwhile, there is room for each part of the supply chain to take out a premium to re-sell...

Depending on the number of items in your game, I'd advice balance these effect around the premise that all characters have their full allotment of magic items attuned, because this is most certainly going to be the default situation. This makes de-attuning an advantage, rather than punishing...

This is the reason I am not too fond of many magic items in 5E. In 3E magic items were assumed, and if you didn't have them, you'd not perform as well as expected. In 5E, the opposite is the base assumption. If you have no or few magic items you are on the standard power curve, if you have loads...

3E (including 3.5 and Pathfinder) actually had a scaling that helped this to not immediately explode. Summoned critters could not teleports, so you had to use Planar Binding/Ally. A Lantern Archon/Imp has unlimited use of Greater Teleport, which allows a cargo of 25 lbs. per trip. This is a lvl...

Despite all I've said about having magic shops in my setting, playing 5E I've come to the conclusion that lots of magic items is not a good thing in this game. So, how to combine these conflicting ideas? What I am planning to do is to say that there has been an inflation of magical items. Most...

In my version of Greyhawk I created an organization called the Blue Brothers. This started as a religious organization serving Boccob, the god of magic, who very much works to profligate magic in the world. Over time, this network has become less religious, tough they still honor Boccob. This...

This also gives PCs a reason to strive to become kings! Back in 1E, fighters were expected to became landlords at about the same time magic-users learned to make permanent magic items.

About using components to replace Xp costs for magic items. This is something that DnD fails at. I'm playing Ars Magica now, and a long time earlier there was a tiny little RPG called Swordbearer, In both, the principal loot from monsters are magical components. Seems I remembered the name of...

Half-orcs rule as martials in BG 1 and 2! No need to roll those pesky percentile dice for Strength! A single point takes you from +1/+2 to +2/+7. :)

For some reason, traps are always horribly expensive, making this really profitable!