val Holryn wrote:
The biggest issue with purchasing runes staves (or amalgamated/permanent runes) as I see it, is that the stuff is supposed to be "special."
Naturally I see it the other way: if it's not restricted in a specific way, it's for sale. At 2gc. That ain't chump change.
I don't see the heroes as being essentially generic schmucks who happen to spend their lives blundering through the right places at the right times. They're bigger than life actors. They're the fools the gods set in motion to see their great works done; they're the nail that costs the kingdom. If someone wants to grub around for the cheapest cobbler to repair their hiking boots that's fine; when they decide I'm not doing it right because I'd rather spend the extra silver piece and move on that's a call worth airing out.
Those staves might be analogous to high-end firearms and body armor in the real world: only regularly sought and paid for by a very small number of very dedicated, very serious specialists. Dilettantes with more cash than brains might get one to wave around at parties, but the folks who live and die by their Arcanum checks make damn sure everything is locked down before they hit the road every day.
It's what they do because that's who they are, and that kind of person is who cares a great deal about getting a Rune Staff in much the same way a newly promoted priest might be shopping for an especially upscale mistress to mark his ascension.
By comparison take the assumption for why Legendary Blades never had anything "you" wanted to buy for sale in the last campaign. Because somebody else with 200,000 gold to blow on something as nearly useless as an enchanted legendary weapon was always in line in front of you and they wanted it to give to their son before he walked his brand new legion off a cliff.
Preposterous.
Somewhere there's a Gnome living by the Corvus where it empties into the Gulf of Coryan and he's got hundreds of unique relics, artifacts, and "mere" epic enchanted items that idiot Patricians kept sweeping off the shelves for trophies testifying to their personal importance and he uses them to anchor his fishing nets because what use is a Greater Thundering Sarishan Steel/Viridite Kukri to a normal person?
Anyway. Point being I get grumpy avoid vague "availability" meta-gaming because it's so up to individual taste in what's "realistic" in a setting where "realistically" the #1 reason to play an Elorii would be because they might get +4 to their Fortitude defense when rolling to see if they contract
Cholera whenever a mod is set in Grand Coryan.
I see it as pretty simple: Heroes tend to be willing to spend quite a bit of ready cash for something basically useless to the other 99.99% of a population. They'll make the effort to find the people who can get them what they want. If it has a recognized price, is generally legal, and lacks some specific restriction inherent to the thing's nature it's a commodity -and should just be frickin'
bought like any other overpriced, super-specialized piece of equipment that meets those qualifications.
Ya'll should go shopping for a Plate Carrier some time. Or a floating barrel upper. Seriously. "Not available at Walmart" does not equal "only the Vistani know where you can buy one."