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Man, if you guys are limiting magic item, especially Cranewings, who rolls for items. I can't imagine your players surviving in shackled city or one of my campaigns, without serious dice fudging, which is a lot worse than selected magic items.
Angry elf what do you do when they buy their own copies of the books?
BubSutan, I never regret it, all you have to do is limit their gold, and if you don't want a magic shop perse, just remember the world has been along for a long time, and I am sure the thieves guild has a black market setup, and for a price they can obtain what the players need.
Cranewings if a player focuses on magic items you would really have to bend the rules to stop him from making what he wants or make your won rules.

To each his own, and if the players are happy/willing to accept it that is their choice.

man, i LOVE the MIC. have you looked at the DMG items? no, not what they do - how much the useful ones cost! the MIC offers a lot of low-price, low-power but still cool and effective magic items (admittedly, some of them are priced very, well, aggressively, but that's alright).

if you are worried, though, i would allow them only to buy things from the DMG, and would give out a lot of the things that i think are not-broken from the MIC as treasure (less 'fluid' gold, perhaps, but at least the game won't be so crazy). besides, if you take a long look at the MIC and know your players really well, you'll be able to pick things for them that they'll really like, and there won't be any problem (plus that's good for building player-dm trust)

For those of you who are saying "No magic shops, you have to find some one to make the items for you or who already has it," that is exactly what happens when the PCs go on a shopping trip in a city with a high enough gp limit.

On the topic of the MIC: I think it definitely has some power creep in it, in addition to the simple fact that more reasonable options=more potential power. I've found that just having patience regarding the approval process of non-core materials is a pretty good way of getting your players to quit asking about broken stuff. If you are consistent in what you deny, they will eventually get the hint.

It also helps if you occasional have a night of gladiator fights where you are bashing builds against each other rather than characters, no hold barred. That will get the desire to use stupidly broken stuff out of their systems to some extent.

BobSutan wrote:

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Seriously. It's that simple. Since when has a DM ever opened up a book and said "have at it" and not regret doing so? In my experiences 9 times out of 10 either the party has to find a mage of sufficient level to BUILD the items they seek, or decide who gets what out of the treasure they find. Only the trinkets and cheap items usually <1000gp are for sale in "magic shops" even in high fantasy/magic campaigns. Every once in a while I may throw them a bone and catch them by surprise just for fun.

I tell players to "Have at it" all the time. I've yet to have it be an issue. Then again, I also review character sheets every time someone goes on a shopping spree or levels, so I know their character's abilities and limitations. If it's not on the char sheet, or on another approved sheet of paper (sometimes they run out of space, or they prefer to rewrite it so it's easier to read on larger lines), they don't have it/can't use it. If I don't know about it, it's null and void.

Then again, my npcs also utilize items from the same books, occasionally sunder equipment, and will throw out MDJ at the higher levels if the players start doing the same thing. My players know that whatever they can do, there's an npc/group of npcs who could/can do it as well. It keeps them from running slaughterhouse style through backwoods communities killing everyone and stealing anything.

Edit: Then again, I also throw multiple separate encounters at my PCs, so their limited per-day use items have to be judiciously used, in case they need it later on more than they do at that moment.