Role-Playing Game Tools and Articles
Announcing the Magic Item Shop Random Inventory Generator
Often, when a party gets to back into a reasonable sized town, they want to look for a wizard's shop (or similar) to see if there are any magic items they can trade or purchase. Determining the shop's inventory can be tedious, but the Magic Item Shop Random Inventory Generator makes that easy.
(Note: I'm not advocating a "MagicMart" in every city. If that fits your game world, great, but the Inventory Generator is just as valid for a city that might have just a few mages or priests that have small shops with just a few items each. In fact, the inventory generator may cut down on the magic in your game because the vast majority of items will not interest the players/characters. For example, how many fighters use a pick or trident?)
The Magic Item Shop Random Inventory Generator randomly creates a magic item shop's inventory based on your desired criteria (# minor potions, # medium potions, # major rings, # minor wondrous items, # minor weapons, etc.) using the SRD for 3.5 rules. (The results can usually be adjusted or some items dropped for other fantasy games/versions.) It is just simple Javascript, so most browsers should run it without needing any plugins. See it at: Magic Item Shop Random Inventory Generator
The generator doesn't include the costs for each item because that may vary widely based on your game-world, the city and the owner. Further you'll only need to look up the costs of the items that interest a character. A few additional features are planned, but the complete core of the program is in place.