I'd be curious to know the Magic Item distribution between classes. Do the Fighters get the majority of Magic Items? Do Scholars? Is it even?
That’s a bit harder of a statistic to provide. Unfortunately there are substantial in game social, cultural, and economic factors, as well as out of game donation, travel, staff, etc. factors that ultimately contribute towards what that resulting final distribution looks like. For example, some folks who have what they consider to be “enough” LCO items to meet their fundamental needs, won’t bid as aggressively, if at all, on some of the treasure policy drops. Others travel extensively, use Dragon Stamps, or acquire resources from other chapters, which bring items into the system that did not originate there. Yet others are part of a team that may provide members with access to communal magic items. As a result of these, and other factors, the picture presented can be a bit blurry, and some numbers when broken down by class might sound unusual.
To the best of my understanding, knowledge, and recollection, specific to my local chapter, the magic item layout, culturally, is roughly as follows...
((Please note we have an LCO ritual cap of 20.))
Classes:
Role tends to determine immediacy of itemization need more so than anything else for us, as martial characters need certain weapon enchantments to improve their ability to engage with particular enemies (Undead, Elementals, etc.), or even be capable of combating them at all (Immune to Normal and Silver, etc.). Once they are empowered enough to directly contribute on a reliable basis by acquiring a suitable weapon, Cloaks/Banes, and Expanded Enchantments for Healing and Life, tend to be the next major focus. Essentially, things that would allow them or their friends to continue contributing to an engagement for a prolonged period. I would say the majority of our martial combatants have a magical weapon, with the mainstay of these being LCO ones sourced from Goblin Stamps. Magical weapons very seldom drop from treasure policy. Lower level characters who are not part of a team typically do not possess their own magical weapons, but may have access to borrowing one under certain circumstances. Most martial characters above 15th level tend to have an LCO Arcane Armor (with a few exceptions, some even due to character preference). I don’t, to the best of my current recollection, believe that there are too many primarily martial characters who aggressively bid on times per day damage or utility items.
Magical classes, from what I have seen as a whole, tend to bid primarily on items with times per day utility spells, damage, or healing. They will bid on Coaks and Banes, but not as aggressively as martial characters, unless the magical character is of mid to high level in which case they are equally competitive.
Our wealthy characters tend to be primarily scholars or some manner of scholar hybrid, and as a result those characters will have a tendency to successfully outbid their competitors if both parties genuinely want an item.
Levels:
For the most part, our higher level characters tend to have more magic items than our lower level characters. There are, of course, some exceptions to this, but overall I find that this is the case. Newer characters in our chapter do seem to get swept up relatively quickly into teams, or at least typically can accompany one with regularity. These teams often have communal magic item resources available for those players to enable them to more actively contribute in combat. These resources can range from magical weapons and Rendered shields, to defensive items like Cloaks, Banes, Arcane Armors, and Protection Auras, to offensive/utility/healing items like Expanded Enchantments. The vast majority of these communal items tend to be LCO. Many of our veteran players or staff members who may not necessarily be part of a traditional team will also have a number of community items that they proactively loan out, particularly to lower level characters.
Edge Cases:
There are a few high level characters locally whose number of magic items may cause them to be considered “edge cases”, possessing a greater number of magic items than their average peer. The class makeup of these edge cases tends to be reasonably balanced between martial and magical characters. These characters, however, tend to exercise the benefits of this equipment in a responsible fashion. We do not usually find these edge case characters deliberately utilizing their aresenal to imbalance a fight, or actively detract from the enjoyment of other players. Moreso, they tend to use it to support or reinforce the surrounding players, typically reserving their resources for “oh **** buttons” or high pressure boss fights.