Buying magic items vs. finding magic items

[Alzrius]

Where in the rules and by what rulebook does it say that my PC cannot sell you my Longsword +1 for 500GP?

Where in the rules and by what rulebook does it say that you can?

Let me reiterate: you can make whatever house rules you want in regards to the effect of market circumstances altering buying and selling prices for things, but those are still house rules. The rulebooks treat item prices as absolutes.

Where in the rules does it say that GM cannot price gouge a PC to purchase a healing potion for 1000GP because the PC is bleeding out and REALLY needs to buy it from the NPC whose shop he happened to get shanked in front of.

The prices in the rulebook have always been a guide, primarily for the initial build of a PC. Unless we're simulating the Catholic Church locking down prices because everything has an absolute worth, once the PCs hit the game table, all bets are off regarding to what a PC may have to pay to buy anything in game. Any player who argues otherwise is likely to get into a surprise with his next new GM./quote]

See above. No one is talking about GM limitations, we're talking about looking at the rules in and of themselves. I'm not saying it holds up in regards to real world economics (it doesn't), I'm just pointing out that it is what it is, and it's fairly easy to make work unto itself in a campaign while still maintaining internal consistency and logic.

As to One Wrong Wayism, pointing out something is objectively wrong, is in fact not One True Wayism. Arguing something is subjectively wrong would be One True Wayism.

Given that it's a game with an invented fantasy world, it's all subjective - even what's printed in the rules is subject to GM fiat. If you're trying to say that your argument regarding the economics of a D&D world is objectively correct, you're not going to succeed.

the former is trying to teach somebody facts The latter is trying to force an opposing opinion on somebody. if you want to make a baby, stuffing cookies into a vagina is the wrong way to do it.

Excuse me, but how the keebler elves in my world reproduce is nobody's business but their own!

It is a fallacy to assume that all ways must be accepted as correct, when in reality, many ways CAN be correct AND just as many ways can be WRONG.

What's ironic here is that it's saying that some subjectively-defined fantasy games can be judged as being objectively wrong in some regards is, unto itself, objectively wrong.

So the way to win the argument, is to demonstrate FACTUAL errors in my analysis.

The factual error is that you think you can make your analysis stick because "that's how it works in the real world."

Saying I'm wrong because you don't want people to buy or sell magic items is not sufficient to win a debate.

I already won the debate by pointing out that you think a difference of opinion is something that you "win." Ponder that for a while, Pinky.

I would advise observing Umbran. He's found some valid points against my argument.

And I would advise you to stop thinking that you're in a position to dispense advice; you might find some valid points in that.

 

[Alzrius]

That's not what economics tells us. Economically speaking, 2Kgp items a roughly interchangeable.

In terms of price, but not in terms how easy it is to find someone to produce the magic item in the first place. The rules tell us how much things are, but not how provident they are in terms of availability.

If a regular suit of plate costs 1500gp, and you're looking at a 2Kgp mundane suit of plate in a store selling a magical sword for 2Kgp, there is something special & rare enough about that suit to warrant the extra 500gp price. Perhaps it was once worn by a noble, and it has some bells & whistles on it (gold-plated epaulets or some such).

Yeah, but again, it won't cost that much. It'll cost what's listed in the rulebook.

Perhaps it is the best suit of armor ever made by the craftsman who made it, and he spent extra gold getting "special" materials, like "the finest Krgathian ores purified over a fire of the purest Hrothian anthracite and blessed by the Priest of Ged"...all of which may be hard to come by in that village but may or may not be special as far as the game is concerned.

True enough, but that's beyond what I'm looking at, which is making the standardized prices in the rules fit a paradigm that not only supports their existing prices, but justifies the lack of magic items as commodities.

It may not have the same costs in the sense of game resources, but in terms of the campaign world, the pricey armor and the magic sword are economically interchangeable.

That's presuming that someone's made the magic sword in the first place, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In terms of price, but not in terms how easy it is to find someone to produce the magic item in the first place. The rules tell us how much things are, but not how provident they are in terms of availability.

The economics of a campaign world are left to the DM to flesh out. Most will just use the prices in the book, and handwave any variances. Some- such as myself- will use varinaces from the book, and model those variances on economics. Economics tells us that all the little real world costs of manufacture, storage, salesmanship and theft plus the partially irrationality of demand combine to set a price.

Which also means that NO price in the game tells us how easy it is to find someone to produce any item or anything about availability. The DMG sets a price for 50' of silken rope, but that price has no bearing on how hard or easy it actually is to find silken rope in a given area in a given campaign. War dogs have a price, but they may be utterly unavailable in some regions. A silver holy symbol has a price, but the symbol of YOUR god could be outlawed.

So I stand by my statement.

Yeah, but again, it won't cost that much. It'll cost what's listed in the rulebook.

You clearly missed my point- things in the campaign cost what the DM says they cost. Usually, that means what is in the DMG. But not always.

If the DM has presented the PCs a store in which a mundane suit of armor that is normally priced 1500gp is instead priced the same as a magical weapon, there is a campaign specific reason. The DM is telling you something about that suit of armor, the local economy, the laws of the region or something else. Its up to you to decide whether to find out why it costs more,

 

[Alzrius]

The economics of a campaign world are left to the DM to flesh out. Most will just use the prices in the book, and handwave any variances. Some- such as myself- will use varinaces from the book, and model those variances on economics. Economics tells us that all the little real world costs of manufacture, storage, salesmanship and theft plus the partially irrationality of demand combine to set a price.

No doubt, but that's a choice to add that layer of implementation. The game can be made to work just as well with some other set of assumptions.

Which also means that NO price in the game tells us how easy it is to find someone to produce any item or anything about availability. The DMG sets a price for 50' of silken rope, but that price has no bearing on how hard or easy it actually is to find silken rope in a given area in a given campaign. War dogs have a price, but they may be utterly unavailable in some regions. A silver holy symbol has a price, but the symbol of YOUR god could be outlawed.

So I stand by my statement.

I suspect that I may not have gotten my point across. No, the price alone doesn't determine availability; I was saying that high price plus an extreme rarity of people able to make certain things (which make instances of people having the money to buy them insufficient to create even a skeletal economy for them), is all the justification you need for there not being an economy for those items.

You clearly missed my point- things in the campaign cost what the DM says they cost. Usually, that means what is in the DMG. But not always.

If that's your point, then I suspect we're talking past each other, since my point is that anything can be (adequately) rationalized in a fantasy game world.

If the DM has presented the PCs a store in which a mundane suit of armor that is normally priced 1500gp is instead priced the same as a magical weapon, there is a campaign specific reason. The DM is telling you something about that suit of armor, the local economy, the laws of the region or something else. Its up to you to decide whether to find out why it costs more,

Or the GM has just set that as being the price because he felt like that was a more "realistic" (to real-world examples) price (which is a meta-game reason).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I suspect that I may not have gotten my point across. No, the price alone doesn't determine availability; I was saying that high price plus an extreme rarity of people able to make certain things (which make instances of people having the money to buy them insufficient to create even a skeletal economy for them), is all the justification you need for there not being an economy for those items.

Just because a person doesn't know who to buy X from or sell X to does not mean there is no market for X. That is just a question of information, which is just another factor in setting price.

In economic terms, there is always an economy for any given item- high price + extreme rarity only raises the price. If someone were to steal the Mona Lisa, someone else would be willing to buy it for a price IF the thief is willing to sell. The only question is whether they can agree on what the price should be.

The only things that justifies there being no market in X are:

1) no X

2) no willing seller

3) no willing buyer

And the last two are really just conditional.

 

[Jhaelen]

I think a good solution is to implement restrictions on using magic items. E.g. in Earthdawn, artifacts(magic items) can only be used by adepts (i.e. pcs with an adventuring profession). For non-adepts a magical sword works exactly as well as a non-magical one. Unless you are an inherently 'magical' person, it won't do anything for you and you actually won't be able to tell it's magical. In addition, you have to bind a number of 'threads' to the magic item to unleash its full potential. And in order to do that you need to learn things about the item, e.g. its name, the name of its maker, how it was made, etc. and often also use the item in quests, basically recreating events that shaped the item. I.e. you have to invest time and resources to effectively use it.

If in your particular campaign, the pcs are the only adepts in the world, then there truly won't be any market for magic items. The only way there could be a demand among non-adepts would be if the non-adepts had a way of identifying magic items and decided to collect them to either
- keep them out of the hands of the adepts
- use them as incentives to get the adepts to work for you

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If in your particular campaign, the pcs are the only adepts in the world, then there truly won't be any market for magic items. The only way there could be a demand among non-adepts would be if the non-adepts had a way of identifying magic items and decided to collect them to either
- keep them out of the hands of the adepts
- use them as incentives to get the adepts to work for you

If the PCs are the ONLY adepts in the world, there probably won't be much magic to sell. ("There is no X")

Otherwise, I can think of at least 3 ways a magic economy would spring up:

1) a mundane hires an "adept" to help ID magic items (much like we use dogs & pigs to find truffles) and you have a magic merchant.

2) an adept who doesn't feel like putting his neck on the line using magic items may well find selling them to be lucrative.

3) persons of wealth and power will seek to employ adepts, and when they do, they will seek to equip them with magic items to make them "better". That "arms race" creates a market.

I hate to sound like Ian Malcom in Jurrasic Park, but "Economics...finds a way." If X exists, it is not a question of whether a market for X develops, but when and how big?

 

[Alzrius]

Just because a person doesn't know who to buy X from or sell X to does not mean there is no market for X. That is just a question of information, which is just another factor in setting price.

Except that assumes that there's anyone capable of creating the item in the first place, which is not a given. Even if you have a spellcaster, if they don't have the requisite item creation feat, it's a moot point.

Likewise, there are no "factors" in setting the price for something priced as an absolute.

In economic terms, there is always an economy for any given item- high price + extreme rarity only raises the price. If someone were to steal the Mona Lisa, someone else would be willing to buy it for a price IF the thief is willing to sell. The only question is whether they can agree on what the price should be.

The idea that there's someone out there who is willing to be something is purely theoretical (especially in a game world where a single entity - the GM - controls everybody else), but that's beside the point. If by "an economy" you mean "at least one person who'll pay for the item" then we're using the term differently (you may be technically correct, though).

I'm referring to that as being some degree of a self-sustaining industry (e.g. engaging in that enterprise can make enough money to make a living off of for the people involved in producing/selling X type of goods/services); that, to me, seems to be the sort of scenario you'd need for the PCs to be able to walk into town and find a shop that deals in magic items exclusively (or, at least, as a significant part of what they sell). The idea that someone, somewhere, once paid money for a magic potion doesn't meet the criteria that I'm talking about.

The only things that justifies there being no market in X are:

1) no X

2) no willing seller

3) no willing buyer

And the last two are really just conditional.

But again, if no one has the proper item creation feat, then there is no X.

 

[SkidAce]

I'm referring to that as being some degree of a self-sustaining industry (e.g. engaging in that enterprise can make enough money to make a living off of for the people involved in producing/selling X type of goods/services); that, to me, seems to be the sort of scenario you'd need for the PCs to be able to walk into town and find a shop that deals in magic items exclusively (or, at least, as a significant part of what they sell). The idea that someone, somewhere, once paid money for a magic potion doesn't meet the criteria that I'm talking about.

This is what I was trying to say about my campaign and my original reply to the thread. There doesn't have to be an industry.


Thanks (must spread etc etc.)

 

[Umbran]

I was expanding the scope of the argument. Insofar as commoners in the campaign are concerned, yes, a suit of full plate mail will be as unavaible as a +1 longsword in terms of their purchasing power being nowhere near enough to afford either.

Agreed.

You keep implying, however, that there's a readily-available economy in expensive non-magical items.

Actually, what I have said is that the presence of economy for expensive non-magical items implies sufficient cash for the magical ones as well. I'm saying, not just implying, that if nobody has the money for a +1 sword, then nobody has moneyf or full plate, either. I'm saying that the choice to impose the limit on magic item economy in that way has implications throughout the campaign world.

Even if we ignore the inconsistency in that train of thought (which is pretty well revealed in towns in 3.X having a gp limit on things that can be purchased), this is explained by pointing out the much greater requirements that are needed for creating magical items versus non-magical ones.

Oh, now hold on there a minute. No cherry picking! You're invoking the limits, but apparently chucking out the explanation of those limits! The paragraph that explains the table specifically states, "Anything having a price under the limit is most likely available, whether it be mundane or magical". If you're trying to use this to say there's no market, then you have to keep your population centers below 2000 people. That's pretty darned small. You sure you want to do that?

And what about the next pages of the DMG, which give you the population of the town that has those limits?

A large town (2001-5000 people) has a GP limit of 3000 GP. It *also* has one wizard of level 4-7, and one cleric of level 4-10. Note how the craft weapons and armor feat has a required caster level of only 5? Any place larger, you get multiple casters of even higher levels, and the idea that *none* of them have chosen to take a feat that could be so lucrative becomes less and less plausible. Not that the item in question has to be made by the local caster. Nor does it have to sit in Ye Olde Magicke Iteme Shoppe. It merely has to be present in among those couple thousand people. Maybe the innkeeper has a family heirloom that he's willing to sell, or the city watch has one in inventory but hey need payroll more than they need the sword.

You also do a fairly good job of answering your own questions, here.

Yes, as I have said, REPEATEDLY, and I'll say again, so you won't miss it: you can create a world with no market. But, it constrains the world in other ways, in terms of plausibility. The GM has to be sure the constraints this stipulation imposes are consistent with everything else they desire for their world. As you can see from my answers to the questions, the constraints can start getting pretty specific.

I'm referring to that as being some degree of a self-sustaining industry (e.g. engaging in that enterprise can make enough money to make a living off of for the people involved in producing/selling X type of goods/services); that, to me, seems to be the sort of scenario you'd need for the PCs to be able to walk into town and find a shop that deals in magic items exclusively (or, at least, as a significant part of what they sell).

Yes, but again, because you seem to have missed it previously - the "shop that deals in magic items exclusively" is a straw man. If that's what you're arguing against, I think you've set it up as a target yourself, and are trying to knock it over yourself. Which, while kind of a silly endeavor, you're free to do. But please stop responding to others as if they are trying to defend your arbitrarily set point for you, because we aren't.

This will sound pedantic, but I want to be clear: when we say, "there will be a market" we don't mean a brick-and mortar building. We mean "market" in the economic sense of there being trade in such items, not in the sense of "I'm going to the super-market to get a pound of butter".