Deck of Many Things

[CrusadeDave]

Anyone ever have a party try to sell it? One of my characters is a Mystic Theurge for the Church of Luck, so they have a buyer all lined up.

But can you even put a price in Gold or Platinum on this? I suppose I could trade them a lesser relic of the church, but I'm sure I'm going to be asked about dollar value.

Is 200K a reasonable purchase price, meaning they can sell it for only 100K?

 

[Crothian]

How does the buyer know what it is? You can't identify artifacts and once it is used once it goes away.

But for a price I think it would be owrth much less since it is of limited use and there seems to be equal chance of it being good or bad. I'd price it around fifty grand.

 

[Taloras]

Im not seeing where it "goes away" in the DMG description. It just says you can only draw out the amount of cards you say you will draw. And if you survive and its still there, you can sell it to someone.

 

[Crothian]

Am I thinking of older editions then? I might be, I'll have to look into that.

edit: my bad, it is an older edition thing they removed.

 

[danzig138]

I'd probably start at about 50k, and maybe let them try and haggle for more.
I've never had a party try and sell one. There are always arguments where some people want to sell it, but the ones who want to draw always win.

 

[wingsandsword]

It's an artifact, there is a reason there isn't a listed price.

Now, as to how much it could be worth? Look at what it could theoretically do (anybody in the market for a Deck of Many Things would probably research it quite well).

The Fates, and Vizier provide artifact-level save-your-rear type effects, the sort of thing normally reserved for very well worded wishes, divine intervention and Epic spells. Their theoretical value is almost any amount of money.

Comet, Gem, Jester, Key, Knight, Moon, Star and Sun all provide strong, but mortal-range benefits (wishes, inherent ability score increases, treasure & magic items). A few give free XP, but that can be earned over time.

Then there are the bad cards, real bad trouble. The sorts of things you'd wish on your worst enemy.

So, since most of the good results are about equivalent to about 2 wishes (1d4 wishes, +2 inherent ability boost, loads of treasure/jewelry/jems), an average "good" draw has a value of around 50,000 GP. Those two really good cards have a value that is approaching priceless.

I'd assume it could probably get a value of a 100,000 GP or more from somebody (possibly up to 250,000 from somebody who was rich and feeling lucky, hoping to get at least two good draws in a row), and not just an idle wealthy noble. These things can be very dangerous, and anybody who would be bidding on one would probably know that. Other adventurers, high priests, archmages, crown knights, these are the people who would be in the bidding (as they're also the kind of people to have this kind of money).