That is per level though. Every character in a party able to (almost) purchase a permanent magic item after 5th level is a bit much for me. That's on top of what they find out there.
I guess it also depends on how often magic items get broken or destroyed. If you're going by 5e RAW that would be pretty much never, thus long-term accumulation becomes an issue.
Personally, I much prefer more of an easy come, easy go situation; where magic items are (relatively) plentiful but they also risk destruction much more often, a la 1e.
I wouldn't want a +1 sword to be 1k, that's 3 of them, every level. That's a lot of magic items by 10th level.
Only if they roll low on the value dice in your system.
That said, there's utility in using spare magic items as a convenient means of carrying cash: a +1 longsword weighs way less than 1000 coins....
My ideal game is where every magic item is special and treasured, even that +1 sword. I don't want a situation where the party just has a bunch of 'junk' lying around that people don't much care for.
My experience is that while there's a certain percentate of 'junk', it's not as much as you might expect: characters with leftover money will often claim* or buy secondary items just in case they ever come in handy.
I do like the option of selling though for the cases where they get something none of them have much use for.
Completely agree!
Nope that's coins plus gold value of gems/art pieces.
OK. This comes into my '*' above: we get every magic item evaluated (thus, using our prices a +1 longsword would be 1800, a potion of healing 200, etc.); then all those evaluations are totted up plus the value of cash and non-magic found, and that's the overall treasury.
If a character wants to claim an item from treasury they in effect 'buy' it out of their share value. Thus, if my share is 7000 g.p. and there's a +1 sword (1800 g.p.) I want to claim, my share would end up as the sword plus 5200 g.p. Cases where two or more characters claim the same item are almost always settled by roll-off.
We do it this way because whenever we've tried any other method some characters invariably ended up far wealthier than others via gaming the system (both in the fiction and at the table).
For example, we tried a 'draft' system for magic items once, where the characters each picked one in turn, repeating till there were no items left. This broke when one character drafted specifically for value rather than need, then went and sold what he'd drafted and bought or commissioned what he really needed and pocketed the (vast amounts of) change.
Expenses are something I have used before. Tweaking treasure hoards and introducing expenses are a way to manage the economy on the other end.
I read a bit of this between the lines of your downtime system; that you're using it as a means of introducing expenses.
Was it you who didn't like the variation in prices? I could see using a d4 instead of a d6. I do think the book's 2d10 is too much of a swing.
Yes, that was me.
Lock the prices in at single values by item (a la 1e or 3e) and have done with it. I can't urge this strongly enough!
Yes it's arbitrary, but it saves you from opening yourself up to characters spending their time playing the item market rather than adventuring (been there, DMed that,
never again!), starting with buying items at low value in one town and trying to sell them at higher value in the next and potentially expanding into transaction brokering, leverage and loans, item futures....bleah!