Rules change ruined the economy!

[Tauric]

So, my group is in the process of switching to PF from 3.5, and it's going okay so far, we're very pleased with the new ruleset. However, as I was looking at it from the point of view of a DM with a homebrew campaign setting, I was horrified at one of the changes.

The spell identify no longer requires a 100gp pearl.

From a players perspective, this is great, because now we can more easily tell what, exactly, we have in our possession. From the other side of the screen, at least for me, it has sent a shockwave through one of my nations.

See, there used to be an island kingdom, Mani-hie, whose main source of wealth was aquaculture, specifically, the harvesting and selling of perfect, 100gp pearls. Their main buyers, of course, were wizards and such who wished to identify magic items. Now, however, that source of revenue has dried up. I'm left with the choice of either writing that kingdom out of existence (we've not played in my world yet), or keeping it in, and dealing with the effects of having their main economic pillar collapsing.

Has anyone else ever had a situation where a rules change affected their world in a similar way?

 

[billd91]

Alternatively, don't make it about perfect 100 gp pearls. Just make the place far and away the best source of pearls of any value. Their economy can still include pearls as a significant foundation.

 

[Tauric]

Yeah, that's what I'll probably do in the end, but there is just not as much demand for pearls in general as there was for the spell component pearls. Also, I'm thinking it might make a good adventure to have the party have to go to these islands that are in political and economic disarray, with each island having it's own warlord, and the party has to navigate the intrigue to find some mcguffin.

 

[carborundum]

Hmmm - you could always make pearls of power a little bit more common after the change.

 

[Thazar]

Also, I think historically Pearls were considered more valuable then Diamonds from Egypt to the middle ages. They still have a lot of wealth and probably have an easier time of it then other mining nations that sell precious stones.

Aside from that you could make pearls a key ingredient in making magic items with Divination magic. The cost of making the magic item would not change... just flavor all the divination based magic items to be decorated with pearls in some form or another.

 

[Tovec]

Um... unless I misread you are the DM?
If you are the DM, make the spell require a flawless 100gp pearl if it is really something that you liked about the previous rule.

 

[pawsplay]

Invent a new Wondrous Item that takes the form of a pearl, and casts Identify.

 

[Scott DeWar]

The pearl of wisdom! casts Identify once per day.

 

[Zaister]

By the way, not only do you no longer need a 100 gp pearl to cast identify, you don't even need the identify spell anymore to identfy a magic item. It can easily be done with detect magic, which can be cast at will.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

By the way, not only do you no longer need a 100 gp pearl to cast identify, you don't even need the identify spell anymore to identfy a magic item. It can easily be done with detect magic, which can be cast at will.

I know! It's so good!

My Elven Magus (c.f. my playtest thread) autoidentifies anything with a caster level of 5 or less.

I'm really a fan of this rules change, since I never particularly enjoyed the "Magic Item Test Battery" from earlier editions.