Selling items : illogical rule ?

[BendBars/LiftGates]

I may be jumping into a debate 8 pages deep, but consider this:

In 3rd Edition, the danger of breaking the economy was that low-level characters could get too powerful by buying high-level items. Thus, it was very important that the game's economy keep PCs on-track with the wealth-by-level guidelines.

In 4th Edition, if you have too much money, you're mainly only going to be able to buy mundane things. Maybe you'll have a fantastic mansion and be able to afford an extensive retinue of servants, but since 4E discourages the idea of a magic shop, the DM doesn't have to let you buy that vorpal sword.

...If, indeed, the DM ever did have the "let" the PCs do anything.

 

[Grantor]

What should *most* games play like?

So, in a heroic and cinematic-styled role playing game, which 4E is marketed as being, what should the play style of a session be like?

Should heroes worry about stripping their foes of every last possession, since one million pennies still makes you pretty wealthy?

Or should game be like a real-life SWAT mission, where weapons, drugs, stolen goods and cash are confiscated, but the rest is left in the possession of the criminals (or their inheritors).

I've seen comedic side-kicks greedily grubbing loot in movies, I seen scenes of pillage in medieval war tales or pirate stories, but I have not read or seen a heroic fantasy character ever take more than the weapons or gold of a fallen foe.

If the rules are to cover what happens in 90% of the games that people run, I don't think that including economic rules for selling miscellaneous gear should be including in the core rules. Additionally, creating rules that add a process to selling magic items (hopefully for a greater value than the fire-sale rate that heroes get RAW), adds to non-play time and would certainly become repetitive and non-fun over the course of a campaign; at least as I see it.

Do the rules make sense, as the original poster asked? No. There is no justification in the rules that explains the game-world mechanism for this rule. I would also point out that there are no justifications to explain the game-world mechanisms for most of the rules. Nothing to explain why 5% of all attacks always do maximum damage (instead of say, 10% or 1%). Nothing to explain or justify why NPCs don't use the same skill challenge rules are the players. In fact, nothing to explain why characters can make magic items at all, instead of them all being made eons ago.

This is all up to the DM to justify (or to not justify and just ask his players to accept). I would suggest that arguing against the justifications that have been proposed in this thread is a total waste of time. Anything that players propose here is just their best idea on how it works; the designers never stated one way or the other why it works this way (in a game-world sense), just that this is the rule.

 

[Sashi]

Very simple rule:

You may allow characters to sell items for more than 20% their value, and even purchase items above their level (which is not normally allowed), if you do, subtract the money/items gained through this manner from that level's treasure parcels.

As long as you follow this, you can create as "real" an economy as you want without breaking the game.

It's when you start letting people play Dark Ages Stock Market that the game breaks.