Selling Magic Items

[Spatzimaus]

This whole discussion is going to end up being a "here's how we do it in my campaign..." thread, so let's simplify it now.

There are two basic extremes, and parts of your campaign will fall somewhere in between.

1> HIGH-DEMAND: Hordes of adventurers are desperate for decent magical items, and by "decent" I mean the stuff the local hedge wizard can't whip up in his spare time.
If you find a +3 sword, it should be REALLY easy to sell it for close to market value, since you'll be selling directly to the people who want it (no middleman). To save time, I might get a local merchant to sell the item on commission, but I'll still get most of the value since he knows he'll be able to move it. Commission is small (10%) since he's not having to store or advertise much.
For this sort of thing, the system I mentioned, or njrpg's one (nice idea, BTW), work just fine. You get most of the value, selling more or less directly to the person who wants the item.

2> HIGH-SUPPLY: An army of wizards cranks out so many of the things that you can pretty much find whatever you want whenever you need it.
In this sort of environment, my chances of a quick sale are practically nil. Anyone who wants an item has probably already bought one or has had a more suitable item custom-made. It might take months to sell a valuable item, in which time you compete with others to sell similar items, so the "pawn shop" effect comes into play; you're just paying someone to get rid of it for you.
Here, I could easily see the flat 50% coming into play; mages who sell "used" items are looking to recover their material costs, not make a profit. Store owners have to cover the cost of all the items they just can't seem to move.

IMC we're closer to the first. An organized craft/psion/sorcerer guild has a virtual lock on high-end magical item production in the region, and they use market pressures to keep the supply just enough to meet demand. But, your mileage may vary.

Depending on local population, economy, politics, the whims of the DM, etc, you'll end up sliding between these two. It should also depend on the item; a straight +5 longsword will usually be easier to sell than a +1 Goblinbane Ranseur of Wounding, even though they both have the same price.

 

[Larcen]

Good point, Avatar28. I can see it working like that, yes.

~~~

Amen, Spatzimaus. That's exacly what I was trying to say in my last post.

Looks like there are no hard and fast rules, so once again it's up to individual campaigns and DMs.

I hope ours loosens up a bit before he makes his final decision though....

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

We do half price for everything except commodities and gems. (Gems is a campaign specific house-rule.) Why do we go with the books on this one instead of trying to make something complicated? Simple:


We are adventurers. We do not own stores where we sit around waiting for random people to buy our goods. We want to instantly sell our goods to anyone who will buy them. Fifty percent averages out between good and bad sales.

If we wanted to sell our stuff for full price, we could buy a store, put points into Profession merchant, hire a full-time staff, advertise and wait for months in the hope that maybe a random adventurer will come into our store to buy our old longsword+1.
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That, however, isn't really appealing, because in the months we were waiting around trying to get rid of our old equipment or loot, we could have been raiding about 10 other hoards, and collecting the bounties on a million bandits.
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So anyway, to end my tirade: Adventurers are not merchants. They go to a pawn shop, drop off their gains, then go prance through the world again.


P.S. If one of the adventurers happens to be a merchant with a store, then he can stay in town while everyone else saves the kingdom. If he says, I'll just leave my apprentice here with our loot, then, well, you just became a prime target for thieves. And if you hire guards and take leadership and then build a stronghold, well then you have to pay wages and taxes...and on and on and on...

50% is a lot nicer.








P.P.S. Don't even get me started on encumberance.

 

[0-hr]

If you can sell items for more than 50%, then anyone with Craft Wounderous Items can freely turn xp into gp. That just ain't right.

Equipment, magic or no, sells for half market value.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The 50% figure isn't based on wear and tear, it's based on not finding a proper buyer and cajoling a merchant to buying it from you even though it'll take time to find a buyer and despite the risk of holding onto valuable items.

I, of course, allow players to sell magical items for half price (more or less, depending on negotiation).

Having said that, though:

Want an example? If upon entering Waterdeep, the DM tells us that we see a sign on a wall advertising a magical sword in a certain shop, we will GO THERE as soon as possible before it sells. You betcha!

Why? Because the way our DM has been playing it, it has been very difficult to spend our hard earned loot on even lowly 1st level wands. They are scarce!! We have to beg, borrow and steal all the magic we have so far. So based on THAT, we figure this must be a magic starved economy. And based on the fact that WE would pay full price for anything magical just from the mere mention that it's on sale, it stands to reason that other adventurers would too.

It this situation, I could understand selling it at, or at least near, 100%.

 

[MThibault]

Are magic items "equipment" or "commodities"? I guess that depends on who you are selling to. If you are selling them to adventurers they would be equipment. If you are selling to collectors they would be commodities. It isn't really a useful distinction in this case (IMHO). The more useful distinction is between direct sales and intermediary sale.

The 50% rule is quick and simple but I try to tie the actual sale price to Gather Information checks (to find a buyer or reputable agent) and Diplomacy (to negotiate the actual sale). If you find an agent to sell an expensive item (1,000gp or more) for you, then they would handle the Diplomacy part of it and would take a standard commission (10%).

To keep it as simple as possible (my group doesn't want to spend more than 5 minutes selling things) while still rewarding players who have spent skill points on social skills, I use a Gather Information check to set the baseline price (i.e. you search around to find someone who wants to buy this sort of thing this week, the better your check the better the shop/ agent/ collector/ buyer etc. for your needs)

So DC10 25%, DC15 50%, DC20 60%, DC25 75%, DC30 85%, DC35+ 90%.

Anything below a 10 and you don't find a buyer today for that item. You can hold off and look for a more reasonable dealer tommorrow, though. Yes, there are diminishing returns on higher DCs. But these are the starting point of negotiations, and no buyer is going to start negotiations at full market price. You would have to resort to magic to do that. I don't allow Take 10 or Take 20 for this check.

So that sets the base price.

The players can always take the base price. But they can push the price up with opposed Diplomacy checks. A successful check will alter this price, by +5% for every 2 points difference in the check up to 100% and +5% for every 5 points difference over 100%. So it is possible to go over 100% but not likely and not far. If the baseline were 90% (Gather Information DC35+) and the bard wins the Opposed Diplomacy check by 30 points the selling price will be 125%. If the PC loses the opposed diplomacy check they are stuck with the baseline price. No retries.

It only takes a few rolls and you can get a wide variety of prices. Mostly they'll end up in the 50%-60% range, with the occassional 75% if they take enough time or roll really well. A high level bard can push that up to 85%. But they'll need two excellent social skills (you pretty much need a bard) to get the really sweet deals.

BTW I allow Bluff to replace Diplomacy, but if you lose the opposed check (against Sense Motive) you are going to be blackballed and have to start over again with the Gather Information checks at -10.

Obviously there might be some ad hoc adjustments for town size/demographics. These are either a hard cap on the value of item that can be sold, or a circumstance modifier to the Gather Information checks.

I don't know if this is useful to anyone else, but I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Originally posted by Ki Ryn If you can sell items for more than 50%, then anyone with Craft Wounderous Items can freely turn xp into gp.

I have no problem with turning XP into GP. I have a problem with turning GP into XP, but thankfully there isn't an easy way to do that. XP is far more of a limited resource, in my experience.

If it was impossible to make a profit on a magical item, why would the Feats exist? Adventurers, those few people who use dozens of magical items on a daily basis and complain when the bad guy with potions "drinks their loot" should be a minority. Not every caster spends all his XP making items only for his own group of 4-6. SOMEONE had to equip the King's Guards, and no one is altruistic enough to do that for free.

Basic economics: a person who makes an item should be able to sell it for more than the raw material cost, simply to pay for his time (and his XP, in the case of magic).
How much more? Well, let's see. It costs me 50% (plus time and XP) to make, and sells for 100% by the book. Assuming you get someone to sell the item for you, I should be able to at LEAST split the profit with the merchant (i.e., I get 75% of the value, he gets 25%). Probably more, see below.
Now, what if it was a loot item? It's all profit then, so assuming he'll be re-selling at 100%, we could still go 50-50 (giving the percentage listed in the book, the "pawn shop" price), but unless your campaign is incredibly glutted with magic items, you can do far better by "shopping around" for someone with a lower commission. Someone who only asks for a 10% commission will get all the business, and 10% of a +5 sword is still enough to send your kids to college.

The market stabilizes at the point where the item's creator makes just enough profit to be worth it, and the seller makes enough profit to live comfortably. The standard commission rate stabilizes at a level where no merchants can afford to go lower while still covering costs.

So, try this. You have three basic options when trying to sell items.
> If you go to Ye Olde Pawn Shop and say "how much will you give me for this sword?" he'll say 50%. After all, it might be years before he can unload the sword, and in the meantime it could be stolen. If it's a really specialized item he might decrease the percentage even more. On the bright side, it's an immediate payoff.

> If you go to your contact at the Mercantile Guild, he'll charge you 10% up front (whether he sells it or not) as a storage fee and 10% of the final value (which could be anywhere from 75% to 125% of the market value depending on demand) when he sells it. If he sells it, you get the other 90% (which, after the initial fee could be from 60-100% of market value, average 80%).
This option includes dedicated guilds with setups like njrpg's, "old friend" merchants who are willing to sell for you, etc. Since the person is spending all their time looking for buyers and adjusting the price to move it quickly, it won't take as long as the next option.

> If you want to sell it yourself, dealing with market fluctuations, advertising, theft, storage space, etc., you can get full value. You could hire a storekeeper, decreasing your margin slightly, but you'd still make out better in the long run. This makes up for the fact that you're taking all the risk on the item; if it doesn't sell, you get nothing, and if your store is robbed while you're away, you get nothing.

Three options, increasing payoff for increasing effort/risk/delay. Which one is best depends heavily on supply and demand, crime rate, etc., all things determined by the DM.

 

[njrpg]

That was a typo in my above post. If an item is listed at 80% and 85% is rolled, the offer would be for 80% since the 80% is a listed price. My campaign is based in Waterdeep, so the PCs have not sold magic items elsewhere.

 

[baradtgnome]

I can't show you the page number, that's the whole point of this thread...did you miss it?

Everybody is telling me how they think things should work based on the real world and all I am asking for is a concrete example from the rulebooks. That's why this was posted in the RULES FORUM.

So I don't remember seeing it either. It says that commodities can be treated like $ and lists them, so by omission everything else is non commodity. Well at high GP levels the logic of economics breaks down. Oh, well, it is a game.

If something is in demand, then you ought to be able to use an 'agent' to connect 'buyers' and sell relatively quickly and only pay a reasonable percentage. If you need the GP and must dump the item, then I suppose you are going to take a bath. Seems to me that valuables of any sort, including, magic would fall into this category.

To the 'why would a wizard bother making magic items to sell if he could only get 1/2 price' discussion I would offer this. Something that makes items to sell in a shop is a factory. This is an adventure game, if you need more cash make items for your own use, and go kill a dragon or something with a big stash.

Sure in a pinch a player may resort to this for some much needed capital, and if you consider that fun RPGing, great! But consider that most factories have agreements with outlet stores, shops or something to move their wares, so too would a wizard in the business. Or else she would not get good prices or would have to spend time selling them herself.

Lots of interesting ideas in this thread that do help the poor (literally) players. However, I personally try to limit new things to calculate, keeps the game moving on. I use the 50% rule modified by whatever seems sensible at the time. As a DM I am a sucker for a well role-played encounter, and reward thusly.

Good luck!

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

You want to talk about the real world, ok, I'll bite. In the real world if I create a unigue item, say a fine work of art, that is extremely appealing to a very wealthy group of avid buyers, and I go to were a whole bunch of these buyers congregate, you can bet I'll get top dollar for my item, maybe more if they start a bid war. Same applies to selling magic items to adventurers and nobles in a major metropolis, IMHO. Then again, maybe in YOUR campaign magic items grow on trees.

Again, I am not talking about getting full price...just NOT getting half.

In the real world many of those unique items of art never sell. That is not 50%. That is 0%. But I digress.

I have no problem with PCs who make the appropriate social skill rolls and patiently wait months and months for the right buyer sometimes getting near full price. Or more if their luck is especially good.

In actual game play 50% is a good deal. If you are an adventurer who has a spare +1 sword, 1000 gp now is much better than 1500-1800 gp three to six months away. Cash now can save your life. A potion of flying and a potion of cure moderate wounds in your pocket is much cheaper than paying for the Raise Dead.

NPC guild wizards make money off their items because they sit still and build connections. And they are patient. Waiting three to six months for their payoff is not big deal to them. They will probably get 80%-100% of full price depending of whether there are middlemen involved.

The book rules actually make sense.

PHB, page 96:
SELLING LOOT
In general, you can sell something for half its listed price. Characters who want to upgrade to better armor or weaponry, for example, can sell their old equipment for half price.
Commodities are the exception to the half-price rule. A commodity, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself. What, flour, cloth, and valuable metals are commodities, and merchants often trade in them directly with using currency (see Table 7-3: Trade Goods).

The trade goods listed on 7-3 are: chicken, cinnamon, coppet, cow, dog, flour, ginger, pepper, goat, gold, iron, linen, ox, pig, saffron, cloves, salt, sheep, silk, silver, tea leaves, tobacco, wheat. Magic items are not listed in table 7-3. Therefore we must logically assume they follow the general rule for equipment: half price.