Pathfinder 1E Selling magical items

[brunswick]

Hiya folks,

Just a general question re selling magical items.

A player in my group (a wizard) was asking me re the prices he could get for selling magical items. He argues that even though the rules say, in general, the PCs should get half the value of items they sell, shouldnt he get full price for items he crafts since they are not "second hand" (i.e. fully charged, undamaged, etc) and it would be a "reward" for him choosing magic item feats instead of general feats to protect himself. I'm not really sure which way to go on this but I am slightly worried that he might be trying to break the game by generating large sums of money rapidly, to potentially generate funds to bankroll the creation of more powerful items as soon as possible.

Would you consider this in your game or do you think it is over the top?

Cheers,


Bruns.

 

[Ramaster]

Well, crafting items is a pretty time-consuming process. If he gets to sell them at full price, he'll make 500 GP per day. Depending on his level, that might not be that much cash.

The power behind item crafting feats is not the extra cash, but rather the capacity to manufacture EXACTLY the item you want instead of, say, "hoping" it will come up on the treasure table.

My advice? If he comes to "ye olde magick shoppe" to sell magic items, he gets half the market price. Only if gets his own magic shop he should be able to sell at full retail price. BUT, make his earnings count towards his wealth by level. When he reaches the maximum possible for his level, them something comes up that forces him to stop selling things and go to an adventure!

 

[Blackbrrd]

I never could understand the economy behind magic item trading, especially 4e's variant is totally of the scale. Anyway, just tell him that he can sell it for full price, but that finding a buyer would take a lot more time and effort. In other words, let the player choose between using a lot of time and getting the full price of the item.

 

[delericho]

When a PC buys an item from a shop, it generally wasn't crafted by the guy in the shop. It was sourced from somewhere else - a smith at his forge, an adventurer fresh from his quest, or whatever. Point is, there's a chain of people there, all of whom need to get their cut.

A PC crafting some random magic item doesn't change that equation - everyone else in the chain still wants their cut. So, if he just crafts "a bunch of stuff", he gets 50%.

Now, if the PC puts in the legwork (in-game) to find a specific NPC with a specific need, and crafts the specific item on commission, then that's different. In that case, you should give full value. But unless the PC puts in that legwork, stick to your guns.

Alternately, if the player really wants to get full sale price for items his character creates, there's a way to do that - have the character retire and open a magic shop.

 

[Ferghis]

He argues that even though the rules say, in general, the PCs should get half the value of items they sell, shouldnt he get full price for items he crafts since they are not "second hand" (i.e. fully charged, undamaged, etc)

When figuring price, this is only part of the equation. Finding a buyer willing to pay full price for a magic item is the other part. And getting there is a lot of work, the work of merchants, who deserve part of the sale price as their profit. After all, in most settings it matters little whether the item was slightly used. A fully charged wand of magic missiles has the same impact whether it was made yesterday or in another era (in fact, the older wand might have some more value derived from its provenance and connections with historic figures or events).

The merchant, who would function as an intermediary for this kind of transaction, provides a well-known and trustworthy business in which to purchase such items. S/he can hold on to an item for years, waiting for a customer who would pay full-price. After all, not everyone has the funds to make such a purchase. And a merchant would only do something like this if s/he could turn a considerable profit on it. Therefore, if you want to sell the thing quickly, you sell it at a fraction of its market value (today, this might be called wholesale value), and that purchaser hopes to sell it at market value.

it would be a "reward" for him choosing magic item feats instead of general feats to protect himself.

This is a legitimate argument: player choices should have consequences. Perhaps figure out a monthly income you are comfortable providing him with. This would simulate the weeks of downtime in which the character makes magic items, and the merchant would come to pick them up once a month (or so) and distribute them to his shops. If you later think that the character is making too much money, announce that the merchant didn't show up and he has five weeks of accumulated inventory. The player might get the idea, and take a break, or investigate, turning it into an adventure.

I have to highlight that its odd that a player would want to engage in this kind of "farming." Ask him if that's really what s/he wants his character to do: be an item factory.

I'm not really sure which way to go on this but I am slightly worried that he might be trying to break the game by generating large sums of money rapidly, to potentially generate funds to bankroll the creation of more powerful items as soon as possible.

I suggest requiring special components for powerful items. Also, discussing with the player what item combinations are desired will give you an idea of what to plan for. If the item is powerful but reasonable, go ahead and offer the special component casually. If the request is unreasonable, just make the special component harder to find, for the time being.

 

[S'mon]

He would get full price for items he crafts to order, or for inventory he keeps in his magic shop, when someone comes in looking for that precise item.

But there is not infinite demand. Indeed, full price sales may be very rare, except perhaps for a few Clerical items - cure light wounds potions & wands.

If you want to be sure of a sale, you sell at half price. If you want to make a profit, you sell at above-cost, but the more you charge, the rarer the sales will be.

 

[billd91]

As I see it, the 1/2 market price you get for selling magic item loot serves two purposes:

1) It works with the 1/2 market price for creating items, enabling a party with crafting feats to exchange magic loot they find but don't want for items they do want without a loss (or gain) of value. Just invest time.

2) It's a reasonably effective abstraction of a market in general in which the players aren't interested in role-playing out all sales via bargaining/auctioning and are willing to take an "average" price for the sake of expediency. Otherwise, to simulate a market with supply and demand variables to determine a final price would be pretty cumbersome. The PC can't really expect to gain an optimal price every time he heads out to sell his creations - sometimes the demand isn't there at the price he's asking for.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think one semi-reasonable way of parsing this issue is time. Typically when PCs sell items, they do so immediately to parties that don't really need them, whereas someone in the business of selling things has a large stock and can afford to wait for/search for ideal buyers and play hardball during negotiations. I would recompense the PCs depending on how much time and effort they were willing to devote to the sales process.

Well, crafting items is a pretty time-consuming process. If he gets to sell them at full price, he'll make 500 GP per day. Depending on his level, that might not be that much cash.

Wait, what? 500 gp/day isn't much? That's 5000 times what an unskilled laborer makes, or something on the order of the entire accumulated wealth of a 13th-14th level hero each year. That's a lot of money for pretty much everyone.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Magic Items are priced according to their perceived power level, which is completely against market economics, that's the problem.

Really the cost of an item ought to be the component cost (including costs for obtaining rare components) + the time taken multiplied by the going rate of pay for this time) + profit markup according to the demand for the item. So you really need to determine the going rate of pay for having the relevant feat.

One other mistake I think was making item values go up by a square law (+1 weapon is 2000*1, +2 weapon is 2000*4, etc). The difference between the two isn't great enough to justify the continuing price increase. Instead, the price should increase linearly, with the time taken to create something (and therefore its rarity) increasing according to some power.

 

[Kinak]

His benefits from those feats are getting items for half off and always having access to the exact items he needs. If the intended benefit of those feats were making 500 gp a day, there would be discussion of that in the feats and the item creation rules.

Now, if he wants to set up a magic item shop or hunt down commissions, that's a whole different ball of wax. But magic item shops also sell "used" items at full value and commissions (well, quests) for existing items can also offer far more than half the value of the item in question.

What makes those options different from just having a magical item money crank is that there is a upper limit to what can be sold, inherent costs, and (perhaps most importantly) adventures to be had.

Personally, I'd explain to the player that the standard "half value" is just unloading them and that if he wants to get more, well, you're not going to promise anything because that's on him.

If your player wants to actually involve himself in the world and provide the party with adventure hooks and things to do, great. He should be rewarded for that. If he just thinks he's entitled to phat gp, the rules don't support it and neither should you.

Cheers!
Kinak