The price of things

[Caliber]

First off, a quick question. In 3E, I remember there were some details re: how much a caster would charge to cast a spell for the party, if they didn't have anyone who could do it themselves. Does 4E have similar guidelines for rituals? Or do you think just charging the price of a scroll is fine?

Secondly, I received this email from a player yesterday, after they finished selling off all the phat lewt they managed to drag out of the dungeon they cleared at Rivenroar.

[My character] wants to look into opening our own store to sell our extra items, so we can get full market price, rather than the absurdly, oppressively low 1/5 value. [Caliber], how much would it cost a month to buy or rent a shop or tent and hire a commoner to run a store for us? Or maybe we could find a shop that would sell our items for us, in return for a percentage of the price?

My thoughts on the matter have me seeing a few options:
A) the attendant costs of running the shop will eat the 4/5ths extra profit they gain, removing any actual benefit
B) I reduce the treasure parcels they find in future adventures by the 4/5ths extra profits they gain, removing any actual benefit
C) I somehow determine a random method for when an item sells, delaying the gain of 4/5ths extra selling profit, but allow them to keep it
D) just give them full sale price and accept they'll be a bit more optimized

I'm leaning to A or B currently, although C has appeal as well. I'd have to be convinced that D wouldn't be very bad, and even then would be more inclined to just let them Disenchant Item for full value, rather than sell it.

What do you guys think?

 

[Tuft]

First off, a quick question. In 3E, I remember there were some details re: how much a caster would charge to cast a spell for the party, if they didn't have anyone who could do it themselves. Does 4E have similar guidelines for rituals? Or do you think just charging the price of a scroll is fine?

Secondly, I received this email from a player yesterday, after they finished selling off all the phat lewt they managed to drag out of the dungeon they cleared at Rivenroar.



My thoughts on the matter have me seeing a few options:
A) the attendant costs of running the shop will eat the 4/5ths extra profit they gain, removing any actual benefit
B) I reduce the treasure parcels they find in future adventures by the 4/5ths extra profits they gain, removing any actual benefit
C) I somehow determine a random method for when an item sells, delaying the gain of 4/5ths extra selling profit, but allow them to keep it
D) just give them full sale price and accept they'll be a bit more optimized

I'm leaning to A or B currently, although C has appeal as well. I'd have to be convinced that D wouldn't be very bad, and even then would be more inclined to just let them Disenchant Item for full value, rather than sell it.

What do you guys think?

My DM has moved to sell at 100%, buy at 100%, disenchant at 100% model, to (A) get rid of all the hassle of handling the players' item wish-lists, and (B) allow us to go for things outside the standard magic items sets, such as to purchase rituals instead. (Trying to put together appropriate ritual books as loot was another of those hassles he wanted to avoid.)

So far it seem to be working - the extreme rise in costs from one level to the next pretty much keeps the lid on.

(Just mentioned the same thing in another thread here.)

 

[Asmor]

I'm moving to the "Screw magic items entirely" model. My next game is going to be low magic not out of any particular desire for a low magic game, but more out of a desire to not have to deal with magic items any more.

Not sure what your setting is like, but at least in the assumed Points of Light pseudo-setting there probably aren't many people around who'd be able to buy the items in the first place...

Also, don't forget that if they're buying something there should be around 40% markup. Similarly, if they're selling things, then there should be around 40% markup as well.

Of course, who knows how long the stuff is going to languish on the shelves? "Good news, Sire! We sold the +1 Magic Longsword for more than five times its asking price!" "Well, great, but a magic item of my level costs over a million gold."

 

[FunkBGR]

Ritual Costs:
I've been doing something where the ritual costs:
ritual level * caster level * 10

That's just off the top of my head though, and isn't based on anything.

Magic Item Store:
I would ask your players if they want to play D&D: The Economic Simulation or some variant of D&D where the economy matters

Is that the style of game you're running? Is that the style you want to run? Is that the style they want?

That kind of response would get me to tell my players that I don't want to roleplay being shopkeepers. We'd then have a frank discussion about expectations in our game.

That said, your game may be different. I would hesitate to introduce any sort of mechanics like you mention without first talking to the player, and getting at why they have problems with the magic item pricing.

 

[Tuft]

Magic Item Store:
I would ask your players if they want to play D&D: The Economic Simulation or some variant of D&D where the economy matters

Is that the style of game you're running? Is that the style you want to run? Is that the style they want?

That kind of response would get me to tell my players that I don't want to roleplay being shopkeepers. We'd then have a frank discussion about expectations in our game.

That said, your game may be different. I would hesitate to introduce any sort of mechanics like you mention without first talking to the player, and getting at why they have problems with the magic item pricing.

Well, quite obviously it is a protest move from the players in question over economics they find nonsensical. I've seen, and heard about, similar things in (earlier edition) Shadowrun campaigns, when the players realize that they got loads more cash for the cars they had, ahem, commandeered during a mission, than the client was paying...

What I am wondering is what criterion the OP uses to award magical items. As per the DMG, you are supposed to give the players things they can use. (Thus the wish list, defined treasure parcels, etc). As I understand it, the 20% rule comes into play when you sell stuff you no longer have a use for or the odd thing that does not fit.

If the 20% sales rule applies to most stuff you find, it cannot be very fun to just collect "vendor trash".

 

[Ed_Laprade]

If you had something that you knew you could sell for a hundred bucks, would you cheerfully sell it for twenty? Of course not! So why is anyone surprised when the players refuse to act like a bunch of complete morons? This has always been a problem with D&D (right up there with alignment). Either you turn your brain off and go with it or it needs fixing. It would have been nice if the people reponsible had fixed it, but they didn't. (They assumed that everyone would turn their brains off, even though they know perfectly well that not everyone will.)

 

[CubeKnight]

Myself, I'd go with C), selling each item at a random price (IIRC, the DMG says stores usually sell at (60+1d6*10)% market price), and at a random interval. Of course, the employee and the store itself have running costs.

To simulate cheaper and more popular items selling faster, I'd do something like:
- The level of the item determines the number of dice
- The 'rarity' of the item determines the die size.
Fex: Longswords are popular (d4). A +1 Longsword would take 1d4 days to sell. Totems don't have much demand (d10). A +2 Totem would take 6d10 days to sell.

Obviously this would require some finetuning, but I don't see why not let them do it. Plus, you can use it to set some plot hooks.

Edit: Oh, yeah, and there'd probably be some costs for repairing/fixing/etc. the items, in other words, restoring and keeping them in brand-new state.

 

[chriton227]

If you had something that you knew you could sell for a hundred bucks, would you cheerfully sell it for twenty? Of course not! So why is anyone surprised when the players refuse to act like a bunch of complete morons? This has always been a problem with D&D (right up there with alignment). Either you turn your brain off and go with it or it needs fixing. It would have been nice if the people reponsible had fixed it, but they didn't. (They assumed that everyone would turn their brains off, even though they know perfectly well that not everyone will.)

I agree that selling for 20% is ridiculously low, but no one in their right mind would think that they could get full sale price. In the real world, if you won a brand new MP3 player that retailed in the stores for $100, you probably wouldn't be able to get a full $100 for it trying to sell it yourself, even if it was still new-in-box. You would probably be doing pretty well to sell it for $75-$80. If instead it was a "good as new" mp3 player that you took from the body of some guy who tried to mug you one night, you would probably be lucky to get $50 for it, and would probably more likely only get $25 for it.

 

[tomBitonti]

Opportunity for skill challenge?

Hi,

This seems to be a good opportunity for a skill challenge.

You could award a price bonus over the base 20% equal to the expected reward from a skill challenge of the appropriate level.

To set up a business, there are lots of challenges:

- Finding a location
- Advertising
- Obtaining good staff
- Setting up security
- Obtaining any necessary permits
- Making good contacts with other merchants
- Making good contacts with government and nobility
- Handling payments
- Dealing with competitors
- Handling rent, bankroll, and taxes

In a medieval-ish environment, you also have to deal with:

- Serious guild and class problems
- Serious tax problems
- Serious fraud and theft problems

At a higher level, you might allow the players to simply have a base of operations (lots of good maps out there), and award them a portion of the treasure over time, minus expenses. Perhaps they can get 25-75% of the list price, but only over a period of time, and not yet subtracting the cost of their base.

In the end, consider the party having to explain to the local magistrate how the taxes went missing along with the store manager and her studly assistant ...

 

[Nightson]

20% is perfectly reasonable. They're high security risk items, highly valuable but low demand. These things probably take months to sell at the minimum while they get taxed, and you might never even sell them.

Given that magic stores to be an actual business would have to work on commission, the value they'd commonly get out of magic items would be 20% the disenchant value.