When does an NPC pay full price?

[Ferrum]

A situation just came up in our game, where we will probably be selling some loot found in a dungeon crawl to some NPC adventurers. I asked our DM if, since we would be selling these items to an NPC equivalent of us, would they be paying full price? He said no, half price.

Now, I'm not trying to convince him otherwise, I do respect my DM. He made a call and its not a big deal anyhow. But I've flipped through the PHB and DMG and I've only found a small note in the "Treasure" section on pg 168 of the PHB:

If no one is willing to take a special item the party members should sell it (for half its cost, as listed by the Dungeon Master's Guide, if they can find a buyer)

Generally, that makes sense to me. But is there any condition in which an NPC is supposed to pay full price for loot a PC acquired while out adventuring? What if the group opens a store in a large city, and amongst the wares they sell they have some of the loot they brought out of a dungeon? As far as I can tell, according to RAW, it goes for no more than half price. Meanwhile, Bob the NPC wizard down the street is selling the same thing for full price?

So, are there special circumstances, or are PCs somehow caught as the unfortunate linchpin of some grand economic equation?

 

[Nifft]

When there is a plot reason that the NPC is desperate to get that particular item (or type of item).

For example, if a demi-plane were to become unstable and could implode at any time, the way I'd drop hints to the PCs is to have several of the more in-the-know NPCs offer to buy scrolls of plane shift off them at full price, and be willing to pay up to 150% of full price. The NPCs would want the scrolls "for no particular reason" unless their attitude were Friendly or Helpful.

If a Necromancer wanted to raise an army of the undead, he'd be delighted to pay full price for obsidian shards, since paying full price is basically part of the spell -- necroeconomics is a fascinating topic.

Anyway, those are extreme examples, but any NPC with a reason to be desperate for an item would surely pay more than 50%.

Cheers, -- N

 

[taliesin15]

It took me a while to figure out what exactly you were talking about here...OK--so the issue is the selling of loot? In my experience, DMs tend to use the DMG/PHB as a general guideline, or baseline for these matters, and many of them just don't care at all about economic niceties to get involved in the complex world of economics.

I'm from the old school, where Gygax spent quite a bit of time talking about such matters in the DMG (whereas the current editions waste a lot of space on silly matters such as those ridiculous prestige classes). IMC, due to flavor considerations, you don't ever find magic shops per se, but what you do find are festivals where people of many cultures gather to buy, sell, and trade, you have Bards who might be friendly to the party who knows who is looking for a Wand of Holy Smiting (or whatever), and of course, if the party is smart enough to figure this out on their own, there are high level NPCs out there looking to buy or trade. All of these options, and probably several other I've forgotten at the moment, are very viable ones parties can employ to get a better return.

 

[shilsen]

IMC, PCs very often get to sell items at full price, or close to it, because they sell them to other adventurers. Never caused a problem at all.

 

[nittanytbone]

Its because the game is Dungeons & Dragons, not Stores & Shops. Selling loot at half-value encourages players to go out and adventure more.

IF one of the players spent the leadership feat on minions to run a store in town for him, and IF the store was occasionally a plot point/challenge (thieves are hitting it up for protection money, there's a natural disaster in the town where it is, etc) I would allow some items to be sold for full price.

And I guess there's some rules in DMG2 for this.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Same reason when I kill a raven in Resident Evil 4 it drops a hand grenade. Because, its a game.

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

All I can say, is IF you run a store and sell the same things are "Bob the Trader" down the street, BUT your is half the cost of his; who do you think people are going to go to first?

Seriously, you might make less profit in the short run; but NPCs should be smart enough to realize that a Lock (amazing) usually goes for 150gp instead of 75g. That means basically everything in your store is buy one, get one free.

 

[Jack Simth]

Mostly, it's a balance consideration - if wealth is totally fungible (you can both buy and sell at 100%), standard treasure alotments are liable to exceed wealth-by-level, AND the party's equipment will quickly be tailor-made to face whatever BBEG they're fighting this week. Which is a wonderful recipie to break CR guidelines.

In character, well....

When you go to get a new car, are you likely to take six months selling your old car for exactly what it's worth, or are you going to trade it in, today, for some fraction of what it's worth, so you can afford the new car now?

Shoppkeepers sit around all day, looking for leads on who wants what they have, and who has something they can't particularly use. They also screen their goods. I suppose if the party were interested in unscreened goods, they could look into Al's Pawn shop, who sells for 75% of "market" ... of course, he'll be getting the goods that the screening shoppkeepers wouldn't take....

 

[Psion]

I find the half rule essential in keeping a cap on treasure bloat.

For a good example to get a reference point in real life, consider the situation if you are selling something to a used book store or pawn shop. You'd be lucky in those cases to get half. But half makes a nice simple thumbrule.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

I'd like to see some sort of haggling skill mechanic replace the current half rule. Naturally with a merchant class who has a huge class bonus to haggling, and a class ability to find things cheaply as long as the Merchant's been in the same place X months.