D&D 5E What's the point of gold?

[Hussar]

Except that, contrary to what Hussar said, people can and do advertise without newspapers, telephones and the internet.

Especially in DnD where, with magic, you can have a 101 different ways of getting word out there ranging from hiring a Bard to spread the word around town all the way to summoning an Air Elemental to write your message in the Sky.

And this rolls right back around to a point I made a long time ago in this thread.

Fungible magic items have HUGE setting implications. Now magic is so common that it's used for advertising? Spreading word around town helps you in that town, sure, but, beyond that town? How long is that bard going to have to stand on a corner spreading work that you're selling a magic sword that only three people in the town could possibly afford, even if they actually wanted to buy one? How often are itinerant, vastly wealthy, "adventurers" passing through town to be able to hear/see your advertising and take you up on it?

These are huge setting changers. I don't want magic reduced down to bloody sky writing air elementals. It's fine for a joke setting, but, not something I want to run. It also means that there are enough high level casters running around that doing something like that is actually an option. Again, fine for 3e style demographics, but, again, you're now forcing everyone playing the game to follow your play style. Every town has to have multiple high level casters according to the demographics. Not what I want.

See, the point here is, what caters to the broadest play styles. By catering to the "I want a price list" crowd, everyone has to play D&D like it was 3e/Pathfinder. Every world has to work that way, because of the presumptions in game world design. Leaving the price list to each DM, with everything from "No, you can't buy magic items" to "Magic items are up to the DM" allows everyone to have their cake.

Yup, those that want the price list have to do some leg work. True. The 5e DMG does include some guidelines, but, they're pretty basic. Then again, what's stopping you form using the 3e price lists? Last I checked, the Hypertext SRD was still going, so, those price lists are still completely accessible. Why can't you use those? It's not like price lists don't exist anywhere.

 

[Derren]

How long is that bard going to have to stand on a corner spreading work that you're selling a magic sword that only three people in the town could possibly afford, even if they actually wanted to buy one?

Why is the bard not simply asking those 3 people directly? Especially in a feudal system the number of people with money are small and they are well known so you can simply ask them if they have interest in the item or make it known to them that you do sell magic items.

No matter the demographics, magic items will be bought and sold. Thats simply logic and human nature. The only thing that will vary is the price.
And you seem to still habor the idea that having a price list of magic items forces DMs to use it and that it is better for the books to offer no help at all.

 

[Mirtek]

By catering to the "I want a price list" crowd, everyone has to play D&D like it was 3e/Pathfinder. Every world has to work that way, because of the presumptions in game world design. Leaving the price list to each DM, with everything from "No, you can't buy magic items" to "Magic items are up to the DM" allows everyone to have their cake.

Not it's not. By catering to the "Magic items are up to the DM" crowd everyone has to play D&D their way or put in a lot of extra effort to change it. By giving price lists it's a simple matter of "Not in my setting" that takes only a tiny fraction of the time and effort that this crowd wants to force on the "I want a price list" crowd.

 

[Jester David]

I am pretty sure that there is a large and active market for renaissance art. Sure, big items like Rembrandts are traded rarely (but they are occasionally auctioned) but those are the +5 vorpal holy avengers. "Lesser" art from more unknown artists are traded every day and good art trades can likely put you into contact with someone who will sell renaissance art if they do not do it themselves.

But you can't just walk into a store in any city and purchase a piece of art in the exact style of your choice. There are a finite pieces, many of which are in the hands of museums and private collectors. So you need to find someone with a piece you want and arrange a private sale, or wait for an auction. There's only a couple auction houses worldwide that handle such things, and even unremarkable pieces go for well over a million dollars. People get paid to track down pieces or particular styles of painting: art dealer is a full time job.

This is also the modern world. It gets harder when you remove instant communication and reliable (and secure) long distance travel and transport.

Selling a piece of renaissance art probably wouldn't be *that* hard. Supply and demand and what. Similarly, selling a magic item wouldn't be that tricky. But finding a particular magic item, even something that's only rare, might be much trickier.

And even if you assume that the knowledge of how the create magic item has been universally lost and no known place on the planet knows how to create them, there would still be a market for continual flame torches. Every noble would want to stock his residence with it and why shouldn't he? Or is the party wizard the only one able to cast 2nd level spells?

Keep in mind that you'd really need 2-3 castings for each room in a manor/keep. It would add up fast, even for high level PCs who can do it in a couple days. Plus, the price would depend on the number of people who can cast the spell.

I went into the number of people who can cast 2nd level spells a while back using the demographics of 3e. In a city of 10,000 people there'd be 75 who could make a magic lamp of eternal light. But, that was using 3e's demographics where 10% of the population had class levels, so it'd be very easy to half the number of people to <40.
So while it's possible to have an Eberron where that sort of thing is everyday and many people can cast 2nd or even 3rd level spells, it's equally possible to have only a handful of people in a large city with that kind of spellcasting, and not every one of them will be willing to sell their services.

There might be a handful of clerics who can do so, who are the head priests of a church. Some might be willing to cast a few spells for a noble for a donation to the church, but many are going to balk at being asked to waste their divine gift. Similarly, not every wizard is going to hire out their services. Some might be reclusive and not advertise their skills, some might be wealthy and dismiss such spellcasting as "common labour", and some might be only interested in knowledge and expanding their art. And some might be adventurers who are unlikely to want to put their great quest on hold to spend a month enchanting a dude's house. Plus, not every wizard will know the spell; it's not in Basic so, arguably, the spell is more specialized and learning it would require some work.

I used the examples of trades: mechanics, electricians, plumbers. Those are pretty common skills that are not *that* hard to learn, but the average cost of a plumber visit is in the $100/hour range. The parts aren't that pricey and most of the time the job isn't *that* difficult, but you're paying for the expertise and certainty that they're not going to eff up something that will cost 10x the price to fix. Plumbers can pretty much charge what they want.
So when there's 5 people in a major city with the expertise, time, spell knowledge, and willingness to do something like enchant lamps, then they can charge pretty much whatever they want. So the 50gp base price goes out the window. They can charge 100gp or 500gp or more. Even a wealthy nobleman is going to look at their 15-room manor and the 250gp price, and decide it'd be easier to buy 37,500 pints of oil. (If lamps in only half the rooms are lit at any given time, the noble could light their house for a decade for the same price.)
Now, a noble with more gold coins than brain cells might opt to buy a couple eternal lamps or continual torches, but they're unlikely to be everywhere.

On the other hand, a wizard's tower or cathedral to a sun deity might have braziers every dozen feet. Because they can.

 

[Salthorae]

Not it's not. By catering to the "Magic items are up to the DM" crowd everyone has to play D&D their way or put in a lot of extra effort to change it. By giving price lists it's a simple matter of "Not in my setting" that takes only a tiny fraction of the time and effort that this crowd wants to force on the "I want a price list" crowd.

So what's stopping someone from using the 3.5 MiC or SRD, as Hussar pointed out, price lists for the items which are printed in the 5e DMG? That also would hardly take any time and one of the options is freely available.

If it's that important, let's fork a thread and do it so everyone who wants that as a resource can have it/find it, and those that don't want to bother don't need it.

EDIT: Multiquote was being weird from a previous post...

 

[Wicht]

Yup, those that want the price list have to do some leg work. True. The 5e DMG does include some guidelines, but, they're pretty basic. Then again, what's stopping you form using the 3e price lists? Last I checked, the Hypertext SRD was still going, so, those price lists are still completely accessible. Why can't you use those? It's not like price lists don't exist anywhere.

Now there's a good way to sell 5e: Its not missing anything that 3e can't fix.

See, the point here is, what caters to the broadest play styles. By catering to the "I want a price list" crowd, everyone has to play D&D like it was 3e/Pathfinder. Every world has to work that way, because of the presumptions in game world design.

That's not true at all. A price list is not a catalog. Its merely a guide to give some idea of relative comparative worth. For instance, using the real world, I know that the 10th Anniversary edition of Ticket to Ride has a value of about $80-100. A regular copy of monopoly has a worth of $10-15. The latter is likely for sale in Walmart in my town, but the former is not. Me knowing the value has nothing to do with me being able to walk into a store and buy it. But it does mean that if a friend has a copy of the deluxe Ticket to Ride for sale or trade, I know how much to offer if he asks.

Likewise, I have friends who are very into guns. Its not uncommon for me to hear one offering another a deal on a rifle or other they want to unload. Knowing the relative value of said guns allows them to know whether or not they are being offered a good deal. Knowing the relative prices does not guarantee any particular rifle is for sale in town, especially if they are antiques.

In the same way, I would assume that adventurers had a pretty good idea of the relative value of a +2 sword to a carpet of flying, though they might not have the immediate opportunity to buy either. And even in worlds where magic is less common, the DM should have an idea of comparative value in order to better facilitate things when the players want to barter or sell items.

 

[Hussar]

Why is the bard not simply asking those 3 people directly? Especially in a feudal system the number of people with money are small and they are well known so you can simply ask them if they have interest in the item or make it known to them that you do sell magic items.

No matter the demographics, magic items will be bought and sold. Thats simply logic and human nature. The only thing that will vary is the price.
And you seem to still habor the idea that having a price list of magic items forces DMs to use it and that it is better for the books to offer no help at all.

But, the books do offer help. Not much, mind you, but, it is there. You know how much, in broad ranges, it is to manufacture a magic item. So, a buy price would be about double that, at least. Possibly higher. Again, it's not like there's no guidelines at all.

And, so what if there are those three guys? They're potential buyers, not sellers. Selling magic items is not a problem, AFAIK. You want a price list so you can buy them.

So, try this test. Without accessing ANY mass communication, so no Internet, no telephone, no newspaper, only 100% word of mouth with people who are also not allowed to look it up, where can I buy a Lambourgini where you live? If it's so easy, then it should be no problem to tell me. Thing is, you can't. Because without mass communication, you have no way of finding a Lambo dealership unless you stumble across it. You could ask fifteen different people and I'll bet none of them could answer you either.

By making magic items fungible, you force groups to adhere to a single play style - yours. Because if I start futzing about with the price list, players are going to bitch. If I decide that no, magic items aren't available, players very rightly are going to point to the DMG and ask why. And, of course, once you add in a price list, now you have to design the game to follow the idea that PC's will have access to those magic items. You completely break the idea of bounded accuracy which is predicated on the idea that no, you can't simply throw cash at your character and upgrade. 3e built that presumption right into the game. Monsters were designed around the idea that a PC of a given level would have a certain number of magic items, which meant a certain range of AC and attack and damage bonuses.

There's a reason you have 42 AC dragons in 3e. And a very good reason you don't in 5e.

If you get a price list in an Unearthed Arcana article, then fine and dandy. That's fantastic for you. I hope you do. What I don't understand is why you insist on forcing your play style on everyone else.
[MENTION=40810]Mirtek[/MENTION] - again, why can't you use the 3e pricing? What's stopping you?
[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] - you ask if the party wizard is the only one capable of casting Continual Flame - again, you're forcing demographics onto other people's games. What's wrong with the party PC being one of the very few out in the world who actually could cast this? I mean, Dragonlance is based 100% on that demographic. Wizards are very few and far between and almost universally live in a few places and clerics are unheard of prior to the War of the Lance. So, why should my Dragonlance world have every noble's house lit with Continual Light torches? 3e demographics is not the only way to play D&D.

 

[Mirtek]

So what's stopping someone from using the 3.5 MiC or SRD, as Hussar pointed out, price lists for the items which are printed in the 5e DMG? That also would hardly take any time and one of the options is freely available.

Because it's for a different game with different assumptions. That's like just grapping a random 3.x adventure and using the same number of monsters from the 3.X encounter just with their 5e stats. Could work if you're particulary lucky, but more likely you'll learn the hard way that monsters have moved up and down the CR ladder and what's a good encounter for 4 level X 3.5 PCs is not so much for 4 5e PCs of the same level.

A 3.x +1 sword is priced for a system where the BAB goes from 0 to +20 and swords from +1 to +5 with monster ACs going into the 40s. Completely different system than one were BAB goes from +2 to +6 and a AC 25 monster is incredibly tough

By making magic items fungible, you force groups to adhere to a single play style - yours.

And by not making them so you're doing the same.

Because if I start futzing about with the price list, players are going to bitch. If I decide that no, magic items aren't available, players very rightly are going to point to the DMG and ask why.

So you want WotC doing the forcing the players for you. That's still forcing groups to adhere to your playstyle, just outsourced to WotC.

 

[Wicht]

But, the books do offer help. Not much, mind you, but, it is there. You know how much, in broad ranges, it is to manufacture a magic item.

Out of curiosity, what are the ranges: how broad are they?

And, so what if there are those three guys? They're potential buyers, not sellers. Selling magic items is not a problem, AFAIK. You want a price list so you can buy them.

Actually, I have been trying to argue that you want the price list for selling also, so as to make reasonable choices as to relative value.

So, try this test. Without accessing ANY mass communication, so no Internet, no telephone, no newspaper, only 100% word of mouth with people who are also not allowed to look it up, where can I buy a Lambourgini where you live? If it's so easy, then it should be no problem to tell me. Thing is, you can't. Because without mass communication, you have no way of finding a Lambo dealership unless you stumble across it. You could ask fifteen different people and I'll bet none of them could answer you either.

You are really stuck on this Lamorghini thing aren't you. But you are wrong. If I was looking without mass communication, my first stop would not be random people on the street- I would go to someone who sells cars. I would commission them to contact other car dealers on my behalf. A lack of mass communication does not preclude writing letters nor contacting specialists who would know people who would know other people. In fact, people did it for a few thousand years just fine. And I can pretty much guarantee that after some period of time, the people I know would know the people who know. There's a reason for the six degrees of separation cliche.

 

[Hussar]

Now there's a good way to sell 5e: Its not missing anything that 3e can't fix.

It's not missing anything AFAIC. But, for those who think it is, there is a perfectly easy solution. The entire argument about "Well, it takes DM's too much time and effort to make our own" goes right out the window when you have an entire price list right there for free.

In the same way, I would assume that adventurers had a pretty good idea of the relative value of a +2 sword to a carpet of flying, though they might not have the immediate opportunity to buy either. And even in worlds where magic is less common, the DM should have an idea of comparative value in order to better facilitate things when the players want to barter or sell items.

And in your games, you are perfectly free to make whatever assumptions you like. For me, I would never, ever assume that a character would have the slightest idea of the market value of anything other than the most common of items. Did Bilbo know how much Sting was worth? Or his Mithril Shirt? How much would it cost to buy Narsil? Or Glamdring?

Why would my barbarian have the slightest clue about how much a carpet of flying was worth? Other than maybe a wizard, why would any PC have more than a slightest clue? To know market value means that there has to be a market with which to be familiar. That means that there's enough commerce going on that market values get (roughly) set and widely known. If only three people in the town can possibly afford magic items, and none of them are talking to the public, why would the public have any idea beyond, "More money than I've got"?

Again, this has huge setting implications. It means that sales are so common that prices actually do get fixed. It completely ignores anything like supply and demand, which was a pretty common criticism in 3e of the price lists, and presumes that such sales are so regular that prices become known.

Here's a question for you then. How much would a noble in France be expected to pay for a finger bone of a saint in the 13th century? You have the entire Internet at your fingertips. Give me a price. Come on, it should be easy. After all, we expect our 5th level fighter to know the market price of a +1 dagger, and he doesn't have access to any sorts of mass media. This should be a simple task.