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

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

You're making at least 3 assumptions- that the nobles have money, almost nobody else does, and everyone knows who has it, regardless.

1) Not all nobles have money. At least, not in cash. Typically, they're wealthy in landholdings, buildings, livestock, etc. Adjusted for inflation, George Washington was far and away the wealthiest president in United States history. Yet he had to borrow money to relocate to the presidential residence after his first inauguration.

So, if the only people you're selling to are nobles, be prepared to take payment in grain.

2) feudal-era merchants* were often quite wealthy, some, moreso than the nobles in the lands in which they resided. This was partly due to the fact that their ability to own land was limited by the laws of the feudal society...which also meant their wealth was more liquid. This led to societal difficulties, of course, because it is always bad form to upstage "your betters", especially if they have the powers of taxation or even life and death over you. Whichever leads to...

3) ...as a consequence, wealthy merchants often hid the true extent of their financial status as much as possible, a tradition that lives on to this day. I live in a nice suburb of Dallas, and the church I attend has a congregation of @30k members- roughly equivalent in size to the town in which we live. We built a new sanctuary some years ago, and the parish borrowed @3.5M to do so. That debt was paid off in under 3 years. Not only that, many of its fixtures and furnishings were purchased and donated by single families, including all 3 Steinway pianos, the stained glass windows (at $25k each) and so forth. Now, I know 1 or 2 families that could donate that kind of money, but I damn sure don't know them all, even after 17 years of being in the parish...and being among those who donated the most.

Yes, by definition, Bard has the training to know who is who. But that knowledge is- at best- imperfect. While he may not stand on the streetcorner shouting "Vorpal Sword for sale, only 75,000gp! Get it while it is still sharp!", he is probably also not going door-to-door to every merchant and noble.

Instead, he's most likely making it known to people he knows have the ears of the wealthy to pass along that he represents someone willing to sell such an item. And then, he waits...









* and in FRPGs, adventurers

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

That really gets to the heart of the Big Six issue, though. D&D 3.x and Pathfinder have tons of interesting and unique magic items, but most of them are ignored because they have poor relative value.

Once you assign a price to a Flametongue, for example, it ceases to be interesting or unique and instead becomes a good or bad value. Instead of appreciating what you have for what it is, players just wish it was something else.

Without prices listed, a Flametongue is an awesome sword that shoots fire or whatever; players are happy to find it. With prices listed, a Flametongue is a terrible deal, and why would any idiot create that thing when a +2 sword would be more effective at half the price; players are disappointed to find it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That really gets to the heart of the Big Six issue, though. D&D 3.x and Pathfinder have tons of interesting and unique magic items, but most of them are ignored because they have poor relative value.

Once you assign a price to a Flametongue, for example, it ceases to be interesting or unique and instead becomes a good or bad value. Instead of appreciating what you have for what it is, players just wish it was something else.

Without prices listed, a Flametongue is an awesome sword that shoots fire or whatever; players are happy to find it. With prices listed, a Flametongue is a terrible deal, and why would any idiot create that thing when a +2 sword would be more effective at half the price; players are disappointed to find it.

Geez, who are these people you're playing with? Flame tongues have been a favorite in our group since always, and it's not like we're ignorant of their cash values.

 

[Wicht]

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.



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.

I think you vastly underestimate how much people talk about things. Even things that don't concern them. If there's no TV to watch, then entertainment is talking with the neighbors about things. News gets around places pretty well. There would be gossip aplenty about how much the local lord paid for this or that so that the peasant who had never bought a carriage or a prize horse would know exactly how much such a thing was worth.

Likewise, none of the characters in the LotR had ever bought a Mithral shirt, but the experienced warriors knew just how valuable it was.

People don't buy priceless paintings today, but it makes the news when they sell for a lot of money and people remember that sort of thing. They remember how much this or that sports star makes. Etc.

You don't have to have ever bought a thing to have an interest in the cost of that thing.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Geez, who are these people you're playing with? Flame tongues have been a favorite in our group since always, and it's not like we're ignorant of their cash values.

That was just an example, as the Flametongue in 3.5 and Pathfinder is actually priced fairly well in relation to a +2 or +3 sword.

I'm not really talking about other people, though. I'm talking about myself. Whenever one of those Pathfinder modules includes a unique +1 weapon with a bunch of highly situational and limited-use abilities, I always want to track down whoever created them and have a real conversation about design aesthetic vs functionality in a world where everything is trying to kill you. I mean, I get that it's very interesting and thematic that this dagger can cause people to contract lycanthropy on a critical hit, but if you'd just made it with a +3 bonus instead then maybe your champion wouldn't have died and lost this weapon to me in the first place!

 

[Wicht]

That really gets to the heart of the Big Six issue, though. D&D 3.x and Pathfinder have tons of interesting and unique magic items, but most of them are ignored because they have poor relative value.

Once you assign a price to a Flametongue, for example, it ceases to be interesting or unique and instead becomes a good or bad value. Instead of appreciating what you have for what it is, players just wish it was something else.

Without prices listed, a Flametongue is an awesome sword that shoots fire or whatever; players are happy to find it. With prices listed, a Flametongue is a terrible deal, and why would any idiot create that thing when a +2 sword would be more effective at half the price; players are disappointed to find it.

My experience is that my players always like the items that are more unique than the mere stat boosting ones. Flaming swords are always popular. We don't ignore items that I am aware of. Your Mileage Obviously Varies.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I like +3 bastard swords; I like +1 daggers that cause lycanthropy.

I like magic hammers that transform targets into sheep. I like holy avengers.

Gimme a magic weapon, and I'm gonna have fun with it.

 

[Wicht]

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.

Relics - a simple task but not a simple answer.

I found this paper fascinating to read, thank you for having me look for it.

So the answer has multiple parts to it. Firstly, there was evidently a major market for relics and merchants bought and sold them much as art dealers do art today. The value of a given relic was dependent upon the history and quality of the relic and while such prices varied with each piece (much like art) the dealers must have had a pretty good idea of what they could get for each.

Secondly, relics were not always bought and sold, indeed many of them were given as gifts. And, in line with this, the pope actually forbade the sale of relics (which, seeing as how merchants were doing a brisk business in carting them around seems to have not been entirely effective).

So, to answer the question as asked: the noble in france would first try to have someone simply give him the relic. Failing this, he would pay according to the perceived value of the actual relic in question but there was no single price which covered all relics. Again, art sales are the closest analogy. An expert would be able to appraise the minimum value for a piece, but not necessarily the maximum would be my conclusion.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Actually, the papal ban on the sale of relics is one example of the kind of thing I was talking about. When an authority prevents the sale of items that would otherwise be saleable, it stops the legal trade, but in reality, just drives it underground for the most valued items.

That simultaneously raises prices inherently, and decreases the odds of seller and buyer being able to find each other, which also increases prices.

 

[Jester David]

Considering how dangerous fires were in medieval times that is still a very good investment. You can easily see a noble demanding that all lights in the city to be continual flames for safety reasons, at least in wealthy cities.

Fire is dangerous, but people still used it for lighting for 10,000 years opposed to the 150 of electric lights.

Even a small city would have hundreds of lights. That would bankrupt even wealthy nobles.