D&D 5E Sane Magic Item Prices

[Saidoro]

Having seen this come up before, I really have to ask, why not simply use 3e prices? The Hypertext SRD has pricing for every single 5e magic item. Poof, done.

1) No it doesn't. Check Wand of the War Mage, Sword of Sharpness and staff of the adder within the first 15 lines of my weapon table.
2) The rules for how a massive number of those items which are common to 3e work have changed. The old prices are not necessarily useful. Check Vicious Weapon, Adamantine Armor, Mithral Armor, Sword of Life-Stealing, Dagger of Venom, Ioun Stone Protection, Bracers of Archery, Circlet of Blasting, Javelin of Lightning and the Prayer bead of smiting within the first 15 lines of my weapon table.
So there are...2 items out of 15 to which the old prices might reasonably apply.

 

[Hussar]

Meh.

Vicious weapon, minimum 8000 gp in 3e, 5000 gp in 5e. Close enough. Since it does less damage, and no backlash, I'd say you're about right.
Adamantine armour: ok, fair enough. That one's a lot more expensive in 3e.
Mithril armour: +500 gp in 5e, Mithril shirt 1100 gp in 3e. Yup, close enough.
Sword of Life Stealing is yanked from 4e, use those prices.
Dagger of Venom - 3e 8000 gp, 5e 5000 gp. Close enough.

I'm too lazy to go through the rest of the list, but, sheesh, how picky are you going to be here? If you want fungible magic items in 5e, you're probably going to want to raise the prices anyway, just to keep things in line. I'm really not seeing the issue here.

 

[Wik]

You know what I've been doing? At the end of every adventure, the PCs get invited to a "night market" held by the magic item smugglers known as the Gray Wizards. These events have a couple dozen items (mostly magical, but also weird things, like a petrified pseudodragon) for sale. I list a starting cost for the item (I use the item's base price as a starting point, but have the Gray Wizards modify this based on what they think they can get for it).

I then have the PCs put in a bid, like a silent auction.

Before this, I figured out what the max bid on each item was going to be, using a random system that's a bit convoluted to explain here. But, basically, it turns buying magical items into a fun game. And it turned last week's session into one where the PCs got together all of their funds to make sure they'd get the Doss Lute (base price 500). They spent over 1K to get the thing, and now they're super low on funds.

Highly recommend this system as a way to get rid of excess wealth. And it keeps the spirit of 5e rules, by having one less section to reference to keep things solid. Prices for magic items SHOULD fluctuate wildly, in my own opinion.

But still, if it works in your game, more power to ya.

 

[CapnZapp]

Meh.

Vicious weapon, minimum 8000 gp in 3e, 5000 gp in 5e. Close enough. Since it does less damage, and no backlash, I'd say you're about right.
Adamantine armour: ok, fair enough. That one's a lot more expensive in 3e.
Mithril armour: +500 gp in 5e, Mithril shirt 1100 gp in 3e. Yup, close enough.
Sword of Life Stealing is yanked from 4e, use those prices.
Dagger of Venom - 3e 8000 gp, 5e 5000 gp. Close enough.

I'm too lazy to go through the rest of the list, but, sheesh, how picky are you going to be here? If you want fungible magic items in 5e, you're probably going to want to raise the prices anyway, just to keep things in line. I'm really not seeing the issue here.

That means your opinion holds little value.

I can tell you for a fact that you are severely underestimating the work and diligence required to implement 3e style pricing and creation guidelines in 5e, and how dismissive you come across when you tell us you don't see a problem while openly admitting you haven't studied the issue at depth.

But I won't, because you have ignored that message in the past, and show zero inclination in listening now.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry but I am missing the difficulty. Most 5e items fall within 3e price ranges. We've had this discussion before. Yeah there's some flinch factor but they're close enough.

Do you honestly think that if wotc did do a full price list for 5e items, the prices would be radically different from 3e?

 

[Saidoro]

Meh.

Vicious weapon, minimum 8000 gp in 3e, 5000 gp in 5e. Close enough. Since it does less damage, and no backlash, I'd say you're about right.
Adamantine armour: ok, fair enough. That one's a lot more expensive in 3e.
Mithril armour: +500 gp in 5e, Mithril shirt 1100 gp in 3e. Yup, close enough.
Sword of Life Stealing is yanked from 4e, use those prices.
Dagger of Venom - 3e 8000 gp, 5e 5000 gp. Close enough.

I put vicious weapon at 350 gold, a full order of magnitude less than in 3e. This is because it does over an order of magnitude less damage per hit than in 3e. Adamantine armor in 3e gave damage reduction. In 5e it only negates critical hits, again, having an effect which is less powerful by orders of magnitude. Hence why I put it at 500. 4e is not OGL so I, along with many other people can't actually use that, and I suspect that even if I could the price for the sword of life stealing would be wrong. In 3e, the Dagger of venom was a free action to activate while it's an action in 5e. Additionally, the 3e version provided a debuff using the poison spell while the 5e version just tacks on a bit of damage. Do you really think that those are doing the same thing?

Do you honestly think that if wotc did do a full price list for 5e items, the prices would be radically different from 3e?

Given that my prices are radically different? Yes. Obviously. That is an absolutely absurd question to be asking given the things that you know.

 

[Hussar]

I understand that your prices are radically different Saidoro. Fair enough. That wasn't my question. My question was do you honestly think, considering that the 5e prices right now, more or less follow 3e pricing, WOTC would come up with the same pricing that you do? Really? I have my doubts. I think that if they did actually bring out a price list, it would look suspiciously like 3e (with a bit of 4e tacked on) and you'd still be very unhappy.

I mean, you talk about the Dagger of Venom. 5e Dagger of Venom carries the Poisoned rider for one minute - disadvantage on attacks and checks. The 3e version deals temporary Con damage, an expression that doesn't carry over. Again, not seeing the huge difference. DR2 for Adamantine armour or Negates Crits in 5e seems pretty much on par. And doesn't negate the Heavy Armor Specialization feat. Cool. And Vicious does "an order of magnitude" more damage? Bit hyperbolic no? In 3e, Vicious deals 2d6 damage with a d6 to the user. In 5e it deals 7 extra damage on a crit. Seems pretty on par to me.

But, hey, like I said, I don't see the problem here. I think you're picking nits and trying to make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. I like to keep things simple. For me, the simplest answer would be to use the 3e SRD prices. For the majority of items in the DMG, the prices are a bit higher than 5e, but, again, if you're buying these things, and giving away money like water, that's probably a good thing.

Me, I'm in a 5e Dragonlance game right now and we're 8th level. Our biggest haul was recently with 3000 gp for each PC. Before that, I think no one had seen more than 500 gp at one time. We've managed to buy a grand total of 2 uncommon items for any one PC. I prefer a setting where every random lizard man doesn't carry rubies. Where you actually have to adventure a long time to make a living. The whole 3e thing where you had thousands of gp in personal wealth by 7th level never made much sense to me. Why am I continuing to adventure? I've got enough personal wealth to retire, so, why am I not retiring?

Someone earlier mentioned how Horde gave so little treasure. To me, that's the way it should be.

 

[Saidoro]

I understand that your prices are radically different Saidoro. Fair enough. That wasn't my question. My question was do you honestly think, considering that the 5e prices right now, more or less follow 3e pricing, WOTC would come up with the same pricing that you do? Really? I have my doubts. I think that if they did actually bring out a price list, it would look suspiciously like 3e (with a bit of 4e tacked on) and you'd still be very unhappy.

Let's put it this way: I think it's possible that it might look like the 3e lists, but only through massive ineptitude on WotC's part.

I mean, you talk about the Dagger of Venom. 5e Dagger of Venom carries the Poisoned rider for one minute - disadvantage on attacks and checks. The 3e version deals temporary Con damage, an expression that doesn't carry over. Again, not seeing the huge difference. DR2 for Adamantine armour or Negates Crits in 5e seems pretty much on par. And doesn't negate the Heavy Armor Specialization feat. Cool. And Vicious does "an order of magnitude" more damage? Bit hyperbolic no? In 3e, Vicious deals 2d6 damage with a d6 to the user. In 5e it deals 7 extra damage on a crit. Seems pretty on par to me.

I actually did miss the rider on the dagger of venom. I'll revise its price to reflect that. It would still, however, be an extraordinary coincidence if a price designed for one effect just happened to also be the correct price for another effect. DR 3 from adamantine armor in 3.5 prevents 3 points of damage per attack (and it was terribly overpriced for that effect, I don't think I've ever seen someone buy it). Assuming a weapon that deals 2d6 base damage, 5e adamantine armor prevents 7/20 damage per attack. Likewise, 3e vicious deals literally an order of magnitude more damage. 7 damage on a natural 20 is 7/20 damage per attack. 2d6 damage per hit with a 50% hit rate is 7/2 damage per attack. That was not the slightest bit hyperbolic.

 

[Hussar]

Let's not forget our vicious weapon in 3e is dealing a d6 damage to the user each hit as well. Sure, it's doing ten times more damage, maybe, but, it's killing the user to do that. Compare the effect to other similar weapons and off you go. There is no absolute value here, it's all relative. What's +7 on a crit worth? Well, considering getting +7 damage in 5e isn't easy, it's worth quite a bit actually. And, in the hands of a Champion, this is a weapon that's no longer 7/20, but now 7/19-20, or 7/18-20. Depends on who's using it doesn't it? Combine that with Action Surge, at higher levels, that's likely popping up every combat.

Calculate it this way. A fight generally lasts 4 rounds. That's 12 attacks for my 15th level Champion. Give me one round of advantage, and that's 15 d20 die rolls. With a crit range of 18-20, that mean I'm pretty sure of getting one crit. Considering it's not unreasonable to get advantage at least once in a given combat, that means Vicious will kick in most combats. What's a +7 to damage worth when it happens every combat? It's a rare item, which is reasonable for a 15th level character. So, again, how much is a highly likely +7 to damage every fight? Sure, it won't kick in every round, but, it will kick in most fights.

Not a bad little item anymore. Bit situational, but, in the right hands, works very sweet.

Is a Holy Avenger worth more or less because only Paladins can use it?

 

[Saidoro]

Let's not forget our vicious weapon in 3e is dealing a d6 damage to the user each hit as well. Sure, it's doing ten times more damage, maybe, but, it's killing the user to do that. Compare the effect to other similar weapons and off you go. There is no absolute value here, it's all relative. What's +7 on a crit worth? Well, considering getting +7 damage in 5e isn't easy, it's worth quite a bit actually. And, in the hands of a Champion, this is a weapon that's no longer 7/20, but now 7/19-20, or 7/18-20. Depends on who's using it doesn't it? Combine that with Action Surge, at higher levels, that's likely popping up every combat.

Calculate it this way. A fight generally lasts 4 rounds. That's 12 attacks for my 15th level Champion. Give me one round of advantage, and that's 15 d20 die rolls. With a crit range of 18-20, that mean I'm pretty sure of getting one crit. Considering it's not unreasonable to get advantage at least once in a given combat, that means Vicious will kick in most combats. What's a +7 to damage worth when it happens every combat? It's a rare item, which is reasonable for a 15th level character. So, again, how much is a highly likely +7 to damage every fight? Sure, it won't kick in every round, but, it will kick in most fights.

Not a bad little item anymore. Bit situational, but, in the right hands, works very sweet.

It does not activate on a critical hit, only on a natural 20. Furthermore, even if it did work, it would only deal 21/20 extra damage per attack, just barely more than 1. Which makes it about as good as a +1 weapon. A +1 weapon adds ((1 * hit chance)+(damage per hit/20)) damage per attack, which works out to a pretty similar number. And yes, the self damage was absolutely a drawback of the old one, but it wasn't and isn't nearly enough of one to make the prices at all similar.

Is a Holy Avenger worth more or less because only Paladins can use it?

Precisely the same. Most of the price is from being a mantle of spell resistance for you and all of your friends at once.