D&D 5E Slaves - what they cost and why it matters

[clearstream]

The 3e book Lords of Madness has suggestions on pricing slaves in the section on Neogi, and the 2e historical sourcebook on Celts also has a pricing guide, if you want "official" prices. (Don't have these in front of me at the moment, mea culpa.)

I considered a method similar to Lords of Madness, which offers that "The basic method for determining the value of a slave is based on the creature’s CR, using the following formula: Cost = (CR, minimum 1)^2 × 100 gp. An unskilled dwarf, for example, with CR 1/2, costs 100 gp (CR 1/2 rounds up to 1; 1 squared = 1; 1 times 100 gp = 100 gp). A troll slave, on the other hand, costs 2,500 gp (CR 5 squared = 25, times 100 gp = 2,500 gp). Unusual or marketable qualities in a slave, such as great strength, great beauty, valuable skill, or exotic origin, can multiply the price by two, three, or four. A skilled miner dwarf might bring 200 gp if sold at a mine. If that same dwarf were exceptionally strong, he could cost 400 gp. If that dwarf was an 8th-level rogue and the buyer was the head of a thieves’ guild, the slave could cost between 12,800 and 25,600 gp." Regarding their examples, I feel they don't give enough thought to the slaves earnings potential for the owner which historically appears to have been a central element of pricing. That skilled miner for instance is going to yield far more than a dwarf that is merely strong.

I like that the formula recognises a need to exponentiate for more powerful creatures, although I feel it scales too weakly, e.g. 57,000gp feels low for an Ancient Gold Dragon to me. It's hoard will contain quintuple that in coins alone. It's also broken in that it has to be corrected with a minimum of 1 for CR in order to avoid raising a fraction to a power. Where I landed was to continue with the principle (from another thread) that tier equivalence for non-PCs is based on HD. So a Troll (HD8) counts as tier 2. And anything much more powerful than that will be "priceless" - i.e. not bought and sold as a slave.

 

[clearstream]

A thought: should long-lived slave races like elves and dwarves be priced on the basis of a longer period? If an adult elf can potentially serve for 500 years doing skilled labor (e.g. cooking, or casting Mold Earth for construction projects), is a two-year window really sufficient to capture his or her economic value?

Good point! I did make an assumption about that, which might seem like it evades your question. That is, I assumed slaves die of causes other than old age. So even an elf survives only an average of 10 years in service. Does that sound reasonable? In some societies slaves could buy their freedom, also, which might affect the long-lived races issue.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's absurd if capturing the monsters alive net you much more loot. I dislike how that encourages the players to take and sell slaves.

Much better to keep all kinds of mundane economies low, so the focus remains strictly on heroic adventuring.

I think being able to sell a Troll for 5000 gp is a big mistake. That's far too much money; easily more than the actual loot carried by the Troll.

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[clearstream]

It's absurd if capturing the monsters alive net you much more loot. I dislike how that encourages the players to take and sell slaves.

Much better to keep all kinds of mundane economies low, so the focus remains strictly on heroic adventuring.

I think being able to sell a Troll for 5000 gp is a big mistake. That's far too much money; easily more than the actual loot carried by the Troll.

So just to be clear, is owning sentient creatures "evil" or not evil in your campaign? How about stealing from everyone you can easily defeat in combat? I believe you rightly argue that PCs don't do such things, but then advance a conclusion that contradicts your argument.

If PCs are motivated by greed without moral qualms, why would they stop at slavery?

 

[CapnZapp]

So just to be clear, is owning sentient creatures "evil" or not evil in your campaign? How about stealing from everyone you can easily defeat in combat? I believe you rightly argue that PCs don't do such things, but then advance a conclusion that contradicts your argument.

If PCs are motivated by greed without moral qualms, why would they stop at slavery?

Why do you ask.

My players would never hesitate "farming" monsters if they can find some with a good gold per danger ratio.

Better to say most slavers deal with raggedy commoners in the goat price range, so the players lose interest almost immediately.

Being able to get thousands of gold just for rounding up a few dozen strangers feels completely off to me.

Mostly, the wages tables should be assumed not to deal with actual gold and silver. But goods and services that, if sold, would cost those amounts. Which is to say, the actual monetary sum somebody would play for 10 years slave service is considerably lower than the listed figure times ten.

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[cmad1977]

A life isn't as valuable as you think. Slaves are cheap because lives are cheap.


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[clearstream]

Why do you ask.

My players would never hesitate "farming" monsters if they can find some with a good gold per danger ratio.

I guess there we differ. For me, buying and selling sentient creatures equates with evil.

Better to say most slavers deal with raggedy commoners in the goat price range, so the players lose interest almost immediately.

Being able to get thousands of gold just for rounding up a few dozen strangers feels completely off to me.

Well, we know that in the official campaign world, drow put a great deal of effort into exactly that. To sustain that activity they will need to double or treble their costs with their eventual sale price. The estimates I've given are robust from that angle, too. For example, an unskilled slave won't be too much trouble for half a dozen drow lead by an elite to capture. A month's work to scout out, capture, and return with a few of them could cost 200gp. Skilled slaves could be riskier to seek out, but worth taking the chance. If the prices drop much below what I've suggested, it becomes difficult to explain the prevalence of slavery from the perspective of motivations such as greed.

Mostly, the wages tables should be assumed not to deal with actual gold and silver. But goods and services that, if sold, would cost those amounts. Which is to say, the actual monetary sum somebody would play for 10 years slave service is considerably lower than the listed figure times ten.

Hmm... maybe there is a misunderstanding there. Slave prices are based on only 2 years of their earnings. The other 8 years cover costs, risks and returns. [MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION] did a good piece of analysis on this above.

Bottom line it sounds like this isn't for you because your players are what I would call in my campaign world "evil". They are motivated strongly by greed and comfortable capturing sentient creatures for the purpose of selling them. They could argue that some sentient creatures - ones that are themselves evil such as orcs - are okay to enslave. I couldn't agree with such an argument but I could understand the appearance it could create of grey areas.

 

[clearstream]

A life isn't as valuable as you think. Slaves are cheap because lives are cheap.

I've valued slaves on their earnings potential for their owners. Slaves are expensive because owning them is profitable. What I'm getting at is that even if you dislike having a value on life, that doesn't matter to the valuation. In a competitive market, a bidder is benefited for bidding up to the return less costs, risks and the desired rate of return. I suggest 20% of the slave's lifetime earnings potential for that. In a very brutal culture where slaves die in half the time, it would be reasonable to dial that back to one year (halve the values I suggest). However, one would have to envision a great deal of activity replacing slaves in such a location, and the continual pressure of an opportunity to greatly increase profitability by treating them a little better!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Good point! I did make an assumption about that, which might seem like it evades your question. That is, I assumed slaves die of causes other than old age. So even an elf survives only an average of 10 years in service. Does that sound reasonable? In some societies slaves could buy their freedom, also, which might affect the long-lived races issue.

I don't know much about elf physiology, nor about the typical causes of slave death historically. Intuitively though I'd expect elves to last longer than historical humans if only because the conditions a rational slaveowner would keep his slaves in can't be THAT different from typical peasant conditions, and if typical peasant conditions are enough to bring elvish lifespans down to human norms, elves wouldn't be noted for being long-lived in the first place. Whether it's due to better tolerance for malnutrition, better immune systems, or being better psychologically adapted to decades of drudgery, I would be surprised if elves and dwarves didn't manage to live longer in slavery than historical humans did.

Besides, it's a trope.

 

[jgsugden]

A drow slave surviving for two years? Huh, your drow are much nicer than mine.

The first line of the thread hit on the key element in my mind - this is a repugnant topic, and we're playing a game, so perhaps we should ask ourselves if there is a way to address it in a less detailed way to avoid sticky topics.

My approach: There is no market for slaves. Buying a slave from someone of lesser statue, especially a non-drow, would be showing weakness. Slaves are captured, not bought. And if you kill my slave, you'll pay the price in blood, not coin... unless we find it amusing ourselves, in which case we may grab another slave and try to one-up you.