My final replies to page 1 posts. Phew!
So the goal is to create a viable pricing method for magic items that determines gp cost based on the item's utility to game play, correct?
The first thing you need to do is to determine what factors you want to quantify - bonuses to hit, number of charges, levels of spells usable, special abilities, etc. Then you need to assign a gp value to these factors, along with adjustments due to multiple abilities in a single item, whether it requires attunement, has class/alignment/other restrictions, etc. Then you need a method to combine these values effectively into a total gp cost that appears reasonable to a majority of players.
Since you're making a pricing system, you may as well link in an item creation algorithm as well indicating the price, time, creator-and-material requisites, etc.
To keep the project from becoming overwhelmingly large, the idea is to begin with a few key items and set 5th-ed-appropriate prices on those.
Then other items have to come along for the ride, meaning that, say, if Staff of Defense cost 5000 gp in 3E and now is priced at 10000 gp, all comparable items that also cost around 5000 gp should probably cost 10000 gp, unless we can make a case for saying "they were about equal before, but the particularities of 5E means that no longer holds true".
Just as a starting point, I mean. We need to start somewhere.
I think until we start getting into specifics there won't be enough meat here to really discuss in depth, but I guess we could start by throwing out guiding principles:
- Limited is cheaper than unlimited. That is, potions and scrolls need to be cheaper than permanent items, by a lot. Like, 3e-era 50x pricing differences.
- Specific is cheaper than general. This doesn't mean specific-to-who-can-use-it, though; it means specific in application. Restrictions like "wizard-only to attune" is maybe a 10% discount, because it's a freebie for whoever's crafting the item. Restrictions like "+1d6 damage vs spellcasters", on the other hand, are worth a heftier bonus when compared to a more generic "+1d6 damage" flat.
- Smaller numbers are cheaper than bigger numbers. You'd be surprised (various flying items in 5e...). Effects that are intended for out of combat healing should not trade off particularly well vs effects intended for in-combat healing; we can safely assume the party will use items as they're meant to be used, and so again, that's a very modest price differential most of the time.
- Unlocking new capabilities needs to be expensive. It's a little hard to put a price on, say, invisibility vs flight vs waterbreathing vs spiderclimb vs teleportation. But at a minimum, you're freeing up a spell slot of a certain level, and published adventures make assumptions about which sorts of characters can take which sorts of actions trivially. Flight is a part of that.
I look forward to seeing where this goes.
A few semirandom thoughts:
Consumables generally cost 10% of the comparable permanent item. That 1/50th was an outlier - it applied to wand charges, and it was the reason for CLW wands. Luckily we won't have to deal with that. So 10% is a good starting point, at least compared to the horrible 50% the DMG tries to convince us of. But we'll see where we end up (thinking of scrolls).
Class restrictions feel like way too specific to go into already at this stage. I'll simply say that in 5E "anyone can be a caster". Restricting an item to "spellcasters" only doesn't mean that much.
Not sure what you have in mind for the third bullet point.
Capabilities like flying needs to be expensive. Soon I'm up to double-digit levels for the third campaign, and yet nobody has cast Fly even once. (They did get a trained Griffon this time around). Things like boots of flying can and should be priced much more like the luxury it is in 5E than the common commodity it was in 3E. Since invisibility is less powerful in 5E (since you still need Stealth for it to mean more than disadvantage to attacks), and climbing and swimming speeds is way less powerful in 5E since you still have to make checks, such items doesn't need a price premium like Fly. Spiderclimbing is an exception and works much like 3E. But you're right - they all are much more expensive to make happen (thanks to Concentration) and so the 3E pricing isn't really a good starting point.
Springing off from this point, because I think there's a thread-relevant way to phrase this: "How canonical should we treat by-the-book item rarity when deriving a price for it".
I think that we should basically ignore by-the-book rarity -- let that literally be how common or uncommon the item is in treasure hoards, while the price doesn't include that as a concern at all.
That way there are two axes of preciousness, rarity and this new derived cost, and a DM can use both to inform their actions at the table.
For example, I can see why most sovereign glues would be legendary in treasure hoards, for the same reason that Elmer's glue is rare in hoards: it's not something most dragons collect. No, really! But when we derive the price, I see no problem with considering it a reasonably low priced item -- more expensive than a
scroll of web, but not by more than 1 order of magnitude. It's quite circumstantial, small target, a little bit dangerous to the operator (hands up if you've glued your fingers together...), and has some workarounds (like: impromptu surgery followed by
regeneration,
mending, or
cure wounds).
This is a "problem" in that it means sane prices will have to disregard item rarities.
But meh, that's the goal here; I assume we're ready to crunch some numbers and challenge some by-the-book assumptions
Yes, the only function of rarity is to guide the DM in stocking his shops. If "very rare" means "you find it very rarely for purchase" that's okay. It's when they decided to couple rarity to price the system stopped working (for our purposes).
Once an item is in the shop, the only thing that keeps it balanced is its price. Its price relative to the other items on the shelf. It is the item's usefulness (to adventurers) that is the important thing when you assign prices. At least, for purposes of this thread.
This doesn't mean you can't sell a Ring of Invisibility for 35 gp if you want it to fall into the hands of 1st level characters, only that it is out of scope for this discussion.
I think a constructive discussion about workarounds for potential pitfalls falls under the concept of the plus thread - if not let me know and I'll remove this.
On the contrary, it is helpful in so far that at minimum, we agree it is a parameter to ignore.
Random inventory or even "everything in the DMG is available for purchase" may seem like a goal, but a curated inventory can both strengthen the concept in filling in gaps plus avoid a common pitfall.
"Everything in the DMG" is not the goal here.
To keep this project from becoming impossible, we must establish that the DM's input in what to stock the shoppes with remains essential.
"Everything in the DMG" is pretty much the equivalent of free item creation, and that's way harder to keep balanced.
No, our assumption must be that each DM doesn't just go into autopilot when stocking shoppes. If the adventure would have been trivialized by flying, we must assume the DM places no such items in his shoppe. If the characters are as good at optimizing as mine are, the DM should probably not place any +AC items (or set exorbitant prices). And so on.
Some items are additive/force multipliers with other items. An easy example is +X armor and a +X shield exceeds bounded accuracy, while Armor of Invulnerability and a Sentinel Shield are both great items but don't really enhance each other.
A flat/calculated pricing structure ill reflects the utility of having items which build on each other.
A solution for this is non-random generation of the inventory. Or if it is randomly generated, a curator pass through to replace problematic choices, specially with an eye to what the party already has.
Good phrasing. Yes, this project aims "only" to provide prices for a curated list.
Items to potentially nix
- +X items (they combine so easily with others, so even the first should be a point to watch) Note that some of these, like the Arrow-Catching Shield, are listed int he body, not the name.
- Items only usable by character with above-party-average number of items.
- Multiple items of the same general type - for example outfitting someone with Resist Fire is useful at times. Outfitting everyone with Resist Fire can trivialize some encounters as well as giving a very high degree of freedom from friendly fire.
The question about armor and shields that stack (also raised by others) boils down to:
Does the introduction of magic shoppes necessitate having stricter rules on bonus stacking?
The only way (imo) around it is to treat shields (and "deflection" bonus such as Rings) as a premium stacking category.
That is, there can be only one "base" AC bonus category (and it pretty much needs to be armor). Everything else must be priced with its stackability in mind (ie much more expensive).
This is the only way to make sure +1 armor plus +1 shield isn't much cheaper than +2 armor, which doesn't make sense since you get the exact same benefit.
Meaning that if you like how +1 armor and +1 shields cost about the same, you probably need either to artificially limit the availability or add a "magic bonuses from armor and shields don't stack" rule, or simply accept that one character will gain a stratospheric AC.
It all depends - if its the least minmaxing character, this might actually help the game.
But yes, in general, the point is that all ways to gain +2 AC should cost about the same. That's what utility-based pricing means, after all.
So let's create an example and make up some numbers! If +1 armor costs, say, 4000 gp, and +2 armor costs 16000 gp, then +1 shields (and +1 rings of defense) need to cost somewhere around 12000 gp. (Since a shield requires a hand we'll probably end up giving it a discount, but if the ring of defense requires an attunement slot, it too needs a discount).
You might not like that, and prefer that +1 armor and +1 shields cost the same. You might choose to ensure your actual heroes never find a matching set of armor and shield, or not, encouraging sword and board builds. And that's fine. But it kind of defeats the purpose of having this discussion
For the purposes of the thread, shield bonuses need to be more expensive than armor bonuses. (or vice versa, but not really) Hopefully you see what I mean.
