D&D 5E Deconstructing 5e: Typical Wealth by Level

[Maxperson]

Well played!

He wiped you with that one. You stink.

 

[CapnZapp]

Whether it's good or bad is entirely opinion based. For you and I it's bad, and for [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] it's good. He has rules in Xanthar's for buying magic items now, and if he doesn't like that brand of strawberry ice cream, he has the ingredients for the strawberry ice cream he wants, so he can make his own.

Please don't perpetuate the lie that Xanathar supports real magic item pricing or suggest I can use it. It's still all rarity based, which is no substitute for utility.

If WotC produced both strawberry and chocolate ice cream, then we would both have a choice we could use.

As it is, you're getting your chocolate but I'm not getting my strawberry.

A more accurate picture, however, would be that they used to produce handcrafted quality icecream (in d20). Maybe not perfect but at least they had ambition and poured a lot of manhours into perfecting that vision (the late-edition Magic Item Compendium).

Now all they're offering you is some over-the-counter shoddily made replica. Like "vegan beef" that really isn't beef at all.

If you're content with that, fine, but don't claim they have a solution with anywhere near the same depth care and ambition.

Random tables for complications when I want to connect a buyer and a seller is NOT a replacement for objective utility-based pricing. The base price is still just made up with little to no regard for actual power, as amply evidenced by the price for the various DMG items that lets you fly (which as far as I can remember was the spark that set off the Sane Magic Items fan-based work)

 

[CapnZapp]

Rarity has always existed. In every edition. Starting from 1e there have never been as many Rods of Lordly Might as there have been +1 swords in any game I've seen or heard of.

I KNOW you know what I am talking about, so just to show the absurd and insulting nature of this argument:

1) Expensive stuff becomes more rare than cheap stuff.
2) The DM can always just say "no", which makes stuff exactly as rare as he or she wants it.

But this is in no way a good argument not to provide the numbers at all. Having them and then deciding not to use them is different from not getting them at all.

And it's their game. Literally the entire thing is made up by them, so the whole game is "grabbed out of their ass." Why do you have trouble with this part of it and not hit points or armor class?

Now you're clutching at straws. I won't deign this with a reply.

There can't be a base price and have a system that works.

O'REALLY

(PS. If you're so convinced magic item pricing isn't for you, then don't buy the product. That would be a much more friendly outlook than actively arguing to deny this products to others, people like me)

It's a rarer tool than +1 swords, and not as rare as +3 swords. The harder it is to make something, the fewer of them there will be. They didn't grab rarity "out of their ass." They grabbed it out of common sense.

You're still not getting it? Now you're even arguing in favor of my argument!

YES rarity is a function of price, which should be a function of utility.

+3 swords being more expensive than +1 swords might be because fewer artificers can make them. You can even make up stories that explain how the art of +3 weapons being lost to time, so each such weapon you find is a relic of the past.

But D&D is a game and the gameplay reason is and should be +3 swords being more expensive than +1 swords is because they grant more power, have more utility.

Then and only then can you use the preceding "rarity arguments" to justify these prices.

But the utility-based price comes first. It is the base price that you can then modify or multiply as you wish.

 

[Hussar]

Look, [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION], I get what you are looking for, but, frankly, it's just not feasible in the 5e ruleset. It really isn't.

3e and 4e both took their mechanics from how earlier editions of the game were being played. If you played AD&D, you were absolutely dripping in magic items. Either from playing AD&D modules, or using the random treasure charts, AD&D presumed a huge number of magic items in the group. They might not have been powerful items, but, you did have a bunch of them. I mean, all you have to do is look at the 1e paladin who was limited to only ten magic items. 4 weapons, a suit of armor, a shield and 4 more magic items. That was the hard limit for paladins. Yikes! That's about what you'd expect on a 10th or 12th level 3e character in a very high magic campaign.

So, 3e and 4e welded the magic items into the character building rules. You were presumed to use magic items to build your character. The problem is, players being the pragmatists that they were, spent their cash on the Big 6 items and 99.9% of the rest of the magic items in the DMG and other books may well have not existed. It led to cookie cutter characters where, if you listed a character's class and level, you could guess, with a pretty decent degree of accuracy, exactly what items that character had.

5e doesn't do that though. There is zero presumption that your characters will get any magic items. Magic items, like they were in 1e, are a bonus, not simply part of the math. Because they aren't part of the math, you can't then bolt a mathematical system of magic items onto the base system and expect it to work. It won't. It can't.

So, yeah, I know what you want. What you really, really want. But, it's just not feasible under this ruleset. It won't work.

I mean, heck, my current Dragon Heist group of 5 PC's is now 4th level and still has yet to see any magic item more powerful than a scroll of Darkvision. By the end of the module, I don't think they will get a single magic weapon, as far as I remember anyway. OTOH, the module does build in TONS of down time. You can let years pass in the module and it's fine.

Some modules are on tight time lines, but, not all of them.

 

[Zardnaar]

3E and 4E pulled prices out of their ass as well.

The fact that no game system or designer has pulled it off or done any better than Gygax kind of indicates it can't be done. How good any magic item is depends on to many intangibles.

 

[CapnZapp]

Look, [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION], I get what you are looking for, but, frankly, it's just not feasible in the 5e ruleset. It really isn't.

3e and 4e both took their mechanics from how earlier editions of the game were being played. If you played AD&D, you were absolutely dripping in magic items. Either from playing AD&D modules, or using the random treasure charts, AD&D presumed a huge number of magic items in the group. They might not have been powerful items, but, you did have a bunch of them. I mean, all you have to do is look at the 1e paladin who was limited to only ten magic items. 4 weapons, a suit of armor, a shield and 4 more magic items. That was the hard limit for paladins. Yikes! That's about what you'd expect on a 10th or 12th level 3e character in a very high magic campaign.

So, 3e and 4e welded the magic items into the character building rules. You were presumed to use magic items to build your character. The problem is, players being the pragmatists that they were, spent their cash on the Big 6 items and 99.9% of the rest of the magic items in the DMG and other books may well have not existed. It led to cookie cutter characters where, if you listed a character's class and level, you could guess, with a pretty decent degree of accuracy, exactly what items that character had.

5e doesn't do that though. There is zero presumption that your characters will get any magic items. Magic items, like they were in 1e, are a bonus, not simply part of the math. Because they aren't part of the math, you can't then bolt a mathematical system of magic items onto the base system and expect it to work. It won't. It can't.

So, yeah, I know what you want. What you really, really want. But, it's just not feasible under this ruleset. It won't work.

I mean, heck, my current Dragon Heist group of 5 PC's is now 4th level and still has yet to see any magic item more powerful than a scroll of Darkvision. By the end of the module, I don't think they will get a single magic weapon, as far as I remember anyway. OTOH, the module does build in TONS of down time. You can let years pass in the module and it's fine.

Some modules are on tight time lines, but, not all of them.

Yeah, no. If you have ever played an official module you realize gold and magic items are a part of the game now as well.

If you've seen my threads you know I have successfully offered shopping lists to my players.

The only real casualty is specialized features such as the Magic Weapon spell. But that's okay - having spells that support a campaign with very low to nonexistent magic items.

But otherwise your claim is nonsense. Yes 5E doesn't require magic items. That's a huge relief, since it means I don't have to waste hours on equipping NPCs and then worrying about the PCs looting them. But it does not mean WotC should be let off the hook of presenting utility-based pricing. Please don't help WotC perpetuate the idea they don't have to do the work.

But thank you for not pretending the discussion is about something it isn't and for not setting up strawmen arguments.

 

[S'mon]

3e item pricing is so appallingly bad I don't see how 5e is any worse. 4e is the only system with a functional gear buying/crafting build-a-bear minigame.

 

[S'mon]

I do actually offer shopping lists to my 5e players in most campaigns. A curated list of 10 to 20 items works well IME for the first couple tiers. It gets trickier after that- pcs can easily afford any uncommon item and are looking to acquire very rares like +3 shield for the AC maximiser. As long as the GM deals with it on an individual basis rather than just hand over the DMG it still works.
Which was also true of 3e/PF. 4e is the only version you could just let players buy from the book. Even then late 4e brought in Rare items not meant to be buyable.

 

[S'mon]

Re fixing 5e magic item prices, I think the key is to return to the 4e model of x5 per Tier, not x10 per Tier. I am going with base price per permanent item of

Common 200gp
Uncommon 1000gp
Rare 5000gp
Very Rare 25000gp
Legendary 125000gp

With commissioned items x2 and 1 use consumables 1/4 not 1/2.

A few DMG items are mis-tiered but this is overall working well for me. Eg commission a +3 shield from friendly Archmage it is 50.000gp.

One good thing about the Tier system, it is easy to set Tier based on function, eg "all flight items are Rare/Very Rare". That is how 4e did it, "all Flight items are Paragon" "All Planar travel/Teleport items are Epic" - and unlike 4e the 5e GM can easily adjust to fit campaign. So eg flight can be Rare in my Golarion game but Very Rare in my Thule game.

 

[Sadras]

Re fixing 5e magic item prices, I think the key is to return to the 4e model of x5 per Tier, not x10 per Tier. I am going with base price per permanent item of

Common 200gp
Uncommon 1000gp
Rare 5000gp
Very Rare 25000gp
Legendary 125000gp

With commissioned items x2 and 1 use consumables 1/4 not 1/2.

A few DMG items are mis-tiered but this is overall working well for me. Eg commission a +3 shield from friendly Archmage it is 50.000gp.

One good thing about the Tier system, it is easy to set Tier based on function, eg "all flight items are Rare/Very Rare". That is how 4e did it, "all Flight items are Paragon" "All Planar travel/Teleport items are Epic" - and unlike 4e the 5e GM can easily adjust to fit campaign. So eg flight can be Rare in my Golarion game but Very Rare in my Thule game.

Some food for thought in this post when designing my own system. Thanks.