D&D 5E Sane Magic Item Prices

[tetrasodium]

So, D&D was played where people just went into dungeons, got treasure, came out, and repeated.

Without a central book of magic item prices.

The DM made naughty word up on the spot.

You only need such a list if the ability to pick which magic items a given character has is in the hands of the player, where they spend gp to customize their PC's abilities from a menu determined by said prices.

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You can even have a magic item shop under such a system.

Start with XGTE prices.
Common: 100 gp
Uncommon: 400 gp
Rare: 4000 gp
Very Rare: 40000 gp
Legendary: 200000 gp

Now lets make them random.

Rarity	Sell to NPC	Buy from NPC
Common	1d8 * 10 gp	1d4 * 50 gp
Uncommon	1d6 * 50 gp	1d8 * 100 gp
Rare	1d6 * 500 gp	1d8 * 1000 gp
Very Rare	1d6 * 5000 gp	1d8 * 10000 gp
Legendary	1d10 * 10000 gp	1d4 * 100000 gp

Roll twice on the buy/sell values. The lowest (for buying) and highest (for selling) is the asking price. The other value is the absolute limit of what can be bargained for short of killing the buyer/seller and stealing it.

If it has been X weeks since the last time you got a price for an item, roll 1d20; if the value is at or under X, reroll the price. Otherwise, you get the same price.

Now we just have to distribute items avaliable for sale. Have a system whereby the items for sale "level up" with the players somehow, either by accessing new places where things sell, or as the PCs spend money, or make naughty word up.

Every 1d20 days, remove half of the items for sale at random, then roll on a DMG treasure table horde for new items for sale. For each item, roll twice for the price (highest is asking, lowest is absolute floor).

There we have it. You now can spend gold on magic items. You can't customize your character. Sometimes you'll run into an item that is awesome and cheap, other times they will be selling a potion of healing for way too much and you won't buy it.

No fixed prices needed. Unless, as I said, you are going to hand the price list to players who spend their gold points on customizing their characters from a menu.

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Flaws in a price list only matter if everything is for sale at one point in time. Because without that, there really isn't a chance to trade your boots of levitation for boots of flying. Either you have the gold, need to fly, and one or the other is for sale, or not. The odds both are for sale at the same time is low, so PCs won't even compare the prices in-game.

Maybe they'll find they have boots of levitation, and they find boots of flying for sale, and it is a bit strange that the merchant buys the levitation boots and sells you the flying boots and gives change. But, as I have mentioned, it isn't hard to explain that; maybe the boots of levitation are the actual boots in some actual story and the merchant knows a collector, while the boots of flying have no such story.

Requiring a globally consistent system only matters if the entire system is in play at once.

If your going to use the old editions to support your position don't ignore the differences

Spoiler: here is a couple critical ones from the phb

Not only was there no cost involved in recording spells to a spellbook (bards didn't pay to do it either) there were very few spells with a costly material component. More importantly there were a ton of places magic items could add a bonus that provided niche or subjective benefits unlike 5e where +N damage/ac, advantage on X & double proficiency of a tiny handful of skills.

Add to that the fact that the GM wasn't exactly flying blind like 5e while things like the 2e ad&d dmg 117-120 researching magical items (ie crafting) barely mention gold at all & even then the gold is very much not the meaningful component given most of the rules there are sketching out for the gm how to put meaningful costs on the process that push for adventuring.... wotc borked that right out of the gate by hardcoding costs, giving no guidance, and worse designing a broken system with no room for magic items justified by "magic items are optional"

In those old editions "The DM made naughty word up on the spot." because the system was designed to let them do exactly that without immediately causing problems. Those old editions prior to 5e were positively swimming in oceans of treasure (gold gems etc) & magic items. 3.x codified the crafting process with something that a player could point to that didn't force the gm to make a big deal out of every single instance of crafting & helped to address a lot of the problems in the old way while still allowing the GM to add special requirements or interesting adventure-worhty needs when it felt right. 5e has the worst of both styles plus a bunch of new ones it created

 

[Lanefan]

Spending money on personal estates and businesses would technically mean that the character becomes a NPC as what's the point to adventure further (in case you did it for personal gain?).

Wait, what?

Why in the nine hells does my character become an NPC if it stops adventuring?

 

[Lanefan]

And I think that is exactly right. And if you aren't operating under that assumption, that the entire point of adventuring is to get rich, then all of these other things aren't an issue.

"The entire point of adventuring might not be to get rich, but I've never really seen much other point to it." - every character in the history of forever.

The problem is that the treasure amounts given out by modern adventures have become too low.

And while I can get the realism aspect of it, these is a second part to the realism... wealthy people who are not adventurers do exist. Not all money is made that way.

True. Some families are descended from successful adventurers.

 

[Maxperson]

Wait, what?

Why in the nine hells does my character become an NPC if it stops adventuring?

That and the incorrect assumption that owning estates and businesses somehow stops the PC from adventuring.

 

[Lanefan]

First, even though it was half-assed, the tables on buying and selling magic items in 5e constitute support for that playing style. Second, they can't go in depth with support on all the different playstyles that get used with D&D. Some are going to be sparse.

I guess I'm just very, very good then. I found it easy to come up with my own prices during 1e and 2e. I found it very easy to do it in 3e where item prices were even more borked. And I've found it even easier in 5e there isn't a set price list to mislead the players. I'm honestly flabbergasted that you think it's hard.

Magic item price lists should NEVER be player-side information. A huge mistake on 3e's part, there.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

So, D&D was played where people just went into dungeons, got treasure, came out, and repeated.

Without a central book of magic item prices.

There was use for gold back then. It was xp.

You can even have a magic item shop under such a system.

Start with XGTE prices.
Common: 100 gp
Uncommon: 400 gp
Rare: 4000 gp
Very Rare: 40000 gp
Legendary: 200000 gp

But you're basing this on rarity, when it should be based on utility. It's sort the whole premise of the thread (though I admit the endless bickering might have made me mix this thread up with older similar threads).

 

[Oofta]

There was use for gold back then. It was xp.

But you're basing this on rarity, when it should be based on utility. It's sort the whole premise of the thread (though I admit the endless bickering might have made me mix this thread up with older similar threads).

Are Apple's items really that much better than the competition? Is an original signed Babe Ruth baseball card useful for anything?

Utility and price frequently don't have much correlation

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Are Apple's items really that much better than the competition? Is an original signed Babe Ruth baseball card useful for anything?

Utility and price frequently don't have much correlation

In the real world,sure. Everybody knows the rarity system in 5e is bonkers, with items giving flight once cost ten times an item granting continuous flight and so on. What people disagree on is whether that's a problem or not.
The only (sane, thus the title of this thread) way to price magic items is on utility. Everything else is just random and arbitrary. And that's why it's repeatedly said in this thread and many others, that's it's not easy. And that WotC took the very easy way out.

 

[billd91]

Super yikes, that is a terrible design.

You might want to slow your roll there. Whether or not Dungeon of the Mad Mage is magic treasure lite or not, AL isn't exactly administered the same as a typical home campaign, even if you are running a hardcover adventure in AL-style. There are considerations embedded in the rules of AL to facilitate players taking their PCs from event to event, playing adventures in a variety of mixed orders as events are available, and otherwise streamlining administration of characters so very little DM overhead is required and there aren't too many worries about inconsistency - something a regular home campaign running the module would handle very differently (such as using downtime to buy magic items).

Baconbits is basically complaining about the adventure as run by his home DM by comparing it to how a different DM (the AL guidelines) chose to do so. He might as well be complaining about the adventure as run by "Just as it is Joe" vs "Arlene the Adapter" vs "TPK Tyler" vs "Easygoing Eddie".

 

[Chaosmancer]

I was debating other aspects of it. You argued that supply and demand don't play into selling 4 longswords. First, it does. There's little demand for damaged goods, so they're rarely bought. Second, because they are rarely bought, you can't just got out and easily sell them all like you stated. You're playing with a house rule and trying to use that to prove your point. WHY you allow the selling of those weapons is entirely irrelevant and I couldn't care less what the reason is. I even stated that I ignore that rule as well, but they can't always sell all of their gathered weapons in my game. They still need to find someone willing to buy them.

Entirely missing the point of the example

Because aside from making sense, that's how downtime attempts to make money work. If you don't want to make the effort to have your new downtime activity conform to how downtime works, your probably trying to game the system.

How am I gaming the system? What part of having a large pool of wealth is gaming the system? If a player started the game with a million gold, what would that ruin?

More fallacies. False Equivalences are false. A dragon horde gained through the defeat of a mighty dragon is not the same as free money during downtime. They involve different rules and challenges.

See, you are tipping toeing up to my point.

Earning money by killing the dragon is okay, because that involves the rules. But, is the important part of that interaction getting the money, or beating the dragon?

Because, by saying that you can't earn "free" money during downtime, you seem to focus the lens on the goal of DnD being the Dragon's Hoard, not actually defeating the dragon.

Dude. You kept on with, "But why is it that I am accused of wanting to keep everyone else playing when I just wanted to make some money in downtime." You kept on with it AFTER I acknowledged that I missed downtime, which was the only reason I said those things. You refused to let it go. I do say what I mean, and when I said it, I meant it. However, it was clearly based on a mistake on my part which I acknowledged and therefore corrected. It was withdrawn.

And yet, you still insist on missing the point, trying to make it sound like I'm obsessing over the fact you missed the downtime. I'm not talking about that. The literal only reason I brought up the Downtime at all, was because of exactly the accusation you made when you missed it.

Think this through Max, that inclination to accuse people of not playing DnD if they are making money by NOT adventuring was so strong you didn't even notice that I was talking about downtime. But now, instead of thinking about my point (WHY is it wrong to make money without adventuring) you want to keep making it about how I'm obsessing over you making a mistake. Stop obfuscating.