D&D 5E Sane Magic Item Prices

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, I believe he thinks he’s complaining about that, but I think my interpretation is more in line with WotC’s design. AL seasons parallel the big adventure releases of the year, every year, with their own related adventures. There‘s no evidence the hardcover adventures are written assuming AL norms.

If that is what he believes he is arguing... then that is what he is arguing. And therefore "slowing my roll" on agreeing with him, is not an appropriate response.

And, if they were not written assuming AL norms, then they made an adventure where the explixcitly stated purpose was to make a lot of money by looting a mega-dungeon... then forgot to include the loot.

@tetrasodium brings up Rime of the Frostmaiden, but I don't think this is actually a good comparison. Saving the Ten Towns could be enough of a reward, and you could argue it doesn't need loot. But Dungeon of the Mad Mage explicitly is about delving into the Dungeon to make money because you were cheated out of the Hoard from Dragon Heist. Not including loot in an adventure about getting loot is TERRIBLE design. And it is made worse if the designers intended the AL rules to be used to provide the loot... then didn't tell anyone who might buy it to run it for non-AL groups.

 

[tetrasodium]

@tetrasodium brings up Rime of the Frostmaiden, but I don't think this is actually a good comparison. Saving the Ten Towns could be enough of a reward, and you could argue it doesn't need loot. But Dungeon of the Mad Mage explicitly is about delving into the Dungeon to make money because you were cheated out of the Hoard from Dragon Heist. Not including loot in an adventure about getting loot is TERRIBLE design. And it is made worse if the designers intended the AL rules to be used to provide the loot... then didn't tell anyone who might buy it to run it for non-AL groups.

DiA & Rhime are more important datapoints alongside the waterdeep HCs than your giving them credit for. If you look at the publication order/history of 5e HC adventures (here) ToA was the last to be pubished before wotc reacted to the treasurepoint revolt within AL, dragonheist was immediately after teasure points were introduced with ToA & ToA itelf makes a good example of explicitly not being designed to fit perfectly within the treasure points with things like this from the random encounters section

Spoiler

Prior to that AL community frustration & wotc's reaction it was common for HC adventures to include some amount of treasure on random encounters & have some amount of gold/treasure scattered around more liberally in the process of exploring the mapped out adventure areas themselves. After that ill received treasurepoint thing the difference is stark.

Precovid I've been running 1-2 AL tables a week plus my home game since SKT or so & occasionally would get invited to join a game with one of the AL players wanting to start their own game & playing through non AL runnings of DiA/Rhime as a player was just painful forcing me to either backseat gm pretty hard or watch a bunch of frustrated players repeatedly banging their head into the wall looking for some kind of treasure until they give up & just metagame themselves a treasure map.

 

[Maxperson]

Ignoring the larger point by calling out strawmen

Well, no. I can do both. Calling out your Strawman doesn't impact anything else.

Maybe you did. But the other four people? And not a single other person has come forward to say that they missed it? Only you?

I can't control them, but you ARE responding to me and it doesn't apply to me.

Not everything is surface level.

Yeah, but I just missed it. It was only what it was. An oversight.

 

[Lanefan]

I think where this needs to be considered more is on the player facing side.

A magical item that changes the color of your hair and clothes might be in high demand, because as a fashion item that the rich can use it would be highly sought after for making social statement.

For players it is an oddity and not worth more than a few seconds thought. While fun, they don't really need it.

Er...doesn't anyone play Thieves or Assassins in your game, for whom such disguises can sometimes be really handy?

If I was playing a Thief and one of these came available I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

For most people, a Staff of Fire isn't terrible useful. It has a lot of damage potential, but it is only utilized in combat and requires a spellcaster, so the majority of people could care less about it unless they are a spellcaster going into constant war or conflict... Which is exactly what the PCs are. This is an item they will potentially care a lot about.

Yes, but that doesn't mean it'll be in any more or less overall demand than the Disguiser noted above.

Or, to put this in different terms, if you have an item that costs a lot of value (in time, resources, ect) to obtain, it needs to have value for the people using it. Plate Armor of Invlunerability that gives resistance to all damage is amazing.... unless you are giving it to a party of rogues who can't wear plate. To them, it is a glorified paperweight and maybe something to sell off, because they can't get any value out of it otherwise.

Exactly. You get what you get and then are left to make the best of it. Not everything is going to be exactly what you need and-or can make use of, and if someone else might find it spectacularly valuable, sell it!

 

[Lanefan]

Okay, so it is only a problem for game if

1) The player only uses it for themselves, creating disparity in the party.

Who the frak else are they going to spend it on, particularly when such spending is almost certain to have been done before the PC ever hears of the rest of the party.

2) If they can or want to buy things that disrupt game balance.

Sorry, but if you-as-DM are letting a PC start with a million g.p. then you've already thrown game balance into the toilet, and have no-one to blame but yourself for whatever ugliness comes next - and it will. Trying to put this on the player(s) to sort out is poor form.

Also, looking at your list.. a lot of that is of iffy value. Masterwork weapons don't do anything in this edition. A masterwork Greatsword is the exact same as a mundane greatsword. Warhorses are of debatable value, unless you are fighting in open fields. Even full plate armor doesn't turn you into something that can't be challenged by low-level play. It makes you harder to hit, sure, but with bounded accuracy a guy in plate can still be brought down by goblins and kobolds.

Harder to hit is better than easier to hit, and if you've got 30 mercenaries covering you you're not likely to get within striking range anyway.

Some of this stuff is potentially problematic, but transferring gold into magic items or hordes of retainers is not easy to do, and if it would impact the game, that is when the DM starts asking what the goal is. But... there aren't rules hiring mercenaries.

All of these just point out hard-fails in the 5e ruleset. There should be rules for hiring mercenaries, retainers, and henches; there should be at least some much better guidelines for turning gold into magic items and-or the reverse, etc.

Yes, but they don't tend to get paid in gold. And also, they don't expect to get paid in gold, so it isn't an issue I've run into.

What else do they get paid in? Silver?

 

[tetrasodium]

Er...doesn't anyone play Thieves or Assassins in your game, for whom such disguises can sometimes be really handy?

If I was playing a Thief and one of these came available I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

Yes, but that doesn't mean it'll be in any more or less overall demand than the Disguiser noted above.

Exactly. You get what you get and then are left to make the best of it. Not everything is going to be exactly what you need and-or can make use of, and if someone else might find it spectacularly valuable, sell it!

That need only goes so far, how many shields that can make a face & sets of self polishing sets of armor does one need?

 

[Lanefan]

That need only goes so far, how many shields that can make a face & sets of self polishing sets of armor does one need?

One; and if there isn't enough out there to supply the demand then there's going to be some cost attached.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

No idea how you could pick a set price for a magic item

A Longsword +1 seems like a good baseline. But should it be more or less expensive than a Rapier +1 that uses the better to-hit stat? Is it the same price when no one in the party hits off Strength and they just want to unload it cheap?
Is a Longsword +1 worth more or less than a Helm of Underwater Action? It seems like the helm would be better. But if ya'll are playing RIME OF THE FROST MAIDEN the helm is useless. While for a GHOSTS OF SALTMARSH game you may give up ten magic swords for that helm

Suppose the counterpoint is that you base the prices on an average campaign with average characters. But who decides what's average? If judging by popularity that would be CURSE OF STRAHD and any item that does radiant damage is valuable while poison is useless.

 

[tetrasodium]

One; and if there isn't enough out there to supply the demand then there's going to be some cost attached.

exactly. If you look at some of the more recent HC adventures from wotc those kinds of items are things you really gotta work for if the group isn't lucky enough to find one of the rather scarce & hard to find +1s in a campaign not likely for the fluff ones to have any real use. then towards the end of the campaign players suddenly start finding +3 & +4 items

 

[Chaosmancer]

DiA & Rhime are more important datapoints alongside the waterdeep HCs than your giving them credit for. If you look at the publication order/history of 5e HC adventures (here) ToA was the last to be pubished before wotc reacted to the treasurepoint revolt within AL, dragonheist was immediately after teasure points were introduced with ToA & ToA itelf makes a good example of explicitly not being designed to fit perfectly within the treasure points with things like this from the random encounters section

Spoiler

View attachment 136034

Prior to that AL community frustration & wotc's reaction it was common for HC adventures to include some amount of treasure on random encounters & have some amount of gold/treasure scattered around more liberally in the process of exploring the mapped out adventure areas themselves. After that ill received treasurepoint thing the difference is stark.

Precovid I've been running 1-2 AL tables a week plus my home game since SKT or so & occasionally would get invited to join a game with one of the AL players wanting to start their own game & playing through non AL runnings of DiA/Rhime as a player was just painful forcing me to either backseat gm pretty hard or watch a bunch of frustrated players repeatedly banging their head into the wall looking for some kind of treasure until they give up & just metagame themselves a treasure map.

That might be true in terms of the AL structure, but that doesn't really address the side of the argument I was pointing out.

If, as seemed to be implied, Mad Mage wasn't designed in regards to adding treasure via AL... then they had a game designed to give treasure that did not give treasure. It clearly wasn't designed to give a lot of treasure, because there was not a lot there.

However, if someone wanted to say that the design for Rime was also low on treasure, and that was just a new design paradigm, again regardless of AL, then it would be fair to point out that Rime was stated to have a different goal.

The fact that we can additionally point to changes in AL that correspond to these too... that is just gravy.