D&D 5E Sane Magic Item Prices

[Maxperson]

You realize that if he did ignore you... then he wouldn't be able to see your post here calling him out.

LOL Not laughing at you, just the confusion of terms. I said he ignored me, not that he put me on ignore.

He asked me for numbers and when I did, rather than discuss with me like a person should, he selected the one price that he felt(wrongly) was weak and attacked my pricing on it, ignoring all of the others. That was his purpose for asking for examples. He demonstrated his bad faith, so I won't be providing him with future examples if he asks.

 

[Lanefan]

Now, I'd like to talk about why the community, DnD and ENworld, seems to have this idea that any form of making money that does not explicitly involve going on an adventure is bad. Why it ruins the game. Why it needs to be stopped on every front.

I'm pretty sure I at least already answered this, but will gladly do so again because the answer is very short:

Because it is - or very quickly becomes - boring.

 

[Lanefan]

1: Because it does lead to "3e ish" desire from the PCs to buy their own magical items.

Only if the price list is player-side info. I posit it should be - must be - DM-only, for a variety of reasons of which your point is one.

1a: The existence of a price list is a rational conclusion that a magical item market (shops, regular auctions, guild mandated price, something) exist. Otherwise, how were the prices determined, in world? Value is determined by something, and that something is usually the market. I'm in a home right now. I could give you every detail of the home itself, and you would not be able to tell me its value... until you knew where the home was, then you could look up the market and see how much similar homes are being sold for in this part of town.

1b: Therefore, players will rationally conclude that such conditions exist.

1c: However, it is highly questionable that the existence of such a market does make sense. After all... who's paying for these magical items? Who keeps a price list?

A simple way of putting together a price list is to start by asking what it would cost to have this item commissioned and made. What would an artificer charge you. That's your baseline. On top of that you can - if you want - add on factors like demand, utility, rarity, etc.

2: Magical item pricing in this context is not a rational way to determine who should get what, item wise. If your party finds an axe +1, a pearl of power and a wand of fireball, and the party consists of a barbarian and a wizard... the wand and the pearl are worthless to the barbarian, but the axe she can use.

You've walked right into my number one reason why magic item pricing is essential: to make treasury division equitable and fair.

I'll pull some prices out of my hat here, but they're not far wrong:

Axe +1 - 2000
Pearl of Power - 10000
Wand of Fireballs (fully charged) - 6000

Total value 18000, meaning each of our two intrepid heroes should expect to see 9000 worth come out of this. So the Barbie gets the axe, with Wiz gets the wand, and maybe the Pearl has to be sold with the proceeds divided such that each ends up with their 9000 in total value.

Otherwise, the Barbarian here is going to get hella ripped off.

 

[Oofta]

So, it sounds like you don't want to be part of the solution. Duly noted.

Has anyone made any significant effort to a "solution"? I posted what I do a while back. You have what the OP posted.

Any price list will be largely arbitrary.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The risk makes the reward earned. This is a game. Games come with challenges to succeed and get the rewards. For combat, the reward is experience and often treasure. For downtime, the challenge is a random range of money and for some, possibly loss of money, established by random roll.

It's also not just about risk. Amount is also a part. Obviously an orc is a risk to a level 1 adventurer. If he kills an orc and gets 10 million gold, it's going to break things pretty badly. That's why the amount of treasure found is tied directly to the CR of the challenge. There needs to be both risk and moderation(related to level) when it comes to money received.

And therefore we can't build business empires, play the rich kid who thinks money and fancy equipment can solve any problem...

See, this is a weird dichotomy. Because you are making Money the reward. It is Important.... and then we get complaints on spending it. You can't have a magic item marketplace to spend money on. You can't invest it in businesses. You have to find ways to "waste it" so that the party will go out and do the next adventure for a big reward of gold.... that then many DMs will tell you is worthless because it can't be used to do anything.

I'm not saying I agree with them, I can find uses for money as a DM and a player, but I clearly have to go outside of the expected rules to do so. While this is being presented as vitally important to the entire basis of the game. Money is why you adventure, because that is what you are risking your lives for. But if money isn't the point, if it isn't the goal... then it isn't the reward to the risk. It is... incidental. Who cares how much silver and gold the Orc Band was carrying, we didn't fight them for their money, we fought them to save the town where we live and our friends are. The money doesn't matter.

Sure it's nonsensical, and it's not my argument. They gave a range, because they felt rarity was the way to assess value(I disagree) and in order to encompass all of the varying degrees of power within a specific rarity, they had to go with a range and not a static number. They couldn't just say, "10,000g for any very rare item." If they did, it would fall apart since not all very rare items are worth the same amount of money.

But they could have just as easily said "10,000 gp for a flying carpet" and kept all the very rare items within the range. Instead they gave us a range and nothing else to work with. Which, is again, just causing issues for certain DMs who have no basis to figure out where in that massive range they should put the item.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm pretty sure I at least already answered this, but will gladly do so again because the answer is very short:

Because it is - or very quickly becomes - boring.

For you, which is fine.

But fighting through a megadungeon can be boring too, and no one criticizes that.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't know what armor, amulet and gauntlets you are talking about, but I'll do the flight items and then be done. You aren't going to trick me into making your price list

1. Winged Boots: 4 hours of flight that can be broken up into 240 one minute blocks, doesn't have to be carried around with bulk, like the carpet, doesn't have the same space issues the carpet has, but only for one person. 45K.

2. Wings of Flying: 1 hour of flight, but faster than the boots. Also just one person. 30k

3. Broom of Flying: bulkier than the two above. Doesn't allow much combat to happen as you have to balance yourself on a stick while you fight. Fighting on it is a great way to die from splat. Speed is in-between the two above. However, the flight is unlimited and the broom can be summoned to you from up to 1 mile away. No attunement. Still only 1 person. 35k.

4. Cloak of the Bat: 40 fly speed, but takes both of your hands and has to be in dim light or darkness, which greatly reduces its utility. You can polymorph into a bat, though, while in dim light or darkness and retain your mental stats. Unlimited night/dark flight. 25k.

5. Potion of Flying: 1 use for 1 hour at probably 30 speed. 2500.

6. Ring of Air Elemental Command: 100k It has much more than just flight, which is unlimited and not visibly the reason for the flight like the wings, broom, carpet and boots.

Your prices seem crazy-ass high even for me.

I'd put unlimited-use Winged Boots at about 20K. Anything with limits on use such as the Wings (which also don't work well in confined spaces) chops the price down a lot.

And flying brooms can usually carry a passenger plus the pilot - there's certainly space for one - unless the pilot is unusually heavy or overburdened. I seem to recall the payload limit for those things at least in 1e is something like 500 lb.

 

[Lanefan]

It's not enough to meet the goal of this thread. If you don't want to contribute more than that, go make your own thread that's actually relevant to whatever it is that you want to accomplish... because it's not accomplishing adding to or revising the set price list of the original post.

So what in your view is the goal of the thread?

Surely you're not expecting us the posters to generate or rewrite the entire item price list...are you?

 

[Maxperson]

And therefore we can't build business empires, play the rich kid who thinks money and fancy equipment can solve any problem...

You can do whatever your DM allows you to. If you all want to play Business Empires and Loan Defaults, go for it. You can make the game whatever makes you happy. I'm just speaking to what the game has set up for downtime money earning. If you want to house rule that to be more, knock yourself out.

 

[Maxperson]

Your prices seem crazy-ass high even for me.

5e gives a lot of money. Hell, the price ranges in the DMG are outdated. If you look at Xanathar's magic items to buy as your downtime activity, you can spend as much as 300k on a legendary item. The asking price for legendary items is 2d6 x 25k.