D&D (2024) Uncommon items - actually common?

[Jfdlsjfd]

You know, I wish they had taken a page from 3e and had a class/level demographic. I don't even care what the numbers are, just that it provides a baseline for people to use for "low/normal/high" magic.

E.g. in a city of 10,000 it would be typical to have wizards of 9th, 8th, 7th x2, 6th x2, 5th x4, 4th x4, 3rd x8, 2nd x8, 1st x16 and clerics of 10th, 9th, 8th x2, 7th x2, 6th x4, 5th x4, 4th x8, 3rd x8, 2nd x16, 1st x16. This sets a baseline assumption that 52 casters could create Continual Flames.

I personally like settings having high level casters while also thinking this is kind of crazy pants for a city of 10,000, but it gives a common baseline for discussion (and also explains why 3e was, relatively speaking, knee deep in magic).

While I'd like that, I don't think they should put that in the rules part. This kind of statistics define worldbuilding. In this thread we have very different opinions on what the world should be, from "magic is so rare that only a handful of wizards in a country can brew a cure light wounds potion" to "every village has a wizard, a druid, and a cleric". And that's for the "wideness" of magic. Some will prefer worlds where higher magic is a thing of legend, other will want several casters of 9th level spells in a university, not something common but common enough for a kingdom to have several of them.

I think explaining to new DMs how to build worlds where the players won't be all the time "wtf?" if they approach it logically and ask why the court druid of a besieged fort didn't just spend all his spell slots on goodberries instead of having half the garrison starving when it was the premise of your first homemade adventure.

Also, explaining exactly how PCs are different affects play. Because, OK, I have zero problem considering the rules are for PCs because they're exceptional. The PC fighter can cleave people in half and take punishment that would take down thousands of men, sure, he's having fighter levels and the rest of the people are common people with a lousy stat block, and the cleric is actually blessed by his god to receive spells while everyone else is just either a priest with no magical power or a smidgen of power from an acolyte level. I am very OK with that. But if "players are specials" that means that when a wizards cast a measly 3rd level Fly spell, it's a feat unheard of outside of legends. It will awe people from these settings as much as it would awe us if we saw someone doing it in real life. It's not a simple explanation to say "the PCs are the only one that can do the things in the rules". It may have severe worldbuilding consequences, maybe up to having peasants with pitchfork going after them. People suspected to have the power to fly have historically fared badly in some places -- though it wouldn't fit in current settings.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

For me, it's about access and control.

1. First of all, is it something a person can even afford? How much money does a commoner really have after paying for their food and shelter? Will they spend their life savings on anything that does not make their lives easier?
2. Second, is it a dangerous and controlled item? Does it blast people and set fires? Or does it just help you jump and swim better?

Sure, not all objects are created equal when it comes to being useful to a peasant household. However, a "commoner" doesn't need to be poor (depending on the worldbuilding).

In my world, 1g is roughly equivalent to $100. Therefore...

• A riding horse for 75g is effectively $7,500. Not everyone owns a riding horse.
• A Common magic item worth 50g equals $5,000. Is there a non-dangerous magic item that a commoner is willing to spend that much money on? Would they rather save for a horse or have a common magic item?

That depends. While 75 gp for a horse is a lot, because a horse costs food, can break a leg anytime, and will die at some point, a horse isn't an investment if you can't make it paye for itself. So, horses can be rare (an ox will pull your agricultural implement for which I can't remember the English name as well if not better). But a magic item will last your lifetime, the lifetime of your children and the lifetime of the universe. It make sense, if you can buy an item that will protect your family from starvation during a harsh winter, to invest into it whenever possible. Sure, a dirt poor peasant household probably won't be able to afford it. But in a village, several well-off commoner families should have one, after one of their ancestor bought the item.

• An Uncommon magic item worth 400g is equivalent to $40,000. This is the big list of what people in the world might have, but it would still be uncommon. An Uncommon broom of flying is effectively buying a slow, flying bicycle. A bag of holding is also Uncommon. You can have 5 horses and 25g left over for this amount. Which would a commoner rather have?

Honestly? A broom of flying is an invaluable tool to
a) notice starting fires in the city and direct the vigils to put it out after noticing it from the sky
b) notice incoming foreign armies and give advance warning to the population
c) help build a cathedral by lugging effortlessly building material to the top of the building
d) escape arrest from mundane law enforcement.

I could see commoners (artisans) pooling the money in their local guild to buy one for the top 3 reasons and I could see an entreprising thief buying one after a very successful heist to take a few jewelries from a wealthy merchant's bedroom.

• A Rare magic item worth 4,000g is equivalent to $400,000. That is a LOT of value. But just because it exists, it doesn't mean that it is easy to sell/offload. This is a level that is suited to bartering (like for other magic items).

What kind of people have the money to buy or create these items?

Well, that depend on the inequalities in your world. A roman centurion by the time of Augustus earned 17 to 40 times the pay of a legionary. If we assume that your legionary earns a basic today wage of $2,000 (1 gp a day), your centurion would make 34,000 to 80,000 a month. Given their line of work, they will pay for a dagger of fireball or an armour of gaseous form. So not necessarily poor soldiers, but officers would. And their heir would inherit them forever, making the incentive to commission one even greater. And I can see people being able to save 5-10 monthes worth of salary over their carreer.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

WIth regard to the banking system, well, the middle ages had a banking system and you could get loans. It's not out of reach of many settings to have bankers. The other point if availability. It's totally possible that a +1 sword can't be bought, because a sword can't be bought. You're a commoner, you don't get a mundane sword, why would you have access to a +1 sword? Nor do you get a necklace of Animate Dead or a wand of fireballs, don't even ask.

But the market availability or the existence of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe isn't the problem. If a setting has enough wizards to produce the items, they will be made, for the sole benefit of the people who set the rules. The guards of the baron who create the "no commoner should own a sword" rule will get those +1 sword. The king, when presented with the idea that peasants could be equipped with necklace of Animated Dead to control 12 undead doing agricultural work 24h a day instead of working his land directly, multiplying its workforce by 36, would decree that the corvées wizards must do are paid by working 50 days each year in team of 4 to produce an Animate Dead necklace (bodies of criminals will be used to avoid any moral qualm, much like dissection was allowed on criminals in the Middle Ages for some universities). They might not be available for sale, but the king's domain will be full of them and they don't disappear over time. It's more a question on "where are they?" than "can I buy them?" (and the former questions, for entreprising heroes, leads to "how can I burglar them?").

 

[Micah Sweet]

WIth regard to the banking system, well, the middle ages had a banking system and you could get loans. It's not out of reach of many settings to have bankers. The other point if availability. It's totally possible that a +1 sword can't be bought, because a sword can't be bought. You're a commoner, you don't get a mundane sword, why would you have access to a +1 sword? Nor do you get a necklace of Animate Dead or a wand of fireballs, don't even ask.

But the market availability or the existence of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe isn't the problem. If a setting has enough wizards to produce the items, they will be made, for the sole benefit of the people who set the rules. The guards of the baron who create the "no commoner should own a sword" rule will get those +1 sword. The king, when presented with the idea that peasants could be equipped with necklace of Animated Dead to control 12 undead doing agricultural work 24h a day instead of working his land directly, multiplying its workforce by 36, would decree that the corvées wizards must do are paid by working 50 days each year in team of 4 to produce an Animate Dead necklace. They might not be available for sale, but the king's domain will be full of them and they don't disappear over time.

The logic holds.

 

[Minigiant]

The guards of the baron who create the "no commoner should own a sword" rule will get those +1 sword.

And that's just the baron.

The Duke who is 3-5 ranks higher than the baron would have knights in +2 plate armor +1 shields, with +1 lances and +2 swords, a ranger or druid with +1 staff and +1 bow guarding the ducal woods, a church appointed priest who can cast cleric spells and has a common relic, and a personal academic who might be pulled into employment via access to a common arcane item if they aren't a caster themselves.


This is one of my big issues with the Monster Manual.

Some entries in the Monster Manual should have options for Magically equipped versions of themselves.

 

[Ancalagon]

But we have to apply that broadly, not selectively: there’s no reason to say “healing potions wouldn’t help in cases of dismemberment because the rules for healing potions don’t specifically state that they apply to any injuries involving dismemberment.”

HP covers all kinds of stuff.

but we have a spell that regrows lost body parts already - this strongly implies that other spells don't.

 

[Ancalagon]

Falls, farm animals, animal attack.

I've seen plenty of injuries that were bad without costing the limb or would cause a life-long impairment in the timeframe of the game's implied setting.

Just... horses.

When cars first came out, their safety features were abysmal. No safety belt. Steering columns and leavers that would impale you in a crash. Bad controls, poor lights and visibility...

... and what was not an issue at all, because horses were just as dangerous!

 

[Ancalagon]

50gp is the cost of Continual Flame or Clothes of Mending

• Is it an elf, dwarf or gnome who knows they would spend more than 1,000gp on candles/oil/torches or hundreds of gold on clothes over their lifespan?
• How about all the people who have long winter nights? Or the polar lands where night can last days or weeks and you need your clothes to last?
• Mines? Subterranean dwellers who need light and can't readily get cloth?
• Ships that would like to not catch fire? Sailors who would like to not look like ragamuffins?
• People who live in areas without supplies wood or oil or cloth, like deserts and mountains?

Brooms of flying don't suffer from difficult terrain penalties and they get to travel "as the crow flies". So they are not particularly slow.

• Are they an elf, dwarf or gnome who knows they would need to buy a couple dozen horses over their lifetime?
• Are they a Small race who isn't comfortable on a horse, where a broom is faster than a pony?
• Do they live near a swamp where horses are alligator attractors and boats are tediously poled between bogs?
• Do they live in or near mountains where elevation changes are laborious?
• Do they live in rocky terrain, possibly undeground, that doesn't have enough fodder or water to support a horse or camel?

How about a shovel that casts Mold Earth 3.5ish times a day? (d6 charge recovery) Did you know it takes a human something like 6 solid hours to dig out 125cf of dirt with a steel shovel? That's like 0.7gp/day of labor...forever. Any town, estate or big farm has an endless amount digging that needs to be done. It pays for itself in 2 years.

I've done such analysis Continual light/flame - how common are they? - but now I'm wondering if I already posted that link in this thread

 

[Ancalagon]

For example, using the conversion rate of $100 = 1 gp that seems a reasonable conversion rate,

I actually think that's a bad way of looking at it. Our economy is profoundly different from a medieval economy, let alone a fantasy D&D economy. The costs, expenses, source of income etc are so different that trying to convert gold into dollars to "get an idea" is well, misleading.

I think we are on far more firmer footing to use expense level as a way to get an idea of the value of things. A skilled smith saving 2-3 months to buy a healing potion, for example. When you go "well 5000 $ is a big sum" - yes it is, and ... 5000$ is not relevant to a D&D world. It's too far apart.

 

[Ancalagon]

Well, that depend on the inequalities in your world. A roman centurion by the time of Augustus earned 17 to 40 times the pay of a legionary. If we assume that your legionary earns a basic today wage of $2,000 (1 gp a day), your centurion would make 34,000 to 80,000 a month. Given their line of work, they will pay for a dagger of fireball or an armour of gaseous form. So not necessarily poor soldiers, but officers would. And their heir would inherit them forever, making the incentive to commission one even greater. And I can see people being able to save 5-10 monthes worth of salary over their carreer.

And a very neat thing here is that the rules tell us how inequal the baseline D&D world is.

A baseline noble (spending/earning 10 gp/day) has an income 50 times greater than a poor peasant earning 2 sp/day.