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

[Micah Sweet]

The amount stays the same! The price is just the default price for the needed amount!

How does that make sense? If the spell says 4 ounces of ruby dust, the value of that amount will vary. Therefore, why bother with the price? Just list the amount, and use the economy to determine the price.

You know, like real life.

 

[Oofta]

So you don't want to make or use an economic system. Fair enough. That's why I said you should just say so if that's your opinion.

I don't want to make an economic system and I see no value to it for a game like D&D. I also don't know how you would do it for something with campaign worlds as diverse as D&D. I just don't see there being any straightforward way of doing it that wouldn't just add a lot of extra overhead for little reward. It's different if you're discussing a specific campaign setting.

 

[pemerton]

It could, but it makes more sense to me for the amount to stay the same and the price to change. Why would the price be the deciding factor in the use of spell components?

The amount is the same. "50 gp of ruby dust" is describing an amount of ruby dust. (Presumably about 1% of the dust one gets from grinding up a 5000 gp ruby.)

It's described in money terms rather than troy units of measure (or similar) because (i) no one really cares about the troy units, and (ii) the significance of it is that it is a monetary cost for casting the spell.

For the same reason, D&D has - since its inception - described gems and jewellery in terms of their gp value rather than their size and other physical and design properties.

EDIT: @Crimson Longinus posted much the same point not far upthread.

 

[pemerton]

How does that make sense? If the spell says 4 ounces of ruby dust, the value of that amount will vary. Therefore, why bother with the price? Just list the amount, and use the economy to determine the price.

You know, like real life.

D&D has never done this for gems and jewellery. Why would it start now?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

How does that make sense? If the spell says 4 ounces of ruby dust, the value of that amount will vary. Therefore, why bother with the price? Just list the amount, and use the economy to determine the price.

You know, like real life.

The same will apply to anything. The price of swords will vary, price of healing potions will vary, the price of ten feet poles will vary so why lists prices for anything? The answer is that we need the information of the "default" price, even if we would vary it by circumstances. And you're not actually imagining that this price information would not exist at all, are you? Instead you probably think that the spells says "4 ounces of ruby dust" and then there is some price list that tells you that an ounce of ruby dust costs twelve gold five silver. But that is just total waste of time of flipping pages and calculating. You still end up the same default price of 50gp for that spell component.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't want to make an economic system and I see no value to it for a game like D&D. I also don't know how you would do it for something with campaign worlds as diverse as D&D. I just don't see there being any straightforward way of doing it that wouldn't just add a lot of extra overhead for little reward. It's different if you're discussing a specific campaign setting.

I have seen it done, legitimately, in a D&D-style 3pp game. It takes some work in design to crunch the numbers, but you can create a reasonably viable fantasy economy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D has never done this for gems and jewellery. Why would it start now?

Why not? If would make logic in the setting IMO.

 

[pemerton]

you probably think that the spells says "4 ounces of ruby dust" and then there is some price list that tells you that an ounce of ruby dust costs twelve gold four silver. But that is just total waste of time of flipping pages and calculating. You still end up the same default price of 50gp for that spell component.

Should that be 12 gp and 5 sp? Or 12 gp, 10 sp? (I'm not sure what the modern conversion rate is for sp to gp. My brain defaults to AD&D.)

48 gp and 16 silver sp doesn't seem like it comes to 50 gp unless we're adopting a pre-decimalisation variant!

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

For those considering running an economy, I support them very much.

Also, a Fizban Dragon hoard can easily reach 300,000 gp in currency, not equivalent gem value. Since there is 50 gp to a pound, that's 6,000 pounds of gold. That's roughly 3 tons of gold. Interesting, the amount of gold that was mined in South America between 1500 and 1800, causing a great economical upheaval in Europe, is estimated at 180 tons. That's, roughly, 0.6 ton per year, distributed over a much larger economy than the medieval-sounding assumed default setting. Mansa Musa made his hajj carrying 18 tons of gold to cover his expanses. His pilgrimage imbalanced the economies of Egypt and Africa for a generation.

I have a villain whose goal is to corner the silver market. He's buying silver over the 10-to-1 conversion rate. He's bleeding gold because he's casting a spell to inoculate a disease on gold pieces that will make them rust, losing value over time, so silver will become the only standard in which people will trust. He can afford the leading losses for enough time for his contaminated coins to reach the kingdom's treasuries and infect them... I don't know if this will ever become an adventure for my players to investigate, or just a part of lore they might encounter, but I really like economies in game.

 

[pemerton]

Why not? If would make logic in the setting IMO.

I just don't get where you're going with this.

No D&D rulebook, module, adventure, etc has ever described a cache of gems in terms of colour, size, purity etc. It just describes them in terms of gp value. Are you really calling for that to change? Is there any RPG that takes the approach you are advocating?