20% item resale value: impossible!

[SweeneyTodd]

As an entirely separate point, remember 4e is also a game where the DMG encourages DMs to ask the players what sorts of magical items they'd want to have eventually, and then to place those in a future treasure parcel.

I'm sure lots of people looked at that, said "Unrealistic, it's out", and moved on... but this is a whole new system and the parts are very much designed to work together. (I don't think it's unrealistic at all -- the PCs aren't magically wishing for a certain item, the players are making requests and the DM is incorporating their ideas into the game fiction. Lots of other games do that.

Look at skill challenges for another example -- in one example a player says "Let's sneak into the local wizard's college to get this info", and the DMG recommends the DM say, okay, I hadn't thought about whether there was a wizard's college here, but it's plausible... so there is one now.

So all this stuff kinda fits together. If you want to place magical items with no sense of whether or not they'll actually be useful to the PCs, then you're already not going by the rulebooks recommendations, so at that point what's the harm in doubling resale value but halving the amount of magic items found?

 

[caelum]

Yes, used book stores buy books back for cheap...but then, they don't sell them back to people at cover price either! So if this were a good analogy for magic items, you'd be able to buy "used" magical swords for 50% (or even less) of the nominal value as well.

Trying to introduce reality into the D&D economy is a lost cause, but I would think a better analogy would be specialty durable goods like high-end camera lenses. Used versions of those go for about 80% of retail on eBay, and can be sold back to camera stores for half their original cost.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

PBartender, that could totally work and is absolutely plausible "in-fiction". The downside is, I think it breaks the economy.

It creates a situation where you can turn magic items into free gold by winning a skill challenge. I do think that's fine, as long as there's other skill challenges you can do that also give you cash money. Otherwise, if you want to "farm gold", it makes sense to get a few magical items then head home and focus on maximizing their return value. If you hit the point where it's lower risk and higher reward to leave the dungeon for a safe skill challenge->gold conversion, why do the next encounter?

I'm exaggerating, but it's an interesting issue.

 

[SteveC]

I hate to be the voice of doom, but we see these sorts of issues all the time with 4E, and the answer is: 20% is the figure that they decided on to manage things for game balance reasons, and that's it.

It is nice to see that there are explanations that can be made for it, but in all seriousness, this is a rules/balance decision and has nothing to do with realism or versimilitude. The fact that there were many such decisions made for 4E is starting to make me a little reticent to adopt it, but we will have to see.

--Steve

 

[Blackeagle]

Rule #1: Never sell the ammo.

Rule #2: If you're buying, always bring your own ammo.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

PBartender, that could totally work and is absolutely plausible "in-fiction". The downside is, I think it breaks the economy.

It creates a situation where you can turn magic items into free gold by winning a skill challenge. I do think that's fine, as long as there's other skill challenges you can do that also give you cash money. Otherwise, if you want to "farm gold", it makes sense to get a few magical items then head home and focus on maximizing their return value. If you hit the point where it's lower risk and higher reward to leave the dungeon for a safe skill challenge->gold conversion, why do the next encounter?

I'm exaggerating, but it's an interesting issue.

It's not breaking the economy if done right. Skill Challenges involve role-playing and in the end, they also grant you XP.

XP bring you a level further, and bring you closer to gaining your "treasure parcel" for the current level.

So, the DM will have to pick a challenge of sufficient complexity to get enough XP to reward for the treasure parcel. And if that doesn't work out 100 %, just deduce the "excess" reward from the remaining treasure parcel for that level.

The player didn't get to beat the system, but
- His character got the money he wanted, and possibly also the item he wanted to buy with it
- the whole party was entertained for how ever long such a skill challenge plays out.

 

[brehobit]

If you can always get what is basically 20% out of the object by doing a ritual, I think the actual value should generally be greater than that 20%.

A working car made of $10,000 in easily recovered gold is worth more than $10,000.

Mark

 

[Kmart Kommando]

A working car made of $10,000 in easily recovered gold is worth more than $10,000.

Mark

Especially since you can get some platinum out of the catalytic converter.

 

[DarkKestral]

One of the differences between the modern trade in used goods and the trade in magical weapons in a D&D world is a pretty simple one: most used goods depreciate in part because costs to manufacture are so low that people who want the item can usually find the new version, which is usually what they want. Unless there is a wizard out there steadily making +X swords suitable for players, a trader's supply would be limited and thus they will need to pay a relatively high price in order to convince sellers to part with their weapons. In a default PoL setting, demand for weapons is probably quite high because they help people fight off the otherwise stronger monster races, and the number of people manufacturing magical weapons quite low (possibly because of difficulties in finding materials, lack of individuals with the requisite skills and time, or some other basic problem) which therefore means prices will continuously inflate, as the demand would outstrip supply, and thus prices traders must pay in order to convince people with a ready supply of weapons would increase by a significant fraction of the production price.

In comparison, in the modern world, most people who buy a video game or a book buy new because the availability is so high and the production costs so low. Before the printing press books had costs nearly as much as those of a D&D magical sword, and so people were considered rich if they had even 4-5 books. There were places that made books, but they couldn't match demand, so prices remained high and even used books would command huge prices.

Legitimacy is a factor, but I'd imagine that as long as the local garrison did not have any weapons missing or any members killed recently, legitimacy wouldn't be questioned too closely because many buyers would pay dearly anyway. If the local garrison WAS recently robbed or attacked, then there might be some questions and a lowered price, but that would be it.

 

[Alratan]

I think the book pre-modernity is a good analogy. Few people can use them, but they are immensely valuable, and in many cases appreciate rather than depreciate in price over time.