A little system for selling magic items

[snarfoogle]

Oooh, this is nice......*yoink*

You saw nothing!

 

[DrSpunj]

Excellent!

<Yoink!>

Ditto that! Along with Morrus' Diplomacy suggestion.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[haiiro]

Very good. I have been working on a similar system but I based the selling difficulty off of the base price instead of caster level.

I considered that, but the wider range of larger numbers that involved -- from a few hundred gp to tens of thousands -- presented scaling problems for me. How did you work around that?

Have you worked up a system for buying items?

Nope. IMC, that part has worked well without a system -- either by playing it out, or just by modifying the market price according to RP circumstances.

You can allow other skills to be used here to increase the effective CHA. A Disguise check, for instance, to make you look like a wealthy guild-affiliated merchant instead of a common soldier.

The player IMC who is most interested in selling magic items brought up some interesting options like this -- since he's bard, using his performances as a way to find a buyer, weaving bardsong into his playing to get bonuses to the checks, etc. There's plenty of room for that kind of thing in Sold!, it's just up to the DM to decide how many ways to let PCs bump up their GI rolls -- some guidelines or suggestions for that might make a good addition. Thanks, Spatzimaus.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Looks pretty cool to me. Only thing that bothers me is this:

Step 3 ? Find a Buyer. Make a Gather Information check, DC 10 + caster level (CL) of the item + 2 for every 5% that your asking price is over 50% (conversely, -2 for every 5% that your price is under 50%). It takes 1d2 days to make this check, you can take a 10 on it (but not a 20), and no one can assist you on the roll.

Why not? I would think having a few more people spreading the word and asking around would certainly be able to aid your check. I can't see any logical reason to disallow it, so I assume it was a balance issue? Either way, I still don't see it as a balance issue as it's only the part of the process where you find the buyer.

 

[haiiro]

Why not? I would think having a few more people spreading the word and asking around would certainly be able to aid your check. I can't see any logical reason to disallow it, so I assume it was a balance issue? Either way, I still don't see it as a balance issue as it's only the part of the process where you find the buyer.

As mentioned above (Fieari asked the same thing), I can see this working if there was a limit set on the number of folks who can assist. It's definitely an idea I'm looking at for my next revision.

From a balance standpoint, Sold! is much more about finding a buyer than it is about haggling -- once you have a buyer, you can stop right there and make the sale. I wanted to avoid building in too many ways for PCs to crank up their GI check bonus, and leave that to creative roleplaying and individual DMs.

 

[Staffan]

As mentioned above (Fieari asked the same thing), I can see this working if there was a limit set on the number of folks who can assist. It's definitely an idea I'm looking at for my next revision.

I think this is a general problem with Aid Another, not something specific to the Sold! system. Perhaps the DC for Aid Another should increase as more people are already helping? So the first person helping rolls against 10, the second against 12, the third against 14, and so on (possibly 10/11/12)...

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Well truthfully, Aid Another doesn't work too well with Gather Info..it should really be several PCs making their own checks, unless they're moving as a group and all talking to different people in the same very close areas. While in a large group you can almost assuredly nail down a buyer, it still takes time. Maybe that's not what you're looking for, but this really should be something that at least one other person can aid you on; it's terribly silly otherwise.

PC 1: I want to sell this +1 sword

PC 2: I'll help!

PC 1: Uh..You can't.

PC 2: Why?

PC 1: You just..can't. I'll be back.

 

[haiiro]

Maybe that's not what you're looking for, but this really should be something that at least one other person can aid you on; it's terribly silly otherwise.

Your example is great. One or two people assisting sounds reasonable to me -- more than that, and unless (as you said) they're making their own checks, it gets a bit ridiculous.

 

[maggot]

I considered that, but the wider range of larger numbers that involved -- from a few hundred gp to tens of thousands -- presented scaling problems for me. How did you work around that?

My idea was to use a ratio based on sqrt(price) since I observed that the price is often either some bonus squared or (caster level * spell level), the later of which is almost (caster level * caster level/2) or about caster level squared.

But of course, I wouldn't be doing sqrt's during the game, I would build a little table. I didn't get far enough to figure out what factor to apply to the table. Would sqrt(price) be good, or should I use sqrt(price/2) or sqrt(price/10) or what?

I also concidered adding a +/- for useful items vs. rare items. Selling a wand of cure light wounds should be easier than selling a wand of magic stone.

Nope. IMC, that part has worked well without a system -- either by playing it out, or just by modifying the market price according to RP circumstances.

Even without "magic shops" the PCs often find themselves in a position to try to find someone with some kind of item. A system to determine if they can find such a person would be very helpful. Once the person is found, the roleplaying could begin, or you could use diplomacy rolls for haggling and just hand wave the rest.

 

[haiiro]

I didn't get far enough to figure out what factor to apply to the table. Would sqrt(price) be good, or should I use sqrt(price/2) or sqrt(price/10) or what?

I also concidered adding a +/- for useful items vs. rare items. Selling a wand of cure light wounds should be easier than selling a wand of magic stone.

Of the factors you suggested, sqrt(price/10) sounds the most reasonable to me: for a +1 sword, that produces a 14. In Sold!, +1 sword would add its caster level of 3 to the DC of the GI check, making the DC 13 for a 50% MV sale. Sqrt(price) gets unwieldy pretty quick (+1 sword = 45), unless I'm misunderstanding how you'd be using that number.

I like your rarity/utility modifier idea. In Sold!, that'd be an ad hoc adjustment made by the DM -- but it could just as easily be standardized a bit.