Anyone importing 4E’s’Used gear sells for 1/5th if at all’ to other RPG systems?

[robertliguori]

You know, I've always had better results with carrots than sticks vis a vis preventing PCs from looting shopkeeps. A dealer in magic items who suffers a break-in and then hires the PCs to recover his loot (thereby getting the PCs to become known and honorable quantities in that area) works much, much better than any contrived set-up of defenses, wards, and guards.

As for the economy: I do mix it up a bit. I don't have particular trouble deciding "With this mix of gear, in this community, at this time, with this band of PCs selling it, what is a reasonable percentage of book price for this haul?"

The trick is to simply track the party's wealth by level, and adjust the mix of encounters accordingly. If party wealth starts creeping up too high, throw a few charitable or personal missions at them, so they can level to the point of no longer being unbalanced. Likewise, if the party keeps reinvesting wealth in the community / blowing their haul on ale and whores, more opportunities for loot keep falling into their laps. Parties looking to squeeze every last clipped copper out of their encounters will be over-equipped, and parties that honestly don't care about wealth will be under-equipped; at that point, you simply make a note of when the disparity is enough to justify a silent adjustment of the party's ECL, and adjust encounters accordingly.

 

[justanobody]

Well then, how about we drop the merchant/walmart portion then?

If the game is going to have players be able to customize their characters via magic items, then the non-magic using characters are going to need access to said items.

Doesn't matter if it is a magic walmart or a travelling merchant, somehow a player is going to need access to said items so why focus on how they get the item?

Then to me, that just leaves the question of "selling magic items". I believe some DMs don't need to worry about it since they use primarily "Monsters" and NOT PC-classed NPC races (I think Raven Crowking for example has mentioned he prefers Monsters)

However, if you use NPC opponents, they have a problem. While I'm not certain about this, I think many DMs have the following issues.

a) You, as a DM, would like your players to treasure magical items they find even if it is a random magical item like the Decanter of Endless Water.

b) Since power is directly tied to equipment, there's an incentive for players to strip the opposition of all loot (and with the portable hole, carrying capacity is not really an issue) and tailored equipment will always be more powerful than random magic items.

So really, unless we go with the level-locked features of items from MMOs, how much a PC can sell an item will have a direct effect on power.

Probably because everything you want to throw of of the argument is the argument in and of itself.

4th edition is balanced under a few assumptions.

5-man party.
they fight specific ranges of levels of monsters
they get 4 magic items for the party throughout the level....

Here breaks the whole only fight monsters, because even if you do, the game is built to assume you are getting 4 magic items per party per level.

So you end up with stuff to sell when it has become of less use. You swapped out power X for power Y and now the weapon needed it different and you no longer need the weapon that is +1 less and the wrong keyword for this new power so you have a need to sell it.

Where do you sell it? Well the DM says that a merchant will show up to buy it for 20% when you need to sell something so that gameplay is faster and more streamlined as well as balanced.

You now have you money, and the weapon is out of the way, and you can carry on with nothing being a bother anywhere. Right?

Wait!

Where are these merchants getting this money? How are they traveling around and keeping hold of this money to buy a level 10 magic item? What are they doing with all these magic items, and who ends up with them?

For merchants to just be willing to buy any old magic item then you have defaulted to creating a magic heavy world. Because merchants just happened to have enough money and be willing to part with it for something that they may otherwise never sell.

If this merchant is traveling by normal means and has this money to be able to buy a few items, then he must be stronger than you to get through unharmed and could just kill your party and take your items if he wants them.

Most likely other people could do the same. So what makes PCs so special again?

Now say this merchant has hired a group of people to help him and gives them the magic items to protect him. Well that is one down, but what about the next merchant you meet?

How many people are you supplying with magic items when you sell to a merchant. These things must be piling up if they are not being put to use. If the established trade has these merchants buying magic items all willy-nilly like this then it must have been going on for some time prior to the PC involvement.

Enter Magic Walmart. The place where all those who came before the PCs sold their magic items off and now this stockpile has been made into a store so that PCs can buy new magic items and trade in their old for easy financing plans.

And all this problem barely touches the 1/5 the PCs get and are dumb enough to take for a magic item from its full value. Yet these same PCs wield powerful magics, and can navigate unknown caverns and return but too dumb to know the value of items or money?

So all the things you wish to throw out of the argument are the very problems.

Nice way to win an argument by just saying well lets not discuss the inherent problems the system has and then we wont have to deal with them anymore.

Which car dealership do you work for again?

 

[Fifth Element]

And all this problem barely touches the 1/5 the PCs get and are dumb enough to take for a magic item from its full value. Yet these same PCs wield powerful magics, and can navigate unknown caverns and return but too dumb to know the value of items or money?

You know, if 20% is what they can get, then that's much better than the nothing they get for not selling it, and the zero value from carrying a redundant item.

It's not like they can say "Screw that 20% noise. I think there's a 3E city just over that hill. We can get 50% there!"

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Probably because everything you want to throw of of the argument is the argument in and of itself.

4th edition is balanced under a few assumptions.

5-man party.
they fight specific ranges of levels of monsters
they get 4 magic items for the party throughout the level....

Here breaks the whole only fight monsters, because even if you do, the game is built to assume you are getting 4 magic items per party per level.

So you end up with stuff to sell when it has become of less use. You swapped out power X for power Y and now the weapon needed it different and you no longer need the weapon that is +1 less and the wrong keyword for this new power so you have a need to sell it.

Where do you sell it? Well the DM says that a merchant will show up to buy it for 20% when you need to sell something so that gameplay is faster and more streamlined as well as balanced.

You now have you money, and the weapon is out of the way, and you can carry on with nothing being a bother anywhere. Right?

Wait!

Where are these merchants getting this money? How are they traveling around and keeping hold of this money to buy a level 10 magic item? What are they doing with all these magic items, and who ends up with them?

For merchants to just be willing to buy any old magic item then you have defaulted to creating a magic heavy world. Because merchants just happened to have enough money and be willing to part with it for something that they may otherwise never sell.

If this merchant is traveling by normal means and has this money to be able to buy a few items, then he must be stronger than you to get through unharmed and could just kill your party and take your items if he wants them.

Most likely other people could do the same. So what makes PCs so special again?

Now say this merchant has hired a group of people to help him and gives them the magic items to protect him. Well that is one down, but what about the next merchant you meet?

How many people are you supplying with magic items when you sell to a merchant. These things must be piling up if they are not being put to use. If the established trade has these merchants buying magic items all willy-nilly like this then it must have been going on for some time prior to the PC involvement.

Enter Magic Walmart. The place where all those who came before the PCs sold their magic items off and now this stockpile has been made into a store so that PCs can buy new magic items and trade in their old for easy financing plans.

And all this problem barely touches the 1/5 the PCs get and are dumb enough to take for a magic item from its full value. Yet these same PCs wield powerful magics, and can navigate unknown caverns and return but too dumb to know the value of items or money?

So all the things you wish to throw out of the argument are the very problems.

Nice way to win an argument by just saying well lets not discuss the inherent problems the system has and then we wont have to deal with them anymore.

Which car dealership do you work for again?

Umm... Have you even read 4th Edition? Monsters and even NPCs generally don't carry magical gear the PCs can pick up. Not to the extent 3E NPCs had assumed gear that they carried. There are almost no humanoid creatures in the 4E Monster Manual that have magical gear listed, if any. The only magical gear monsters and NPCs have is what the DM gives them, usually from those 4 items per level PCs are supposed to get. Unlike in 3E, you don't get piles of +1 and +2 weapons/armor to sell.

 

[justanobody]

Umm... Have you even read 4th Edition?

Have you? I suggest you start with the treasure parcel section. It is partially on the WotC website if you prefer to look at that excerpt rather than in the book where all the levels are detailed.

So while monsters aren't carrying or even in possession of these 4 magic items the PC party finds per level, they are just laying under a rock or something along the way for them to find.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Have you? I suggest you start with the treasure parcel section. It is partially on the WotC website if you prefer to look at that excerpt rather than in the book where all the levels are detailed.

So while monsters aren't carrying or even in possession of these 4 magic items the PC party finds per level, they are just laying under a rock or something along the way for them to find.

This doesn't address my main issue with your previous post, where you imply that NPCs drop all sorts of lesser magic items for PCs to sell. They don't.

As for the treasure parcel section, what of it? Such things can be either in the hands of monsters themselves, among the other valuables, in storage rooms, or whatever. I don't see where the issue is.

 

[justanobody]

This doesn't address my main issue with your previous post, where you imply that NPCs drop all sorts of lesser magic items for PCs to sell.

Then I suggest you improve your reading skills, and tell me exactly where I said or implied "NPCs drop all sorts of lesser magic items for PCs to sell".

4th Edition Excerpts: Economy & Reward

Here is the except so you don't have to find what the game expects within the DMG itself.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

So some think magic shops with whatever magic item you wish to buy are rediculous, others think that travelling merchants are equally as ridiculous. People have made very good points in both scenarios. Either type of vendor seems to cause gaps in plausibility. Especially when you assume characters can buy and sell whatever they want without concern for supply and demand, security, etc.

Another poster has repeatedly brought up residuum and I think this is where the answer lies.

"Merchants pass through regularly...and any good merchant has far-reaching contacts across the region." - 4E DMG, p. 154

The merchants work as agents on behalf of their contacts. This helps preserve the anonymity of the contact. They buy magic items for their raw material value, the residuum.

The residuum is much easier to store.

"[Residuum is] a fine, silvery dust...; 10,000 gp worth of residuum weighs as much as a single gold piece and takes up slightly more space..." - 4E PHB p. 225

When a character wishes to purchase a magic item, the merchant is able to get him what he wants because he can order any magic item from his contacts. The Enchant Item ritual takes one hour to complete.

The cost for the contact to create the item is 100% of the value (because he paid 20% of item which is full value for the residuum), plus a finders fee for the merchant, plus the cost of Disenchanting items into Residuum. So he charges between 10-40% above market price to still make a profit.

By disenchanting items the magic item creator doesn't have to worry about how soon an item will move "off his shelves," how to protect his assets, and can be more flexible in the wares he offers.

EDIT: I think even our retail expert in this thread would agree that a method of converting whatever items you purchased into exactly what your next customer wanted would be a really good business model. Not having to worry about finding a buyer for a specific item, but instead being able to meet the specific demands of your clientele has to be a profitable venture.

 

[Darkness]

Which car dealership do you work for again?

Umm... Have you even read 4th Edition

Then I suggest you improve your reading skills

1) Stop the bickering.
2) Attack the argument, not the poster.

 

[Allister]

Probably because everything you want to throw of of the argument is the argument in and of itself.


Which car dealership do you work for again?

The reason why it doesn't matter is because of my ORIGINAL point.

Does the game assume that the players can customize their characters via magic items they choose?

If so, then you have one of two options.

Either you have all characters able to innately create magic items or you have a way for characters to buy magic items.

How is my assumption incorrect and indicates that I sell used cars?