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

[fanboy2000]

Considering I was in the business of buying, making, selling, and faceting gemstones and jewelry for over 10 years its also one of the most knowledgeably said funny thing you have read all day.

Gems, IIRC, sell at full value in 4e. In the real world, commodities also sell at more consistent values.

I don't think that magic items and NPC equipment trade in the same way gems and precious metals do. I think they trade more like automobiles and comic books. I've had sell a lot of items recently and 20% sounds about right on average. I bought a couch 2nd hand off of Craig's List from the original owner for $100. My girlfriend and I estimate that the couch probably cost between $500-$1,000. So somewhere between 20%-10% of the original purchase price.

This reminds me about a price guide I was reading. (Not a comic book price guide though) that said that the prices listed were what a person looking for those items can expect to pay. If someone wanted to sell the item, then the collector should expect to get less.

A business has more inventory and more resources to sell items for a higher amount. An individual does not. Often, an individual has only a short time to sell it and can't afford to turn down an offer. If the individual is selling to a business, then things are worse because the business has to turn a profit. Like RC said, the closer the seller gets to the end owner, the more money the seller will make.

 

[Treebore]

This. The way I see it, you get 20% of the value for no questions asked. If you follow Treebore's example and find a drought ravaged village situated on top of the crypts of a vampire's coven then your Decanter of Endless HOLY Water could easily be worth more than 100%.

It's always situational, it's going to be different in every campaign and I think 20% is a better baseline than 50% for this reason. Groups that want to take steps to get higher than 20% should be able to do so but I think that, as a default zero-effort value, 50% is too high.

Every price percentage is "situational", from 20% to 100% or more. I just advocate 50% because after 24 years of gaming with many games going to 20th+ level and even a couple going above 30th I just think 50% is a fair number with which to just keep it all in the back ground. Make it 20% and it becomes worth the monetary profit advantages to make it an in game issue.

So to me its worth saving me the headache to just go with a fair average rather than an unfair assumption of the low end all the time.

Plus, with the magic item issue, except for items with charges. They last forever. No matter how old they are they still work just as good as the day they were made. They may have some kind of wear and tear, but they still protect, jump, hide, etc... just as good as they did the day they were made.

That cannot be said about wagons, cars, homes etc... They actually wear down, break, and become unusable. So they depreciate. So would wands, etc... based on how many charges are used. IF it is fully charged, it does not matter if its one day old or 1,000 years old, it still will do every single one of those charges just as powerfully as it would on day one.

So magic items simply do not depreciate like other items do.

Now if people want to say that a cloak of elvenkind wears out after 20, 50, 200 years or whatever, then you can apply depreciation. However I don't think the book keeping makes it worth while, so I just assume no wear/tear and no depreciation.

So unless a magic item has used charges, or is destroyed, it does not depreciate. So never loses value. Or "condition" rules are added in and tracked. Then it can depreciate.

So decide on your complexity, and decide on your "average value" you want across the length of your campaign. For me I'll stick with 50% for mundane items and 100% for magic items, unless they have used charges.

Realize I include jewelry and gem stones in "mundane". I wish gem and jewelry prices work in real life like they do the D&D world. I would be a millionaire.

 

[Treebore]

A business has more inventory and more resources to sell items for a higher amount. An individual does not. Often, an individual has only a short time to sell it and can't afford to turn down an offer. If the individual is selling to a business, then things are worse because the business has to turn a profit. Like RC said, the closer the seller gets to the end owner, the more money the seller will make.

Yes. This is exactly why I posted earlier that market savvy characters/players will soon hire a full time seller and start up a full time business. In the long run it is very worth the time. Even more so if DM's are going to enforce a 20% standard.

So unless your going to be heavy handed and refuse to let players start up business' to make better profits, you may want to just agree on 50% as the standard in order to keep such business issues in the background/ignored.

Running/owning the small business' that I have, I know it would still be worth my characters while to still start up a business even at 50%. However, at 50% I am willing to keep the game "Dungeons and Dragons" and keep "Debits and Deficits" out of it. So too have every player I have ever had who know how much more gold their PC could make if they paid attention to such details.

So if you want to avoid realism, keep realism out of it. Get rid of the 20% crap and go with 50%. On the whole it is more realistic, and keeps realism out of it. Go with 20% and your going to have players figuring out how many more thousands of gold they could have if they brought more realism into the game and go into business.

So if you want to encourage business' to be played in your game, do the 20%. If you want to keep it out, compromise up front and do 50%.

 

[Korgoth]

If 'realism' is desired, then the answer is that it depends on the item in question and the market.

A set of used Orcish leather armor (that is, used by orcs not made of orcs!) is probably only worth the value of the components minus the labor to salvage them... the armor as armor is the wrong size for non-orcs, is full of gory holes where the orc has been stabbed multiple times (by heroes and other orcs), is ridden with lice and flees, stinks and is crusted with filth. Maybe I'll give you 1 copper piece for that POS, just 'cause I'm glad you shanked its owner.

An Orcish scimitar is not as bad, but still not very valuable. The workmanship is crude, the balance is off (for a man), the blade is dull because it depends as much on the orc's thews as it does the blade itself to do the cutting, the blade is nicked and rusty and prone to breakage, and the whole thing stinks and is crusted with orc shmutz. I'll go a silver piece for it... maybe I can sell it to some "itinerant man of arms" on a "no questions asked" basis. It may actually be a lethal weapon, if you're strong enough to counteract its deficiencies.

An Elvish longsword, on the other hand? If you promise not to tell me where you got it, I'll give you just under market price. That's a real beauty, and I know just who would pay top sovereign for it.

 

[malraux]

I would think that the answer in 4e terms is that you can sell items for more than 20%, but you'll have to wait longer and thus items really become treasure in higher level treasure parcels.

 

[Treebore]

I would think that the answer in 4e terms is that you can sell items for more than 20%, but you'll have to wait longer and thus items really become treasure in higher level treasure parcels.

So you are saying this is to account for why stockpiles of treasure are found?

 

[scarik]

I like the 20% benchmark for the same reason many others do.

Its a good 'this is what the raw materials are worth' guideline. When you sell a bunch of swords to a merchant maybe all he sees is steel he can sell to a blacksmith for plows.

With Magic items its much the same, they are worth their residuum.

Now my players sometimes want to make better than that and that's cool, if they have a party member with good Streetwise they can find a better fence, if they have good Diplomacy they can maybe find a better buyer by meeting with nobles.

But to get better than the 20% the characters need to have an ingame reason to do so, even if we handle it with a single die roll and eventually background it I find it worthwhile to my gameworlds for them to only get out what they put it.

This is all coming fro ma group that's last Star Wars game involved building a merchant fleet and selling water that we mined ourselves. Fighting off Hutts who wanted an ever expanding slice was of course the main conflict.

 

[malraux]

So you are saying this is to account for why stockpiles of treasure are found?

I'm saying that as long as magic items have in game effects, and the game is designed with a particular rate of magic item acquisition, then screwing with that balance isn't a great idea. So in this case, characters can either sell their level 5 items for level 1 item price, or they can take the longer way and then the item will sell about the time that they'd be expecting level 10 items (that would normally sell for level 5 price).

edit: oh, and I'm not 100% sure that I'm remember the numbers of magic item cost correctly, so don't hold that against me.

As a second alternative, you could also just cut the number of cash and cash like items found as well. If the party is just going to use magic items as cash (which is really what selling them is), then there's no reason to not treat them as art or gems are treated, and adjust the treasure table down in other areas.

 

[Delta]

I just advocate 50% because after 24 years of gaming with many games going to 20th+ level and even a couple going above 30th I just think 50% is a fair number with which to just keep it all in the back ground. Make it 20% and it becomes worth the monetary profit advantages to make it an in game issue.

I agree with this. I can see 4E 20% "zero effort whatsoever" price. I can see 3E 50% "reasonable effort done off-screen" price. I think if you want to avoid an incentive for prolonged haggling sessions, the latter is the better mechanic.

 

[Serendipity]

*headscratch*
That gear, it tends to weigh a lot after a very very short period of time. Not to mention it's bulky (and often, sharp and pointy). In the games I run, the scavengers*koff*PCs pretty quickly recognize that a comparable weight of coins (as opposed to, say, random armor and longswords etc.) will net them much richer rewards.

So, that would be a no.