D&D 5E [+] Design & Development: Magic Item Pricing

[CapnZapp]

I am fine with PCs buying magic items, but I don't quite understand your goal with this. Obviously you can put magic shops in your campaign, it doesn't seem like that needs much discussion.

Is it basically that you want help creating a comprehensive price list? I'm skeptical that it is possible to do that in a way that achieves any kind of consensus.

I appreciate a good-humored design discussion about perhaps the one area where the official support from my favorite edition is the weakest, that's really it.

I hope to learn one or two things, and have y'all remind me of some more vital design criteria.

We don't have to end up agreeing the exact price of White Socks +2; that part I can handle myself. But if you can point out why those socks shouldn't be cheaper than a Black Hat on 2d6 Fire, that would make the end result all the better.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

If you have a world where people are actively crafting magical items

This is not a crafting thread, this is a pricing thread.

The main difference is the the DM remains firmly (or not so firmly) in control of:

* the specific details of any given custom-made item
* the availability of any given item

Allowing a completely open system which not only lets characters craft exactly the item they really want... but also lets them customize items to drop off bits and add other bobs; that's way out of scope for this discussion.

Thanks


Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

Is it worth deciding upon a "Standard Party" that we can use to calibrate the actual utility of an item?
Since the utility of an item is fundamentally based upon how useful it would be, and that is a factor of class and character capabilities. (Unique capabilities that a character doesn't have access to otherwise have high utility. Items that do something or only slightly improve something chat a character can already do have less utility. Items that a character can't or won't use due to proficiency, class restrictions, or build have low/no utility.)

Was there a wealth-by-level chart for 5e somewhere? The proportion of a character's total wealth they might be willing to spend would be an important factor for pricing items.

Not sure what you mean.

A "standard party" for me is 4-6 characters that are legit per the PHB. I personally allow feats and multi-classing if that makes a difference.

All good balancing design work takes extremes into account. Therefore the price is determined by the optimal usage. If that makes a character that can replicate that item using innate abilities skip that item, that's entirely okay and expected. The price needs to be right for the character that really stands to gain from getting it.

I believe I have "accidentally" brought up your issue of "fraction of wealth". If you still have questions, please post again.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

First, what is a "plus thread"? It must be important since it was mentioned six times?

Second, the first few questions to answer are (1) how much treasure is expected to come into the party's hands as it levels? (2) what sort of curve is preferred for pricing? I submit that 3E quadratic curve sucks. 1E's more linear curve works more smoothly.

There are really a few values that can be attached to an item and they are independent of one another. Creation cost, scrap value, utility value, and artistic/notoriety value. One way to make item creation rare in the campaign is to make the creation cost higher than the utility value. Then suddenly, almost no one wants magic items made though they will happily purchase any that get offered for sale at sensible prices.

Utility value is somewhat subjective: how valuable is a +1 sword to a knight-errant compared to a man-at-arms? Some items utility values will be astronomical because the utility cannot be received any other way and the alternative is unthinkable. How much will a parent pay to heal the sick child? How much do they have and can borrow? Most items for the adventurer (or the household) have calculable utility values. Utility values for defences are likely going to be higher than utility values for offensive items because people rate "staying alive" higher than "being effective".

Let me just say the focus is squarely on adventurers popping into the local Shoppe to spend some illbegotten loot.

If you have any other question not already answered, I welcome you to post again. [emoji3]

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

It's difficult to have any constructive conversation that starts with "you must agree with me". In addition I haven't seen any concrete answers here which don't basically boil down to variations of "base cost on it's rarity".

If we had a "recipe" for every item that could be a start, but we don't. But even if we had a recipe that said in order to craft x, you need to have y materials and a caster of level z it doesn't buy us much because we don't know how rare y and z are.

Real world prices aren't always based on utility. No penny has an intrinsic value of 1.7 million dollars, a rolex doesn't tell time any better than a timex (or my phone for that matter).

But you're right, none of that contributes, so I'll flip the question around to what I think really needs to be asked. What does the DM want the PCs to have? What trade-offs does the DM want to impose on his players? Do you want them deciding whether to build a castle or buy that +3 armor? Will any of the DM's players even want to build a castle? It's a meta-game answer, but it's the only one that really matters.

Figure out what you want PCs to purchase and set prices and monetary rewards accordingly. Trying to figure out what magic item prices "should be" is about as futile as trying to figure out what the value of crystallized carbon "should be".

If you want to question or discuss what this thread is about, do it in a new thread.

I will ask you nicely exactly once.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

If you want players to be able to easily buy and sell magic items in a balanced way, then you need to establish wealth by level guidelines. (Individual DMs can obviously stray from these guidelines, but i think it's important to establish your baseline since otherwise your prices only have meaning with respect to each other, rather than the assumed purchasing power of the PCs.)

IMO, you also need to throw out 5e's treasure tables, since they were not created with this in mind.

At this point, you can start to decide how much more a +2 item is than a +1 (should it be double, in strict reflection of it's utility, or more than double in order to make it less easily attained).

Consumables should obviously cost less, but how much less than a permanent item with the same effect? You need to account for the idea that such items can be potent in bulk. For example, if I can buy a thousand of the best healing potions for the price of a +3 sword, the former might be the more advantageous choice since it gives me virtually unlimited hp within the scope of the campaign.

Once have a rough idea of how items will be priced relative to each other, as well as the wealth by level guidelines, you can begin to set individual prices. This is, IMO, the least important step, since with clearly established design principles a DM who disagrees with your assessment can easily set their own prices. For example, I might allow flying PC races in my game and therefore consider a broom of flying to be an unexceptional item. You, on the other hand, may have banned the spell fly from your campaign and therefore consider the same item to grant a huge power boost in your campaign. As long as the design is transparent, we can both come up with prices that we will be satisfied with (assuming the system was designed well to begin with of course).

I agree.

You should see my red and blue wealth curves by now.

The 5e treasure tables are fine, if you mean tables A through I. You just need to hand out more gold and fewer rolls on those tables.

Some casino gambling pulls can still be fun!

Another poster have already pointed out the difference between rarity for placed and random treasure (where the system is essentially fine), and utility when you pick from a menu and can compare prices.

Thanks

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION], I think a constructive discussion about workarounds for potential pitfalls falls under the concept of the plus thread - if not let me know and I'll remove this.

Thank you. No problem. You're welcome.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

This goes hand-in-hand with something you were talking about before, which was still giving out items.

Just for example, I'm going to pretend that item rarity is useful and consistent.

There was an analysis of the treasure tables about how many items /the party/ should have at any given level.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-of-quot-Typical-quot-Magic-Item-Distribution

Going with the useful fiction that this is a good distribution, what we're really looking at is /how much have I decreased found items/ because that should equal /how much money the party as a whole has to buy items/.

In other words, the amount of items held back should determine how much spare money, when pooled by the entire party, they have to purchase.

This is building on the idea of rating items in levels - because there is no set gold/wealth-by-level chart. But it then needs to multiply that by how much you are holding back in found items so that it works out.

(And, of course, the multiplier for how much magic above/below the baseline that DM wants.)

Yes... Except it doesn't need to be an exact science.

I don't feel particularly compelled to reverse engineer how much gold the loot drops is worth for instance.

Sure, if we allow the heroes to sell back item to the shop (either for gold or as partial payment for nicer items) the items you find do impact your effective purchasing power.

But let's assume the sell price is half the purchase price at the very most, and then just chalk that income up to random bumps in the wealth curve.

You can always have the store owner refuse to pay you mega bucks for that Epic Ring of Invisibility you found at level 1...

Or set the sell-back price to something outrageously low, and the heroes will do their utmost to put it to use rather than to sell it. Didn't 4th edition specify 1/4th or 1/5th of the buy price, specifically for this reason - to discourage you from spending time on the equipment of fallen foes?

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

I think you're on the right track ascribing magic items a "level" as a basis for price, but I'm not sure consensus on the level a PC should get a magic sword is a sound basis. I'd like to see something based a little more on system maths.

I tried using existing spell effects and their corresponding levels as this basis. For example, I used Magic Weapon to derive level 5, 9, and 15 for +1/2/3 weapons. Flame Blade spell generated level 9 for a flame tongue sword. These results felt alright, but the system was kind of weird, complicated, and arbitrary, and broke down when I tried to create a Bag of Holding - that ended up being Level 9 also - so I'm not going to post it here unless it's of particular interest to anyone.

Just wanted to pitch some alternate ideas as you continue your work. Maybe you can suss out a better system from the idea of using spell effects as the basis. Whichever approach you end up taking, good luck.

Not sure what you mean, but thanks!

My personal opinion is that the important relation between dropped or purchased magic weapons and Magic Weapon the spell, is that the items should not come so early that the spell never sees any use.

My focus is not on creating items and thus not the spell prerequisites needed in item creation either.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

I think one of the things that made the 3.x system an issue in some games was the way +Items scaled. You could get 4 +1 items for the cost of a +2. 4 +2 items for the cost of a +4 etc. Combined with the multiple named bonuses this is where Armor Class could go off the rails.

For weapons it wasn't a big deal because there was a tendency to get one big one, but on the defense side it was more efficient to get many different bonuses that stacked. 5e still has stacking defensive bonuses and I think fungible magic would recreate the issue especially if the scaling is at x10 instead of x4.

The value of a plus for armor is very dependent on where it sits on the armor chart. A +1 at the top of the category is very valuable while a lower armor like Splint, Chain shirt, or leather is effectively a more durable version of the mundane next category. Chain can be plus +2 and only slightly more valuable than 1500gp Plate. +1 Plate is on the Legendary table but I've seen DMs hand it out at level 5 because the book says +1 Armor is only Rare.

I do like framing cost as Level because the Gold rewards are all over the map depending on how the DM/table sees the value of a Gold piece.

Thanks. Yes this is a definite issue.

To be honest, I've mostly shunted defensive bonuses aside. I could probably run an entire campaign without ever placing any plus armor or plus shields (in dungeons or shoppes)! The characters are powerful already!

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app