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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7345807" data-attributes="member: 12731">Continuing to lay down my design fundamentals:If all we want is a 3rd edition inspired campaign, we already have Sane Magical Prices, which, to the best of my knowledge, assumes that the pricing formulas of 3rd edition still hold true. (And then tweaked, of course. For example, +3 weapons are priced as d20 +4 weapons. And there are several items that functions differently and so merit a different price)But roughly speaking, Sane assumes the d20 philosophy. And if that's what you want, you don't need this thread.Myself, however, I am arguing that 5th edition is fundamentally different than 3rd edition, and needs and deserves a thoroughly updated price mechanism.For instance, high level spells are at a premium in 5th edition. We should not allow level 9 scrolls on the cheap - what's the hard limit on 1 spell per day worth if all you need to do is unload a few tens of thousands of gold on scrolls? If you look at the wealth curves above, a level 20 character will easily amass 300,000 gp or even double that, given the DMG treasure distribution charts (the red line).In fact, scrolls need to be fundamentally more expensive than in 3rd edition (and therefore Sane). The edition is after all built upon "no magic items needed", so infusing dozen of scrolls throws everything out of whack.On the other hand, the DMG assumption that a consumable should reasonably cost half of the equivalent permanent item is of course completely bonkers. Utility, folk! When you feature magic shops you give players a choice (that's the whole point!), and no player will ever pay X for a single-use item when a permanent use-as-much-as-you-like item costs 2X.Magic weapons. In 3rd edition, the formula is simply bonus squared in thousands of gold. But in 5th edition, with bounded accuracy, the need for (and therefore value of) a +1 bonus is much lessened. Don't get me wrong, it's still great. But want < need. A +1 bonus is a luxury, not a requirement. Having a magical weapon at all, however, is very much a requirement - lots and lots of monster manual critters are resistent to non-magical weapons.Now, pricing that +1 Longsword at 1000 gp is, in the context of 5th edition, nuts. Just like the official drop policy, it results in that monster damage resistance almost never comes into play (barring the odd wererat at level 4, like).Since our price list is meant to meaningfully adhere to what is needed to make 5th great, I will argue that the "magicness" itself is a valued property of magic swords. Just as a talking point, say we price "magicness" at 5000 gp, and keep the "bonus squared" formula otherwise. This means a +1 Longsword costs 6000 gp, a +2 Longsword costs 9000 gp and a +3 Longsword costs 14000 gp.The specific gp values aren't important right now, but the changed ratio between the three tiers is. Before, a +2 weapon cost four times as much as a +1 weapon. Now, with this example, a +2 weapon costs 50% as much as a +1 weapon. I would argue that comes much closer to the actual usefulness in a 5th edition context. (Remember, this is an example. I could be convinced the ratios should be different)Also it means a +1 weapon no longer costs about as much as mundane full plate, which I think is plain wrong. A magic weapon should IMHO cost more than that, and in this example it costs four times as much. A +1 Longsword becomes reliably available at 6th level, given the red line, and that assumes the character doesn't prioritize anything else. This should allow a few encounters where damage resistance is a real problem, and it hopefully means spells like "Magic Weapon" sees actual usage (in all my campaigns, enough magic weapons have dropped by 6th level that nobody has ever have had to face damage resistant beasts without one, except that odd wererat as I said earlier). Okay, so that's skimming the top, of issues where I believe 5th edition makes for a fundamental shift visavi d20 (3E/PF). If you have any issue like this, I'm interested in hearing about it!</blockquote>

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