D&D General Design issues with 5e

[Lanefan]

Just my personal observation. It’s a long time (around 40 years) since I’ve seen any player motivated by the offer of gold. But they are always up for saving the world.

Clearly we play with very different groups.

Round here, if there ain't a big payoff involved - or at least the clear potential for one - in a mission or adventure they almost certainly won't do it if given a choice, instead seeking out something more (potentially) lucrative.

Then again, in my game they need to pay for training each level, meaning there's at least some need for income.

 

[Minigiant]

Along with, perhaps most important of all, nobility and the non-adventuring rich.

Nobility might commission items that help with rulership or self-protection, or might buy items either to use or simply to get them out of circulation. The rich might buy magic items out of sheer vanity. And those items might well come back on to the market on the death of their owner, as estate sales.

Temples might buy items of opposed alignment or ethos in order to sacrifice them or just get them out of circulation.

The market extends well beyond just adventurers trading items, though that's where its roots would probably lie.

Those are the odd collectors.

And they wont be thr majority.

The majority of dragon scale armors and flame tongues will be with adventurers, adventurer killers, and their corpses.

If you are a fighter and decide to be a polearm master, it is probably unlikely that some random rich dude is inflating the price of a + 2 glave in the black market.

And if you pick something that is typically common in DND settings, that might lower the price even more.

Personally, I think the best way to handle it is. If you have adventurers delve into dungeons for trade bait.. You have a bunch of NPCs in those mid levels, late tier 2, early tier 3, people looking for specific types of items. And whatever magic items you find in a dungeon that you don't want, you trade to them to get the item that you do want. A barbarian trait a magic rapier to the lord's noble guard captain for his magical great sword that he took off an assassin. Or you trade surplus to archmages and archpriests for crafting commissions.

 

[500 Toads]

There's quite a lot of spells (and thus, potential demand for means to cast 'em more often) that'd be useful for rulers and governments in general, from relatively low-level stuff like Mold Earth, Alarm and Arcane Lock to higher-level Wall of Stone, Plant Growth, Control Weather and Teleport. Like, if we assume that the arts of enchanting wands aren't lost, and that it's possible for somebody to make a new Wand of Fireballs... somebody interested in economic development and sufficiently prosperous to invest a fair chunk of change might want to commission a Wand of Plant Growth and hire a druid to use it for better harvests. Dual-use items (adventuring and non-) might be rarer, but for instance there's probably a variety of protective items (e.g. for aristocrats worried about being assassinated or scried upon, for law enforcement that may occasionally need access to Knock or Find Traps for their investigations, Detect Magic and Dispel Magic if they have to deal with miscreants that employ magical defenses, etc). Anything that provides Truesight, likewise would have a lot of value to the security-minded if available.

Even commoners would probably appreciate ways to access Mage Hand, Mending and Prestidigitation for utility tasks. If permanent magic items that allowed casting these were available for reasonable prices that a prosperous business owner could afford, they'd definitely find buyers.

Magical weapons probably have fewer non-adventuring buyers, particularly highly specialized ones (e.g. arrows of slaying, unless we're talking about a city that's a major redoubt frequently assailed by the threat in question -- like, OK, if the City of Whatever is near a werewolf-infested forest, there's probably an unusual demand for all sorts of silvered and magical munitions; and similar for undead counters if the land is accursed and the dead regularly rise and attempt to slay the living).

Magic items that allow offensive magic, in particular either very destructive spells or mind control spells, might be highly restricted by jurisdictions worried about potential abuse. It'd be perfectly reasonable for a city government to be concerned about trafficking in Wands of Fireballs or, say, a Spell Scroll (Geas). A Sphere of Annihilation in an urban environment would be cause for extremely serious concern. A Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning or a Spell Scroll (Earthquake) is a WMD, and any private trade in such would probably have to be (metaphorically) deep underground.

 

[Lanefan]

Those are the odd collectors.

And they wont be thr majority.

The majority of dragon scale armors and flame tongues will be with adventurers, adventurer killers, and their corpses.

Sure.

But are those the majority of the magic items out there? And, indeed, do active adventures really represent the majority of demand for items beyond what they themselves find in the field?

Nobility are likely to look for four types of magic items: defensive (self or area), useful-to-role (e.g. translation, communication, or persuasion/appearance-enhancing devices), functional (e.g. items that heat your castle, or allow or enhance long-range travel, etc.), or vanity (e.g. items as trophies or "just because I can"). The non-noble rich - which can easily include retired adventurers! - could well compete for items in the latter two of these categories.

Nobility types might also look to buy/commission martial items, if not for themselves then for their personal guards or as rewards for heroic military service and so on.

If you are a fighter and decide to be a polearm master, it is probably unlikely that some random rich dude is inflating the price of a + 2 glave in the black market.

It still costs X-amount to make (or commission) such a glaive, however, and that sets its base price.

Personally, I think the best way to handle it is. If you have adventurers delve into dungeons for trade bait.. You have a bunch of NPCs in those mid levels, late tier 2, early tier 3, people looking for specific types of items. And whatever magic items you find in a dungeon that you don't want, you trade to them to get the item that you do want. A barbarian trait a magic rapier to the lord's noble guard captain for his magical great sword that he took off an assassin. Or you trade surplus to archmages and archpriests for crafting commissions.

Sure. Or trade items to temples in payment for restoration and-or revival spells, if the party hasn't yet got such abilities. But even then, there's a value attached: for example if Raise Dead demands a sacrifice of at least 7000 g.p. then sacrificing a simple +1 sword won't get it done, you'll need to make up the rest in coin-gems-etc.