Economics of Magic Items

[Phoenix]

Hypothetically, if I have a 10th level Wizard who wants to create a +1 longsword he is going to be forking out around about 1,300gp for the honour. At the end of the process he will be one +1 longsword the merrier...but:

The 1,000gp that my Wizard spends has to go somewhere, right? Where? Assuming it goes into the spell components required for the enchantment, I'd like to put forward the following...


In spending 1,000gp on a +1 longsword, what (specifically) would this money be spent on?

 

[frankthedm]

rare and symbolicly important stuff the wotc rules assume are available from just about anywhere ;p

 

[Jack Simth]

Hypothetically, if I have a 10th level Wizard who wants to create a +1 longsword he is going to be forking out around about 1,300gp for the honour. At the end of the process he will be one +1 longsword the merrier...but:

The 1,000gp that my Wizard spends has to go somewhere, right? Where? Assuming it goes into the spell components required for the enchantment, I'd like to put forward the following...


In spending 1,000gp on a +1 longsword, what (specifically) would this money be spent on?

You're in the realm of flavor text.

Perhaps it's not rare and exotic stuff; perhaps it's supplies made with Craft(Alchemy) and the money is going to pay the apprentices that put a year of their lives into refining the fish breath, chicken lips, frog's teeth, and the like into the proper energy alignments.

Or it's just a set of inks in a particular concoction made of barley, iron ore, and bat guano, simple enough to make but difficult to refine, and you get very little for the amount of materials needed, that lets you trace magical circutry onto an existing object.

Maybe it's something totally different; that money goes to hiring the adventurers that went out and harvested the Rust Monster antennae, Balor blood, dragon femweigh, and Solar's tears you needed.

 

[Phoenix]

You're in the realm of flavor text.

Perhaps it's not rare and exotic stuff; perhaps it's supplies made with Craft(Alchemy) and the money is going to pay the apprentices that put a year of their lives into refining the fish breath, chicken lips, frog's teeth, and the like into the proper energy alignments.

Or it's just a set of inks in a particular concoction made of barley, iron ore, and bat guano, simple enough to make but difficult to refine, and you get very little for the amount of materials needed, that lets you trace magical circutry onto an existing object.

Maybe it's something totally different; that money goes to hiring the adventurers that went out and harvested the Rust Monster antennae, Balor blood, dragon femweigh, and Solar's tears you needed.

Ok then, keeping that in mind now...

If you were to do much of this stuff yourself (recovering the bladder of a toad, refining the resonant vibrations of the spoon), also keeping in mind this is one of the simplest magical items to be made, how much does it really cost to make?

Is it possible, by putting in the hard yards (even making the blade yourself) to get the cost of the sword below say, 600gp?

 

[Someone]

Profession and Craft skills allow you to get half the check in GP per week, so if you are around 10th level and have a generous +20 modifier, you´d make 15 GP per week taking 10 and using Alchemy to refine those exotic components. It takes a year and 4 months of work for that experienced alchemist to make the materials needed for a +1 longsword.

 

[Jack Simth]

Ok then, keeping that in mind now...

If you were to do much of this stuff yourself (recovering the bladder of a toad, refining the resonant vibrations of the spoon), also keeping in mind this is one of the simplest magical items to be made, how much does it really cost to make?

Is it possible, by putting in the hard yards (even making the blade yourself) to get the cost of the sword below say, 600gp?

Ah, and now we're getting to the guts of the problem; you're starting at level, what, 2, 3? And looking for ways to suppliment your equipment allotment. Slight problem - it's usually wealth, not money.

If - and it's a big if, check with your DM - Craft (Alchemy) will get you the materials needed to do the magical work of Craft Magic Arms and Armor, the DM sets the DC. High DC's make things go faster (provided you can make the DC) and low DC's make things easier but slower. For a +1 Greatsword, you need:
1) A masterwork Greatsword (300 gp DC 20 Weaponsmithing masterwork component + 50 gp Greatsword component at DC 15). If you have a +10 modifier on Craft(Weaponsmithing), taking 10, the Masterwork component will take 7.5 weeks, and the Greatsword component will take 1 2/3 weeks. So call it 10 weeks for the sword itself, if you have a +10 modifier. Materials cost 1/3 of market for the final product, so 116.66 gp in raw materials.
2) Magical materials worth 1,000 gp. If the DM calls it Craft(Alchemy) DC 20, and you have a +10 modifier, that will take you 25 weeks, and cost 333.33 gp in materials.
3) You need a caster level of at least 3, and the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat (which requires a caster level of 5, so.....), 80 loose XP, and two days.

So your final costs would be 35 weeks, 450 gp in materials, and 80 xp. Theoretically ... given the above assumptions.... if your DM permits you to Craft your requirements at all.

 

[Jack Simth]

Profession and Craft skills allow you to get half the check in GP per week, so if you are around 10th level and have a generous +20 modifier, you´d make 15 GP per week taking 10 and using Alchemy to refine those exotic components. It takes a year and 4 months of work for that experienced alchemist to make the materials needed for a +1 longsword.

That's for making an income, not for making an item. With actually creating an item, it's Check Result * DC expressed in Silver Pieces (if you pass the DC) per week... but you have to have the raw materials, which cost 1/3 of the item's market price.

 

[Phoenix]

That's for making an income, not for making an item. With actually creating an item, it's Check Result * DC expressed in Silver Pieces (if you pass the DC) per week... but you have to have the raw materials, which cost 1/3 of the item's market price.

That's part of the problem though, much of the arguement falls apart at You need Xgp in Raw Material. There is actually little stopping PCs from acquiring this material without paying someone to do it.

I'm hardly trying to cheat the system here (I GM most of the time), all I'm thinking that even in a fantasy economy, the purchasing power of 2,300gp is astounding...so where does all the money actually go? For a +1 longsword the materials can't possibly be that rare, nor cost that much.

Someone is making an amazing profit on magic items, the mark-up alone is enough to make people retire from adventuring to pump out items to sell. One PC can topple an economy quite easily.

So encouraging a more realistic economy where these items cannot simply be bought (think Arthurian era), wizards are required to make these items themselves without the support of a king's ransom (another point in economics, does anyone remember how much a King's Ransom officially was, I can't find it for the life of me...)

 

[Jack Simth]

You always end up buying stuff. Mostly because it's easier and less time consuming, and also often because people have a semi-monopoly on the raw materials, often because you can't just build up an entire fabrication facility for a single item.

Take the longsword iteself (helps to have a concrete, real-world example here). It's made of iron. You need iron ore, coal, a good forge (reuseable), the proper quenching liquid (tends to be at least partially destroyed, but semi-reuseable - call it corn oil, for now), the skills to work with it, et cetera.

The iron ore and coal are dug up out of the ground. That's mining, probably Proffession. Of course, first, you need the proper place to mine; not just anyone will let you dig up their land, and usually it's the nobles who own the land, and are willing to rent it to you for some amount of money. Even with permission to dig, nothing says there WILL be ore there. So you need to secure permission from ... whoever. And of course, you need a set of decent mining tools - which includes a light source - a lantern. Or do you have to make those, too? So much easier to buy them.

Guesstimating off of Profession's money-making potential, you get half your check result per week in market price "raw materials". So that 100 gp in iron ore and coal you need, with a +10 modifier, taking 10, take 10 weeks to dig up out of the ground. If there's already a seam handy.

The oils a little tricky - you need to grow the corn, grind it, yada yada yada. Corn has a growing cycle of, what, about three months? Oh, yeah, and you need the land to work, a way to irrigate, seed corn..... oops. Where do we get that?

Of course, you don't need an entire field of corn - you need just enough corn to make one bucketful of corn oil.

Meanwhile, you have to be keeping yourself fed.... which costs money, unless you're feeding yourself somehow....

There's a reason subsistence farmers still buy things...

 

[Phoenix]

You always end up buying stuff. Mostly because it's easier and less time consuming, and also often because people have a semi-monopoly on the raw materials, often because you can't just build up an entire fabrication facility for a single item.

Take the longsword iteself (helps to have a concrete, real-world example here). It's made of iron. You need iron ore, coal, a good forge (reuseable), the proper quenching liquid (tends to be at least partially destroyed, but semi-reuseable - call it corn oil, for now), the skills to work with it, et cetera.

The iron ore and coal are dug up out of the ground. That's mining, probably Proffession. Of course, first, you need the proper place to mine; not just anyone will let you dig up their land, and usually it's the nobles who own the land, and are willing to rent it to you for some amount of money. Even with permission to dig, nothing says there WILL be ore there. So you need to secure permission from ... whoever. And of course, you need a set of decent mining tools - which includes a light source - a lantern. Or do you have to make those, too? So much easier to buy them.

Guesstimating off of Profession's money-making potential, you get half your check result per week in market price "raw materials". So that 100 gp in iron ore and coal you need, with a +10 modifier, taking 10, take 10 weeks to dig up out of the ground. If there's already a seam handy.

The oils a little tricky - you need to grow the corn, grind it, yada yada yada. Corn has a growing cycle of, what, about three months? Oh, yeah, and you need the land to work, a way to irrigate, seed corn..... oops. Where do we get that?

Of course, you don't need an entire field of corn - you need just enough corn to make one bucketful of corn oil.

Meanwhile, you have to be keeping yourself fed.... which costs money, unless you're feeding yourself somehow....

There's a reason subsistence farmers still buy things...

Obviously there is a line that has to be drawn in this situation, understandably, but the question still stands. How cheap can somebody make the creation of a +1 longsword before it becomes unreasonable?