Economics of Magic Items

[Slobber Monster]

One idea I had was that creating magic items actually uses your gold as a material component. If the gold was actually used up in the item creation process, we wouldn't have to fabricate excuses for it to be spent on other items and we wouldn't have to explain how those ordinary workers that you bought your items from are making thousands of times more money than their fellow laborers.

This is what I go by. It's a little silly, but it works.

 

[Phoenix]

I find it a little strange that so many people argue so hard and fast about every aspect of D&D, yet the Economics goes largely ignored. Even dividing all magic item values by...let's say, i dunno, half (or even a quarter) and reducing the amount of loot by the same amount, still puts almost all magical items out of the reach of peasants, as well as reducing the need ridiculous amounts of treasure.

100,000gp, for a magic item...i don't suppose many people really think exactly what 100,000gp could really buy if you put your mind to it. Though I do have a large problem with buying a house for 1,000gp as well (as far as I remember 'houses' back then had two rooms and a thatch roof).

 

[FrostedMini1337]

The house thing is just to show how much you owed your Lord IMO.

Show that the house you were born in was the house you would die in most likely. And your kids. And your kids kids.

 

[Phoenix]

A couple thousand gold is an awful lot. Enough for a small town to live off of for awhile. Adventurers with class levels are the exception, not the rule.

I just want to bring up one point here. I can accept that PCs are the exception, not the rule in this case. But what about all the NPCs charging 000s of gold for a product? That makes them the exception as well. The money changer that purchases the 5,000gp gem, he's the exception. The noble that rewards the PCs 10,000gp so they get their wealth-by-level reward, he's the exception.

I admit that you cannot construct a viable economic system for D&D, but a little realistic thought would've been nice.

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Well if the NPCs are charging 000s of gold for something, they live in a large town, and are most likely the top of the heap there.

There are GP limits for towns, and if you're dealing with large numbers, you're talking about the community pooling or a very rich/powerful character. In some campaigns you don't get GP from some of these quests. You get magic items in place of that stuff because the community/individual has run across them and can't change them in to GP him/herself.

And if you do give an immense amount of cash to a low-level person it's going to pony up the ranks. Well that 1,000 the adventurers gave you? You owe us 200 as tax. We're going to need you to pay up the back tabs you have for clothes and farm implements you were unable to afford earlier. You can go ahead and buy more land and crop and hire help, but we're going to have to tax that too.

Isn't the general rule that 2% of the population controls 90% of the wealth?

 

[Len]

I find it a little strange that so many people argue so hard and fast about every aspect of D&D, yet the Economics goes largely ignored.

There's no point arguing about it because there is no economy in D&D. The costs and prices of magic items are designed purely to control the power of PCs at various levels. As soon as you start thinking about the game's rules and setting in economic terms, it makes no sense whatsoever.

So we don't think about it.

 

[Phoenix]

I think I've ventured far from the original point of the thread

If I'm quite happy to accept that making a magic sword costs me 1,000gp for the enchantment, I'm curious to know what this money goes towards, and if it is possible to avoid any of this costing in leiu of doing some of the work (gathering, refining) yourself. If so, how much cheaper could we theoretically make a +1 weapon?

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Totally, but these require you going outside of the rules with your DM. The rules are just a way to have things set down, the whole roleplaying thing allows you to circumvent rules (if your group is down with that). I mean it says it costs 1,000 gold worth of stuff. But what does worth mean? Those gems aren't worth diddly if I just came from the Earth Elemental Plane from a city of gems, you know?

D&D (and fantasy) is littered with weapons that become Bane after you slay 500 goblins, Pick Axes stuck in a super evil rock that becomes a malignant artifact and crap like that.

I think you'd have to do it on a point by point basis though. Most of the cash you spend on a generic magic weapon maybe the main component is crushed gems since that seems to be the main magic ingredient. For the Bane weapons, your magically enchanting the bones of said creatues, and enchanting them in to the blade. For good and evil weapons, you're bribing/offering it outsiders to bless the weapon. All of these you can around. (You find a cache of gems that are extra receptive to magic, you keep all the bones of goblins you find, and keep the whole corpse of the goblin shaman, you do a quest for an angel, etc)

If you wanted hard rules I'd say ask you DM what the main ingredient is (Gems, Poisons, Ungents, Planar Intervention,etc), then make a relevant check (Diplomacize the Outsider, Survival the Magic Leaves). You get the resulting total as a % off the price of the items for a generic rule.

Sidenote: You can always use diplomacy to make vednors friendly and reduce their prices.

Sorry for rambling.

 

[Jack Simth]

I think I've ventured far from the original point of the thread

If I'm quite happy to accept that making a magic sword costs me 1,000gp for the enchantment, I'm curious to know what this money goes towards, and if it is possible to avoid any of this costing in leiu of doing some of the work (gathering, refining) yourself. If so, how much cheaper could we theoretically make a +1 weapon?

Well... theoretically... you can spend 1 copper on the materials needed to craft three coppers.
And those three coppers on the materials needed to craft nine coppers.
And those nine coppers on the materials needed to craft 27 coppers.
And those 27 coppers on the materials needed to craft 81 coppers....
And so on, and so forth, until you have enough coppers to craft all the Gold Coins you'll need to buy your materials.

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Well... theoretically... you can spend 1 copper on the materials needed to craft three coppers.
And those three coppers on the materials needed to craft nine coppers.
And those nine coppers on the materials needed to craft 27 coppers.
And those 27 coppers on the materials needed to craft 81 coppers....
And so on, and so forth, until you have enough coppers to craft all the Gold Coins you'll need to buy your materials.

BEST. IDEA. EVER.