Excerpt: Economies [merged]

[Wormwood]

Balance and other metagame considerations now completely trump all other considerations.

In other words, from my game table to the core rulebooks.

*contented sigh*

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You rolled a natural one while attacking my point.

A few months ago, one of the biggest "W00tz!" from the pre-4e crowd was "There won't be magic item stores, like there were in 3e!"

Except, of course, there weren't any in 3e, unless the DM wanted there to be. There were prices for magic items, and notes that in major cities, you might be able to find items for sale. What this meant, in actual play, was up to the DM. There might be stores. There might be ex-adventurers looking to unload some loot. There might a strange item here and there in the bazaar. Etc.

But "In 4e there won't be any magic stores! Yay!" was the joyous cry from the multitudes.

Now, what do we have in 4e?

Prices for magic items. And notes in the flavor text you might be able to find items for sale.

In other words -- exactly the same as in 3e. Whether there are stores or not is up to the DM. The only major difference is that, in 3e, the DM had community wealth guidelines, and, in 4e, there's a network of teleporting magic item merchants who show up in whatever town the PCs are in.

No, i think you rolled a natural 1...
3.x broke together rather fast without magic shops... it was sad, but true... (or you had to give out exactly those items which were needed to survive at higher levels) Also there was no way to get rid of the magic items your NPCs needed to survive and you needed an explanation where they got all their magic items...

Disenchant and enchant magic items rituals do a great deal to diminish the need for regular magic stores... also the default assumption that monsters of equal level have a magic treshold and that defenses, even without magic items are high enough...

(maybe thee could have been more elegant solution, but my hopes here are 5th edition.. 4th edition will become the edition where simplicity and balance are the main goals... and i consider that an improvement...)

 

[Heselbine]

They're concentrating on making the game playable and fun instead of making half-hearted attempts at 'realism'.

Full marks to the designers, I say.

 

[Andur]

Article is o.k. However, the understanding of the basic principles of economics on this board is pathetic, that's about the norm for society though, so no surprise.

1) The real value of any good is determined by the market. PC's want to "offload" magic items quickly ad the DM ALLOWS it, 20% is a fair price, the merchant is going to lowball, he makes an offer and states he's leaving in the morning, the PC's take it or leave it. If they want to travel for a month or more until they find a buyer who will pay full price or more, have fun playing Buying and Selling instead of Dungeons and Dragons.

2) Head to your local FLGS, buy a pack of MtG, see how much you can sell the regular lands to the store, see how much you can sell that ultra rare, high game value card. Then take a look at what you can buy it for. A "honest" FLGS will buy at half "book" price and sell for "full" book price.

Now back to the article, I don't like the merchant concept at all, it implies more of a web of light than points of light. Course I don't like selling magic items either, nor buying them. Potions are one thing, durable goods quite another. I'll probably be in the reduce cost of disenchant OR just replace the magic items for loot with residium or whatever they want to call it.

I'm not much on having magic items as part of the economy, cp, sp, gp, pp, +1 magic sword, +2 frost wand, astral diamond, +6 Resiliant Radiant Shadoweave Armour, etc...

With magic items I'll probably go the CoH "enhancement" slot path. So an item will need to be enchanted using one ritual of spirtual bonding, and then can be upgraded through the us of other rituals which use the magical essence. As the PC levels the item gains additional slots at intervals, so that +1 magic sword one might start off with ends up being a +6 Flaming Radiant Sword of Vengeance at level 30... This would require not only the filling in of slots, but the upgrade/replacement of certain slots...

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Um, beyond just a rule saying they can't do that, what would you like? Pretty simple just to say that unless the players want to create a merchant based campaign, with appropriate rules, that their characters just don't have the contacts/reputation/time to be a full time merchant.

Yeah, that just doesn't fly well. I've known way more greedy players than I have met players that fit into all the other problem categories. The question of selling directly will come up and a response of "Sorry no, the rules say you can't." is just not good enough to satisfy them. This gets even worse if the party has a thief character with high gather information and other skills and background that would imply that this is in fact just the kind of thing he would be good at.

This can and will come up in more than a merchant based campaign. This is human nature to want to get the best prices, and by making the price disparities so large it almost begs for players to try to get around it.

 

[Crosswind]

The Enworld Crowd has answered with vigor! =D Excellent!

So the examples of a good that fits my criterion are:
Artwork
Used books
Used Textbooks
Used Video Games
Soda Pop

Soda Pop, while its ingredients are cheap and it sells for a lot, doesn't work - the Vendor (the person who makes it) adds value.

Artwork:
So I had to go do some homework for this...but my peoples tell me that a 5x mark-up from bought to sold is -not- common practice. =)

Used Stuff:
This is probably closer to the truth. Here, the vendor preys on marginal utility. A +1 battleaxe is of little use to a wizard, so he might sell it for little, but of a lot of use to a barbarian, so he might pay a lot for it.

But it's going to be tough to argue that, if the PCs find the barbarian, they can't get full price for that axe.

-Cross

 

[Dizlag]

Yeah, I just can't help but notice the direct lifting of "disenchanting" from WOW. But, that's a good thing. The computer gaming industry has been taking a lot from the roleplaying game industry and vise versa lately. This is a good thing. It truly makes the overall gaming industry better.

And regarding the concern about disenchanting powerful artifacts. I would assume since you can't make a magical item higher than you're level, you shouldn't be able to disenchant a magic item above your level. Will that be in the DMG? I dunno, but it could easily be houseruled.

EDIT: An entire campaign could be design around the party wanting to "undercut" the merchant's magic item industry. I would say some powerful merchant guilds could talk to an assassin's guild, or two, to "take care of" the problem. The party forgot to acquire a merchant permit? Oh, that's gonna carry an extra fee. Hehehehe

Later,

Dizlag

 

[WhatGravitas]

Head to your local FLGS, buy a pack of MtG, see how much you can sell the regular lands to the store, see how much you can sell that ultra rare, high game value card. Then take a look at what you can buy it for. A "honest" FLGS will buy at half "book" price and sell for "full" book price.

Exactly. It sells, because people are buying it at these prices. Despite being a flimsy bit of paper that is useless to the general populace.

Same with magic items - a farmer will never need a shocking axe of fiery doom. But some really want them - like the PCs.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Yeah, that just doesn't fly well. I've known way more greedy players than I have met players that fit into all the other problem categories. The question of selling directly will come up and a response of "Sorry no, the rules say you can't." is just not good enough to satisfy them. This gets even worse if the party has a thief character with high gather information and other skills and background that would imply that this is in fact just the kind of thing he would be good at.

This can and will come up in more than a merchant based campaign. This is human nature to want to get the best prices, and by making the price disparities so large it almost begs for players to try to get around it.

Then you should probably consider talking to the players at the start of the campaign and explain that you want to run the kind of game where the adventurers are interested in adventuring, not merchanting.

If characters insist on becoming merchants, have the next nation along invade.

It's only scaling up the old adage of "when things get boring, have a man come through the doorway with a gun".

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The Enworld Crowd has answered with vigor! =D Excellent!

So the examples of a good that fits my criterion are:
Artwork
Used books
Used Textbooks
Used Video Games
Soda Pop

Soda Pop, while its ingredients are cheap and it sells for a lot, doesn't work - the Vendor (the person who makes it) adds value.

Artwork:
So I had to go do some homework for this...but my peoples tell me that a 5x mark-up from bought to sold is -not- common practice. =)

Used Stuff:
This is probably closer to the truth. Here, the vendor preys on marginal utility. A +1 battleaxe is of little use to a wizard, so he might sell it for little, but of a lot of use to a barbarian, so he might pay a lot for it.

But it's going to be tough to argue that, if the PCs find the barbarian, they can't get full price for that axe.

-Cross

If the barbarian has enough money to pay full price... he could also argue that he sold his last axe for one fifth of that and that it was an honest man and you will just trick him... he also can´t tell if its magical, so maybe he will only pay the normal price for an axe...