Excerpt: Economies [merged]

[malraux]

And like magic items, you really need either trust or extreme knowledgeability to avoid being taken in. Is that desk really from the 1700s or a modern imitation really well aged is a similar question to is that really a +3 aberant bane dagger or just a +1 dagger with a temporary buff running on it. And just because the rules don't include magic item wear-down (for good reason I'd say) doesn't meant that magic items don't actually wear out. The only element of magic stuff that's reasonably standardized is the fairy dust you can get out of each item.

 

[Fanaelialae]

We have either hints or facts that support the following points from 4E RAW:

1) Magic items above the PC level cannot be obtained through purchase.

2) Magic items all have minimum levels needed to use them.

3) Certain slots will not be usable before X level ( such as two magic rings at once)

Your first two points are mistaken, actually.

1) Magic items above party level can be purchased, although characters cannot craft an item above their level themselves.

2) The level assigned to items denotes their estimated level of potency, not a level requirement to be used.

You'll find the relevant info here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080514a

3) Magic rings are the only item slot (that we know of) that have a level requirement. If I remember correctly, you can use one ring slot at level 11 and a second at level 21.

 

[pawsplay]

Agreed, but you'll have much the same experience at a used car lot or pawn shop.

In my experience, you can swap any comparable vehicle for another for about $200 plus papers. It's absolutely not like that at any used car lot I know.

 

[JohnSnow]

Ehrm, he did write Renaissance, where Rome indeed had far far less inhabitants than at its glorious height as capital of its own empire in the antiquity.
A couple of seconds reading might show that he's correct.

Exactly. Rome, even into the Renaissance, was still probably the largest city in western Europe. However, its population was a far cry from the Imperial heights of a million or so. Partially, that was simple demographics. Centuries of medieval sanitation (or lack thereof) depleted the population of Europe a great deal. A city comparable to Rome, the crossroads of the Empire, is probably the biggest city imaginable in a D&D setting.

And a city like that is probably more appropriate to the last age and the fallen Empire of Nerath than it is to the current, post-fall setting.

Spend a few moments researching the medieval and renaissance population figures for some notable cities. The results are...educational, to say the least.

Moving on...

Of course he isn't saying that.

What he IS saying is that D&Dland owes much more conceptually to medieval or whatever period than it does to the modern period.

I'm astonished at the number of people in this thread who believe that any game world should have exactly the same market conditions and freedom of buying and selling that they enjoy in (a presumably) modern western technologically advanced country.

Sometimes it seems as if a mantra which says "the consumer is always right" is being used to judge what is appropriate in D&Dland. I find this surprising.

Thanks Plane Sailing. That's precisely what I was saying. If pressed, I would argue that the setting of D&D, by virtue of its antiquity and magic, is probably more comparable to the early modern period (i.e. the late renaissance, in Europe) than to the middle ages.

I think it's actually interesting that so many people are extrapolating modern standards of living backwards to a D&D world. It's always been argued that D&D worlds tend to be a freewheeling mish-mash of medieval, renaissance, and modern concepts, and NOW I get it.

It seems to me that WotC is actually attempting to craft a default setting (and game) that more closely parallels history, while still being totally different from it. It's interesting that some of their conceits which, it seems to me, should be self-evident are being met with such resistance.

I guess people really do have trouble imagining living conditions other than the ones they're under. Now I know why the "Points of Light" conceit met with such resistance from some quarters.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Your first two points are mistaken, actually.

1) Magic items above party level can be purchased, although characters cannot craft an item above their level themselves.

2) The level assigned to items denotes their estimated level of potency, not a level requirement to be used.

You'll find the relevant info here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080514a

3) Magic rings are the only item slot (that we know of) that have a level requirement. If I remember correctly, you can use one ring slot at level 11 and a second at level 21.

The article does seem to back you up Lets see what the magic items have to say on Friday. Heck my solution would have fixed the gold problem (mostly)

 

[Fanaelialae]

In my experience, you can swap any comparable vehicle for another for about $200 plus papers. It's absolutely not like that at any used car lot I know.

Honestly, (and I'm not calling you a liar) but that's unbelievable!

I just bought a car last summer and the dealer wouldn't give me anything for my old car (still ran well, just was quite old). I finally found a guy who gave me $50 so he could tow it to the junkyard. Later found out from a friend of mine that I could have gotten $300-$400 if I'd just taken it to the junkyard myself... oh well...

 

[pawsplay]

Well then they should get into another line of business, heaven forbid, that they should have to work to support themselves.

The selling of items makes more sense to me now, since PCs only get a fraction of what they are worth. They are like stolen goods, that is about what you will get if you try to sell your loot to fence.

Actually, the PCs have killed something and stolen its stuff!!

But the stuff the merchant sells is the same kind of stuff]/i]. As we've discussed to death, there are many reasons why the prices would stay relatively low. But they all apply equally to merchants as to PCs. Some merchant has no better chance of seeing than the king than some wandering swordsman.... less, if the swordsman did a favor for the king!

 

[pawsplay]

... because that merchant has maybe one or two items, not an entire shop full of them and doesn't exactly spread it around that he has them except to certain people (like adventurers) that might be interested?

If you think 500% is extravagant mark up, you have never been shopping for antiques. Heck, a first appearance of Superman comic book is worth about 500 000 USD. That's considerably more than 500% mark up, even taking inflation into consideration. Yet, surprisingly enough, people aren't going around murdering comic book collectors.

Wrong tangent. The point is, a comic book collector can be confident of getting around that 500 000 USD, even though he's not surrounded by an NPC Merchant Glow.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The article does seem to back you up Lets see what the magic items have to say on Friday. Heck my solution would have fixed the gold problem (mostly)

Granted, but then people would instead just be complaining about "WOW-esque" level requirements for equiping items.

 

[Hussar]

Wrong tangent. The point is, a comic book collector can be confident of getting around that 500 000 USD, even though he's not surrounded by an NPC Merchant Glow.

Umm, what?

I was talking about why 500% mark-up is not unreasonable.

YES, if you can find someone to sell your magic item to, you too can get full retail.

BUT, if you don't want to spend the time and effort, you can do like everyone else does and go to the local pawn shop/fence and flog your ill gotten lucre.

AND, like any time you go to that sort of second hand market, you get hosed.

You keep presenting a moving target. Magic items are not like modern commodities. Yet, you insist on treating them as such.