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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4225415" data-attributes="member: 30001">A book I have called "Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades" paints a somewhat less grim picture than what you have here.  Chainmail in 14th c. England was worth about 2 oxen.  Swords seem to me to actually be fairly cheap, there's an internet resource that handles this - though there are quality differences that don't exist in DnD to consider.DnD armor and weapon prices though, are much higher AFAICT compared to "trade goods" (wheat, oxen, etc.) than their historical counterparts.  I'll grant you that rich people would be your market for armor and such, but I would also suggest that there are a lot more rich people in DnD than you're imagining.  Just look at the typical equipment list of a mid-level NPC and consider what the usual number of these persons are in any given settlement.As I've said though, your considerations for supply and demand would work against the merchant as well, meaning that my PC should be able to buy magic swords for less than the market price seeing as that they are so darn hard to get rid of and that my PC is in such a priviledged position as far as his wealth.Not sure what this is worth, by a scribbled note I'm looking at says:  "Frankish Ripuarian law valued warhorse at 12 solidi, about six times value of an ox and four times that of good mare."  Now I've seen very high prices for warhorses in the books from the late Middle Ages, but these are specially bred creatures that you would not hitch to a wagon.  And speaking of carts/wagons, 35 gp seems a lot for wood and iron costs based on the 3E numbers, but oh well.  (10 gp = 100 lbs of iron IIRC)I think a somewhat easier perspective to take on this is cost of living.  You have a number of NPCs walking around with +1 weapons and it presents a certain picture in my mind of suppply and demand that doesn't look to me anything like "Queen and a few elite merchants".  I also think of a typical merchant as someone pulling in earnings of far less than thousands of gp's per transaction.  I know my statements ere are all over the place in terms of subject, but none of these facts so far are painting a clear picture to me that supports this 1:5 rule.</blockquote>

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