D&D 5E Goodberries and Eberron

[tetrasodium]

No. The middle class, regardless of how they are made up, must be producing goods and services that all three socio-economic groups can afford.

Capitalist societies are driven primarily by poor and middle class spending, but the middle class can’t do it alone, it has to be middle class AND poor spending.

And most middle class vocations are magewrights or equivalent. Ie, blacksmiths and cobblers are trained in a guild structure that generally includes minor magical training.

Not every magewright produces things outside of reach for the poor. Keith did a pretty good post on them & they come up in wgte plus a little in mormisc/rising. Some of the ones he mentions are chef, launderer, lamplighter, locksmith, medium, & oracle. A poor person can eat at a restaurant where a chef makes food even if it's earlybird special or with a coupon, but they can afford it. A poor person might not have lights that are as fancy or ubiquitous as a middle class or wealthy person, but they might be interested in & able to hire a lamplighter during the off season or maybe they buy a light made by one & try hard not to lose or break it. Similar goes to all the others. A poor person who has a job that requires nice clothes will be getting paid enough to afford the services of a launderer who can ritually mend their nice work clothes for a whole lot less than the cost of some one off first level spell casting even if it's still a first level spell... That launderer's specialized ritual mending is limited to clothes & won't help with your wagon's broken axle.


I think you might be confusing "poor people" with "penniless refugees who traded away everything they carried with them". According to google "he average price of having a baby, through vaginal delivery, is between $5,000 – $11,000 in most states" That is several weeks or months pay for most people, yet people find a way. The same goes for dry cleaning... There are many expenses that people find a way no matter what

Yeah, that is wildly at odds with the impression given by descriptions of towns and cities in Eberron.

I really think Eberron is just a world where literally no wordlbuilding numbers match the tone and description of the world, and are thus best ignored.

Pretty much all of the economic stuff in the PHB is written for FR & settings with a similar manorial economic system & breaks down badly as you move away from it towards things like eberron's industrial/postwar economy or darksun's post-apocalyptic economy. In eberron you've also got service industries other than taverns & stuff like low skill scratch mages who couldn't enchant their way out of a wet paper bag but go to work on an assembly line placing one piece of an enchantment on a widget before handing it down the line over and over again... those are examples of people who probably aren't middle class, but they are comfortable enough to have the occasional movie at a Phiarlin scryhouse & meal date night out and such.... They might not have a closet full of glamourweave outfits, but they might have one or two they picked up secondhand* & save to wear on special occasions.

*or thirdhand or fourthhand

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not every magewright produces things outside of reach for the poor. Keith did a pretty good post on them & they come up in wgte plus a little in mormisc/rising. Some of the ones he mentions are chef, launderer, lamplighter, locksmith, medium, & oracle. A poor person can eat at a restaurant where a chef makes food even if it's earlybird special or with a coupon, but they can afford it. A poor person might not have lights that are as fancy or ubiquitous as a middle class or wealthy person, but they might be interested in & able to hire a lamplighter during the off season or maybe they buy a light made by one & try hard not to lose or break it. Similar goes to all the others. A poor person who has a job that requires nice clothes will be getting paid enough to afford the services of a launderer who can ritually mend their nice work clothes for a whole lot less than the cost of some one off first level spell casting even if it's still a first level spell... That launderer's specialized ritual mending is limited to clothes & won't help with your wagon's broken axle.


I think you might be confusing "poor people" with "penniless refugees who traded away everything they carried with them". According to google "he average price of having a baby, through vaginal delivery, is between $5,000 – $11,000 in most states" That is several weeks or months pay for most people, yet people find a way. The same goes for dry cleaning... There are many expenses that people find a way no matter what



Pretty much all of the economic stuff in the PHB is written for FR & settings with a similar manorial economic system & breaks down badly as you move away from it towards things like eberron's industrial/postwar economy or darksun's post-apocalyptic economy. In eberron you've also got service industries other than taverns & stuff like low skill scratch mages who couldn't enchant their way out of a wet paper bag but go to work on an assembly line placing one piece of an enchantment on a widget before handing it down the line over and over again... those are examples of people who probably aren't middle class, but they are comfortable enough to have the occasional movie at a Phiarlin scryhouse & meal date night out and such.... They might not have a closet full of glamourweave outfits, but they might have one or two they picked up secondhand* & save to wear on special occasions.

*or thirdhand or fourthhand

You’re basically saying what I said back to me, here, but acting like it’s a counter argument.

Eberron’s descriptions doesn’t match the numbers cited by the setting, or the PHB economy figures. Simple as that.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

So I guess the question is, how do we reconcile this? Is there a simple fix, such as adjusting the prices presented in the PHB for living expenses and such? Or do we lower the costs presented regarding magical services?

Or is this something that needs to be revisited from the ground up?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So I guess the question is, how do we reconcile this? Is there a simple fix, such as adjusting the prices presented in the PHB for living expenses and such? Or do we lower the costs presented regarding magical services?

Or is this something that needs to be revisited from the ground up?

My method is to look at what things cost that matter to PCs, and then figure out how “out of reach” they should be for an unskilled laborer, and work from there.

What a gold piece is worth is wholly arbitrary, and I’m not about to start changing the prices of stuff I look up the price of in the PHB.

But really most of the time I just decide what the quality of life is on a descriptive level, and just make that the case, and only worry about what numbers support that when they end up mattering.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I was going to throw my hat in the argument but right now I'm just getting lost, so I guess I'll just throw out some of available services and their costs from Rising. (If this falls on the wrong side of the piracy line I'll remove it).

Currency

The copper crown (cp) traditionally depicts the crown of Galifar on one face. The crown is the lowest denomination of coin minted under the rule of Galifar, which spawned the saying, “In Galifar, even the beggars have crowns.”

The silver sovereign (sp) bears the face of a living or recent ruler. An unskilled laborer can expect to earn a sovereign for a day’s work.

The gold galifar (gp) bears the image of Galifar I, the founder of the old kingdom.

The platinum dragon (pp) bears the image of one of the dragons of legend. With a value of one hundred sovereigns, these coins are used only by the wealthiest citizens of Khorvaire, and the average peasant might never see such a coin.

LIFESTYLE AND STANDARDS OF LIVING

In Sharn, as in any large community, different segments of the population occupy different places in the economic spectrum. The terms that D&D uses to quantify lifestyle expenses—wretched, squalid, poor, modest, comfortable, wealthy, and aristocratic (see “Expenses” in chapter 5 of the Player’s Handbook)—are also used in this chapter as an indicator of what it costs for someone to live in a given area, and also of the costs of goods and services there. For instance, a restaurant that is said to serve food of comfortable quality is one where a patron who lives a comfortable lifestyle (or better) can afford anything on the menu.

So 5e Eberron assumes the default standards of living, at least in Sharn (and potentially other major cities).

Magewright Casting Fees

Spell Level	Price
1st	25 gp
2nd	50 gp
3rd	100 gp

No gp cost for cantrips means I'm assuming those are either free or limited to service charges depending on the vendor, whereas the prices for rituals of 1st level and above account for the cost of material components + Dragonshards or Dragonshard dust. I assume you can get a discount if you can either provide the components up front or call in a favour, and of course prices are subject to change depending on the vendor.

Magewright Specialties

d8	Specialty	Spells	Proficiencies
1	Artisan	Guidance, mending	One type of artisan’s tools
2	Entertainer	Minor illusion, thaumaturgy. Ritual only: disguise self.	Performance (+3)
3	Healer	Resistance, spare the dying. Ritual only: detect poison and disease, lesser restoration (1 hour).	Medicine (+4), herbalism kit
4	Lamplighter	Light. Ritual only: continual flame (1 hour).	Tinker’s tools
5	Locksmith	Mending. Ritual only: arcane lock (1 hour), knock.	Thieves’ tools, tinker’s tools
6	Mediator	Guidance. Ritual only: comprehend languages, zone of truth.	Insight (+4), Persuasion (+3)
7	Medium	Minor illusion. Ritual only: speak with dead.	Deception (+3), Religion (+4)
8	Oracle	Guidance. Ritual only: augury, divination (1 hour).	History (+4), Religion (+4)

Communication and Security Services

Service	Cost
Arcane lock (House Kundarak)	20 gp
Courier service (House Orien)	1 sp per mile
Glyph of warding (House Kundarak)	350 gp
Illusory script (House Sivis)	15 gp
Mail service (House Orien)	1 cp per mile
Message station (House Sivis)	2 sp per word
Translation (House Sivis)	2 cp per word

The city of Sharn has its own prices and services for mail and messages:

Need to get a message to someone? If you’re not in a hurry, the Orien post has boxes throughout the city; you can mail a letter for 1 cp. Hiring a courier generally costs between 5 cp and 5 gp, depending on the size of the package and where you need it delivered. You can find Sivis message stations in almost every upper and middle ward, and if you absolutely have to contact someone instantly, the Sivis enclave in the Dragon Towers district (Middle Central) can perform a sending spell for 200 gp.

House Tharashk has brought an innovation to message delivery in Sharn: the use of gargoyles. Tharashk has several of these creatures in its employ, and these flying couriers are a quick way to get a message across the city. If you spot a gargoyle without a burden, you can flag it down, and it costs 5 gp to deliver a letter or a small package.

Healing Services

Service	Cost
Minor nonmagical care	3 sp per use of the Medicine skill
Major nonmagical care	1 gp per day
Cure wounds	25 gp per level of the spell
Lesser restoration	50 gp
Remove curse	75 gp
Greater restoration	150 gp
Raise dead	750 gp

Travel Services

Service	Cost	Speed
Airship (House Lyrandar)	1 gp per mile	20 mph
Elemental galleon (House Lyrandar)	5 sp per mile	10 mph
Lightning rail (House Orien)	5 sp per mile	30 mph
Magebred coach (House Orien)	3 sp per mile	5 mph
Teleportation circle (House Orien)	2,500 gp	Instant

 

[tetrasodium]

So I guess the question is, how do we reconcile this? Is there a simple fix, such as adjusting the prices presented in the PHB for living expenses and such? Or do we lower the costs presented regarding magical services?

Or is this something that needs to be revisited from the ground up?

Unfortunately it's complicated. Lets say you do something simple like reduce all the phb prices by 90% to switch to the silver standard. Now a wizard scribing one first & one second level spells just spent the equivalent of plate mail so that needs to be changed too but you need to do things with spells that have GP component prices (some of which should be really high), magic spells & items that dispense gold or trade goods further complicate things.
All things considered it winds up being a slightly less messy version of trying balance the 7day long rest gritty realism variant rest rule

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Unfortunately it's complicated. Lets say you do something simple like reduce all the phb prices by 90% to switch to the silver standard. Now a wizard scribing one first & one second level spells just spent the equivalent of plate mail so that needs to be changed too but you need to do things with spells that have GP component prices (some of which should be really high), magic spells & items that dispense gold or trade goods further complicate things.
All things considered it winds up being a slightly less messy version of trying balance the 7day long rest gritty realism variant rest rule

I agree with you, except that balancing a price list is probably more difficult because it has two, non-compatible (imho) goals : game balance on one hand, verissimilitude on the other hand.

We have historical price lists (and wage lists) that could reflect the relative scarcity of products from a given time (especially for Eberron, a "19th century equivalent", for which many sources and accounting books are available). Then, one would need to calculate the price of the magical commidities and readjust the price of the regular commodities, and that's a large work, and one that is bound not to be OK with anyone depending on their view on the prevalence of magewrights (as seen in this thread).

If you see every household having a cupboard of Mending, most of the work of a metalsmith in rural communities would disappear, for example, as most of what they did was repairing items. If you see Mending being available to a few, lots of people would still need this service. So pricing would vary differently on the exact worldview. It's difficult to take into account every variable to get a "realistic" result. And it's compounded by the fact that you need to balance it with regard to what the adventurers would want to do...

In my games, however, I mostly abstracted the availability of money after the first few levels. When PCs are transitionning from superheroes to forces of nature-level, I don't see the point of wondering whether they have 3 cp to buy a sandwich at subway... Only the most significant investments need to be taken into account, and these are the type of investment you wouldn't see most NPC doing : since very few NPCs can canonically cast Resurrection (the Keeper of the Flame?) many wouldn't need a 1,000 gp diamond anyway (and if the Keeper was to cast the spell, the CotSF entire economic resources are at her disposal to provide it, and it wouldn't even register on their account ledger). So, I guess we could dispense with the need for balancing the game and focus more on a realistic economy, even if it means that even 2nd level heroes can afford to live in a suite in the most exclusive hotel in Sharn for monthes after selling a redundant plate mail...

 

[Coroc]

So Eberron is a setting all about wide-magic, rather than high-magic. The setting does a really great job imaginging how low-level spells and magic can effect the economy and society, as well as how magic can be utilized as a parallel to technology.

And goodberries seem like one of those low-level spells that can have a huge impact on a setting (Eberron or otherwise). Now I've seen Eberron integrate goodberries, such as with goodberry wine, as well as suggestions that goodberries are a necessity for surviving the Mournland. But what I haven't seen are explanations around how goodberries could impact issues around hunger where poverty rates are high or when harvests are bad.

Personally, I imagine that with goodberries being a 1st level spell, it would be not just advantageous, but perhaps even necessary for each town to have at least one person capable of casting the spell. Hunger and starvation could effectively be eliminated in a setting with wide access to goodberries.

However, despite this potential, my sense of the setting is that hunger and starvation are still issues in Eberron. Now I understand why goodberries wouldn't replace food. Food tastes great. Sharing meals provides a sense of community. Preparing food and cuisines can be an expression of culture and honor particular traditions. So I understand why food is preferrable to a single goodberry a day.

But if goodberries are prevalent, then why might hunger still be an issue?

The obvious answer could be distribution of those capable of casting the spell. I mean in the real world we produce enough food to end world hunger, but due to distribution and logistics much of it is wasted and cannot get to those in need.

But is there a less obvious answer? Are there negative long-term effects associated with consuming goodberries? Is there something about the production, creation, or consumption of goodberries that make them ideal in a crisis, but a poor or even unthinkable choice beyond short-term food shortages?

I don't know whether this has been addressed officially. I have seen threads that discuss the issues of goodberries within an adventuring party, such as the difficulties it can have for DMs or those that abuse the healing properties of the spell. But I don't know that I've seen discussion of the broader implications of the spell within the game world.

What are people's thoughts? Has anyone else considered this aspect of goodberries? Has anyone attempted to address this? Are there other low-level spells that need similar examination?

If you compare this with IRL possibilities then guess who gets to eat the goodberries first:
Mass produced slaughter animals. Cattle will be so much easier to feed, you save the workers transporting tons of grain. No one will care about starvation problems. And no, the meat will not get any cheaper and affordable for the poor, but instead the gain margin for the cattle owner will rise.

It is the same like with every new antibiotic it goes to the mass cattle facilities instead to use it to combat
antibiotic resistances in humans.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If you compare this with IRL possibilities then guess who gets to eat the goodberries first:
Mass produced slaughter animals. Cattle will be so much easier to feed, you save the workers transporting tons of grain. No one will care about starvation problems. And no, the meat will not get any cheaper and affordable for the poor, but instead the gain margin for the cattle owner will rise.

It is the same like with every new antibiotic it goes to the mass cattle facilities instead to use it to combat
antibiotic resistances in humans.

Actually, the price would almost certainly go down for beef. The idea it wouldn’t is pretty baseless, unless you’re assuming most people already eat beef multiple times a week.

See, easier fed cattle means less feed crop production, more room for livestock grazing, and the ability to expand your beef sales exponentially by selling beef to everyone.

But only if you lower the price.

This is pretty much how the real western world went from beef as a luxury item to beef as a basic staple most people eat every single day, including the poorest people in society.

 

[Coroc]

Actually, the price would almost certainly go down for beef. The idea it wouldn’t is pretty baseless, unless you’re assuming most people already eat beef multiple times a week.

See, easier fed cattle means less feed crop production, more room for livestock grazing, and the ability to expand your beef sales exponentially by selling beef to everyone.

But only if you lower the price.

This is pretty much how the real western world went from beef as a luxury item to beef as a basic staple most people eat every single day, including the poorest people in society.

To stay offtopic, ok it concerns foodstuff: I am from a country in europe. Since they converted our currency to euro in 2002 they claim that the prices in relation to income did not rise because of it. That is true for many things.

But i tell you what, if until the 30s of last century they would have raised the price for absolute basics for the poorest of the population namely bread (back then also beer but that does not apply today) they would have caused revolutions, with mobs with torches and pitchforks storming the parliament and lynching the politicians.
I can remember the price for a basic wheat bread being 1/16 of what it is today and the incomes did rise since then but not by that factor. And that is a sure and real indicator that i am at least partially right with my original post.
They also compute the inflation by putting together a bundle of goods. This bundle consists also of stuff which is nice to have like consumer electronics which might have gone down in price even. So they compute a very low inflation ratio, when in fact many people feel it should be much higher. This is why:
Those things essential for living basic foodstuff like bread, milk, vegetables also fuel and energy and rent for rented places in other words all the things you simply cannot live without have all become much more expensive in relation to income.
I can miss on a new TV or computer for a year if i cannot afford it but i cannot starve or freeze and i have to get to work somehow.