How do wandering merchants survive?

[ThirdWizard]

Wait, I haven't been following this 4e business very closely, but wasn't one of the purposes of the game to get rid of the XMas tree effect? Shouldn't the Wandering Merchants of WalMart be infrequent BECAUSE the game mechanics are supposed to make magic items rares again, rather than a necessity? (In short, I'm probably wrong on this, but isn't this supposed to be a 3e concern? Help me out here.)

Nope! Misinterpretation. First, they said Christmas shrub. Second, you can get rid of the Christmas tree, but that doesn't mean that's the default assumption. Not nearly as many people want to get rid of the tree as ENWorld makes it look like. Fourth edition is not low magic. It just doesn't break if you take the items away.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Villages don't pay with money; they pay with grain, and villages are the place where peole have the most grain. In fact, grain production is what villages exist for. This grain, in turn, can be sold by the merchants who buy it from the villages for a very good price in towns, where little or no grain is produced. This is the way that civilisation has worked for almost its entire existence.

Grain, or some other raw commodity produced there. A lot of Wild West towns were mining towns, and in D&D-land you could have stranger resources that draw settlers out into the wilderness. Perhaps the whole town is built around placating and training a collosal lake monsters that guards a hub of river trading routes.

 

[Kishin]

First Edition Brain-breaker:What do all the monsters in the dungeon eat, in between adventurers?

Fourth Edition Brain-breaker:Who do wandering merchants buy and sell from, in between adventurers?

We've come so far. (Snif)

They use the Cross-Edition Travel Ritual to sell food to the monsters in the dungeon, who pay them in the only currency they have: Phat lewts.

Eureka! I've reconciled it all!

I mean, er....

 

[DM_Blake]

Some merchants really get eaten, or how do you think the treasure is brought back into the woods where noob adventurers can find it...

seriously: merchants selling up to LVL 10 items should at least be level 15... They will have one or two items of up to Level 20 but these are their personal goods... They should have guards which are level 10 each... and then they usually should not carry more than 5 magical items with them or so...

never forget: their mission is usually to buy magical items from the adventurers, not to sell them everything they want...

Really?

I thought high levels, or really any levels worth talking about, were the sole perogative of the player characters.

Remember the whole argument about why PCs can be resurrected, but kings cannot?

Now we're saying merchants have many of the PC privileges that other commoners don't? Why can a merchant be level 15, but an innkeeper or blacksmith or baker cannot?

And where do all these level 15 merchants come from? If, as you say, all merchants should be level 15, then there were no level 14 merchants to level up. What were they doing before level 15? Adventuring? Because, evidently, they were not inkeepers, blacksmiths, or bakers.

 

[loseth]

...in D&D-land you could have stranger resources that draw settlers out into the wilderness. Perhaps the whole town is built around placating and training a collosal lake monsters that guards a hub of river trading routes.

Yeah, there's a lot of mileage in fantastic resources. My head tends to be stuck in the real middle ages, but I love reading people's ideas for more fantastic economic elements.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Really?

I thought high levels, or really any levels worth talking about, were the sole perogative of the player characters.

Remember the whole argument about why PCs can be resurrected, but kings cannot?

Now we're saying merchants have many of the PC privileges that other commoners don't? Why can a merchant be level 15, but an innkeeper or blacksmith or baker cannot?

And where do all these level 15 merchants come from? If, as you say, all merchants should be level 15, then there were no level 14 merchants to level up. What were they doing before level 15? Adventuring? Because, evidently, they were not inkeepers, blacksmiths, or bakers.

I agree. I think the "traveling merchant" set-up is pretty much limited to heroic tier. I don't expect these guys to be carting around astral diamonds or anything that would be bought with astral diamonds.

Once PCs reach paragon tier, I expect they have the resources to go easily travel and sell their stuff in exotic locations instead of depending on traveling pawnbrokers. I'm thinking that paragon level PCs might slip into the Feywild and sell their excess magic at a fairy market near an eladrin city. Or perhaps do a midnight ritual to bargain witht he lsot souls of the Shadowfell.

In epic tier, the City of Brass becomes a day trip.

 

[Jer]

I agree. I think the "traveling merchant" set-up is pretty much limited to heroic tier.

...

Once PCs reach paragon tier, I expect they have the resources to go easily travel and sell their stuff in exotic locations instead of depending on traveling pawnbrokers.

..

In epic tier, the City of Brass becomes a day trip.

I like this in general, but I'd just get rid of the "wandering merchant" business altogether, even at heroic tier. Finding a buyer for a magic item of any level actually should be pretty darn hard - you need to find someone with the money to pay for it and the interest in the item. Your average "general store owner" isn't going to have it, and I can't imagine a wandering merchant who would want to throw as much of his liquid assets into such a gamble.

Heroic tier - PCs need to travel to the far-off Free City of Greyhawk to sell anything as fantastic as a level 1-10 magic item. Or perhaps if they're really lucky (or unlucky) some local paragon-level wizard lives in the area and would be willing to "take it off their hands" (my players don't tend to encounter many "friendly" folk of higher level than they are - I wonder why that is. Hmmm...)

Paragon tier - No one in Greyhawk can afford what the PCs are trying to sell. Now they have to travel as far as Sigil in the Outlands, or the City of Brass, or Dis to find someone with the resources to buy what they're selling. If they're really lucky (or, again, unlucky) maybe some epic level archmage who lives on-world is interested in what they're trying to divest themselves of. I mean, if they don't want it anymore he's practically doing them a favor by taking it from them, isn't he?

Epic tier - Heh. If one of my players wanted to try to sell off an epic-level magic item, he'd better figure out a buyer for it himself. I'm thinking it would be like trying to find a buyer for the Hand of Vecna or the Apparatus of Kwalish - you might be able to barter it for a favor from a greater demon or a lesser god, but you're not going to find some mercane in Sigil who's going to be haggling over it in a stall. Such things just aren't done . And if I had a player come to me with that desire, it would be like he was handing me a few weeks' worth of adventures on a silver platter. Who am I to turn down such an offer?

That's probably how I'm going to do it anyway. I've never been a huge fan of "magic item shops" so such transactions have tended to occur in smoky backrooms of taverns anyway. I see no need to change that particular practice...

 

[Rykion]

Making a profit requires charging the market price + the guards wages + X

How do all the small villages afford these prices?

and charged at the places where people have the least money

People in small villages don't tend to buy luxury items. They only buy things that they can not make themselves. They also tend to buy expensive things as a community rather than as individuals. Several farmers might come together to buy an ox and plow, for example. Villagers often barter using animals, food, alcohol, and ore, but may also have cash. In a fantasy setting, the merchant may have more exotic goods to sell to magic users, intelligent creatures, etc. Some villages will have nobles with more expensive tastes as well.

 

[Mirtek]

Villages don't pay with money; they pay with grain, and villages are the place where people have the most grain. In fact, grain production is what villages exist for. This grain, in turn, can be sold by the merchants who buy it from the villages for a very good price in towns, where little or no grain is produced. This is the way that civilisation has worked for almost its entire existence.

None civilisation on earth ever had to exist in a state of darkness like the darkness found in D&D. Since grain is very important large cities would patrol their outlying farms to secure their supply.

The human history never was as dark as modern people like to portray it. To the romans ancient Germany may have seemed like an impenetrable primeval forest no man dared to walk. Yet it was nothing but a forest with nothing but animals (which, while certainly a danger to consider, are nowhere near as terrible as modern people believe them to be. Just look at all the trouble with reintroducing wolves and bears to areas where they have been wiped out long ago and all the people opposing this endeavour because of misconception) and the ancient german walked freely through their woods (because all these "bloodthirsty" animals don't have humans in their prey pattern and if you know how to handle them the threat is manageable) and visited their far-flung villages.

Or the time as a journeyman time every crafter-to-be had to complete in medieval Germany. They were required to travel far and wide throughout the country and spend time with different masters at different places. And they walked alone or in small groups and none of them were eaten by dragons, crushed by giants or lured into hell by devils.

Because RL just wasn't as dark as a D&D world, never.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I like this in general, but I'd just get rid of the "wandering merchant" business altogether, even at heroic tier. Finding a buyer for a magic item of any level actually should be pretty darn hard - you need to find someone with the money to pay for it and the interest in the item. Your average "general store owner" isn't going to have it, and I can't imagine a wandering merchant who would want to throw as much of his liquid assets into such a gamble.

"Should be" because it makes a better game or because it satisfies a narrative itch deep in your soul? I understand where you're coming from, I really do, but I also understand the frustration of players who simply want to convert their treasure to cash and get on with things they find more interesting. Taken too far, your method leads to PCs tossing magic daggers into trash heaps as a gesture of contempt. It's no longer worth the real player time effort for a small in game benefit.