How do you buy and sell magic items?

[mmadsen]

We also completely ignore the "magic items can be sold for half of their market value" rule, because it's obnoxious and doesn't make much sense in the settings we usually play in. I mean, if the market value is not in fact what the item is worth on the market, then what is it supposed to be? And why would a magic item depreciate in value, when many of them are much more durable than common items, much more rare and valuable, and possibly antiques on top of that? And why is it that PCs can never find someone who's trying to unload a magic item at half price? And if there are no magic item retailers who need to keep stock on their shelves, who exactly is getting to buy these items at wholesale prices?

The magic item doesn't depreciate. You can only sell it for half the market price because it's a highly specialized item that is quite valuable to some people and not-so-valuable to most. It takes time and energy (and quite a bit of risk) to shop around a magic item until you find someone willing to pay that market price.

After all, how much would your fighter pay for a wand of fireball? Next to nothing -- except that he knows he can sell it to a particular wizard he hangs out with. Without that unusual business connection though, he'd be buying an expensive stick.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Well, see, the flip side of that is the assumption that a character who owns an item which is rare and valuable to some people would ever prefer to sell it for less than it's worth...and that this assumption is apparently used by a lot of people to justify always making the sale price of a magic item half of its market value.

I can see it if it's a "I need the cash before sundown or Jabba the Kobold will send ten ogres to break my kneecaps" kind of situation. I can see it if it's a "I'm already richer than Croesus and I'm sick of lugging around this stupid Apparatus of Kwalish" thing. But, man, those are the fringe cases, not the default situation. (Unless, of course, the setting has magic stores or magic item bazaars, in which case I can see a healthy "used item" market springing up. Come to Crazy Akbar's New and Used Magic Emporium! We buy and trade!)

That's not usually how our games go, so we ignore the half-price rule, like I said. The GM knows what items the PCs are trying to sell. He knows where they're trying to sell it. He knows whether there could be anyone in that area who might be interested in buying that item. He also, perhaps more significantly, knows that he can get PCs to pay more than the market value for some items, knows how much money they're going to walk away with and what they're likely to spend it on, knows how much time the PCs are willing to take looking for buyers, and he knows how much actual game time he wants to spend dealing with selling items. There's no mystery there from the GM's perspective.

So if the party has an item they can't use and they're trying to unload it someplace where no one else would actually want it, what usually happens is the GM saying "You can't find anyone willing to pay what it's worth," thereby putting the ball back in the players' court. If they want to say that they slash the asking price in half to just try and get rid of it, it's their call. If they don't, they can keep carrying it around until they get someplace where a reasonable buyer might be found. Simple and easy, and it doesn't make players wonder why they're never finding anyone selling a bunch of barely-used +1 weapons for half-price, since lord knows they end up doing it every fourth game session.

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but if you're happier the other way, that's your problem and not mine, right?