How easy is it to SELL magic items in your game?

[Li Shenron]

A common topic on these boards is how easy it is to BUY magic items. Let's talk about the obviously related topic of SELLING your excess loot. How do you do it?

IMXP nearly all DMs allow selling at any time (as long as the characters aren't in a desert or similar), although they use the "sell loot for 50% value" principle.

Do you just allow "sell and forget"?
Do you use the gp limit by population guidelines?
Do you impose any other restriction, such as some time delay before finding a customer?

I often think it could be fun to be forced to use some of the random treasure, like a weird weapon or not-obvious scrolls/potions/wands. Also, a realistic character might not always want to put all his wealth into one set of adventuring equipment, in case it might get lost/stolen/damaged; it would make sense to keep some interesting weapons as backups.

But unfortunately most of the time our characters just find too many rings of protection, cloaks of resistance, and +1 weapons, which means there is no possible creative use of multiple copies of them, and it's always better to convert all excess loot into more money.

Anybody has a nice idea about this?

 

[delericho]

Do you use the gp limit by population guidelines?

That's what I do.

 

[3d6]

In the games I run, if you're in a large enough city (as given by the DMG town gold limit guidelines) you say "I'm selling magic items X, Y, and Z", and you exchange the magic items for gold equal to 50% of their price. (I abstract all buying and selling, on the principle that shopping is boring.)

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I usually let them just sell everything, at half price.

Note that when you start making it hard to sell things at half market price, they might get it into their head that since they can't get rid of everything in one fell swoop, they might set up their own shop and sell everything at full price.

 

[shilsen]

Depending where they are, selling can be quite easy. In my Eberron game, the PCs are in Sharn, the most advanced city on the continent, so selling is quite easy. Since they also happen to have a wide network of NPC contacts and are members of mage orders and adventuring guilds, I usually give them around 60-70% when selling magic items, since their contacts help them get a better deal.

 

[Li Shenron]

Note that when you start making it hard to sell things at half market price, they might get it into their head that since they can't get rid of everything in one fell swoop, they might set up their own shop and sell everything at full price.

If they can't sell quickly it's because there's no customer, how can they have a better time rising the price?

 

[Nifft]

Big cities aren't all that hard to find IMC, and the PCs can easily sell their stuff for half price at the magic item auction houses (which are this world's equivalent to Southeby's and Christie's).

-- N

 

[diaglo]

what's a magic item?

selling to someone you trust or that trusts you about the magic properties of an item works okay.

trying to pawn a magic sword off on a blacksmith is gonna get you the haggled value of a good sword. not a magic value/price. unless you can demonstrate the properties of the sword.

 

[Umbran]

Depends what they're trying to sell. There certainly aren't any shops dedicated to such in my world. And cities with GP limits high enough to do this casually are not common.

So, rather than sell, most often things are traded. Magic items work more on a barter economy than outright purchase.

 

[XO]

Variable

Some small communities may have ample resources while some cities can be relatively poor.

The guidelines for communities' wealth per pop are guidelines.

Magis is an essential aspect of life and commerce. Selling items is readily accomplished.

Reputation (not necessarily as per a contrived number, but more local view of the seller), manners and leadership (Cha and social skills), integration to local institutions, resident or passing through, regular customer (seller / buyer), all of these have an influence on paid price.

Range is 50 to 80% of nominal value. Less than 50% CAN be offered in hostile areas / from hostile merchants.