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

[Himoura]

In our games I'm usually the one walking around with any particular unindentified weapon, since I'm playing an incarnate all i have to do is have a weapon in hand to help with flanking, while i use my acid spit or my mantle of flame.

I think at one time I was walking around with a 3 weapons that nobody wanted, a halbred, a great sword of some kind and a mace. when we got around to IDing them we gave the halbred to some clerics or another to be destoryed and sold the other 2.

We generally sell for 50% and depends on the item, say if its common we can generally get it, but not always, so i guess our DM more or less has the population in mind, I've even seen him roll to see if the local wizard would even know the spell or have the feat.

Generally selling / loot dividing / buying / creating is done between adventures as it all takes time, especially the creating magic items.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I have some RP involved in buying and selling items, especially the more powerful things that make people nervous or that simply require a powerful caster.

I handle item sales on a variable time basis. Larger cities will have a more frequent check to reflect the odds that an interested buyer might wander into town or acquire funds they lacked before. Major cities get checks weekly, smaller towns monthly and thorps quarterly. If they get lucky, someone's already asked the guild for that particular item and it can be sold almost immediately. Other items may take a while to sell.

Most of the magic item market is handled by the mage's guilds (think Krynn's Towers of High Sorcery). The guild acts as a clearing house, connecting buyers with sellers while providing a degree of anonymity. The guild gets a cut (part of the markup) but takes a smaller bite from guild members on both the buying and the selling, making guild membership valuable (buy at 85%, sell at 75%)

The Churches (note the capital letter, this refers to the major organization not individual parishes) have their own magic item market but it tends towards more of a loan than a sale, with the exception of certain "public good' items (e.g. potions of curing). Items for sale are disposed of through the mages' guild who wisely treats all local clergy as guildmembers in return for divine favors. With a letter of introduction from the local priest, traveling clerics are extended those same privileges.

The party also has the option of selling their item to a dealer. Dealers are rare, primarily being merchant houses that have the resources to protect magic items and enough various agents to find buyers across a wide area. Dealers provide immediate cash but at a low value. (This is the 50% sale value)

There are two major festivals in the campaign's home region that involve auctions of valuable items, including magic. These have a variable pricing that's pretty much take-it-or-leave-it but are generally more profitable than the above process. Since one happens in spring and the other fall, it requires a long campaign timeline to make them worthwhile.

The party can also open a storefront, which requires some upfront fees to the locals and of course, maintaining security. The party has at times done so during the festivals to offload large quantities of common non-magical loot, such as the dozens of swords, shields and suits of armor one gathers from wiping out a bandit tribe.

Note that while I have the various sources for magical items available, the majority of times the party has to commission items from mages or clerics, going through the guild or the Churches.

I don't make it an all-day affair on purpose but at times the party tends to go a bit wild with the shopping after a major windfall and, if they are in need of maximum return, they will exert RP effort to achieve the greater cash return of the more complex process. By giving the party options of different methods of sale with the more RP-intensive ones being the greatest, if not fastest, return, it allows them to get as involved as they feel appropriate.

As far as the "time away from killing beasties" goes, my group has just as much fun arranging for a festival as they do a good slugfest. I don't force my players to have a particular play style; I'm flexible from hack'n slash to a mostly social campaign. They tend to choose the amount of combat they experience by deciding what to focus their time on. I occassionaly ambush them to remind them about their unresolved enemy problems but those ambushes tend to happen only after a couple of combat-free game sessions. Yes, I said "multiple combat-free game sessions." Completely at the players' whims. If they wanted combat, they have more than enough known enemies they could pursue.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

In my games, I use a (fairly) simple system based on the price of the for-sale item, the GP limit of the community that they are in, and a Gather Information check.

The player makes a Gather Information check. The DC of the check is determined by the price of the item as it compares to the GP limit of the community (a higher GP limit makes for a lower check, while a higher price makes for a higher check). You can sell an item that is worth more than the community's gp limit, but the check is pretty darn high. A check that is one or more multiples of the DC indicates multiple potential buyers. A successful check means that the player has found a buyer. A check that fails, but within 5 (or 10, I don't remember) points has found someone who knows a likely buyer in another (larger) community. A check that fails by more than that indicates that no buyer has been found. This check takes one day and can be retried.

The player can then decide if he wants to haggle (which recieves a bonus per potential buyer beyond the first) over the price. If he chooses not to haggle, he makes the sale (which may or may not include some role-playing, depending upon the player's preference), earning 50% of the value of the loot. If he does decide to haggle, he makes a Diplomacy check, which can raise or lower the amount that he makes of of the sale (generally by 1% per point that he succeeds or fails on the check by). This, again, may or may not include some In Character haggling or wheedling, as the player prefers.

This system is generally only used for 'expensive' loot. That is, loot that has a combined value of 1000 gp or more. As the characters attain higher levels, the 'expensive' threshold gets raised for the sake of simplicity.

Later
silver

 

[Twowolves]

Instead of just cashing in for X ammount of gp, many times these excess items are "donated" to a patron of some sort. I track the gp value of the donation, and then in turn later on down the road the PCs can "cash in" on their accumulated goodwill and get something in return, like spellcasting or an item or land or a title. Instead of dealing strictly in coinage.

 

[howandwhy99]

How much of this do you actually roleplay out and how much do you just narrate?

It is roleplayed or narrated and is as fast or slow as the Players prefer. I'm guessing most players don't mind spending a little time trading items they don't want for new ones. It's like finding a treasure hoard, but having to trade for pieces.

For real speed, trade can be purely mechanical. 50% value of the items given for full cost of those received. The difference is explained as the PCs being in the weaker bargaining position.

We have a House Rule that Appraise and, less so, Bluff affect that final 50% sale price.

For any NPC with magic items to trade I have a list of personal items on hand or at least a reference to a larger list of unique items I've made. DMG items are certainly possible too.

In all cases, it's a simple d% roll with GP limit to determine availability. The roll is affected by all sorts of stuff, but is generally specific to the buyer and desired object. I like this as it can take into account the buyer's history, contacts, wealth, area of expertise, etc., as well as the rarity, cultural background, cost, etc. of the item.

Extrapolating from the quick to the drawn out is easy. The system above is built for maximum flexibility and realism.

And like a lot of management RP, this can be done online too.

 

[Ibram]

Selling magic items IMC is much easier then buying them, as magic items are not as common is in the RAW.

the first thing to look at is the wealth level of the place you are selling the item. The hammlet of White Pig is probably not going to be able to match the base 1/2 creation cost (though it was funny when a farmer offered a player 2 hens and a basket of eggs for a magical axe 'cause it'd make a right fine axe for cuttin' wood). This is not as much a problem in a major city.

I have always considered the cost of the identificaton to be already encluded in the sell price, this is often done by either the buyer or a neutral magic user. The price is usualy 1/4 creation cost, then diplomacy (and other cha based skills) can raise it up. An average roll will net you 1/2 creation cost, while a good roll can reach up to 2/3 creation cost.

some magic items are well known enough that they can be handed in to interested parties. the lost sword of King Uramod would be far more valuable to his decendents then some random party.

 

[Zendragon]

My players love buying and selling. Generally the 50% rule. Exotic and rare can be up to 75%. They trade items and if the party is trading in more then they are getting, then the left over is given in gold and gems. They usually try to have something crafted with the extra gold. I allow others to make the items, but the PC's pay the XP.

 

[Rothe]

Selling? Easy as pie. Of course by law you may have to offer it to the local authorities first, and accept their "reasonable" offer. After taxes are taken out the autorities may have enough gold on hand or they issue a letter of credit. You trust them don't you? Expressing uncertainty about the financial stablity of the kingdom is sedition you know. So gp limits by population are nver a problem.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Over in This thread is a good idea of how to manage the availability of magic items, as well as the availability of someone to purchase that item. In a world where Wal-Magic doesn't exist the buying and selling of items that are worth more than the typical average income should not be a simple hand-wave.. YMMV of course.

I like it because it offers a use for that pesky Gather Info skill and provides potential plot hooks.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Selling magical loot? In ThoughtBubbleland such a thing is unheard of! Gold coins are a scarse and rare commodity and the sight of a handful is enough to send most men's sense scattering. The thought that someone could simply handily exchange an ancestral weapon for a pile of money, or that there are piles of tens of thousands of gold lying around is crazy. Kings don't have that kind of money on hand, let alone merchants or adventurers!

Rather, those values in the DMG form a sort of point value that the DM uses to determine how good the player's gear should be each level.

How does the player get said gear, or get rid of their old, unneeded items? Associations. So, your +1 keen longsword has been replaced with a +2 flaming longsword. What do you do? You give it to the king. "Your magesty, I wish to present you with a gift. This is bitey, my faithful longsword. He has guarded my side for many a battle, and I hope he may bring your family the safety he has brought me." The king would nod sagely at this. And then, perhaps he'd say something like. "Good sir Dudezor, you have served this court nobly and well. I wish to give you this shield Blockey. Blocky belonged to my former guard captain and sword master. I believe you honor its legacy."

In short, it's like a line of credit. When you give your associate the item, the gold value of the item was put into credit. This was sampled from to make a purchase for his new gear, in this case, a shield. It implies that people have connections less into money, and more into stuff and friends. It also means that you'll want to make extravagant gifts of this stuff and connect yourself to powerful patrons. And those tie into further adventures pretty easily.

I like this method. It ties PCs into large orginizations (or singularly powerful individuals), and gets rid of the gigantic piles of gold that needs to be hauled around. It does require some clear OOC discussion of what people expect and how to get it, but I also find that to be a plus.