D&D 5E (2014) How much for a Wand of Sleep?

[Krachek]

I think that a wand of sheep can be more useful than the wand of sleep.
So a sheep is worth 2 gp. 6 sheeps portable and ready to use worth ten time the value of the actual sheep. I would guess 120 gold.

 

[John R Davis]

Actually a wand where you transfer the sheep, goats, cows, into the wand. Deliver wand. Reverse spell would make for easy movement of livestock to market

 

[NotAYakk]

That works out well. I decided on 500 gp at the moment based on what little I could find. That allows the buyer to re-sell for a profit.

Sounds good.

So, I remember the time before the internet. Take something as commodity as MtG cards.

The value of a card would vary from place to place. Eventually someone started publishing a magazine with "standard prices". It was also naughty word.

There was no functioning global market in cards, so there was no global price.

In 5e, that is presumed also to be the case. Not only that, but magic items aren't supposed to be so common that there is a standard price for them even locally.

Regardless of the intentions in 5e, there's no way something like that wouldn't be bought and sold, so guidelines would really be helpful. It actually gives the group just enough to buy passage to somewhere they need to get to, so it works out well.

There are! Items have rarities, and those rarities have large price ranges.

Those price ranges should not be taken seriously.

I mean, even a +1 vs +2 sword. Suppose you are in-world. What tools can you use to distinguish between them? One of them is sharper and stronger and easier to swing, but that is very qualitative.

The +1 sword with a fancier pedigree and more impressive runes could easily be considered the "more powerful" sword and be "worth" more to some buyer.

I'm sure there might be a school of enchantment in some corner of the world that develops an objective measurement system, but that is going to be exactly one place, done by a few magical nerds, and being nerds there is going to be 7 competing systems developed by 4 different people who all think the others are fundamentally wrong.

---

If they want to sell the wand of sleep, it is a small adventure hook. Finding a buyer, making sure they aren't being cheated, maybe even the form of payment.

Like, someone finds a noble with insomnia who is willing to pay for it, but is low on liquid assets; they are willing to sell you a herd of cows for it, including an prize winning bull.

That herd of cows and the bull is worth decent money, but only if delivered to a nearby city.

And so it goes.

 

[Stormonu]

That works out well. I decided on 500 gp at the moment based on what little I could find. That allows the buyer to re-sell for a profit.

Regardless of the intentions in 5e, there's no way something like that wouldn't be bought and sold, so guidelines would really be helpful. It actually gives the group just enough to buy passage to somewhere they need to get to, so it works out well.

I don't see an issue with selling it off, and there's nothing wrong with just doing the transaction and hand-waving it, but I'd take a moment to consider who might have enough wealth to buy something like this. If common professionals are making something like 1 gp per week/month/whenever, you're looking at really well-to-do individuals with the spare cash to take this off the PC's hands (and what are these individuals going to think of PCs if they are essentially mercenary vagabonds or heavily armed freeman?); if its other adventurers, consider they'd only be as reliable as the PCs are if they were in the same situation. Finally, the tax man might overlook the party's antics out in the barren wilderness, but doing a 500 gp sale in town is probably going to garner some attention.

Another thing to consider - are they even in the right area for someone to have the fee to pay for the item? They may need to hit up a local lord or travel to a large town/city to ensure a sale - or if they don't have time for travel, rely on an intermediatery to conduct the transaction for them.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

All this discussion makes me think of a moral quandary that might be fun to explore. What if, during the sale and negotiations, the party discovers that they are selling the Wand to a thieves guild that plan to use it to knock out some guards to rob a castle, or an assassin doing much the same?

 

[NotAYakk]

All this discussion makes me think of a moral quandary that might be fun to explore. What if, during the sale and negotiations, the party discovers that they are selling the Wand to a thieves guild that plan to use it to knock out some guards to rob a castle, or an assassin doing much the same?

I know. Think of the opportunity lost.

 

[hopeless]

Or plan to use it on a dragon unaware that it simply wouldn't work and might result in that dragon leaving its lair and ravaging the country in search of the thieves and especially targeting any settlements who would be completely unaware of the threat flying towards them?

 

[Tom Bagwell]

I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. They're rather desperately trying to find out why someone is trying to kill them (or one of them, at least), and I don't want to throw a wrench into the momentum. The person attacking them (and her henchmen) made a tactical error leading to their escape. They came across one of the henchmen out searching for them (the henchmen were armed with Wands of Sleep because they needed to take down a large group of bystanders). The group killed him and took the wand. Selling the wand lets them buy passage on a ship to their destination rather than spending a couple more weeks on the road, and makes them harder to intercept. So, it was a good idea...I just was trying to get a handle on if it was enough for passage and how much they might have left.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. They're rather desperately trying to find out why someone is trying to kill them (or one of them, at least), and I don't want to throw a wrench into the momentum. The person attacking them (and her henchmen) made a tactical error leading to their escape. They came across one of the henchmen out searching for them (the henchmen were armed with Wands of Sleep because they needed to take down a large group of bystanders). The group killed him and took the wand. Selling the wand lets them buy passage on a ship to their destination rather than spending a couple more weeks on the road, and makes them harder to intercept. So, it was a good idea...I just was trying to get a handle on if it was enough for passage and how much they might have left.

Then your 500gp was pretty spot-on, taken as an average price that it's worth. I absolutely agree that while it's always nice to have stories built in to every little thing, sometimes a writer's gotta kill her babies. Sometimes you just have to move on with the story you're telling. Trading it for passage and a bag of coin (worth a total of 500gp) ought to do it.

 

[BlivetWidget]

The wand ought to be an Uncommon Magic item, which the DMG lists as costing about 500gp to craft. So someone ought to pay anywhere between 250gp and 750gp

FWIW, I feel like the rules in Xanathar's are more thought out. But for reference:

DMG129 says crafting an uncommon magic item costs 500 gp.
DMG130 says selling an uncommon magic item is generally for 500 gp (see what I mean, the laws of economics here would mean nobody would ever craft anything unless they needed it themselves).

XGE128 says crafting an uncommon magic item costs 200 gp.
XGE133 says selling an uncommon magic item is generally for 400 gp.

Halve all values for consumables, of course.