Level Advancement and In-Campaign Time

[Uller]

I've heard this one before, and it's fine on the surface - but collapses when exposed to any sort of in-setting logic.

Without going into great deatil (I've done this elsewhere in other threads), the short form is that unless your PCs are the only active PC-like adventurers in the setting* there's going to be other parties out there occasionally finding magic items...and not always will they be of use. Similarly, your own PCs are likely to find items over time that they can't or won't use, and want to part with. Trade between said parties in these items is the logical and expected outcome here; which will result in perceived item values being compared against each other and - eventually - to some sort of agreed-upon default value system coming into place**.

* - and if they are, where do any replacement PCs come from and how did they earn their xp and-or (particularly magic - where did that come from) wealth?
** - and unless your PCs are the first adventurers the setting has seen, these steps will have long since already taken place

"No need to" ends the moment one of your PCs tries to sell (or even give away!) a magic item.

Lanefan

I agree...If an NPCs can hire the PCs to go find the fabled "Blade of Mysteries" for 5000 gp or in exchange for some favor that is the NPC effectively buying a magic item. If an NPC can do it, the PCs can do it and that means there is a market for it. You don't need a magic Walmart....but downtime and the scads of wealth PCs tend to end up with are two good resources the PCs should be able to use to gain limited access to magic items in a world where they exist and can be made or acquired through adventuring/scavenging.

 

[5ekyu]

I like how Adventures in Middle Earth handles this.

The default assumption is that adventures may happen once or twice a year, with downtime, called the Fellowship Phase, in between adventures. The Fellowship phase has some options for downtime activity that can have quite the impact on the character.

in default 5e it takes about 30 standard Adventuring Days to get to 20th level. In Default AiME that becomes 15-30 years, which is more the pace that I prefer.

My only problem with that last paragraph is it could mislead some into thinking you were comparing passages of time.

Certainly years is a measure of time but a standard adventuring day is a measure of significant encounters and rests, maybe weeks or months each with potential for downtime between, not the same in any way as a day (in the context of day week years)

Like a chapter in a book or episode in a season of TV, an adventuring day is not meant as a standard time measurement to be compared to years or months.

I wish they had used any non-time term like chapter, episode, event as the wrapper term for their simple baseline that way too many see as a requirement, not an example.

 

[Salthorae]

I'm not sure what you mean by "logical" here. A chain of reasoning can be logical (or not), but that quote is just a series of assertions. Do you mean that you can imagine a (D&D) world in which those particular assertions are true. I'm sure that's the case, but that seems like faint praise.

What strikes me is that those assertions are wildly inconsistent with the other tidbits of economic assumptions scattered in the PHB and DMG. There are enough people that can afford 75 gp for a horse, but not enough who can afford between 100-500 for a +1 sword?? Yes, you would have to be somewhat better off to go for the luxury of that sword, but in order for the to be "no market", you have to whittle potential buyers down to a tiny fraction of 1% of the population. So sure, magic items might be effectively priceless, but a bunch of other things are going to have to change to make that plausible.

And? That accurately reflects the buying power relative to populace in medieval Europe which is the baseline for *most* D&D settings.

A horse or an ox was a huge sum of money to most people and they would scrimp and save to buy a new one when the existing was getting older.

I think your conception of the modern middle class and the buying power that Western people have in the modern era is really coloring your perception of what a D&D world should look like from a commerce perspective.

My base assumptions and that of the core books, I think, is that most of the items are priced in the PHB high because a craftsman may only sell a few, maybe a dozen a year, so they are expensive. Not because every schmo out there can afford a 10 gp shortsword and the sword smith is cranking out 4000 a year.

DMG downtime rules for running a smithy (where a sword would be made) shows that if you spend 30 days working on the business you have a reasonable chance of earning between 7-21 gp per MONTH. So a normal craftsman would have to use that money for his and his families upkeep (lifestyle). Let’s say comfortable for a family of 5, that leaves him with -3 to 11 gp per month to save. Why would he save for 10-50 months and waste that on a +1 sword even if it were available? Keep in mind that is a business getting in the 80th % on the check. Below that and you’re not making money after upkeep.

And most wealthy don’t deal in coin. They deal in rights to a shipment or land or property. So you might be able to trade a magic item to a nobleman for a keep or a title or something. But you’re not going to get just straight gp. Most besides adventurers don’t have that kind of liquid gp just laying around.

So could there be a magic item economy? In my world maybe, if you find the right person for the right item and it doesn’t get stolen first while you’re shopping. But you aren’t getting gp, you’re getting other things, goods, lands, properties, club membership, a tavern, etc.

That’s my worlds anyway, and how I think the core books see it.

 

[BookBarbarian]

My only problem with that last paragraph is it could mislead some into thinking you were comparing passages of time.

Certainly years is a measure of time but a standard adventuring day is a measure of significant encounters and rests, maybe weeks or months each with potential for downtime between, not the same in any way as a day (in the context of day week years)

Like a chapter in a book or episode in a season of TV, an adventuring day is not meant as a standard time measurement to be compared to years or months.

I wish they had used any non-time term like chapter, episode, event as the wrapper term for their simple baseline that way too many see as a requirement, not an example.

Good points.

I have found that my standard adventuring day in 5e is pretty typically a day, and my standard adventuring day in AiME is much harder to qualify since the Journey and Fellowship phases are abstracted. In the Adventuring Phase it's probably 2 days to a week for a "Adventuring Day" but even then there is the chance of already having spent resources in the Journey phase that we haven't recovered.