Tim Hubick
First Post
i have a Q for you guys. do you give out full price to your players when they are selling their magic items? or is it only 1/2 or a 1/4 of the value that you give out?
Magic item values and buying/selling Q
It depends, but never 100%. The only ones selling for 100% price (or more) are merchants. Those prices in the books are for retailers, and they have overhead. They have to make a profit.
If I think the magic item in question is relatively common in the area, I give them 25-50%. If its rarer than that, I give 50-75%. Maybe 90% if there's some special reason to do so.
And of course, if they're in a small town and no merchants are passing through at the time, they may only get offered coppers on the GP for value because nobody could afford it anyway.
If I think the magic item in question is relatively common in the area, I give them 25-50%. If its rarer than that, I give 50-75%. Maybe 90% if there's some special reason to do so.
And of course, if they're in a small town and no merchants are passing through at the time, they may only get offered coppers on the GP for value because nobody could afford it anyway.
delericho
Legend
For a long time I used 100%, until I reread the rules and discovered I'd been doing it wrong. 
Thereafter, I used the standard 50% for quite some time.
For more most recent campaign (now a few years back), I switched to 20% for sold equipment, including magic items. I also started giving out much more magical treasure, but made sure to specifically avoid giving out the perfectly-optimised "Big Six" items - so the players had a choice: they could either stick with what they found or they could sell it to buy the optimised items and end up with less treasure, taken as a raw numerical value. That actually worked very well.
Thereafter, I used the standard 50% for quite some time.For more most recent campaign (now a few years back), I switched to 20% for sold equipment, including magic items. I also started giving out much more magical treasure, but made sure to specifically avoid giving out the perfectly-optimised "Big Six" items - so the players had a choice: they could either stick with what they found or they could sell it to buy the optimised items and end up with less treasure, taken as a raw numerical value. That actually worked very well.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I generally give out 50%, though occasionally with a little bit of shifting depending on the item and market in question and how thoroughly we play out any search for buyers and transactions. 50% works out to be a convenient abstract value to use to represent quick sell-offs and bookkeeping. Plus, it dovetails well with the magic item creation discount.
A
amerigoV
Guest
I used to use the 50% in 3.x as written.
Now I would take this approach that I found from another system if I still ran D&D: Its 25%, but with an appropriate roll (more along the lines of Gather Information from 3.x) you can get it up to 50%. If you are really generous and they have an awesome roll, bump it up to 75%.
Oddly enough, the system I got it from does not use a barter-eqse/diplomacy/persuasion type skill for this activity. Really the PCs need to find the best buyer in the overall market since this is not an efficient market. So its less about haggling with that particular merchant than finding someone in the overall market that is willing to give you more money. I thought it was an interesting approach. Its kinda like buying or selling a used car - if you really want a much better price you have to do a bunch of leg work, not just haggle with the guy in front of you.
Now I would take this approach that I found from another system if I still ran D&D: Its 25%, but with an appropriate roll (more along the lines of Gather Information from 3.x) you can get it up to 50%. If you are really generous and they have an awesome roll, bump it up to 75%.
Oddly enough, the system I got it from does not use a barter-eqse/diplomacy/persuasion type skill for this activity. Really the PCs need to find the best buyer in the overall market since this is not an efficient market. So its less about haggling with that particular merchant than finding someone in the overall market that is willing to give you more money. I thought it was an interesting approach. Its kinda like buying or selling a used car - if you really want a much better price you have to do a bunch of leg work, not just haggle with the guy in front of you.
Greenfield
Adventurer
Whisper72
Explorer
It depends upon the 'class' of item. Real magical items are rare in my campaigns, often unique items.
I distinguish several categories:
- charms and talismans: low level items providing limited boosts to skills / stats / powers of provide protections etc. Many rings fall in this category. These can be sold for ~25-50% off of the 'new price' you would pay the maker
- potions: 50-75% off what you would pay the maker
- enchanted items: also most weapons and armor that have a + or items that can perform spell-like powers: these are items that have been improved upon using magical processes or impbued with spell like powers bound to the item. the item itself is not truly magical and disenchantment and similar magics will turn it back into a 'regular' (usually masterwork) piece. These can be sold for 50-75% off what you would pay the maker.
- wands/staves also fall in the category of enchanted items, but here the charges remaining strongly determine the remaining resale price
- artifacts: real magical items. No matter what you do to them, they remain magical (unless you manage to destroy them). These need not be all-powerful. The price is 100-200%, sometimes even more then the 'listed' price because of its nature
- relics: items which channel / are powered by divine power. In many cases only function for people of the correct religion / belief. Worth a lot to the right buyer, but possession of a relic by an infidel makes it hard to sell, as the interested party most likely simply wants to kill you and take your stuff....
I distinguish several categories:
- charms and talismans: low level items providing limited boosts to skills / stats / powers of provide protections etc. Many rings fall in this category. These can be sold for ~25-50% off of the 'new price' you would pay the maker
- potions: 50-75% off what you would pay the maker
- enchanted items: also most weapons and armor that have a + or items that can perform spell-like powers: these are items that have been improved upon using magical processes or impbued with spell like powers bound to the item. the item itself is not truly magical and disenchantment and similar magics will turn it back into a 'regular' (usually masterwork) piece. These can be sold for 50-75% off what you would pay the maker.
- wands/staves also fall in the category of enchanted items, but here the charges remaining strongly determine the remaining resale price
- artifacts: real magical items. No matter what you do to them, they remain magical (unless you manage to destroy them). These need not be all-powerful. The price is 100-200%, sometimes even more then the 'listed' price because of its nature
- relics: items which channel / are powered by divine power. In many cases only function for people of the correct religion / belief. Worth a lot to the right buyer, but possession of a relic by an infidel makes it hard to sell, as the interested party most likely simply wants to kill you and take your stuff....
Quick sale is typically 1/5 to 1/2. If the item is rare & the PCs put the effort in to find a buyer, I could imagine giving 100%. If you have the only Wand of Fireballs in the kingdom and an enemy army is approaching the Duke's castle, I could see him paying over 100% for that wand.
This is an excellent point, and if I ran a game in which this were the case, I would probably follow similar logic.
