D&D 5E magic items prices

[SkidAce]

I think we will. The fix could be as simple as bumping the rarity of all magic items down one category, with currently "common" magic items being available in shops like most other commodities.

That's an interesting idea.

 

[SkidAce]

Let's talk behaviors like greed. Some (many) people are greedy. They will do anything to make a buck. Including buying, stealing, and selling magic items. It's normal human behavior. Any DM who says "PCs cannot buy or sell magic items in my world" is creating a bizarro world that goes against type. Some players don't really understand such a campaign. They'll play in the game, but it won't make a lot of sense. In order to placate the fact that it doesn't make sense, a DM might say "magic items are rare and special, that's the reason they cannot be bought or sold". On the surface, this might satisfy some players or at least allow them to ignore the incongruity. But for other players, it still sounds like total BS. The very fact that they are rare and special means that they should be in even MORE demand. Supply and demand. Economics 101.

Another thoughtful post.

My method to instill some sense to the "incongruities" is the "secrets of making those items have been lost since the time of the Asusras, etc."

Now, like you say, suppose the players find a Fire Wand of the Asuras, since they are so rare, demand will be HIGH. So can the players sell it? Of course.

Could they have heard about a Fire Wand of the Asuras and searched til they found the owner and asked to buy it (or steal it in the case of my players). Of course.


However, going with this method (which allows for the wheelers and dealers, black market, king might have one, scenarios) precludes the establishment of places that would create such items, as would naturally happen with supply and demand. They would like to, but they can't.

"Well Bobikus, I got this idea, we'll make millions of gold by creating XXX...get your alchemy set together." - fighter.
"Sorry Julico, nobody knows how to create those, the last wizard that tried...died." - wizard.


Lastly, there is a "market" for alchemical and some common items. Those some folks still know how to make.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Caveat: personal viewpoint.
You have to not think about eberron from an adventurer's viewpoint and more from a setting viewpoint. Yes eberron is a very broad magic setting. I use broad rather than high purposefully here. There is magic everywhere but it is utilitarian magic. Lightning rails and airships are huge endeavors that aren't reproduced all the time. Most of a PC's magic items are highly specialized, not the sort of stuff that you find floating around everywhere. Why create a couple of magic swords that can only be wielded by a few people and give make them only slightly more capable when you can create a magic cart to carry your troops into battle faster. Or a self propelled battering ram. Or even an everflowing fountain in the town square so that the city would never run out of water (very handy in a siege). The utalitarian flying stuff only works in air zones like Sharn. A flying carpet works everywhere so it's a rare, special item.

Perhaps it could help to think of it from a modern perspective. Our magic is everywhere. Self-cleaning ovens, vacuum cleaners, mixers, cars, motorcycles, streetlights, telephones, tv's, etc. PC's are the ones running around with advanced tech from a spy movie. Stuff that isn't just pumped out of any old factory. It's all custom made and extremely expensive.

That's how I look at it anyway; I know it won't fit everyone's vision but it works for me.

Eberron, in their history, just came out of a continent-wide conflict in which magic was used to such a degree that sentient golems were thrown at each other in massive quantities. One nation even deployed massive armies of undead. That's why Eberron has so few high-level spellcasters; most of them died in the war. And those armies were making use of magical weapons on a level that most 3E campaigns never approached.

So, from an setting viewpoint, there is still magic that adventurers can use everywhere. A lot of weapons from the war remain, and there are people who produce military-oriented magic items constantly (another part of the setting is that they're also gearing up for the next war). Plus, when the city of Sharn was detailed, shops where adventurers could buy magical items were detailed quite frequently. If you need a +1 magical sword, you didn't have to go digging in a tomb; you could head down to your local magic shop and buy a military surplus weapon. Or buy a newly-produced +1 sword.

 

[KarinsDad]

Another thoughtful post.

My method to instill some sense to the "incongruities" is the "secrets of making those items have been lost since the time of the Asusras, etc."

Now, like you say, suppose the players find a Fire Wand of the Asuras, since they are so rare, demand will be HIGH. So can the players sell it? Of course.

Could they have heard about a Fire Wand of the Asuras and searched til they found the owner and asked to buy it (or steal it in the case of my players). Of course.


However, going with this method (which allows for the wheelers and dealers, black market, king might have one, scenarios) precludes the establishment of places that would create such items, as would naturally happen with supply and demand. They would like to, but they can't.

"Well Bobikus, I got this idea, we'll make millions of gold by creating XXX...get your alchemy set together." - fighter.
"Sorry Julico, nobody knows how to create those, the last wizard that tried...died." - wizard.


Lastly, there is a "market" for alchemical and some common items. Those some folks still know how to make.

This all sounds reasonable as well, but it introduces a new wrinkle.


In a world where PCs and NPCs can craft the more powerful magic items, I agree with you that buying and selling makes sense. The safest way for NPCs to acquire items is to craft them and the PCs can use either or both methods.


In a world where PCs and NPCs can no longer craft the more powerful magic items (or crafting the more powerful items becomes cost and time prohibitive), the scenario changes. Supply is cut. Demand is still high. So in such a world, the rich and powerful NPCs would still want those items and would hoard them. But in addition to this, they would hire out both PC and NPC adventurers (explorers, mini-armies, whatever) to go out and acquire the items for them. It would not just be adventurers acquiring the items for themselves, rather an entire market of hirelings would be created.

Like in real world gold or diamond mines, wealthy patrons would hire other people to go do the grunt work and the wealthy patrons would reap the benefits. In the case of fantasy world magic item acquisition, adventurers / hirelings would take the risk and the nobility / wealthy merchants / wealthy clergy would reap the rewards: PC competitors (which could make for some really interesting adventures as more than one group tries for the same goal in the same dungeon / adventuring locale).


The issues with this are twofold:

1) Most NPC / PC adventurers would want the magic items for themselves. They would not want to give them to the nobility. Most of them should be freelance.

2) Players of PCs cannot buy magic items with their hard earned gold pieces. So, it removes a reason to go adventuring. Once the PC has enough money to retire, many PCs (not the players of those PCs) should want to retire. They cannot gain more magic without adventuring and they have tons of gold already. Alternatively, for PCs whose motivation is to acquire more and more powerful items in order to become more and more powerful, their gold is mostly useless to purchase items. So instead, in such a world, such PCs should be incentivized to hire their own adventuring parties. They have a ton of gold. Why take all of the risks when there might not be any magic items in a given dungeon? If the PC has a ton of gold, why not do what the nobility in such a world is doing and hire others to go adventuring for you?


So yes, a DM can give a rationale (like the art of crafting powerful items has been lost) for why magic item buying and selling doesn't work in a given campaign, but the NPCs of his campaign should then behave in relationship to that reason. The laws of supply and demand should still be effect if the DM is attempting to model normal human behaviors.

And, this sounds like a great campaign. The reason for no magic item shops is legit. And there are boatloads of NPC adventuring groups (or small armies) out looking for the same stuff as PCs. And when the PCs wipe out the small army, the Prince declares them outlaws and puts a price on their heads. Sweet!


But just removing buying and selling magic items as per the DMG, not having a good set of optional rules for those tables that do not want to do that, and saying that this makes magic items special seems a bit lacking and not well thought out. It's just a preference and one that without additional campaign framework seems subpar.

 

[SkidAce]

Its also a matter of how far a given group/DM want to take the ripple effect of "sensible real world polices".

Some groups more, some groups less. Some pick and choose what real stuff they like and handwave the remainder.

We, for example, don't worry about weapon breakage or armor degradation. (this is not a thread derail, its an example I won't be discussing here).

Other groups HAVE to have the cause and effect of breakage.

It varies per group.

So [MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] can be 100% percent correct in the cause and affect, but some groups may not go that far down the continuum.

And thats cool.

 

[jhingelshod]

The 100g is for players to sell it. I would agree on those prices, or even higher, for buying.

This is the bit that makes no sense to me. I wouldn't sell my car to a dealer for £100 if I knew they could then sell it on for £10,000.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

This is the bit that makes no sense to me. I wouldn't sell my car to a dealer for £100 if I knew they could then sell it on for £10,000.

It makes sense if you consider the system is designed with the idea players don't sell magic items in the first place and that the optional selling rules in the DMG essentially penalize players by giving them what amount to paltry sums for a lot of the magic items they are likely to be trying to get rid of.

Basically, the whole system is set up to where you don't sell magic items and you are penalized if you try. But, if you check my more recent posts about Eberron, you can see I am also having a problem with this set-up.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You claim both crowds are satisfied, they are not. You mention "you can easily run with magic item shops" & "other than having to put a little effort into a game", but wouldn't have been easier and less effort for WoTC to do this? If it is so easy why was 3e's system not done well, why was 4e magic items lackluster? The truth is it isn't easy and it takes a lot of effort to balance out prices for every magic item and expected wealth and character capability, and thats why WoTC took the easy way out and just didn't do more than a very vague almost useless system.

Selling prices for magic items should logically be based on production costs. WotC did supply production costs for every single magic item in the optional downtime rules. The problem is that they are pretty bad rules. In addition to being non-granular, they make many items too cheap and easy to create (although not cheap enough that "any NPC would be a fool not to buy" a +1 sword for 500 gp) and other items so absurdly poor cost/benefit tradeoffs that they should not exist (Sovereign Glue is not worth 500,000 gold and 55 years of your life to create). If each item, in addition to describing its effects, had a blurb describing briefly what it takes to create it (Ring of Shooting Stars: 4000 gp, 700 spell level slots, meteoric iron, exposure to interplanetary vacuum), the lack of official "magic item shop" prices would be a total non-issue: you could easily derive a stable equilibrium price by just tripling creation costs or something. That would only work as a price in a mass-producing magic economy (non-default setting) but the creation info would be useful anywhere--more useful than the "common/uncommon/rare" information anyway, more flavorful, and taking up not much more space in the DMG.

P.S. RE: "a fool not to buy magic items". A sword +1 is maybe 20% more effective than a regular sword, for ten times the price or more. Even in real-world areas where violence is rife and you are​ a fool not to buy weaponry, how many thugs do you see buying cutting-edge Israeli/American/etc. weaponry instead of a whole pile of cheap-but-effective AK-47s?

 

[Werebat]

This is the bit that makes no sense to me. I wouldn't sell my car to a dealer for £100 if I knew they could then sell it on for £10,000.

It's only your hyperbole that makes this make no sense. Dealers always sell cars for more than they paid for them -- otherwise they'd go out of business. Most people who sell a car to a dealer are probably aware that the dealer will turn around and sell it for more than they paid for it. What's the typical markup on a used car? I have no idea, and I'll bet neither to most people.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is the bit that makes no sense to me. I wouldn't sell my car to a dealer for £100 if I knew they could then sell it on for £10,000.

Would you sell your car to a dealer £1000, knowing he could sell it for £2000, if CraigsList and the Internet didn't exist? If not, would you keep the car or go knocking door-to-door looking for car buyers?

D&D has a medieval economy. There are all kinds of market inefficiencies.