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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7339166">Perhaps our difference lies more in how we see the price.  I see the price less as a price tag and more of a monetary valuation.  It's something I've wished many editions of D&D had been more specific, granular and generally more standardized about.Take for example the 3.5 spell "Trap the Soul" the spell requires a gem worth 1kGp/HD of the target.  Without a standardized price for gems, we can never determine what a 1kGp gem actually is.  And attempting to make a living economy in our game we only make this problem worse since now we've got the problem that a 1k gem in Civilization A might be a 10k gem across the ocean.  And it does nothing for addressing the fact that a 1k diamond and a 1k amethyst would be completely different in size.  Are diamonds only more expensive because they are more rare?  Or are they more expensive because a massive diamond conglomerate artificially limits supply in order to increase the value of a diamond well beyond it's actual value? *cough*DeBeers*cough*In real life there are many functions to determine the value of a gem but they are fairly standardized (at its basics: size, type, quality).  But D&D has traditionally not addressed these fairly simple elements to IMO, its own detriment and the detriment of the game.  I see magic item prices much the same way.  It's an issue of developing a standard for a functional analysis of value.  Why is X weapon worth more than Y weapon?  Because it's a +1 not a +2.  Because it is Shocking and not Flaming Burst.  Part of this is me coming at magic items from an MTG card-game angle.  Any MTG player can look at a card, and most people will come to a general consensus that most Uncommons are about right for an Uncommon.  There's variance, but it's within a tolerable range, sometimes there are exceptions.  But with D&D gear, there's no "range".  There's no commonality between their magic items.  This is because, much like the CR system, they are only using one variable to analyze the value of a magic item (and frankly I don't think they're even using it very well, a lot of them are just holdovers from their rarities in previous editions).  Using more variables to set the value allows you to come to a better understanding of what you are actually producing.  Honestly, it would be good game design for them to use multi-variable analysis on their end.Then you wouldn't have the devs saying things like "We left Fireball more powerful because it's a holdover iconic spell from previous editions."  Translation: we left a broken spell broken because it's important to keep broken things.  LOLWUT.</blockquote>

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