NPC merchants have a damn good union!

[Pistonrager]

Why is this such a big deal? I've seen no less than 6 threads about the "unfair market". As an adventurer you will ALWAYS make such a stupid amount of money it shouldn't ever matter...making 20% of the value shouldn't even bother you. If your idea of a fun game is playing merchant traveling the countryside gouging prices running honest businesses out of business, have fun doing it but you could make a whole lot more by going out there and doing quests! making names for yourself, killing dragons defeating goblin hoards, becoming great heroes. or you can spend a month tracking down someone willing to pay full price for that one magic item you found that isn't as helpful to the group as a +1 weapon(which you could get in 2 days if you had just gone to the next adventure hook...

 

[frankthedm]

I like the idea of magic items that characters no longer need aren't for selling, but instead for buying loyalty of NPCs.

Also the poor sale rate also lends credence to why the dead are buried with their magic items by their peers. Those who are doing the burying are not passing up THAT much wealth compared to their own. Much as a well off family is not going to care about burying someone with $1000's in jewelry, the party is not put out much by burying Gunkdar with his favorite armor and sword.

 

[Otterscrubber]

Why is this such a big deal? I've seen no less than 6 threads about the "unfair market". As an adventurer you will ALWAYS make such a stupid amount of money it shouldn't ever matter...making 20% of the value shouldn't even bother you. If your idea of a fun game is playing merchant traveling the countryside gouging prices running honest businesses out of business, have fun doing it but you could make a whole lot more by going out there and doing quests! making names for yourself, killing dragons defeating goblin hoards, becoming great heroes. or you can spend a month tracking down someone willing to pay full price for that one magic item you found that isn't as helpful to the group as a +1 weapon(which you could get in 2 days if you had just gone to the next adventure hook...

***Nods wholeheartedly***

The name of the game is Dungeons and Dragons not Zig Zigler's sales simulator....

What business would ever buy something for anywhere near the price for which they intended to sell it? Especially in a specialty market like magic items. What is so hard to grasp about this? Do you think it costs Louis Vitton (sp?) $4k to make a purse?

 

[frankthedm]

This still doesn't address which price a NPC merchant would sell/buy a magic item from another NPC merchant at.

Merchant A buys all magic items at 20% of their value.

Merchant B sells all magic items at at least full value.

Do merchants A and B never, ever exchange money for magic items? If they do, at what price is the item exchanged?

They haggle back and forth for a very long time.

Alternatively A uses Item X to pay his guild dues or sells it to the Guild to liquidate it, receiving value at a predetermined rate from said Guild. Merchant B then buys item X from the Guild at a Guild set percentage.

Either way, if Merchant A or Merchant B don't play by 'the rules', the Guild hires casters who summon Invisible stalkers to take care the offending person just like the Basic D&D days.

Sounds less like healthy capitalism and more like a monopoly or cartel.

It should. Take away the regulations and what do you think "healthy capitalism" becomes?

Hell, I would hang on to magic items I found on the off chance that another player's pc found it useful one day. Or I would make gifts of unwanted magic items to NPC movers and shakers for social fu. Screw the NPC merchants!

Good Idea.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nothing in the rules ever addresses what happens when an NPC talks to another NPC, with no PCs involved. You have noticed this by now, yes?

Did you say this in the voice of Londo Mollari? Because it certainly sounded so in my head...

---

Merchants don't have a Union. They have a Guild. That requires 50 % of any magical item sale they make to go to the guild. Another 20 % go to the king.
Only few people know that most Merchant Guilds are actually operated by Dragons. That try their best to ensure that any magical item either ends up in their hoard, or makes them tons of money if they sell it. And you don't discuss with a Dragon.

 

[Sphyre]

This is how it makes sense to me:

In price comparison, magic items to common folk is like buying a 1 million dollar sports car for the lower or lower middle class. If you obtain a 1 million dollar sports car, and you want to convert that to cash quickly (as adventurers after an adventure may want to do) you'll have to offer considerable discounts to get the people with money to want to take it off your hands right away.

In other words, if someone offered you a product today that you don't need how cheap would it have to be for you to actually consider buying a large ticket item that's normally out of your price range to buy?

I think the 20% rule is basically saying "If you offer it to merchants for 1/5 it's price, you'll get a buyer for your magical items quick enough that we'll call it negligible." You're basically saying "Here: take all this stuff you didn't want or need in the first place, what's the highest price you're willing to pay for it?" It's basically the "fair" concession for both sides. You get cash you couldn't get otherwise, and the merchant gets an item that he didn't want, otherwise he would have seeked it out.

I see it as game play time saver. If you just sell at 20% instead of spending 3 hours role playing finding buyers for your items then it speeds the game along, and you can amass more treasure. If you want to ignore the rule and say "I'm not selling this item until I find someone who will buy it for at least 75% it's value," I don't think it's saying you can't do that, you just have to deal with the consequences of trying to find someone who has it.

On a related subject I tend to have variable prices for items (when selling and buying) in the first place in my games depending on the 'game economy' at the time. It's something my players tend to find interesting and enjoy it when the economy is healthy and they get better prices. It's an incentive on multiple levels. It's a bit more simulation-like and increases immersion.

 

[Iron Sky]

Well, here's an idea for people who don't like the 20% markdown who still want to keep balanced with the expected cash per level chart in the DMG.

For simplicity, let's just say a party of 1st level PCs get 1000g on the way to level 2. A PC finds an upgrade to his magical sword so he wants to sell his old one(worth 200 gold base). Through several days of negotiating and haggling in a large city, he manages to get 50%(100 gold) for it instead of 20%(40 gold).

Now, if you just let PCs do this without balaning it somehow, they'd end up with more cash than the game as designed expects. This becomes more exaggerated the more you let them sell items for and the longer this goes on in the campaign.

So, all you do is take the extra 60 gold the PC made from selling the sword(100 sold for - 40 its expect to be sold for) and subtract it from the 1000 gold the group was supposed to get on their way to the next level. They'll get less treasure from monsters this level, but they'll still end up even at the end.

This way, the PCs get the satisfaction of getting a bit more money for their old gear and DMs with issues with the 20% can have what they consider "realistic" sales without breaking the game's money balance. Unless you're really unlucky and the party is keeping track of exactly how much gold you have given them and is cross-referencing the DMG, the players probably won't know the difference.

This system of deducting "extra" rewards from the "level gold pool" also gives you balanced ways of handling situations like the following:

A) The players climb a mountain to find a rare herb that grows there to use in a ritual. After a skill check or whatever to find it, the players get the rare herb. You decide it's equivalent to 100 gold of ritual components, subtract 100 gold from the group's level gold pool and carry on.

B) The players kill a dragon, get its treasure, then get the clever idea that they can sell its scales/teeth/eyes/whatever for potions/elixers/herbal cures/rituals/aphrodesiacs/whatever. You like the idea and so decide what they harvest is worth 75 gold. Subtract 75 gold from the group's level gold pool and carry on.

The PCs feel like their ingenuity is being rewarded and everything(hopefully) stays balanced.

This is the system I think I'm going to use. I might use their pre-made parcels from time to time, especially if I'm winging it, but for the most part I'll just keep their treasure total written down somewhere and any time they get something of value, I'll just knock its value off from their total.

 

[Lore Raithbone]

Well, here's an idea for people who don't like the 20% markdown who still want to keep balanced with the expected cash per level chart in the DMG.

For simplicity, let's just say a party of 1st level PCs get 1000g on the way to level 2. A PC finds an upgrade to his magical sword so he wants to sell his old one(worth 200 gold base). Through several days of negotiating and haggling in a large city, he manages to get 50%(100 gold) for it instead of 20%(40 gold).

Now, if you just let PCs do this without balaning it somehow, they'd end up with more cash than the game as designed expects. This becomes more exaggerated the more you let them sell items for and the longer this goes on in the campaign.

So, all you do is take the extra 60 gold the PC made from selling the sword(100 sold for - 40 its expect to be sold for) and subtract it from the 1000 gold the group was supposed to get on their way to the next level. They'll get less treasure from monsters this level, but they'll still end up even at the end.

This way, the PCs get the satisfaction of getting a bit more money for their old gear and DMs with issues with the 20% can have what they consider "realistic" sales without breaking the game's money balance. Unless you're really unlucky and the party is keeping track of exactly how much gold you have given them and is cross-referencing the DMG, the players probably won't know the difference.

This system of deducting "extra" rewards from the "level gold pool" also gives you balanced ways of handling situations like the following:

A) The players climb a mountain to find a rare herb that grows there to use in a ritual. After a skill check or whatever to find it, the players get the rare herb. You decide it's equivalent to 100 gold of ritual components, subtract 100 gold from the group's level gold pool and carry on.

B) The players kill a dragon, get its treasure, then get the clever idea that they can sell its scales/teeth/eyes/whatever for potions/elixers/herbal cures/rituals/aphrodesiacs/whatever. You like the idea and so decide what they harvest is worth 75 gold. Subtract 75 gold from the group's level gold pool and carry on.

The PCs feel like their ingenuity is being rewarded and everything(hopefully) stays balanced.

This is the system I think I'm going to use. I might use their pre-made parcels from time to time, especially if I'm winging it, but for the most part I'll just keep their treasure total written down somewhere and any time they get something of value, I'll just knock its value off from their total.

Brilliant idea, but I've been doing it since 3.5 so I'm biased This is seriously a very easy way to deal with 'unexpected money' that players generate through ingenuity. They certainly -feel- like they are getting rewarded, and thats what counts; hell, if they are 5% - 10% over wealth by level they are probably fine as long as you implement the level caps for magic items in 4e still.