PCs selling crafted items.

[krupintupple]

not that it's come up lately, but one of my PCs has geared himself to begin crafting items for the rest of the party, as well as to perhaps earn a bonus source of income.

not that i'm overly worried, but from the looks of it, if he wants to craft an item worth 1000gp, he needs to pony up half of that, which is fine. then, should he chose to sell the item, i assume he gets full price, meaning that he more than made up for the original investment.

does this balance out in the long run? is the xp component supposed to keep people from abusing this? did i even get this process correct?

your thoughts please.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

PCs doing that tends to break the economy of the game.
let him sell stuff at half price, like the rest. he'll stop trying.

 

[Jhaelen]

does this balance out in the long run? is the xp component supposed to keep people from abusing this? did i even get this process correct?

your thoughts please.

Nope. He'll only ever be able to sell anything at half price, i.e. it's not possible to make any money from crafting magic items. If you'd like him to make a (small) profit you'll have to remove an equal amount from the party's treasure to compensate. It's not something I'd recommend.

 

[krupintupple]

while i realize the reasons behind it (balance in game economy) it seems weird that PCs will routinely go out and drop 750gp for a fully-charged 1st level wand, yet, should one of them opt to craft and sell that same item, they're only able to get 375gp for it. i'd like to have a better reason than 'just because' for my players, if you know what i mean.

 

[irdeggman]

while i realize the reasons behind it (balance in game economy) it seems weird that PCs will routinely go out and drop 750gp for a fully-charged 1st level wand, yet, should one of them opt to craft and sell that same item, they're only able to get 375gp for it. i'd like to have a better reason than 'just because' for my players, if you know what i mean.

Personally I think it is a silly rule, but it is a rule.

The "reason" could be that the "buyer" can not be sure of the true nature of the item so is only willing to pay 1/2 the value. This applies a lot to any "magic shop" that is being used in the game.

Now for game-mechanics purposes - the killer in a player wanting to do this is "time".

How long will that PCs be out-of-commision crafting and selling the item - since he needs to find a buyer right?

Ensure that something is going on that will take the PCs away from the home-base (you know "adventuring") and then he will not want to do that kind of thing very often anymore.

 

[Runestar]

I am guessing that being able to sell your loot at 1/2 market price is meant to represent the massive discount you must give to be able to unload it almost immediately. For example, if I wanted to sell a +1 dancing vorpal longsword on the open market, what are the chances that people are going to be queuing up and engaging in a bidding war for it overnight? The thing costs 200,000gp, only the richest of kings will be able to afford it, and even then, not everyone really needs nor necessarily desires such an item.

The concept is one of liquidity. I suppose that if the offer stood long enough, a willing buyer might eventually come forward, but that could take ages. Maybe not at all even.

From a designer's POV however, this is probably to prevent players from just setting up shop and trying to make a living off hawking magic eq, since the game is not meant to be about your players trying to be merchants. Though it is worth noting that it is theoretically possible to make a profit, by taking feats which reduce the costs of crafting eq or allowing you to sell your items at a markup (there exist such feats in player's guide to faerun and eberron, for instance).

 

[taliesin15]

After spending some months fleshing out a major island continent IMC, I've come to probably take another view on questions like these. I would tend to let players be able to make a living using Craft skills (not just magical ones like Craft Wand) much as any NPC expert.

Selling loot at half or other discounted price I agree is for getting rid of stuff right away, akin to selling your chainsaw at the pawn shop. However, IMC, I've created a number of Craft and Profession skills not in the PHB that I think makes sense to have. One is Profession: Merchant. Certainly in larger populated areas, there's going to be shops with NPCs with this skill, and more widely, many travelling merchants. I think having ranks in this skill would enable (at a reasonable DC) PCs to unload goods at a more reasonable (to them) market price.

Some of my friends play the online game Runescape, and unloading Crafted items in this way is a regular part of the game. Why not in D&D?

Other thoughts. Its not too rare that one of the PCs will have a relative who is a Craftsman him or herself. There was a Dwarf Cleric PC who had an uncle that was regarded as one of the most skilled Armorsmiths in the area. It wouldn't seem too odd to me that a relative or friend of the PCs might have a shop that could sell goods.

Another idea is there might be other adventurers or Core Class NPCs around who might be looking for say a +1 Vorpal Longsword, and perhaps the Captain of the Guard in the local militia has a +2 Heavy Mace, and maybe she would be interested in a straight up trade?

Market fairs on holidays were a frequent phenomena of the middle ages--I use them IMC for many reasons, one of which is they tend to happen in neutral wilderness sites, tend to be thrown together by wandering bands of Barbarian tribes looking to sell or trade horses, amber, and furs. These fairs have the added advantage of having no local prince or council wanting a cut of taxes on sales.

 

[Dog Moon]

The party finds 200k, split four ways. The caster gets 50k. Creating items means he can make an item worth 100k while everyone else can only get items worth up to 50k. That in itself is a benefit.

He could choose how much to sell items for to his own party. Personally, I'd do 75% for party members, meaning they could get an item up to 66k for that 50k and the caster would profit 17k [50k - 1/2 of 66k], which is also a benefit. He doesn't really need to sell it to any outside the group.

Anyway, wasn't there a feat in the Eberron Campaign Setting that reduced the gold cost for items by a little bit? Then, even at selling items for half cost, he'd still be making a LITTLE profit in addition to the benefits provided above. Of course he'll also be like a level behind, so it partly balances it out.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I was in an online community, with multiple PCs walking about from each of the players who had plenty of downtime, so this inevitably came up. The one in charge made a new subset of the Profession skill, Profession (shopkeeper), or alternatively Profession (salesperson) (effectively count as the same, just different names). You can make daily profession checks to sell stuff you possess, whether from crafting mundane items, magic items, or found gear in a dungeon, etc...

The amount (in market price) you could sell per day was (check result -10)^2, so if you take 10, you'd simply be able to sell a value equal to your profession bonus. To sell very expensive items, you could devote multiple days of selling until you reach the amount.

As far as bonuses to the check, he added a synergy bonus of +2 if you have 5+ ranks in diplomacy. Don't groan, it makes sense. And besides, diplomacy doesn't actually grant a synergy bonus to anythig normally. If you really hate boosting diplomacy, it works as well with sense motive.

He also gave circumstance bonuses for having a stall or shop: "A traveling stall (worth 200 GP) gives a +5 bonus to this check whereas a Store (worth a minimum 1,000 GP) gives a +10 bonus to this check.

More expensive stores in better locations can give higher bonuses. a 5,000 GP store gives a +15 bonus, a 25,000 GP shop gives a +20 bonus, and a 125,000 GP shop gives a +25 bonus. Anyone crazy enough to own a 625,000 GP shop would get a +30 bonus."

[sblock]He later changed it so that you sold an amount in sp, not gp, effectivle making it take 10x as long, because some people didn't like the idea of a Pc making 1000 gp a week, yet never once complained that the dungeons (which occurred weekly or bi-weekly) gave MANY times that amount. And also despite the fact that they had training rules that allowed one to gain hundreds, and later on thousands of xp in a week just by hooking up with another PC to train with. No risk of death as normal for gaining xp; and no feat expenditure, no lost money/xp, need to buy a shop, and so on that the item creation and selling rules required of you. It was...one of the issues that caused me to eventually leave the group over.[/sblock]

EDIT: In case it isn't clear, the profession check was put in to represent actually working to sell off your stock for full market value, as an NPC shopkeep presumably does as well. You could still sell without using the profession check and taking time for 50% market price, and if you had someone coming to you to buy something (like say another pC in your party), you didn't need to spend time or make checks to sell it at full value. Of course, in the case of two PCs, they probably make some kind of arrangement, such as a barter for something the buying PC has or maybe the PC wizard gives the Fighter a discount. But that's for the players to decide.

 

[milo]

So an adventurer wants to spend time and xp to make some extra gold. I don't see the problem with this. Say he wants to make a +3 sword to sell. Spends 9000 gold, 720 xp, and 18 days to make it. While he is making this the rest of the party goes out and adventurers, making 10k gp to split between 4 party members and gaining 25% of the xp to go to the next level. As well as a magic item for each member. So everyone else made about 6500 gold less and made up for it with the magic item. Meanwhile they are 30% higher in xp for the level. Do this 3 or 4 times and he made less gold and is a level behind. Let him make items if he wants.