People as a commodity?

[Fenes 2]

This is especially true if you don't have a society which accepts slavery as basically a normal condition (which I doubt you will because the DM and players are modern people).

I agree with most of the post - great reasoning and accuracy imho - but I'd like to add that I have no problem with a fantasy society that accepts slavery as a nomral condition and am currently DMing a campaign set exactly in such a society. It is no more different for me to imagine and DMing than a feudal society, or a society where violence and killing is the accepted and even mandated response to insults and petty crimes.

 

[Umbran]

From the NPC's perspective, how does he guage one good fighter's price and another good fighter's price? One is presumably the better (or they are the exact same from the perspective of the seller).

Well, that's largely my point. The NPC seller does not know the precise value of his wares. The buyers don't know the exact value of their purchases. Slave trading is only slightly above buying a pig in a poke.

Tell me, can you tell how good a weaver is by standing him up and looking at him? No. The only way to test is to sit the slave down for days or weeks plying his trade, having a skilled appraiser looking over the work. The slaver's got no time for that.

Perhaps the slaver can tell if the slave's physical stat modifiers are exceptional. But he's got no time or basis for telling a +2 from a +1 from a +0. The differences between them are only visible in the long term, and the slaver isn't going to sit on his merchandise for a long time to find out. He'll separate them into good, average, and poor specimens, and leave it at that.

Imagine slave trading to be like used car sales, where nobody's got a "Blue Book". It's all very vague.

Remember - the slaver generally doesn't pay for the slave based upon the slave's skill. He pays a raider some number of GP per head. So, he doesn't have to worry about exactly what the specimen's skill is in selling either.

 

[Voadam]

I believe the Mongoose book on gladiators has a price system for buying "fighters" and I think I have heard of KoK and a drow book having stuff on slaves, and it would not surprise me if the unapproachable East FR book had slave prices, but I don't own any of those so I can't say for sure.

However, Celebrim's reasoning and numbers seem reasonable.

 

[Fenes 2]

The Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide has a slave cost table.

 

[Gregor]

UE and the BoVD both do not have slave prices. However, they do list a base price for a generic slave at 50gp.

Cheers