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Price of an item useable once a year

It seems a waste of a good hook to argue on these insane boards over strange rules to find a good gp value for something like this. Pretty pointless actually.

That which you find pointless will likely help others enjoy their game. To them, your disregard is pointless.
 

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Re: quest instead

kramis said:
It seems a waste of a good hook to argue on these insane boards over strange rules to find a good gp value for something like this. Pretty pointless actually.

Whether you can purchase the item or not is beside the point. The fact remains, the item has a value. Being able to ascertain that value is not pointless. Allowing a character with the correct feats and abilities to create such an item is not pointless. That is the reason the character has chosen those feats and abilities.

You want to prevent a character from creating such an item, and force them to quest for it? Seems like too much nerfing of charcater abilities for me. YMMV.
 

How much monetary benefit would farmers get from a single casting of this spell? Seems like that should be a factor that figures into the price of the item as well.

The SRD states that it "targets plants within a range of one-half mile, raising their potential productivity over the course of the next year to one-third above normal." So how much does that translate to in gp? How much money can a farmer normally make from ... uhm... about 500 acres (.785 square miles times 640 acres/sq mi) of farmland?
 

And... what would be the problem with creating an item with 50 charges, that gets used every year? Make another 50 years later...

Andargor
 

andargor said:
And... what would be the problem with creating an item with 50 charges, that gets used every year? Make another 50 years later...
Only that they could travel around the country offering their services to neighboring farmers, and spend the entire wand in a single year (probably making a fortune doing so...)

Also, they would need to have the spell on their spell list to cast from a wand, right?
 

Well, selling it to neighboring farmers relies on two conditions. That the farmers have something you want other than cow tipping and goat sex, and that they believe you and are willing to share their goats and cows.

It's not as if most farming communities will have enough wealth to buy a charge most times either. Knowing the stereotype of most farmers, I think they'd be more likely to use it for themselves over 50 years, or only occasionally share with blighted communities than seek quick wealth.

If nothing else, farming teaches patience.
 

An acre yields about 8 bushels or 480 lb. of wheat, worth 4.8 gp (wheat is 1cp/lb). 500 acres would be 2400 gp. 1/3 increase is 800 gp. Not bad for a spell that only costs 150 gp!

Mind you, 500 acres will probably cover the agricultural needs of a a good part of the entire village. A rule of thumb is 2 adults per acre of staple crops, so 500 acres will cover lots of farms.
 

Consider this.

If we use the real-world dark ages as a point of comparison, those farmers are tithing to the local church. It is therefor in the best interests of that church to see the crop yields be as good as possible.

At a guess here, a village farmer with a wife or two, two or three sons, and a daughter or four, likely works, what ... six acres? Ten if he's moderately prosperous?

Using Conaill's numbers, that's 48 to 80 bushels. Let's call it a round 60, just for simplicity's sake, for the reasonably-average farmer's expected yield of wheat.

If he tithes, he gives 6 bushels to the church, having 54 left for taxes, rent, his own table, and so on.

If Plant Growth is cast that year, however ... his yield jumps by 1/3, to 80 bushels. He can double-tithe the church, giving them 16 bushels. After doing so, he still has 64 bushels left for himself -- 10 more than without plant growth.

IOW, he and the church are, in essence, splitting the extra yield the Plant Growth spell generates.

Sure, sure, 10 bushels doesn't sound like a lot. But ... that's just over an acre's worth of yield. If that church serves a (small) village with, oh ... thirty farming families ...

W/o plant growth, the tithe would come to about 180 bushels; just over 22 acres' worth, enough to easily feed 44 adults. WITH the spell, it would come to 480 bushels -- 60 acres worth, enough to feed 120 adults.

Now, at roughly 4gp/bushel (spoilage, middle men, whatever), that's an income of either 720gp/year, or, 1920gp per year.

The profit is 1200gp per year. I don't see churches who give a hoot not gladly tending to their flocks with this spell, actually!
 

If the above is true, I would say 27,000/365.25 = 73.9... Since that's less than the 150 to cast the spell in the first place, I'd say certainly no less than that. Maybe 300 GP, plus material costs (the price of the ring if set in a ring). Or just make it a wand (it's easier).
 

Keep in mind that unless you have a local cleric with the Plant domain, you'd need a 5th level Druid to cast this spell! There's not going to be too many of those wandering around in the village. Just seeking one out and persuading him to cast the spell (presumably using other means than paying him with civilization-tainted gold)would probably be difficult enough that few communities can benefit from this spell on a regular basis.

The same holds for being able to find a Druid that can make such an item of course! Depending on you world, Druid-made magic items may be very rare indeed, and probably not up for sale at the local magic walmart!

*IF* you were to sell an item like this, I think it would probably be priced at 10-50 years worth of paying for the spell. I.e. 1500-7500 gp.
 

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