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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chimera" data-source="post: 5193785" data-attributes="member: 2002">When I last ran games in my own setting, I used the following;1 gold = 40 silver (which is much closer to real world historical exchange)1 silver = 20 copper40 coins per pound, thus 1gp really is "1 pound of Silver" (as per the British 'Pound Sterling')Untrained laborers make 1-2 sp per day.  Trained labor runs 3-5sp per day.  I used 6 day weeks with 5 day work weeks (1 day off in 6), so a high skilled worker making 5sp per day made 125sp per month, 1500sp (37.5gp) per year at the very high end of things.  Your average grunt making 2sp per day thus lived on 500sp (12.5gp) per year or less, as sickness and injury and other obligations kicked in.  Probably more like 400sp (10gp) per year.  And he supported his family on this too, which is why I always bristled at the BS "Stronghold Builder's Guide" and things like that which had a simple door costing 50-500gps.Because item costs were so phenomenally out of line with these costs, I greatly reduced these too, typically by 60% for regular items (Swords, Horses), and developed my own completely different scale for magic items.  But that was 3e costs, not 4e costs, which are so completely off the scale as to be ludicrous and unreconcilable.  If I were to get into GMing 4e, I would be forced to come up with my own conversions (and in the back of my mind, I've always had the idea of writing my own D&D 'alternate economics' book).So for items, in my last campaign I printed off a sheet that had all prices in Silver (Dollars or Dinars by local names).  I think I had Longswords pegged at around 250d (6.25gp), but varying by location.  In places under threat, you could expect to pay 300 or more.  A Longbow (where available) would be 500-600d (12.5-15gp).  Location also strongly affected availability.  You're not going to find Full Plate in a town of 2,000, except in someplace like Freetown, which was very well organized and militant.  Even there it would be a matter of paying up front and waiting a couple of weeks for delivery.  And probably paying a premium to 'jump the line' and not have to wait months for it.But like I say, magic prices have always been absolutely ludicrous in D&D, and my biggest complaint about 4e is that this has gotten worse.  The prices of higher level magic items is greater than the GDP of most nations and this cannot be reconciled with fancy explanations or hand waving.  It's just plain Stupidly Wrong.</blockquote>

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