Question about resale prices for magic items.

[Shayuri]

I am confused about how much magic items can be sold for, and have found no straightforward rule in the DMG...and so I turn to the good people of this board for guidence.

Most GM's I've played with to date (both of them in the only two games were selling items was an issue) rule that items found as loot are sold at 1/2 market value. Questions of haggling aside, this seems workable...but then I started thinking about item crafting. Clearly item crafting for selling is a fool's pursuit if that price rule is in effect.

Thus I present some sample situations and ask for opinions about sale values.

1) PC is an adventurer who found the Sword of Unhinged Squealing on a dungeon crawl. He comes to town, pops into the local magic item shop or blacksmithy, demonstrates the power of the blade, and sells it for:

a) Full market price
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill between the two.
c) Half market price
d) No sane merchant would keep 10,000-50,000 gold bits in his shop you fool!

2) PC finds the Sword of Unhinged Squealing on a dungeon crawl, and instead of selling in a store, he puts up flyers, circulates word...generally lets it be known that he has a badass sword for sale, and he's looking for a buyer. After a few days, some big burly warrior shows up and makes him an offer. The PC gets:

a) Full market price
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill between the two.
c) Half market price
d) Totally ripped off by a con artist!

3) The PC is an adventurer, but experiences a month or two of downtime while his buddy is making Robes of the Archmagi or something. So he rents out some shop space and starts selling off potions and scrolls and stuff...some that he's found, some that he makes himself. In that time he earns, for each item sold:

a) Full market price
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill (averaged, no doubt).
c) Half market price

4) There's an NPC shop owner. All he does all day long is craft stuff and sell it. Oh, and sometimes he buys it direct from wholesale sources (read: PC's). The tags on his inventory indicate that his items cost:

a) Full market price
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill.
c) Half market price

5) The PC's are fooling around town, and are overheard by some fighter. He comes up and explains that he's an adventurer too, but is looking to retire. He does however have this really cool Sword of Unhinged Squealing he'd like to sell, to get capital to open his business. So what do you say, guys? I'll only charge:

a) Full market price
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill.
c) Half market price

---------

Sorry for the test format there.

What I'm trying to do is isolate factors that I believe have been contaminating economic issues in my games. Factors like, "PC's and NPC's are subject to fundamentally different rules." And so on.

Clearly what is being sold, to whom, by whom, and in what capacity...all factor in. What I'm looking for is a way to sort of codify all that into a coherent set of rules that aren't "house rules," per se...just clarifications on an issue largely unaddressed in the core rules, as far as I can see.

Your help is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Thanee]

We usually get 1/2 to 3/4 of a used item, altho full price is very well possible, but it takes more time and commitment, then to go to a shop and sell it there (they buy those to resell and therefore don't want to spend much more than 1/2 the price).

Of course new items are always sold at full price or higher.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Silverglass]

The difference in price arises fr0m who you sell it to. If you offload your goods on someone who will be reselling it then you get half price, as they need to make a profit as well.

If you sell items directly to the end customer you get full (or near-full) price for the item, which is what they would be paying to the merchant above.

The advantage of direct sale is higher prices, the disadvantage is the time taken to locate buyers and finalise the sale.

Items manufactured for a specific commision would always sell at full price.

 

[S'mon]

1) PC is an adventurer who found the Sword of Unhinged Squealing on a dungeon crawl. He comes to town, pops into the local magic item shop or blacksmithy, demonstrates the power of the blade, and sells it for:

Answer:
d) No sane merchant would keep 10,000-50,000 gold bits in his shop you fool!

2) PC finds the Sword of Unhinged Squealing on a dungeon crawl, and instead of selling in a store, he puts up flyers, circulates word...generally lets it be known that he has a badass sword for sale, and he's looking for a buyer. After a few days, some big burly warrior shows up and makes him an offer. The PC gets:

Answer:
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill between the two.

Which could result in:
c) Half market price
d) Totally ripped off by a con artist!

I use Gather Information checks for PC to find a buyer or seller. If the PC knows the item's value and the item is within the town's gp limit they can usually get at least 1/2 market price.

3) The PC is an adventurer, but experiences a month or two of downtime while his buddy is making Robes of the Archmagi or something. So he rents out some shop space and starts selling off potions and scrolls and stuff...some that he's found, some that he makes himself. In that time he earns, for each item sold:

If he's just making whatever takes his fancy, probably
c) Half market price (but see case 2 above)
Although if he's making a high-demand item like potions of clw, probably
a) Full market price
Or (especially if it's a rare & high-demand item), to get more than standard market price, then:
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill (averaged, no doubt).

If he makes stuff on commission, he will be guaranteed at least full market price (eg making swords +1 for the local lord). If he's making it for some wandering NPC adventurer, he might well get x4 or x5 market price (but be careful the adventurer doesn't kill him and take his stuff!).

4) There's an NPC shop owner. All he does all day long is craft stuff and sell it. Oh, and sometimes he buys it direct from wholesale sources (read: PC's). The tags on his inventory indicate that his items cost:

b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill.

- Or more accurately, there are no tags. And no NPC spends all his time making magic items - where'd he get the XP from? No, he commissions them to order. See 3).

5) The PC's are fooling around town, and are overheard by some fighter. He comes up and explains that he's an adventurer too, but is looking to retire. He does however have this really cool Sword of Unhinged Squealing he'd like to sell, to get capital to open his business. So what do you say, guys? I'll only charge:

He'd probably start at:
a) Full market price

But via
b) A price determined by some kind of contest of skill.

Might go down to:
c) Half market price

Unless the NPC already knows the PCs, this should be a rare event, though. Much more likely the NPC sold to a local merchant at 1/2 MP and the merchant contacts the PCs re selling the item, at full MP (or better).

 

[S'mon]

Essentially, I treat sale of magic items as similar to the real-world car market, the closest parrallel I know of. Most items are akin to luxury cars, although common items may be akin to utility cars.

Prices go from:

Special order from manufacturer - if you get a sword of life stealing or a custom Bentley with in-car swimming pool, you pay a lot. In D&D terms, around x4 book value.

New item sold from authorised retailer - you buy a Rolls Royce from the new car dealer, or a +2 sword from the merchant who buys from the wizard who makes it - x2 book value.

New common Item direct from manufacturer - you buy a new utility car, full plate from the armourer, or potions of cure light wounds from the temple, you pay book value and up.

Used item from retailer - you buy the second-hand car from the 'scratch dealer' or the +1 sword from the merchant who bought it from the adventurers and has ten in stock, you pay book value and up.

Used item from private seller: You buy the car you see on the street with the 'call this number' sign in the window, or the +1 sword from the adventurer you met in the pub who wants to offload it and get back to the dungeon, you pay as little as 1/2 book value, depending on bargaining skill.


So, take a +1 sword, book value 2300 gp.

The wizard who made it for the local lord gets 2300 gp for it. When the sword is lost in battle, the adventurer who sells it to a merchant gets 1150gp for it. The merchant sells it back to the lord for 2300gp.

Or, the wizard made it for a merchant he has a contract with. The merchant pays him 2300gp for it. When the merchant sells it to an adventurer, he wants 4600gp. Smart merchants don't hold inventory, though - they wait until they have a buyer, then commission the weapon, wait 3 days for it and pocket the profit.

Or, the wizard makes it on commission for a desperate but rich adventurer who needs it to fight gargoyles (whatever). The wizard gets 9200gp for it (assuming a magic-poor world - if there are alternative sources the price will drop, maybe 4600gp).

 

[The Souljourner]

Wow, S'mon, you are really stingy. "New item from authorized retailer" should be "fair market value" in my opinion. You may have to haggle down from a high MSRP, but it should still be near fair market value. I can go to a Nissan dealership and pick out a new Maxima for $30,000, and then haggle them down to $28k. I'd say this is akin to a +3 weapon. Your "rolls royce" example uses a +2 sword... which I don't think is nearly as uncommon as a Rolls.

The generic D&D world has magic as pretty common. I cold see your example in a magic poor world, but that's not standard. Kingdoms won't be forged around a +2 sword in standard D&D, nor should they be. A +2 sword is good, but it's not going to win you any wars.

Here's the thing - I assume that the prices in the DMG *reflect* how uncommon magic items are and how difficult they are to find and buy. That's why a sword with effective plus of +10 is 200,000gp. That is a crapload of money. That's like buying a couple castles. You don't have to make rare items more expensive.... they already are by default. Sure, things can swing up and down, maybe this town is prosperous, maybe that town is not, so fluctuations of 80% to 150% I can see (150 being pretty extreme) but do you honestly think anyone is going to pay $60,000 for a honda civic, just because they want it in metallic blue with leather seats? I think not, and that's what you're asking for.

-The Souljourner

 

[S'mon]

Wow, S'mon, you are really stingy.

Thanks

Yes, I run a somewhat lower magic than standard world, mostly because there are fewer high-level NPCs and there isn't a fully 'liquid market' in most magic items. I suggest that if you run Forgotten Realms, prices should stay close to the 1/2-1xMarket Value range as per DMG. If you run eg 'gritty' Greyhawk as it was written pre-3e though, my approach is more reasonable.

The DMG prices are related directly to the cost of manufacture and assume a fully liquid market. IMC only items within the purchasing power of a reasonably large number of potential buyers will go for those prices - things like +1 swords, maybe +2 armour in some areas, rarely +2 swords (8300gp+) or better stuff.

Take the 200,000gp sword - if the PCs walk into a random city and try to sell it, they're unlikely to get anything like even half that amount of money. OTOH if the players want to commission a 200,000gp sword from the only Archmage who can make it, they'll likely pay well over that amount. Prices are more variable the less liquid the market is. This is why Van Goghs sell for arbitrarily huge amounts of money.

 

[S'mon]

>>"New item from authorized retailer" should be "fair market value"<<

You can run it that way, but in that case the PC wizard who makes items for a living will never be able to sell items for market value to merchants - he'll have to sell at a big enough discount - maybe 25% - to give them their profit. That's ok.

In a fully liquid market everyone's margins get squeezed, although cost will never go below production cost (1/2 standard price) + something for Wizard's XP (maybe 5 gp per XP) plus a living wage for the Wizard (maybe ca 10gp/day, or so), plus a living wage for the retailer (likewise).

 

[dcollins]

Working from 3.0 sources, characters:
- Pay full Market Price for items they buy (DMG p. 178, "Market Price").
- Get half Market Price for items they sell (PHB p. 146, "Special Items").

The overwhelming consideration, I believe, is a gameplay balance issue of not allowing magic items to be totally fungible, with PCs trading in a magic sword of one sort for the perfectly-targeted magic sword for one adventure, and then trading it back again at the end. If magic items are supposed to be precious and special, then this rule is needed to make people not want to part with them.

How this is rationalized is a completely separate issue. I personally rack the difference up to intermediary seller's fees, trustworthiness, identification castings by a neutral party, advertising, etc. Medieval societies are not a capitalist free market, and big irrationalities in the prices of things can be expected. At the same time, it's similar to a modern new car that collapses in value the moment you drive it off the lot, for no particular reason.

I might make an exception for item crafters who work out a commission deal with some second party in advance of the item crafting, awarding full sale price in that occasional situation.

 

[mmu1]

I've done the "buy at full market price, sell at 1/2 market price" thing plenty of times in my games, simply because it's convenient, but I don't think it makes any sense.

We're talking about items that usually don't get damaged or worn out by mundane use, and can, for the most part, be kept in perfect repair with a regular application of a Mending spell.

Selling things like that at 1/2 market price is madness - people don't pay less for old diamonds, bars of gold or art objects in perfect condition, do they? Realistically, you should be able to recover a much larger percentage of a magic item's value, epsecially if you look around for a buyer, but usually it's easier to stick to what makes no sense for the sake of game balance...