Raw Materials and Gems

[Zenchi]

Two words, Home Brew.

Real World data is only a foundation for the work. Most rare materials like Adamantite and Platinum of course need magic to be used. If I make stuff up then it will be unbalanced, I'm not going to suddenly tell the people in my campaign that the local stone depot tripled their stone prices because I don't want them to build their castle too big. Raw Materials don't fluctuate based on how rich the players are, rather what kingdom their in and if the land is rich in the material.

 

[Vespucci]

If I make stuff up then it will be unbalanced

Say what?!

 

[anest1s]

Two words, Home Brew.

Real World data is only a foundation for the work. Most rare materials like Adamantite and Platinum of course need magic to be used. If I make stuff up then it will be unbalanced, I'm not going to suddenly tell the people in my campaign that the local stone depot tripled their stone prices because I don't want them to build their castle too big. Raw Materials don't fluctuate based on how rich the players are, rather what kingdom their in and if the land is rich in the material.

If you give treasure by the tables you will be ok, even if as treasure you give shells. If blue shells have a price of 300gp each, then who really cares why. If the PCs decide to fill the ocean with shells....well thats their problem, not yours. You make the world and they have to adapt.

If in your world stone is more valuable, then they have to start thinking about using other materials.

 

[the Jester]

Two places I'd recommend checking out, if you can find them.

The 1e DMG had gems that had certain base values but with a decent chance of an individual gem being more or less than base value.

The old Arduin Grimoire books- not sure which, I had the first three little booklets- had a large chart of gem types with a value per karat. So you could have widely varying values that way.

Another thing: An easy way to switch the value of gems up a little is to vary them by place. So if you're in Vickensmal, which mines rubies, your rubies won't sell for as much; but if you have diamonds, you'll get full value.

 

[Zenchi]

Say what?!

Or.. Are you familiar with the infinite money loop using 10 foot Ladders and 10 foot poles?

I'm also sorry, but I'm being exasperated by so called "advice" that's helping me get no where. I'm not new to D&D, I didn't come here for advice, I came here for sources you guys may use for Raw Materials. Gems I have significant good hold on.

I need info on stuff like Tin , Zinc, Lead, Cedar, Granite, Marble, Dragon Teeth, Manure...

 

[anest1s]

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

Something like this?

 

[Vespucci]

Or.. Are you familiar with the infinite money loop using 10 foot Ladders and 10 foot poles?

Never heard of it. But if you do allow such things in your campaign, I will accept your assertion that things you make up are, in fact, unbalanced. Please forgive me for suggesting otherwise!

I'm also sorry, but I'm being exasperated by so called "advice" that's helping me get no where. I'm not new to D&D, I didn't come here for advice, I came here for sources you guys may use for Raw Materials. Gems I have significant good hold on.

I need info on stuff like Tin , Zinc, Lead, Cedar, Granite, Marble, Dragon Teeth, Manure...

This is a discussion forum. Along with people who will attempt to answer your question directly, there are those that will offer ways to avoid the question, provide a commentary on the question, critique answers, etc, etc, etc. It is often the case that those who did not start a thread find these posts informative or helpful, even if the original poster does not.

 

[Zenchi]

Ladder - 5 cp
Pole - 2 sp

You buy 20 ladders with a gp, you break them up and sell the 10 foot poles at half market value for 4 gp. You keep doing so until the town/city runs out of ladders or the price of poles decreases. This is simply an example of how WotC did some bad pricing.

If I say something in my campaign I'm not going to be a dick and turn around and say no ladders are now 4 sp! In this case and hopefully all future cases I will have a method that I can simply look up. Keep in mind there's little hack and slash in my campaigns. We can easily go through eight hours of real time while avoiding combat scenario after another.

Again I'll also repeat that this is not just for my worlds, but for my fellow DM's. And yes I'm going to make up a lot of the stuff but I need a basis to work off.

 

[anest1s]

Ladder - 5 cp
Pole - 2 sp

You buy 20 ladders with a gp, you break them up and sell the 10 foot poles at half market value for 4 gp. You keep doing so until the town/city runs out of ladders or the price of poles decreases. This is simply an example of how WotC did some bad pricing.

If I say something in my campaign I'm not going to be a dick and turn around and say no ladders are now 4 sp! In this case and hopefully all future cases I will have a method that I can simply look up. Keep in mind there's little hack and slash in my campaigns. We can easily go through eight hours of real time while avoiding combat scenario after another.

Again I'll also repeat that this is not just for my worlds, but for my fellow DM's. And yes I'm going to make up a lot of the stuff but I need a basis to work off.

Huh...a broken ladder!=2 poles
A broken ladder=firewood

If a PC wants to make ladder-pole trading, just tell him that he won and he can now go home. (Edit:Also, The Game)

If for some reason you want to reason it, tell him that 10 ft poles are special adventuring gear...they have specific properties, which a broken ladder wouldn't have. But if they insist to do so, they can always roll a craft/profession check to see how many ladders they can turn into 10 ft poles.

In a real economy, 99% of the ppl would buy ladders not 10 ft poles. If someone has a shop that sells ladders and 10 ft poles, he would put the prices following the fact that he has
-one 10ft pole that only guys with much money want,
-and many ladders, which ppl with few money want

So if you think you can buy every ladder in the village....you are correct.
If you think the villagers are stupid enough to buy 10 ft poles, which are used only by adventurers....you are wrong. You will have to wait for many adventuring parties to buy from you.

So yeah, I would let my players start with broken ladders instead of weapons, if they want to try breaking the economy.

 

[Vespucci]

Ladder - 5 cp
Pole - 2 sp

You buy 20 ladders with a gp, you break them up and sell the 10 foot poles at half market value for 4 gp. You keep doing so until the town/city runs out of ladders or the price of poles decreases. This is simply an example of how WotC did some bad pricing.

It looks suspiciously like a typo. If I circulated something like that to my players, and they came back with this zany scheme, my short reply would be, "Sorry guys, that's 5 silver for the ladder"...

If I say something in my campaign I'm not going to be a dick and turn around and say no ladders are now 4 sp!

...which means I'm a dick. It's cool, lots of people say that about my unwillingness to grant the WotC logo a kind of special status in 3.X games.

Seriously, though, if you pay this kind of attention to detail with your own work, you won't get 'unbalanced' results. And anyway, D&D is a game about adventure and exploration, not poring over equipment lists to find a way for characters to get easy money.

In this case and hopefully all future cases I will have a method that I can simply look up. Keep in mind there's little hack and slash in my campaigns. We can easily go through eight hours of real time while avoiding combat scenario after another.

What does hack-and-slash have to do with this? I will admit to having dismissed your concerns over data for accurate pricing, and take it that I'm being accused of being a role-playing primitive for having such an attitude. If that's where you were going, my reply is two words.

And it's not "home brew".

Look, I understand your frustration, but discussion forums are generally bad for what you're trying to do. You get lots of opinion out of them, but not a lot of data - unless you want data on what various groups of netizens think. I recommend searching the forum for posts on this sort of topic (someone else may have posted it in a, "here you go!" type thread), and using the forum for bug-checking. Plenty of people on here are prepared to go over new material and give feedback, often of a high quality.