D&D 5E Sane Magic Item Prices

[Lanefan]

Why is it that you and every other poster who disagrees with me saw "here is a plan to make money" and immediately assumed that it meant the end of adventuring in a DnD world? Not a single person was like "this would be okay in downtime, but not while we are adventuring". Everyone went forward with the assumption that what I was doing was wrong.

You missed that I said Downtime the first time, but do you think everyone did? I've had about four posters I can think of who responded with how this was a problem, did all of them miss that it was Downtime and would have no issues with it because it was downtime? Clearly not, because I've clarified, and no changes have come from anyone's objections.

So, why is making money, downtime or not, a problem to the point of changing the very nature of DnD for so many DMs?

For me, it's because for the most part I don't want to DM it. Same reason I don't want to DM characters buying something - commodity, magic item, resource, livestock - low in one place and selling it high in another.

During a campaign I ran some time ago the party decided to use their adventuring wealth to become businesspeople, while continuing to adventure as well. They founded a company, put one of their retired adventurers in charge of it, did ridiculously well with it (to the point where nearly everything they touched turned out as the equivalent of 'critical success' when rolled for), and within a few in-game years ended up owning at least one entire country plus a rather stupendous amount of other holdings...including what seemed like every pub in that quadrant of the continent!

Fine for the characters. Fine for the players. Boring as hell for the DM. I came to dread downtime sessions where I knew we'd spend the whole evening sorting out their business interests (the players wanted to go into some detail, I felt it only fair to oblige). Eventually the players somewhat let it go, much to my relief.

No, because I listed goals. The Goal of a Goal is not to make money.

You've obviously never met some of my players and-or characters. Money is the goal, end of story.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't really care what you do or what other people would do. The only reason I brought it up is because you were using it as a reason to justify your downtime income, and it's not really comparable for the reasons I mentioned.

This whole discussion is about other people. This whole forum is devoted to commenting on what other people do. Saying you don't care is a bit disingenuous.

And they are comparable in exactly the way I was comparing them.

Competing with the other Churches and government hired clerics, sure. I'd have to figure out what sort of system that government used. Probably through a random roll. If a church didn't end up with an exclusive contract, then you could compete with them. On any given day I'd have to see how many people died, how many clerics were available to take care of the repose, whether they were followers of a given faith, etc. and then see if you got work.

Why do you assume that you are the only cleric in the city?

You aren't wrong about people dying. It's just not only going to be you attending to those that die.

Right, randomize it, make the numbers smaller. It can't just work, we can't just do something that gets money.

Why?

I'm probably not the only cleric, but that doesn't mean I can't get hired on to work in exactly this way. Maybe the normal cleric whose spot I'm taking wanted to have a month of vacation. Maybe they got pregnant. There are plenty of reasons this could work... but we can't just let it work. It has to be uncertain, difficult, a pain in the neck and cause more work for you and for me.

Why? What purpose are we serving by causing this to be difficult? Just realism? Or is there some other reason that we consistently shut down players making money in any way that isn't directly tied to adventuring?

Ahh, your Strawarmy has finally showed up. I guess you ran ahead of it this time and had to post a bit before it caught up to you.

Ahh, your accusations that do nothing except muddy the waters showed up. No surprise, you do it all the time. Can't possibly have a conversation with you without me being accused of something.

Just curious, are you familiar with the Fallacy Fallacy?

I didn't say businesses are run how the real world does it. I said making money is a goal of businesses. I also never mentioned marketing at all. I don't even know where you pulled that out of. Unless nobles live in the woods with bows and spears in hand, they aren't going to be hunting all that often and again, hunting injuries are pretty rare.

The only one pulling the real world into this is you, and D&D just doesn't use real world infection rates. If it did, with all the cuts PCs get in combat, no party would live to see 3rd level.

I forgot, you never pay attention to anything someone other than you said, so you will never respond to something like that.

However, you've debated with me long enough to know that I do reference the entire discussion, not just you. Also, supply and demand? That's a real world phenomena. You brought that up.

Nah. It's your obsession with something that ended pages ago. Let it go man.

I'm not letting go of MY CORE ARGUMENT

Do you actually bother to read what I post? Or do you just assume that you know my position and respond to that? Because you keep trying to make it like I was obsessing over a detail, like that was my entire argument.

I couldn't even begin to guess why others missed it.

Or, maybe, they didn't. Maybe Downtime is a minor detail that you latched onto and refuse to see that the actual discussion is about something else.

You do know that there are multiple goals to things, right? If you don't have a goal of making money, then you've failed at everything you listed before you even began.

Go back and re-read, I didn't say THE goal. I said A goal. You don't get to the goal you just mentioned without having a goal of making money as part of it.

"If your means aren't a goal then you have failed from the start, after all, the methods you use are goals unto themselves"

Somehow... I don't think that makes any coherent sense. Methods and means are not goals. And, this doesn't matter at all. You posited that a major goal of my character must be to make money, and I pointed out that that is not a guarantee, could be doing all this for a large variety of goals. Sure, making money is a part of the plan, because money is a medium for value. But that doesn't make it a goal.

Just like using ink isn't the goal of writing a story.

 

[Chaosmancer]

For me, it's because for the most part I don't want to DM it. Same reason I don't want to DM characters buying something - commodity, magic item, resource, livestock - low in one place and selling it high in another.

During a campaign I ran some time ago the party decided to use their adventuring wealth to become businesspeople, while continuing to adventure as well. They founded a company, put one of their retired adventurers in charge of it, did ridiculously well with it (to the point where nearly everything they touched turned out as the equivalent of 'critical success' when rolled for), and within a few in-game years ended up owning at least one entire country plus a rather stupendous amount of other holdings...including what seemed like every pub in that quadrant of the continent!

Fine for the characters. Fine for the players. Boring as hell for the DM. I came to dread downtime sessions where I knew we'd spend the whole evening sorting out their business interests (the players wanted to go into some detail, I felt it only fair to oblige). Eventually the players somewhat let it go, much to my relief.

But, let me counter point you just a bit. Not saying that your reasons are wrong at all, just pointing out a difference.

I find planning sessions between my players boring. I have had them work out a battle plan or an infiltration plan for half an hour, real time. Longer if I let them sometimes. They clearly enjoy it. I am bored to tears.

But. If I posted about the players spending an hour planning for their cover stories and escape routes for a heist during a Grand Galla, no one would accuse me of no longer playing DnD. There would be no comments of "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons not Vaults and Grifters". Yet, if I posted about an hour planning session to host a Grand Galla... suddenly, there is something wrong. Even a ten-minute discussion on making some side money healing as a cleric gets accusations of wrong-doing and boring players and preventing adventuring.

Why? I get that you don't want to do it because it bores you, but why is it that people immediately assume the worst possible reasons and results?

You've obviously never met some of my players and-or characters. Money is the goal, end of story.

Sure, money can be the goal. I won't deny that. But just because it can be doesn't mean that it is.

 

[S'mon]

yeah, my characters are constantly broke... I had to wait level 12 with my fighter to buy my plate armor!

Running Princes of the Apocalypse, the PCs never had any money, and few items . Eventually around level 12 I took pity on the poor Fighter archer and told him "OK, your bow counts as magic now".

 

[Bacon Bits]

Running Princes of the Apocalypse, the PCs never had any money, and few items . Eventually around level 12 I took pity on the poor Fighter archer and told him "OK, your bow counts as magic now".

We got 9 levels deep into Dungeon of the Mad Mage and reached level 8-9. We had found: potions, scrolls, utility wands, half a pair of boots of elvenkind, and -- our one good item -- a wand of fireball. The DM had given us a few magic arms and armor in the lead up to the dungeon, but the dungeon was empty. We gave up because it was boring and there were no rewards. How can you have a mega dungeon with no loot?

After the campaign, I read the adventure. We actually found just about everything. There were decent rewards later, but a surprising number of them only come on the last level of the dungeon (level 25?). There was a magic sword we missed, but it was extremely well defended (which is why we didn't get it) and even if we had it was actually pretty terrible stats-wise.

Eventually I looked at the AL season rules. Guess what? They let the AL players buy magic items with AL rewards! You just got "basic" magic gear for free! You don't find it, you just get it. And, worst of all, the module doesn't mention any of that anywhere! It doesn't tell the DM to place more treasure. It presents it as an appropriate and fleshed out module. It's even got hooks for stuff outside the module.

Quite honestly I'm still furious at WotC for publishing an adventure so absolutely devoid of rewards that it was a completely miserable module to play... and then backdooring rules that make it work appropriately only if you're in their pet league.

 

[tetrasodium]

We got 9 levels deep into Dungeon of the Mad Mage and reached level 8-9. We had found: potions, scrolls, utility wands, half a pair of boots of elvenkind, and -- our one good item -- a wand of fireball. The DM had given us a few magic arms and armor in the lead up to the dungeon, but the dungeon was empty. We gave up because it was boring and there were no rewards. How can you have a mega dungeon with no loot?

After the campaign, I read the adventure. We actually found just about everything. There were decent rewards later, but a surprising number of them only come on the last level of the dungeon (level 25?). There was a magic sword we missed, but it was extremely well defended (which is why we didn't get it) and even if we had it was actually pretty terrible stats-wise.

Eventually I looked at the AL season rules. Guess what? They let the AL players buy magic items with AL rewards! You just got "basic" magic gear for free! You don't find it, you just get it. And, worst of all, the module doesn't mention any of that anywhere! It doesn't tell the DM to place more treasure. It presents it as an appropriate and fleshed out module. It's even got hooks for stuff outside the module.

Quite honestly I'm still furious at WotC for publishing an adventure so absolutely devoid of rewards that it was a completely miserable module to play... and then backdooring rules that make it work appropriately only if you're in their pet league.

This is a good point because it's so blindingly obvious that WotC dials back in HC treasure for AL to add it using whatever AL rules are going on that you can see it from space when you run them & they don't even make recommendations to the GM to fix it

 

[Lanefan]

But, let me counter point you just a bit. Not saying that your reasons are wrong at all, just pointing out a difference.

I find planning sessions between my players boring. I have had them work out a battle plan or an infiltration plan for half an hour, real time. Longer if I let them sometimes. They clearly enjoy it. I am bored to tears.

Fair enough, but when they're planning a battle they really don't need my-as-DM involvement very much (unless I've a party NPC and they ask its opinion), which means I can go get a beer and sit back for a bit. I don't even really need to pay that much attention, and perhaps probably shouldn't.

When they're updating their businesses etc. they need my involvement on an ongoing basis, which means I have to pay attention whether I want to or not. Big difference.

But. If I posted about the players spending an hour planning for their cover stories and escape routes for a heist during a Grand Galla, no one would accuse me of no longer playing DnD. There would be no comments of "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons not Vaults and Grifters". Yet, if I posted about an hour planning session to host a Grand Galla... suddenly, there is something wrong. Even a ten-minute discussion on making some side money healing as a cleric gets accusations of wrong-doing and boring players and preventing adventuring.

Why? I get that you don't want to do it because it bores you, but why is it that people immediately assume the worst possible reasons and results?

Perhaps it's because such things might act as a threat to the adventure-to-get-rich paradigm most games implicitly (or explicitly) function under.

In pre-4e editions this wasn't a big deal - it'd take years of exceptional trading to make the same haul as one good adventure could provide - but in 4e and 5e adventuring isn't quite the gateway to immense and immediate wealth it used to be (at least until quite high level) if the DM runs the modules as written, meaning other forms of making money become both more appealing and (potentially) more lucrative.

I mean, if you're a Cleric and you can either spend three weeks in the field putting your life on the line for 517 g.p. (your share of the treasury) or you can spend those three weeks safe in town casting healing spells on those who can afford it and make 550 g.p., which would you choose?

 

[Maxperson]

This whole discussion is about other people. This whole forum is devoted to commenting on what other people do. Saying you don't care is a bit disingenuous.

And they are comparable in exactly the way I was comparing them.

There's nothing disingenuous about my not caring why you choose to do it. I don't care about that particular thing.

Right, randomize it, make the numbers smaller. It can't just work, we can't just do something that gets money.

It both works and makes money the way I am suggesting. Why do you think you should just get your way in a nonsensical manner?

I'm probably not the only cleric, but that doesn't mean I can't get hired on to work in exactly this way. Maybe the normal cleric whose spot I'm taking wanted to have a month of vacation. Maybe they got pregnant. There are plenty of reasons this could work... but we can't just let it work. It has to be uncertain, difficult, a pain in the neck and cause more work for you and for me.

And maybe an entire temple gets all of the work. Lot's of possibilities.

Why? What purpose are we serving by causing this to be difficult? Just realism? Or is there some other reason that we consistently shut down players making money in any way that isn't directly tied to adventuring?

Nothing was shut down.

Ahh, your accusations that do nothing except muddy the waters showed up. No surprise, you do it all the time. Can't possibly have a conversation with you without me being accused of something.

Don't do it and you won't be accused of it.

Just curious, are you familiar with the Fallacy Fallacy?

Yep. One fallacy for me and multiples for you.

I forgot, you never pay attention to anything someone other than you said, so you will never respond to something like that.

However, you've debated with me long enough to know that I do reference the entire discussion, not just you. Also, supply and demand? That's a real world phenomena. You brought that up.

So is English, yet we don't say that the game of D&D mirrors reality due to English being used. The supply and demand I am talking about isn't figured out to the nth degree so that it mirrors reality. It's just something that also just happens to be in the real world, yet isn't overly realistic, such as swords, spears, daggers, trees, flowers rocks, water, air and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

I'm not letting go of MY CORE ARGUMENT

So your core argument is that we got it wrong about downtime? It seems silly to me to make that your core argument, but it's yours to make.

Do you actually bother to read what I post? Or do you just assume that you know my position and respond to that? Because you keep trying to make it like I was obsessing over a detail, like that was my entire argument.

Yes I do. You've been obsessing over our missing that you were talking about downtime and keep ranting about us doing something based on a mistake that I at least have owned up to and moved past. Let it go man.

"If your means aren't a goal then you have failed from the start, after all, the methods you use are goals unto themselves"

Somehow... I don't think that makes any coherent sense. Methods and means are not goals. And, this doesn't matter at all. You posited that a major goal of my character must be to make money, and I pointed out that that is not a guarantee, could be doing all this for a large variety of goals. Sure, making money is a part of the plan, because money is a medium for value. But that doesn't make it a goal.

Just like using ink isn't the goal of writing a story.

I think you attributed that to me incorrectly. It doesn't sound like anything that I've said.

 

[Ixal]

@Maxperson gloat all you like, you cannot escape that D&D used to support a classic dungeon-delving experience where nobody cares about dowtime purchases like keeps or building orphanages. All the players want with their gold, is to increase their chances of surviving the next adventure. To achieve this, the cost of the items needs to be based on the usefulness of the items to the adventurer.

Because other parts of the game are not expanded enough for them being attractive to spend gold on. So you build a (cliché) orphanage and then what? Its pure background and if you want to interact with it further you need to have a campaign centred on a single location which is not always, I even dare to say often, the case. Spending money on personal estates and businesses would technically mean that the character becomes a NPC as what's the point to adventure further (in case you did it for personal gain?). Or you hand the money over to a relative or family member and tell them to do stuff with it.
In all cases you are not really using the money as the effect of the game is very low but just erasing it from your character sheet. (And by effect I do not necessarily mean stats, but can also be that people react differently to you which you can leverage).

Most D&D settings are also very egalitarian and meritocratic as in nobles have hardly any power or influence and there is no real divide between nobles in the party and former beggars with swords. What matters is the combat power. And in the default settings and the D&D adventures I have seen people care little about the social background adventurers have. So why waste money on buying status?

As for using it for bribes and similar things, for that you earn too much money and would not present a significant amount unless the bribes in the setting are measured in wheelbarrows. Most problems in D&D adventures can be solved or bypassed by violence anyway (either directly or doing a quest for whoever you need support from).

 

[Chaosmancer]

We got 9 levels deep into Dungeon of the Mad Mage and reached level 8-9. We had found: potions, scrolls, utility wands, half a pair of boots of elvenkind, and -- our one good item -- a wand of fireball. The DM had given us a few magic arms and armor in the lead up to the dungeon, but the dungeon was empty. We gave up because it was boring and there were no rewards. How can you have a mega dungeon with no loot?

After the campaign, I read the adventure. We actually found just about everything. There were decent rewards later, but a surprising number of them only come on the last level of the dungeon (level 25?). There was a magic sword we missed, but it was extremely well defended (which is why we didn't get it) and even if we had it was actually pretty terrible stats-wise.

Eventually I looked at the AL season rules. Guess what? They let the AL players buy magic items with AL rewards! You just got "basic" magic gear for free! You don't find it, you just get it. And, worst of all, the module doesn't mention any of that anywhere! It doesn't tell the DM to place more treasure. It presents it as an appropriate and fleshed out module. It's even got hooks for stuff outside the module.

Quite honestly I'm still furious at WotC for publishing an adventure so absolutely devoid of rewards that it was a completely miserable module to play... and then backdooring rules that make it work appropriately only if you're in their pet league.

Super yikes, that is a terrible design.