Selling items : illogical rule ?

[Kraydak]

PCs are like real estate sellers with no internet or phones. They might eventually be able to get a reasonable price for something if they hold on to it, but they will probably be waiting a long time.

As I noted previously, the above is simply not true. 4e's rituals mean that PCs are in no way like real estate sellers: they can travel around the world, instantly, for a pittance. Communication is global, and fast. For the wealthy, the default setting of 4e translates *very* nicely to the modern world.

Perhaps better, the default 4e setting translates *superbly* to an MMORG (say, WoW). Travel is very fast and global communication is a /tell (Sending Stones) away. What do you get? A bazaar zone. It might be supported by the developers (basically all post-Luclin MMORPGs) or grow organically (EC or GFay, in pre-Luclin EQ). That is largely immaterial however: the bazaar zone *will* develop.

If you have items that people want (in WoW terms, the random item generator gave you useful prefixes/suffixes), you will be able to sell the items for a lot (the same you can buy them for). If you have items that no one wants, they are disenchant bait. Of course, Core 4e has very few unwanted magic items. Some magical simple weapons maybe, or possibly magical katars.

 

[Grabuto138]

I think that we would see auction houses. eBay is the quintessential example of the real value of something. I love eBay.

I love this example. Linking magical items to real estate in New York is brilliant. I think having the option of waiting years to sell an item for its full trade value would rock! I also think that some magical item agents are better than others. Some know how to sell things faster than others, by being salesman. Some understand the market better than others. And some understand how to modify the item to make it more sellable.

There would be magical item agents. It makes perfect sense to me. One would get a 5% cut for providing a buyer, and one would get a 5% cut for providing a seller. Crating a character who understands the magical item market should be an option (perhaps a feat).

It would be quicker and easier to sell a magic item priced lower than the market. Selling at 20% should be an option, not the only option.

Want to sell your house now? I bet you could get 20% of its going rate very fast. I however think you can likely do better than 20% in the same amount of time and effort.

I agree that there would likely be specialized merchants and that the players may know how to get more value from their sales. This, of course, is where the SKILL CHALLENGE comes into play. For those of us who are not even remotely interested in this kind of thing, we can dump our items quick and dirty for 20% and get back into the dungeon.

 

[Goumindong]

As I noted previously, the above is simply not true. 4e's rituals mean that PCs are in no way like real estate sellers: they can travel around the world, instantly, for a pittance. Communication is global, and fast. For the wealthy, the default setting of 4e translates *very* nicely to the modern world.

As a real estate professional i will have you know that i can search, by myself, or by proxy databases of nearly every house for sale in the world and its asking price within a day. If its within my region, i can do it in 5 minutes.

Fast travel is one thing, but its no internet. Sure they can go to specific places that have magic teleport circles but can they find buyers? Do buyers sit at teleport circles with signs saying "WTB: +3 frost axe"?

Yea, i doubt it.

Teleportation is not cheap either.

 

[AllisterH]

That's two things

Finding magical items is always worth it. If I am halberd specced, and find a +1 halberd, then I rejoice. But if I find a +1 bardiche, then I start looking to trade that bardiche for a halberd of equal value.

Unfortunately, it's the 4e rule system that says I can't do this. Now I need 5 +1 bardiches at 20% each to get my halberd.

.

Um, no it doesnt. I don't think you've read the rules clearly.

The 4E magic item parcel system insures that for your level you WILL have the required static items. If you're a 1st level fighter, the system will insure you GET that +1 halberd due to the fact that you FIND magic items of higher value.

At level 2, your DM can randomly roll out a +2 bardiche and the point of the system is to force the player to decide, "Do I really want the +1 halberd or keep the +2 bardiche".

Remember, he doesn't NEED the +2 weapon until level 5 at the earliest and level 15 at the latest.

What it does do is actually make magical items WORTh something when found

(You're argument basically means that the DM might as well put GP instead of magical items as treasure)

 

[DM_Blake]

There is no actual economy in 4e, and this was intended. When you purchase a suit of armor for 50g from the armorer, he does not in turn use that money to purchase bread for his family - the gold simple disappears.

See, in a role-playing game, you asume that's exactly what he does. You play your character's role. You interact with the world as your character would interact with it, and that world interacts right back at you.

It's all well and good for a blacksmith in a computer RPG to stand at his forge, day and night, waiting to evaporate your gold and provide you with new armor in place of that evaporated gold.

Nobody expects CRPGs to reflect a world very well at all. Computers aren't supposed to be able to do that. And the ones that do simulate this just end up causing downtime while you stand around outside the blacksmith's shop waiting for the computerized sun to rise and the blacksmith to get to work.

But a tabletop roleplaying game can be the best of both worlds. That blacksmith closes shop for the night, but we players can say "I go to my room and sleep then return in the morning." and time flies right by. Or the DM can interrupt it with a dragon burning down the village during the night, too. It's all interactive.

So no, in a tabletop RPG, that gold doesn't evaporate. That blacksmith does use his profit to provide for himself and his family.

Money is a reward system for PCs and it was a design decision to make it easier (i.e. cheaper) to find items than purchase/make them.

Only if you apply a CRPG mindset to a tabletop RPG.

As for me, I like to allow my PC to run my CRPG games. When I sit down with friends at the gaming table, I would like for my gaming system to give me something that I can't find in a CRPG.

DnD has always been at its core, since the original, about being adventurers going on adventures. The core book reflects this, and many of the game mechanics in 4e have been simplified and written from a non-simulationist viewpoint in order to make the core of the game balance, streamlined, and simplier than previous editions.

Agreed.

But previous systems either left the concept alone (like having no prices at all in the AD&D magic item lists) or provided a reasonable working solution.

4e has gone a different direction. Rather than just omitting something and letting the players work it out, 4e is perfectly content to provide some crappy, unrealistic, mindless content.

This direction is pretty much new for 4e.

It is fine if player's in a campaign want things that aren't explicit in the rules - crafting, profession, castle building, gaining followers, becoming merchants, etc. It's even better if those are related to role-playing and not just trying to break the sysytem/be a pain in the DM's butt. But whether or not you agree with the decisions or not to include or exclude particulars in 4e rules, it's not particularly productive to have an argument over whether or not it should have been included in the first place. They're not going to rewrite the rules just to fill your desires. A better use of your time would be to work together with like-minded individuals to add the level of complexity or simulation into the game. Or to find a different system that fits better with how you want to play your game.

No, they won't rewrite them for 4e.

But there might be a 4.5 with some much needed fixes.

Or a supplement book called something like "4e Believable Economics" or some such.

Or maybe a 3rd party vendor will tackle the situation.

Or, maybe just hashing it out on the web with other reasonable players might let us come to a solution. Not much of a solution in this thread yet, but some of these "The RAW is broken" threads actually have people posting solutions that seem like reasonable fixes.

So far, this thread has remained in the "We aren't sure there's a problem" stage and hasn't progressed to the "OK, there's clearly a problem, let's suggest some fixes" stage.

 

[darkrose50]

Indeed. Some people also know how to buy stuff. It seems like "selling something" is a skill challenge. And "selling something really expensive for as much as you could buy it" would be a really difficult one.
Guess what, you get to role play this. You do not get to roll a die and say "well my character knows how to sell it so i get x cash"

Now you are splitting hairs. I can be a charismatic Romeo who never has a cold bed while having a character with 10 charisma, or I can be a social misfit who does not understand girls with a character with a charisma of 20. What player/character combination should get the girl? The one with real knowledge, and role-playing skills, or the clueless wonder who has the stats to back it up?

I vote for the 20 charisma character myself.

Selling stuff takes time, your cousin has built up connections over years that let him sell stuff fast, adventurers typically do not have this time and will not be able to sell ridiculously high value items at anywhere near what someone established will want to sell it to them without investing time.

There are different forms of salesmen. You have charismatic folks who can just sell stuff. You have charismatic folks who meet folks who like to buy stuff from charismatic folks. You have intelligent folks who study the economy. And you have wise folks who notice good deals when they see them.

My cousin is a charismatic guy who can just sell stuff. He knows how to read people. It is amazing, and he makes oodles of money doing it. He gets the cars, houses, and women. It is effortless to him. I would say he had high charisma, the diplomacy skill, and one or more feats dealing with it.

Which is a quest, that you get to role play.

Or it could be a dice roll on a chart.

That is just the way the economy in points of light works.

The way it is ruled in the rulebook is just stupid. I want more options than sell everything for 1/5th its value. I do think we will be getting a crafting and economics book one way or another. There is CLEARLY a demand for one.

That is your hard and fast economic rule. It’s like you are complaining that goblins have too high "to hit" values.

Actually I like to use this analogy. The you must sell for 20% of the base cost to craft an item is like saying one many not think about ecology when placing monsters. Sure you can play, and many do, without a thought to ecology, but making it a rule that one cannot think about ecology will just piss some folks off.

No. Value is based on what someone will buy it for and what someone will sell it for. And if you want to sell it without doing taking a long time to find a buyer who is willing to to pay what you want, then the answer to "what someone will buy it for" is "20% of its base value"

And that is just not true. I buy and sell things all the time for differing amounts. I wish I could find a fool to buy something for 20% of what it costs to build a house (including the land and stuff), and then sell it for the market rate!

This is simply not true. You will get the highest value of the item of the users of the site at the time they viewed it minus transaction costs.

Umm sounds like a value to me. The amount you can get for something is its value. Since we have a rule-book with the value in print it should be obvious. That is where the paradox comes in. Something is worth X, and that same thing is worth X * 0.2.

 

[FadedC]

As I noted previously, the above is simply not true. 4e's rituals mean that PCs are in no way like real estate sellers: they can travel around the world, instantly, for a pittance. Communication is global, and fast. For the wealthy, the default setting of 4e translates *very* nicely to the modern world.

Even if we assume that players can travel and find information and buyers at the same speed as a modern individual with the internet (which is highly questionable, nor are the ritual costs completely irrelevent), that doesn't change my original point. Selling expensive items for full value can take years even with all the resources of the modern world at your fingertips.

 

[Kraydak]

As a real estate professional i will have you know that i can search, by myself, or by proxy databases of nearly every house for sale in the world and its asking price within a day. If its within my region, i can do it in 5 minutes.

Fast travel is one thing, but its no internet. Sure they can go to specific places that have magic teleport circles but can they find buyers? Do buyers sit at teleport circles with signs saying "WTB: +3 frost axe"?

Yea, i doubt it.

Teleportation is not cheap either.

Yes they do. Or rather, they blow the 50gp to teleport to the "trade zone" that covers items of the appropriate value range and pay maybe 5% of the item value to list it. If they are *really* lazy, they sell/order the item through a part-time wizard who periodically checks into the wizard-selling-network via Sending Stone to update his for-sale/to buy list. Remember, 4e magic items have very few characteristics. You don't need a complicated database to store requests/offers.

Linking into a world-spanning market is fast and cheap compared to the cost of magic items. It follows that there will be a world-spanning market of magic items. It follows that the magic item market will be liquid and relatively low loss.

Oh, and at 135 gp component cost, IF you don't have a permanent portal, teleportation is, indeed very, very cheap (roughly 1% of a lvl 10ish item).

Again, 4e's communication and travel options are *very* MMORPGesque. They might in fact be the most WoW-like feature of 4e.

 

[Grabuto138]

I would love examples of this in the rules. Just don’t say if you want to sell something, than anything you sell sells for 20% of its crafting cost. Say you have the option of selling for something for 20% of its crafting cost.

Example?

I know that someone in my party will almost certainly start with a streetwise check. I’ll make the DC a gimme and lead them to a tavern.

I know that Dave the Rogue likes to role play so he will probably go into the tavern and start chatting people up. He will meet Sleazy Guy. A failed intimidate check will make all subsequent checks -5. A successful intimidate check and he learns that there is a fence by the docks with the ready cash to do a deal. A secret insight check will also indicate that there is something funny about Sleazy Guy (he is offended by the intimidation and intends to rob the party on the way to the fence.) A bluff or diplomacy reveals the same information but does not invite the robbery. The fence will be a straight-up negotiation ending in either a fight or a sale at better than 20% depending on how well they party does.

If the party is uncomfortable with Sleazy Guy and wants to continue searching they will learn from the bartender that there is a merchant who specializes in high-end art and oddities. He may be interested.

The problem is that this merchant works by appointment only, and only grants appointments to referrals. He figures that if he doesn’t know you, you are either too poor to bother with or too dangerous to be worth the risk. Does the party try to bluff their way past the secretary? Disguise themselves as someone else? Try to make friends with of the merchant’s most trusted customers (and maybe do a “simple task” in exchange for an introduction)?

At the end of the situation, the party will get increased value for their item that will coincidently match the amount of treasure they would expect from an adventure of equal difficulty, since this is an adventure after all. If they choose the most difficult route, such as doing a short adventure for the customer in exchange for a meet, and then successfully negotiate with the merchant, I would allow the party to return to this merchant for better than 20% for some time, or at least until it gets old. Then the merchant will be robbed, kidnapped, turned into vampire, attacked by CHUDs in his basement etc.

 

[FadedC]

Yes they do. Or rather, they blow the 50gp to teleport to the "trade zone" that covers items of the appropriate value range and pay maybe 5% of the item value to list it. If they are *really* lazy, they sell/order the item through a part-time wizard who periodically checks into the wizard-selling-network via Sending Stone to update his for-sale/to buy list. Remember, 4e magic items have very few characteristics. You don't need a complicated database to store requests/offers.

Well this assumed your world has a wizard home shopping network and cities that regularly handle trades of high value magic items. It also assumes you can trust the person your handing your item and list fee to. And of course epic level items are probably only going to be regularly bought and sold in other planes, which are quite a bit more expensive to go to.

But yes if your playing a non points of light setting where your world has a magical stock exchange, then that's all quite reasonable. Doesn't necesarily change the whole take several years to sell bit though.