selling loot vs. created items

[Paragon]

i have a quick question for the folks out there. it states in the rules that you can sell loot (magic items, weapons etc) for half value, understandable. but what do you do for pc's that make items? lets say a mage wants to make money by making wands, which he can for half market value if he has the right feats. but in selling it he can't make any money off of it. correct? unless he opens his own shop? i'm just searching for thoughts/opinions here.

 

[DanMcS]

PCs shouldn't really be in the business of selling magical items to make money, and the rules as written discourage this; they can break even moneywise but end up down some XP for having created the item. Creation feats exist so the PCs can make items for the use of themselves or their companions, not so they can get rich fa$t!

On the other hand, selling at half price represents the best you can get for generically dumping a magical item onto a local market that can afford it; if some named, important NPC commissioned a magical item from a PC as a plot point, the PC should probably expect to get full price for it.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

My opinion is that the rule about selling magic items for half value is kind of dumb in most campaigns. Magic items don't really wear out, so the whole "previously-owned" discount doesn't seem like it should ever apply.

The only real exception being campaigns where the gameworld has magic item stores, where magic items are so commonplace and ubiquitous that merchants can actually make a living by keeping racks of +1 swords and the like around waiting for someone to drop in and buy one at market value. In that kind of world, I can totally believe that an independent adventurer could readily find someone to buy an item, but would rarely get more than half-value for it (since the merchant's going to have to mark it up for resale). It'd be like a used CD store or something: bring in an item, and we'll give you this amount in gold or this slightly higher amount in trade credit.


But then, I've never played in a gameworld that had magic item stores, so I'm left wondering, who exactly is it that keeps getting these items at half-price? Why is it that the PCs never stumble into a guy who's just dying to unload an item at half of its actual value? How is it that some settings can say "magic items are rare and extremely valuable, so people tend to hang on to them like grim death rather than sell them" and then turn around and say "but if you ever DO try to sell one, no one will ever pay you more than half of what it's worth"?


So, my suggestion is that you abandon the half-price rule, unless your gameworld has a well-developed Used Magic Shoppe retail network in place. If you don't want the PCs to sell an item, don't let them find a buyer. If you don't care if they sell it, let them unload it at the market price (I mean, isn't that what a market price is for? ) or maybe a bit less if you're feeling catty. Let crafters sell their products for full market value or higher. Let NPCs try to commission items from PC crafters, to balance out the PCs who are trying to commission items from NPC crafters.

Or if you want to spend a lot of game time worrying about this, you can even go in the direction of establishing dice rolls for each step of the sales process...Gather Information to find potential buyers, opposed Profession: Merchant or Diplomacy or Bluff checks with Sense Motive as you haggle over the price, followed by some kind of adjustment from a base figure (80% of market value, give or take 30%?) to determine how much it sold for. And then be fair, and apply that same process in reverse when a character wants to buy something, so that the bargains of a lifetime aren't exclusively restricted to the NPCs.

(Personally, I wouldn't go that route, because...uh...it's incredibly boring for anyone not directly involved in the sale, and not exactly thrilling for the characters who ARE directly involved. But your mileage might vary. Perhaps haggling and shopping and the like are a veritable ocean of gaming fun for your group.)

--
i can't imagine how it could be, but hey, people are weird
ryan

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Sales and making money..

A game within the game.

You have an item and wish to sell it. It matters little how you acquired it. Your options are:

Go to the market and sell to a willing merchant, at half value.

Go to the market and strike a deal with a merchant to sell your item for you on consignment. Expect a 30% cut for the merchant and you don't get the money right away.

Go to the market and try to find someone who will purchase the item from you, haggle for the price. Possibly pay for a merchant license from the town or 'protection' fees from the local union/thieves guild. Maybe even pay a cut to the local mage guild.

Depending on how much detail you want in this aspect you could have an entire area built up, with black marketeers, investigators, guild factions, and all sorts of adventure tie-ins.

If your mage wants to make real money from the item creation work, the place to go is custom work. Which has adventure tie-ins all of its own.

For dependable income, you would have to go the wage-mage route, working for a guild house or some other means to pay you a salary. This option entails a long term relationship and other in character requirements that make it less likely for an adventurer.

IMHO, you should not open the door for mages to whip up minor items and sell them for income without including the above roleplaying aspects. They would have to consider the market they are selling in and a bunch of other factors related to selling items.

{edit} Ryan.. I can see the selling/bartering as a doorway to adventures and plot hooks. As such, I much prefer to have the characters occasionally deal with the minutia of salesmanship. Not as a staple to the game, but as background detail that sometimes rises to prominance as a way to bring the party into a plotline.
I thought it was interesting to compare our posts..mine was in draft when yours was posted. {/edit}

 

[Paragon]

good posts all. thats why i come here. thanks for your time!

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

{edit} Ryan.. I can see the selling/bartering as a doorway to adventures and plot hooks. As such, I much prefer to have the characters occasionally deal with the minutia of salesmanship. Not as a staple to the game, but as background detail that sometimes rises to prominance as a way to bring the party into a plotline.

I don't think our attitudes are all that far apart, actually. I don't mind things that advance a plotline or bring up interesting complications, and when crafting/selling items can be used to serve that purpose, I'm totally fine with spending time on playing it out.

In our past games, sometimes the GM would have a PC who wanted a particular item go through all kinds of stuff to find someone who could sell it or craft it. Sometimes he'd just say "okay, subtract the cash from your character sheet and you'll have the item by the time you guys leave." When it was the former, it was because there was something inherently interesting about the search that we wanted to play out, not because we felt that the selling of an item is interesting enough in its own right for us to focus on it.

I also have a problem with the idea of spending much (if any) time on an activity that is really only interesting to the one or two PCs who are directly involved in it. While Mr. Wizard and the local SalesRogue are haggling over prices, generally you've got a bunch of other players yawning and leafing through books waiting for something they can actually participate in. That's a really poor use of our limited playing time, not to mention a little rude if it drags on too long. It also, not coincidentally, makes selling/buying things a less-than-perfect way to introduce plot hooks, since it's hard to come up with reasons for more than two characters to be involved in the whole shopping process. It's fine for occasional use, but I wouldn't rely on it, so in the end it means that the number of "useful" shopping expeditions will be pretty low.

Besides, the kinds of games I like playing in and running really don't revolve around money or the obscure nuances of fake fantasy economies. So honestly, if the end result of the roleplaying is going to be an exchange of money for goods and nothing more (no new plot hooks, no advancing of the current plotlines), then why not just say "the money and goods are exchanged, hooray!" and be done with it?

--
and i still say "sell for half value" is a dumb rule in most settings

 

[Methos of Aundair]

I have a house-rule in my campaign that allows magic items to be sold at 75% of book price. As was stated earlier, magic items do not wear out. My players tend to sell their magical items to the same store they are buying items, usually as credit. The shop owner still wants to make a profit, so he buys it at 75% and sells at full. If the players wish to sell the item at full price I require them to find an individual buyer, someone who is willing to pay full price (with of course some haggling). I do not make this easy, after all, who is willing to buy an item at full price from an unknown when they could buy it at the same price from a dealer. Of course any magical item dealers in town who hear of pc's who are selling items will take action.

 

[Trainz]

Which brings another point:

How does a prospective buyer knows that an item is what it is ? Usually that entails the casting of an identify spell. And the spending of a 100 gp pearl.

We can assume that the merchant "absorbs" the gp expense in his day-to-day expenditures, but he's going to need the ability to cast an identify. Which means that all merchants willing to buy PC's magic items are...

-At least 1st level Wizards or Sorcerors with the Identify spell;
-Experts with ranks in the use magic device skill and own a wand of identify. A 1st level expert will need in average 3 charges per identify, as he needs a skill check of 20 to succeed.

And the merchant will need an hour each time per item.

Just some considerations that are interesting to keep in mind.

And I do agree that the current conundrum about full price/half price on magic items is ridiculous and creates an unrealistic dimension to the game. I don't mind it that much and go with it IMC, but I can absolutely understand a DM that wants to rule it out for something that has more... how should I say...

... verisimilitude.

 

[dcollins]

...what do you do for pc's that make items?

Occasionally I may make a specific encounter, where a specific NPC comes and wants to commission a particular item. If the PC agrees, they'll get full price, but it's usually a choice between that time and some other adventure. Thus it's exactly how I treat the reverse case, when PCs want to commission an item from an NPC, they need to find the right person, and they may need to wait for an available time.

If they just make random stuff and dump it in a town, then it's half-price as usual (chances are no one's in the market for that exact item at that time).

 

[HeavyG]

My opinion is that the rule about selling magic items for half value is kind of dumb in most campaigns. Magic items don't really wear out, so the whole "previously-owned" discount doesn't seem like it should ever apply.

That's a very good point.

The rule also screws up the wealth per level thing pretty much because if the DM follows guidelines for treasure per encounter, then you will gain just as much loot value as necessary to keep you at the "right" wealth for your level. However, if that loot is randomly generated, you are going to have to sell most of it at half price, resulting in characters with half the wealth they "should" have at their level.

We are experiencing this in a campaign using the adventure path modules. Adventuring with half gear is hard.

But then, I've never played in a gameworld that had magic item stores, so I'm left wondering, who exactly is it that keeps getting these items at half-price? Why is it that the PCs never stumble into a guy who's just dying to unload an item at half of its actual value?

In the campaign I mentioned before, early on, we sometimes exchanged useless stuff with other adventurers who needed it. We got a cool frost bastard sword +1 for a +2 dwarven waraxe, IIRC.

Now that I think about it, we should try that more often.

NPC comes and wants to commission a particular item. If the PC agrees, they'll get full price, but it's usually a choice between that time and some other adventure. Thus it's exactly how I treat the reverse case, when PCs want to commission an item from an NPC, they need to find the right person, and they may need to wait for an available time.

Hey, it sounds like when your PCs want items, they have to wait after the creator, but when your NPCs want items, the creator PCs have to arrange their schedules around the NPC. Or was that a mistake ? :\