Selling Spellcasting During Downtime

[Hunter99]

How the D&D world operates and what the laws of economics dictate are at variance with one another.

The laws of economics dictate that gradually, over time what is at first a luxury due to high production costs is made more efficient and thus becomes available to the middle class.

This is what accounts for the rising standard of living in the western world as opposed to countries and areas which do not have capitalism.

D&D does not take this into account so the D&D world exists perpetually in the dark and middle ages.

In the world, supply and demand are determined by impersonal, market forces. (or at least they should be.)

In the D&D world, supply and demand are determined by the DM.

Another example of the difference between the real world and the D&D world is the issue of productivity vs. looting.

In D&D, productivity which is fundamentally non-violent is not rewarded; looting on the other hand, which is at root violent is rewarded, and handsomely too.

This destroys the incentive to produce in D&D since there is no government to make sure that what you are producing is not looted by those more powerful. (Of course, even in the real world, wealth is looted by governments.)

This prevents the formation of wealth-creation mechanisms which raise the people's standard of living.

Something else which exists in the D&D world (and the real world, think unions) are guilds, which, if they use force to prevent competition, are obviously anti-competetive and hence anti-capitalistic and anti-markets.

Another issue is that in a capitalist, market society there is not, or at least there is not supposed to be any limit on the amount of income that you can earn but in D&D due to game balance issues, the amount 0f income a person can earn is artificially limitied even if a person's idea is clever, creative, and innovative. Which amounts to punishing a person for his virtues and his ability because it upsets game balance.

All these conditions make any sort of business, any productive endeavor where wealth is not gained through looting but through production impossible.

Therefore I would say that since such conditions exist, as long as you are consistent, you should go by WBL guidelines and also to make sure that the players remember the focus and the purpose of the game.

D&D is about adventure, not shopkeeping.

 

[jcbdragon]

D&D is about adventure, not shopkeeping.

Amen!

Having sources of income other than looting treasure definitely has its uses, though. For example, if the party has invested in a merchant vessel (or fleet of vessels), it's simplest to just say, "Okay, that will cover the expenses for the house you guys just acquired, including the staff." And of course later, the DM can decide that there's a sea monster attacking ships somewhere along the fleet's trade routes, so now they have to go deal with it.

 

[Rhun]

Having sources of income other than looting treasure definitely has its uses, though. For example, if the party has invested in a merchant vessel (or fleet of vessels), it's simplest to just say, "Okay, that will cover the expenses for the house you guys just acquired, including the staff." And of course later, the DM can decide that there's a sea monster attacking ships somewhere along the fleet's trade routes, so now they have to go deal with it.

And since the ship was destroyed and they have now defaulted on the loan on their house, the Thieves' Guild (who owned the note on the house) is angry at them and sending their bruisers to break kneecaps until the loan is paid.

 

[Greenfield]

Thanks for the economic insight, Hunter99.

The D&D economy is broken and pretty much always has been. The average 5th level PC carries enough wealth on their person to but the typical small village.

Your points on production costs are interesting, but a bit off target in some ways.

The way supply/demand works, when a product is in higher demand than the supply, prices go up. This induces people to increase the supply, and in the process it induces them to find newer/better/cheaper ways to do so. Economy of scale comes into play, as do improved production techniques.

Magic has to be the exception though. Each spell must be cast by a skilled individual. You can't really stockpile your excess in the slow season, and you can't mass produce. It's a service, not a hard product, and there's really no way to change that.

Magic items can't be mass produced either. Each scroll must be hand scribed, one at a time, each wand must be carefully carved. I have family who worked in the chemical industry and I know that there are some formulations with production techniques that simply can't be scaled up, so each potion or alchemical concoction must be individually prepared.

The only way to increase the available supply of magic is to train more spell casters, and the economy has to be able to support that. If a single spell caster can consume the available cash of a town while working 3 days a week, one or two spells a day, it's hard to say that there's such a shortage that we need to train more.

You also need to find more people capable of accepting the training, since not everyone has a casting stat high enough to make it worth your while. Why would I invest years of training an apprentice if I knew that he'd never cast anything higher than a 1st level spell? As a guildmaster, it just wouldn't be repaying.

On a separate note, the cost for an Identify is 200 gp, not 1000 gp. 1st level spell, requiring a 1st level caster with a 100 gp material component. 100 gp if cast by a Divine caster, since they use a divine focus instead of material component. And it doesn't matter how many abilities or pluses the item has, it all comes out with the single casting.

 

[Rhun]

The D&D economy is broken and pretty much always has been. The average 5th level PC carries enough wealth on their person to but the typical small village.

I even redesigned the entire economy in my homebrew just to address this...and it is still broken! LOL. Just not as badly.

 

[Hassassin]

I even redesigned the entire economy in my homebrew just to address this...and it is still broken! LOL. Just not as badly.

Do you happen to have the rules close at hand?

I agree that D&D is about adventure, but there are many different kinds of adventures. Money is often very important in intrigue type campaigns like the one I'm running. The players try to gather power and making money is one way to do that.

 

[Rhun]

Do you happen to have the rules close at hand?

I agree that D&D is about adventure, but there are many different kinds of adventures. Money is often very important in intrigue type campaigns like the one I'm running. The players try to gather power and making money is one way to do that.

I will see if I can find the relevant documents and type them up or scan them in.

 

[lordxaviar]

my latest party came up with a good business idea... sort of dnd tech... they harvested some green slime and have been nurturing it. they have a central town location in an older version of saltmarsh.. (im timing the construction and red tape to take until they reach the time frame of the saltmarsh in the dmgII) and wish to set up a sewage disposal system using the green slime to dispose of the waste. ( I am working out the growth factors for a system failure thus causing a city wide slime problem but thats another story) I have seen similar ideas using an Otylugh and in a novel they used a chained red dragon. this business is being set up by the party to take care of the cost of hirelings to run it/maintain it and the taxes on the properties both in town and the "haunted house that they bought outside of town and its upkeep as well. I of course have cause local taxes to keep pace with what they bring in... local inflation as well.

nuff on that ...point being I keep coming up with problems that cause the party to need to go adventureing for more untaxed cash, more theft because of their now increased position in the area etc... for every positive there has to be a negative.. for examples of influx of treasure to an economy check out the spanish economy after the new world influx of gold, and the french were masters of mismanagement of funds.. just for examples..

one last note on the spellcaster... the guild may charge a fee for selling magic in their jurisdiction, and they may wish to curtail or restrain how much magic is being sold to whom for whatever reasons..

 

[irdeggman]

The Eberron setting had an interesting way of handling this.

Commercial magic is commonplace in the world, more so in certain areas.


But the ability to sell magic services is tightly controlled by one of the houses (I can't off hand recall which one though). So when money is present - "corporations" come into play to control the cash flow.