NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jester47" data-source="post: 384476" data-attributes="member: 2238">I think we need to take a different approach to economics.Some thoughts about medieval economics:We don't understand enough about how economic systems work to even understand our own.  Understanding an alien sytem that we are missing huge ammounts of information about is an even greater challenge.  Trying to comprehend an economy that is just as chaotic but has the unknown aspects of magic in it is most likely impossible to reconstruct with any sort of realism.  So, instead of trying to revalue equipment prices to fit an inherintly flawed model, why dont we use a system of relative value instead?  That is rate each item on how it relates to everything else.   The standard is the gold piece. first use a $ to represent the relative value.  Each $ represents a magnitude of ten.  So if somthing costs 10-99gp it is $$, 100-999gp it is $$$.  For things valued in sp use -$ and things valued in cp use --$.  Now every area has a "cost index."  This is a number determined by the DM that gives him a ballpark area to price somthing.  It can only range from 1.0 to 9.99~ The further away you get from the centers of production the higher the index gets. So here is an example using our friend the 10ft chain. (I have revalued it to 3gp)  first we look at the chain...  its relative value is $.  The local index is say 4.5.  So when a character goes to get a chain the local merchant asks 45 silver.  The player thinking that that might be too much haggles it down to 32 silver.Another example, index is 2.3 (near a large city) and a player is looking to buy a suit of breast plate armor ($$$).  so the bidding starts at 2300 sp.  The player can haggle it to whatever price he wants.  If he was in a place far from civilisation, the index would indicate that the armor was worth more maybe 850.  So say he buys breastplate for 300 and travels to the far reaches of the world, there he retires and decides to lead a life of peace.  His armor is now worth twice as much as when he bought it. This system does two things, first it keeps costs relative.  Most of us would agree that a grappling hook and a chest are both in the 1-9.999 gp range.  And we would all agree that a masterwork blade could be sold for 999 gp or 100gp depending on where it was sold and who was selling it.  Second it lets us create the illusion of different economies and situations.  The poor village cant afford to buy five longswords for 250gp but they probably would go for 50gp.  Conversely a player is not going to buy a longsword for 99gp unless it is very unique (but not masterwork).  Then again he might if the salesman is really really good. Obviously it can be abused, but I think it works better than saying that an item is a set price everywhere you go.  Aaron.</blockquote>

Verification