Stocking up on cheap magic

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Per these numbers, unskilled labor (the vast majority of the population, unless it's houseruled otherwise) makes a 1 gp profit every 2 and a half months(.4 gp a month, or 4 silver), barring unforeseen disasters.

And that's the point I'm not entirely certain of.

The "base rate" for unskilled laborers is 1sp per day.

However, this is basically the minimum wage and, while someone who is basically subsistence farming is probably making about this much, I'm not certain that this number applies to anyone who is running a nontrivial farm. I mean, this is the rate that is paid to scullery maids and porters - people who don't actually need any ranks in any skills.

Successful farming, on the other hand, requires at least a couple ranks in Prof (Farmer), and so should be reasonably expected to make more than the bare minimum.

 

[Storyteller01]

Successful farming, on the other hand, requires at least a couple ranks in Prof (Farmer), and so should be reasonably expected to make more than the bare minimum.

Depends on if your working on the feudal fiefdom model. Most of what was made went to the kingdom. The rest was sold or saved. Your profit will be based on the crop yield and market needs.

And I'll be the first to admit it; farming ain't easy, and the exceptional ones are trained since birth. Doesn't mean they were paid what they were worth.

My point is: if there's a shop selling lots of magic items, it's only there for the PC's. No one short of high end merchants can afford the items, and most of these individuals would go to private sources (who do high end artists sell to?).

 

[Storm Raven]

I buy an electric shaver, it's far better than a big bag of disposable razors.

So, that would be pretty much equivalent to a hypothetical rod of healing x/times per day?

 

[Storm Raven]

Given those costs, can someone afford to buy a potion of CLW? If not, why are they so accessuble?

Everyone is not a peasant. In our history, townsfolk were generally considerably better off than peasants, and most towns had a small number of "wealthy" people. Plus, adventurer types are usually drifters. What better way for the local priesthood to get money to do God's work than to fleece the hired guns. That way they can provide for their work amongst the poor without taxing anyone who is likely to be around more than a month or two.

 

[Storyteller01]

But how many of the wealthy townsmen (not nobles, but MAYBE high end merchants) can afford the 1500 gp to stock 30 CLW potions. How many can maintain the stock> Even if the church or local bard (a little more believable, but that's my opinion) is selling them below cost, what is the wealthy townsmen charging?

 

[S'mon]

So, that would be pretty much equivalent to a hypothetical rod of healing x/times per day?

Well, IMC wands are rechargeable - you pay the XP cost but no more gp cost.

 

[apesamongus]

My characters can buy whatever they can find for sale. And no, there is no way that you can find 30 wands of anything in a shop. It would be implausible even in all but the most extremely magic-rich world.

Go look at an MMORPG economy sometime. That's not a theoretical economy, but something very closely resembling an actual economy where magical items can be constructed fairly easily. What you'll find is a glut of cheap items - often to the point of people handing things out for free or for donations, as supply outstrips demand.

 

[Storm Raven]

But how many of the wealthy townsmen (not nobles, but MAYBE high end merchants) can afford the 1500 gp to stock 30 CLW potions. How many can maintain the stock> Even if the church or local bard (a little more believable, but that's my opinion) is selling them below cost, what is the wealthy townsmen charging?

It's not going to be a single merchant stocking 30 potions, it is going to be a collection of them. If you are going to model anything similar to a middle ages style economy, you are probably going to have a guild, probably the Alchemist's Guild, that controls the production and sale of things like potions in any town of any size. (Trade guilds were ubiquitous in urban areas, and served mostly to enforce monopolies on the production of goods). The 30 potions won't be held for sale by a single producer, but by a dozen.

Either that, or you go to a group that has a lot of capital, like say a church. Most campaigns probably don't have anything similar to the midaevil Catholic Church with its massive wealth (if you do, they probably control much of the sale of these sorts of magic item), but the temples are probably reasonably wealthy anyway. They would have the capital to stock up on items, or the connections to procure them.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I wanted to get people's opinions and insights...

It really rubs be the wrong way when I hear about folks 'stocking up' on cheap magic. To me it breaks something to have a 12th level party go into town and buy 30 Cure Light wands, because they are 'more economical'.

Or the Cleric that memorizes the spell only once, since he has 8 pearls of Wisdom (level 1)

I dont' mind the party having a lot of healing potions, but when they try and buy CLW potions in a 'keg', it seems to be missing the point somewhat.

To me something gets lost when magic comes down to an excel spreadsheet for determining usefulness.

I say let them go for it. When that 12th level party runs into the 3rd or 4th encounter for the day and the party cleric is running low on spells those 30 CLW wands are not going to do jack to keep the party fighter alive while he is in melee with the things hitting for 30points per swipe.

 

[azmodean]

Storyteller, there are a lot of things that an average pesant couldn't afford that is easily accessable to the PCs. For instance weapons, horses, large houses. By the way, if a healing potion were needed for an emergency, it would most likely be a potion of cure minor wounds, since that does just as good a job of stabilising a dying person as a clw potion for half the cost. It is completely resonable that pesants can't afford magical items anyway, they are the people that don't have anything. According to the level distributions as listed in the DMG, there are quite a few higher-level NPCs that can afford that kind of item in a given large settlement, which provides a market for that kind of item. If your game specifies that there are no higher-level NPCs in the world, then of course the situation is going to be different. That would be rather odd however, considering the way you treat the suggested income for a lvl 1 commoner as an inextorable fact of nature. If the income for a pesant is what makes the system not work for you, why not change that instead of changing the parts of the game that will negatively impact the PCs?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that individual merchants are going to have a barrel of clw wands lying around the store, but on the other hand some people seem to be suggesting limitations on magic items that are a bit extreme. It's difficult to tell since most of the posts just say things like "games nowadays have too many magic items" instead of citing examples of the percieved problem. (this is understandable as outlining a specific example both takes time and opens you up to specific criticism) The extreme is not allowing the PCs to buy magical items at all, which I've left games over before (wether from not making the items available or not awarding the party with any loot that they can use to buy magic items) as it is a major part of the game, and IMO breaks the system.

I think I'll be using Quasquetons system in place of a more difficult to use system I've been mulling over. (an extension to a town generator I've written that actually generates the contents of every shop within a given settlement, so I could just hand the group a list of what was available based on a Gather information check. Saves me the time of writing the program and the time and expense of generating and printing the lists of shop inventories.)