The Economics of Magic Items (RE: Naked Adventurers)

[Voadam]

If you want to house rule and have all your items save but avoid 30 rolls every time, just have one roll determine the save for every item. This will be quick and mean more vulnerable items go first, but as sigil pointed out it will also quickly lead to naked adventurers. ( I remember that in an old x-man comic, wolverine fights a fire based super who blasts him, he takes the damage and heals but is left naked as his costume burnt off). This will also lead to fire and acid spells being much more powerful and destructive than under standard rules, giving more power to spellcasters.

 

[jgbrowning]

item damage

If you want to house rule and have all your items save but avoid 30 rolls every time, just have one roll determine the save for every item. This will be quick and mean more vulnerable items go first, but as sigil pointed out it will also quickly lead to naked adventurers. ( I remember that in an old x-man comic, wolverine fights a fire based super who blasts him, he takes the damage and heals but is left naked as his costume burnt off). This will also lead to fire and acid spells being much more powerful and destructive than under standard rules, giving more power to spellcasters.

I usually dont make players save for their eq. I only do it on rare occasions, like when they got ambushed by 6 digesters. I figured three or four acid cones in 6 seconds was unfriendly. Ended up absolutely destroying the body of one of their fallen comrades. They were to low level to deal with a true res, so hello new character.

joe b.

 

[Blacksteel]

In my game a Mercane (from the Manual of the Planes, in 2nd edition the race was called the Arcane from Spelljammer) who goes by the name Arakania has a magic shop in Waterdeep. He is a member of the Planar Trading Company. This is a convenient way to buy, sell, trade almost anything the players need from all over the multiverse. He also has at lease one mage and cleric on hand for enchanting or any other useful spellcasting.

This has worked out very well although it is expensive. The beginning price for buying most items starts out double what is in the DMG and selling starts out at half the price (You want a +4 Keen, Speedy Rapier, but of course. It will take one month and the price starts at 325,000 gp, will that be in gp or would you like to trade in some items.).

It has also given the group alot to do. Looking for rare spell components and items. As well as introduce them to Planar travel.

 

[Metalsmith]

I can see it now!

anyway, im going to keep using my system. I think any object in a fireball is effected by the fireball, unattended or not. A

It's a pleasant morning, the Cleric and Mage are meditating on their spell selections the fighter is pouring the morning coffee on the fire and the Rogue is going through the Fighters backpack When suddenly an arrow is fired into the ground in front of the fighter! It has a note attached,

"I have a Necklace of Fireballs if you value your equipment you will each place a valuable magic item on the ground and run over the next hilltop. If you do not I and my compatriots will throw 10 Fireballs and leave you to the Hill Giants who will hear the blast and come to investigate. It's Your Call! signed Hiram the Red Bandit"

Sheesh you must really hate your players.

Metalsmith

 

[LightPhoenix]

Also does not take common sense into account that the limit is total limit of goods and services. Your math error is treating each category separately. The town that did have 7.5 billion chickens would just sell chickens. They have no money or resources to buy cows, arrowheads, and wheat. They just sell chickens. Except for Jasper would be selling fertilizer. But nice number crunching.

Actually, I would go one further: that town would have nothing but chickens - no coin, no fertilizer, no food, no farming implements... it would rapidly degenerate into a chicken-based economy, which likely would degenerate soon after into a coin-based economy, if that's what everyone around them was using.

*Drags the thread back to the original topic*

You'd also have to take into account population densities. A kingdom may have a million peasants, but most of them will be in small towns - there may be one metropolis-sized city in the entire kingdom.

You'd also have to take into account environment - most large cities and certainly all metropolises will develop at locations that are well suited for supporting life and trade. A kingdom that is entirely a forest would not be able to support large densities of people. This is of course assuming every race is the same as far as needs.

Depending on how in depth an economy you wanted to create, as well as how complex a world you'd want to create, you could also consider that different races control different powers and tenets of magic. Orcs may have a low magical economy because they don't often produce spell-casters. Elves may have a thriving economy because they often produce spell-casters. Dwarven magic may concern item creation, but Halfling magic may be more healing oriented, and Humans may excell at conjuration.

 

[Forrester]

Actually, I would go one further: that town would have nothing but chickens - no coin, no fertilizer, no food, no farming implements... it would rapidly degenerate into a chicken-based economy, which likely would degenerate soon after into a coin-based economy, if that's what everyone around them was using.

All mocking aside, the 7.5 billion figure is still ridiculous, even if is purely chicken-based. Suppose there are 999 other commodities out there competing for recognition. I can't imagine there being many more . . . so there's only 7.5 MILLION chickens instead of 7.5 billion. I think there's still a problem here . . .

 

[The Sigil]

I'll agree that it can get ludicrous...

Let us assume 7.5 million chickens.

Furthermore, assume everyone in the populace eats a whole chicken for every meal. That's 90,000 chickens eaten per day.

Assume that all of these chickens are sterile.

That amounts to... let's see... over 83 years of chicken meals for the populace.

Yeah, it gets ridiculous. A good "quick fix" might be that a town has no more than <Y> times as many items of <X> as it does people, where Y is a number between two and ten.

--The Sigil

 

[mkletch]

Re: Re: Re: Re: augmenting enchantments

If you want magic items to be unique you need to encourage PCs to upgrade them. Otherwise it is just This Year's +n Sword and I am sure I will loot a better one off a fallen enemy eventually. How is that an improvement?

Allowing players to upgrade introduces two roleplaying elements: negotiation with the creator/enchanter that will do the work and keeping a weapon around in the party for a whole campaign. Heck, even allowing the outright purchase of items gives you the negotiations piece.

The problem is that 3E (and all versions of DnD, really) is a combat game first, and a roleplaying game second. The rules, setup, creatures, 'official' modules, etc. are all combat centric. If you want to emphasize roleplaying, you have to be willing to look beyond the 'printed rules', and make up an engaging campaign world. If the players want hack, then you are out of luck. It has to be a partnership of vision. Shame it is so rare for it to happen, in my experience.

-Fletch!

 

[mkletch]

I prefer the Dragon Magazine rules for improving weapons with experience myself.

I keep hearing this, but I found the article to be overcomplicated and underwhelming. Do you pay gold or XP? Either way you just pay.

A simpler way of improving items that would work better in the 'economy' would be a feat that allowed an item creator to use XP from a willing participant in the process. So your character spends XP anyway, just not with a strange process of a pseudo-mystical weapon. I'd rather have a non-optimal weapon than a cludgy 'power-up' sword that my henchman cannot use to defend me when I fall because it sucks for him with his lower level.

Why does everything have to scale to the level of the character, anyway. A realistic campaign world would have dirt-poor 15th level fighters and noble sons with +3 swords at 1st level. The game does not support this, either. The 'feel' of 3E is much more like a CRPG, where everything scales all the time, and there really are no surprises. Scaled encounters, scaled treasure, scaled experience gain rates.... The only thing that does not scale is the power gain between spellcasters and non-spellcasters between 1st and 20th level.

-Fletch!

 

[Alcamtar]

Re: damaging equipment concept furthered

Second: I like the concept of items being damage/destroyed when caught in an area effect spell or environment. But as some have joked on, it could be quite impractical to use such a rule in game. And I try to keep Rule 0 and House Rules to a absolute minimum.

Okay, here's another idea:

If the character fails his save and takes damage, his least powerful magic item (DM call) has to make a save. If that item fails its save, then roll for the next most powerful item. Continue in this manner until a successful save is rolled.

If you have a good save and just roll bad, you're probably not going to lose much equipment. If you have a lousy save you might lose a few minor pieces, but eventually you'll get a lucky roll, and even so it's mostly minor stuff like potions or scrolls.

On the downside, everyone will carry a couple of super cheap scrolls as "fire insurance". And if they never lose anything they actually care about, what good is the rule? You could hit the most powerful items instead, but this makes those fireballs a lot more powerful. Finally, mundane items should technically go before magic, but this is going to leave a lot of naked adventures covered with magic items.

If you insist on rolling for everything, I'd prefer to just roll once and then apply it to each item, to save time. But a roll of '1' will take EVERYTHING 5% of the time. Instead, I'd roll three times, discard the highest and lowest value, and apply the middle one.

I think I'd stick with the standard rule, and when you feel the need to "purge" some magic from the party, hit them with a Gray Ooze or a Mordenkainen's Disjunction. Or have a thief steal it!

Stuff to think about.