D&D (2024) Uncommon items - actually common?

[Minigiant]

Dupe

 

[Ancalagon]

Interesting take, but some things (in glancing) you might not consider:

The material cost isn't just 50 gp... it is 50 gp of RUBY DUST. Unless your world as an abudance of rubies... and the means to crush them into dust easily, that seems a larger obstacle than just the 50 gp would suggest.

This is where the necessary "shortcut" of using a gold value of component instead of an amount shows it flaws, and it's necessity.

Can you imagine a cookie recipe saying "use 75 cents worth of flour, 2 dollars' worth of chocolate chip cookies"... no, it's insanity, no one cooks like this!

But a rule system that says "use a quarter carat (or 50 mg, if you prefer a metric value) of ruby dust to make a continual flame" is equally silly as a gaming rule. How much worth of ruby dust is that?!? 50 gold, perhaps?

So faced with that, we are left with a few options. Perhaps constant mining by dwarves (which are WAY better at mining than pre-industrial humans ever were) keeps the supply of rubies constant. Perhaps the value is meant as a sacrifice to some god or other entity, so "it's the thought that counts" and thus the physical amount doesn't matter, just the value. Perhaps the prices are kept fixed by powerful guilds (this happened a lot in some portions of the world).

Or maybe, the prices in the PHB are the prices now, now conveniently being the time your campaign is happening.

 

[pemerton]

There should be a great tension between the nobility and adventurers. Because they are reaaaaaly useful, but eventually they become powerful enough to overthrown their noble patron....

This is the background context for some of the REH Conan stories, although not really a foreground focus for any of them. (Maybe People of the Black Circle?)

But the Hyborean Age is a canvas on which to paint stories. It's not a reasoned model of human societies.

 

[pemerton]

This is also why D&D is heavy on city-states and naval travel.

Is it? I've played a lot of D&D, but city-states and naval travel have not generally figured very prominently.

The World of Greyhawk - which I've used a lot - looks more like pseudo-mediaeval Europe and West Asia than it does like pseudo-Ancient Mediterranean.

 

[pemerton]

The design of the early edition high level fighter and ranger assumed that there was always unclaimed land outside of civilization that rich nobles with armies and magic items would not challenge high level adventurers for if they build strongholds and castles there.

The return of bastions bring this back to 5th edition

It seems to me that the model for that assumption is German conquest of Central and Eastern Europe, English conquest of Ireland, etc. Or rather a romanticised version of that - quelling the local "tribes" and monsters, making "waste lands" productive, etc.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Is it? I've played a lot of D&D, but city-states and naval travel have not generally figured very prominently.

The World of Greyhawk - which I've used a lot - looks more like pseudo-mediaeval Europe and West Asia than it does like pseudo-Ancient Mediterranean.

Well, in D&D there often seems to be a lot of unsettled "wilderness." 4e had the "points of light" concept. I don't think these really resemble medieval Europe that much, even though that's the trappings D&D goes for. However, I think these make quite a bit sense if the nations are city states instead of realms that span large areas.

 

[pemerton]

Well, in D&D there often seems to be a lot of unsettled "wilderness."

Well, some of that wilderness is settled, but by "humanoids" (in the old terminology). This is why I draw the comparison to the Germans in Poland, Lithuania etc; to the English in Ireland; and so on.

And in mediaeval Europe there was "wasteland" - forest, swamps, etc - that only gradually became settled.

So to me it seems that D&D takes these elements of history and exaggerates and romanticises them.

But the cultural norms don't seem much like city state norms.

 

[Minigiant]

Is it? I've played a lot of D&D, but city-states and naval travel have not generally figured very prominently.

The World of Greyhawk - which I've used a lot - looks more like pseudo-mediaeval Europe and West Asia than it does like pseudo-Ancient Mediterranean.

More like Neverwinter, Baldurs Gate, and Icewinddale.


A lot of old school D&D was designed around a safe hub towns and cities surrounded by random wilderness with iffy trade routes and HYPERMEGADEATH dungeons far away to not affect daily life but close enough to make in back when besten down.

 

[pemerton]

A lot of old school D&D was designed around a safe hub towns and cities surrounded by random wilderness with iffy trade routes and HYPERMEGADEATH dungeons far away to not affect daily life but close enough to make in back when besten down.

Arthurian stories have this too - knights ride away from Camelot and find random castles in random forests inhabited by random ogres or enchantresses.

But Arthurian stores are not tales of city-states.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Interesting take, but some things (in glancing) you might not consider:

The material cost isn't just 50 gp... it is 50 gp of RUBY DUST. Unless your world as an abudance of rubies... and the means to crush them into dust easily, that seems a larger obstacle than just the 50 gp would suggest.

Also, the torchmakers' guild might have issue with this, as would anyone who makes their living with oil for lamps, etc.

Just some more food for thought.

I would say that a lamplighter's guild in a magic-influenced society would not be against Continual Flame spells, rather they would be involved in the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of such items in a public capacity. Continual Flame spells would be on the higher level of the services they would offer. They would still have cheaper options for the common folk.

Continual Flame spells are utilitarian, not dangerous spells that need controlled. Maybe the public street lamps of wealthy neighborhoods are enchanted to turn off and on based on the current level of ambient light, so they only turn on at night or on very dark, stormy days.

Ruby dust ground from low quality rubies would be a commodity among spellcasters, just like other spell components (100gp pearls for Identify; 50gp diamonds for Chromatic Orb, and others).