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

[Micah Sweet]

For a specific setting? Specific timeframe and region in that setting? How is it going to be any more accurate when it's all just make believe? Having more details and explanation doesn't necessarily make it any more accurate.

Because, as @Crimson Longinus pointed out, there is no reason for anything to have a consistent price. How much is a gold piece worth? What's the level of technology for making steel for that sword or armor? Does the world have automatons that can help refine the metal? Is there a good source of iron (or other requires metals) available? Do they have a way of harnessing fire elementals
The cost should vary not only by campaign but by region and even things like social class and connections.

The other aspect of needing to spend 100 gp on something is that magic does not have to be based on science or alchemy. It can be based on symbolism, effort, willpower and sacrifice. It can just be that you need to sacrifice 100 gp because of the amount you are sacrificing. It has nothing to do with the physical amount being used.

That, and D&D is a game about play pointy eared elves and slaying literal dragons.

All of this is support for your earlier stated opinion of, "I don't want to". Again, that's fine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It can be that, but it doesn't actually matter.


But you don't need to know the weight or amount of the ruby dust for that! If ruby prices have gone up due circumstances, then that component the spell description lists as "50 GPs worth of ruby dust" now costs 75 gold when you go by it. That's it, super simple, the exact amount of ruby dust this is doesn't matter.

Why not? Shouldn't there be an actual amount the spell requires?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why not? Shouldn't there be an actual amount the spell requires?

There is in the setting, but how much it exactly is doesn't really matter. Like how would it?

 

[Vaalingrade]

So... are you expecting the game to put forth a working model for a setting economy designed in such a way to allow the players to mechanically manipulate it through their actions?

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is in the setting, but how much it exactly is doesn't really matter. Like how would it?

I don't come at things in my game from the perspective of, "how would it matter?"

 

[Micah Sweet]

So... are you expecting the game to put forth a working model for a setting economy designed in such a way to allow the players to mechanically manipulate it through their actions?

Yes, absolutely. If the players want to manipulate the economy, they are welcome to try (and may very succeed)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes, absolutely. If the players want to manipulate the economy, they are welcome to try (and may very succeed)

But to be clear: you want the game to give you rules for that? And you intend to follow those rules. How long is your prep each session?

 

[tetrasodium]

I like gems and trade goods measured in gold piece value - a 50gp onyx, a 25gp trade bar of silver - and I like letting players make skill checks or roleplay to increase the values.

To me, the one case where making magic items have a static price would be in 3.x Forgotten Realms, where the Red Wizards had trade enclaves/embassies in major cities where their apprentices made magic items. Their reasoning for it was it essentially let their apprentices power-level, while possibly being a great place to spy on Waterdeep or Neverwinter.

I don't think that anyone is talking about converting gems as treasure/currency alternative to standardized trade goods or something, most or all of the discussion seems to be around costly spell components.

While there are a few spells like chromatic orb & identify that use a diamond/pearl worth a set value in gold, those spells are generally the exception when it comes to spells with costly components other than diamond dust. Doing a proper switchover would need to entail swapping them to standardized items like five bulbs of elementally charged fluid & draconic grade runesmith tools (or whatever the most relevant of a standardized list is).

 

[Oofta]

I don't come at things in my game from the perspective of, "how would it matter?"

But there are innumerable variables we don't have a similar issue. If we start questioning this, what else should we question? Why does a longsword cost 15 gp? For that matter what purity of dust is required? If it's diamond dust, what clarity of diamond? For that matter, how common are diamonds? They could be as common as quartz or practically nonexistent.

The point is that there is no answer to these questions other than "whatever you decide." You could come up with a system, it just wouldn't be any less arbitrary.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Yes it should, and that's what I intended to write, but the four ounces apparently short-circuited my brain. Then again, if we want realistic fluctuating prices, then certainly the relative value of gold and silver would fluctuate too!

Actually, not that much in real life. The quantity of relative gold and silver extracted from mining in the middle wasn't enough to significantly alter the silver-to-gold ratio. It was 10-12 to 1 since the end of the Roman Empire to the end of the middle ages. There was some historical example of deviance from it, for example in Japan the ratio was different than in mainland Asia so there was a lucrative gold/silver trade for Korean traders, but it's extremely specific. At a local level, though, a huge influx could do some effect, but probably over a longer time most campaigns last.

Of course, if you open a portal to the elemental plane of earth, you might find a beach where pebbles are made of gold ready for the harvest, then all bets are off.