I always thought the magic item bases prices from the DMG felt odd, but these changes make absolutely no sense... it costs more to make an item than sell it?! You can craft a single scroll of wish for a quarter million, or shell out 100,000 to make a ring of wishes (sure it takes way longer)... but why, when you can buy that ring for for an average of twice that. They really need to look at their math!
I see the selling section as more of what the initial offer is, than what it's total value will be. But that isn't codified here, so I understand your concern. Nobody goes into a purchase at max offer.
Buying a Ring of three Wishes is ~175,000gp with a minimum of 50,000 and a maximum of 300,000. IF you can find it (very difficult without direct GM assistance).
Crafting one costs 50,000gp (it is a consumable) and the max offer is 37,500gp.
Personally I see this as fine... But I would be tempted to use the Buy magic item price table and replace 50% 100% 150% with, base, 50% rolled, 100% rolled for offers.
WotC are making it this way to stop people from looking at magic item sales as gaining easy cash or making magic items commonplace, as the system isn't built for it.
Selling is more there to give some extra gold to people who have things they don't want.
Hi,
The idea is fine. Implementation, not so much.
Some activities very much favor Cha-based classes, and for no good reason: Why not a Wisdom-based check instead of Cha(persuasion), to perceive who might be selling an item? Or an Int-based knowledge check, to know who is who in town? Int(investigation) makes more sense than Cha(persuasion). There's no tie-in to backgrounds that might be helpful either, or various divination spells that might provide Guidance of some kind. And if it's going to be a Charisma check, why does Persuasion work but Intimidation fail?
BTW, a level 20 character skilled in persuasion with Cha 20 who rolls a 20 after maxing out the +10 bonus has achieved a 41, barely enough to get onto Table I. This (bad design) might be intentional, but Bards and Rogues can get another +6, which utterly changes things.
Wisdom doesn't make sense except to maybe notice someone... Perception is your ability to generally perceive things, not go searching for them. That is more investigation, which then in the case of people requires persuasion/intimidation/deception.
They are going for the idea that you aren't wandering streets finding a person with a well known magic shop, you are finding a person who is selling a magical item.
Intelligence knowledge may or may not work, but you generally need to have reason to have knowledge of the person selling the magical item or that it is being sold. Again, not the best ability for the job.
I would say that would probably fall under the research side of things, at best.
As for why you wouldn't just case a joint... Sure a player can do that, there is no reason to have rules for that as the base rules already cover everything that is needed.
It really limits you to evil characters though and is likely to result in unforseen events depending on the owner... Given that the more powerful the object the more powerful the seller is likely to be.
