Value of captured loot, esp. magic items

[mkletch]

OK, here is the issue. How does your campaign handle the sale of captured loot, especially magic items? In the SRD, it states the following:

Quoted from the SRD, Equipment I, Trade
In general, something can be sold for half its listed price.

Commodities are the exception to the half-price rule. A commodity, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself. Wheat, flour, cloth, and valuable metals are commodities, and merchants often trade in them directly without using currency. Obviously, merchants can sell these goods for slightly more than they pay for them, but the difference is small enough that you don't have to worry about it.

The Player's Handbook is close, but I do not have it at hand. The key here is the term 'commodity'. Magic items are ubiquitous in a standard 3E campaign, and can have great value in terms of trade. They are necessary at mid- to high-levels and have well defined values. Are magic items commodities?

What about character's with item creation feats? They can make no money and lose experience by the "default" system. This could be a route to building wealth, but is hampered by a single line of text that is not certifiably applicable. The phrase "In general" is pretty vague and could mean almost anything...

Thoughts?

-Fletch!

 

[Crothian]

It depends on the item, the economy, who you are, and who you are selling to. I've had players buy and sell stuff for 5% to 1,000% of the market price.

 

[Mr Fidgit]

we usually do half the value if the item if sold, up to full value if it's traded (like a commodity). a spellcaster could make money with item creation, but it could require him to have a shop or desperate buyers!

 

[hong]

Are magic items commodities?

No. Just because player characters are in love with them, doesn't mean they get a break.

 

[Kaji]

Here's what we do:

We only occassionaly roleplay trips to the shop. So if the PC's want to sell captured goods without a fuss, I usually give them a base 50%. If they want to play it out, there is potential to get as much as maybe 80% (depending on circumstances, but well worth the effort whne you start talking about some of the more expensive items).

You can, of course, screw up your efforts to Intimidate/Diplomacy/Bluff the local shopkeep, and even a small drop is enough for them to throw in the towel. The ability to shop around mostly only works in a handful of large cities, which is a benefit if you're in one, but that's not often the case (at least for me). The proble with large cities is that the max you can get for the item drops to something closer to 65% of cost, because you are not the only party in town.

 

[mkletch]

Re: Re: Value of captured loot, esp. magic items

No. Just because player characters are in love with them, doesn't mean they get a break.

100% wit and zero substance.

If you buy a house for $175k and sell it ten years later, do you get $87.5k for it? No, you actually get more. A car might be a bit different, but the use of the item has a real wear-and-tear effect on the vehicle, making it less useful (from a maintenance standpoint).

But a magic item (unless it has expended some charges), if just as useful a 1000 years after it was made, compared to the day it was made. The utility of the item never changes - almost like a gold piece or gem.

For non-magical captured equipment, you could rule that there is some wear-and-tear. But magic items are unusually durable, only taking damage from items of equal or greater enchantment (weapons), or have a generally superior quality to them, in addition to their magical function.

So I buy a ring of spell turning, walk around town for a week wearing it, and it maybe reflects a charm spell or two from unscrupulous merchants. Now it is worth half as much? Absurd.

-Fletch!

 

[mkletch]

And why not find a party of NPC adventurers. Presumably, they are selling their unwanted items at 50% (if you go by the book). You could offer them 60%, and they should be ecstatic. Reverse is true. An NPC might be happy to buy an item from you at 90% market, if he would otherwise buy it at full market. The blanket 50% rule just does not make sense.

-Fletch!

 

[hong]

Re: Re: Re: Value of captured loot, esp. magic items

100% wit and zero substance.

If you buy a house for $175k and sell it ten years later, do you get $87.5k for it? No, you actually get more. A car might be a bit different, but the use of the item has a real wear-and-tear effect on the vehicle, making it less useful (from a maintenance standpoint).

D&D's pricing rules are not meant to simulate a real-world economy. They're there for the purpose of providing a baseline reference for DMs, so they don't have to make up arbitrary numbers when their players offload excess treasure. Trying to build a functional economy from the rules will just result in pain, and some very rich PCs.

One example should suffice.

Seven and a half billion chickens in Greyhawk

 

[Stalker0]

If your going by the shop method, then I'd go 50%. I don't know if you have a ye old magic shop, but the thing is many times finding a common buyer for good magical gear is tough. Not only is it useful to but a few people, the shop keepers have to hold it. That offers up a lot of danger for them, if you have a +3 sword there are people who will want it, dangerous people. So considering all that, 50% seems like a good deal.


Now if you go through a specialist buyer, i'd go with roleplaying on that one, and definately open up the possibility to get even more then its worth.

 

[mkletch]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Value of captured loot, esp. magic items

D&D's pricing rules are not meant to simulate a real-world economy. They're there for the purpose of providing a baseline reference for DMs, so they don't have to make up arbitrary numbers when their players offload excess treasure. Trying to build a functional economy from the rules will just result in pain, and some very rich PCs.

True, D&D math can get pretyy funky. But both the sell at 50% and seven billion chickens example are absurd results. Typically you throw out absurd results; like calculating the length of a wire; you might get two answers, one of which is negative (and therefore absurd for a physical entity) and thrown out. If you base everything on extreme examples, you will come up with a system only useful in extreme situations. You should build a system that gets 80-90% of them right, and you work the remaining fraction in.

Kaji, Crothian, Mr Fidgit, Stalker0 - good answers. That is the type of answer I'm trying to get a sample of.

-Fletch!