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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5057230" data-attributes="member: 2011">Here's where I disagree. I think that economics and D&D can work hand in hand.Magic items have to be expensive enough that not every militia have them, but inexpensive enough that PCs can acquire them and inexpensive enough that powerful merchants can afford to buy them from PCs. So, it's not the starting amount of gold for magic items that creates a problem, it's the amount of gold for the highest level items compared to the amount of gold for the lowest level items.A low end brand new car costs $10,000. A high end brand new car costs $500,000. The ratio is 50 to 1 (and no, I won't go into cars even more expensive).Having a 50 to 1 ratio, or 100 to 1 ratio, or even 250 to 1 ratio between 1st level items and 30th level items is fine. Having an ~10,000 to 1 ratio is what is unrealistic.Every 5 levels of item (i.e. going from a +1 item to a +2 item) multiplies the economy by 5. Every level, the PCs tend to find gold and items worth ~30% to 40% more than the previous level (there is a gradual curve for 4 levels and than a steep jump at 6, 11, 16, etc.). If there were only 10 PC levels, then this would be reasonable. But, there are 30 levels.Changing it to multiply by ~3.2 instead of 5 does the following to the magic item purchase price:Level 1: 360 GP (which btw is a bizarre number, I would make it 500 GP or something)Level 6: 1150 GPLevel 11: 3600 GP Level 16: 11500 GPLevel 21: 36000 GP Level 26: 115000 GPNote: This is just one example of a better equation. An even shallower one might be preferable.This way, PCs could sell items for 50% to 75%% of their worth because they still have the limiting factor of them having a LOT less money overall. They still can find fabulous treasures, they are just not mega-fabulous treasures.I think the entire concept of "a PC has to sell an x+1 bonus item in order to acquire an x bonus item" to be inherently wrong from an economic POV. Would you sell your old $250,000 home for $50,000, just in order to buy a brand new $50,000 home somewhere else? It just doesn't make sense.There shouldn't be such logical inconsistencies in the economics of the game system.It's a plausibility issue. Some people don't like Magic Shops in their game. Fair enough. But the economics of the system should allow for Magic Shops. It's plausible that merchants would want to buy and sell every possible object in the gaming world. That's plausible. Having items that nobody can afford to buy and sell is implausible.</blockquote>

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