D&D 5E What happened to the Playtest lower magic prices?

[CapnZapp]

Once the playtest contained this magic item rarity table:

Rarity, Character Level, Item Value
Common, 2+, 50–100 gp
Uncommon, 3+, 100–500 gp
Rare, 5+, 500–2,000 gp
Very rare, 7+, 2,000–5,000 gp
Legendary, 9+, 5,000–10,000 gp
Artifact, 11+, 10,000+ gp

Ignoring the slightly low level req's for now, the prices indicate a fundamentally different treasure curve than the... slightly insane ;-)... system given by the DMG (and previous editions). If these prices can be said to double every category, the DMG prices increase tenfold with each category.

I'm curious to any and all discussion regarding this. What did people think? Were there any problems detected? What was good and what was bad about this? Was this idea quietly dropped or was there some sort of response from the playtesters?

Anything, really. My google fu must be weakening - or people's respect for NDAs must be greater than what I thought - because I can't find much about this particular issue...

 

[Zaran]

The way I'm going to do it in my game, finding special ingredients will not only provide some of the gold value but will also reduce the creation time. It's the only way to make higher rarity items and it gives the GM the ability to limit what items can be made.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Didn't the Playtest rules at one time reflect a silver standard? That might explain it. Otherwise it sounds like they just decided that going with higher treasure amounts was the way to go, probably to make it closer to previous editions. I'd have preferred a more flattened out treasure distribution, myself.

 

[Rune]

I think it's harder to create a feel of rarity (especially at the extreme end) with a more linear increase, particularly since the cost directly influences crafting time. With a steeper curve, it's easier to have numerous common magic items if you want, while keeping very rare items very rare.

 

[ExploderWizard]

That was a special sale.

ONCE THEY'RE GONE THEY'RE GONE FOLKS!! DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS PLAYTEST OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME!!!

Not including tax, tags, and 5000gp dealer prep.

 

[keterys]

The playtest prices look fairly borked based on utility and longevity, so I guess I'm happy they increased the price.

"So, for the same price, I could buy a case of potions of healing -or- a +3 legendary sword?" - Some playtester, I imagine.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks.

Speculation is good and all, but actually I am looking for actual playtest discussion, and if there was anything solid said on how these prices worked and didn't work.

Did you playtest? Did you test these magic item costs? How did things go? What issues cropped up?

Was there any commentary from the devs when they disappeared? When did they disappear? (That is, at what point did the playtest switch to "more traditional" prices with high level stuff costing hundreds of thousands of gold pieces?) How did people react?

 

[Ahrimon]

Unfortunately I don't think you'll find what you are looking for outside of WotC Cap. But if you do, please share. I'm always interested in insight to the game.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Inflation. Happened with Hit Points and damage too in the last few editions.

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm a bit bummed about the magic item chart and rules on page 129 of the DMG.

As a rough rule of thumb (YMMV), a GP is worth about $100.

So the chart becomes:

Common: $10,000 and 4 days to craft, minimum 3rd level
Uncommon: $50,000 and 20 days to craft, minimum 3rd level
Rare: $500,000 and 7 months to craft, minimum 6th level
Very Rare: $5,000,000 and 5.5 years to craft, minimum 11th level
Legendary: $50,000,000 and 55 years to craft, minimum 17th level

These times assume that the crafter is not stopping. If he takes breaks, it takes longer. And yes, I realize that multiple crafters can work together, but that is white noise. If any of them quit (die, whatever), the item can no longer be made (theoretically) and even 5 crafters are not going to want to spend 11 years each making a legendary item.

This has no bearing on the game whatsoever. The game is about the PCs. If the PCs cannot craft items, this is somewhat unnecessary information for the DM. If the PCs can craft items, then the cost are so high and timeframes so long that they will almost never be used in an actual game.

I actually like the original playtest values:

Common, 2+, 50–100 gp
Uncommon, 3+, 100–500 gp
Rare, 5+, 500–2,000 gp
Very rare, 7+, 2,000–5,000 gp
Legendary, 9+, 5,000–10,000 gp

that [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] listed. Even with the same 25 GP per day, this works out to:

Common: $5000 to $10,000 and 2 to 4 days to craft
Uncommon: $10,000 to $50,000 and 4 to 20 days to craft
Rare: $50,000 to $200,000 and 20 to 80 days to craft
Very Rare: $200,000 to $500,000 and 80 to 200 days to craft
Legendary: $500,000 to $1,000,000 and 200 to 400 days to craft

Now, someone might say that if legendary items only take a year to craft, there would be a bunch of them. Well, yes and no. They still require at least a half million dollars (i.e. 5,000 GP) to create and they still require (with the revised level minimum) 17th level PCs/NPCs (who often have better things to do) to do so.

Also, there is the problem of consumable items which the DMG does not really discuss. An Arrow of Slaying in the current model costs 50,000 GP ($5,000,000 ) and 5.5 years to craft. Theoretically. Same for a +3 arrow (or maybe you can create 20 of them for that cost/time, but the rules are unclear).

The cost / time for consumable items should be much lower, but the PHB already establishes a Potion of Healing at 50 GP (which if you think about it, $5000 is REALLY prohibitively expensive).


The rules here are just very weak, almost unusable, and beg to be houseruled.

A simple houserule is to make the lower cost the one for the consumables (and change the equation for it) and make the higher cost the one for most items. A group of consumables (like 20 +3 arrows) would cost the higher cost and time:

Common, 3+, 50 (2 days), 100 gp (4 days)
Uncommon, 3+, 150 (6 days), 500 gp (20 days)
Rare, 6+, 350 (2 weeks), 2,000 gp (80 days)
Very rare, 11+, 750 (1 month), 5,000 gp (~7 months)
Legendary, 17+, 1500 (2 months), 10,000 gp (~14 months)