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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aelryinth" data-source="post: 9331186" data-attributes="member: 10515">Hey there, Master of Economics degree. Some implications and things for you. SOme are covered elsewhere, some are covered here, but they are points to think about.1E) The primary makers of permanent magic items would be clerics using divine power. The simple reason is the Permanency spell. It cost a magic-user a point of Constitution to make ANY magic item. This effectively means NO minor magic items, and anything the wizard makes is likely to be for their own benefit and rather powerful, to make losing that Con point worthwhile.Magic-users would primarily supply Potions, Scrolls, and Wands that don't require a Permanency spell to make.Corollary: There were no bonuses or penalties for Con 9-14, other than system shock/resurrection. So, an average wizard with no Con bonus who somehow reached level 11 could potentially make up to 5 permanent magic items over their life with no HP penalties. If their Con was above 16, they could actually make more, since HP benefits were capped at 16 for non-fighters!Corollary II: There were no feats or instructions available for creating magic items, so you winged it or did it on the fly. Even potions and the like didn't come with official ways to make them. Making them was thus dangerous unless you inherited the knowledge, so magic items should be rarer.Corollary III: It's no good asking what Gygax did. He regularly created powerful magic items, and the players lost them, mostly by having to sell them to pay to get nasty conditions inflicted on them removed by powerful casters.Corollary IV: If you have a bunch of minor magical weapons, someone will want to buy them. Period. They are too useful NOT to be desired, especially since AD&D had absolute damage reduction: If you didn't have the magic weapon, you often couldn't hurt the creature AT ALL if you didn't have spells!Corollary V: With no easy magic item production, AD&D/Greyhawk is a lower magic world, especially 'low magic'. Granted, the magic items made will last forever, and both Oerth and FR have tens of thousands of years of magical history. Since magic items last almost forever, there can still be tons of them lying around. In effect, AD&D is constantly recycling and reusing ages-old magic items.Corollary VI: most classes were expected to settle down and become nobles at some point, and that's where all their excess gold was supposed to go. Gygax himself was a bit miffed when they would rather go dungeon delving than run their kingdoms/churches/whatever.Corollary VII: Magic item pricing was more for xp purposes than anything. I know that my characters would take Girdles of Giant Strength over +2 swords any day, but the latter were worth more?!3E: Easy magical item making becomes possible with a feat. Costs are clear, but availability restrained by city size. Magic items very necessary to get stronger as you go up in level, worked into the balance curve. Lots of available high level magic means generally speaking that low, broad magic should exist. Magical knowledge is widespread and easy to access.Corollary I: A Caster needs only one Item Creation Feat to make money, essentially trading xp for gold. There is NO advantage to a Caster to make a powerful item, as the time/gold ratio is fixed. 100 +1 Swords take the same amount of time as a +10 Sword. Minor items that sell faster and more easily would be the norm, expensive items commission and probably pre-paid only, the Caster will get just as rich.Logically, this means the high-level Casters required to make high-level items should demand a premium for being able to do so!Corollary II: While technically Casters making items could 'fall behind' in levels and get more xp to keep up, making crafting free, WoTC and the Living campaigns also ruled that the xp spent on making magic items was to be counted towards your current effective level, which effectively removes this advantage. Given that having a crafter doubled the value of your gold going towards magic items, this still did not penalize the crafter or party at all.Corollary III: Enforcing the limits of making magic items was variable. Technically, you had to have 3 levels for each +1 of a magic item to make it, OR have Caster Level/Spellcraft equal to the Level needed to cast the highest-level spell or meet the Caster Level minimum of the magic item. It meant minor Casters could only make minor items, even with maxed spellcraft to make sure they succeeded.Thus, scarcity rules for high level casters would come into play again, since only they could make the powerful stuff!Corollary IV: All that gold floating around was going to get eaten up by the costs of making magic items. magic items consume a LOT of gold. If you assume the gold is USED UP when making the magic item, that means it is constantly being removed from the economy, and inflation simply isn't an issue. The hoards of loot get burned away making magic items rapidly, so coming in and dumping a dragon's hoard means a short term surge in making magic items, -500 gp/day/artificer is removed from the economy, and in a month there's no gold inflation anymore.Corollary V: If monster parts and odd components are usable in making magic items, they are worth gold, and if they are worth gold, there will be an active market in them and specialists who go out and get those components as jobs. Bonuses if they are minor or just tedious, as those are perfect for NPC's to 'farm' for a living. If the last leaf to fall from a tree before the Winter Solstice is worth 1 GP in making cold or plant-based magic items, that's a job for peasants who want to make some money!Corollary VI: Gold consumption means that gold and platinum coins should be fairly rare, as nobody is going to give a damn that they shouldn't burn away said coins if they want a magical item. As a result, lower value coins will be MUCH more common, and gold and platinum coins would basically be minted with the idea that they are going to be destroyed sooner or later to create magic items.Corollary VII: As a result of magical item construction, the 500 gp/day hard limit is an absolute number, and the 1:25 xp/gold ratio is also known. This value does NOT change based on economics. While the sale value of gold can fluctuate up and down vs other objects, it always takes the same weight of gold to make magic items. This means that gold (and the 500 gp/day limit, which I call a goldweight) would be a known quantity and the foundation of any currency market. it doesn't matter what the rarity of gold vs silver is: silver is worth 1/10 what gold is when making magic items, and that will absolutely form its value. Ditto platinum. If platinum is abundant... then it will be rapidly consumed until the relative value is back to 5x that of gold, and there it will stay. Also, all gems can be rated in terms of goldweight and how much they are worth in making magical items, so relative rarity, cut, and the like is either measurable... or irrelevant!Gemcutting would exist to triple the value of raw gemstones, and precious metal jewelry exist to triple the value of said metals for burning away to make magic items! Making 'craftcoins' of gold to triple the value of gold would likely be a full time job for goldsmiths!Corollary VIII: The Epic Rules and the Feat for being able to make 10k gp of magic a day meant your Epic Casters are likely your most prolific makers of magic items, and wherever they exist, magic items will rapidly become MUCH more common.Corollary IX: Just because something SELLS for high gp value due to collector status/rarity would have no effect on its value for making magic items.Pathfinder: As 3e, but all magic items cost gold instead of xp to make.Corollary: the extra cost of the difference between making and selling a magic item is the profit to the Caster. That should be variable in a  'real' world, but if enough magic is out there, costs would be pretty much standardized, as underselling would hurt other Casters, who might come around to kill you for devaluing their time. We can thus be free to assume the 100% margin (which is actually less of a profit than the 200% CRAFTERS make on objects) is where the balance of demand and value of Caster time has come to rest. After all, the Caster could be out just Casting spells for profit, and not spending eight hours of boring time infusing a magic item.Corollary II: Caster Level and Spellcraft Rank requirements were very loose in Pathfinder, so Feats that boosted your Spellcraft Check were actually smart investments for NPC's making stuff.Corollary III: The Magical Artisan feat meant you could turn your Crafting skill into making magic items, which made you a LOT more money very quickly vs Crafting (which was measured in silvers/day). However, the amount of gold required to do so meant you'd start out VERY small. Also, there would be quite a demand for skill-boosting items to make those increasingly high Spellcraft checks!4E: Magic items can literally be burned to create residuum to make other magic items. They are effectively tiered in logarithmic cost scales.Corollary: Minor magic items don't need to be sold, and so they won't be. They'll be reduced to powder and used to make other magic items you want, gradually growing in power all the time. Undesired magic items will vanish quickly from the economy, made into something else, and low, broad items will be taken by thieves and brigands and burned down to make residuum that can be tracelessly sold. In 4e, the only magic items that should exist are those that everyone wants. Vanity items, random stupid items, and the like would all be quickly burned away and disposed of, and any stolen items treated the same way so they can't be traced.So, 4e should have little low, broad magic. It all feeds constantly into making more powerful items.Corollary II: Residuum would be a trade good that is being constantly depleted and renewed as magic items are made (gold converted to magic), burned (Converted to residuum, goodbye Shoes of Auto-Lacing), and turned into magic again. In short, the pool of residuum is always growing as magic items are recycled and gold feeds into it.Corollary III: Gold inflation wouldn't be a thing, as it is constantly being converted into magic items and residuum and removed from the economy. This may not be the 500 gp/day/caster of 3e, but it will be constant the instant gold is available to do so.5e: Most of the construction is hand-waved, prices are based on arbitrary rarity instead of usefulness/hardness to make. A clear move to restrict magic items used and reliance on them, as well as making crafting them for yourself much harder/non-existent.Corollary I: Rarity IS how hard it is to make something, so it doesn't matter if you don't like it. It cost the maker X gp to make it, so that's what it costs to buy, or he wouldn't sell it... or make it in the first place.That said, objects which are useful should sell faster, and there would be a clear bias toward making them, since they'd turn over and actually move. So, non-useful stuff should be rare, simply because no one is going to buy it, and thus the makers will lose money.It also means that weird stuff is probably much older than useful stuff, since it was likely made on a whim by someone who could afford to do so and has been sitting around a long time waiting for some sucker to buy it.In 4e, these items would promptly be trashed for residuum, and the market would ruthlessly get rid of them. If rules exist to reduce items for other items, these things should be eliminated rapidly.Corollary II: it is non-realistic that NPC's can make magic items and PC's cannot, especially since PC's tend to be much more powerful than NPC's.Corollary III: IF NPC's can't create magic items, than you're into recycling ancient goodies again, which is fine. Common ancient goodies will still be common. It's definitely a different flavor then having to make your own... and where did the knowledge to make the magic items go? Justify it.</blockquote>

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