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View Full Version : [3.5] Is it impossible to profit by selling crafted items?



Myou
2010-03-12, 04:28 PM
As I understand it, crafting feats generally let you make an item at half the base price, saving money, but items normally sell at half the base price too. If that's right then does it mean that unless you take the Artisan feats from Eberron you can't normally profit by crafting items to sell?

Eldariel
2010-03-12, 04:30 PM
As I understand it, crafting feats generally let you make an item at half the base price, saving money, but items normally sell at half the base price too. If that's right then does it mean that unless you take the Artisan feats from Eberron you can't normally profit by crafting items to sell?

This only goes for the PCs who utterly fail at selling things (never getting more than half its value is pretty damn poor marketsmanship). But yeah, you basically have it right. Well, Mercantile Background works too for making money, among other things.

Lysander
2010-03-12, 04:31 PM
The trick maybe is to also have Profession (The craft you do) and use that to determine weekly profit. Which kind of makes sense. If you know how to make things but not how to run a business it's going to be hard to stay profitable. With Profession you can assume that you're using your craft skills in a way that turns a profit.

Myou
2010-03-12, 04:34 PM
This only goes for the PCs who utterly fail at selling things (never getting more than half its value is pretty damn poor marketsmanship). But yeah, you basically have it right. Well, Mercantile Background works too for making money, among other things.

So, you could reasonably haggle to turn small profits?

Eldariel
2010-03-12, 04:36 PM
So, you could reasonably haggle to turn small profits?

Sure. There are even rules for haggling in CAdv or something. Basically a Diplomacy-check.

Yzzyx
2010-03-12, 04:36 PM
Merchants sell things by setting up a shop and then sitting around until an interested (and wealthy) person happens by. They then tell them the price, take it or leave it. If it is bought, great. If not, eventually someone else will wander by.

Adventurers sell things by walking up to merchants and saying "Hi. I have a powerful magical sword here. How much will you pay for it?"

Eldariel
2010-03-12, 04:40 PM
Merchants sell things by setting up a shop and then sitting around until an interested (and wealthy) person happens by. They then tell them the price, take it or leave it. If it is bought, great. If not, eventually someone else will wander by.

Adventurers sell things by walking up to merchants and saying "Hi. I have a powerful magical sword here. How much will you pay for it?"

...not every adventurer or adventuring party acts the same. And this is medieval economy, nobody just says "this is the price, take it or leave it". That's just not how economy works.

People pay what they are ready to pay, not what you want unless you have exclusivity and even then, they'll bargain on other factors. D&D rules make no sense.

randomhero00
2010-03-12, 04:44 PM
You have to keep in mind that selling magic items is like selling rare stuff to a pawn shop. There's no way they're going to pay you anywhere near full price for it as they have to make a profit. Not only that, but they are essentially taking a risk because they're tying up their money and that item may never sell (or it may take years before they can get a return on their investment). Hence the, selling for half-market price standard.

If I was a DM and you wanted to haggle like that then I'd also institute that if you fail your haggle, you can only get 1/3rd of the price (which is about the pawn shop range, from 30%-60% of full price value.) I would also have the shopkeeper go out of business if you continued to sell max value stuff (~60% of $) since he'd be making bad deals so often.

Douglas
2010-03-12, 04:47 PM
The usual justification for this is that half price is what you get when you just walk into town and try to sell something specific in a day. The real merchants who make their living selling magic items have a sizable stock, set up shop, maybe advertise, and wait for customers to come to them. They get full price because it's the buyer who wants the deal to happen quickly; the merchant can just refuse and wait another month for a customer that's willing to pay full price for that particular item, but the buyer usually wants to acquire it that day and put it to use very soon. When an adventurer walks into the shop and plops a +3 sword on the counter to sell, however, it is again the merchant who has the advantage; the adventurer wants to get this boring business over with, while the merchant has other sources of stock to turn to if the adventurer won't give him a highly profitable price.

JeenLeen
2010-03-12, 04:47 PM
I've always seen the sell at half price rules as making sense for such reason:

1) it is reasonable that there are only so many people with enough spare gold to afford to buy from adventurers.

2) these shopkeeps are respectable. You don't have to worry about them selling your cursed weapons, or wands with only three charges left, or a potion mis-labeled. (This also explains why adventurers don't just meet and auction items to one another at closer to shop-value.)

3) most things PCs sell are loot, meaning they are probably dirty, dented, etc. It costs money and time to repair them as new. Even if clean, wands might have less charges than the PCs say, and some adventurers would try to pass off cursed items as real. Shopkeeps and other shoppers can't trust PC merchandise.

If a PC tried to sell something, people wouldn't trust him at first. If he stayed in a town and set up a shop, eventually it would make sense for him to be able to sell stuff, especially newly crafted stuff, at market value. However, by that point he is probably a retired adventurer, not a PC.

Telonius
2010-03-12, 05:04 PM
The reason it's like this:

"Our party of elves has decided to take a 200-year sabbatical and become merchants. At the end of 200 years, we should have amassed enough gold to buy +6 stat boosters for everything."

Abd al-Azrad
2010-03-12, 10:54 PM
The part that you're missing in your analysis is that, when the PCs are typically selling loot, they are selling it at a disadvantage to a businessperson. The whole idea that you can only sell loot for half value is a simple arbitration to help speed through such transactions and get the party back into dungeons, as well as a simple trick of the rules to encourage PCs to find interesting ways to use the loot they steal from things they kill. It's a simple design element that slows down the PCs from getting decked out in the perfect gear, it means that when a PC invests money in their gear they can't just turn around and upgrade it for free (so investment in gear actually is a choice)...

There are a lot of reasons the game arbitrates pawning stolen loot to merchants. The thing to remember is, if your PC wants to be a merchant, then you should not be using simple arbitrations of economic principles. In other words, if you want to run a business in a D&D world, rather than just trade loot out for things you want, work with your DM to better construct your world's economy!

Figure out things like input costs, and negotiate with miners or craftsmen to purchase important components in bulk at a net discount. Buyers love doing this because they get a discount on their costs, and sellers love these deals because they can guarantee a bulk sale, which means guaranteed income - a good thing for a craftsman. Learn the trade and tax laws of your land, and negotiate with/bribe government officials to help turn profit. Have a chat with the local thieves' guild, to see what protection costs. All of these things are economic reasons why common PCs never see more than half profit from their loot, because they don't understand what's needed to earn a full profit!

And if this sounds like a really boring game to you (I'd love it, personally, but I'm an economist by day) then don't make a character that's designed to craft items for profit. Business... it's a game all to itself.

vanyell
2010-03-12, 10:58 PM
from a real life standpoint, most merchants buy their stuff for about half what they sell it for IRL. so I don't see what the issue is in D&D

KellKheraptis
2010-03-12, 11:09 PM
First page of the Handbooks board on BG has a guide to item crafting. Combine with typical means of avoiding XP drain (also noted) and craft to your heart's content. Magical item crafting can be very profitable, if time consuming, though it's all behind the scenes, or in your portable hole as the case may be, being done by your trusty Wright :)

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-03-13, 02:52 PM
First page of the Handbooks board on BG has a guide to item crafting. Combine with typical means of avoiding XP drain (also noted) and craft to your heart's content. Magical item crafting can be very profitable, if time consuming, though it's all behind the scenes, or in your portable hole as the case may be, being done by your trusty Wright :)

Yup. I take no responsibility for the PHB-sized lumps your DM will give you if you try to not just make items at less than 5% cost, but then try and sell at (ooooh say half price) for profit and hence infinite WBL... :smallwink:

Escheton
2010-03-14, 12:03 PM
Thats all great and all, but there is an actual feat that makes creating magic items more cheaply. It's in one of the first fearun books. Prolly magic.

Myou
2010-03-14, 12:14 PM
Thats all great and all, but there is an actual feat that makes creating magic items more cheaply. It's in one of the first fearun books. Prolly magic.

It's also in the first post. :smalltongue:

Roderick_BR
2010-03-14, 12:39 PM
As I understand it, crafting feats generally let you make an item at half the base price, saving money, but items normally sell at half the base price too. If that's right then does it mean that unless you take the Artisan feats from Eberron you can't normally profit by crafting items to sell?
That considers second-hand itens being sold to a shop. For newly made itens, one imagines you are selling it at full price to a customer, else you'd be buying things from the vendor at half price anyway.

Myou
2010-03-14, 12:42 PM
That considers second-hand itens being sold to a shop. For newly made itens, one imagines you are selling it at full price to a customer, else you'd be buying things from the vendor at half price anyway.

The buy price for items is, by default, twice the craft price.

dspeyer
2010-03-14, 01:38 PM
I've often felt that major cities should have taverns that function like craigslist, where magic goods are sold for about 75% list price with the innkeeper taking a tiny cut. There'd be no guarantee of finding exactly what you want, or being able to sell something not many people want, but there'd be a good chance if you're flexible. The merchants' guild would try to kill whoever ran it, but all the high level adventurers who frequent the place would make that very difficult.

elonin
2010-03-14, 02:26 PM
The risk of someone selling an illusioned up something is much more than the risk of selling a wand with fewer charges than you want to indicate. There is a description for wands that states that the wand communicates to its weilder how many charges are left.

Escheton
2010-03-14, 02:55 PM
It's also in the first post. :smalltongue:
note: eberon, feats vs fearun, feat
but yeah sure

ericgrau
2010-03-14, 03:49 PM
I think if the adventurers are willing to set up shop, then either create an inventory that is much larger than what is bought or wait years and years for someone who wants their particular items, then ya they should be able to sell for full. But most would rather go adventuring. This is the kind of investment shopkeepers take when they buy your magic items, hence the reason why they pay half if you want to dump it right away. Another method would be if the PCs happen to know an NPC buyer for a particular item, which does happen once in a blue moon.