Magic Item resale

[Volomon]

Ok probably stupid question, I always as a DM had players resell things for 1/2 their value because in the PHB it says anything not trade goods can be sold for 1/2 value. I always assumed this meant everything. Is this the case? I've notice in one adventure or rather errata for an adventure I had run explained the reasoning for the price of an item (it was powerful but only an elf on horseback could really use it), and that the full market price was what was listed under the magic item.

So how do you determine resale value, because I can see RARE items being worth their full value but on the other hand common items that might be found in a large city maybe not so much.

[2xMachina]

Sell to merchant for resale: Half price.
Finding a buyer yourself: Full price.

[Volomon]

Sell to merchant for resale: Half price.
Finding a buyer yourself: Full price.

Well let me ask another stupid question, I can see my DM questioning the valid nature of this. I can see how this would work just like in RL you get more if you put in the work. What would this entail though a mix of appraise and gather information checks, or a pure attempt at roleplaying?

[Saph]

Mostly, it requires waiting around until it just so happens that there's someone sufficiently rich in the neighborhood who wants that particular item. This usually takes a while.

[unre9istered]

If the characters are roll playing the sale with the merchant we usually allow an opposed social check of some sort (Bluff vs. Sense Motive or dueling Diplomacys) to get the price up. Something like +1% per 2 you win by (starting at 50%). We've never had anyone abuse Glibness or anything like that though. If we did then we'd probably have to change this.

[2xMachina]

It's more like opening a shop and being a merchant yourself.

1. Wait for a buyer.
2. Gather info for interested buyers. Don't bet on it though.

In other words, DM approval needed.

[Jack_Simth]

Well let me ask another stupid question, I can see my DM questioning the valid nature of this. I can see how this would work just like in RL you get more if you put in the work. What would this entail though a mix of appraise and gather information checks, or a pure attempt at roleplaying?
Bear in mind: That's not actually clearly defined - anywhere.

Which means if your DM accepts it at all, your DM gets to make this stuff up. And whether or not a guild will come down on your head for it. And whether or not you'll even get full price (after all, why buy goods of questionable quality and source from someone who's obviously trying to offload it, when you can go get one from an established merchant at the same price?).

An established merchant is trackable - if he sells you a cursed item without full disclosure, you have some recourse; you can tell all your friends, and if he has any competition, he'll never do business in that town again. A Random Adventurer? Not so much.

Tack on to that all the spells that can be used to fake magic (aka, putting a Magic Aura on a masterwork sword to make it seem a magical sword), and likely several skilled huskers having tried such tricks before, and it can get very hard to offload an item with person-to-person sales.

[Keld Denar]

Also, while roleplaying a couple of merchant haggling encounters is gonna be interesting, roleplaying ALL of them is gonna get hellaboring, especially for all the other players at the table who aren't involved.

Also, at low levels, when you are aquiring your first couple magical shineys, it is pretty exciting. At high levels when you've just slain Goblin Prince FancyPants and his royal retinue, going through the motions of hawking half a dozen +1 short swords is kinda annoying. Those are the things that are best done in a Charsi-esque drag and drop to vendor off-camera type encounter so you can get on with the good stuff, like tracking down Goblin Prince FancyPants' older brother, Goblin Prince FancyJacket before he can summon the evil demon into the realm material, etc etc etc.

[Livingdead]

I always allow my players to barter with the merchants. Sometimes they get pretty lucky and get full price or more for the item. It also depends on how much the merchant actually wants the item your selling to them.

[Lhurgyof]

Use the haggling system that was in AD&D.
It starts at 50% (Or on any agreed price to start with).
Roll opposed charisma checks, whoever wins gets 10% in favor of them.
You can go up to three times.

Or just roleplay it out. You can't always assume that merchants can afford/want it. :P

[Curmudgeon]

Use the haggling system that was in AD&D.
Or how about using the actual Haggle rules in D&D 3.5? Complete Adventurer, pages 98-99.

[2xMachina]

Personally, if I were the Dm...

I"d put you through the obligatory gather info, wait for buyer.
And I'd take a cut off your future loot to balance WBL. You'd still end up slightly richer though, since you made your skill checks and waited. Gotta reward that at least.

Doesn't matter if you sell the items you find for half or full. A good DM will balance your WBL back.

[Keld Denar]

What most people don't realize is that WBL isn't obligatory. Its more of a gauge for DMs. If your group is ahead of WBL, they'll be slightly more powerful than one that is even, and thus can take on slightly more difficult challenges. Parties that are behind WBL are underpowered, and a normally CR appropriate encounter might pose a more significant threat (especially when that lack of WBL means a lack of magic weapons vs things with DR or that are incorporial).

[Lord Vukodlak]

Well let me ask another stupid question, I can see my DM questioning the valid nature of this. I can see how this would work just like in RL you get more if you put in the work. What would this entail though a mix of appraise and gather information checks, or a pure attempt at roleplaying?

Enough that the players become aggravated enough they just sell it to a merchant. So going through the motions for every single item is a good idea.
If you want it sold quickly you often can't get a good price.

You can also restrict downtime, if it takes two weeks to sell single item at full price and you on average have one week of down time between adventures. While selling items as half-price takes negligible time. In this fashion you can try and sell a single item at full price but it takes two weeks. Or you can sell everything in a matter of hours.

Keld Denar NO one thinks WBL obligatory but most everyone thinks that being way over it is a bad idea.

[Escheton]

maybe some paladin tracked you down to convince you to sell that holy avenger or sunblade before you even tried to sell it. There arent that many of those in the region and you guys build up a bit of a reputation. Part of that reputation is the wicked gear you guys use.
Maybe some evil ranger wants your fighter's bow or rogue's shortsword and will stop at nothing to get it.
If you are already considering elaborate salehooks, why not stuff like this?

[Curmudgeon]

NO one thinks WBL obligatory but most everyone thinks that being way over it is a bad idea.
Not necessarily. I'd be quite content if the party Monk always got 3x the treasure of the party Wizard. Some characters are more gear-dependent than others.

[Zen Master]

Any and all stuff plundered from the corpses of fallen enemies: 20% base price.

This for various reasons: It must be assumed to be damaged, it has a clear history of failing it's previous owner - and whomever buys likely wants a solid profit.

What's missing, of course, is a market for second-hand magic items. Sold at a 20% discount compared to new stuff. But .... you know, that's where the villains get the gear for their minions.

There's an exception, btw. Loot that has an interesting history - The Coat of Anger, woven from moonlight and maidensong, first crafted for Endrial Ravenshair, worn by King Ogdar the Bold (ect. etc.) - is likely to fetch more than it's actually worth.

Those are my rules, anyways. All subject to haggling.

[Lhurgyof]

Or how about using the actual Haggle rules in D&D 3.5? Complete Adventurer, pages 98-99.

Were you trying to come off like that...? o.o

But I haven't read those rules, I just remember what I said from an AD&D Dark Sun book. :)

[WarKitty]

If the PC's are really creative they might even be able to hire or contract with a merchant to resell their items for them. I.e. they get 3/4 list price instead of the usual 1/2, but have to put out some cash up front, etc.

[JonestheSpy]

Also, at low levels, when you are aquiring your first couple magical shineys, it is pretty exciting. At high levels when you've just slain Goblin Prince FancyPants and his royal retinue, going through the motions of hawking half a dozen +1 short swords is kinda annoying.

Yet another reason why low-magic campaigns rule. If dealing with magic is boring and annoying, something just ain't right.

[Tyndmyr]

Keld Denar NO one thinks WBL obligatory but most everyone thinks that being way over it is a bad idea.

Nope. It's not bad, any more than low wealth games are bad. They're just different.

I've run both sorts of games, and it's mostly a power thing for the level. The actual numbers matter a heckuva lot less than that the players are facing appropriate challenges. Stick with that, instead of trying to annoy players into just selling to merchants. If they find pleasure in setting up their own magic shop, dealing with competitors, and go dungeon diving to find more stock for the store, that can be a blast.

[Severus]

My point of view has always been that if magic is relatively common in your world, then there would be magic item brokers - just like real estate brokers in this world.

Getting only 50% for your item is the equivalent of calling one of those signs nailed to a telephone pole that says "we pay cash for houses". If you are in dire fiscal trouble, an option, but otherwise you list the item, the broker probably gets 10 to 15%, and you wait around until somebody buys it.

Why would you give up many thousands of gold pieces for an "instant" sale? It is like offering your home for 50% of its value because you wanted the cash today.

If, on the other hand, magic isn't common, and wealth rare, the situation may be different, but the idea that you can always only sell for 50% and buy at 100% is ridiculous. Just consider the profit the merchant makes. There wouldn't be any adventurers because everybody would be trying to be merchants to buy from stupid adventurers!

[Saph]

If, on the other hand, magic isn't common, and wealth rare, the situation may be different, but the idea that you can always only sell for 50% and buy at 100% is ridiculous. Just consider the profit the merchant makes. There wouldn't be any adventurers because everybody would be trying to be merchants to buy from stupid adventurers!

And how's the merchant going to get a guaranteed buyer? Let's say Bob the Adventurer sells you a random magic item, like a rope of climbing, for 1,500 gp. How many people in a D&D town/city do you think are able and willing to pay 3,000 gp for it? Answer: not many.

So a merchant has to have a huge amount of money to be able to buy up a stock of items just on the off-chance that sooner or later, someone's going to want the random junk that Bob the Adventurer unloaded a few years back. Then he has to pay for security - what's to stop the local Evil-aligned adventuring party from scoring hundreds of thousands of GPs by robbing the merchant? That's not going to be cheap.

Once you look at the economics, it becomes surprising that you can find ANYONE willing to buy a random item for 50%.

[Bagelz]

Can I assume you are talking about dnd 3.x? because that actually matters.
dnd4e dmg suggests 20% resale. WoD has magic items so rare that they are invaluable and worth more than listed value to collectors. Shadowrun i'd have the players haggle for everything

[Deth Muncher]

PROPOSITION:

Use the oldschool idea of Leadership to have your minions start a chain of Magic Marts in towns you visit. When you get excess loot, you can send it to them to be repaired and sold at full price, as well as having them craft some of their own stuff (if they're wizards/dwarves/etc). This will get you your money, although perhaps not exactly when you need it. You should research a one-way teleport spell, so you can -BAMF- it back to the magic marts, and ta-da! Business. Plus, this could even start to function as a sidequest: Minion 507 in Dirtsville sends you a Message, saying that Baron Von Fancybritches is in the market for a sword stolen from him by the Goblins to the north, and will pay a hefty price to get it back. Thus, not only are you hawking your excess loot, you're also helping out the community like all adventurers (kinda) strive for.

[Keld Denar]

Enough that the players become aggravated enough they just sell it to a merchant. So going through the motions for every single item is a good idea.
If you want it sold quickly you often can't get a good price.

I'd rather spend my 4 hours of precious monthly gaming time RPing with the king, taunting the BBEG, slaying monsters, rescuing the princess, solving the mystery, saving the world, or doing any number of other heroic level activities than waste any more time than required haggling with the DM over the difference of a couple hundred gold per item. I don't know how many hours you spend a day/week/year playing D&D, and if you play enough that you can take it for granted, then awesome for you. Me? I get noon-four one saturday a month and I'll be damned if I spend more than 10 minutes of it arranging for the sale and purchase of loots. I don't care if it breaks a degree of verisimilitude, it detracts from my hero time. I can balance my checkbook on my own time.

[ericgrau]

Also holds true in game time. It's a lot of trouble to find an interested buyer for an item, and not worth the adventurer's time when he could be adventuring. Selling for half is completely fair and commonplace both in game and real life.

[Severus]

Give me a real world example of something that is worth 10x the average persons annual salary that regularly is sold to a 'merchant' for 50% of value and then bought back for 100%.

It isn't true for real estate. It isn't true for high end art(the closest). Other big ticket items like cars fall apart, so there isn't a fair comparison to be made.

In a world with a lot of magic items, there is, inherently, enough wealth in the system to make a more liquid market in magic items. If nothing else, the items themselves become the currency.

The larger the market, the more efficient it becomes, at least that's what my MBA in finance tells me. If you have a lot of magic items sloshing around your world, there would be a reasonably efficient market for them, barring some special world reason why not. selling for 50% what you buy for 100% is not efficient.

[ericgrau]

Everybody needs a home. Not everyone needs a magic item. Fancy items in the real world worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars are in fact pawned for half (look ma, I learned something from TV reality shows). Only exception is items with intrinsic value like jewelry, which also works the same way by RAW. As does art, btw.

Magic items in D&D don't cost 10 times what the average person makes, it's more like 100 times or more. Which is exactly why there aren't very many of them and you have to search to find a buyer for a particular one. Heck, by RAW the PCs need permission to see if they can find anything over 3,000 gp, and that's in the largest of cities

[Saph]

Give me a real world example of something that is worth 10x the average persons annual salary that regularly is sold to a 'merchant' for 50% of value and then bought back for 100%.

D&D's not the real world. The question you should be asking isn't "why can't I sell my stuff for more than 50%". The question you should be asking is "why can I sell my stuff at all." Let's say Bob the Adventurer comes back from his latest treasure haul carrying Random Junk Magic Item #753, and tries to flog it. Who exactly is going to want it badly enough to buy it at full price? It's outside the income bracket of 99.9% of the population. Out of the remaining 0.1%, most of those either have their own way of getting magic items or are saving up for something else.

The next issue is that if you're trying to offload a magic item, odds are it probably isn't all that good in the first place. People who get hold of the really cost-efficient and valuable magic items usually keep them. Even if they can't use a set of gauntlets of ogre power or another ring of protection +1, they have a party-member/ally/cohort/animal-companion/familiar/pet who can. The kind of stuff that gets sold at magic items shops is usually the crap nobody wants - helms of comprehend languages and reading magic, +1 hand crossbows, +1 light wooden shields, wands of ghoul touch, and so on. Sure, maybe you're going to get incredibly lucky and there just so happens to be someone in the neighbourhood with 2,400 gp spare and Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Hand Crossbow, but if your business plan counts on that you're going to go bankrupt fast.

Finally, you have to deal with security. If you're a merchant carrying several hundred thousand GPs of random magic items, you are an INCREDIBLY tempting target for high-level thieves, including high-level enemy spellcasters. Guarding all those magic items is going to cost money, and lots of it, all of which comes out of your profit.

Any merchant who can deal with all that can probably afford to buy at less than 50%, if anything.

[WarKitty]

I have found that looking too closely at the economy in D&D is generally a bad idea. Mid-level PC's probably have enough gold to buy out a small town. The problem is in the real world dumping that much money into the economy would lead to rapid inflation and general economic chaos.

[Volomon]

Magic items in D&D don't cost 10 times what the average person makes, it's more like 100 times or more. Which is exactly why there aren't very many of them and you have to search to find a buyer for a particular one. Heck, by RAW the PCs need permission to see if they can find anything over 3,000 gp, and that's in the largest of cities

Diamonds, large quantities of pork bellies, allotment of oil, cars (some cars like uniques lamborghinis). Also just like in real life the merchants are backed by a guild (a company in real life).