Help With My Economic System?

[Astre]

I'm trying to write a D&D 3.5 campaign with an economic system that makes sense. So far, my main problem is that I'm trying to write a D&D 3.5 campaign with an economic system that makes sense, and I was wondering if the forum could help me with that.
Here's what I've got:
To counteract the age-old problem in which you have to pay for, say, a +3 sword, and it costs 360 lbs of gold; coins weigh 1/250th of a pound instead of 1/50th, magic items are worth 1/10th as much (with a corresponding decrease in player wealth), and you can't buy anything worth more than 1,000gp unless it's a bridge of some sort.
To deal with money being meaningless past level 2 for any reason other than buying magic items; you don't find money in ancient ruins, you find magic items. You don't sell them, or if you do you don't get much for them.

The game I'm playing is low magic, where NPCs are generally between level 3 and level 7, with a few level 9s scattered about. Ideally, the PCs will never have enough money to buy a small continent unless they actually invest effort in getting that money (creating a sort of trade-off: do I want to follow this map to untold riches, or delve into a ruin looking for a spiffy new spell?). Since money doesn't scale exponentially with level, I can make valid uses for money (hiring people, buying things) without worrying about the PCs being able to buy fifty times as many things three days later.
That said, I feel like this is going to go fantastically wrong. The players don't have enough control over their possessions (I'm almost tempted to include an almost Kensai-esque way of dealing with magic items), the system is untested, and it has the feel of something that's going to be completely forgotten about after the first adventure.
So, help?

[ace rooster]

How much magic is there in your universe? If currency is tied to the magic system in some way, then the size problem becomes easy. Material components cost what they do because of the primal essence needed to synthesise and in some cases can be harvested back to this essence, and used to power spells or make items. If wizards are burning lots of gold and silver like this then the exchange rate between them will be fixed. If gems can be used in a similar way there is literally no limit to monetary density, even without a backed currency (or rather, the value of the currency is its intrinsic value).

[Amarsir]

Encumbrance issues aside, your basic idea is that adventurers won't find much that's of value to the outside world. That makes a lot of sense. As one of your players I get a Ring of Feather Fall, take it to a shopkeeper, and he's like "yeah I don't do a lot of heights." So I get these items that are only useful to adventurers, and no one who actually works for a living growing crops or running inns would be too interested in a trade.

That's reasonable.

The problem is what happens if your characters get something that could be useful outside a dungeon setting. If they can create food or items, negotiate better, transport thing faster, etc ... these could arguably be used to create real value. Then you have a situation where its genuinely worth a lot in your setting and in the worst case, wealth-hungry players who can't find a suitable buyer would set up their own business just to circumvent your rule.

So I'd suggest that be your grounding. On each item available, consider what the item would truly be worth *to* the economy before assigning it a value *in* the economy. (Or having it at all.)

[Thanatosia]

As one of your players I get a Ring of Feather Fall, take it to a shopkeeper, and he's like "yeah I don't do a lot of heights."
I dunno, I think there are lots of mundane professions that could find a ring of featherfall useful, I would'nt exclude it to adventurers only.

PRetty much every magic item is usefull to non-adventurers. Things like Swords & Armor have millitary applications, and wonderous items of all types can find a host of profressional uses if you really think about it and maybe use a little creativity. Of course, the big question is rather the mundane professions who could use it can really aford the magic item.... I may think of a lot of professions who could use a safefall, but how many of them are rich enough to fund expensive magic items? Not nearly as many.

[watchwood]

You could just replace most of the coin exchanges for a barter system?

A shopkeeper probably wouldn't have a few hundred pounds in coin floating around, but he might have a magic belt and some magic gloves which could interest the player.

An NPC who specializes in crafting might be willing to take that +3 sword as a trade for custom item X.

If one of your players wants to get involved in crafting, consider writing a rule where said player can disassemble the magic from the +3 sword for later use in some fancy new magic item he might want to make.

[Mnemnosyne]

To deal with money being meaningless past level 2 for any reason other than buying magic items; you don't find money in ancient ruins, you find magic items. You don't sell them, or if you do you don't get much for them.
This does not make sense. If you want an economic system that makes sense, anything that has value gets bought and sold, no ifs ands or buts about it. If you go find a magic item in an ancient ruin, and it's not ideal for you, someone else has probably found a magic item that is ideal for you, but that is not ideal for them. If you want things to make sense, an economic system will exist that enables these items to reach the hands of people who they are ideal for, and profit those along the way that assist in making that deal.

[Amarsir]

Of course, the big question is rather the mundane professions who could use it can really aford the magic item.... I may think of a lot of professions who could use a safefall, but how many of them are rich enough to fund expensive magic items? Not nearly as many.
That's precisely the problem he's trying to avoid, though. Your interpretation means each item of loot is outrageously valuable. You could say "this sword is worth more than a soldier could afford" but that's just another way of saying "that captain would happily trade everything he can spare for this sword, and would consider that a great deal".

[Captnq]

FIXED (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16302575&postcount=19).

Have fun.

[Astre]

This does not make sense. If you want an economic system that makes sense, anything that has value gets bought and sold, no ifs ands or buts about it. If you go find a magic item in an ancient ruin, and it's not ideal for you, someone else has probably found a magic item that is ideal for you, but that is not ideal for them. If you want things to make sense, an economic system will exist that enables these items to reach the hands of people who they are ideal for, and profit those along the way that assist in making that deal.

The problem with that is how outrageously expensive magic items are. Under RAW, for the cost of a +1 longsword (which is a marginal advantage at best), you could hire ten mercenaries for about three years. For the cost of a +5 vorpal longsword (which is a significant but not world-shattering advantage in combat), you could hire a little over twenty seven thousand mercenaries for a year (just don't forget that that's twenty thousand pounds of gold you're spending). The cost of a magic item isn't your life's savings - it ranges from "if you dropped my life's savings on someone, he would die" to "I am richer than all the royalty in the world".

To put that into perspective, the value in gold of a +5 vorpal sword is about five times what the Seljuks demanded of the Byzantine Empire as the emperor's ransom. It practically bankrupted them - and they were the richest empire in Europe at the time.

FIXED (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16302575&postcount=19).

Have fun.

That's a bit dungeonomicon for my tastes. I'm aiming for a low magic setting that emulates reality, not the logical extension the magic item creation rules as written in an extremely high magic setting.

[Arbane]

One possibility is that spellcasters largely trade among themselves in a 'cashless economy' - they trade spells, favors, items, and hard-to-get components, since money's not too useful for them. Which isn't to say they'd turn down a wagonload of gold and gems, but it's not their first concern.

(Of course, this makes spellcasters a sort of floating aristocracy, but I think Tippy would agree that's only natural. :smalltongue: )


To put that into perspective, the value in gold of a +5 vorpal sword is about five times what the Seljuks demanded of the Byzantine Empire as the emperor's ransom. It practically bankrupted them - and they were the richest empire in Europe at the time.


Are you using real world gold values for that? I'm pretty sure there's a LOT more gold floating around in D&D's economy than the Real World's.

[Knaight]

The easiest way would be to limit magic items in some way beyond whether they can be acquired. Maybe the magic only really works for those with enough personal capability to use it (have something similar to WBL as points that allow magic items to be active at any given time, except with the values modified to be using far smaller numbers). Then, have the actual costs of magic items bear some resemblance to how useful they actually are - which means things like it not being cheaper to hire an army than to buy a magic sword.


I dunno, I think there are lots of mundane professions that could find a ring of featherfall useful, I would'nt exclude it to adventurers only.

Masonry (particularly for freemasons) and other construction is the obvious example here. There are some very tall medieval buildings, including some in the 150 meter range. Falling was very much a risk in making these.

[Astre]

One possibility is that spellcasters largely trade among themselves in a 'cashless economy' - they trade spells, favors, items, and hard-to-get components, since money's not too useful for them. Which isn't to say they'd turn down a wagonload of gold and gems, but it's not their first concern.

(Of course, this makes spellcasters a sort of floating aristocracy, but I think Tippy would agree that's only natural. :smalltongue: )


I actually really like this idea. It has a nice air of mystery, and it'd be cool to have an actual reason to need contacts.



Are you using real world gold values for that? I'm pretty sure there's a LOT more gold floating around in D&D's economy than the Real World's.

The ransom was 1,500,000 gold coins (with an additional 360,000 annually), a +5 vorpal longsword costs 1,000,315 gp, and D&D gold coins weigh about five times as much as a pound Stirling. I genuinely have no idea how much Byzantine gold coins weighed, but it shouldn't be much more than a pound Stirling weighs. To be honest, it's probably more like ten times as much gold, but I'm erring on the side of caution.
I'm not using gold values, I'm referring to the literal quantity of gold; I have no idea what I would use to calculate the value of a D&D gold coin in relation to a real one. The cost of bread, maybe?

[Arbane]

I'm not using gold values, I'm referring to the literal quantity of gold; I have no idea what I would use to calculate the value of a D&D gold coin in relation to a real one. The cost of bread, maybe?

Bread's not a bad choice. I've heard an economist joke about the 'Big Mac Standard' in real life, so food's not a bad baseline. (Keeping in mind the essential borkedness of D&D's standard price-lists.)

[hemming]

than buying magic items; you don't find money in ancient ruins, you find magic items. You don't sell them, or if you do you don't get much for them.

The whole concept is really cool. They do need some way to consistently get rid of unwanted magic loot or they will get frustrated.

The idea of wizard trade is very cool - but if you wanted to give them the option to sell items for 30-50% value it would still give them a method to get extra cold hard cash for some goods and services (or for investing in land, strongholds, noble titles, whatever works in your game)

I'm not sure of the real historical dates in which this occurred, but I believe the practice of 'banks' holding coinage and creating signed certificates representing the money held goes back to the late middle ages. These certificates could then be traded - could be a way to get around massive weight requirements. Unless it is a "no gold game" and not a "low gold game", the weight/space will add up fast if you are treating it realistically

Edit: Re-read original post re: coin weights at 250/lb - so forget the whole treating it realistically thing. Sorry!

[Drachasor]

The problem with that is how outrageously expensive magic items are. Under RAW, for the cost of a +1 longsword (which is a marginal advantage at best), you could hire ten mercenaries for about three years. For the cost of a +5 vorpal longsword (which is a significant but not world-shattering advantage in combat), you could hire a little over twenty seven thousand mercenaries for a year (just don't forget that that's twenty thousand pounds of gold you're spending). The cost of a magic item isn't your life's savings - it ranges from "if you dropped my life's savings on someone, he would die" to "I am richer than all the royalty in the world".

You could say a similar things about Jet Fighters, Submarines, Aircraft Carriers, and so forth (including the costs to maintain and protect these devices). Think of all the troops you could train and pay for the price of one of those? It's A LOT.

Or similarly, Special Forces cost a lot more to train and equip than an army grunt. Why do that if you can just get 10 or 20 times as many people instead?

Now consider that D&D has a much higher potential for individual power and base security. At those higher ends you can effectively make yourself almost immune to regular troops.

So yeah, a +10 equivalent sword is a lot of money. A ton of money. But the comparative advantage for an elite guy can make it worth it -- though in practical terms it can be better to spend that money on other magical items to improve the guy. And small units can do things that large numbers can't.

Btw, vorpal is an awful ability, so you really shouldn't compare a Vorpal anything with other ways to spend money.

This is kind of similar to "why get a sword of spell storing, when another +1 gives you that bonus attack and damage on ALL attacks?" Because when you can focus destructive power it can be more efficient than distributed power.


To put that into perspective, the value in gold of a +5 vorpal sword is about five times what the Seljuks demanded of the Byzantine Empire as the emperor's ransom. It practically bankrupted them - and they were the richest empire in Europe at the time.

Obviously there's more gold in D&D. You could leave it at that.

That said, it can probably make sense to decrease the price of magical items by a factor of 10. Though be careful about consumables. I'd also decrease the cost of alchemical items by the same amount. Basically make them cheaper relative to basic goods and services. That might feel more realistic in some sense with similar cut in WBL.

Beyond that I think you shouldn't decrease how much magic items sell for. If you want to cut down on how many magical items there are, then that can make sense. I could see going with a system roughly like this:

1. Merge a number of "must have" items into standard progression. So need need to stat-boosting gear, all that defense-boosting gear, and a bit less attack boosting gear.

2. Make healer a bit easier (just steal Healing Surges from 4E). That way you don't need a pile of Wands of CLW.

3. Have a limited number of total magical items per person, and you unlock power in them as you level. Basically like Legacy weapons but without the negatives. This could justify less demand for items since fewer people can make effective use out of them.

4. Then have some lesser magical items anyone can use, mostly consumables and the like with the rare thing that does more than that.

I was kind of hoping there was going to be some sort of crude supply/demand system in this thread. : (

[TuggyNE]

I was kind of hoping there was going to be some sort of crude supply/demand system in this thread. : (

I'm not sure I've ever seen one designed for D&Dish games. Really kind of sad.

The most I've done personally is switched expensive spell components to weights instead of gp values.

[Sith_Happens]

coins weigh 1/250th of a pound instead of 1/50th, magic items are worth 1/10th as much (with a corresponding decrease in player wealth)

I think the above changes are enough to cover almost every verisimilitude problem one could think of with regards to the magic item market, with the added benefit of being able to make magic items much more ubiquitous on a general basis (since the magic-item-buying power of people living off Profession checks and such has just massively increased).

Material component costs are a whole other story...

[hemming]

I'm not sure I've ever seen one designed for D&Dish games. Really kind of sad.

The most I've done personally is switched expensive spell components to weights instead of gp values.

But aren't basic supply/demand elements common in most D&D games to some degree? i.e. There should not be a magic items shop in a farming hamlet that can't support it (or) a war shortage or other large external event causes price spikes on certain items and constrains availability

I've played in games where potions w/ natural components were more expensive in the same location depending on seasonality - And in which certain types of items became more expensive in times of crisis

I have never played in a game in which the value of a certain type of good decreases over time if you continue to sell it in the same community in quantity (or) in which changing tastes of the community changed the value of certain items

But, there is a very crude built in system for dealing with general inflationary pressure in core 3.5 - i.e. as the total amount of currency in circulation increases (the total wealth level of community), the value of the money in circulation decreases (prices go up)

[Fouredged Sword]

See, I run the magic market as a mostly gold-less system. It is more of a item swap that a true market. Merchants act as agents and middle men for a small fee (a hundred gold a month or so, enough to set them up as VERY rich experts, as they have multiple clients). You stock them with valuable magic items you don't want, and they attempt to contact other agents and arrange a trade for items you DO want.

Worse comes to worse, they arrange to pay an artificer to make the item. They are normally paid in cheaper magic items and rare components to make stuff due to the drain essence class feature and need for 1000s of gold in stuff.

The whole system functions without any gold input other than for mundane payments to pay people for mundane services.

Sample Agent

Human expert 5
Skills - diplomacy, forgery, sense motive, bluff, knowledge arcana, Profession (agent).

[Zirconia]

You could say a similar things about Jet Fighters, Submarines, Aircraft Carriers, and so forth (including the costs to maintain and protect these devices). Think of all the troops you could train and pay for the price of one of those? It's A LOT. (

True, but an Air Craft Carrier is also a very small part of the budget of a fairly wealthy country, and doesn't even dominate the budget of a smaller country like England. It is somewhat odd that the Ring of Freedom of Action, not considered a particularly "high end" or exotic magic item, may cost more than the entire annual budget of a medium sized D&D country.

I agree that cutting costs and sale prices of all magic/alchemical items by a factor of 10 along with WBL by the same amount could reduce the problem of "You are invited to dinner with one of the richest, most powerful merchants in the city. You don't bother to rob him, because each of you is carrying gear worth more than his shipping fleet." You might also need to tinker with a few other things, like cutting Masterwork costs by a factor of 5 or something.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, a lot of good would come from just changing the coin system and introducing a new, lower coin, something like tin or iron.

Then convert all gold values to silver, silver to copper, and copper to tin.

Leave mundane stuff mostly alone in values though. It does make nobility richer, and merchant fleets a huge value, but it could make the game FEEL better on the player wealth front.

[mostlyharmful]

Get back to the old systems where wealth and power weren't tied together - either by using ONLY a barter economy for anything magic or introducing a super-currency once spellcasting allows planehopping interactions with outsiders with SLAs - say the Token (worth 100xp) and flat ignore the gp costs of crafting.

When you remove gp from making magic items suddenly the merchants and dragons can have hoards of millions of gp again and the murder hobos feel special rather than idiotic for carting around 1000 lifetimes of luxury for an extra +whatever to damage.

I'd also go with tying together lots of magic effects into a single item that develops with level (ala legacy items without the suck) to cut down the christmas tree effect, preferablly with the boring +s being the first thing lost. Since so much of basic effectiveness in d&d3.5 is tied to boring booster items most of it can be internalized without losing anything and simplifying everything.

Just say that you've got eight body slots that, if each has an item in it, it gives a solid bonus as well dependant on class, for a fighter say:

Neck (+Con) - Belt (+Str) - Boots (Dex) - Ring1 (Deflection AC) - Cloak (saves) - Hands (to hit) - Ring2 (NatArmour AC) - Head (Skill rolls)

Have them give the standerd wbl bonuses from a likewise equiped npc of their level +4 and you've gotten rid of 80% of wbl and tied the remainder to something that doesn't touch 99%+ of the campaign world.

[Cicciograna]

I was kind of hoping there was going to be some sort of crude supply/demand system in this thread. : (


I'm not sure I've ever seen one designed for D&Dish games. Really kind of sad.

Actually there's something akin to this, although developed in very rough terms, on the Arms and Equipment Guide on page 39.

It could be a good starting point, though.

[Drachasor]

True, but an Air Craft Carrier is also a very small part of the budget of a fairly wealthy country, and doesn't even dominate the budget of a smaller country like England. It is somewhat odd that the Ring of Freedom of Action, not considered a particularly "high end" or exotic magic item, may cost more than the entire annual budget of a medium sized D&D country.

That's not remotely true. D&D cities have a ton of wealth actually. A metropolis has at a minimum over 100,000,000gp in "ready cash" at any given time (2.5k*50k)

So a country is going to have a massive amount of gold.

[Aedilred]

The ransom was 1,500,000 gold coins (with an additional 360,000 annually), a +5 vorpal longsword costs 1,000,315 gp, and D&D gold coins weigh about five times as much as a pound Stirling. I genuinely have no idea how much Byzantine gold coins weighed, but it shouldn't be much more than a pound Stirling weighs. To be honest, it's probably more like ten times as much gold, but I'm erring on the side of caution.
The Byzantine solidus (gold coin) was around 4.5g in weight; a modern pound sterling (nickel-brass) is a little over 9g, so that's about half.

However an easier way to do it would be to compare the weights directly. You get roughly 100 solidi to a pound Imperial (actually more like 101, but meh), which means they contain about half as much gold as a D&D gold coin, assuming they're fifty to the pound. In raw terms then, Romanos's ransom was worth about 750,000gc; about 25% less than a vorpal +5 sword. The sword is still overcosted by that analysis, obviously, but not by quite the same margin.

(That is of course assuming that both D&D coins and the solidus were pure gold or at least contain the same proportion of it, whereas under Romanos the solidus was only about 67% gold, and the D&D coin could be pretty much anything depending on DM).

However, as people have already noted, there is obviously more gold knocking around in D&D. If not, the amount of gold stockpiled by dragons would probably itself equate to the majority of gold reserves held by modern states, and leave precious little for circulation.

[Arbane]

Yeah, a lot of good would come from just changing the coin system and introducing a new, lower coin, something like tin or iron.

Tin would be a bad choice - historically, tin was the expensive ingredient in bronze. (Gary Gygax made this same mistake in Mythus. Odd, for a guy who knew his history...)

And iron could rust away to nothing, so it might be a bad choice.

[Astre]

The Byzantine solidus (gold coin) was around 4.5g in weight; a modern pound sterling (nickel-brass) is a little over 9g, so that's about half.

However an easier way to do it would be to compare the weights directly. You get roughly 100 solidi to a pound Imperial (actually more like 101, but meh), which means they contain about half as much gold as a D&D gold coin, assuming they're fifty to the pound. In raw terms then, Romanos's ransom was worth about 750,000gc; about 25% less than a vorpal +5 sword. The sword is still overcosted by that analysis, obviously, but not by quite the same margin.

(That is of course assuming that both D&D coins and the solidus were pure gold or at least contain the same proportion of it, whereas under Romanos the solidus was only about 67% gold, and the D&D coin could be pretty much anything depending on DM).

However, as people have already noted, there is obviously more gold knocking around in D&D. If not, the amount of gold stockpiled by dragons would probably itself equate to the majority of gold reserves held by modern states, and leave precious little for circulation.


Tin would be a bad choice - historically, tin was the expensive ingredient in bronze. (Gary Gygax made this same mistake in Mythus. Odd, for a guy who knew his history...)

And iron could rust away to nothing, so it might be a bad choice.

I've done something like this before, except I made the new coin a fraction of a larger coin, ie a billon (which I usually use instead of copper) coin that's been cut in half is worth 1/2 cp. This has a degree of historical basis, at least.

[Firechanter]

Okay first off, I too have tried to make the economic system more reasonable. However, it does collide with the expectations concerning high fantasy tropes.

For example: if coins are smaller and much more valuable pound for pound, what are your dragons sleeping on?
What I mean is: an Adult Red Dragon has a treasure value of 66.000GP. If this were only standard gold pieces, no items and no works of art, we'd be talking roughly one cubic foot here. That's already ridiculously little considering the classic trope of dragons enjoying to sleep on a bed of coins and jewels.
If you make gold coins the size of half a penny, the "hoard" shrinks significantly, again (to roughly the size of a milk jug).

This is actually just a minor concern -- D&D dragons are paupers this way or other. If you actually want to give them a bed of coins, their hoards would be worth _millions_. Which of course would bust WBL, so you'd be forced to effectively never allow PCs to acquire a dragon hoard.

--

You also suggested cutting the value of magic items by 1/10. That's _also_ something that I thought about doing, for exactly the same reasons. Again, problems rise up.
See, the mundane prices in D&D actually aren't too far off. Of course they are not 100% realistic but they are, for the most part, in the correct order of magnitude (compared to actual 14th-century prices, for which there happen to be lists on the internet).

So: 1 chainmail costs 150GP. Even selling a looted mail for half still yields 75GP. On the other hand, a magic sword would cost just about ~250GP. So the loot of four regular warriors would buy you a magic weapon.

In my experience, players usually loot cumbersome stuff like armour only during the first few levels, and quickly begin to ignore that stuff and just take more valuable loot. But if just the normal mundane armour of a plain vanilla standard encounter if enough to buy a magic weapon, imagine the spoils of war when they defeat large amounts of those enemies, such as the Hobgoblins in RHoD.

You may be tempted to say "Well there's no magic mart in my world so prices just don't matter" -- but #1, where there is a supply and demand, a market will develop all by itself, so it's naive to claim that there will be no such market. And #2, if players can't buy the gear they want, they will make it themselves. That's what item creation feats are for. So essentially, every couple of chainmails will be free Plusses for your party's gear.

So far, I have just focussed on those two suggestions and the problems I see in their implementation; which I can tell because I have tried those exact two things already. I'd love to be more constructive, but tbh I haven't really found a very good solutions yet myself.

[Knaight]

You could say a similar things about Jet Fighters, Submarines, Aircraft Carriers, and so forth (including the costs to maintain and protect these devices). Think of all the troops you could train and pay for the price of one of those? It's A LOT.

Sure, but these have a way, way bigger effect than a magic sword. All the magic sword does is help one person hit things marginally better. Large modern vehicles enable far more than that. Then there's the matter of wondrous items far cheaper than a high end magic sword that are also way more useful. I find it hard to believe that a magic sword would command a higher price than a decanter of endless water, given how amazingly versatile and useful the latter is.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, I would compare the cost of an aircraft carrier to that of a floating castle from the Stronghold Builder's Guide.

[Drachasor]

Sure, but these have a way, way bigger effect than a magic sword. All the magic sword does is help one person hit things marginally better. Large modern vehicles enable far more than that. Then there's the matter of wondrous items far cheaper than a high end magic sword that are also way more useful. I find it hard to believe that a magic sword would command a higher price than a decanter of endless water, given how amazingly versatile and useful the latter is.

Like I said, you could compare it to equipping a Special Forces team too.

But I don't think the Fighter Jet comparison is out of line. We are talking about equipping someone that is part of a dragon-killing force, or a beholder-killing force, or the like. Bonuses on a magical sword do add up, and the total effect is that a 15th level guy with a magic sword is a lot better than one without. A powerful magic sword is high-end equipment for part of the most powerful killing force a civilization can produce. In that sense it IS a lot like a Jet Fighter, Tank, or the like.

As for Decanters of Endless Water, they are just a lot cheaper to make. Might as well say water filters should be a lot more expensive than guns because they are much more useful (generally). But water filters are a lot easier to make, so that means they are easy to get. Realistically speaking, Decanters should be all over the place in D&D cities because they are pretty cheap. That's a problem with how D&D treats its cities though.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yes, but he is not as good as 2 guys of comparable level without his magic sword, and the sword cost more than training the second guy. There is a reason the army isn't made up of special forces. The magic sword isn't as useful as the other things that money could by for beholder slaying, so it won't be in demand at that price. No army would buy one.

[Drachasor]

Yes, but he is not as good as 2 guys of comparable level without his magic sword, and the sword cost more than training the second guy. There is a reason the army isn't made up of special forces. The magic sword isn't as useful as the other things that money could by for beholder slaying, so it won't be in demand at that price. No army would buy one.

1. Rules citation on training someone up to level 15 please.

2. Frankly, you need expensive equipment just to get some stuff done.

3. Depending on the build a magic sword can increase damage output by 20% easy.

4. An army would get slaughtered by a dragon in D&D. There are a lot more things you need heroes in D&D than you need special forces for in real life.

5. Generally the person is buying this stuff for himself, and it is a lot easier to trust yourself with power than hire someone that under the right circumstances could kill you.

6. Are you really saying if you had a level 15 Fighter or Barbarian or Warblade or whatever that you wouldn't have a magic weapon?

[KorbeltheReader]

I like your ideas. My first impression is that if you're already reducing the cost of magic items by a factor of 10, do you then also need to reduce the weight of coins? By your accounting, a +3 weapon would cost 36 lbs. worth of coins with just the gold inflation, which actually sounds reasonable to me.

There was an old Super Nintendo game called 7th Saga, which I thought had an elegant way to deal with large amounts of gold: you could exchange gold for gems to save space and keep your wealth better hidden. I would think any world where gold was as abundant, and adventurers as numerous and prosperous, as your average D&D world would have some basic workaround like this. High-value transactions use gems as a proxy currency. Every magic mart has a jeweler on hand, or alternatively every merchant dealing in high-value items took ranks in Appraise. Those merchants accept gems as payment along with gold and trade gems for gold/gold for gems as needed, always charging a small percentage to turn a profit.

[Firechanter]

Quite a while ago I proposed the idea of making WBL a meta resource. That's to say, your mgical gear allowance by WBL becomes completely disconnected from the coin in your pocket. So the "GP" in the WBL table would stand for "Gear Points", if you will.

That's certainly not applicable for every kind of campaign, but for certain game styles it is viable.

Just so you can read up, here's a link to the old thread. Please don't reply there, as that would be considered thread necromancy:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260047

[Knaight]

As for Decanters of Endless Water, they are just a lot cheaper to make. Might as well say water filters should be a lot more expensive than guns because they are much more useful (generally). But water filters are a lot easier to make, so that means they are easy to get. Realistically speaking, Decanters should be all over the place in D&D cities because they are pretty cheap. That's a problem with how D&D treats its cities though.

Let me rephrase: Given the cost of making a decanter of endless water, and the extreme utility involved in them it's hard to believe that much of a magic sword market at higher prices would even exist, beyond a tiny luxury market focused on status symbols. Yes, the marginal utility of said decanter does decrease, but it illustrates nicely how the supply side of magic weaponry in D&D is odd - they are amazingly expensive, and shouldn't have much in the way of demand given all of the other ways money can be spent.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah,a few decanters are a MASSIVE boon to a kingdom's economy. Being able to set up mills without being ON a river and ON a slope at the same time is HUGE for a pre-steam culture. Mix that with fresh water that A, can't be poisoned, B is weather proof, and C can be supplied in the middle of a castle, means that any kingdom worth it's salt would buy one with it's taxes.

[Firechanter]

In a world where there frequently are threats that can only be effectively fought by magic weapons, you can bet there will be quite some demand for such weapons.

Of course, this is where any edition of (A)D&D drops the ball at some point:
- pre-3E had plenty of creatures that were entirely _immune_ to non-magical attacks. Not Damage Reduction, simply ZERO damage with mundane weapons. If you were lucky, you could hurt them with silver. However, these editions liked to stress that there are no magic marts, every single item is special yadda yadda.
- 3E+ makes magic items much more accessible. But with every new demi-version, the necessity of said weapons has decreased. 3.0 still had DR that effectively said "You must be this tall to fight this monster"; 3.5 nerfed DR to a point where many players just don't even bother with it anymore, and PF took it another step further by combining the 3.0 and 3.5 bypasses so you can just ignore it.

[Astre]

Like I said, you could compare it to equipping a Special Forces team too.

But I don't think the Fighter Jet comparison is out of line. We are talking about equipping someone that is part of a dragon-killing force, or a beholder-killing force, or the like. Bonuses on a magical sword do add up, and the total effect is that a 15th level guy with a magic sword is a lot better than one without. A powerful magic sword is high-end equipment for part of the most powerful killing force a civilization can produce. In that sense it IS a lot like a Jet Fighter, Tank, or the like.

Except that there's no situation where a magic sword wielding fighter is better than an equivalent-level tier 1 class. Mind, I am going to be enforcing a tier 3 or lower rule in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that, if all you're worried about is a dragon trying to eat your castle once every hundred years, a scroll of greater magic weapon, flesh to stone, or baleful polymorph is both cheaper and more effective as a troubleshooting method.
Same goes for a wand of shivering touch, 100 1st level warriors with longbows held on retainer, a small collection of siege engines, a vampire controlling other vampires who's in turn controlled by a cleric, a pair of ring gates and a catapult, or a commoner who can conjure arbitrarily large numbers of chickens out of thin air.


1. Rules citation on training someone up to level 15 please.

Not only is it literally impossible to do so with any amount of money, but rules-as-written indicate that there are only a handful of such characters in any given world. The odds that any of them are working for the king, of all people, are borderline negligible. These aren't special forces, they're Chuch Norris, Joss Whedon, and Atilla the Hun.


2. Frankly, you need expensive equipment just to get some stuff done.

[citation needed]

A 5,000 gp spellbook is more powerful than every weapon (artifacts included) in the D&D cosmology combined.


3. Depending on the build a magic sword can increase damage output by 20% easy.

Which is only important if you're regularly facing off against level appropriate enemies, which we have no reason to assume for anyone who isn't a PC. 20% more is absolutely worthless if you're a level 15 fighter and your opponent is an 11th level monk (who you could easily kill with your bare hands if necessary) or an 11th level wizard (who could kill you by repeatedly bludgeoning you with a rubber chicken if he felt like it).


4. An army would get slaughtered by a dragon in D&D. There are a lot more things you need heroes in D&D than you need special forces for in real life.

Not quite. Assuming that we're talking a real, let's-invade-France kind of army, and that it's planning to face a dragon, and that the army knows the dragon is coming, but can't load its catapults in advance, and that the dragon is, say, an old black dragon with DR 10/magic (making it pretty much immune to nonmagical weaponry) and 287 hit points:
The army readies all of its 100 catapults over the course of four rounds, and the dragon somehow destroys 5 of them. Average damage is (3.5x6)-10, or 11, no more than half the catapults should miss, 11x95/2 is 522. The dragon has died.

Total cost:
100 catapults (reusable): 800x100 = 80,000 gp
95 rocks: free
400 soldiers to man the catapults: free with any settlement of 8,000 people or more

Total cost of equipping a party of 4 level 16 adventurers: 260,000x4 = 1,040,000 gp, or slightly more than a +5 vorpal longsword


6. Are you really saying if you had a level 15 Fighter or Barbarian or Warblade or whatever that you wouldn't have a magic weapon?

That's because the game requires that you buy magic items. Really, if it weren't for the contrivance of level-appropriate encounters, the weapon wouldn't be worth it at all.

[Drachasor]

Except that there's no situation where a magic sword wielding fighter is better than an equivalent-level tier 1 class. Mind, I am going to be enforcing a tier 3 or lower rule in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that, if all you're worried about is a dragon trying to eat your castle once every hundred years, a scroll of greater magic weapon, flesh to stone, or baleful polymorph is both cheaper and more effective as a troubleshooting method.
Same goes for a wand of shivering touch, 100 1st level warriors with longbows held on retainer, a small collection of siege engines, a vampire controlling other vampires who's in turn controlled by a cleric, a pair of ring gates and a catapult, or a commoner who can conjure arbitrarily large numbers of chickens out of thin air.

That reasoning doesn't apply to adventurers, who are the people that buy magic weapons.


[citation needed]

A 5,000 gp spellbook is more powerful than every weapon (artifacts included) in the D&D cosmology combined.

It's useless without a caster, and a high level one at that. So no, it's not inherently more powerful than every weapon.


Which is only important if you're regularly facing off against level appropriate enemies, which we have no reason to assume for anyone who isn't a PC. 20% more is absolutely worthless if you're a level 15 fighter and your opponent is an 11th level monk (who you could easily kill with your bare hands if necessary) or an 11th level wizard (who could kill you by repeatedly bludgeoning you with a rubber chicken if he felt like it).

It's an assumption of the game and gameworld that you will regularly face level appropriate enemies. Heck, even occasionally ones that are higher in level. So yeah, the magic weapon is needed.


Not quite. Assuming that we're talking a real, let's-invade-France kind of army, and that it's planning to face a dragon, and that the army knows the dragon is coming, but can't load its catapults in advance, and that the dragon is, say, an old black dragon with DR 10/magic (making it pretty much immune to nonmagical weaponry) and 287 hit points:
The army readies all of its 100 catapults over the course of four rounds, and the dragon somehow destroys 5 of them. Average damage is (3.5x6)-10, or 11, no more than half the catapults should miss, 11x95/2 is 522. The dragon has died.

This is a joke right? There are so many ways for a Dragon to shut down 100 catapults that this isn't even funny. Also, the rules indicate a catapult can only be fired at the ground based on the context of the passage, but that's besides the point. Anything that obscures vision will mess up a catapult.

An Old Dragon can cast Greater Invisibility and destroy all the catapults with ease. And that's just the start of what it can do as a 7th level Sorcerer.


Total cost:
100 catapults (reusable): 800x100 = 80,000 gp
95 rocks: free
400 soldiers to man the catapults: free with any settlement of 8,000 people or more

Total cost of equipping a party of 4 level 16 adventurers: 260,000x4 = 1,040,000 gp, or slightly more than a +5 vorpal longsword

Except the Adventureres are paying to equip themselves. They make a demand for magic swords and other stuff.


That's because the game requires that you buy magic items. Really, if it weren't for the contrivance of level-appropriate encounters, the weapon wouldn't be worth it at all.

You aren't required to buy them really, now are you? But players do. Granted, a Vorpal weapon is crap, so you shouldn't buy one of those ever. But that's because Vorpal is crap.

[Astre]

That reasoning doesn't apply to adventurers, who are the people that buy magic weapons.
I thought that we were talking about government expenditures? Y'know, special forces and stuff.


It's useless without a caster, and a high level one at that. So no, it's not inherently more powerful than every weapon.
The spellbook is useless without a high level caster. The magic weapon is useless without a high level combat-oriented character.
Well, more useless than usual, anyway.


It's an assumption of the game and gameworld that you will regularly face level appropriate enemies. Heck, even occasionally ones that are higher in level. So yeah, the magic weapon is needed.
For PCs. Everyone else is free from such restrictions, which is why a dragon can lay waste to a hapless villiage without running into an Astral Deva.


This is a joke right? There are so many ways for a Dragon to shut down 100 catapults that this isn't even funny. Also, the rules indicate a catapult can only be fired at the ground based on the context of the passage, but that's besides the point. Anything that obscures vision will mess up a catapult.

1. Name one way the dragon could shut down 100 catapults in the 4 rounds it has to live. Actually, you might as well name five or six, since there are apparently "so many" of them.
2. Given that the whole point of catapults is to destroy walls, which are notable for being elevated to a certain degree, I'm gonna say no, you can fire a catapult wherever you damn well please, as per RAW.
3. While the passage describing a heavy catapult says nothing about it being only able to hit things on the ground, it does have this little gem:


Because the catapult throws its payload in a high arc, it can hit squares out of its line of sight.


An Old Dragon can cast Greater Invisibility and destroy all the catapults with ease. And that's just the start of what it can do as a 7th level Sorcerer.

That would be an excellent point if 7th level sorcerers could cast 4th level spells like greater invisibility.
But they can't, so it's not.


Except the Adventureres are paying to equip themselves. They make a demand for magic swords and other stuff.
Again, weren't we talking about governments and armies?


You aren't required to buy them really, now are you? But players do. Granted, a Vorpal weapon is crap, so you shouldn't buy one of those ever. But that's because Vorpal is crap.
You've spent the last few posts expressing how indispensable magic weapons are, and now you're saying that they aren't mandatory?

[Knaight]

You aren't required to buy them really, now are you? But players do. Granted, a Vorpal weapon is crap, so you shouldn't buy one of those ever. But that's because Vorpal is crap.
There's a great deal of meta gaming involved here. We'll start with how the player doesn't actually get to enjoy the character spending money on luxuries, while the character does. The character has a legitimate reason to spend funds on things like a soft bed and tasty food, but that sort of detail often gets overlooked. Similarly, it is tedious for the actual group to deal with a huge swarm of minions in a game, whereas for an adventurer it puts them in a role where they deal with leadership challenges, but it's not as big of a change as they already had all the stuff involved in adventuring that gets glossed over. The player also doesn't actually die, or feel pain, etc. The characters do, and as such have much more reason to try and avoid these things.

Basically, magic items are very nice at a meta game level. For the characters, there are vastly better options.

You've spent the last few posts expressing how indispensable magic weapons are, and now you're saying that they aren't mandatory?
What's being said is that there are no game rules that dictate magic items be bought, but they are bought anyways - particularly those with enchantments that don't suck horribly, such as Vorpal. It's not that they aren't viewed as essential, it's that the game doesn't force them on you.