High Magic Settings

[Milo v3]

From what I hear 5e lends itself to a low magic setting, compared to previous editions, but most of my settings are rather magic filled. I've also heard that 5e is relatively mutable, so I was wondering if there were any rules variants or ideas on how I can make it work with a high magic setting.

[Mr.Moron]

You've got to go further defining this. These terms are widely used but what consitutues each isn't exactly universally agreed upon.

For you, where exactly is the dividing line between "Low" and "High" magic and what do you consider to be some the most vital features of each? What are some aspects that might be part of a "Low" or "High" magic setting that perhaps aren't quite vital but instead nice options to have on the table?

Is having talking badgers and everyone able to perform minor magical tricks enough to be "High" magic, or do you need something with airships, police-golems and magic shops on every corner?

Once we know exactly what definitions you're working from, it's easier to answer your question.

EDIT: Basically it's easier to talk about how to model specific concepts or achieve certain goals that it is to talk very broadly about "High" magic.

[Milo v3]

Is having talking badgers and everyone able to perform minor magical tricks enough to be "High" magic, or do you need something with airships, police-golems and magic shops on every corner?

Basically the bolded. My settings were sort of like Eberron, multiplied by 3.

[Person_Man]

I would not say that 5E is low magic.

Almost all of the classes have access to some form of magic (if you include magical subclasses). And the rules flat out tell you (under "The Wonders of Magic") that "For adventurers, though, magic is key to their survival" - which implies that all/most parties need and/or have magic. You can also get access to plot altering magic at low levels - Invisible Familiar, Charm, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, etc. And at high levels, reality altering spells like Wish, Simulacrum, Polymorphic, etc still exist (though there are fewer such nuclear bombs in 5E then there were in 1E/2E/3E, for now).

I would say that in 5E, its simply implied that magic is supposed to be somewhat rare in the larger campaign world, and thus players and magic items and magical monsters are supposed to be special. But that's mostly just a vague implication in the introductory text and magic item rarity fluff, and not something hard wired into any of the rules. You could easily take the rules as written and make a high magic setting with them.

[Demonic Spoon]

It shouldn't be a problem.

One change that makes 5e default to "low or medium magic" would be that, by default, you can't buy magic items (though there are guidelines for it in the DMG). I'm focusing mostly on magical items wielded by the party; magitech used in wider society shouldn't be a problem at all.

The other change is that wealth by level isn't a thing. If your PCs have any magic items at all, they are ahead of the curve, so to speak. Now, the game's math won't break if your players are carrying around a ton of magic items - attunement limits and the general design away from "+x to numbers" items prevent that. The only thing to worry about is that encounter balancing guidelines won't assume that they are powered up that much, so you'll have to take that into account.

[Kane0]

5e stillworks using a magic saturated setting, the almighty bounded accuracy and limited spell slots makes things more manageable than 3.5 from the dms point of view. The fact that monsters are made differently to PCs also goes a long way, since you can tweak numbers to compensate for magic gear.

You may want to look into the attunement rule and the process behind creating magic items, as both can have significant impacts on higher magic settings than what is presumed to be the default. Specialist tool proficiencies or perhaps skills might be something worth looking into.

Generally speaking by using high magic your players will have a wider variety of magical resources with which to deal with problems as well as slightly higher numbers, so you will have to take that into account. Things that resist nonmagical attacks become much less scary, and the value of a couple abilities go down.

Also of note is the thief rogues ability to use a huge variety of magic gear with their use magic device ability, as well as casters having access to wands/rods/staves/scrolls to supplement their per day casting, which really impacts a dm using attrition encounters in an adventuring day.

If youve dealt with 3.x's christmas tree, WBL and magic mart issues before not much of this will be new, and a lot of it will be easier for you using 5e as a base system thanks to things like bonded accuracy, the stat cap and attunement. Of course you can houserule those away, which still works fine depending on your players and playstyle.

[charcoalninja]

There's nothing low magic about 5e.

From level 1 a Cleric can speak a prayer and blast everyone 15' infront of him 15 feet with a lethal blast of thunder, a wizard tosses platoon annihiliating fireballs around starting at level 5, and Raise Dead, Teleport, Fabricate, Simulacrum, Wild Shaping, Polymorph, Wish and direct Divine Intervension are alive and well.

The only difference in magical tone between 3.P and 5e is that magic is harder to do because of the concentration mechanic. So in 5e most spells are no longer layers of fire and forget magical armour and are more like a consciously maintained discrete magical effect that is still tremendously powerful.

So the scope of magic remains the same, however casters in 5e cannot bring the same VOLUME of magical effects to bear at once.

In terms of magical items, 5e can have as much magical mart as 3.P if you want, the rules exist and are there for your use if you want them.

5e has some flaws for sure, but the scope of its magic isn't one of them and overall the magic system is really, really fun. It's like the traditional casters beat up the psion and took his stuff in the best way possible.

[kaoskonfety]

"Go Nuts" is the short version - by default magic is a bit less accessible than say 3rd, but I sure as heck wouldn't call anything where the player party can, with some reliability, get their hands on wish "low magic". They've scaled back the players expectation of 'cool toys', but its still pretty dang full of crazy Mojo.

Add magic shops and nothing breaks. Add airships nothing breaks. You may need to come up with/review more generally accessible rules for magic item creation (or make formulas craftable by PC's/NPC's, available to purchase etc...) and you will need nail down a bit more stable magic item creation/sale price rules.

The only caution I'd give is the actual stat/ d20 roll +# items are more potent due to the generally smaller numbers. The +3 sword/armour is comparable to +5 and 6 from 3rd - and the game is built on the assumption you don't NEED the +3, but it is nice. Worry less about the pluses bonuses and more about the awesome tricks.

[Myzz]

Yeah for the most part I'm taking straight +X Magic items out... everything I put in with a +x will have other stuff. The only +X magic items I'm including would be stuff that had their greater powers used up... OR Master Work stuff which I treat as a +1, but does not count as magic for the purposes of what stuff it can bypass...

I allow "magic marts" only in the context that some people will have some random magic items that they will sell.

Finding specific items would require research (yay sages) and then a seperate adventure to go acquire said item. On the other hand most of my really good stuff is homebrewed legendary stuff that requires learning secrets over time. Currently our bard has a DemonBlade that is quite viscious... The blade functions as a soul crystal of all the creatures he kills, when 100 souls are achieved it summons a Raksasha... who may or may not be thrilled to be in that world. The bard happens to be NG, and the blade keeps whispering evil things in his dreams... At one point the bard failed his save and the Blade took control while he slept in order to kill some good guys... The player (and character) are extremely thrilled to have this legendary weapon (acquired it at level 4, started unlocking its secrets around level 5... Just learned what he has to do to unlock the remaining secrets at level 6...)

[Xetheral]

In terms of magical items, 5e can have as much magical mart as 3.P if you want, the rules exist and are there for your use if you want them.

I'm going to disagree... the rules you refer to aren't robust enough to support a verisimilitudinous magic item economy. Yes, there are prices for items, but they're based solely on rarity (as opposed to rarity + functionality) and make little sense (see, e.g., potions vs wands, soverign glue, armor vs shields).

Yes, previous editions had their own verisimilitude problems with their item schemes, but at least they gave a comprehensive system one could tweak. 5e's logarithmic pricing by rarity isn't a useful foundation if you want a result similar to 3.x.


Add magic shops and nothing breaks. Add airships nothing breaks. You may need to come up with/review more generally accessible rules for magic item creation (or make formulas craftable by PC's/NPC's, available to purchase etc...) and you will need nail down a bit more stable magic item creation/sale price rules.

I agree... nothing in the system is fundamentally incompatible with commercially-available items. But don't underestimate just how much work is involved in supplementing the rules to let them achieve results similar to 3.x, nor the cost in "player focus" of adding a half-dozen extra pages of houserules to the campaign documentation. (Conversely, that same half-dozen pages of optional comprehensive magic item pricing rules in the DMG would have been enough to support this legacy playstyle for everyone who wanted it.)

[Milo v3]

So without WBL, I could give everyone in the setting tonnes of unlimited use items and nothing would break?

Also, I looked at the Eberron Unearthed Arcana thingie.... is artificer the only way to make magic items?

[Demonic Spoon]

So without WBL, I could give everyone in the setting tonnes of unlimited use items and nothing would break?

Also, I looked at the Eberron Unearthed Arcana thingie.... is artificer the only way to make magic items?

It wouldn't "break", because with the exception of very specific legendary items, magic items don't jack up your numbers and mess with the system's math, and any items that let you cast buff spells still require concentration. You will, however, have to build your encounters with the knowledge that your players are more powerful and flexible than normal.

[Flashy]

I do a custom magitech setting and have been thinking of allowing players to take a starting feat (I also grant everyone a feat at first level, as suggested in that other thread floating around) which lets them start with magitech body modifications. I haven't tested it heavily yet but I doubt it will be game breaking.

[Knaight]

I would say that 5e is marginally lower magic by default than previous editions. With that said, it's not like airships, police golems on every corner, or other similar things are at all hard to implement.

[Milo v3]

So, how should I deal with the fact that characters seem to have to be level 14 to make basic magic items?

[Mr.Moron]

So, how should I deal with the fact that characters seem to have to be level 14 to make basic magic items?

It'd probably be best to just introduce a setting-specific method of creating magical items. You could probably just use the standard crafting rules but instead of making progress against GP, you make progress against "Mana Points" or something, with each magic item having rating in "Mana Points" depending on how powerful it is or how complex the magic is too work.

Then players would just have to take the specific tool proficiency to make magic item craters "Mana Crystal Chipper" tools or something.

The exact skin you put on it would depend on how magic & magic items work in your setting, but a simple swap of GP for a Magic-Power rating is probably the easiest patch that doesn't require introducing new subsystems.

[kaoskonfety]

So, how should I deal with the fact that characters seem to have to be level 14 to make basic magic items?

I'd ask you to define "basic" and what you think needs "dealing with"?

The obvious answers are: lower the level requirements OR make a feat to lower or remove the level requirements.

[rollingForInit]

I've a campaign set in a "high magic" setting. It'll mostly take place in a huge desert city that's a central trade nexus, so it sustains itself partially from trade, and partially from magic. There's a special type of sand in the desert that can be used to create specific kinds of magical items (or enhance certain others), and create magical glass.

They don't have airships, but magical items are very common. Basically, I'm treating "rare" magical items as "uncommon" and "uncommon" items as "common". There are also a lot items that just have minor magical properties (for instance, from the magical properties table in the DMG), that i'm going to call "magical trinkets". Jewels that shine with an arcane light, clothes that never get dirty, cutlery that cleans itself, blankets that are kept perpetually warm (or cool), small items that give a slight bonus to some skill or allows the casting of a cantrip 1/day (at-will for more expensive kinds). Just small things that have little mechanical impact, but are great for general fluff and to make the everyday life of people easier. The major streets are self-cleaning, the highways through the desert magically keep sand away and water is distributed along it magically. Waste is magically disposed of. The city's got a water reserve that's continuously refilled via portals to the elemental plane of water. They're irrigating the surrounding area with magic, and there are green houses in the city.

There are stores that sell proper magical items, and most in the DMG exist in one version or another. Some might be insanely expensive, others aren't. PC's can still only attune to 3 at most, so doesn't feel too extreme. They're at level 12 now, and have 1 very rare, 1 rare, and 3 uncommon items each. They're a bit stronger than average, but I just compensate for that when building encounters. If they want to buy a magical item, I basically just have them tell me what they want, and then I'll tell them what it costs. The price might vary over time as well, and I might modify the item they want if there's something about it I dislike or feel is too powerful (or if there's a cool extra effect I think they'd like). So basically, they can buy items but everything requires DM approval. That's how I handle it.

[Milo v3]

I'd ask you to define "basic" and what you think needs "dealing with"?

Basic as in from list A and B, which doesn't even cover +1 pointed metal sticks. And dealing with the fact that... it's hard to have a magic item filled society when the class feature that allows you to make "basic" magic items is a high-level ability.

Also, I didn't know 5e even had crafting rules and looking at them now... wow. They're harsh.

[DanyBallon]

Easiest way to go is to allow you players to craft magic items, by either taking a feat, or be available to all. Then you can use the rules for crafting, and just chage the rarities for items. If in your world +2 weapons and armor are uncommon, then so be it. It's your world after all :smallsmile:
I would recommand that you keep within the +0 to +3 range for magic weapons and armor, and not to mess with the number of spell per day, but otherwise, feel free to adjust the game as much as you want.

[kaoskonfety]

Basic as in from list A and B, which doesn't even cover +1 pointed metal sticks. And dealing with the fact that... it's hard to have a magic item filled society when the class feature that allows you to make "basic" magic items is a high-level ability.

Also, I didn't know 5e even had crafting rules and looking at them now... wow. They're harsh.

Intentionally so:
They are not the players rules any more - the creation placement and availability of magic loot is now assumed to be DM controlled and the default assumption as outlined (for the players to read and understand) is that even the difficult rules as written for making magic items are completely DM controlled (formulas for item creation are not outlined in anyway past "you need one" as the most obvious example).

Don't like it? Ok.
Change it.

I'll need to get home to my books but I'm pretty sure sword +1 is uncommon? so level 3? Alot of stuff is "uncommon" rarity.

Now if you want level 3 character making sky ships and golems you can:
- Declare everything you want to be "uncommon" rarity (or whatever rarity you want) - so level 3.
- Set creation prices/time as you see fit
- Formulas everywhere, printing presses and books full of them, libraries stuffed with them.

[Demonic Spoon]

Basic as in from list A and B, which doesn't even cover +1 pointed metal sticks. And dealing with the fact that... it's hard to have a magic item filled society when the class feature that allows you to make "basic" magic items is a high-level ability.

Also, I didn't know 5e even had crafting rules and looking at them now... wow. They're harsh.

Players are adventurers, not craftsmen. It's perfectly plausible that player characters aren't fantastic magic item craftsmen, even if the setting itself has people who are.

Or, if you think they should be, do as has been suggested elsewhere in the thread and houserule it.

[kaoskonfety]

at home with book - prices get steep fast, but you can slash them, or hand out more gold/make the setting wealthier. Build times stay and obstacle, but allow teams to work on items (with a high level "project leader") and it gets manageable to "way too fast" pretty fast

Uncommon level 3, this includes winged boots, eyes of night - so anything "balanced" with running speed silent jetpacks and night vision goggles is fair game at what I'd call "low" levels
- definite "magical steam punk" if you take the limiters off production, the cost are still low enough here

Rare is level 6 - free action ring, immunity to poison, Iron bands of bilarro -
one for the thief/assassin, one for the king, one for the cops

Very Rare - level 11 - Tomes of various Golems, stat tomes, potions of longevity, dancing sword, amulet of the planes - this feels like "airship with speed and durability", we've got massive combat deadly robots, intellect improving software, immortality serum and man portable self powered AI drone weaponry, sky yacht rounds this ok don't ya think?
Major NPC artisans, this feels like the "best you can hire" area and where I'd cap out "things a typical city dweller can be expected to have seen"

Making anything further up "common place", even at the "cities have a few" level is getting a bit silly - not saying you can't, but we are getting from "High magic science" into city shattering power lying in the street.

[Milo v3]

Okay, a fair amount of that helped.

Though, after reading through the item rules I'm abit confused. If formula allow you to craft magic items, what's the purpose of the artificer class feature? Does it let them just make something for free once a month or what?

[Daishain]

Okay, a fair amount of that helped.

Though, after reading through the item rules I'm abit confused. If formula allow you to craft magic items, what's the purpose of the artificer class feature? Does it let them just make something for free once a month or what?
The way they have the artificer set up, they basically get to create temporary enchantments at the cost of reducing their spell slots while the enchantment is active.

The benefit is highly situational, and not at all like what an artificer actually is about.

I suppose I can understand why they didn't want to make artificers as they used to be. Otherwise every group is going to pressure one of their own to play an artificer, just because that would be the only way to reasonably get magic items made on demand.

Personally, I'd rather have my beloved artificer back, while they fix the bloody crafting rules.

[archaeo]

I'm going to disagree... the rules you refer to aren't robust enough to support a verisimilitudinous magic item economy. Yes, there are prices for items, but they're based solely on rarity (as opposed to rarity + functionality) and make little sense (see, e.g., potions vs wands, soverign glue, armor vs shields).

Yes, previous editions had their own verisimilitude problems with their item schemes, but at least they gave a comprehensive system one could tweak. 5e's logarithmic pricing by rarity isn't a useful foundation if you want a result similar to 3.x.

Doesn't the DMG basically cover this? Page 135: "As the DM, you determine the value of an individual magic item based on its rarity. Suggested values are provided in the Magic Item Rarity table. The value of a consumable item, such as a potion or scroll, is typically half the value of a permanent item of the same rarity."

Emphasis mine. The corner cases you mention in the parentheses seem like they'd be easily covered by these simple guidelines. You don't end up with the kind of rules that a real-world economy would run on, but for the purposes of playing a game where you want to maintain things like balance and whatnot, it's sure a hell of a lot easier than trying to model a huge economy for the sake of a few actors within it.


I agree... nothing in the system is fundamentally incompatible with commercially-available items. But don't underestimate just how much work is involved in supplementing the rules to let them achieve results similar to 3.x, nor the cost in "player focus" of adding a half-dozen extra pages of houserules to the campaign documentation. (Conversely, that same half-dozen pages of optional comprehensive magic item pricing rules in the DMG would have been enough to support this legacy playstyle for everyone who wanted it.)

Part of me honestly thinks that, if a given table finds 5e deficient in this way, they're likely to find 5e deficient in a variety of other ways, and they'd be happier playing another game with more crunch. I get the distinct impression that those who want "economic verisimilitude" from their TRPGs are people who are unlikely to be happy with 5e, both conceptually and in at-the-table play. A half-dozen extra pages, regardless of where you print them, isn't likely to fix that kind of thing.

[Xetheral]

Doesn't the DMG basically cover this? Page 135: "As the DM, you determine the value of an individual magic item based on its rarity. Suggested values are provided in the Magic Item Rarity table. The value of a consumable item, such as a potion or scroll, is typically half the value of a permanent item of the same rarity."

Emphasis mine. The corner cases you mention in the parentheses seem like they'd be easily covered by these simple guidelines. You don't end up with the kind of rules that a real-world economy would run on, but for the purposes of playing a game where you want to maintain things like balance and whatnot, it's sure a hell of a lot easier than trying to model a huge economy for the sake of a few actors within it.

As a DM, being told "you determine the value of an individual magic item" is only as good as the guidelines provided for doing so. In this case, the guidelines aren't particularly useful. They're based solely on rarity, rather than a combination of rarity and utility, meaning that the prices don't make any sense. For example, why should Sovereign Glue and the Belt of Storm Giant Strength (both Legendary Items) be priced similarly? They might be similarly rare, but the demand for the belt is going to far, far exceed the demand for the Glue. Sure, under the single-use-items-get-a-50%-discount rule the Glue costs half as much as Belt, but that's still off, probably by at least an order of magnitude. (Also, a 50% discount for single-use vs continuous use makes the single-use item incredibly overpriced, even if it has identical utility.)

Even if there were good guidelines, telling the DM to price all the individual items isn't terribly helpful. It's a TON of work to come up with verisimilitudinous prices, and in a game where the players have multiple items to choose between when spending their gold, has to be done for every item up-front.

Consider: what if the mundane equipment table in the PHB didn't list prices, but instead left the price of each item up to the DM, based on rarity? That would be a serious problem in almost every style of play (the exception being one that doesn't track gold expenditures at all, e.g. post-apocalyptic and/or survival horror). For DMs wanting to run a game in a setting where magical items are common enough to be commodities, the lack of workable prices in the DMG is just as problematic (if not more-so, given that magic items will represent a much higher percentage of character wealth than mundane equipment ever will).

Just as a lack of mundane prices would mean the system didn't support settings where mundane equipment could be bought and sold, a lack of usable magic item prices means the system doesn't support settings where magical equipment can be bought and sold. If there was anything in the game that mechanically conflicted with tradable magical items, then not including workable pricing would make sense... but as it is, the pricing (and by extension, robust creation rules) are the only thing missing to support this legacy style of play.


Part of me honestly thinks that, if a given table finds 5e deficient in this way, they're likely to find 5e deficient in a variety of other ways, and they'd be happier playing another game with more crunch. I get the distinct impression that those who want "economic verisimilitude" from their TRPGs are people who are unlikely to be happy with 5e, both conceptually and in at-the-table play. A half-dozen extra pages, regardless of where you print them, isn't likely to fix that kind of thing.

In my group this is absolutely not the case. The mechanical improvements of 5e (including much of the streamlining) have a ton of appeal, but its lack of support for the high-magic setting of our main D&D campaigns is the chief obstacle in the way of switching systems.

Keep in mind that an interest in the verisimilitude of the setting is complimentary to the more story-driven focus of 5e. There is nothing at all inconsistent with a group that prefers streamlined combat mechanics while simultaneously wanting to explore an internally-coherent setting.

[Draken]

Let me talk about a campaign I started running a few weeks ago with my long term group, while explaining a few addons and mechanisms one member of the group devised for her own campaign (which is running at a much more advanced point, also 4ed but neither of these are relevant). Both are in homebrew worlds whose magic levels are somewhere between "high" and "crazy high" with fair flavours of "sufficiently advanced technology" and "sufficiently analysed magic" each.

Anyway, some background for my campaign. Simplified as all heck.

Aberrations once controlled the world, they were known as "The Creators" because, well, they made mortals. Humans, elves, orcs, goblionoids, ogres, what have you. The Creators made them to be minions, pets, game, cattle, anything we use cats, dogs, horses, cows, etc. for.

Then the mortals rebelled, and the age of the creators ended. Some fled the world (ethergaunts, for instance). Some were decimated (grell, illithid, tsochar, for instance). Some were ok for various reasons (Beholders, and one other), mainly not having enough created slaves to pose a real threat in their holdings.

So ended an age of glory, science, magic and what have you. The cities of the creators lie in ruins, etc, etc. The basis of the campaign is that the party is part of an expedition sent to one such city to recover priceless eldritch secrets and archeotech, mostly archeotech.

Anyway, systems.

Two basic system addons (devised by Selinia, for those who know her in the forums). A mission system, and a "town" system.

Mission system is more of an easy method of running the campaign, there are various missions, unlocked as story progresses and etc, basically individual quests (we keep whole ledgers on google drive for this stuff, by the way), a mission can be resumed to "go to place, talk to the people, fight the fights" exp and treasure tallied at the end. Simple, clean, practical. Basically we keep a bulletin board of plot hooks.

The town system is more interesting. It is essentially a tab of city services we have available and the benefits they provide. These are artisans that make magic things, alchemists that do potions and other consumables, the town system has a bunch of buildings that mostly serve purposes that only make sense for our campaigns due to the non-D&D systems that also take part of them (including, yes, economic buildings that mainly serve to advance in the town system itself).

This system mostly takes the place of the crafting systems, essentially freeing up that as a concern for character builds. We don't overly concern ourselves with them. A nondescript number of npc labourers in our factories and laboratories does the job and are paid by our the economical background we have setup. Meanwhile, we focus on the actual plotlines of the game, those are already fairly byzantine in the one that isn't two weeks old.

Anyway. 5ed stuff.

My game is fairly young, party started at level 2, did a trial mission that was six fights long (modrons, everywhere) and got up to level 3, this trial run taught me a few things. Spoilered if you don't care to read. But who are you kidding, you will read it.

1. Being a low level wizard is ****ty. Damage output is bad, and all your spells will go to uses of Shield. And a quadrone will still almost murder you.

2. Enemies survive with 1 HP so often. So often.

3. Melee enemies die long before they have the chance to be truly terrifying, even if they are a pentadrone with 5 attacks per turn.*

*A polar bear in the last mission proved otherwise. Hehehehe. The whole fight was much bigger thought and the bear started behind a wall of other enemies.

Anyway. Meat of the point. Magic items. Treasure in general.

When I set out to make treasure, I found the DMG... Woefully lacking in decent guidelines for what treasure a party should have. So I decided to mostly disregard it and wing it. My game has three forms of treasure, essentially. Research, tokens, and gold.

Gold is simple, you use it on the market. Buy things. Poisons, healing potions, weapons, armor, the works.

Tokens can be turned into items for no gold. Each token has a classification (Selinia devised this based on the treasure shares from 4ed), I expanded on the system. Tokens have three types: Special Material, Improvement and Enhancement. Any one item (mainly magical weapons and armor) can have one of each. Special Materials are the foundation, dragonhide, adamantine, mithral, darkmantle leather, etc each has some sort of relatively simple but nice non-flat-numerical bonus. Improvements are just flat numerical bonuses, +1 to +3, haven't shown up yet, feels too soon. Enhancements are fancy things, laser blades (turn damage from the weapon made with it into radiant), robot eye lenses (add to helmet, remove disadvantage from long range attacks), nifty stuff. Some overlap between special materials and enhancements sometimes, but who cares, I all but make the stuff on the spot anyway. There are other things but I won't explain the whole treasure system.

Research is tied to the town. Most missions give a few options to research things recovered from the ruins. Like the aforementioned laser blades or a wide variety of old robots. The party researches those and rebuilds a sample for personal use or draws blueprints to sell for money and 'resources' (town upgrade money), these are not alternatives, it is more what you do first (they are going for the money first, if it needs mentioning).

In essence. Usual "glories of the past must be recovered", world is plenty magical, players are bringing more magic to the fore little by little. Have yet to see how this will change the world because they are still at the "bears and bandits" stage of enemies. And sitting just next to a cyclopean treasure trove of wealth and danger that needs to be reclaimed little by little, while dealing with everything outside said cyclopean treasure trove of wealth and danger as well.

Honestly, cracking my skull against how many units of corundum and iron ore they would need to reach the next level of blacksmithing and finally get the dwarven smithing perk feels like it would just be a pointless exercise when I could be doing interesting things!

[archaeo]

As a DM, being told "you determine the value of an individual magic item" is only as good as the guidelines provided for doing so. In this case, the guidelines aren't particularly useful. They're based solely on rarity, rather than a combination of rarity and utility, meaning that the prices don't make any sense. For example, why should Sovereign Glue and the Belt of Storm Giant Strength (both Legendary Items) be priced similarly? They might be similarly rare, but the demand for the belt is going to far, far exceed the demand for the Glue. Sure, under the single-use-items-get-a-50%-discount rule the Glue costs half as much as Belt, but that's still off, probably by at least an order of magnitude. (Also, a 50% discount for single-use vs continuous use makes the single-use item incredibly overpriced, even if it has identical utility.)

Why? Demand is only one half the the equation; why shouldn't sovereign glue be extremely expensive because the ingredients are extraordinarily rare, or it requires an incredibly skilled craftsperson?


Even if there were good guidelines, telling the DM to price all the individual items isn't terribly helpful. It's a TON of work to come up with verisimilitudinous prices, and in a game where the players have multiple items to choose between when spending their gold, has to be done for every item up-front.

Is it really a TON of work, Xetheral? To give prices to the dozen or so magic items that a given shop might have? Or to price a given item that a PC is interested in? A price that works for your table's sense of fair play w/r/t economics?

I'll concede that it is an added bit of work. But the idea that it's something you'd spend more than a couple of minutes on, assuming that you don't feel like you have to rip down the entire edifice of 5e's magic item economy?


Consider: what if the mundane equipment table in the PHB didn't list prices, but instead left the price of each item up to the DM, based on rarity? That would be a serious problem in almost every style of play (the exception being one that doesn't track gold expenditures at all, e.g. post-apocalyptic and/or survival horror). For DMs wanting to run a game in a setting where magical items are common enough to be commodities, the lack of workable prices in the DMG is just as problematic (if not more-so, given that magic items will represent a much higher percentage of character wealth than mundane equipment ever will).

Presumably, they don't do this because in its default configuration, selling or buying a magic item should be something incredibly unusual, to the point where it's a quest or event all its own. In high magic games, you do have a price list, it's just deliberately open-ended because, one imagines, they figure that players like you and your table are the best people to decide how much things will cost, and gave you some pretty reasonable ranges in which to place said costs. I don't think this is a huge design flaw, especially when the work amounts to "pick a number between x and y."


In my group this is absolutely not the case. The mechanical improvements of 5e (including much of the streamlining) have a ton of appeal, but its lack of support for the high-magic setting of our main D&D campaigns is the chief obstacle in the way of switching systems.

Keep in mind that an interest in the verisimilitude of the setting is complimentary to the more story-driven focus of 5e. There is nothing at all inconsistent with a group that prefers streamlined combat mechanics while simultaneously wanting to explore an internally-coherent setting.

I just fail to see where the internal coherence breaks down. All that's really "broken" is the fact that 5e stops halfway and says to the DM, "here's where you get to make choices about the economics of your game." It could be clearer about that, it could offer a bit more help. But it's internally coherent enough that most of its choices can be easily rationalized both in character and out of character, in my opinion. I suspect we'll continue to disagree about this, however.

[Xetheral]

Why? Demand is only one half the the equation; why shouldn't sovereign glue be extremely expensive because the ingredients are extraordinarily rare, or it requires an incredibly skilled craftsperson?

Both are indeed a factor. Since it's so much less useful than a Belt of Storm Giant Strength, then to be priced similarly Sovereign Glue would need to be much rarer as well. But it isn't... they're both Legendary items.

Further, to the extent that game balance is a factor in setting default prices for the edition, demand *should* be more heavily weighted, because the balance concerns are determined by how the item interacts with the other mechanics of the game, while the part of the supply factor dealing with rare ingredients is setting-dependent.


Is it really a TON of work, Xetheral? To give prices to the dozen or so magic items that a given shop might have? Or to price a given item that a PC is interested in? A price that works for your table's sense of fair play w/r/t economics?

I'll concede that it is an added bit of work. But the idea that it's something you'd spend more than a couple of minutes on, assuming that you don't feel like you have to rip down the entire edifice of 5e's magic item economy?

Verisimilitude makes the game world feel more real. Achieving it is a challenge. Consider:

The rewards the players get and the treasure they find are already (unavoidably) arbitrary constructs of the DM. The DM could just as easily have given the party 3,000 gold instead of 2,000 gold. For that difference to have meaning, there needs to be some tie-in to the game world to give the extra reward a sense of scale.

But if the rate at which players can spend those rewards appears to the players to be as arbitrary as the rewards then the party might as well be finding gift certificates redeemable for magic items instead of gold.

Therefore, to a certain extent, the degree of verisimilitude created by having default prices is dependent on how much work appeared to go into calculating them to give them meaning.

Similarly, if the price of items is only determined when the party investigates what magic items are available for sale, then the characters never can have a sense of progress saving up for a specific item they want. A quest to find such a desired item changes from "saving up the money and trying to track down a seller" to "trying to track down the seller and hope the DM decides that the amount of money I have is enough". The former promotes verisimilitude by allowing the character to interact with the game world. The latter feels to the player more like a sophisticated version of asking "please".

So, to be most effective, magic item prices should be part of the rules, to tweak (or ignore) as needed. Then the prices are presumably based on the system mastery of the designers and hopefully on playtesting.

Second most effective would be for the DM to devise a scheme for setting prices that applies both to the existing items and any future ones, and uses it to calculate prices for every item in the game, and puts this list in the campaign documentation. Ideally the prices will consider the balance ramifications and factor them against the mechanical difficulty of creating the item.

Can you get away with less? Absolutely. You can just make an arbitrary price list for every item ahead of time, and hope none of the choices reduce verisimilitude later by appearing nonsensical.

But to do it well? Yes, that takes time, just like any other aspect of mechanical game design.


Presumably, they don't do this because in its default configuration, selling or buying a magic item should be something incredibly unusual, to the point where it's a quest or event all its own. In high magic games, you do have a price list, it's just deliberately open-ended because, one imagines, they figure that players like you and your table are the best people to decide how much things will cost, and gave you some pretty reasonable ranges in which to place said costs. I don't think this is a huge design flaw, especially when the work amounts to "pick a number between x and y."

I've tried to illustrate above why "picking a number between x an y" doesn't provide the price with any in-game meaning, thereby hurting verisimilitude.



I just fail to see where the internal coherence breaks down. All that's really "broken" is the fact that 5e stops halfway and says to the DM, "here's where you get to make choices about the economics of your game." It could be clearer about that, it could offer a bit more help. But it's internally coherent enough that most of its choices can be easily rationalized both in character and out of character, in my opinion. I suspect we'll continue to disagree about this, however.

Do you see my point that if the designers had neglected to include a mundane price list, saying that "here's where you get to make choices about the economics of your game", that the exclusion would be highly problematic and make the game much harder to play and run?

[Milo v3]

Is it really a TON of work, Xetheral? To give prices to the dozen or so magic items that a given shop might have? Or to price a given item that a PC is interested in? A price that works for your table's sense of fair play w/r/t economics?

Given magic item shops would have at least thirty magic items, and every shop is a magic item shop. Yeah... pricing everything + all the new items I'll have to add will take a decent amount of time.

[Tvtyrant]

For my Netheril conversion I am using a Mastercraftsfolk feat. Your maximum item creation GP output daily becomes level x level x 25 GP. A level 20 crafter can spend 10,000 a day instead of 25, so a legendary item becomes possible.

[archaeo]

Both are indeed a factor. Since it's so much less useful than a Belt of Storm Giant Strength, then to be priced similarly Sovereign Glue would need to be much rarer as well. But it isn't... they're both Legendary items.

Except one is expendable, and therefore 50% lower in price. Given that there are only five grades of rarity, I have no difficulty assuming that not all items are equally common within a single category; I imagine there are more pots of sovereign glue than there are Giant's Bane, a merely legendary weapon rather than an artifact.

I also note that the price is given as "50,001+," which sure seems to imply that you're free to go way higher. Maybe that sovereign glue is only 25,000, and a belt of storm giant strength costs 100,000? I'm just throwing numbers out, but you take my point.


Further, to the extent that game balance is a factor in setting default prices for the edition, demand *should* be more heavily weighted, because the balance concerns are determined by how the item interacts with the other mechanics of the game, while the part of the supply factor dealing with rare ingredients is setting-dependent.

This doesn't make any sense from a verisimilitude perspective. Economies don't care about "balance," after all, and there's no notion of fairness in capitalism. The existing rules in the DMG provide enough flexibility for those "setting-dependent" supply issues while preserving balance, and I suspect that it would take a very generous DM to really unbalance the game to the point of unplayability so long as they maintained attunement rules and whatnot.

But your problem isn't so much balance, is it? To wit:


Verisimilitude makes the game world feel more real. Achieving it is a challenge. Consider:

The rewards the players get and the treasure they find are already (unavoidably) arbitrary constructs of the DM. The DM could just as easily have given the party 3,000 gold instead of 2,000 gold. For that difference to have meaning, there needs to be some tie-in to the game world to give the extra reward a sense of scale.

But if the rate at which players can spend those rewards appears to the players to be as arbitrary as the rewards then the party might as well be finding gift certificates redeemable for magic items instead of gold.

Therefore, to a certain extent, the degree of verisimilitude created by having default prices is dependent on how much work appeared to go into calculating them to give them meaning.

Default prices are already idiotic from a verisimilitude perspective (and yes, I know about the PHB lists, and I'll get to that). What, does every world in D&D have a planned economy, where some clever Wizard King created a master price list that every society must follow?

Given that having unchanging default prices is unrealistic and silly if you're worried about verisimilitude, you can do two things: you can provide a huge list of carefully crafted prices, each one the DM has to adjust up or down based on the circumstances, or you can give big ranges, allowing you to a) avoid putting a price down for everything so that the player feels entitled about the prices printed in the book while b) giving just as much flexibility for the DM.


Similarly, if the price of items is only determined when the party investigates what magic items are available for sale, then the characters never can have a sense of progress saving up for a specific item they want. A quest to find such a desired item changes from "saving up the money and trying to track down a seller" to "trying to track down the seller and hope the DM decides that the amount of money I have is enough". The former promotes verisimilitude by allowing the character to interact with the game world. The latter feels to the player more like a sophisticated version of asking "please".

With all due respect, PCs have far better metrics for growth and "a sense of progress" than saving their coppers for a shiny new +1 swords. I also sincerely doubt you would play the game as "hope the DM decides I have enough money," since presumably you could just ask, "Does my character have any idea how much this item will cost?" and receive some intelligible answer that will let you know whether saving up money is worth it or not. For that matter, where did the players find out the price in the first place, when they went off "saving up the money"?

However, I get we might just disagree on this; I think the idea of D&D piggy banks being big parts of a campaign is really dull, so I'm biased.


Second most effective would be for the DM to devise a scheme for setting prices that applies both to the existing items and any future ones, and uses it to calculate prices for every item in the game, and puts this list in the campaign documentation. Ideally the prices will consider the balance ramifications and factor them against the mechanical difficulty of creating the item.

Isn't this exactly what the game has given us? Five levels of rarity and a 50% discount on consumable items may be a simple scheme, but it's consequently flexible enough to allow for balance in a far greater range of settings and circumstances.


I've tried to illustrate above why "picking a number between x an y" doesn't provide the price with any in-game meaning, thereby hurting verisimilitude.

I don't know that you've illustrated that at all. The "picking a number" thing was pert; I suspect that you, and any other DM concerned with verisimilitude, will think about price choices with a bit of care. I just don't think the problem is all that serious. It's certainly easy enough to see that the storm giant belt of strength will be more valuable than a bottle of sovereign glue, etc. Even if you asked me to make a very pessimistic prediction, I bet it would take you at most two hours to get a rough price list together, and that's assuming the problem doesn't actually take a minute of googling because somebody else has already done it and posted it online.


Do you see my point that if the designers had neglected to include a mundane price list, saying that "here's where you get to make choices about the economics of your game", that the exclusion would be highly problematic and make the game much harder to play and run?

No, I don't see it. The mundane price list is intended for players, the magic item lists and rules are intended for DMs, and that's a valuable and important distinction. For one thing, it solves that gold problem you discussed earlier, since it gives players a good idea of what the value of a gp is. I think fixed prices present the same verisimilitude problems you'd have if you gave every magic item a price, but given the big number of mundane items, it certainly saves time considering a bunch of stuff that doesn't merit a lot of consideration by the DM. It also makes manipulating the numbers much easier, since you can just multiply or divide all the prices for different economic regions or what have you, so that you don't have to make big decisions on each item to create verisimilitude.


Given magic item shops would have at least thirty magic items, and every shop is a magic item shop. Yeah... pricing everything + all the new items I'll have to add will take a decent amount of time.

I mean, if you wanted to do it that way, then yes, it does sound time consuming. I'd prefer my magic item shops to be a lot more like boutiques, where you're not usually just walking around inspecting piles of items on shelves but talking to a shopkeeper who fetches requested items or gives information about the inventory, etc.

I suppose if you wanted literal magic marts, where there are dozens of items in each shop, then yes, you're in for a bit of work. I still tend to doubt it would take all that long; you're basically just pulling numbers out of the air from the suggested price ranges, and as long as the prices fall in those ranges, I suspect that it doesn't really matter what the exact price is. You pick whatever numbers make sense to you, and then you can quote them to your players or hand out lists of 30 items for each store and the proper price, whatever works.

It's admittedly more work than a big list of pre-printed prices, but it's not particularly arduous, and you don't have to do them all at once, unless, I suppose, you start your campaign with the High Magic Campaign starting equipment form the DMG.

[Milo v3]

I mean, if you wanted to do it that way, then yes, it does sound time consuming. I'd prefer my magic item shops to be a lot more like boutiques, where you're not usually just walking around inspecting piles of items on shelves but talking to a shopkeeper who fetches requested items or gives information about the inventory, etc.
*Shrugs* Maybe for a more standard setting, but when it's everyone has magic items, everyone's gonna have magic items.


It's admittedly more work than a big list of pre-printed prices, but it's not particularly arduous, and you don't have to do them all at once, unless, I suppose, you start your campaign with the High Magic Campaign starting equipment form the DMG.
That was the plan.

[Mr.Moron]

If every shop is a magic item shop, it's pretty safe to assume at that point that magic items are produced in enough numbers and distributed widely enough that their costs can't be particularly meaningful anyway. For that many shops to be around with that many items, they have to be something that can be regularly afforded by most people. It's probably pretty easy just to say that your average "Magic" item costs +25gp more than the mundane version for entry level stuff "+1 Sword" or "6-Pack of Healing Potions", more powerful items "+2 Sword" or "Wand of Fireballs" are probably just safe to peg at say 100gp.

That way you really only have to worry about specific pricing for the really big ticket items. The standard version of the game doesn't really get into the nitty-gritty on the difference in price between an apple and pear, or a wagon and a slightly nicer wagon. If magic items are that prolific, they're just going to be common goods. Just set a couple of price tiers and throw everything into them.

EDIT:
"Magic Item, Common" - 25gp
"Magic Item, Uncommon" - 100gp
"Magic Item, Rare" - 500gp
"Magic Item, Very Rare" - 3,000gp

Something like that. Sure you're losing a bit of detail, but when magic shoes are as common as the regular type I don't think you need to spend bunch of detail on them.

[druid91]

"Go Nuts" is the short version - by default magic is a bit less accessible than say 3rd, but I sure as heck wouldn't call anything where the player party can, with some reliability, get their hands on wish "low magic". They've scaled back the players expectation of 'cool toys', but its still pretty dang full of crazy Mojo.

Add magic shops and nothing breaks. Add airships nothing breaks. You may need to come up with/review more generally accessible rules for magic item creation (or make formulas craftable by PC's/NPC's, available to purchase etc...) and you will need nail down a bit more stable magic item creation/sale price rules.

The only caution I'd give is the actual stat/ d20 roll +# items are more potent due to the generally smaller numbers. The +3 sword/armour is comparable to +5 and 6 from 3rd - and the game is built on the assumption you don't NEED the +3, but it is nice. Worry less about the pluses bonuses and more about the awesome tricks.

Airships are part of the default game.

20,000 GP to buy one. In the DM's guide.

[Xetheral]

Archaeo,

First off, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write such in-depth replies. Your questions have made me reconsider my position, and while I ultimately don't feel any differently on the issue, I now understand my reasons and motivations much better. Thanks! Now, to the reply...


Except one is expendable, and therefore 50% lower in price. Given that there are only five grades of rarity, I have no difficulty assuming that not all items are equally common within a single category; I imagine there are more pots of sovereign glue than there are Giant's Bane, a merely legendary weapon rather than an artifact.

I also note that the price is given as "50,001+," which sure seems to imply that you're free to go way higher. Maybe that sovereign glue is only 25,000, and a belt of storm giant strength costs 100,000? I'm just throwing numbers out, but you take my point.

Certainly there will be some combination of prices where the ratio is more appropriate. The point is that the game provides no guidance on what those prices should be. Hence the reason that you're "just throwing out numbers": the system doesn't give you a useful starting point. Figuring out good prices will take time and consideration.


This doesn't make any sense from a verisimilitude perspective. Economies don't care about "balance," after all, and there's no notion of fairness in capitalism.

As much as I value verisimilitude, it is not the only factor I care about when trying to run a fun game for my players--balance is also a priority (although my notions of balance differ from many posters on this site). You're right that if all I wanted was plausible-looking prices, it wouldn't be *that* hard to come up with them. But I also want to ensure that the party is inclined to select a wide variety of items, that everyone has items they want to buy with similar mechanical-effectiveness/price ratios, and that the prices themselves are structured well enough to add to the players' fun, rather than detract. Consider real-life shopping: if you have multiple affordable, appealing options, choosing between them can be exciting. If everything is priced out of reach, or if you have *too* many options, then it's instead frustrating.


The existing rules in the DMG provide enough flexibility for those "setting-dependent" supply issues while preserving balance, and I suspect that it would take a very generous DM to really unbalance the game to the point of unplayability so long as they maintained attunement rules and whatnot.

I don't see the rules in the DMG as preserving any balance at all. If given the option to select a Legendary item, who would ever pick Sovereign Glue? Or, when creating a high level character in a High Magic setting using the DMG rules, who is ever going to pick a Potion of Invisibility as their Very Rare item? And no, the rules in the DMG are not unbalanced to the point of unplayability, but they aren't particularly well-balanced either for a setting where the PCs have a degree of control over what items they obtain.


Default prices are already idiotic from a verisimilitude perspective (and yes, I know about the PHB lists, and I'll get to that). What, does every world in D&D have a planned economy, where some clever Wizard King created a master price list that every society must follow?

Sure, default prices are unrealistic, but they don't damage verisimilitude to nearly the degree that entirely-arbitrary or nonsensical prices do. Constant prices are merely a simplification of a complex system, whereas arbitrary or nonsensical prices impede a player's ability to relate to and interact with the game world.

Also, my interest in verisimilitude is not an exercise in maximizing realism... abstraction is a very useful tool. If, for a given group, constant prices *do* damage verisimilitude, then a variety of simple options are available to abstract price fluctuations using dice, but only if there are default prices in the first place to work with. (And yes, depending on the group of players I'm running for, I do sometimes vary prices and item availability/quality at the level of individual shops, particularly for locations I expect the party to visit frequently, although I rarely use dedicated magic item shops, so this comes up more for mundane goods.)


Given that having unchanging default prices is unrealistic and silly if you're worried about verisimilitude, you can do two things: you can provide a huge list of carefully crafted prices, each one the DM has to adjust up or down based on the circumstances, or you can give big ranges, allowing you to a) avoid putting a price down for everything so that the player feels entitled about the prices printed in the book while b) giving just as much flexibility for the DM.

Since I disagree with your premise that unchanging default prices are incompatible with trying to maintain verisimilitude, I can't agree with your conclusion. A list of balanced prices would be sufficient to address my verisimilitude concerns with the current system. (Although the item-creation rules would also need to be similarly updated.)


With all due respect, PCs have far better metrics for growth and "a sense of progress" than saving their coppers for a shiny new +1 swords. I also sincerely doubt you would play the game as "hope the DM decides I have enough money," since presumably you could just ask, "Does my character have any idea how much this item will cost?" and receive some intelligible answer that will let you know whether saving up money is worth it or not. For that matter, where did the players find out the price in the first place, when they went off "saving up the money"?

However, I get we might just disagree on this; I think the idea of D&D piggy banks being big parts of a campaign is really dull, so I'm biased.

Yes, this is probably a place where our divergent styles make it particularly hard to relate to one another's perspective. In my mind, XP and GP are the two big (mechanical) ways of tracking character growth, and of those only GP is in-character, and is also therefore a primary motivation for many characters. In turn, GP is only as valuable as what one can do with the money.

As for players/characters knowing prices, if the player is trying to decide which item to buy/quest-for, it's rather awful to have to ask the DM how much it costs for each item on your wishlist. "Does my character have any idea how much a +1 sword would cost? She does? Ok, cool. How much? And what about a Ring of Mind Shielding? Right. And a Headband of Intellect? How about a...." If there were a list of item prices (either in the book or as a houserule), it's just easier to give it to the players. (Also, if one *does* to the effort to make such a list for their campaign, then it's better the players know about it... the extra reference points on GP value increase their understanding of, and ability to relate to, the game world.)


Isn't this exactly what the game has given us? Five levels of rarity and a 50% discount on consumable items may be a simple scheme, but it's consequently flexible enough to allow for balance in a far greater range of settings and circumstances.

No, it's missing the key component of an actual price list that can survive even casual scrutiny. By leaving the prices as very wide ranges the designers have effectively abdicated all the balancing work to the individual DMs who have neither the system mastery nor the playtest resources of the designers. For the new default low-magic-item setting, this isn't a problem, but becomes a giant issue when someone wants to run 5e in a high-magic-item setting where such items are tradable commodities (which both of the two most recent editions not only supported, but treated as the default (i.e. tradable items, not necessarily magic marts)). Since there is nothing in 5e fundamentally incompatible with tradable magic items, not supporting legacy default playstyles is simply adding extra work for the DM at tables who want keep their old settings (or make new ones in the old style) while still taking advantage of 5e's new mechanics.


I don't know that you've illustrated that at all. The "picking a number" thing was pert; I suspect that you, and any other DM concerned with verisimilitude, will think about price choices with a bit of care. I just don't think the problem is all that serious. It's certainly easy enough to see that the storm giant belt of strength will be more valuable than a bottle of sovereign glue, etc. Even if you asked me to make a very pessimistic prediction, I bet it would take you at most two hours to get a rough price list together, and that's assuming the problem doesn't actually take a minute of googling because somebody else has already done it and posted it online.

There's something like 300 magic items. You really think you could come up with a rough price for each item, taking balance considerations into account, in under 30 seconds per item? I'd guess five to ten times that, especially as my decisions on later items would provide more reference points and I'd need to revisit my earlier, more-arbitrary decisions to revise them with the new data. Each item would go faster if I came up with a rubric for setting prices first, but then I'd have to add on the time to make the rubric. Even after I had a rough list of prices, I'd still need to take more time and take a closer look at the item creation rules, to make sure they reflected the changes I made in the prices.

For reference, in our first conversation several months ago about the difficulty of using a high-magic-item setting in 5e, the thread ended with the suggestion that I simply import the 3.5 rules wholesale. I spent well more than two hours trying to come up with a cogent way to do so, but the process was tedious and so many of the 5e items didn't fit neatly into 3.5's pricing scheme (e.g. attunement).


No, I don't see it. The mundane price list is intended for players, the magic item lists and rules are intended for DMs, and that's a valuable and important distinction. For one thing, it solves that gold problem you discussed earlier, since it gives players a good idea of what the value of a gp is. I think fixed prices present the same verisimilitude problems you'd have if you gave every magic item a price, but given the big number of mundane items, it certainly saves time considering a bunch of stuff that doesn't merit a lot of consideration by the DM. It also makes manipulating the numbers much easier, since you can just multiply or divide all the prices for different economic regions or what have you, so that you don't have to make big decisions on each item to create verisimilitude.

I don't follow... are you saying you don't see why a failure to include a mundane price list would have been a problem? Or are you saying that even in a legacy high-magic-item playstyle, the comparison isn't apt?

I have no problem with the magic items being in the DMG rather than the PHB. It facilitates a wide range of play styles where magic items are rare and secret. But I still feel that in a setting where magic items are tradable commodities, the lack of a price list is just as much of a problem as the lack of a mundane price list would be in a low-magic setting.

[archaeo]

Archaeo,

First off, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write such in-depth replies. Your questions have made me reconsider my position, and while I ultimately don't feel any differently on the issue, I now understand my reasons and motivations much better. Thanks!

No problem. I didn't honestly think I'd sway you on your opinion, but hey. I also don't really have much to say in response to your points; it's pretty clear you need a lot more specificity than 5e is willing to give in its magic item economy. Personally, I loathe the parts of D&D that make me feel like I'm playing a spreadsheet instead of a TRPG, and doing the accounting necessary for a game where you're constantly buying, selling, and trading goods sounds like a snore for me. Since the same isn't true of you and your players, I can hardly expect to swing you over to my side. The economic side of the game is important to y'all, which is fine and reasonable.

It's worth pointing out that the DMG does, in fact, make it difficult to do anything like you're trying to do, since the items aren't at all in a good order for figuring them out. What if, instead, you assigned a price to each of the Random Magic Item tables, and then gave a fixed discount based on the probability of rolling a given item on the table, eschewing rarity altogether? That scheme might work better for you and your table.

[Milo v3]

It's worth pointing out that the DMG does, in fact, make it difficult to do anything like you're trying to do, since the items aren't at all in a good order for figuring them out. What if, instead, you assigned a price to each of the Random Magic Item tables, and then gave a fixed discount based on the probability of rolling a given item on the table, eschewing rarity altogether? That scheme might work better for you and your table.

While good in theory it'd break down when you start adding in new items unless you remake all the tables.

[Knaight]

Part of me honestly thinks that, if a given table finds 5e deficient in this way, they're likely to find 5e deficient in a variety of other ways, and they'd be happier playing another game with more crunch. I get the distinct impression that those who want "economic verisimilitude" from their TRPGs are people who are unlikely to be happy with 5e, both conceptually and in at-the-table play. A half-dozen extra pages, regardless of where you print them, isn't likely to fix that kind of thing.

On the other hand, the economy is one of the things that is easiest to just swap out, with minimal repercussions for the rest of the system. Dealing with the magic items specifically gets a bit trickier, as there's less out there to substitute in (stealing ACKS prices wholesale stops working), but it's not all that much.

[archaeo]

While good in theory it'd break down when you start adding in new items unless you remake all the tables.

Presumably, if you're making new magic items, you're planning on giving them out, not putting them in shops?

In any case, as long as you're using the tables as an organizing principle instead of a randomization system, it doesn't matter so much if you add things on top of the existing d100 scheme. You say, "oh, this probably would be at the top end/low end of the probability scale for this table, so I'll price it like that."

[kaoskonfety]

Airships are part of the default game.

20,000 GP to buy one. In the DM's guide.

Now I am very confused about all those threads about what the PC's should be spending their filthy money on.

The answer seems clear: Flying Casino(s)

20,000 puts them in the very rare bracket (assuming they are a "magic item")? yes?

[Milo v3]

Presumably, if you're making new magic items, you're planning on giving them out, not putting them in shops?
I'd be adding at least thirty items, why would I be giving them all out automatically?

[archaeo]

I'd be adding at least thirty items, why would I be giving them all out automatically?

I don't know, I guess I'd just prefer that my players actually use the results of my hard work rather than saying, "Oh, that's interesting," and putting it back on the shelf without buying it. :smallbiggrin:

[Milo v3]

I don't know, I guess I'd just prefer that my players actually use the results of my hard work rather than saying, "Oh, that's interesting," and putting it back on the shelf without buying it. :smallbiggrin:

Eh, they'll get bought eventually, and some likely one or two will be gained through adventuring.

[Xetheral]

No problem. I didn't honestly think I'd sway you on your opinion, but hey. I also don't really have much to say in response to your points; it's pretty clear you need a lot more specificity than 5e is willing to give in its magic item economy. Personally, I loathe the parts of D&D that make me feel like I'm playing a spreadsheet instead of a TRPG, and doing the accounting necessary for a game where you're constantly buying, selling, and trading goods sounds like a snore for me. Since the same isn't true of you and your players, I can hardly expect to swing you over to my side. The economic side of the game is important to y'all, which is fine and reasonable.

And I in turn can certainly see why at many tables worrying about the economics would just get in the way of the fun. Spreadsheets aren't for everyone, after all. :) (And yes, almost every character I've ever made has a spreadsheet squirreled away on my computer somewhere.)


It's worth pointing out that the DMG does, in fact, make it difficult to do anything like you're trying to do, since the items aren't at all in a good order for figuring them out. What if, instead, you assigned a price to each of the Random Magic Item tables, and then gave a fixed discount based on the probability of rolling a given item on the table, eschewing rarity altogether? That scheme might work better for you and your table.

Maybe it's just that it's late, but I'm having a hard time following your suggestion. Could you reword it please? I'm all for any ideas that will help.

[archaeo]

Maybe it's just that it's late, but I'm having a hard time following your suggestion. Could you reword it please? I'm all for any ideas that will help.

Sure.

So, rather than having 5 price categories, use the tables starting on DMG pg. 144, which gives you tables A-I, increasing the range to 9 categories. Unlike rarity, one assumes that each given table has been grouped into relative balance categories, therefore helping speed the process of pricing out items.

Next, you'd want to create a scheme for pricing individual items based on the likelihood of rolling them on the table. For example, in Magic Item Table G, only two items (+2 Weapons and Figurines of Wondrous Power) are more likely to be rolled than any other item, so their price would consequently be lowered, ideally by some constant factor based on the probability. Perhaps you provide a percent discount for every item that isn't at 1% for the roll, though I suspect you'd want some kind of scheme that creates greater price differences; as someone who isn't a huge math guy talking to someone I suspect has a better grasp on the subject, you'd probably know a better way to peg prices this way.

So, you essentially only have to price 9 items: the rarest roll on each treasure table. Then, you derive every other price from those 9 numbers. Does that make more sense?

[Xetheral]

Sure.

So, rather than having 5 price categories, use the tables starting on DMG pg. 144, which gives you tables A-I, increasing the range to 9 categories. Unlike rarity, one assumes that each given table has been grouped into relative balance categories, therefore helping speed the process of pricing out items.

Next, you'd want to create a scheme for pricing individual items based on the likelihood of rolling them on the table. For example, in Magic Item Table G, only two items (+2 Weapons and Figurines of Wondrous Power) are more likely to be rolled than any other item, so their price would consequently be lowered, ideally by some constant factor based on the probability. Perhaps you provide a percent discount for every item that isn't at 1% for the roll, though I suspect you'd want some kind of scheme that creates greater price differences; as someone who isn't a huge math guy talking to someone I suspect has a better grasp on the subject, you'd probably know a better way to peg prices this way.

So, you essentially only have to price 9 items: the rarest roll on each treasure table. Then, you derive every other price from those 9 numbers. Does that make more sense?

Thanks for explaining! Yes, it does make sense, and might be an excellent approach. It's certainly worthy of taking a closer look at. Thanks for the idea!

[druid91]

Now I am very confused about all those threads about what the PC's should be spending their filthy money on.

The answer seems clear: Flying Casino(s)

20,000 puts them in the very rare bracket (assuming they are a "magic item")? yes?

Nope, not magical at all. Just expensive. And fragile.

[archaeo]

Nope, not magical at all. Just expensive. And fragile.

I'm sorry, big, flying boats aren't magical?

edited to add: I guess they could be blimps, in the Final Fantasy VI mode, but, uh, one doesn't really see any like that flying around in the real world.

[druid91]

I'm sorry, big, flying boats aren't magical?

edited to add: I guess they could be blimps, in the Final Fantasy VI mode, but, uh, one doesn't really see any like that flying around in the real world.

The picture looks like a blimp yes. It's just listed alongside all the other sea-ships, it's just faster and significantly more fragile than most.