Elephant Costs?

[sandmote]

So, according to the DMG a CR 4 elephant is 200 gp. Or half a CR 1/2 warhorse. I don't find that useable.

At around 20 times the diet, a team of specialists to obtain, and a separate team to train them, 8,000 gp for the elephant sounds more reasonable. More than the keelboat, but not quite the other vessels. I'm thinking two (medium) people max for an unadorned elephant or one wearing a chariot, and three with a 500 gp, 150 lb platform on it. Feed and stabling at 1 gp per day each. Not sure what to do for barding; 10x the price and 5x the weight?

Any additional thoughts would be helpful. Or rundowns for other exotic mounts, I'm not picky. I'd mostly like to make it so the options are based on strength, rarity, and/or usefulness. And the conveyance seems it should be easier to come by than the self-propelling battering ram. It wasn't for replacing one cavalryman each that war elephants went away in the Mediterranean and were ignored in China.



Okay, adding a table to track modifier prices:



Item
Cost
Speed
Carrying Capacity


Camel
50 gp
50 ft.
480 lb.


Donkey (or Mule)
8 gp
40 ft.
420 lb.


Draft Horse
50 gp
40 ft.
540 lb.


Riding Horse
75 gp
60 ft
480 lb.


Mastiff
25 gp
40 ft
195 lb.


Pony
30 gp
40 ft.
225 lbs.


War Pony
(new) 150 gp
40 ft.
TBD lb.


Warhorse
400 gp
60 ft.
540 lbs.


Elephant
200 gp 800 gp
40 ft.
1320 lb.


War Elephant
(new) 6400 gp
40 ft.
1320 lb.


Ox
15 gp 100 gp
40 ft.
1080 lb.


Elk
(None) 105 gp
50 ft.
480 lb.


Aurochs
(None) 400 gp
50 ft.
600 lb.


Axe Beak
(None) 52 gp
50 ft.
420 lb.


Giant Lizard
100 gp 150 gp
30 ft., 30 climb
450 lb.


Giant Sea Horse
(none) 50 gp
0 ft., 40 swim
360 lb.


Giant Sea Hare (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?593883-Miscelaneous-Aquatic-Creatures)
(none) 75 gp
15 ft., 35 swim
390 lb.


Giant Sea Eel
(none) 100 gp
0 ft., 40 swim
330 lb.


Manta (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?593883-Miscelaneous-Aquatic-Creatures)
(new) 600 gp
0 ft., 45 swim
1320 lb.


Hadrosaur
50 gp
40 ft.
1080 lb.


Ankylosaurus
250 gp 570 gp
30 ft.
1140 lb.


Deinonychus
250 gp 200 gp
40 ft.
225 lb.


Triceratops
500 gp 1050 gp
50 ft.
1320 lb.


Giant Bat
(none) 220 gp
10 ft., 60 fly
450 lb.



Price Calculations:

Mounts listed in book get "familiarity discount." For all but the elephant this is the book price. Also applying it to the giant sea horse because it is the books' primary underwater mount.
200 gp * CR as a starting point
x1.5 for a mount with additional benefits, x2 if they (like flight) confer a significant benefits.
base speed is 40'. modify by x.95 for a mount with 30 speed, x1.05 for a mount with 50' speed, & x1.10 for a mount with 60' speed.
training with barding & to attack on command is x1.5, mage training is x2
bringing an animal to be trained is half the price of buying it.


Additional benefits include a small number of extra legs, swim & climb speeds on top of movement speed or a big jump in carry capacity. Significant battlefield benefits include flight,more than 6 legs, and being worth well more than the buy price in produce.

[Chronos]

Well, most of the cost of a warhorse isn't the horse itself; it's the training. A warhorse won't spook on a battlefield and trample whoever's closest, while most animals (including elephants) will.

But yeah, 400 definitely sounds too cheap for them. 2nd edition had them a 1000; I don't know if 3rd ever gave a figure.

[DrKerosene]

Well, most of the cost of a warhorse isn't the horse itself; it's the training. A warhorse won't spook on a battlefield and trample whoever's closest, while most animals (including elephants) will.

But yeah, 400 definitely sounds too cheap for them. 2nd edition had them a 1000; I don't know if 3rd ever gave a figure.

The Arms & Equipment Guide says you can buy a young elephant for 500gp. I don’t know the rules for time of general training and/or training for war, or how much feed it would need during that time, but I do expect a properly trained adult elephant to cost thousands of gold (to include a worthwhile profit too).

[sandmote]

Well, most of the cost of a warhorse isn't the horse itself; it's the training. A warhorse won't spook on a battlefield and trample whoever's closest, while most animals (including elephants) will.

But yeah, 400 definitely sounds too cheap for them. 2nd edition had them a 1000; I don't know if 3rd ever gave a figure. I'm not familiar with the differences/distinctions in training between horse types, so I'll add the table from the 5e SRD:



Item
Cost
Speed
Carrying Capacity


Camel
50 gp
50 ft.
480 lb.


Donkey (or Mule)
8 gp
40 ft.
420 lb.


Elephant
200 gp
40 ft.
1320 lb.


Draft Horse
50 gp
40 ft.
540 lb.


Riding Horse
75 gp
60 ft
480 lb.


Mastiff
25 gp
40 ft
195 lb.


Pony
30 gp
40 ft.
225 lbs.


Warhorse
400 gp
60 ft.
540 lbs.



Although I doubt an in-game mount will be treated has having different training.


The Arms & Equipment Guide says you can buy a young elephant for 500gp. I don’t know the rules for time of general training and/or training for war, or how much feed it would need during that time, but I do expect a properly trained adult elephant to cost thousands of gold (to include a worthwhile profit too). Unrelated, we really need an "Arms & Equipment" Chapter included in a 5e book.

Assuming a "young elephant," is 5 years old (ie. weaned), you're selling it at 17 (breeding age), and a year is 365 days, then you're looking at 2,409 gp in SRD feeding and stabling in that time, or 1,204.5 if providing it yourself. An equivalent elephant is 8,760 gp in my scaled feeding costs unless I treat the trainers as producing the feed and stabling themselves for only 4380 gp in that time.

At 8,000 per elephant that's 3120 gp left over to pay for the work, or 260 gp per year (including early life training in the cost of a young elephant). Of people required for training (where you break even) I prefer 20 trainers who are wealthy, 50 aids with a comfortable lifestyle, and 80 laborers of modest means. Note this is pay per elephant; a blacksmith providing equipment for 4 elephants during each year can live a wealthy lifestyle but only gains modest pay from each beast.

[Fable Wright]

So, according to the DMG a CR 4 elephant is 200 gp. Or half a CR 1/2 warhorse. I don't find that useable.

At around 20 times the diet, a team of specialists to obtain, and a separate team to train them, 8,000 gp for the elephant sounds more reasonable. More than the keelboat, but not quite the other vessels. I'm thinking two (medium) people max for an unadorned elephant or one wearing a chariot, and three with a 500 gp, 150 lb platform on it. Feed and stabling at 1 gp per day each. Not sure what to do for barding; 10x the price and 5x the weight?

Neat. So stabling a horse is 5sp per day. A draft horse is broken in and able to be sold at age 4. So it should cost (365 days/year * 4 years * 0.5 gold per day =) 730 gp per draft horse. Or 365gp providing it yourself. Just for the feeding costs. Hiring the expert laborers for training, breaking in, and so on should be far more expensive. Twice as expensive as a warhorse, bare minimum.

What I'm trying to say is, you're using a flawed calculation metric.

An elephant of burden is 8 times more than a horse of burden. A war elephant therefore costs 1,600gp, eight times the price of a war horse. Using my standard rule of thumb where 1 copper = $1 USD, this is $160,000. This feels reasonable to me.

Also, please recall that in the places where elephants are used to transport goods, they can be owned by farmer families and trained by farmers. In the locale where they are native to, they are like a team of horses or oxen, both in feed costs and output. They should not be so unreasonable that such people could not afford them with generation after generation of work.

[sandmote]

Also, please recall that in the places where elephants are used to transport goods, they can be owned by farmer families and trained by farmers. In the locale where they are native to, they are like a team of horses or oxen, both in feed costs and output. I try to make my settings include a breadth of non-European influences, but have no familiarity with how domestic elephant keeping is done in places they are native. My knowledge on keeping elephants is really only from the cases of Rome and the Seleucid empire, where the comparison is to something like 50 cavalry per war elephant. Of which 20 to 1 is the ratio of feeding the elephant to combined costs of horse, rider, and stablehand.

So a failure on the distinction between farmer's and war elephants, sure. But unless you're having them graze out in a field for most of the year, I don't see how the feedsing costs are comparable to around 8 oxen/


Neat. So stabling a horse is 5sp per day. A draft horse is broken in and able to be sold at age 4. So it should cost (365 days/year * 4 years * 0.5 gold per day =) 730 gp per draft horse. Or 365gp providing it yourself. Just for the feeding costs. Hiring the expert laborers for training, breaking in, and so on should be far more expensive. Twice as expensive as a warhorse, bare minimum.

What I'm trying to say is, you're using a flawed calculation metric. With the above comparison, the cost of keeping a horse at grass is 36.5 gp if you cost the feed the same. How are elephants kept in the places they are native? I don't know, and therefore am stuck using the calculations I'm aware of. For consistency, that would put the cost of an adult elephant at 3102.5 for the 1 gp food cost I've started with. Part of the reason I counted time with the mother outside that time taken to feed and stable, which is biased against the elephant in this comparison.

Not meaning the calculation was remotely accurate, but there's a lot of things that can be done to cut the costs of raising a horse that couldn't be done in the example costs I'm aware of for elephants.


An elephant of burden is 8 times more than a horse of burden. A war elephant therefore costs 1,600gp, eight times the price of a war horse. Using my standard rule of thumb where 1 copper = $1 USD, this is $160,000. This feels reasonable to me. What is the origin of 8 times more?


They should not be so unreasonable that such people could not afford them with generation after generation of work. I'm not aware of how common a full team of horses was in a pre-modern world either. Most farmers I expect to have a single donkey or mule used for basic plowing. Particularly given that some places set up a bunch of plots for each family instead of one big one. I'm more expecting that where they are used you'd see a couples teams of horses owned by a specialist who rents them out to the community to plow a bunch of small plots/ the regularly redistributed village fields at one time. Perhaps with a bunch of mules where this doesn't exist rather than any horses.

I suppose though this thread would need to be expanded to a general "calculating mount costs," to actually figure out a reasonable rate for the rarer stuff...

[Luccan]

This is a situation where cost should be associated with local availability, even if the economy is technically fixed if you go by the costs provided in the DMG and PHV. Maybe in a place where elephants are so common they can be used in farms they're (relatively) cheap. However, in the psuedo-medieval Fantasy Europe of many DnD realms, they're quite expensive since they must be imported.

[Fable Wright]

What is the origin of 8 times more?





Item
Cost
Speed
Carrying Capacity



Elephant
200 gp
40 ft.
1320 lb.


Draft Horse
50 gp
40 ft.
540 lb.


Warhorse
400 gp
60 ft.
540 lbs.



200/50=8.

EDIT:
(400/50)=8.


I try to make my settings include a breadth of non-European influences, but have no familiarity with how domestic elephant keeping is done in places they are native. My knowledge on keeping elephants is really only from the cases of Rome and the Seleucid empire, where the comparison is to something like 50 cavalry per war elephant. Of which 20 to 1 is the ratio of feeding the elephant to combined costs of horse, rider, and stablehand.

So a failure on the distinction between farmer's and war elephants, sure. But unless you're having them graze out in a field for most of the year, I don't see how the feedsing costs are comparable to around 8 oxen/

So I'm no expert. A quick googling shows that in its native environment, letting an elephant forage after dark, the elephant costs about $80 USD per day to keep, which I approximate in most games as 8 silver. (A loaf of bread is about 2 coppers/$2 in both places.)

I'm having trouble finding good places to find the cost of feeding oxen, but an 1840 report shows that it cost $1.125/day to feed an ox per day, which is about 3.4 silver/day during the winter after inflation from 1840 to 2020.

So it might actually be more comparable than you think.


I'm not aware of how common a full team of horses was in a pre-modern world either. Most farmers I expect to have a single donkey or mule used for basic plowing. Particularly given that some places set up a bunch of plots for each family instead of one big one. I'm more expecting that where they are used you'd see a couples teams of horses owned by a specialist who rents them out to the community to plow a bunch of small plots/ the regularly redistributed village fields at one time. Perhaps with a bunch of mules where this doesn't exist rather than any horses.

So, the thing is, things change dramatically after the invention of the steel plow that lets you use work horses to plow fields. Before this time, heavy clay soils tended to need 8 oxen to plow, while the average peasant family owned 2 oxen apiece, leading to communities pitching in together to get fields farmed. Mules absolutely cannot get there.

My point is, you're probably overthinking things in a way that detriments the game. Go with something simple. It costs 1,600gp to purchase an elephant in a non-native land, because those elephants are all war elephants. Let's say they cost about 1gp/day to feed in addition to local forage, and that's if you own the stable and grazing land and so are doing everything at-cost. Let's likewise assume it costs 5 copper to feed a horse per day if you own the stable and grazing land, to avoid driving the prices of horses to absurd inflation. So there's you 20 times stabling costs that you love so dearly. 1600gp is a lot, but it's a linear scale of book prices, so it's easy to remember and doesn't require overhauling the game.

[sandmote]

This is a situation where cost should be associated with local availability, even if the economy is technically fixed if you go by the costs provided in the DMG and PHV. Maybe in a place where elephants are so common they can be used in farms they're (relatively) cheap. However, in the psuedo-medieval Fantasy Europe of many DnD realms, they're quite expensive since they must be imported. I try to avoid psuedo-medieval Fantasy Europe when I can, but simply have no estimates outside psudo-classical Mediterranean.

I'll see if I can scrounge up my shipping price formula. I had ones that reasonably worked for imports to the city of Rome during the empire, but my current party doesn't take much interest in economics. Note to Fable: it's linear, the least complicated I can do that still provides a variable modifier.


200/50=8.
...
So there's you 20 times stabling costs that you love so dearly. If you check the first post, I don't find 200 gp a reasonable price. It's also 20 times feeding costs, not stabling; although it's not even that as this is an simplification of the 15-30 times larger food requirements in the source I could find. And what I love dearly is taking rules of thumb from the IRL sources I can get my hands on.


So I'm no expert. A quick googling shows that in its native environment, letting an elephant forage after dark, the elephant costs about $80 USD per day to keep, which I approximate in most games as 8 silver. (A loaf of bread is about 2 coppers/$2 in both places.)

I'm having trouble finding good places to find the cost of feeding oxen, but an 1840 report shows that it cost $1.125/day to feed an ox per day, which is about 3.4 silver/day during the winter after inflation from 1840 to 2020.

So it might actually be more comparable than you think. 3.4 silver/day for 1 season is eight and a half copper/day average. 1.13 silver using the classical era's 3 seasons. Although I have found comparable figures for modern elephant costs at 3000 Rs a day for 14 elephants. Slightly lower, but probably includes economies of scale.

What I have been able to find myself is a ratio of prices for oxen to draught horses, in which oxen sold for over double the price of a horse (on account of having edible meat). This would put a low-end price of a farm elephant at 800 gp. Applying the same ratio on a warhorse nets 6,400. Contrast a team of six (rather than four) horses, where a farm elephant is 150 gp on output for a 2,400 gp war elephant. In contrast to your scaling based on the book being at a 32,000 gp war elephant.

Basically, oxen and horses aren't interchangeable here, and you're going to get drastically variable figures from converting a team of them to elephant costs. Part of the reason I found a cavalry vs. elephantry comparison useful; it gives some semblance of a unit basis of exchange between the two beasts.


So, the thing is, things change dramatically after the invention of the steel plow that lets you use work horses to plow fields. Before this time, heavy clay soils tended to need 8 oxen to plow, while the average peasant family owned 2 oxen apiece, leading to communities pitching in together to get fields farmed. Mules absolutely cannot get there. For heavy clay soils my understanding is that up 16 oxen could be needed. Whatever the (varying) methods for getting a full team together, I still don't see an average peasant family with a team of oxen or an equivalent.


My point is, you're probably overthinking things in a way that detriments the game. Go with something simple. It costs 1,600gp to purchase an elephant in a non-native land, because those elephants are all war elephants. I'm having trouble taking this paragraph in good faith. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that getting a general ratio and applying it to the warhorse price is either "overthinking things," or "something simple," but not both.

While I appreciate the (very useful) prompts on what to search, I'm struggling not to treat you yourself as a rules lawyer trying to pull a fast one. It doesn't help that I have no clue what math you used to get to 1,600 gp. I see you started with "horse times eight," and then lose you. I don't expect advanced math, but the conclusion doesn't follow the arithmetic proposed.

[HappyDaze]

The elephant may sell for a low cost, but they'll get you on the shipping & handling charges.

[Fable Wright]

While I appreciate the (very useful) prompts on what to search, I'm struggling not to treat you yourself as a rules lawyer trying to pull a fast one. It doesn't help that I have no clue what math you used to get to 1,600 gp. I see you started with "horse times eight," and then lose you. I don't expect advanced math, but the conclusion doesn't follow the arithmetic proposed.

Draft Horse * 8 4 = one elephant.
War Horse * 8 4 = one war-elephant.

EDIT:
War Horse = Draft Horse * 8
War Elephant = Draft Elephant * 8

The issue here is that what I have been saying does not make sense, because I was conflating two different equations.


I'm having trouble taking this paragraph in good faith. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that getting a general ratio and applying it to the warhorse price is either "overthinking things," or "something simple," but not both.

Your initial strategy was to make up a feeding and stabling cost for elephants based on a seemingly arbitrary stabling cost and use those to generate a multi-thousand gold figure based off average lifespan from infancy purchase to the beginning of their useful life.

This has generated a multi-thousand gold figure for the elephants, but likewise appears to drive multi-hundred gold prices on simple draft horses.

I posit that this general process was 'overthinking things'.

Therefore, to keep things simple and easy to remember, I propose just multiplying horses * 4 to get elephants.

I posit that the linear scalar probably makes the most sense to handle it without overt confusion.

However, this was undercut by basic math fail on my part.


3.4 silver/day for 1 season is eight and a half copper/day average.

Perhaps I misspoke.

The document that I saw spoke of the cost of feeding oxen for five months without forage and averaged to $1.125 in 1840s USD. This averaged to approximately $33-34 modern USD per day over a 5 month period. This period might have been a number pulled out of thin air, or it might have been because late fall through early spring does may have too much forage available.

[Contrast]

I don't really know anything about elephants or horses so I don't have much to contribute here but...


200/50=8.

200/50=4

[JackPhoenix]

Draft Horse * 8 = one elephant.
War Horse * 8 = one war-elephant.

What makes you think "war elephants" exist and are any different from normal elephants? Warhorses are specifically bred for size and strength, while elephants aren't, they just get different training.

[HappyDaze]

What makes you think "war elephants" exist and are any different from normal elephants? Warhorses are specifically bred for size and strength, while elephants aren't, they just get different training.

In a fantasy world, there's no reason you couldn't breed elephants specifically for size/strength/aggressiveness.

[DrKerosene]

What makes you think "war elephants" exist and are any different from normal elephants? Warhorses are specifically bred for size and strength, while elephants aren't, they just get different training.

The difference between a draft horse and a warhose seems to be +2 Dex, +1 Con (nothing changed by this), +1 Wis, 20ft of movement speed, and the trampling charge ability.

I recall that 3.5e does have a “War Beast” template that can be added to any medium or larger animal that is not mindless. It basically gave a slight boost to Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom, as well as proficiency with light, medium, & heavy armor.

There was also a fair bit of information about generic rearing of animals with skill checks, guidelines for how many specific “tricks” they can learn depending on their Intelligence Score (and maybe feats/features of the trainer), in 3.0 and 3.5e materials.

Real life also has War Elephants from Hannibal and the second Punic war. So, I guess they exist as much as anything else being inserted by people who want more content than basic 5e provides.

Mind you, I’d expect War Elephants to be as expensive and rare as magic items in 5e, and I think a Wand Of Fireballs might be a better investment if you don’t want a volley of arrows, or a single spell like Cause Fear, to completely wreck the investment of a War Elephant

[JackPhoenix]

Real life also has War Elephants from Hannibal and the second Punic war.

Which were, as I've mentioned in the post you've quoted, the exact same elephants as the ones used for labor, only trained differently and equiped for battle. Elephants weren't really bred in captivity, rather, wild ones were tamed, and they were big and strong enough from the start, unlike horses.

[DrKerosene]

Which were, ... the exact same elephants as the ones used for labor, only trained differently and equiped for battle.

Sounds like a reasonable enough explanation for applying the Warbeast Template, which mostly just added the armor proficiencies.

[Tvtyrant]

Elephants are also tamed not domesticated and are extremely finicky. I would rule 400 is for just an elephant, training it is up to you and it is going to act out of line a lot. There are entire collage videos of tamed elephants getting annoyed with their trainers and hitting them, running away, demolishing all of the cars at a wedding, laying down and yelling until their owner gives up, holding their trainers up and holding them hostage etc. Beyond just the upkeep they need a berserk option like a golem for their tantrums.

[da newt]

African or Asian Elephant? (sounds like monty python bit) Male or Female? - there are some significant differences wrt size and temperament and combat use. Then there is the musth when the boys go all testosterone crazy ...

What about adding Mammoths to the conversation?

[JackPhoenix]

Why do people keep repeating the 400 figure? Elephant costs 200 gp.

[Democratus]

There isn't a very logical way to arrive at most of the prices given in the D&D books.

Things cost what they cost...because reasons.

Feel free to override any of them as the DM.

[Amdy_vill]

the Cost in DND are more about game balance then accuracy to the real world. from a balance point of view elephants have lass value then a war house. change it as you want but most players don't want an Elephant as it is so a change might just stop players from buying it all together.

[sandmote]

One thing I did get wrong in the above is the price of an ox; irrelevant of IRL ratios, the trade goods table lists an ox at 15 gp. At 3 silver per "chunk" of meat, that's no more than 50 of these in an ox. Also puts the price of an elephant derived from a team of oxen at 120 gp.

Basically, the more detail I go into the less coherent than the books are. Which is expected, (they're simplified) but it would be nice to get some more reasonable prices.


Your initial strategy was to make up a feeding and stabling cost for elephants based on a seemingly arbitrary stabling cost and use those to generate a multi-thousand gold figure based off average lifespan from infancy purchase to the beginning of their useful life.

This has generated a multi-thousand gold figure for the elephants, but likewise appears to drive multi-hundred gold prices on simple draft horses.

I posit that this general process was 'overthinking things'. My initial strategy was to get a ratio and multiply it by the cost of a war horse. The same thing you're doing.

You seem to be confusing this with my later estimation of the number of humanoids involved in getting an elephant trained for combat. Which was done by taking the already determined elephant price and working backward. You may notice that calculation includes the price for a young elephant as provided by DrKerosene, which post dates the origin of my 8,000 gp figure.


The document that I saw spoke of the cost of feeding oxen for five months without forage and averaged to $1.125 in 1840s USD. This averaged to approximately $33-34 modern USD per day over a 5 month period. This period might have been a number pulled out of thin air, or it might have been because late fall through early spring does may have too much forage available.
I haven't found a better source, but I still don't think you can get a coherent position from this calculation. even if you weren't comparing with forage to without forage.


What makes you think "war elephants" exist and are any different from normal elephants? Warhorses are specifically bred for size and strength, while elephants aren't, they just get different training. What can find for medieval sources contradicts this. What I can find says that horse type was based on build, sex, and gelding rather than a dedicated breeding program. So a destrier and a rouncey don't seem to be separate breeds.


African or Asian Elephant? (sounds like monty python bit) Male or Female? - there are some significant differences wrt size and temperament and combat use. Then there is the musth when the boys go all testosterone crazy ... Presumably Asian elephants and I'm skipping the second question. Again, my starting point are the Seleucids, who imported elephants and used all the ones they had. And which were still larger than the Numidian North African Elephants the Romans had.

Maybe an item capable of sending a male musth elephant into would be preferable to an ability with the traditional durations and refresh periods. Probably a Str boost and/or damage reduction with a chance of the elephant going berserk. Initial approximation:


Must
When ready to mate, male elephants enter a state of must, in which they are far more aggressive and unpredictable. A musth male elephant gains a +4 bonus to its strength, and bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage the elephant takes from non-magical weapons is reduced by 3.

Whenever a musth male starts its turn with half its hit points or fewer, roll a d6. On a 6, the elephant goes berserk. On each of its turns while berserk, the elephant attacks the nearest creature it can see. If no creature is near enough to move to and attack, the elephant attacks an object, with preference for an object smaller than itself. Once the elephant goes berserk, it continues to do so until it is destroyed or regains all its hit points.
A creature, if within 60 feet of the berserk elephant, can try to calm it by speaking firmly and persuasively. The elephant must be able to hear its creator, who must take an action to make a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. If the check succeeds, the elephant ceases being berserk. If it takes damage while still at half hit points or fewer, the elephant might go berserk again.

Must Drink
This concoction, when fed to an elephant capable of entering must causes the beast to enter such a state for 8 hours. Once used, it cannot cause an elephant to enter must again until the elephant finishes a long rest.


What about adding Mammoths to the conversation? I started with the elephant because that's what's listed in the books. However, a standardized method of determining mount prices would be great. The more I look the worse it gets.


Why do people keep repeating the 400 figure? Elephant costs 200 gp. I think it's a comparison to a warhorse vs. a draft horse and assuming the same ratio between an elephant trained to pull wagons/carry people and one trained for war.


the Cost in DND are more about game balance then accuracy to the real world. from a balance point of view elephants have lass value then a war house. change it as you want but most players don't want an Elephant as it is so a change might just stop players from buying it all together. I think this has to do with the traditional dungeon where larger creatures don't fit. I DM an elephant as getting angry at being attacked and fighting where a horse must be controlled, so they have a far greater impact on battle when compared 1 to 1. An elephant can also take an average fireball. So given I don't typically scale construction to fit either, I find an elephant better than a warhorse where you can keep both.

[HappyDaze]

Things cost what they cost...because reasons.


In D&D, things cost what they cost because of NO reasons.

[Chronos]

You might not scale construction as a DM, but elephants always scale construction. That alley is too narrow for an elephant to fit? Not any more, it's not.

[sandmote]

You might not scale construction as a DM, but elephants always scale construction. That alley is too narrow for an elephant to fit? Not any more, it's not. I love the image I get from this. Still, under 5e rules an elephant can't squeeze through a medium space, and I'm not sure how much they can break through cave/dungeon walls.

Given an ox can be used for everything a draft horse is but can also be butchered for meat, I'll go with the following:



Item
Cost
Speed
Carrying Capacity


Ox
100 gp
30 ft.
1080


Elephant
800 gp
40 ft.
1320


War Elephant
6,400 gp
40 ft.
1440



Assuming the book's "chunk" of meat is 1 lb., this gets you 333 pounds of edible meat from an ox, plus making elephants more expensive than a warhorse.

Based on the modifications a warhorse gets compared to the other horses, I'll set up the war elephant as follows. I'm focusing more on the principle of the buffs, so I've gone with the Str boost and extra HP compared to a riding horse.

Huge beast, neutral

Armor Class 13 (natural armor)
Hit Points 105 (10d12+40)
Speed 40 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
24 (+7) 11 (+0) 18 (+4) 3 (-4) 12 (+1) 6 (-2)

Senses passive Perception 11
Languages --
Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

Trampling Charge. If the elephant moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a gore attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the elephant can make one stomp attack against it as a bonus action.

Actions
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (3d8 + 7) piercing damage.

Stomp. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one prone creature. Hit: 23 (3d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage.

Wasn't expecting to set up a separate block when I started the thread, but whatever gets a more reasonable result.

[Grim Portent]

I've done some math on this recently, the elephant looks decent compared to a warhorse, but I'd say that's more the warhorse being overpriced considering how meh it is. Elephants and warhorses aren't that great compared to the cheaper options. Warhorses are basically riding horses that are better at attacking things, which is rather pointless since that's what the rider is for.

Elephants are actually really bad for labour purposes in 5e. If you have them eat as much as in real life it costs 2-3 gold a day to feed them, unless you want them foraging for half the day. They can't actually carry or pull much more than a draft horse or ox can*, and those cost several times less to feed each day as well as costing less to buy.

The elephant is only really useful as a combat mount, and the presence or lack of training is honestly somewhat irrelevant considering how many PCs can just talk to it and ask nicely for it to help them. Real humans were capturing wild elephants and using them for war for thousands of years with nothing more than stick and carrot training methods, a person who can talk to it should find it easy by comparison.


*Specifically an elephant can pull a wagon load of 6600 pounds**, two oxen can pull 10800 pounds, eat a tenth of what the elephant does and only cost 15gp each. The elephant can only pull enough feed and water to feed itself for 6 days with no spare capacity for gear, adventuring supplies or similar. The oxen can pull enough that you can bring supplies for them, the entire party and a small army of hirelings for a week.

**About 1/3 of what real elephants can pull, and also less than a real draft horse can pull.

[jk7275]

*Specifically an elephant can pull a wagon load of 6600 pounds**, two oxen can pull 10800 pounds, eat a tenth of what the elephant does and only cost 15gp each. The elephant can only pull enough feed and water to feed itself for 6 days with no spare capacity for gear, adventuring supplies or similar. The oxen can pull enough that you can bring supplies for them, the entire party and a small army of hirelings for a week.

**About 1/3 of what real elephants can pull, and also less than a real draft horse can pull.

Oxen are cheap, strong and slow. How long will it take to travel 100 miles with oxen as compared to elephants or other pack animals?
Dragon magazine issue 94 has an article that might be of interest. It dealt with logistics and pack animals and mentions books that may be worth checking out

Something that might help in the long run with food costs is plant growth. Your doubling the amount of food grown

[Democratus]

In the Roman Empire, they conducted a fairly thorough study of logistics for the army. In particular, what was the most efficient way to carry supplies with the army.

They tested horses, mules, elephants, oxen, people...and found that the amount of food required for each ton of cargo carried was about the same no matter what creature was used. Larger creatures carried more, but ate proportionately more.

In the end they went with just having people carry most of the cargo - hence the legionnaires being known as "Marius' Mules".

[Grim Portent]

Oxen are cheap, strong and slow. How long will it take to travel 100 miles with oxen as compared to elephants or other pack animals?
Dragon magazine issue 94 has an article that might be of interest. It dealt with logistics and pack animals and mentions books that may be worth checking out

Something that might help in the long run with food costs is plant growth. Your doubling the amount of food grown

The players handbook specifies that vehicles and mounts don't increase travel speed regardless of their own speed. A riding horse has 60 feet of tactical movement, but has the same travel rate as an ox, elephant, riding dog or old man with a cane. Slow, normal or fast paced travel are all fixed speeds of 2,3 and 4 miles an hour.

Mounts, but not animals hitched to vehicles, let you travel double fast pace for one hour, or 8 miles in one hour.

If there are supplemental rules for faster animals having faster travel times somewhere, then the ox is ten feet slower than the elephant who is in turn ten feet slower than the draft horse. So the elephant still loses out to the cheaper options for cargo hauling. Oxen are the most cost efficient, draft horses are the second most cost efficient and fastest, elephants are the best for squishing things.

I was trying to work out the best way to feed an elephant if you can't rely on forage due to terrain or spare the time for foraging, and it turns out it's easiest to just have oxen pulling a wagon of feed and water while the elephant just carries it's armour, riders and their gear.


An elephant is strictly speaking not a great combat mount for traditional mounted combat anyway. Even if trained to accept a rider it can't attack if it's being controlled by the rider. In order for it to use it's attacks it needs to be left uncontrolled, which basically means it'll do what it wants and may not close with enemies. If being controlled it can only dodge, disengage and dash. As a mount it's more of a meaty siege tower that you should have several ranged characters hang out on top of than a trampling death machine. Unless you have someone who can talk to animals anyway, then it's both a siege tower and a death machine provided you can convince it to squish things.

[Tvtyrant]

The players handbook specifies that vehicles and mounts don't increase travel speed regardless of their own speed. A riding horse has 60 feet of tactical movement, but has the same travel rate as an ox, elephant, riding dog or old man with a cane. Slow, normal or fast paced travel are all fixed speeds of 2,3 and 4 miles an hour.

Mounts, but not animals hitched to vehicles, let you travel double fast pace for one hour, or 8 miles in one hour.

If there are supplemental rules for faster animals having faster travel times somewhere, then the ox is ten feet slower than the elephant who is in turn ten feet slower than the draft horse. So the elephant still loses out to the cheaper options for cargo hauling. Oxen are the most cost efficient, draft horses are the second most cost efficient and fastest, elephants are the best for squishing things.

I was trying to work out the best way to feed an elephant if you can't rely on forage due to terrain or spare the time for foraging, and it turns out it's easiest to just have oxen pulling a wagon of feed and water while the elephant just carries it's armour, riders and their gear.


An elephant is strictly speaking not a great combat mount for traditional mounted combat anyway. Even if trained to accept a rider it can't attack if it's being controlled by the rider. In order for it to use it's attacks it needs to be left uncontrolled, which basically means it'll do what it wants and may not close with enemies. If being controlled it can only dodge, disengage and dash. As a mount it's more of a meaty siege tower that you should have several ranged characters hang out on top of than a trampling death machine. Unless you have someone who can talk to animals anyway, then it's both a siege tower and a death machine provided you can convince it to squish things.

I think 4Es system of having mount abilities was probably the best one. Like if you are riding a mount it can make an attack using your bonus action, or have a trample effect where the elephant runs over an enemy using your move action.

[sandmote]

15 gp oxen is one of those "we don't think it through" things. At 3 sp per lb of meat, butcher one and you're set for most of a year.


An elephant is strictly speaking not a great combat mount for traditional mounted combat anyway. Even if trained to accept a rider it can't attack if it's being controlled by the rider. In order for it to use it's attacks it needs to be left uncontrolled, which basically means it'll do what it wants and may not close with enemies. If being controlled it can only dodge, disengage and dash. As a mount it's more of a meaty siege tower that you should have several ranged characters hang out on top of than a trampling death machine. Unless you have someone who can talk to animals anyway, then it's both a siege tower and a death machine provided you can convince it to squish things. What I've read says that elephants were tried out in the classical era, but only remained in cases where there was political baggage that meant the ruler's internal power was supported by having elephants. With kings in south and southeast asia riding them into battle but governments of other types not bothering with them even in the same area.

I will say, I do think in game elephants should get angered at being attacked, without needing to be controlled. If the party is on the elephant's back there's not really many other options for an angry elephant to trample.


I think 4Es system of having mount abilities was probably the best one. Like if you are riding a mount it can make an attack using your bonus action, or have a trample effect where the elephant runs over an enemy using your move action. That would have been great for 5e. Just make these part of the creature stat block.

[jk7275]

The players handbook specifies that vehicles and mounts don't increase travel speed regardless of their own speed. A riding horse has 60 feet of tactical movement, but has the same travel rate as an ox, elephant, riding dog or old man with a cane. Slow, normal or fast paced travel are all fixed speeds of 2,3 and 4 miles an hour.

The players handbook does not list ox in the vehicles and mounts section. Why were they omitted? Also "If multiple animals pull the same vehicle, they can add their carrying capacity together" What is the limit? Can i link 5 wagons together and use 8 elephants to pull it?



I was trying to work out the best way to feed an elephant if you can't rely on forage due to terrain or spare the time for foraging, and it turns out it's easiest to just have oxen pulling a wagon of feed and water while the elephant just carries it's armour, riders and their gear.

This pretty much is s non issue and unless your DM is running the game in hard core survivalmode you pretty much don't have to worry about. Wagons break down where is that covered in the books? This part of the game has been overly streamlined and simplified. No draft animal is best in all terrains. Try hauling cargo through Saudi Arabia with ox instead of camels and let me know how that goes for you

Where in the books does it state how much food and water each type of animal needs? Over the course of the year who eats more a camel or ox?



An elephant is strictly speaking not a great combat mount for traditional mounted combat anyway. Even if trained to accept a rider it can't attack if it's being controlled by the rider. In order for it to use it's attacks it needs to be left uncontrolled, which basically means it'll do what it wants and may not close with enemies. If being controlled it can only dodge, disengage and dash. As a mount it's more of a meaty siege tower that you should have several ranged characters hang out on top of than a trampling death machine. Unless you have someone who can talk to animals anyway, then it's both a siege tower and a death machine provided you can convince it to squish things.

This might be debatable depending on who ask especially considering this is a fantasy game talk to animals

[Grim Portent]

The players handbook does not list ox in the vehicles and mounts section. Why were they omitted? Also "If multiple animals pull the same vehicle, they can add their carrying capacity together" What is the limit? Can i link 5 wagons together and use 8 elephants to pull it?

Oxen are listed as a trade good priced at 15 gp and are statted in Volos' Guide to Monsters. They are a modification of the cow statblock from the same with a special rule that makes them one size larger for carrying capacity calculations.

Real world draft animals regularly been used in teams of 1-4* to pull wagons, carts, carriages, chariots and similar. I'm not familiar with animal drawn vehicles being linked together in the real world, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.

8 elephants could most likely be hitched to the same vehicle, but the core problem of their pulling being less cost effective than oxen remains. Each elephant could be replaced with 13 oxen and a saving of 5gp on the initial purchase cost.


This pretty much is s non issue and unless your DM is running the game in hard core survivalmode you pretty much don't have to worry about. Wagons break down where is that covered in the books? This part of the game has been overly streamlined and simplified. No draft animal is best in all terrains. Try hauling cargo through Saudi Arabia with ox instead of camels and let me know how that goes for you

I mostly ran the calculations for this stuff for fun, an extension of some calculations for carrying all the supplies needed for a small army of hirelings as part of a mercenary captain character concept. Including all the little supplies that get handwaved in most games. A couple of days ago I decided to run the same numbers but adding in elephant riding as part of the idea.


Where in the books does it state how much food and water each type of animal needs? Over the course of the year who eats more a camel or ox?

The books don't give a figure for how much animals eat and drink, or people really for that matter. I googled the food intake per day in pounds for different animals. Horse comes up as 15-20 pounds of hay/feed, cattle 27 pounds or so of hay/feed, elephants 400-600 pounds of food though I suspect that's forage. Elephants can also drink 50 gallons of water and shouldn't go more than four days without it.

Camels eat up to 26 pounds of dry matter per day from a casual check.

You could handwave the 10 pounds of feed for 5cp as enough to feed any animal, which is probably the intention of the game designers, but at that point just handwaving the encumbrance away completely is a logical step.

[jk7275]

Oxen are listed as a trade good priced at 15 gp and are statted in Volos' Guide to Monsters. They are a modification of the cow statblock from the same with a special rule that makes them one size larger for carrying capacity calculations.

Real world draft animals regularly been used in teams of 1-4* to pull wagons, carts, carriages, chariots and similar. I'm not familiar with animal drawn vehicles being linked together in the real world, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.

8 elephants could most likely be hitched to the same vehicle, but the core problem of their pulling being less cost effective than oxen remains. Each elephant could be replaced with 13 oxen and a saving of 5gp on the initial purchase cost.

Oxen are listed as a trade good but not listed as a mount in the players handbook which opens up someone arguing according to RAW oxen are not mounts. You can ride an elephant pulling a wagon but you can't ride an ox pulling a wagon

There is a somewhat famous example of wagons being linked . Borax was hauled by 20 mules teams pulling 3 wagons.

Elephants could more cost effective in the right situation. During Hannibal's crossing of the Alps hostile locals were scared of the elephants as they neve seen elephants before



I mostly ran the calculations for this stuff for fun, an extension of some calculations for carrying all the supplies needed for a small army of hirelings as part of a mercenary captain character concept. Including all the little supplies that get handwaved in most games. A couple of days ago I decided to run the same numbers but adding in elephant riding as part of the idea.

Others have done the same. The difference is they didn't use the numbers is the books but used numbers from historians who research this. Why do you think they would use mules instead of oxen at times?

Wagons can break and after it rains you cant go anywhere until the roads dry. Wagons can get stuck in the mud, armies have been known not to use wagons and load everything on the backs of animals



The books don't give a figure for how much animals eat and drink, or people really for that matter. I googled the food intake per day in pounds for different animals. Horse comes up as 15-20 pounds of hay/feed, cattle 27 pounds or so of hay/feed, elephants 400-600 pounds of food though I suspect that's forage. Elephants can also drink 50 gallons of water and shouldn't go more than four days without it.

Camels eat up to 26 pounds of dry matter per day from a casual check.

You could handwave the 10 pounds of feed for 5cp as enough to feed any animal, which is probably the intention of the game designers, but at that point just handwaving the encumbrance away completely is a logical step.

As others have pointed out in other discusions Your not suppose to worry, care or think about unless the DM says otherwise. The intent of the game designers is to get away from dealing from this

[Chronos]

While other armies (from Caesar to Eisenhower, at least) solved that problem by building good-quality paved roads across their empire, that were usable even when wet.

[Tvtyrant]

While other armies (from Caesar to Eisenhower, at least) solved that problem by building good-quality paved roads across their empire, that were usable even when wet.

Roman roads had real problems when it came to carts and hooves. The flag stones were too hard and quickly broke down unshod hooves and cart wheels, to the point where dirt roads existed parallel to the stone roads for goods. Stone roads were fantastic on foot and for army movement, they were a bad investment for trade.

China's compacted dirt roads were better for trade, being easier on animals and wheels and cheaper so they were more common. The negative was they took more upkeep and had more problems with mud and dust.

[jk7275]

While other armies (from Caesar to Eisenhower, at least) solved that problem by building good-quality paved roads across their empire, that were usable even when wet.

Those roads can be bloody expensive and for more the most part only a large wealthy empire is going to do. Wagons are still going to break down, wagons are going to need maintenance

In today's age militaries stiff use animals to haul gear and that gear is loaded on the animals backs not in wagons. A lot of battles are fought where there are no roads and a wagon is a big target. llamas are by militaries in part because they knee behind something and became a harder target to hit

[sandmote]

Oxen are listed as a trade good priced at 15 gp Which is ridiculous. A "Meat, Chunk" is listed at 3 sliver. Taking this to be a pound of meat, that means butchering an ox gets you approximately 50 pounds of meat.

[Grim Portent]

Which is ridiculous. A "Meat, Chunk" is listed at 3 sliver. Taking this to be a pound of meat, that means butchering an ox gets you approximately 50 pounds of meat.

It's also ridiculous when compared to the cost of a chicken, which costs 2cp but would yield meat* worth 3sp if the chunk is just a pound, and a butchered sheep would be worth more than four times the value of a live one. That's more of a problem with the cost and absence of weight of the nebulously sized Meat Chunk than necessarily with the prices of animals on the trade goods table.

That said a butchered meat animal should generally be worth more as meat than it was as livestock, or it's not economical to raise livestock for slaughter. Working animals like the ox should be priced more like the draft horse of course, and sheep should probably cost more than a pig since they produce wool.

*Depending on breed.

[jk7275]

That said a butchered meat animal should generally be worth more as meat than it was as livestock, or it's not economical to raise livestock for slaughter. Working animals like the ox should be priced more like the draft horse of course, and sheep should probably cost more than a pig since they produce wool.

*Depending on breed.

A horse is more versatile. Ox are great at pulling however that is about the only thing they are good for and they are slow. . In the 1800's people would buy an ok for 25 to 65 dollars, upto 150 for a horse maybe more , upto 600 for a mule maybe more and on occasion upto 5000 for a donkey to breed with horses

This goes beyond draft animals. In earlier editions people questioned do the prices really make sense or how you can go anywhere in the world and the prices are the same

[Chronos]

Nah, you can get 500 lbs of meat from an ox, but unfortunately you can only carry 100 back to your wagon.

[HappyDaze]

Nah, you can get 500 lbs of meat from an ox, but unfortunately you can only carry 100 back to your wagon.

You can carry far more with 5e's very relaxed default encumbrance rules.

[sandmote]

That said a butchered meat animal should generally be worth more as meat than it was as livestock, or it's not economical to raise livestock for slaughter. Working animals like the ox should be priced more like the draft horse of course, and sheep should probably cost more than a pig since they produce wool. I mean, it isn't the meat alone you can sell, although I perhaps should have gone into more detail. But the salable goods from those farm animals definitely calls for higher prices on them. Honestly I maybe should have expanded the original idea of the thread to go over that.


A horse is more versatile. Ox are great at pulling however that is about the only thing they are good for and they are slow. . In the 1800's people would buy an ok for 25 to 65 dollars, upto 150 for a horse maybe more , upto 600 for a mule maybe more and on occasion upto 5000 for a donkey to breed with horses What I've found for the end of the 1300's is reversed from this, specifically listing plow horses as selling for less than half the price of an ox. This was listed among potential reasons English peasantry adopted horses for plowing much faster than the nobility, the hypothesis being that the more volatile horse prices made them more accessible and made it easier to adjust the area they're working. An old horse is cheaper; an old ox not so much.

This seems to generally reverse around the time horse breeds replace labeling horses by individual build and temperament.


This goes beyond draft animals. In earlier editions people questioned do the prices really make sense or how you can go anywhere in the world and the prices are the same. The latter I can accept for gameplay purposes. For the former I know, but need to start somewhere and mounts seemed like a good place to start for 5e.

[Grim Portent]

For trying to make a more sensible pricing system I think you need to start with the coinage. Pick a medieval currency and use that as a benchmark for pricing.

I've been looking into the French denier, sou and livre a bit but there's a lot of work that would go into finding the historic prices of things and then trying to work out sensible prices for other things based on that. Especially since D&D tech/pricing is all over the place, magic items cost insane amounts of gold, basic utility tools cost insanely high prices relative to trade goods and the vast host of other issues.

On the matter of slaughter value vs live value it occurs to me you might actually lose money on selling the remains of a real world ox relative to what you purchased it for. Sometimes butchering it is just a way to recoup expenses when it gets too old to work or you acquire a younger ox, it's real value was in it's labour during it's life, offset by the cost of caring for it. Obviously some medieval animals were raised for slaughter, capons and pigs in particular, but I'm not sure how much profit you could expect from them.

[sandmote]

On the matter of slaughter value vs live value it occurs to me you might actually lose money on selling the remains of a real world ox relative to what you purchased it for. Sometimes butchering it is just a way to recoup expenses when it gets too old to work or you acquire a younger ox, it's real value was in it's labour during it's life, offset by the cost of caring for it. Obviously some medieval animals were raised for slaughter, capons and pigs in particular, but I'm not sure how much profit you could expect from them. For pigs I know the method for raising them was to have virtually no input costs. Releasing them into a stand of wood or an orchard to forage for instance, or simply feeding them table scraps.

What I can find says China outlawed slaughtering beef specifically due to oxen being used as draft animals, and in practice there's probably some similar reasons for cattle having been particularly sacred in a number of places. Part of the reason I prefer general trends for prices differences when converting them to a game; this sort of thing is going to make the price swing quite a bit based on whether you use (say) French or Chinese prices from a given time period.

[jk7275]

For trying to make a more sensible pricing system I think you need to start with the coinage. Pick a medieval currency and use that as a benchmark for pricing.

I've been looking into the French denier, sou and livre a bit but there's a lot of work that would go into finding the historic prices of things and then trying to work out sensible prices for other things based on that. Especially since D&D tech/pricing is all over the place, magic items cost insane amounts of gold, basic utility tools cost insanely high prices relative to trade goods and the vast host of other issues.



Inflation, location, supply and demand affect prices. Not every town is going to carry every item nor is every store going to sell an item at the same price.
Do adventures spend their time and money in Amish type communities or the kind of towns you had in California during the gold rush or frontier towns? You gor parties going out into the wilderness and bring back sacks of gold. That influx of gold into the local economy can screw up prices , too much gold chasing too few goods.

Cites can be viewed as forming a network. Small cities sell different resources to a large city which turn those resources into finished goods and sells them back to small cities, Items can be grouped into tiers a low tier item like cloths can be found anywhere and a high tier item like plate armor is only found in large cities

I would love to see someone come up with a system that took inflation, location, weather, natural disasters supply and demand into account ro create sensible prices. If such a system was created would anyone use it?

[sandmote]

I would love to see someone come up with a system that took inflation, location, weather, natural disasters supply and demand into account ro create sensible prices. If such a system was created would anyone use it? I'm going to assume that there would be barely any attempts to use such a system, nor would there be any extended use. Part of the reason for standard prices is so that the DM can tell the party "okay, you go shopping, add whatever you can afford to your sheet." This is complicated if the party needs to consult the DM on not only the availability of big items but also the prices of everything else.

Now, a similar table for cost by mount HP, AC, size, carry capacity, attacking capability, and speed might see some use.

[Democratus]

Local Economies also create some problems with spells.

For example, a spell requires a diamond worth 500gp.

Worth 500gp to whom? Can a fellow player agree to sell you a tiny diamond for 500gp and make it into a "500gp diamond"?

Will the spell cease to work if you have travelled to a city where diamonds are common and your previously 500gp gem now only sells for 100gp?

[Tvtyrant]

Local Economies also create some problems with spells.

For example, a spell requires a diamond worth 500gp.

Worth 500gp to whom? Can a fellow player agree to sell you a tiny diamond for 500gp and make it into a "500gp diamond"?

Will the spell cease to work if you have travelled to a city where diamonds are common and your previously 500gp gem now only sells for 100gp?

If you go to the elemental plane of minerals do spells take house sized diamonds?

[Altheus]

Neat. So stabling a horse is 5sp per day. A draft horse is broken in and able to be sold at age 4. So it should cost (365 days/year * 4 years * 0.5 gold per day =) 730 gp per draft horse. Or 365gp providing it yourself. Just for the feeding costs. Hiring the expert laborers for training, breaking in, and so on should be far more expensive. Twice as expensive as a warhorse, bare minimum.



What the hell are you feeding that horse? Grain, oats if you're feeling rich, hay and some straw should be measured in coppers, not gold.

Elephants might should be expensive to buy (I imagine most people who want them find and tame one themselves and then have the expense of keeping it) and absolutely ruinous to keep if you want them doing much other than hanging about foraging the vast amount of food and water they need.

Then there is their stabling, a very solid stone building of some kind, vast amounts of hay for bedding, paying someone to clean up after them.

Then you have medical care if they get sick. I can envision the entire income of a party going towards the upkeep of an elephant.

[Tvtyrant]

What the hell are you feeding that horse? Grain, oats if you're feeling rich, hay and some straw should be measured in coppers, not gold.

Elephants might should be expensive to buy (I imagine most people who want them find and tame one themselves and then have the expense of keeping it) and absolutely ruinous to keep if you want them doing much other than hanging about foraging the vast amount of food and water they need.

Then there is their stabling, a very solid stone building of some kind, vast amounts of hay for bedding, paying someone to clean up after them.

Then you have medical care if they get sick. I can envision the entire income of a party going towards the upkeep of an elephant.

War and draft horses require a lot of specialized feeding, you can't grass feed them or they starve to death. They are two-four times as large as their wild ancestors, it's like expecting Shaq to live on insects and whatever nuts/fruits are in season. You are basically feeding them bread/porridge, and the equivalent of more then a human family worth (who were eating more then a loaf a person a day in these periods due to lacking large amounts of high calorie food like butter.)

Horses are expensive animals, it is why poor regions kept to ponies and natural sized horses instead of shire draft animals or European war horses.

[sandmote]

War and draft horses require a lot of specialized feeding, you can't grass feed them or they starve to death. They are two-four times as large as their wild ancestors, it's like expecting Shaq to live on insects and whatever nuts/fruits are in season. You are basically feeding them bread/porridge, and the equivalent of more then a human family worth (who were eating more then a loaf a person a day in these periods due to lacking large amounts of high calorie food like butter.)

Horses are expensive animals, it is why poor regions kept to ponies and natural sized horses instead of shire draft animals or European war horses. Note that draft animals in particular are much larger than any medieval horses were (by a couple hands), so for a pseudo-medieval setting this is isn't as big an issue. Still an issue, but not nearly as severe.

[huginn]

8 elephants could most likely be hitched to the same vehicle, but the core problem of their pulling being less cost effective than oxen remains. Each elephant could be replaced with 13 oxen and a saving of 5gp on the initial purchase cost.


The core problems is not just the price but all the other numbers and rules . Just how did they come up with how fast and far each animal can go?. Using RAW a draft horse has a carrying capacity of 540 pounds however no one with experience is going to put that much weight on a horse unless forced to or the horse is going a short distance. Based on what I read about using animals to haul cargo the numbers in the 5th are too high if you want the animal to haul cargo for 8 hours a day. The general guideline is about 20% of the animals weight is the most the animal ought to be carrying.

One reason why they use teams of 4 or more animals is not because they want to load cargo into the wagon but to make it easier on the animals. Two horses working as a tem can pull more than the sum of the two horses pulling separately, Is this true for all other animals? I don't know

Another issue is how many years of service do you get out of an animal. An elephant can live 50 years. How many of those 50 years can elephants do useful work? For all I know an elephant can work for 25 to 35 years but an oc can only work for 10 to 15 years

[sandmote]

Another issue is how many years of service do you get out of an animal. An elephant can live 50 years. How many of those 50 years can elephants do useful work? For all I know an elephant can work for 25 to 35 years but an oc can only work for 10 to 15 years This is less of any issue than sourcing new animals. An elephant can be stripped for meat (I remember that from Orwell's Shooting an Elephant) but if butchering it for resources returns a much smaller fraction of the value it could still be cheaper to replace an ox twice than to keep an elephant for the same duration.

Supply is another issue; what I've found says an elephant doesn't reach breeding age until its 17 years old, and there's 6 to 7 years between calves. Compare horses which can breed at four years old and technically have a child every year.

[huginn]

This is less of any issue than sourcing new animals. An elephant can be stripped for meat (I remember that from Orwell's Shooting an Elephant) but if butchering it for resources returns a much smaller fraction of the value it could still be cheaper to replace an ox twice than to keep an elephant for the same duration.

Supply is another issue; what I've found says an elephant doesn't reach breeding age until its 17 years old, and there's 6 to 7 years between calves. Compare horses which can breed at four years old and technically have a child every year.

If your going to talk about how much meat you get then lets talk camels. A camel goes about twice as fast,lives twice as long as an ox and gives about the same amount of meat. Camels provide milk which possible is better for us then cow milk, camel fur can be turned into clothing and camel dung can be used as firewood. A ox can pull more then one camel but when it comes to pretty much everything camels are better. Elephants are hunted not just for the ivory but also for the meat. Poachers find it very profitable to harvest elephants for the meat as its a high demand low supply item. In D&D what would elephant meat sell for?

Female elephants can start breeding at 10 continue until about when they are about 50 and according to a story from BBC its 4 to 5 years between calves.

There are issues with how reasonable are the numbers for carrying capacity and speeds listed . They made ox too fast and possibly made other animals too slow. In 1st they listed 2 numbers for carrying capacity 1 was the maximum load and the other was a normal load . Two numbers was given, One was for how many miles you can go with the maximum load and the other was how far you can go with normal load. There is more then how much can an animal carry/pull its also for how long and how far

Is it reasonable to have one animal to be the most cost effective for hauling cargo in all situations ? What animal is going to be the most cost effective in the desert and in Alaska or the mountains?

These rules were designed for a small party not to handle the logistics for a roman legion

[Grim Portent]

There are reasons camels are only used in certain places and even then often play second fiddle to donkeys and horses, they don't survive or perform well outside their native climates and have the temperament of a grumpy badger. From personal experience I can also say they're quite uncomfortable to ride, though that doesn't stop people on the occasions that they are the best choice.

If you're in their respective environments and managed to get one that's not stubborn beyond belief there's no better beast of burden. Way easier to find a reliable donkey or horse though unless you're trekking into deep desert.

[sandmote]

If your going to talk about how much meat you get then lets talk camels. A camel goes about twice as fast,lives twice as long as an ox and gives about the same amount of meat. Camels provide milk which possible is better for us then cow milk, camel fur can be turned into clothing and camel dung can be used as firewood. A ox can pull more then one camel but when it comes to pretty much everything camels are better. Elephants are hunted not just for the ivory but also for the meat. Poachers find it very profitable to harvest elephants for the meat as its a high demand low supply item. In D&D what would elephant meat sell for? Apologies for the delay.

My back of the envelope measure is 1/3 of the animal's weight in meat, which puts an Indian elephant's meat at 3.67 gp per pound using my existing price. Note that this is without the modern restrictions on elephant hunting, and without there being high enough/organized enough hunting to threaten elephant populations this sounds reasonable to me. It is a valuable good, but not so prohibitive you'd ban collection (again, my reference here is Shooting an Elephant).

Camel mass appears to be close to that of an ox, so yeah, a similar quantity of food makes sense. My concern is camel supply; an ox is usable in most places, where camels are much more limited to desert or steppe. Their use in plowing also seems reduced, so they might not be much more expensive than oxen either. Although cowhide is similarly useful and cows produce more milk, so I'm not sure how well they compare. Maybe 90 gp in places they can survive?


Female elephants can start breeding at 10 continue until about when they are about 50 and according to a story from BBC its 4 to 5 years between calves. For safety and health reasons you don't typically breed a female horse until its is four; I assumed similar 'adulthood' markers for elephants. My inital source said Elephants don't start another pregnancy until their calf is weaned, although I've been unable to find anything supporting or disagreeing with this.


There are issues with how reasonable are the numbers for carrying capacity and speeds listed . They made ox too fast and possibly made other animals too slow. In 1st they listed 2 numbers for carrying capacity 1 was the maximum load and the other was a normal load . Two numbers was given, One was for how many miles you can go with the maximum load and the other was how far you can go with normal load. There is more then how much can an animal carry/pull its also for how long and how far

Is it reasonable to have one animal to be the most cost effective for hauling cargo in all situations ? What animal is going to be the most cost effective in the desert and in Alaska or the mountains? You end up with the same issue with the carry capacity of the PCs.


These rules were designed for a small party not to handle the logistics for a roman legion Well, I don't have any information on how different animals would cost for a small party in a psuedo-medieval setting, so I've been using the data I've found.


There are reasons camels are only used in certain places and even then often play second fiddle to donkeys and horses, they don't survive or perform well outside their native climates and have the temperament of a grumpy badger. From personal experience I can also say they're quite uncomfortable to ride, though that doesn't stop people on the occasions that they are the best choice.

If you're in their respective environments and managed to get one that's not stubborn beyond belief there's no better beast of burden. Way easier to find a reliable donkey or horse though unless you're trekking into deep desert. I really wish all 5e creatures had more features to them. Maybe slap something like the following to a camel.


Desert Step. The camel can move across difficult terrain made of sand or unstable particles without expending extra movement.

The stats already lean toward horses over camels, in general, but this would provide a benefit in those deep deserts.

[huginn]

Apologies for the delay.

My back of the envelope measure is 1/3 of the animal's weight in meat, which puts an Indian elephant's meat at 3.67 gp per pound using my existing price. Note that this is without the modern restrictions on elephant hunting, and without there being high enough/organized enough hunting to threaten elephant populations this sounds reasonable to me. It is a valuable good, but not so prohibitive you'd ban collection (again, my reference here is Shooting an Elephant).

Camel mass appears to be close to that of an ox, so yeah, a similar quantity of food makes sense. My concern is camel supply; an ox is usable in most places, where camels are much more limited to desert or steppe. Their use in plowing also seems reduced, so they might not be much more expensive than oxen either. Although cowhide is similarly useful and cows produce more milk, so I'm not sure how well they compare. Maybe 90 gp in places they can survive?



Based on a newspaper you get about 1000 pound of meat from a 6000 pound elephant. 1000 pounds of elephant meat sells for then 1000 pounds of beef. People are willing to pay a lot more for a pound of meat from an elephant then an ox


How been attempts has there been to try to use camels on a large scale outside of the desert? The army was testing camels but that was cut short by the civil war. I seen comments that Bactrian camels can handle temperatures as low as –20°F. I seen conversations over why Europe used horses instead of camels and it wasn't only because of the climate. Horses are easier to handle and train. Horses are also better for herding animals

An ox lives 20 years and from what I read you only get about 10 years of work from them. Camels live 40 to 50 years and elephants about 70 to 80. How many more years of service to you get out of camels or elephants?. Camels have been known to carry a rider 80 miles in a day and elephants carried riders 50 miles . During the course of a camels life how much fur will you get that can be used to make clothing

There is more then how much an animal can pull or carry its how fast it can get there. Time is money and what money you save by using ox is offset by taking longer to get there. Camels, horses and mules can haul stuff 2 to 3 far in a day as an ox. Using guidelines for pack animals the carrying capacity numbers in the book are too high if you want animals to haul stuff 8 hours a day 7 days a week . Teams of six animals would pull wagons that two animals could pull for that very reason

If you want detailed rules for handling the logistics and cost for a small army or merchant caravan you might be better off using rules from another game.

For a small party using an elephant or couple of horses/mules/camels create food and water is a possible solution or goodberry. Goodberry states "provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day." and you can get 10. How many would an elephant need per day?

[Knaight]

While other armies (from Caesar to Eisenhower, at least) solved that problem by building good-quality paved roads across their empire, that were usable even when wet.


China's compacted dirt roads were better for trade, being easier on animals and wheels and cheaper so they were more common. The negative was they took more upkeep and had more problems with mud and dust.


Those roads can be bloody expensive and for more the most part only a large wealthy empire is going to do.

For most of history roads were a backup system anyways - if you could travel by river or canal it was usually dramatically better, and if sea travel was an option that was often better still. Rome had its roads, but it also had a massive fleet of ships for centuries which did a huge amount of cargo (and troop) transport. China had some roads, but China also spent millenia taking waterways very, very seriously. This same pattern crops up again and again, and even today if you're connecting coastal cities or similar you're often best off with ships.

Heavy mechanization can change this, and railroads are a huge deal for cargo transport, but if your options are boat or road? You almost always want to go by boat. It's when boats aren't an option the road shines, and even then wagons can be a problem (there's a reason the Chinese wheelbarrow* was a big deal, there's a reason camels were so useful in any terrain that suited them, essentially any other major option was less likely to run into major failures of some sort).

*Which is a completely different contraption than the term "wheelbarrow" suggests, not that pop history is going to mention that.

[sandmote]

1000 pounds of elephant meat sells for then 1000 pounds of beef. People are willing to pay a lot more for a pound of meat from an elephant then an ox Are you missing a "more," in the first sentence? These two things can't both be true at the same time.


How been attempts has there been to try to use camels on a large scale outside of the desert? The army was testing camels but that was cut short by the civil war. I seen comments that Bactrian camels can handle temperatures as low as –20°F. I seen conversations over why Europe used horses instead of camels and it wasn't only because of the climate. Horses are easier to handle and train. Horses are also better for herding animals Yes, but horses aren't really an option everywhere, so I'd like a price. With the meat equivalent ox, that should be somewhere in the same range. Price should also be modulated by resources gained, and for simplicity's sake I'd rank the cow's milk and camel's fur + less milk comparable.


An ox lives 20 years and from what I read you only get about 10 years of work from them. Camels live 40 to 50 years and elephants about 70 to 80. How many more years of service to you get out of camels or elephants?. Camels have been known to carry a rider 80 miles in a day and elephants carried riders 50 miles . During the course of a camels life how much fur will you get that can be used to make clothing The day to day cost for a work-age animal I expect to be fairly stable. The animal serves as a store of wealth, so you don't pay the price of its remaining lifetime work for the beast. With the meat and hide (or however usable they are) serving as the base price.


There is more then how much an animal can pull or carry its how fast it can get there. Time is money and what money you save by using ox is offset by taking longer to get there. Camels, horses and mules can haul stuff 2 to 3 far in a day as an ox. Using guidelines for pack animals the carrying capacity numbers in the book are too high if you want animals to haul stuff 8 hours a day 7 days a week . Teams of six animals would pull wagons that two animals could pull for that very reason Your complaint is noted.

However, this exact same argument has been happening in the exact same capacity with PCs, who also carry more than a human reasonably could for 8 hours. I'm trying to create rules for a party's mounts that work within the 5e rules. Pleas leave this thread for that, and I'm sure you can find one debating how inaccurate carry capacities are.


If you want detailed rules for handling the logistics and cost for a small army or merchant caravan you might be better off using rules from another game. Well, I'm running 5e. So if I want workable rules for handling the logistics and cost for a party I need to create them.


For a small party using an elephant or couple of horses/mules/camels create food and water is a possible solution or goodberry. Goodberry states "provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day." and you can get 10. How many would an elephant need per day? Interesting question. Assuming that "steeds" in the Create Food and Water spell is a baseline for large creatures, we can use the same initial scale. I'd go with a quadratic scaling, or 9 berries for an elephant. For completeness sake that's 27 berries for a gargantuan creature.

Alternatively a linear scale would work out to 5 berries for an elephant and 7 for a gargantuan creature. So quadratic sounds like it has more verisimilitude to me.

[huginn]

Yes, but horses aren't really an option everywhere, so I'd like a price. With the meat equivalent ox, that should be somewhere in the same range. Price should also be modulated by resources gained, and for simplicity's sake I'd rank the cow's milk and camel's fur + less milk comparable.

Camels milk is considered better for you then cows milk



The day to day cost for a work-age animal I expect to be fairly stable. The animal serves as a store of wealth, so you don't pay the price of its remaining lifetime work for the beast. With the meat and hide (or however usable they are) serving as the base price.

People will pay more for a mule then a horse in part because you get more years of work of a mule then a horse. You may not take into account how many years an animal can work but others do



Well, I'm running 5e. So if I want workable rules for handling the logistics and cost for a party I need to create them.


You want to add rules to your 5e campaign yet you don't seem to want to look at other games/earlier editions to see what rules they have and try to use them. You can use some rule from another game and still run a 5e campaign

Spells reduce the amount of food you need to bring or find. Spells can reduce training time and cost. There is the ioun stone of sustenance, come up with something that does the same thing for a mount. Magical horseshoes exist in 5e is there a issue with coming up with other magical items for mounts? There is always spell research. New spells or magic items may cost a lot but its a one time cost

Years ago I seen a discussion about undead mounts in d&d. Someone felt the best solution was to create undead animals to pull wagons and plow fields. His position was a zombie horse can work 24/7 and you never have to feed it. All you need is a modified version of animate dead

[sandmote]

Camels milk is considered better for you then cows milk Camels produce less milk than cows do, which makes up the difference for me.


People will pay more for a mule then a horse in part because you get more years of work of a mule then a horse. You may not take into account how many years an animal can work but others do This depends on what you can get from the animal. See my previously mentioned reasons for why a horse becomes cheaper with age. The difference is that the salable goods you can get from butchering an animal creates a price floor for the animal's worth. A fine breeder will be more expensive while an animal on its last legs will probably not sell for more than the butcher price. To get something usable for the party, I'm going to need a base price to modify from.


You want to add rules to your 5e campaign yet you don't seem to want to look at other games/earlier editions to see what rules they have and try to use them. You can use some rule from another game and still run a 5e campaign Which games/editions? I'm using the 3.5e d&d prices for a riding horse (light horse) and warhorse (heavy warhorse). After all they were copied straight into 5e.


Spells reduce the amount of food you need to bring or find. You mean like the Create Food and Water spell I already mentioned?


Years ago I seen a discussion about undead mounts in d&d. Someone felt the best solution was to create undead animals to pull wagons and plow fields. His position was a zombie horse can work 24/7 and you never have to feed it. All you need is a modified version of animate dead Are you just musing out loud or are you trying to provide commentary for how much undead mounts would cost?

[huginn]

Camels produce less milk than cows do, which makes up the difference for me.

Your comparing modern cows that were bred to produce lots of milk to camels. Do cows in Africa on a piss poor diet produce a well feed cow in America?



This depends on what you can get from the animal. See my previously mentioned reasons for why a horse becomes cheaper with age. The difference is that the salable goods you can get from butchering an animal creates a price floor for the animal's worth. A fine breeder will be more expensive while an animal on its last legs will probably not sell for more than the butcher price. To get something usable for the party, I'm going to need a base price to modify from.

How much meat you get from an animal has nothing to do with how well or how long it can do the job. Armies buy the animal that gets the job done not the animal you get the most meat from when it does . Your looking at how much money you get when the animals die instead of how much you make when its alive . There are a lot of factors affecting the prices of animals. What kind of job do you want the animal to do?



Which games/editions? I'm using the 3.5e d&d prices for a riding horse (light horse) and warhorse (heavy warhorse). After all they were copied straight into 5e.


1st for starters. They had a book just for traveling through the wilderness, it had all kinds of tables and rules you might find useful. How many dozens of games have been published? Have you looked at any of them? Broken axles and wheels was a major problem



You mean like the Create Food and Water spell I already mentioned?


I mentioned that spell first and I bring it up again. How much food an elephant or any other animal needs is basically a non issue due in part do to such spells.



Are you just musing out loud or are you trying to provide commentary for how much undead mounts would cost?

I was pointing out that the most cost effective mount is an undead mount. Undead cost nothing except the cost to cast the spell. For someone who is so concerned about food and training cost for animals this is the perfect solution.

[sandmote]

Your comparing modern cows that were bred to produce lots of milk to camels. Do cows in Africa on a piss poor diet produce a well feed cow in America? Probably, given that the upper price I can find for camels in Egypt is less than a third the lower price range for a typical cow in the same country.


How much meat you get from an animal has nothing to do with how well or how long it can do the job. But it does have to do with the price of an animal you could convert to meat if you decide it is no longer capable of working.


1st for starters. They had a book just for traveling through the wilderness, it had all kinds of tables and rules you might find useful. How many dozens of games have been published? Have you looked at any of them? Broken axles and wheels was a major problem Can I get a name for this book? You know, so I have the possibility of being able to look at these rules?

More generally, I'd still end up checking how each system stacks up to the real world uses and markets of animals, so it would just be an awkward middle-man. I've checked the systems I have access to, and havn't checked the ones I don't have access to. What would you prefer?


I was pointing out that the most cost effective mount is an undead mount. Undead cost nothing except the cost to cast the spell. For someone who is so concerned about food and training cost for animals this is the perfect solution. Undead also include cost the price of the body you are going to be casting the spell on. Additionally, the price of producing the undead mount is necessarily lower than the market price, because it wouldn't be a perfect market.

[JackPhoenix]

Undead also include cost the price of the body you are going to be casting the spell on. Additionally, the price of producing the undead mount is necessarily lower than the market price, because it wouldn't be a perfect market.

Well, sort of. You may be able to buy an old animal, butcher it for meat and hide, and turn the bones into a skeleton, or just get the bones from a butcher. The price for a "raw material" is more-or-less negligible. The real cost is a necromancer willing and able to cast the spell daily to keep the unholy abomination under control.

[huginn]

But it does have to do with the price of an animal you could convert to meat if you decide it is no longer capable of working.

I understand that how much meat you can get from an animal is a factor its just I am not sure how much of a factor for an animal your going to work to death



Can I get a name for this book? You know, so I have the possibility of being able to look at these rules?

More generally, I'd still end up checking how each system stacks up to the real world uses and markets of animals, so it would just be an awkward middle-man. I've checked the systems I have access to, and havn't checked the ones I don't have access to. What would you prefer?

Wilderness survival guide. Its an old book I am sure you can easily find online.

Humans are not the only species using draft animals. How do you decide how much what other species will pay for an animal? Halflings have farms and use draft animals what do they prefer? Would Halflings buy a Clydesdale for a farm?



Undead also include cost the price of the body you are going to be casting the spell on. Additionally, the price of producing the undead mount is necessarily lower than the market price, because it wouldn't be a perfect market.

Spell research can be used to modify the spell so you don't have to cast it daily.

[sandmote]

Well, sort of. You may be able to buy an old animal, butcher it for meat and hide, and turn the bones into a skeleton, or just get the bones from a butcher. The price for a "raw material" is more-or-less negligible. The real cost is a necromancer willing and able to cast the spell daily to keep the unholy abomination under control. I was mostly thinking that attaching a harness to a skeleton horse would pretty much require (presumably padded) barding, and so would likely be cheaper to use zombies here. However, it now occurs to me that an undead mount doesn't need its windpipe open, so you'd probably want to design a unique plow for the undead anyway so you get more force from their pulling.

But, yeah, the main wrinkle in the market is going to be the high barrier to becoming an undead mount salesman. Which makes it a bit difficult to price them with the other mounts. Certainly anyone who can afford to buy them in the first place will prefer them for labor. Although I expect animals used for pleasure won't be replaced in this manner.


I understand that how much meat you can get from an animal is a factor its just I am not sure how much of a factor for an animal your going to work to death You don't work it to death. You work it until the components (meat, hide, bones, ect.) are worth more than the labor, and butcher it then. If you keep working it beyond this point you're just giving up money. For animals with a very low material worth (like horses) this usually means switching it from one job to a less demanding one the animal will be able to keep working longer.


Wilderness survival guide. Its an old book I am sure you can easily find online. I'll keep looking inside, but I don't see what is there that I'm supposed to find useful. Frankly, the thing seems to avoid mentioning prices at any point. Lots of useful fluff, sure, but not relative usefulness of different mounts (Which I expect would include stats).


Humans are not the only species using draft animals. How do you decide how much what other species will pay for an animal? Halflings have farms and use draft animals what do they prefer? Would Halflings buy a Clydesdale for a farm? Less affluent human can double up a Clydesdale for riding, so there may a difference compared to halflings. But if you're looking for the best draft animal, I don't think being a halfling makes much difference. Maybe if you're a giant and plowing the ground yourself is faster.

Okay, so prices:

Oxen and Elephants as previous, horses as listed in the book. I don't think the camel needs a change, because even if they're relatively cheaper in Egypt they're still more useful for desert travel. Undead mounts don't need the food upkeep and are hard to start making, so I still feel triple prices makes the most sense.

Whats left?
Giant Goats, Aurochs, Giant Sea Horses, Axe Beaks, and Elk? Dinosaurs? I suppose pricing the Giant Bat and a Warpony would make sense a well...

[DrKerosene]

I was mostly thinking that attaching a harness to a skeleton horse would pretty much require (presumably padded) barding, and so would likely be cheaper to use zombies here.
I believe zombies are normally not immune to exhaustion (like skeletons are), so they may still have to take a long rest after a certain point, if you decide to do some math for 24/7 productivity.

That’s all I’ve got to contribute. The rest of this topic is interesting, but definitely outside my wheel-house at this point.

[Brookshw]

Or rundowns for other exotic mounts,.

Triceratops is 500gp. I think you're overpricing.

[sandmote]

Okay, I've added a table to the first post, so I can track this.


I believe zombies are normally not immune to exhaustion (like skeletons are), so they may still have to take a long rest after a certain point, if you decide to do some math for 24/7 productivity.

That’s all I’ve got to contribute. The rest of this topic is interesting, but definitely outside my wheel-house at this point. Yep, also a good point.


Triceratops is 500gp. I think you're overpricing. I think the books are underpricing, which has kind of been my argument on the elephants and oxen?

[huginn]

You don't work it to death. You work it until the components (meat, hide, bones, ect.) are worth more than the labor, and butcher it then. If you keep working it beyond this point you're just giving up money. For animals with a very low material worth (like horses) this usually means switching it from one job to a less demanding one the animal will be able to keep working longer.


I'll keep looking inside, but I don't see what is there that I'm supposed to find useful. Frankly, the thing seems to avoid mentioning prices at any point. Lots of useful fluff, sure, but not relative usefulness of different mounts (Which I expect would include stats).

In 5e they deliberately made the rules for mounts and vehicles simple . A lot of factors that affect the prices and usefulness of animals are ignored. I mentioned that book because it does not ignore as many things as 5e does

In 5e The only differences between animals to the party is how much they can carry, how much they cost and how useful they are in combat. Nothing else matters it does not cost anything to feed or train the animal. Its close to if not flat out impossible to come with a set of prices that work for every campaign world out there. Numbers that work for a campaign where they entire world is primary a desert wont work for a campaign where they entire world is a jungle


Its still going to be potentially years before the animal drops over dead or gets too old to work. Ox may end being cheaper then a horse at times because of meat. Eating horse meat has been illegal or taboo in various parts of the world Pope Gregory III banned eating horse meat in 732. It doesn’t matter how much meat you got from a horse it had no value at least not legally. How much impact did this have on the price of an animal? What happens when too many people are breeding too many cows for food? This is something that would affect the price of a horse in real that won’t affect the price in 5e.

On the Oregon Trail people bought ox only because ox was the only animals they afford. They also pretty much did work animals to death on that journey. When an ox did die or got too weak to go on it was left for the wolfs or other predators. They just left all that meat behind.




Less affluent human can double up a Clydesdale for riding, so there may a difference compared to halflings. But if you're looking for the best draft animal, I don't think being a halfling makes much difference. Maybe if you're a giant and plowing the ground yourself is faster.

Halflings are 3 feet tall and the farms are going to be smaller then a human farm. Some animals are going to be too big. If they want a Clydesdale or something like that then they probably have to build a barn bigger then they normally would build. Halflings are going to use plows designed for Halflings and are not plowing that much land an ox or Clydesdale is just over kill. A pony or donkey makes more sense, a pony cant haul as much but Halflings don't have as much to haul

Dwarves are another case. They live in mountains and mine. That right there might eliminate almost everything but a mule. Mules are breed for different jobs one is which is working in mines, an ox or camel is just big and useless

[sandmote]

In 5e they deliberately made the rules for mounts and vehicles simple . A lot of factors that affect the prices and usefulness of animals are ignored. I mentioned that book because it does not ignore as many things as 5e does When looking at the relationship between uses and price that book only seems to comment on one side of the issue.


In 5e The only differences between animals to the party is how much they can carry, how much they cost and how useful they are in combat. Nothing else matters it does not cost anything to feed or train the animal. Feed price is listed on the same table as saddles and stabling.


Its close to if not flat out impossible to come with a set of prices that work for every campaign world out there. Numbers that work for a campaign where they entire world is primary a desert wont work for a campaign where they entire world is a jungle

Its still going to be potentially years before the animal drops over dead or gets too old to work. Ox may end being cheaper then a horse at times because of meat. Eating horse meat has been illegal or taboo in various parts of the world Pope Gregory III banned eating horse meat in 732. It doesn’t matter how much meat you got from a horse it had no value at least not legally. How much impact did this have on the price of an animal? What happens when too many people are breeding too many cows for food? This is something that would affect the price of a horse in real that won’t affect the price in 5e. I'm not aiming for every campaign world. I'm looking for general prices that can be reasonably modified for particular scenarios like a desert or jungle. The exact same principle applies to magic items, weapon prices, and everything else with a price or rarity attached. Regional or setting specific prices are going to be based on some general trend, and that general trend is what the books write out. I'm simply contesting and modifying the same principle the book uses for prices.


On the Oregon Trail people bought ox only because ox was the only animals they afford. They also pretty much did work animals to death on that journey. When an ox did die or got too weak to go on it was left for the wolfs or other predators. They just left all that meat behind. Stopping to butcher the meat also had an impact on their survival on the trail, and the same economic principles still apply.


Halflings are 3 feet tall and the farms are going to be smaller then a human farm. Some animals are going to be too big. If they want a Clydesdale or something like that then they probably have to build a barn bigger then they normally would build. Halflings are going to use plows designed for Halflings and are not plowing that much land an ox or Clydesdale is just over kill. A pony or donkey makes more sense, a pony cant haul as much but Halflings don't have as much to haul

Dwarves are another case. They live in mountains and mine. That right there might eliminate almost everything but a mule. Mules are breed for different jobs one is which is working in mines, an ox or camel is just big and useless Halflings still have the haul the earth up to prepare it for planting, and the earth doesn't care what size you are. And again, I'm going for a general trend. Mountainous creatures are going to cost above the trend in mountains, and smaller creatures will generally pay more for smaller creatures over larger ones. Here, I'll number my responses:


I'm looking for a general trend
I can't use information I don't have access too.
A comparison of general usefulness requires a comparison to be made.


For complaints that I'm giving one price figure, see #1. For questions about why I didn't use various books, see #2. For my problem with the one source you've named, see #3. For complaints that I'm not including literally every single possible factors on price see #1 again.


Moving on to pricing more mounts.

I've gone with 100 gp for an elk, because it trades the ox's carry capacity for a bit of speed.
50 gp for the giant sea horse, because I expect less demand (land dwelling races probably prefer boats) but also higher defense (fewer options underwater, so it gets equal pricing to the draft horse despite lower carry capacity.
Then 75 gp for my existing giant sea hare homebrew. If doesn't have the speed increase of the riding horse, but it doesn't trade sturdiness and has an escape ability.
75 gp for the ax beak, which has comparable sturdiness to the draft horse but medium speed (50 ft).
The Giant lizard can climb, so maybe 100 gp is fine?
the hadrosaur can probably be butchered; 100 gp assumed in this case.
Ankylosaurus and Triceratops both seem low. See elephant commentary for points on pricing huge beasts.
Suggestions for the Auroch, Giant Sea Eel, and Giant Bat appreciated.

[huginn]

When looking at the relationship between uses and price that book only seems to comment on one side of the issue.

That book has tables that can be used to compare the usefulness of animals at least for hauling cargo over a long distance, its a starting point.



Feed price is listed on the same table as saddles and stabling.

What party is ever going to buy feed in 5e? Half the reason why feed is in the book is because it was always was in the books. In 1st it made sense when a party had to worry about running out of food for themselves and their mounts but now no party has to worry about this.



I'm not aiming for every campaign world. I'm looking for general prices that can be reasonably modified for particular scenarios like a desert or jungle. The exact same principle applies to magic items, weapon prices, and everything else with a price or rarity attached. Regional or setting specific prices are going to be based on some general trend, and that general trend is what the books write out. I'm simply contesting and modifying the same principle the book uses for prices.

The players handbook already has prices that can easily modified. Any trend does not come from the books it comes from the DM. The prices are based off how useful the animals are to a party not some nameless farmer.



Stopping to butcher the meat also had an impact on their survival on the trail, and the same economic principles still apply.

Ox still alive were left behind with the hope that some other group wold find the oc and save it. Some groups couldn't bear to eat the animal as they became too attached. There were cases of an ox not being butchered due to a mistaken belief that the animal died due to disease and the meat was unfit to eat



Halflings still have the haul the earth up to prepare it for planting, and the earth doesn't care what size you are. And again, I'm going for a general trend. Mountainous creatures are going to cost above the trend in mountains, and smaller creatures will generally pay more for smaller creatures over larger ones. Here, I'll number my responses:


I'm looking for a general trend
I can't use information I don't have access too.
A comparison of general usefulness requires a comparison to be made.


For complaints that I'm giving one price figure, see #1. For questions about why I didn't use various books, see #2. For my problem with the one source you've named, see #3. For complaints that I'm not including literally every single possible factors on price see #1 again.


Depending on the soil a donkey or mule is just as good or better then a horse or ox, the earth may not not care about size but that Halfling farmer sure as hell will.

Again any trend is all on you not the books. Its on you not the books for what the general trends and usefulness of animals is going to be different for each race


For the most part any information you need is already in the books, common knowledge and perhaps a encyclopaedia. Every d&d rule book ever printed is online and free to read along with pretty much every rule book for every game ever made. You have access to every book.

Again that book I mentioned did compare animals.

The only comments anyone can say about the general usefulness of animals are broad general statements. If you want a more detailed answer you need to say what region and what work do you want the animals to do.

[Hilary]

I agree with the goodberry solution and with scaling it up by size.

For a mechanic, if you used only the increase in square size (5x5 for medium, 15x15 for huge), you get 9x (which follows the suggested increase).

I think the real problem is how long it would take to feed an elephant.

Elephants may spend 12-18 hours a day feeding.

And all that food has to come out again. What would an elephant that normally poops 300 lbs from normal food poop out from goodberries?

[sandmote]

The players handbook already has prices that can easily modified. Any trend does not come from the books it comes from the DM. If the books give you base prices, they give you a trend by doing so. The books do give base prices, so they do give a trend. The trend, however, isn't very clear and doesn't include very many of the available mounts.


The prices are based off how useful the animals are to a party not some nameless farmer. ... the earth may not not care about size but that Halfling farmer sure as hell will. If I ignore the nameless farmer then it doesn't matter if the nameless farmer is a halfling or a giant. If we're including the ability of the party to start a business then they're likely trading with those nameless farmers. These are mutually exclusive.

As it happens, I'm going with the latter case, where the nameless farmer and the nameless farmer's race do matter. However, I'm treating the race of the local nameless farmers as a modifier on the base price.

This is a bit like "general intelligence." If you combine the results of a bunch of separate measures of intelligence together, you get a general trend. We don't know if "general intelligence" is something in the brain or simply an artifact of the data, but it is a measurable statistic. I'm looking for a "general mount use," in the same vein. "general mount use" gives only a fraction of the real picture, but is a comparable abstraction to real animal use as your Intelligence score is an abstraction of your general intelligence.


For the most part any information you need is already in the books, common knowledge and perhaps a encyclopaedia. Every d&d rule book ever printed is online and free to read along with pretty much every rule book for every game ever made. You have access to every book. A book being online and my being able to access the book are separate things. I don't know the name for "every game ever made," much less the name of every book for every game. So sorting through them all to find useful information isn't possible, because I don't have the information to get to every single book.


Again that book I mentioned did compare animals. I did see a lot of fluff based comparison. If there was something in the crunch of how much a seller would value one animal compared to another, I missed it. Certainly nothing as clear as Roman elephantry expenses or late 13th century comparisons of ox vs horse plows in England.


The only comments anyone can say about the general usefulness of animals are broad general statements. Those are the type of statements I'm looking for. Because it's a lot easier to say "desert animals are worth four times as much here," when you know what the desert animals are worth in the first place. 4*X isn't very easy to calculate unless you have a value for X.


I think the real problem is how long it would take to feed an elephant.

Elephants may spend 12-18 hours a day feeding.

And all that food has to come out again. What would an elephant that normally poops 300 lbs from normal food poop out from goodberries? I'd handle this however you handle the PCs if they're living off goodberries. A goodberry is about an action to eat, and presumably involved very little waste.

[huginn]

If the books give you base prices, they give you a trend by doing so. The books do give base prices, so they do give a trend. The trend, however, isn't very clear and doesn't include very many of the available mounts.

Giving a price is not a trend.



If I ignore the nameless farmer then it doesn't matter if the nameless farmer is a halfling or a giant. If we're including the ability of the party to start a business then they're likely trading with those nameless farmers. These are mutually exclusive.

As it happens, I'm going with the latter case, where the nameless farmer and the nameless farmer's race do matter. However, I'm treating the race of the local nameless farmers as a modifier on the base price.

It is not worth the time, money and effort for the game designers to even try to include the nameless farmer, other npcs or other factors.
What about wages, taxes, tariffs , war, natural disasters, weather and inflation ? All those affect prices are you going to ignore them? It does not matter how useful an animal is to farmers if they cant affird to buy them or there isn't any for sale

It would difficult if not impossible to work out the usefulness of animals for all races. Are donkeys overall more useful Halfings then humans? If more useful then by how much?

In Eberron -Rising from the Last War airships, rail systems mage breed animals and telepotation are brougth up as modes of transporation. That makes animals less usefull how much is that going to lower the price?




A book being online and my being able to access the book are separate things. I don't know the name for "every game ever made," much less the name of every book for every game. So sorting through them all to find useful information isn't possible, because I don't have the information to get to every single book.

The books that are free to access. All you have to do is google something to the effect of which tabletop rpg game has the best rules for running a business. Once you have the names its not hard to find the books online



I did see a lot of fluff based comparison. If there was something in the crunch of how much a seller would value one animal compared to another, I missed it. Certainly nothing as clear as Roman elephantry expenses or late 13th century comparisons of ox vs horse plows in England.

Your talking about a book that was praised for how useful it was. It tells you far an animal can go and how much it can carry, that is very very useful for the buyer to know. If the Roman Empire had access to magic their expenses would have different, the usefulness of animals would have different



Those are the type of statements I'm looking for. Because it's a lot easier to say "desert animals are worth four times as much here," when you know what the desert animals are worth in the first place. 4*X isn't very easy to calculate unless you have a value for X.

The books already give you a price. Its just common sense that you would almost never find people buying, selling and using camels outside the desert . The cost of a camel is 50 gold and common sense will they that is the price in desert

[Kobold_paladin?]

ok, i'm sorry that this won't be helpful but, WAR PONY?!? what?!?



i'd elephants are more expensive where they are rarer.
to throw a price out there: 450 gp

[Mjolnirbear]

When trying to balance purchaseable mounts from House Vadalis in my Eberron campaign, I made the following considerations:

* base price: by CR. Because players will naturally trend to better or stronger animals. Who cares what the carrying capacity is if you have a bag of holding?
* is it magebred: this modifies the price
* is it naturally aggressive or wartrained? This makes the creature better for combat and able to use barding, so modifies the the price.
* is it intelligent? Then the price is paid to hire or bribe the mount, not to Vadalis.

Start with a base price (say, 500 gp/CR), compare to animals (say, horse), then special training (say, warhorse for barding), adjust until you have a formula that best matches the most mounts in the PHB.

Then use it for any creature you desire; pegasi, gryphons, war elephants, clawfeet, hydras, dragons, draft mastiffs, dire wolves, or whatever.

Personally I started with 1000 per CR, left PHB prices alone, and forgot to come back and fiddle with the formula cause my players never bothered trying to get exotic mounts.

Edit: I did some tinkering now that I'm in the mood. The cost roughly corresponds to 200 gp x the CR. The mule and elephant are significantly cheaper; the warhorse significantly more expensive (but it's stronger, tougher, and does more damage than the riding horse). There is minor variation with the pony, camel, and riding horse.

I decided from there to make the Base Cost 300xCR and give existing PHB creatures a "domestication discount". Because I don't want other creatures to be as cheap as domestic creatures.

From there I decided that War-trained creatures (can wear barding, aggressive in combat/does not panic) add a fee of 150% base cost, Exotic creatures (has a swim, fly or climb speed, or more than 4 limbs) at a fee of 150% base cost, and mage-bred animals (see https://www.reddit.com/r/Eberron/comments/gusuv4/what_is_magebreeding/) have a fee of 200% base cost (not the least because war-training is one of the available traits). Pets that cannot scout, fight, or perform any useful tasks may be brought to a trainer and trained for 100gp/CR. Intelligent creatures are paid, not bought, but the price is the same. Some creatures with useful traits (blink dogs) will be more expensive, and some not available at all to PCs ever ever ever (basilisks).

If I apply Magebreeding (wartrained plus stronger) to the Base Cost of a CR 1/2 creature (150 gp), I have a price of 450 gold, which is pretty close to the price of the Warhorse while still falling under the "domestication discount" handwavium. If I do the base cost of a mastiff, I have 37.5, which is close to the handwavium discount cost of 25 gp.

It works for me. Your basic elephant is therefore drastically underpriced, but it's also a huge liability. It can kill you by accident if it panics, it can't fit in dungeons even by squeezing, and it eats massively. It also (by my rules) won't attack and can't wear barding. It's mostly used for its strength, though I'd hazard that IRL it's also used because almost nothing will attack an elephant (a protection that is less effective in D&D).

Using this math, all existing creatures are cheaper than the formula, you have some idea how to cost a 'war elephant' or 'war mastiff', you can price Steeders and Giant Lizards for underdark campaigns and Giant Bats for Sharn mounts. The costs escalate significantly the more powerful the creature and the more modifiers you add, and cheaper if you want just a pet that does nothing.

[sandmote]

Giving a price is not a trend.
Giving a price rolls all the factors like carry capacity, speed, and HP/AC into a single factor.


It is not worth the time, money and effort for the game designers to even try to include the nameless farmer, other npcs or other factors. I am throwing no shade whatsoever on the designers for having spent their time focusing more effort on the things that come up in game more often. I have been trying to set up a common sense system of mount prices. Because I consider it worth my time to do so.


What about wages, taxes, tariffs , war, natural disasters, weather and inflation ? All those affect prices are you going to ignore them? It does not matter how useful an animal is to farmers if they cant affird to buy them or there isn't any for sale
I'm treating these as modifiers on the base price.

This is in the exact same manner you would apply wages, taxes, tariffs, war, natural disasters, weather, and inflation to the weapon prices, armor prices, tool prices, or general equipment prices. Often they are factored into those prices (tax and wages especially) but sometimes a GM might rule shortages have inflates the price or surpluses lowered it. This works exactly the same, just with a mount instead of the other stuff.

This is how its worked for every game system I've seen, so I'm not clear on what your point of contention is.


It would difficult if not impossible to work out the usefulness of animals for all races. Are donkeys overall more useful Halfings then humans? If more useful then by how much?

In Eberron -Rising from the Last War airships, rail systems mage breed animals and telepotation are brougth up as modes of transporation. That makes animals less usefull how much is that going to lower the price? I don't know how to calculate this in a setting/region agnostic manner, and am therefore treating it as a modifier.


The books that are free to access. All you have to do is google something to the effect of which tabletop rpg game has the best rules for running a business. Once you have the names its not hard to find the books online

Your talking about a book that was praised for how useful it was. It tells you far an animal can go and how much it can carry, that is very very useful for the buyer to know. If the Roman Empire had access to magic their expenses would have different, the usefulness of animals would have different I am not denying an individual factor of price is useful to know, but an individual factor doesn't give me the sum total of the factors. Something the book spends a lot of time not providing.

Also, you're google fu being better than mine doesn't help improve my google fu. Not that I'm confident your goodle fu is any good, given how much time you've spent complaining d&d 5e and virtually every other system have bad pricing systems, apparently without knowing how they handle them.


The books already give you a price. Its just common sense that you would almost never find people buying, selling and using camels outside the desert . The cost of a camel is 50 gold and common sense will they that is the price in desert If we apply common sense to the book prices then anyone adventuring would make more money buyng and butchering oxen.


ok, i'm sorry that this won't be helpful but, WAR PONY?!? what?!? 3.5e had them. Also the IRL mongols, who preferred smaller animals that could live by grazing easily. Although because of the size rules in d&d they're really more for small character that want to fight from the saddle even indoors. Although Mjolnirbear's system gives an automatic price for them, which I'm happy about.


I decided from there to make the Base Cost 300xCR and give existing PHB creatures a "domestication discount". Because I don't want other creatures to be as cheap as domestic creatures.

From there I decided that War-trained creatures (can wear barding, aggressive in combat/does not panic) add a fee of 150% base cost, Exotic creatures (has a swim, fly or climb speed, or more than 4 limbs) at a fee of 150% base cost, and mage-bred animals (see https://www.reddit.com/r/Eberron/comments/gusuv4/what_is_magebreeding/) have a fee of 200% base cost (not the least because war-training is one of the available traits). Pets that cannot scout, fight, or perform any useful tasks may be brought to a trainer and trained for 100gp/CR. Intelligent creatures are paid, not bought, but the price is the same. Some creatures with useful traits (blink dogs) will be more expensive, and some not available at all to PCs ever ever ever (basilisks).

If I apply Magebreeding (wartrained plus stronger) to the Base Cost of a CR 1/2 creature (150 gp), I have a price of 450 gold, which is pretty close to the price of the Warhorse while still falling under the "domestication discount" handwavium. If I do the base cost of a mastiff, I have 37.5, which is close to the handwavium discount cost of 25 gp.

It works for me. Your basic elephant is therefore drastically underpriced, but it's also a huge liability. It can kill you by accident if it panics, it can't fit in dungeons even by squeezing, and it eats massively. It also (by my rules) won't attack and can't wear barding. It's mostly used for its strength, though I'd hazard that IRL it's also used because almost nothing will attack an elephant (a protection that is less effective in D&D).

Using this math, all existing creatures are cheaper than the formula, you have some idea how to cost a 'war elephant' or 'war mastiff', you can price Steeders and Giant Lizards for underdark campaigns and Giant Bats for Sharn mounts. The costs escalate significantly the more powerful the creature and the more modifiers you add, and cheaper if you want just a pet that does nothing. This is a lot better than my system. I suppose that solves the expanded mounts options.

Slight notes: waterbound mounts (ex: giant sea horse) probably shouldn't cost as exotic for prices, on the principle they're similarly not going to see use outside the ocean. My modification would also be 150% price for 5 or 6 limbs, climb speed, or swim speed and 200% for flight and over 6 limbs. Flight being a lot more useful. For the elephant, I'll keep my new price of 800 gp. It's still much cheaper than the equation gives ( that being 1200 gp).

For IRL elephants, they were used for three reasons:

The enemy lives in a place without elephants and is completely overrun with terror at what might as well be a lovecraftian horror under your control.
Horses are terrified of them and cavalry can be kept at bay with a well placed elephant.
They conferred status and soft power to the person fielding them in battle.


As far as I can tell only the third option was significant enough to result in elephantry being deployed after the classical era.

My last remark is for basilisks. I don't know what you're party did, but I like the idea of blinded basilisks that are "milked" to produce alchemical material to reverse petrification. "Milking" in this case being closer to the methods venomous creatures are.

[huginn]

I'm treating these as modifiers on the base price.

This is in the exact same manner you would apply wages, taxes, tariffs, war, natural disasters, weather, and inflation to the weapon prices, armor prices, tool prices, or general equipment prices. Often they are factored into those prices (tax and wages especially) but sometimes a GM might rule shortages have inflates the price or surpluses lowered it. This works exactly the same, just with a mount instead of the other stuff.

This is how its worked for every game system I've seen, so I'm not clear on what your point of contention is.

My point of contention is what modifiers should be used or how do you come up with the numbers? Over the past 40 years 99% of the DMs I played under almost always used the base price and everything worked just fine. I seen some make use of inflation but they did not change the base prices



I am not denying an individual factor of price is useful to know, but an individual factor doesn't give me the sum total of the factors. Something the book spends a lot of time not providing.

It's very difficult if not flat out impossible for the books to give the numbers you want. Arguably its very hard for historian to do that when studying medieval or ancient times as the factors change too much from year to year and area to area. What's true is one area isn't always true 50 miles away and they have to make assumptions. They can tell you an ox cost more then a horse in a certain area at a certain time but they can't always completely explain why



Also, you're google fu being better than mine doesn't help improve my google fu. Not that I'm confident your goodle fu is any good, given how much time you've spent complaining d&d 5e and virtually every other system have bad pricing systems, apparently without knowing how they handle them.

When did I complain about prices or anything else in 5th? Your the one who has some issue with the price of an elephant not me. If I was to complain about the price of an elephant I complain about 200 gold is too much



If we apply common sense to the book prices then anyone adventuring would make more money buyng and butchering oxen.

Using just the books just how much can I make? Where is the books does how much meat I can from an ok?

[JackPhoenix]

In Eberron -Rising from the Last War airships, rail systems mage breed animals and telepotation are brougth up as modes of transporation. That makes animals less usefull how much is that going to lower the price?

Not much. Airships are rare and very expensive, teleportation even more so. Lightning rail requires pre-determined routes, and all three are only available in big cities. Magebred animals are great, but still more expensive than normal beasts, and usually created for a specific purpose. All good options for PCs, but for a random Brelish farmer? Not so much.


The books that are free to access. All you have to do is google something to the effect of which tabletop rpg game has the best rules for running a business. Once you have the names its not hard to find the books online

You do realize you're suggesting piracy on a forum which strictly forbids such thing, right?

[Mjolnirbear]

This is a lot better than my system. I suppose that solves the expanded mounts options.

Slight notes: waterbound mounts (ex: giant sea horse) probably shouldn't cost as exotic for prices, on the principle they're similarly not going to see use outside the ocean. My modification would also be 150% price for 5 or 6 limbs, climb speed, or swim speed and 200% for flight and over 6 limbs. Flight being a lot more useful. For the elephant, I'll keep my new price of 800 gp. It's still much cheaper than the equation gives ( that being 1200 gp).

For IRL elephants, they were used for three reasons:

The enemy lives in a place without elephants and is completely overrun with terror at what might as well be a lovecraftian horror under your control.
Horses are terrified of them and cavalry can be kept at bay with a well placed elephant.
They conferred status and soft power to the person fielding them in battle.


As far as I can tell only the third option was significant enough to result in elephantry being deployed after the classical era.

My last remark is for basilisks. I don't know what you're party did, but I like the idea of blinded basilisks that are "milked" to produce alchemical material to reverse petrification. "Milking" in this case being closer to the methods venomous creatures are.

I wouldn't have "swim speed" be different than other exotic mounts, unless the base campaign was set in the ocean. Similarly with "climb speed", unless it was the Underdark where mounts with climb speeds are quite common. It's not ironclad though, and you can adjust it. If I'm honest, my thinking there was initially more 'needs a special saddle' than 'can easily bypass certain challenges' even if the second makes better reasoning, and lumping them together makes it easier than adding a laundry list of factors (because I'm prone to easily adopting rules then having to pare them down and simplify them later).

I've actually had 'milked basilisks' as part of a campaign; a medusa, who ran a 'semipermanent rest' service/inn, needed to reverse the petrification of one of her clients as the contract specified it was time to reconstitute them (and also the ingredients to cure his terminal illness, that a Jorasco house in Cyre had been working on right before the Mourning hit). The party gathered the relevant ingredients, the medusa mixed her reverse petrification potion, the Cyre general was cured, and Prince Oargev began looking across the Brelish borders at Darguun and Valenar now that he had the means to recreate a Cyran army (any Cyran generals with a clue about training, deployment and strategies had died).

[sandmote]

My point of contention is what modifiers should be used or how do you come up with the numbers? Over the past 40 years 99% of the DMs I played under almost always used the base price and everything worked just fine. I seen some make use of inflation but they did not change the base prices Your listing of a bunch of variables that influence price did not make this clear to me. My measure was for a generic area in which all the mounts' regional benefits (desert vs mountain vs open plains) are equivalent, differences in use by orc/elves/ect. is immaterial, and there's no emergency allowing scalping.

Yeah, I know it's difficult. That's why I'm writing it out on a public forum, to crowd source the most blatant impacts on cost. Theoretical, practical, game based, whatever.


When did I complain about prices or anything else in 5th? Are you not applying all your concerns about factors influencing prices to everything that can be bought?


Using just the books just how much can I make? Where is the books does how much meat I can from an ok? If an ox weighs 1000 pounds and 1/3 that weight is salable meat, you'd get 100 gp from a butchered ox. Which was 15 gp for you to buy.


You do realize you're suggesting piracy on a forum which strictly forbids such thing, right? I mean, I assumed they meant buying a scan. Its a bit hard to get a physical copy of four decade old books.


I wouldn't have "swim speed" be different than other exotic mounts, unless the base campaign was set in the ocean. Similarly with "climb speed", unless it was the Underdark where mounts with climb speeds are quite common. It's not ironclad though, and you can adjust it. If I'm honest, my thinking there was initially more 'needs a special saddle' than 'can easily bypass certain challenges' even if the second makes better reasoning, and lumping them together makes it easier than adding a laundry list of factors (because I'm prone to easily adopting rules then having to pare them down and simplify them later). Saddle type makes sense for practical pricing. My point was more to break the prices between "lets you get by an obstacle faster" and "lets you get by an obstacle at all."

At this point though I'm perfectly happy to go wild on this and see where I end up.


I've actually had 'milked basilisks' as part of a campaign; a medusa, who ran a 'semipermanent rest' service/inn, needed to reverse the petrification of one of her clients as the contract specified it was time to reconstitute them (and also the ingredients to cure his terminal illness, that a Jorasco house in Cyre had been working on right before the Mourning hit). The party gathered the relevant ingredients, the medusa mixed her reverse petrification potion, the Cyre general was cured, and Prince Oargev began looking across the Brelish borders at Darguun and Valenar now that he had the means to recreate a Cyran army (any Cyran generals with a clue about training, deployment and strategies had died). Ooh, that's clever.

[JackPhoenix]

If an ox weighs 1000 pounds and 1/3 that weight is salable meat, you'd get 100 gp from a butchered ox. Which was 15 gp for you to buy.

Ox's weight doesn't matter. You can produce finished goods worth double the cost of the material, which means you can get 30gp worth of meat from an ox. It would also take one butcher 6 days to process, and he should be paid 12 gp for work.

[Osuniev]

Roman roads had real problems when it came to carts and hooves. The flag stones were too hard and quickly broke down unshod hooves and cart wheels, to the point where dirt roads existed parallel to the stone roads for goods. Stone roads were fantastic on foot and for army movement, they were a bad investment for trade.


This has nothing to do with the costs of elephant, but I went walking most nights of April on a Via Romana (Roman road) in the forest next to where I was quarantined, and I just wanted to share my sense of wonder that this road which is almost two millenia old is still usable today.

I can see how it was not ideal for trade. But damn, it is quite an achievement.

[Tvtyrant]

This has nothing to do with the costs of elephant, but I went walking most nights of April on a Via Romana (Roman road) in the forest next to where I was quarantined, and I just wanted to share my sense of wonder that this road which is almost two millenia old is still usable today.

I can see how it was not ideal for trade. But damn, it is quite an achievement.

Absolutely. Roads are a monumental effort, and theirs were built to last.

On the subject of mount costs, I would probably just rank the base cost on CR and then have an upkeep cost. The common mounts should get a mount action and not be usable independently in combat; an elephant can trample on an attack move, for instance.

[huginn]

The DMG and PHB are a set of rules not a campaign setting. The campaign setting not the DMG and PHB dictate how the economy works and what the prices are. Using just the DMG and PHB the economy is going to work poorly if at all.

The players can be viewed as little more then criminals who don’t participate in the economy the same way as everyone else . The players do not get their money from some job, they get it by killing some orcs. The prices in the PHB are for the players not some npc. Players pay more for mundane items due to factors such as walking walking into town with bags of gold, being on the run and buying from the black market

[sandmote]

I'm a bit partial to the royal road of the first Persian empire, but those roman ones are far more impressive engineering.


Ox's weight doesn't matter. You can produce finished goods worth double the cost of the material, which means you can get 30gp worth of meat from an ox. It would also take one butcher 6 days to process, and he should be paid 12 gp for work. This is technically correct. The best kind of correct.


The DMG and PHB are a set of rules not a campaign setting. The campaign setting not the DMG and PHB dictate how the economy works and what the prices are. Using just the DMG and PHB the economy is going to work poorly if at all. But that set of rules is where most camping settings get their rules from, because they have the additional constraint that players need to be able to sit down at the table and determine how much gold something is worth. So the rules necessary need to be discussed to determine how to make the way the economy works less pathetic.


The players can be viewed as little more then criminals who don’t participate in the economy the same way as everyone else . The players do not get their money from some job, they get it by killing some orcs. The prices in the PHB are for the players not some npc. Players pay more for mundane items due to factors such as walking walking into town with bags of gold, being on the run and buying from the black market This is a nice headcannon, but as soon as the PCs are recruiting allies its going to fall apart. The book prices are so the DM doesn't actually need to figure out these sort of prices as a general trend, as well as a starting point to figure out prices if, for instance, the setting changes the usefulness or availability of certain goods.

But when the party gets noble titles and is hiring guards, I don't see the prices for their equipment changing in any way.

To format it as a nested heirarchy:


System Rules


Setting 1's Rules




Area 1's Rules




Area 2's Rules



Setting 2's Rules




Area 1's Rules




Area 2's Rules


Price rules in a given area are modifications of the setting rules, and setting rules are modifications of the system rules, because the players are going to use the system rules to understand them, and they're going to use the system rules for understanding a setting. "A lack of ironworking means metal equipment costs twice as much and scimitars are the only available swords," doesn't mean much if you don't have an idea of how much metal equipment 'typically' costs. Some for any other modification. Including mount costs.

[huginn]

But that set of rules is where most camping settings get their rules from, because they have the additional constraint that players need to be able to sit down at the table and determine how much gold something is worth. So the rules necessary need to be discussed to determine how to make the way the economy works less pathetic.

You can ignore at least 99.99% of the rules set when creating a camping setting so no the rules are not necessary have to be talked about. A sign of a good setting is that it is largely independent of game mechanics. You can go into a fair amount of detail about the economy with out saying what the price of a mount is. You do not need any rule from any book to decide what tax system is being used or inflation or population density or how many bushels of wheat some area produces. Deciding what the price is something that can be done last



This is a nice headcannon, but as soon as the PCs are recruiting allies its going to fall apart. The book prices are so the DM doesn't actually need to figure out these sort of prices as a general trend, as well as a starting point to figure out prices if, for instance, the setting changes the usefulness or availability of certain goods.

But when the party gets noble titles and is hiring guards, I don't see the prices for their equipment changing in any way.

It does not fall apart criminals can and will get allies and getting a noble title doesn't necessary stop a criminal from being a criminal, if anything it might make it easier to be one. I can have all the allies and noble titles I could possible and still go somewhere and murder a group of people just so I can steal their stuff
The prices in the PHB has nothing to do with a trend. The prices in the rules are static and based entirely on the perceived usefulness to the players. You need the prices in the book for organized play, when I make a character for AL I don't need to ask the DM what the price for a horse is.

I played in a lot of groups at a comic book store and it does not matter what group I join or what level my character is an elephant is going to cost 200 gold. When I am 1st level that elephant is 200 gold and when I make to level 20 that elephant is still 200 gold

[jk7275]

I think the books are underpricing, which has kind of been my argument on the elephants and oxen?

You seem to be ignoring wages and lifestyle expenses. Using the numbers in the players handbook for wages and lifestyle expenses 15 gold for an ox might too high, too low or just right

[sandmote]

I played in a lot of groups at a comic book store and it does not matter what group I join or what level my character is an elephant is going to cost 200 gold. When I am 1st level that elephant is 200 gold and when I make to level 20 that elephant is still 200 gold Then the point of raising a bunch of variables like variable taxes and emergency pricing was what? You know, if your own experience is that they never come up?

Moreover, the setting does need to fit with the information that relates to the party's characters. For instance, you need to be able to describe the basic lore of the race (with whatever fluff) a player picks. Or to explain that a particular race doesn't exist in your setting beforehand. The same principles apply to mounts.


You seem to be ignoring wages and lifestyle expenses. Using the numbers in the players handbook for wages and lifestyle expenses 15 gold for an ox might too high, too low or just right Yes, because I'm picking together a system that was assigned very freely, without spending much time weighing the prices against each other. However, given that large animals were fairly valuable in the middle ages, I'm okay with the price being much higher. A farmer living a modest lifestyle (as defined in the book) isn't likely to be able to buy a bunch of oxen each year, which matches 100 gp better than 15 gp, certainly.

[huginn]

Yes, because I'm picking together a system that was assigned very freely, without spending much time weighing the prices against each other. However, given that large animals were fairly valuable in the middle ages, I'm okay with the price being much higher. A farmer living a modest lifestyle (as defined in the book) isn't likely to be able to buy a bunch of oxen each year, which matches 100 gp better than 15 gp, certainly.

Animals were smaller in the middle ages. Ox and horse in today's age are the product of hundreds of years of selective breeding Just how valuable depends on year and area. Depending on how much an ox weigh in your setting 15 gold might be too high, ox went from weighing less then 600 pounds to over 1500 pounds over the past several hundred years

One thing that can support the idea that ox and horses in 5e are not as big as modern day ones is the Create Food And Water spell. It can feed 5 steeds which makes more sense if the steeds are not as big as modern ones