Help with Pricing a Player's Sea Adventure Wish List

[Pefgis]

In the upcoming session I'm dming, my players have elected to have their characters go on a prolonged sea voyage in search of treasure and adventure. I have given them to chance to stock up on supplies for their recently acquired ship in a town well stocked with the standard player's handbook equipment, and reasonably equivalent mundane items. One player is incredibly eager and excited, and drafted the following wish list....

Fat wood (pine)
/ 10 lengths of lumber at eight feet, by half a foot by one inch /
4 sets of 50' rope /
barrel of tar pitch /
metal cauldron /
metal tub /
large
bathtub (wooden/circular 6') /
six 2 gallon buckets /
two extra sheets of sail cloth /
4 20' poles /
carpenters tools /
2 grappling hooks /
2 barrels pickled herring /
two barrels wheat /
firewood /
3 ten foot fishing nets /
box of nails / parlay flag /
country colors flag /
"kiss my butt, you are about to die" flag

I want to reward his enthusiasm and creativity, and none of these things seem unreasonable or uncommon, but man, that's a thorough, specific, and lengthy list, with items not priced in the handbook. Does anyone have any idea what all of this would cost? I lost track after the rope, buckets, and carpentry kit. It doesn't have to be exact to the copper, just a reasonable estimate we can start from. Thanks!

[Kemev]

Is there some explicit reason that you need to price this all out?

Just give it to him.

It's pretty easy to handwave this stuff away with a nice bit of fluff, ie, "The players are setting out from a well-stocked sea town. A local merchant has agreed to supply them on credit, to be repaid in a share of the profits from the voyage."

Generally it doesn't make sense to give one player a lot of free goodies, but it's not like this shopping list is conferring some crazy advantage (and if Mr. Well Prepared manages to swing an encounter with his pickled herring, good on 'em. Inspiration ahoy). The guy's excited about a story hook. Great! Let him enjoy it.

[Pefgis]

Honestly, I share the sentiment to hand wave the prices for things like this, but we have already established a precedent in earlier sessions of buying supplies, and he is the type of player who definitely wouldn't want special exceptions, I suspect he is even looking forward to the dynamics and roleplaying elements of being broke for a bit after this purchase. Once the campaign gets farther along, purchases of this sort will probably be waived or glossed over organically, but for now, everyone is all in on buying these things. I just need a ballpark fair price, and I'd rather hammer out and spitball the value here in this think tank environment then improvise a price in game on the fly that, while the party would accept, might be rushed and ill informed enough to be unfair. My gut says it is at the 100-150 gold range.

[moonfly7]

I'd suggest pricing the pitch barrel as oil, so however much oil in a barrel is the pitch price equivalent.
For the buckets use the bucket price from the PHB
make the pickled herring barrel, like, 50 gp

[Yakk]

I'd break it down by function.

Barrels of Food (person-days).
Ship repair supplies (specifics, HP total).
Fishing tools.
etc.

Assign gp value and mechanical effects. Include detailed inventory (because they can be dual used).

Now you just have to work out the rough mechanics, thrn remap back to prices for sanity check.

Next, let the player see your concusions; if he thinks that the mechanics you hung in the gear isn't enough, let them up the gp and the mechanics both.

Concrete example:
Your ship might have 100 HP per section (and 5 sections), and you might have bought 50 HP in repair supplies (repair supplues cost 1/2 of the HP share value of the ship, so 5% of ship price).

[Bobthewizard]

One player is incredibly eager and excited, and drafted the following wish list....



What, no beer (https://www.amazon.com/Beer-Saved-World-Discovery-Communications/dp/B007RIO5PE)? No limes? They're all going to die.


My gut says it is at the 100-150 gold range.

I'd go with 5gp less than whatever he has.

[Pefgis]

Thanks ,everyone. To be fair, another party member has an alchemy jug, so at least beer is covered. I think in game we will figure it out. It looks like the actual value seems less important than the value of feeling accomplished by being prepared.

[Ninja_Prawn]

The people saying not to bother pricing it all up are probably right, and there are plenty of essential supplies missing from this list. However, I love this kind of pointless exercise, so I'm gonna put my QS hat on and try to count the coppers...



Qty
Description
Price


1no
Spare mast
12.95gp (based on Annual Report of the Commissioner of Navigation to the Secretary of Commerce, 1885, which notes a pine mast can cost £20, then going to the Bank of England inflation calculator to equate that to £2,589.32 in modern prices, then approximating £200=1gp)


10no
Planks of wood, 96x6x1"
3.33gp (approximating 1gp per cuft of sawn oak, which is one I've used in games before, can't remember exactly how I came to it)


200'
Hempen rope
4gp (PHB)


5no
Barrels
10gp (PHB)


40gal
Tar pitch
99cp (Elizabethan Naval Administration notes a price of 8s per barrel in 1566, then as per the calculation for the mast)


1no
Metal cauldron
16gp (basically a big iron pot, which is 2gp in the PHB, so I multiplied it by 8)


1no
Metal tub
4sp (basically a big bucket (5cp), again multiplied by 8)


1no
Wooden tub
1sp (a quarter of the price of the metal one sounds fair to me)


6no
2gal buckets
3sp (PHB)


2no
Sheets of sail cloth
2,777.78gp (using the PHB price for linen, since that was the traditional material for sailcloth. I cannot find any information on sizes for sails, so I'm gonna go big and say they're 2,500sqft each)


4no
20' poles
4sp (double the cost of 10' poles)


1no
Set of carpenters tools
8gp (PHB)


2no
Grappling hooks
4gp (PHB)


8cuft
Wheat
3.95gp (PHB; assuming density of wheat is 790 kg/m3)


8cuft
Pickled herring
23.8gp (assuming density of herring is 930 kg/m3, converting current market price of $2.83/kg to cp at $250=1gp, then multiplying by 10 to account for inefficiency of pre-industrial fishing)


?
Firewood
?


3no
Fishing nets
3gp (based on the cost of the net weapon in the PHB)


1no
Box of nails
2sp (1lb of iron is 1sp in the PHB, then I just doubled it to account for the work of turning the iron into nails)


3no
Assorted flags
26.67gp (based on a standard 800sqft battle ensign made out of canvas at PHB prices)



Total cost: 2,895.87gp, most of which is cloth. I'm not sure if that's right at all, but maybe the lesson is: you need to mend damaged sails rather than replace them, using as little fabric as possible. Or get a magical sail that will never get torn (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/190097730762/a-most-wondrous-invention-how-many-sailors-would).

[Pefgis]

Oh man! That is pretty awesome. I may have a merchant suggest this as the total before negotiations start, or a second merchant comes in with a better offer. Maybe it will be coupon day for sail cloth. Thanks!

[Joe the Rat]

The people saying not to bother pricing it all up are probably right, and there are plenty of essential supplies missing from this list. However, I love this kind of pointless exercise, so I'm gonna put my QS hat on and try to count the coppers...

[snip]

...and privateered. This is an excellent workthrough.

My gang is working from a x rations / y repairs budget, but I can see them wanting numbers for some "typical" goods.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Oh, I just realised I could have modelled the pickled herring as PHB 'rations' and costed it at 25cp/lb. That gives a price of 116gp for the 8 cubic feet of herring.

The real question is, can a sailor live on 2lb of pickled herring a day? :smalltongue:

[Snownine]

The people saying not to bother pricing it all up are probably right, and there are plenty of essential supplies missing from this list. However, I love this kind of pointless exercise, so I'm gonna put my QS hat on and try to count the coppers...



Qty
Description
Price


1no
Spare mast
12.95gp (based on Annual Report of the Commissioner of Navigation to the Secretary of Commerce, 1885, which notes a pine mast can cost £20, then going to the Bank of England inflation calculator to equate that to £2,589.32 in modern prices, then approximating £200=1gp)


10no
Planks of wood, 96x6x1"
3.33gp (approximating 1gp per cuft of sawn oak, which is one I've used in games before, can't remember exactly how I came to it)


200'
Hempen rope
4gp (PHB)


5no
Barrels
10gp (PHB)


40gal
Tar pitch
99cp (Elizabethan Naval Administration notes a price of 8s per barrel in 1566, then as per the calculation for the mast)


1no
Metal cauldron
16gp (basically a big iron pot, which is 2gp in the PHB, so I multiplied it by 8)


1no
Metal tub
4sp (basically a big bucket (5cp), again multiplied by 8)


1no
Wooden tub
1sp (a quarter of the price of the metal one sounds fair to me)


6no
2gal buckets
3sp (PHB)


2no
Sheets of sail cloth
2,777.78gp (using the PHB price for linen, since that was the traditional material for sailcloth. I cannot find any information on sizes for sails, so I'm gonna go big and say they're 2,500sqft each)


4no
20' poles
4sp (double the cost of 10' poles)


1no
Set of carpenters tools
8gp (PHB)


2no
Grappling hooks
4gp (PHB)


8cuft
Wheat
3.95gp (PHB; assuming density of wheat is 790 kg/m3)


8cuft
Pickled herring
23.8gp (assuming density of herring is 930 kg/m3, converting current market price of $2.83/kg to cp at $250=1gp, then multiplying by 10 to account for inefficiency of pre-industrial fishing)


?
Firewood
?


3no
Fishing nets
3gp (based on the cost of the net weapon in the PHB)


1no
Box of nails
2sp (1lb of iron is 1sp in the PHB, then I just doubled it to account for the work of turning the iron into nails)


3no
Assorted flags
26.67gp (based on a standard 800sqft battle ensign made out of canvas at PHB prices)



Total cost: 2,895.87gp, most of which is cloth. I'm not sure if that's right at all, but maybe the lesson is: you need to mend damaged sails rather than replace them, using as little fabric as possible. Or get a magical sail that will never get torn (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/190097730762/a-most-wondrous-invention-how-many-sailors-would).

Wow, that is amazing work. That came out to a lot more than I expected. Although is us mostly all that sail cloth. I definitely agree with what some people have said, it might be good to throw in some limes to help supplement that wheat and fish.