Stop Counting Coins: Commerce Level System

[Drache64]

I started playing a new system called Cogent. In this system you don't count coins, your character gets a commerce level.

In my feudal setting this is represented by the wealth and notoriety of your family name. Your character carries a few small coins for pocket change, but for larger purchases they have a signet ring with family crest.

What's also fun. Is that one of my players, a pilgrim character served in the military of a very bad tyrant. His crest bears a mark for that tyrant so spending money is now a potential role play event.

[gijoemike]

I have played in a few systems that hand wave away a number of routine or mundane purchases and coin exchange. You only need to deal with wealth when one buys something large and impressive. I haven't had the opportunity to play in the system you mentioned.

[Mobius Twist]

Check out the Wealth DC system in D20 modern. You have a "wealth" level determined by your background profession and earnings from jobs. Then, you make purchases based on whether or not the expense rating exceeds your wealth as a DC 15. If it doesn't, you can make that purchase with no significant impact to your wealth. If it exceeds it, you make a check and decrease the wealth.

The convoluted problems come up when certain things HAVE to be more expensive than DC 15 so the game doesn't break, like guns, cars, and computers, but it's a good starting point for a homebrew system to come in.

[Dominion]

There's a couple of games with similar systems who, at a certain level of "wealth", reduce an item category's cost to 0.

Additionally you need "reputation" to unlock certain item categories.

It's interesting to say the least, but I haven't implemented it in my games yet because it can be a whole lot of work.

As a player I'd be really happy to have it though.

[AceOfFools]

I think DnD and Pathfinder are the only systems I’ve ever played where there was any expectation that you count every coin.

Some (eg Exalted, d20 modern) have mechanics where items have costs on an exponential scale, and characters who have sufficient wealth don't need to worry about small ticket items.

Others (eg Fate) just make wealth a skill you can roll or improve like any other, which does make rags-to-riches stories kinda outside the scope of the system.

Others (eg Swords in the Dark) ignore small purchases, but do keep track of an abstract, larger scale purchases.

Others (most PBTA games) don’t have mechanics for buying and selling gear. The whole thing is handwaved, and as long as everyone is willing to play the game as intended, instead of getting all rules-lawyer-y, it works fine.

I’ve seen some that use a creative health systems, where damage isn’t modeled using HP, that have a “money” stress track that can accumulate consequences just like physical stress can accumulate until you take a broken limb, etc.

I’ve enjoyed each and every one of them more than tracking each copper piece through a spreadsheet. Even the poorly implemented ones that didn’t make sense didn’t make playing the game feel like doing taxes.

[Lacco]

There are multiple systems that use the "commerce level" or "wealth as attribute" system.

Some of my favourites use the d10/d12 dice pool versus target number (set usually as the difficulty to obtain/price of the commodity). Most of the time when the player tries to buy something that looks like a "small purchase" (e.g. your wealth attribute is "rich", you are trying to pay for a inn and dinner), you automatically succeed.

It speeds play up and makes it easier to remember. Also, in one game there is a rule about player characters being bad with money unless they get a specific skill - and you can get few traits that make you spend money extremely fast.

On the other hand, my longest-running game had coin-counting. A lot of it. And complicated - I was rather evil, so I added different types of coin. Silver was standard for trading, coppers were peasant-coins, gold was something you almost never saw.

But you had the Farrenhold silver sterlings, Gelurean silver stallions (not so valuable due to the war between the countries, but valuable in border areas), Cormanthir silver sterling (a bit smaller than the Farrenhold one; each one was not so valuable in the other country), Stahlish silver grosch (hardest currency) and a smattering of other currencies. You also got treasure in form of piles of copper and silver coins (oxidized, tarnished, etc.) which were valued only for the material, so most taverns did not even consider taking them...

...and if you ever pulled a gold coin in the inn, they asked you if you wanted to rent a room for 3 months or so, including food.

My players' pouches usually had around 5 gold in total in them, most of it in silver, few gold coins included. But I made them spend it all of the time: baths cost money (one of the players took the "Compulsion: Cleanliness" flaw, so her character got penalties if they ever were dirty), clothes rip, tear, armor needs repairs, weapons take sharpening and replacement blades, horses get wounded... and they liked picking taverns and having lavish dinners.

So "coin counting" was avoided through players being good spenders :smallbiggrin:

[Cluedrew]

Others (eg Fate) just make wealth a skill you can roll or improve like any other, which does make rags-to-riches stories kinda outside the scope of the system.You could still do it by starting low and waiting the right thematic times that represent better income to improve the skill. Sure a bit of player side bridging going on but there is always some of that.

Only examples I can think of right now (that have not already been covered) are some particular Powered by the Apocalypse systems. Mostly they make you jump through hoops on a success with consequences and I have seen some were money is between a skill and a resource. You roll it and "by default" it doesn't change but it also can chance more than a core skill.

[King of Nowhere]

the whole business of making wealth check and assigning wealth level should be designed to handle cash with simplicity, but it looks actually more convoluted than just counting coint.

at my table we handwave all expences small enough to be insignificant, which, after the first few levels, means basically anything nonmagical. we also handwave all small loot and sources of revenue, again, basically anything nonmagical.
this makes things simple enough

[MoiMagnus]

I've played few homebrew games (and GM few others) that had and "Influence" ability score, which includes everything from money to connections. Well, more precisely, the capacity to obtain and maintain your wealth and connections.

If you have a low Influence, it's not that you cannot gain money, it's just that you will burn all your money at the casino (or other luxury) almost as soon as you get it.

If you have a high Influence, it's not that you constantly have money on you, it's just that if you need an item, you will be able to get it (buying it, borrowing it, exchanging a favour for it, etc), maybe after some Influence skill check, and possibly taking temporary "damage" to your Influence score.

IME, it works very well at tables that were already used to not count the number of arrows/provisions/etc.
You also need a table which is able to be invested in the narrative of the game, as since you sacrificed the easy "gold reward", you will need to rely on more subtle ways to maintain the motivation and engagement of your players.

Campaign-wise, it works best when the PCs are playing characters that are already active members of the society (with connections, maybe official positions, etc), rather than zero-to-hero.

[Beleriphon]

I think DnD and Pathfinder are the only systems I’ve ever played where there was any expectation that you count every coin.

GURPS, but it also has options to play Brokers and Bankers if you really want to keep track of not just your own wealth, but how that hedge fund you started affects your wealth down to the penny.


Some (eg Exalted, d20 modern) have mechanics where items have costs on an exponential scale, and characters who have sufficient wealth don't need to worry about small ticket items.

D20 Modern takes into account credit lines, loans, and general income. It works, but has a bunch of weird edge cases. Which actually mimic certain types of short selling on the stock market. So the brokeness of the D20 system mimics the real brokeness of the financial system of the real world unintentionally.


I’ve enjoyed each and every one of them more than tracking each copper piece through a spreadsheet. Even the poorly implemented ones that didn’t make sense didn’t make playing the game feel like doing taxes.

If we keep in mind that originally XP was GP in D&D way back when. The point was to extract as much loot as possible from the dungeon, the more you extracted the more powerful the character got.

[False God]

"Commerce Levels" as you describe them always exist in my games, they're just called "reputation". Players always have the opportunity to earn it by either allying themselves with factions or developing their own name.

My experience is very much that players want to have reputation and want to be able to get things easier/cheaper/faster because "I'm Bob, yeah, that Bob." but are rarely willing to put in the work for actually earn it.

[oxybe]

I think it depends on what the role of currency in the game is.

In a game like D&D 3.5 or 4 where currency is traded for in-game power, having a tally of it is largely necessary, You can spend X money and get Y boon/weapon/whatever and add it's power to your character. Going increasing your +1 weapon to +2 weapon or getting that belt of giant strength upgraded to +4 from +2 was all done using cash. your rewards gained from adventuring fed into the game loop of : adventure > money/loot > upgrade stuff > harder adventure.

It's just that once your counting your money by the tens of thousands of gold coin, the everyday coppers and silvers lose all meaning and eventually get handwaved away. On the flipside, because you have a set X amount of money, anything spent outside of upgrades is usually done to the detriment of overall power (not saying this is good or bad, it just is. if you like spending some money on financing an inn in the town of Bumblesburgh as your personal getaway, all the power to you if that makes you happy and having fun!).

money is used to customize and power your character, so having a set value you can track is IMO a good thing.

on the flipside if money is more of a narrative convenience rather then something you can can use for tangible power benefits, i do find a lifestyle/wealth/whatever stat makes more sense. in this sense your ability to bribe, or fail to get enough funds to do so, the local authorities to turn a blind eye to the party's more... dirty... deeds is akin to another skill, like athletics, stealth or greater understanding of magic. in these situations character power, either from abilities and/or gear, require another resource to improve then just the ability to flash large burlap sacks of coin with $ on them. so cash matters less in the overall scheme of the game, but like any skill or ability, it doesn't hurt to have some on hand, which is what the skill represents: your ability to draw onto your various assets for cash.

[MoiMagnus]

money is used to customize and power your character, so having a set value you can track is IMO a good thing.


Systems that do not track money usually take all the "customisation from buying items" and merge it with the remaining of the character creation part. Getting a new powerful magical item from a quest is the same as getting an extra feat/power from the quest (and the same as selling you magical item you got and use the money to train yourself).

Taking 4e as an example, since magical items (bought or looted) are pretty much granted at a fixed rate as per the rules, you could just consider them as class features relying on XP rather than a separate system.

Tracking money is relevant when you want the players to make a trade-off between using money for raw mechanical power and using money for more RP purposes (like stacking money for your pension, or burning all of it at the casino). If you only expect the players to do one of the two, or want the players to do the two at a fixed proportion (so not player agency on this trade-off), then tracking money is much less useful and the debate on whether one should track money is pretty much the same as whether one should track food or arrows.

[Mendicant]

The problem I've run into when trying to implement abstract systems is that a lot of the time, people want to know, particularly in any game (like D&D) where looting a treasure hoard is a core part of the appeal. Later, they might not feel like tallying their silver pieces, but in the moment there is genuine fun that comes out of inventorying the gems and gold idols and figuring out their "real" value that "you all get +1 coin" doesn't quite match.

[MoiMagnus]

The problem I've run into when trying to implement abstract systems is that a lot of the time, people want to know, particularly in any game (like D&D) where looting a treasure hoard is a core part of the appeal. Later, they might not feel like tallying their silver pieces, but in the moment there is genuine fun that comes out of inventorying the gems and gold idols and figuring out their "real" value that "you all get +1 coin" doesn't quite match.

Note that "Commerce Level" and "counting gold" are not totally contradictory.
You can consider gold from looting as a "commerce XP", and every each amount of gold earned from quests you get a new "commerce Level".
[But I will agree that this compromise is not very intuitive]

There is two discussions in parallel:
(1) "Should we track gold expanses?" which is very similar to "Should we try arrows?" or "Should we track food?"
(2) "Should we track gold earnings?" which is very similar to "Should we track XP points?"

[Yora]

In my last D&D campaign, I tried a system of using bags of coins instead of individual coins. It was basically making 25gp and 250gp the only two denominations, instead of 0.1gp and 1gp.
You still have to count, but the numbers you're juggling are much smaller.

You can still have other valuable objects whose value is equal to either 1 bag of silver or one bag of gold.
Objects with values below 10 gp were simply free, unless somehow players wanted to buy large bulk amounts of them.

I think it worked quite fine, but eventually we came to a point in the story where there just weren't any stores to spend the money, so we stopped bothering with it completely.

[Theodoxus]

I think it worked quite fine, but eventually we came to a point in the story where there just weren't any stores to spend the money, so we stopped bothering with it completely.

This has been my experience as well. To the point where I'm seriously considering using a 'wealth' attribute. I particularly like the one in the Modern system, at least on paper (haven't had a chance to actually try out any more of my wacky thoughts). Basically like MoiMagnus stated:

* Automatic Success: If your current Resources score, plus 4, is equal to or greater than an item’s cost, you don’t need to make a Resources roll; you automatically succeed. The cost of the item is negligible for you. If you have Resources +5, for example, you can purchase items with a routine or easy cost (cost DC is 7–9) without a roll. The GM may set reasonable limits on this, as it’s not meant to represent the ability to buy an infinite number of low-cost items.

* Resource Depletion: If you successfully purchase something with a cost greater than your current Resources score, plus 10, your Resources score decreases by 1, representing a significant depletion of your available Resources. Your Resources score decreases only if you successfully purchase something. If you attempt a Resources roll and fail, your Resources score is unaffected.

* Purchasing and Time: Purchasing items with a cost of 13 or higher may take additional time, as the DM sees fit, for you to locate the item(s) and arrange the deal.

* Try Again?: You can try again if you fail a Resources roll, but not until you have spent an additional number of hours equal to the cost of the item “shopping around” and looking for other options and venues.

* Material Support: One character can help another buy something, so long as the assisting character’s Resources score is equal to or greater than that of the purchasing character. In this case, you provide the other person with a +2 bonus on the Resources roll to buy that item. If the item’s cost is above your current Resources score +10, you also deplete your Resources to reflect the financial assistance you’ve given.

* Gaining Resources: The DM may grant a Resources award at the end of an adventure where the characters acquired wealth. This is generally a +1 increase in Resources, although the DM may award a +2 increase in cases where the characters acquired a significant windfall. (You can also sell items but it's basically DM fiat as to what you get for them.)

The DCs typically are in the 6-10 range for stuff you can find at Wal-mart. More esoteric items can go up to 20, and generally require a contact.

For a fantasy based game, I'd probably go off of gold piece value of the items in question. Probably start with a DC of 5 and add 1 per 100 GP, so Plate would be a DC 20 roll. By 5th level, a character should have a Wealth/Resources/Gold Card of at least 10, so you're looking at a 50/50 on a straight roll, with a wealth hit if you succeed. Seems legit. Even a 1st level character <could> have a chance of procuring some decent armor, but they'd be out of resources (or the whole gang, if everyone were to contribute to raise the chance) for a level. That could be a fun starter quest in and of itself.

I'd also probably rule that each +1 of an item bought would increase the DC by 1. So you could get your quiver of arrows (DC 5) for free with a Wealth score of 1 or better, but a second quiver bought say, the same day, would increase the DC by 1. It makes it a little more rules-heavy, but adds a bit of reality to the chances of finding 100 quivers available in a fletcher shoppe...

(Going that route, I'd also rule that the DC reverts to normal for every day above DC 5 the item is). For example, if you're buying a breastplate (400 GP, or DC 9), once you successfully bought one, the next breastplate would be DC 10, until 4 days passed, when it reverted back to DC 9. This would be per character though, so two guys looking to buy armor aren't [necessarily] competing with each other, provided there's an in-game reason an armorsmith would have two breastplates.)

[Morty]

As people have said, there are many systems that use abstracted wealth rules in some measure. Sometimes it can go very wrong, like with Dark Heresy 2E's acquisition rolls - turns out making buying items random in an infamously swingy system doesn't work out so well. But I see little to no purpose in counting every unit of currency the players acquire.

[Segev]

The problem I've run into when trying to implement abstract systems is that a lot of the time, people want to know, particularly in any game (like D&D) where looting a treasure hoard is a core part of the appeal. Later, they might not feel like tallying their silver pieces, but in the moment there is genuine fun that comes out of inventorying the gems and gold idols and figuring out their "real" value that "you all get +1 coin" doesn't quite match.This is one of the biggest reasons why I wouldn't want to move to an abstraction system for D&D. In fact, I think D&D, as a system, could benefit from refocusing a little bit more on the "accounting" side of the game. It would make the exploration pillar better supported if they really dug into that and tried to make there be a game based around your equipment, carry capacities, and ability to spend loot to make yourself better.

There's probably a lengthy treatis I could write out about how D&D would benefit from more consumables that may not necessarily be magical but which give bonuses to various adventuring activities, so that tracking them is more of interest due to the decision to expend them being useful.


Note that "Commerce Level" and "counting gold" are not totally contradictory.
You can consider gold from looting as a "commerce XP", and every each amount of gold earned from quests you get a new "commerce Level".
[But I will agree that this compromise is not very intuitive]

There is two discussions in parallel:
(1) "Should we track gold expanses?" which is very similar to "Should we try arrows?" or "Should we track food?"
(2) "Should we track gold earnings?" which is very similar to "Should we track XP points?"

The trouble with "gold as commerce level XP" is that you run into the question of when spending "commerce XP" in such a fashion that it lowers your "commerce level" is acceptable.

This isn't insurmountable: White Wolf games in general - as has been alluded to - use the Resources background, and if you have a Resources rating as a character that is greater than the Resources rating of a given purchase, you're assumed to have so much money that you can afford to make that purchase without affecting your overall wealth. (GMs are encouraged to watch that for abuse, but not to be overly concerned about it as long as they're not making tons of purchases just below their rating in short periods of time to try to work around this system.) Players CAN purchase things that match their Resources rating in Resources value, but doing so represents a major hit to their wealth, and they actually lose a rank of Resources in so doing. (Some of the games suggest this should recover over the next few months, while others suggest this is a permanent hit that requires buying back up your Resources.)

It is more complexity, though.

"Commerce level" and Resources and the like also don't make quite so much sense with "loot as commerce xp" unless you have a strong investment economy: if you're taking your gold hoard and putting it in a vault, how does your commerce level stay the same after you make umpteen purchases with it? White Wolf and d20 Modern assume that your wealth is representing an income stream. This is why you can make a number of purchases near your cap in a short period, and making your biggest possible purchase can potentially recover if you leave things be. D&D doesn't support that quite so well.

In short, for "typical" D&D games, where the presumption is that you're explorer adventurers scoring big piles of loot, I think the actual tracking of gp is the best idea.

[Lacco]

This is one of the biggest reasons why I wouldn't want to move to an abstraction system for D&D. In fact, I think D&D, as a system, could benefit from refocusing a little bit more on the "accounting" side of the game. It would make the exploration pillar better supported if they really dug into that and tried to make there be a game based around your equipment, carry capacities, and ability to spend loot to make yourself better.

There's probably a lengthy treatis I could write out about how D&D would benefit from more consumables that may not necessarily be magical but which give bonuses to various adventuring activities, so that tracking them is more of interest due to the decision to expend them being useful.

One example of this would be Torchbearer. It has a semi-abstract (dice-based) system for treasure, separated from its connection & resource stats.

However, it makes a big deal of the carry capacities due to slot-based system. It really works on impressing the kind of player that likes to feel smart for picking the right equipment and makes you spend your consumables as you soon run out of space to put the potential loot if you hold on to everything.

I was getting ready to run it with my RL group but you know. It was 2020.


In short, for "typical" D&D games, where the presumption is that you're explorer adventurers scoring big piles of loot, I think the actual tracking of gp is the best idea.

I can only agree.

On the other hand, there is one view that keeps me invested in the whole "abstract wealth/coin attribute" idea: let's assume average people - peasants, farmers - in medieval ages did not concern themselves with coins much. If we assume - maybe even wrongly - that many of them worked purely on the barter trade, and paid their taxes in kind, we can then also easily assume the following: the price list is a lie.

So while I love looking through price lists ever since I laid my eyes on first RPG (that included a long list of sharp implements you could buy), the average farmer will look at coins and will not see them as we see our money currently (relatively stable/you know what you can afford for that).

That said, if those coins are actually pieces of silver that have no denomination, only weight, with each king just putting their own face on them (from every country, not only the one we are present in), a good trader then is someone who can estimate what the coin is actually worth. Like: what does a pouch of silver (let's assume 20 pieces) buy? Does it buy the same when you are talking to the farmer as opposed to a famous blacksmith in a city?

Also, does your character have the Trader skill? If not, I'd just use the abstract wealth/coin attribute. Because you definitely do not count your coins and keep a ledger, you count your spells & keep a spellbook - and that's fine, but while we can check what costs what on the 'net, the adventurer has only his experience and knowledge to fend off the potential scammers. I think Rich correctly summed it up with one of his strips (yes, the one with adventurers arriving into the town).

If we were discussing homebrew/strange systems, I'd like to see one where a Trader will be able to keep exact amounts and the Adventurer will be glad they have several pouches to spend in the next town - and will roll to see how fast they run out of money. Or one, where the skill with coin, negotiation and bargaining can be useful when you finally bring that dragon's hoard to the city. But I play wildly strange games. D&D is not one of them - and I agree: D&D is not/should not be about these kinds of things.

[Pauly]

It depends a lot on the system.

In a system which is based on inventory management (DnD) where you have potions of this, belts for that, swords of acid or fire or ice or poison etc., you need a lot of granularity in your commerce system. Items have differing effects and therefore differing values, so coin counting is required.

In a system where which has a medium level of specificity (eg star Wars) where blaster A is better then blaster B, and both are different to Ion gun C, but you don’t have to worry about ammo types, potions of specific purpose etc. then a more generalized wealth system works. You only really need to count credits in big enough chunks to make significant purchases. The make a roll to see if you can buy it systems work well here.

If you are playing a simplified level of equipment (it’s a sword, it’s a magical sword, it’s a legendary sword or all pistols are light pistols or heavy pistols kind of categories) then a very abstract you can afford or you can’t system works.

[Lacco]

It depends a lot on the system.

In a system which is based on inventory management (DnD) where you have potions of this, belts for that, swords of acid or fire or ice or poison etc., you need a lot of granularity in your commerce system. Items have differing effects and therefore differing values, so coin counting is required.

I'd suggest looking at it in completely different way: trading & shopping.

If you have a Star Wars-like system (Traveller is a great example) with planetary comms (even interplanetary), you can basically order anything, you have banks, automated paying systems - there you can really track your money and order the blaster A or blaster B. Because even if the shop you see has no blaster B, you can spend some time with R2D2 plugged into local web, finding guys that sell blasters all across the planet.

In semi-medieval setting? You come to a shop. There are three swords - iron sword, sword of acid and sword of fire. Why do you need a lot of granularity when just going through all shops in a large city (Waterdeep) just to make a list of weapons and prices would take you few weeks? And why do you need it when the list of prices is more like a guideline (I remember a statement that prices in actual game can change)?

So you have the three sword shop, where iron sword costs 100gp. Sword of acid? 4000 gp. Sword of fire? 5000 gp.

What difference is there to: you have 4D worth of treasure. With it you can buy either sword of acid and fill your inventory with small stuff like healing potions, or you can go for a sword of fire - but you will have to roll to negotiate. If you roll really well, you get also a potion with it. Or go to another sword shop (which takes time and they may have no swords of fire).

Of course, this assumes that it's not just "you are in a city now so take the list of equipment, mark up the prices by 20% for buying, by -85% for selling and go wild" situation. In those, granularity is fine - even though it assumes total availability of anything. But it's not required by any means.

EDIT: Props to MoiMagnus below who summed it much nicely.

[MoiMagnus]

It depends a lot on the system.

In a system which is based on inventory management (DnD) where you have potions of this, belts for that, swords of acid or fire or ice or poison etc., you need a lot of granularity in your commerce system. Items have differing effects and therefore differing values, so coin counting is required.

Is it, though?
Especially with exponential price for magical object, the situation is usually
(1) Lower rank items (compared to the PC's level) are essentially free, as long as they don't plan on fully equipping an troup with them. Limitation on using them should come from the game rules (drinking too many potions in a row have secondary effects, you cannot have more than two magical rings, etc). Obtaining them is not a question of "is it possible?" but a question of "how much time (including travelling to another city if necessary) would it take?", so one can use a skill check for this.
(2) Higher rank items (compared to the PC's level) are unobtainable outside of specific quests, so their monetary value is irrelevant.
(3) Middle rank items (compared to the PC's level) are the only one that have a relevant price. But do you really need granularity on them? Since I've excluded higher ranks and lower ranks, there is not that much variability in power remaining, so you can probably get away with having only two of three categories of items. It's not like the price need to match the power of the item exactly.

[Segev]

When your limitation becomes how many you can carry rather than how many you can pay gold for, it does tend to make things feel "essentially free," but in my experience, the existence of exponentially-expensive magic items means that you always have your big ticket items you're saving for, and that puts pressure on your small ticket item expenditures because you're essentially just spending the leftovers.

Thus, the granularity at the gold piece level remains a singificant thing even for lower-end items. (It will almost never matter at the copper piece level past a certain point, but having the rules for it prevents people trying to cheese around the edges of 'free' stuff.)

[hifidelity2]

I use a system I 1st saw in RuneQuest and have used it for most games i GM

The players chose the level of status / how they want to live (from peasant to king) and I/ they just deduct that level each game month. Then any coins left over they can use for more major purchases. If they don't have enough cash (and don't reduce their status level then they can maintain their level with borrowing but eventually debt collectors will turn up

This is also useful for ships (be they space or seas) and its XXX money / month to run the ship, pay crew, routine repairs etc

[Pauly]

Is it, though?
Especially with exponential price for magical object, the situation is usually
(1) Lower rank items (compared to the PC's level) are essentially free, as long as they don't plan on fully equipping an troup with them. Limitation on using them should come from the game rules (drinking too many potions in a row have secondary effects, you cannot have more than two magical rings, etc). Obtaining them is not a question of "is it possible?" but a question of "how much time (including travelling to another city if necessary) would it take?", so one can use a skill check for this.
(2) Higher rank items (compared to the PC's level) are unobtainable outside of specific quests, so their monetary value is irrelevant.
(3) Middle rank items (compared to the PC's level) are the only one that have a relevant price. But do you really need granularity on them? Since I've excluded higher ranks and lower ranks, there is not that much variability in power remaining, so you can probably get away with having only two of three categories of items. It's not like the price need to match the power of the item exactly.

The thing is for DnD there is more than just 1 iteration of “flaming sword”
The common variants (At least when I played DnD regularly) are/were:
Magic sword with +X to hit with +X fire damage
Regular sword with +D(N) fire damage
A sword made of fire with 2D(N) fire damage
A sword that has an ability to cast a fire magic spell such as fireball Y times per day
A sword that has an ability to cast fire magic spell for Y charges.
There always was the possibility that one sword would combine several of the above benefits into a single weapon.
In addition some “flaming swords” gave the wielder certain amounts of fire protection. Others added additional esoteric advantages, such as combining fire with another type of damage, or doing additional damage to undead/demonic/whatever opponents.

When you have granularity in the differing effects you need granularity in the pricing,

[Beleriphon]

The thing is for DnD there is more than just 1 iteration of “flaming sword”
The common variants (At least when I played DnD regularly) are/were:
Magic sword with +X to hit with +X fire damage
Regular sword with +D(N) fire damage
A sword made of fire with 2D(N) fire damage
A sword that has an ability to cast a fire magic spell such as fireball Y times per day
A sword that has an ability to cast fire magic spell for Y charges.
There always was the possibility that one sword would combine several of the above benefits into a single weapon.
In addition some “flaming swords” gave the wielder certain amounts of fire protection. Others added additional esoteric advantages, such as combining fire with another type of damage, or doing additional damage to undead/demonic/whatever opponents.

When you have granularity in the differing effects you need granularity in the pricing,

Maybe, but that's assuming you care about the exchanging of hard currency for such and item. There are plenty of ways that cost of items don't matter, several have been discussed. Mostly what the concern is how hard such an item is to obtain, rather than literal cost. Want to use a DC on a skill check, make it 30 or whatever is absurdly high, want to use gold pieces make is 1 million gold.

The objective to give a sense of how difficult the item is to get, not necessarily make a sensible value on the item. Take a M1A2 Abrams tank for example. I know how much it costs for the US Army to buy one (more or less $8 million per tank) but I can't ever own one even if I had the money to buy one (and there are people that do). The actual cost of the item is completely irrelevant to how hard is to get.

If instead compare to a Boeing 737 it costs around $90 million, but if I had $90 million I could get myself one. At a practical level though adding another $2 million for gold plated toilets and a custom interior probably isn't a problem when you can spend that much money, so the granularity is largely irrelevant.

[Anonymouswizard]

Abstracted Wealth works really well when items are transient, and not as well when they're permanent. Especially if it's possible to get items without depleting resources.

One game I'm writing on allows you to buy slots for permanent items with XP, and then when you go above that (including items for with money or networks, which works on an abstracted system) you'll lose the extra items by the end of the session (and I need to rewrite the rules to make it clear that the lost items do not have to be the purchased/found ones). The other system I'm working on at the moment only lets you carry your phone, your notepad or audio recorder, your clothes, your wallet and car keys, and any archetype-relevant items (listed in the playbook) from scene to scene. Because it's not based on stories where you'd pick something up and carry it around, although on the flip side characters are all assumed to be making notes (it being an occult/eldritch investigation game).

[MoiMagnus]

The thing is for DnD there is more than just 1 iteration of “flaming sword”
The common variants (At least when I played DnD regularly) are/were:
Magic sword with +X to hit with +X fire damage
Regular sword with +D(N) fire damage
A sword made of fire with 2D(N) fire damage
A sword that has an ability to cast a fire magic spell such as fireball Y times per day
A sword that has an ability to cast fire magic spell for Y charges.
There always was the possibility that one sword would combine several of the above benefits into a single weapon.
In addition some “flaming swords” gave the wielder certain amounts of fire protection. Others added additional esoteric advantages, such as combining fire with another type of damage, or doing additional damage to undead/demonic/whatever opponents.

When you have granularity in the differing effects you need granularity in the pricing,

You don't need a lot of granularity. You can match every sword to be "equivalent" to a +X sword, and only have one price per X. Equivalently, it's the same as having one price per "rarity" of the items. Sure, some items might be slightly overcosted, some might be slightly undercosted. But it's not like the PCs will ever walk into a store with each of them available.

But maybe that's because I'm more used to campaigns where finding the item (so finding someone to sell it, or finding somewhere to loot it) is usually the most difficult part of obtaining a specific magic item. Not getting the money to pay for it.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I started playing a new system called Cogent. In this system you don't count coins, your character gets a commerce level.

In my feudal setting this is represented by the wealth and notoriety of your family name. Your character carries a few small coins for pocket change, but for larger purchases they have a signet ring with family crest.

What's also fun. Is that one of my players, a pilgrim character served in the military of a very bad tyrant. His crest bears a mark for that tyrant so spending money is now a potential role play event.

Rogue Trader uses Profit Rating, Dark Heresy uses Influence, and Black Crusade uses Infamy that work like that.

For a Rogue Trader, you deal in such large sums of money when you do things like buy planets or starships it's unhelpful to account for individual billions of thrones. You buy things by making a profit rating check and if you pass you get like entire intermodal boxes of whatever you wanted to buy. Anything so trivial as a single boltgun or munitions are assumed to be pocket change, and even then only very rarely then does your profit rating change [like the aforementioned buying and selling of planets and starships].

For an Inquisitor, you use direct threats, political extortion, and waving your rosette around and reminding them that defying you is literally heresy that they'll be execute for to get what you want as much as you just put down cash, so you make an influence test to get what you want out of people.

and so on.