Selling loot, which isnt strictly adventuring gear?!

[Melcar]

We have received a whole bunch of stuff from last adventure. Bolts of silk cloth, jewelry, gems etc... a few items like swords and armor, and scrolls and potions, but primarily artwork, platinum silk cloth, and diadems.. besides the armor and weapon its all non-magical

Now my question is, what would be the RAW selling price for stuff like this? Its not under adventuring gear as far as I can tell... which means I'm unsure of whether or not this would go under the 50% selling price clause or not?

If its tradegoods its 100% selling price, if its adventuring gear then its 50%.

I cant seem to find what jewelry, artwork, and bolts of platinum silk cloth falls under!

Also, what happens if someone successfully haggles when selling trade goods. Would it then be 110% selling price?


Thanks in advance

[Efrate]

Art objects and gems have set values, its in the DMG and should sell for list price, at least thats how I have ruled it. Most of the cloth, gems, etc. fall into that. 110 for haggling is DM dependent, I do not see why not.

[Palanan]

OP, did you actually mean to type "selling loot" in your thread title?

When I saw "selling look," I thought you wanted advice on some sort of image-marketing campaign, maybe a bard polishing his patron's image or something.

:smalltongue:

[Zancloufer]

Most gem/art/jewelry items don't have a 100% RAW price. There is a table in the physical DMG and online loot tables generally reference it when making loot. There are some rouge categories and a range of prices for items in them.

You would probably have to appraise them ahead of time. Ranges will range from 10 GP to 5000GP per item on average. Items made from pure trade materials which you could probably argue 100% market price for.

Also might want to examine any gems closely: Many are required as focus or material components for some powerful spells.

[Melcar]

OP, did you actually mean to type "selling loot" in your thread title?

When I saw "selling look," I thought you wanted advice on some sort of image-marketing campaign, maybe a bard polishing his patron's image or something.

:smalltongue:

He he... Yes, I did mean "Selling Loot"!

And thank you to everyone for answering. You answers are in line with what I thought. :smallsmile:

[ciopo]

I would say it's whatever amount of gp the dm decided this was worth when he decided you would acquire this disparage treasure.

He made the pile of loot, so he should know exactly how much it is worth once sold, no?

[aglondier]

Most gem/art/jewelry items don't have a 100% RAW price. There is a table in the physical DMG and online loot tables generally reference it when making loot. There are some rouge categories and a range of prices for items in them.

You would probably have to appraise them ahead of time. Ranges will range from 10 GP to 5000GP per item on average. Items made from pure trade materials which you could probably argue 100% market price for.

Also might want to examine any gems closely: Many are required as focus or material components for some powerful spells.

Those darn rouges mixing everything up again...

[Fuzzy McCoy]

Those darn rouges mixing everything up again...

It’s one of the rare times where I wasn’t sure if rogue was meant or if rouge was just misused.

[Troacctid]

Trade goods and art objects sell for 100% of their value rather than 50%, so you would get full price. How much that is depends on the DM (unless you're generating them with a table that includes gp values for them).

[Falontani]

My table (and I don't think this is actually a rule anywhere) counts all art objects that would have a clear slot (such as a bracelet, a tiara, etc) as a masterwork item for Enchanting Purposes. So those rings, brooches, pendants, tiaras, sealskin shoes, etc are sold at 100% value, or turned into magic items. Really fun when the vain wizard decides to turn the 10k GP Mithril Belt with Sapphire studs into his Belt of Bear's Endurance +6.

[Zancloufer]

Those darn rouges mixing everything up again...


It’s one of the rare times where I wasn’t sure if rogue was meant or if rouge was just misused.

Rough, I meant rough not rouge. Not sure how I mixed up "e" and "h" though. As far as I can tell there is no pre-made table/directory of jewelry, gems or art objects unless they are also magic items as well.

This also might make something of a dysfunction when it comes to the price of diamonds and other valuables used in spell casting.

[Vaern]

Gemstones, art, jewelry, and other luxury goods sell for 100% of their market value like trade goods, with the primary difference being that they don't necessarily have a set-in-stone value. They basically exist for two reasons: To reward wealth for encounters in forms other than coinage for the sake of making loot more interesting, and to allow characters to carry wealth whose weight isn't directly tied to its value. At mid to late levels players will typically exchange their gold for gems to use as currency because they have no weight at all.


Also might want to examine any gems closely: Many are required as focus or material components for some powerful spells.
I typically carry all of my wealth as onyx, divided into individual stones worth 25 gp each for no particular reason...

[Falontani]

I typically carry all of my wealth as onyx, divided into individual stones worth 25 gp each for no particular reason...

I like this idea. May be annoying trying to barter with it. I also think some good aligned areas may look at me strangely if I pull them all out of my spell component pouch. Ah I am making a transaction worth 85k GP. Let me just pull out 3,400 Black Onyx from my spell component pouch. What? You don't trust that each of these gems are worth precisely 25 GP? Let's call in a jeweler. Or a necromancer, your choice, although I don't know any of them around.... *cough*

[Vaern]

I like this idea. May be annoying trying to barter with it. I also think some good aligned areas may look at me strangely if I pull them all out of my spell component pouch. Ah I am making a transaction worth 85k GP. Let me just pull out 3,400 Black Onyx from my spell component pouch. What? You don't trust that each of these gems are worth precisely 25 GP? Let's call in a jeweler. Or a necromancer, your choice, although I don't know any of them around.... *cough*
Diamonds might actually be a better idea, just because literally every form of resurrection spell uses them and your DM might argue that you can't expect every temple to have coffers full of diamonds at the ready to cast raise dead for any ragtag band of adventurers with a fistful of GP. If you have your own diamonds to supply that becomes a non-issue. Plus, if you actually have a cleric in your party you'll want them to have diamonds on-hand. There's one resurrection spell in particular - Revivify - which only costs 1,000 GP in diamonds to cast and brings the subject back with no level loss, but the catch is that it can only be cast within one round of the target's death so you need to have the diamonds on-hand right then and there for it to work.
I mean, sure, keep a few hundred or maybe even a couple of thousand in onyx around, but as for tens of thousands of gp worth of gemstones diamonds will probably be more useful.

[Firebug]

Those darn rouges mixing everything up again...To be fair, if you are looking at a physical copy of the DMG, you might call the border of the page rouge (color).

[Thurbane]

Related question: do expensive material components and spell focuses (focii?) sell for 100% of listed price, or 50%?

[Vaern]

Related question: do expensive material components and spell focuses (focii?) sell for 100% of listed price, or 50%?
I'd say it depends on the material or focus in question, but for the most part expensive material components are going to be powdered gold, silver, gemstones, or incense which would resell at full price. Skimming through the SRD, that seems to account for everything except Transformation which requires a potion of bull's strength (which would sell at half).
As for foci, they're a bit more questionable since there's a lot more variety to them, but they seem to mostly be trinkets made of luxury materials and crafted specifically to be exceptionally expensive. I would probably generally consider them to be art and resell at 100%, but your mileage may vary.

[Roninblack]

a potion of bull's strength (which would sell at half).

Why is this, shouldn't potions and scrolls sell for full price? It's not like they've been used?

[Feldar]

Why is this, shouldn't potions and scrolls sell for full price? It's not like they've been used?

I agree with this.

[Thurbane]

RAW, you sell magic items and other adventuring gear for 50% of the purchase price.

Valuables such as art, gems, trade goods etc. sell for 100% of their price.

[Efrate]

Selling consumables at full price means you could craft them and sell and make GP without adventuring! Cannot have that.

-Someone at WotC, probably

[smasher0404]

Selling consumables at full price means you could craft them and sell and make GP without adventuring! Cannot have that.

-Someone at WotC, probably

While I realize this is partially sarcasm, selling at half could potentially be an abstraction of the economic cost of finding a buyer/seller. The PC has to find someone willing to buy the item when they are selling, which potentially paying people to advertise, paying auction house fees to put it up for sale, potentially having taxes and deducted from the sale depending on the form of government in place at the market, and being in rush to sell creating downward prices. Conversely, buying adventuring gear could involve paying info brokers to find someone who has the item in question, mark-up to potentially convince an unwilling owner to sell, more taxes upon purchase, and the fact that shopkeepers can likely sit and wait on merchandise longer than an adventurer can.

[Mars Ultor]

Although the popular answer is that loot would sell for 100% of its listed value, that's unrealistic. No merchant is going to pay 125 GP for an enameled cloak brooch valued at 125 GP and then resell it for 125 GP. For most items a merchant would be willing to pay a maximum of 80% of book value depending on the circumstances.

Those circumstances include the condition of the item, the size of the town, the reputation of the adventurers, and the price of the item. If an unknown party shows up with a necklace the jeweler is first going to ascertain it's real, and then he might have reservations about the item's origin. Is it really from an old crypt in the middle of the woods or did they break into someone's house and steal it? Maybe its true value is 375 GP but it's a farming village of a hundred people, no one would be able to afford something that expensive. Or maybe the transaction is taking place in a city and it's a beautiful tapestry worth 500 GP or more. Even though the city is reasonably wealthy, there are a limited number of clients who are willing to spend that much on a tapestry, and the number of buyers who like that particular tapestry would be even smaller.

Race also has to be taken into account. While humans might pay extra for elvish-made items, they're not going to find halfling products useful or attractive. A merchant isn't going to pay 80% for an item he can't sell or will have to sell at a discount. The type of merchant also matters, he's only going to accept items he can sell. The jeweler is going to take raw gems and jewelry and perhaps some items adorned with precious metals, but no one is coming to his shop to buy a silver ewer or a mantle made of polar bear fur.

Realistically, a merchant is going to pay no more than 80% of actual value if he thinks he can sell something and make a profit. Items that are going to be difficult to sell because of population, design, or value are going to purchased at a lower price. The merchant may decide that something will sell eventually, but if it's going to be sitting on a shelf for six moths that's gold that can't be used on anything else. A merchant would want to limit his investment in those circumstances. There are also items that are unlikely to sell and the merchant will offer a fraction of the object's value if he makes an offer at all.

You also have to take Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, and other skills into account. While it's likely that a merchant looking at an item fitting his expertise will reasonably judge the item's price, the character who originally appraised the item might be way off and have an unrealistic expectation. There also might be a PC who can make a good argument that not only is the item of top quality, but it has some characteristic that makes it worth more than its appraised value. It's not just any ring, it once belonged to a famous knight who wore it while slaying a dragon. The tapestry once hung in the castle of the 3rd king on Elbonia, it's mentioned in a poem. Diplomacy and Bluff are going to come into play, can the PC convince the merchant something questionable is true, or can he get the best possible deal by engendering a good reaction?

[aglondier]

If the players want more than the merchant can realistically offer, perhaps he could take it on consignment, taking a smaller percentage of the eventual sale, but not guaranteeing a sale. Have a weekly/monthly check to see if someone bought it. More cash, but possibly a very long wait...

[Efrate]

Applying real world anything, like economics, to DnD is a fool's errand. One, haggling over an extra 25 gp is boring almost all the time. You want to sell loot and get back to going and killing things in dungeons. Two, if you bring the social skills into play, unless heavily house ruling, diplomancy, appraise and bluff with glibness means you can get exponentially more than an item ia worth. You can convince someone, probably with glibness alone, that an item is worth 10x or more pretty easily. That 5gp copper ring you can convince is worth 100gp and is the last relic of a dead kingdom or something and its breaks the already fragile economy apart.

Same with finding merchants and buyers. RAW is quick and easy. Is kta price below the limit of the settlement? And its art or trade goods? Yep full price add x gold cross item off list move on. It is dungeons and dragons bor merchants and misers. If the towns limit is 10k go you can find any and all items in the dmg worth 10k or less up. All the time and easily. You can house rule it away but thats RAW, magic marts exist and they are prevalent. Now if you ask questions as to why has not post scarcity or the entire econmy flopped, error: real world logic does not function. Do not look behind the curtain, it all falls apart.

If you want to rearrange the entire preconceptions of magic availability, how the economy functions, how adventured function, for an entire world good luck. But most players are going to ignore it or just rp a bit then want to move on with adventuring. And past like level 3 or 4, the sums and items you deal in are so far removed from reality of the common folk that IMO its pointless.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, to me bartering, buying and selling is one of the least fun parts of D&D. Just tell me I how many GP I get selling stuff in town, so I can get back to adventuring.

I mean, some people enjoy that aspect I guess, but to me it's just number crunching I want over with ASAP.

[Falontani]

While humans might pay extra for elvish-made items, they're not going to find halfling products useful or attractive.

Have you met a human? Humans will find literally anything useful or attractive. They have such variety that sure this human doesn't, but interview a couple million of them, and you are sure to find at least one that finds the halfling product attractive. Not to mention the human children are perfectly sized for a lot of the halfling goods. This human child may not be wealthy enough to buy the 350 GP halfling crafted polar bear fur coat, but the king's daughter might want it.

[Calthropstu]

Gems ARE currency and can be bought and traded at 100% value. Jewelry is gear and sold at 50%. Art is sold at auction. The price listed is what an auctioneer will pay you. Any money above that goes to the auction house.
If you are willing to spend in game time, you can find a buyer yourself, and possibly get more.

Bolts of silk are trade goods and sell at 100%. Same with spices.

[Vaern]

Gems ARE currency and can be bought and traded at 100% value. Jewelry is gear and sold at 50%. Art is sold at auction. The price listed is what an auctioneer will pay you. Any money above that goes to the auction house.
If you are willing to spend in game time, you can find a buyer yourself, and possibly get more.

Bolts of silk are trade goods and sell at 100%. Same with spices.
There's a handful of mundane jewelry items that are actually listed on the loot tables as being art and should be considered worth 100% value as such. Also, while absent from the SRD, the equipment section in the PHB specifically notes that wheat, flour, cloth, gems, jewelry, art objects, and valuable metals are all considered trade goods that are exceptions to the half-price rule. Jewelry that happens to also be a magic item, of course, is equipment and would sell at half price.

[Feldar]

I also periodically put in magical armor and weapons that while being considered armor and weapons are also considered works of art, and these get a higher resale value than regular armor and weapons if the characters take the time to find the right buyer...

[nedz]

I typically carry all of my wealth as onyx, divided into individual stones worth 25 gp each for no particular reason...

I have handed out loot in this form. It took quite a while for the players to work out why.
They once found, discarded, "A damaged Onyx chessboard - only the white squares are left".
On another occasion: "Three half onxy chess sets - just the white pieces remain"
They didn't even sus this when they noticed a black chess knight in some monster's eye.


Yeah, to me bartering, buying and selling is one of the least fun parts of D&D. Just tell me I how many GP I get selling stuff in town, so I can get back to adventuring.

I mean, some people enjoy that aspect I guess, but to me it's just number crunching I want over with ASAP.

You wouldn't like one of my groups.

[Ritaelyn]

It's tricky, under RAW the players are supposed to get 100% value of art objects, gems, etc. However, the appraise skill also exists in D&D:


You can appraise common or well-known objects with a DC 12 Appraise check. Failure means that you estimate the value at 50% to 150% (2d6+3 times 10%,) of its actual value.

Appraising a rare or exotic item requires a successful check against DC 15, 20, or higher. If the check is successful, you estimate the value correctly; failure means you cannot estimate the item’s value.

Ultimately, it's a campaign and DM decision call, as you want your party to be nearly at wealth by level and not way over or under. In my campaign if you're low level (1-3 era) then I do like to give a lot of fine art, gems, etc as it generally makes a fun roleplay experience. It can also be a problem too of "how do we get it all out?" vs if everything was just in coin. It can also be a easy plot hook if they leave half, come back, the rest is missing - turning into a investigation encounter: "who stole OUR loot??!?"

How I handle it is on a case by case basis, if a merchant is honest or scrupulous, and the merchant's attitude towards the party - ie did the party do any quests for the merchant? With most groups they treat NPCS as little more than video game characters so it's a great opportunity to show off skill check encounters, that my world is a living breathing world, etc.

If a player appraises it and fails - I'll roll those 2d6+3 dice and tell him the price. If it's low then they probably sell it for low value haha. I usually give them an out like "The merchant's eyes seem to lighten up. He seems quick with the cash." The players usually go "OHH sense motive!". Pass or fail on that will lead to more interesting encounters.

If they estimate high it's a great bartering encounter and a great opposed skill checks as the merchant won't want to buy for that high/etc.

If they don't appraise it at all I may 50/50 give then a sense motive check opportunity. I also like to give it "falsely" too, like a merchant could react that way just because he's getting a 5 gold profit on a 50gp gem, you did accurately appraise it but he knows he can sell it very quickly as it fits the exact specifications an old lady was looking for/etc.

If a merchant is honest too sometimes they will say they underpriced it, especially if the party helped out the merchant previously. It really depends on the players and how their characters are treating my merchants.

By 4th and 5th level this roleplay encounter has gotten old, at least SOMEONE by this point has pumped appraise to be high enough to have auto success on this loot, each character should now have 5,400-9,000 gp of wealth, SOMEONE has a bag of holding at least - probably purchased with party funds, and shop interactions are going to just bog down the game.

The wizard is already casting fly in the party, they're probably heroes of the local town, etc. I know next spell level is scrying & dimension door and soon teleport is coming next. At this point I just hand them the list of treasure they found that I had rolled/prepared for and ask if they still want it to be flavored as art/gems or me turn it into just plat/gold/silver/copper. Some like the flavor, some power gamer groups just want the simplicity. Then I handle buying items out of game so we don't bog down an hour of "Yes to your +2 int headband, No to your nightsticks, Let me read what the item does before I say Yes/No."

When you get to level 4-5 gameplay it's a lot better to handwave a lot of stuff and be fair to your players in terms of them getting full value of loot, especially if they spent resources on the appraise skill/etc. The players typically do spend points on appraise/etc in my games. My shop keepers spent their resources to win on appraise checks/diplomacy/bluff etc as it's their livelihood after all.

Definitely stat up your shopkeepers - being able to buy magic weapons at half price certainly means you have protection, the funds to do so, and are likely a retired adventurer. For groups I really enjoyed DMing for I ask players if I could scan in their character sheets. One of my players who played in multiple of my campaigns literally cried tears of joy when he saw one of his old characters was a shopkeeper and lived out the retirement dream the player wished his character for. It's a nice way to pay homage and REALLY easy to have some great stats on hand if a group turns murder hobo.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Rough, I meant rough not rouge. Not sure how I mixed up "e" and "h" though. As far as I can tell there is no pre-made table/directory of jewelry, gems or art objects unless they are also magic items as well.

This also might make something of a dysfunction when it comes to the price of diamonds and other valuables used in spell casting.

There's a series of tables in The Arms & Equipment Guide that have a whole host of goods.


Why is this, shouldn't potions and scrolls sell for full price? It's not like they've been used?

Because you're not looking for individual buyers. You're dumping off all the crap that only adventurers and other insanely wealthy folks buy at the local pawn-broker so you can get on with the adventure.

Trade goods are easily passed off to traders and artisans who can then turn around and sell it at a modest profit quickly and easily. A +1 sword is going to sit on a rack behind the counter for -months- before the next tomb-raider, hero, or monster-hunter stumbles along with a need for one and the 2k+ gold pieces to buy the stupid thing. If it weren't for the fact there is -always- a next one, you wouldn't be able to sell the damn thing at all. Potions fall into the latter category.

25gp for even a potion of a 0th level spell is a lot of money to most folks and that's about as cheap as it gets for adventuring gear that doesn't require special skills to actually use.

A GM is, of course, free to give full price if the PCs want to go out of their way to find an individual buyer for each item or at least category of items and somehow convince him that they're trustworthy enough that the goods being sold aren't stolen or cursed and that they won't just gank him for the money and run, he can do so. Hell, he can give them full price or more for no particular reason at all, if he wants. The meta was designed with selling for half though so I'd caution against doing it frequently.

[Thurbane]

Rough, I meant rough not rouge. Not sure how I mixed up "e" and "h" though. As far as I can tell there is no pre-made table/directory of jewelry, gems or art objects unless they are also magic items as well.

The 3rd party Mother of all Treasure Tables is a nice book, and does just this. It breaks up treasures by ECL/GP range, and gives nicely detailed breakdown of individual items that add up to the approximate total.

Of course, sometimes it gets TOO detailed, and just feel a little much. I'd recommend using it sparingly.

Here's a sample: https://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/moatt_preview.pdf


A sack of bright orange saffron cloth [3 sp] hangs from the tip of an ornate trident, whose triple iron points have been forged in the image of three intertwined, dancing swordfish [32 gp]. The sack bulges with plunder. Inside is a pile of intermixed coins from the mints of various port cities [28 gp, 112 sp, 696 cp]. Among the wealth are a pair of smooth soapstone nose rings, often worn by slaves as a symbol of their status [25 sp], a trio of loose malachite chips [5 gp each]
obviously pried from rings, and a badly tarnished copper broach engraved with a hunting dog insignia [5 gp]. In addition to the valuables, the sack is filled with an assortment of honey candies wrapped in colorful waxed paper [1 sp for the lot], most of which are still good. [Total 101.06 gp]