Why half price?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Ultimate Campaign got me thinking of wealth-by-level balancing, which got me thinking of the sale value of treasure. Just why is it sold for half price, anyhow?

Let's start by simplifying and making some core assumptions, just to avoid derailing the thread *too* much on questions of playstyle difference. That's not an indictment of playstyle differences - it's just not relevant to the question.

1. We are assuming core rules. So magic items sell for one half, and (given sufficient settlement gp limits) you can buy and sell magic items with little problem. The GM is giving enemy NPCs the standard wealth for an NPC of their level, not more or less.
2. The party is made up of one person, a fighter who has feat dedication to longswords. He *might* be going to take Master Craftsman at level 5 so he can make his own magic longswords, depending on the treasure he gets. (He really likes swords. He's had this idea for attaching two longswords by their hilts with a chain and calling it swordchucks...) The reason for this is to avoid discussion of interparty utility - the paladin doesn't indirectly benefit from the wizard's items, or item creation feats. With just one fighter, magic items are either useful to the party as a whole equally.

Now, if the GM gives an enemy a longsword +1, the treasure total has gone up by 2315gp. The fighter is happy, and is getting normal WBL for his encounters.

But suppose, instead, the GM is cruel - or at least indifferent and using randomized tables. Instead, he gives the opponent a scimitar +1. Again, the treasure total has gone up by 2315gp. But now the fighter is NOT happy. When he gets back to town, he sells the scimitar +1 and buys a longsword +1. BUT... since he only gets 1157.5gp for the scimitar, the rest has to come from his own gp. That means the fighter is now 1157.5gp below his ordinary wealth by level. He'd have done better to get an amount of extra gp equivalent to the price of a scimitar +1 - a treasure of the same value, but with greater liquidity.

Now consider the higher level fighter, who can craft magic weapons. Now he can sell the scimitar +1, and use the funds to make his own longsword +1. Hooray! He's back at WBL! Except... he's really not. He's still short by 1157.5gp, because he *should* be getting that much discount. If the player had been creating a new character at the higher level, he'd have been able to get a longsword +1 at half price from the get-go. Part of the advantage of the crafting feats is to exceed WBL. Again, if the scimitar was replaced by gold pieces instead, he'd be better off.

If the trend of "useless magic items" continues, the fighter will drop farther and farther behind WBL, and the GM will have to (or at least should) compensate anyhow.

On the other hand, if the fighter could sell the scimitar for full price, he could go ahead and buy the longsword and be at his normal WBL. If he could craft his own, he'd be 1157.5gp ahead of WBL, exactly as he's suppose to be. And the GM wouldn't have to worry about whether treasure was useful or vendor trash when determining WBL. There's less need to compensate. So at least for game-balance, it would seem to be better to have items sold at full value rather than half.

Now, you might argue for realism - merchants make money on markup. (Alliteration unintended.) Also, adventures don't take the time to find a buyer, which could take months for some items. Possibly never, if it's some reeking bit of magic hide they pulled off a goblin shaman's corpse. "Well sure, it's made of human skin, scrawled with the symbols of Lamashtu, and smells like the original owner's body cavity, but it's magic hide armor!" These two combine nicely, actually - 100% markup isn't really that much if it takes *years* to find a new buyer. On the other hand, the very mundane equipment is also sold for half price, and there should be no shortage of buyers for that. "Ah, I see you have recovered an animal harness, Mr. Adventurer. But we don't have much call for those in this farming community, so I'll take it off your hands for half price." But wait... remember, we have established that, at least by the rules, there are magic item shops? (Remember, a small city has a base value of 4000gp, which means there is a 75% chance of finding *any* magic item less than that value.) Base values go up with city size. That means trade hubs. A merchant isn't typically going to leave a magic sword on a shelf for 20 years waiting for another rich adventurer to want it. No, they'll sell it to traveling merchants, who will bring it to major trade hubs, and it'll get sold within the year to a nobleman with the cash to spare. Thus, the 100% markup is *still* too high, and it *still* makes sense for magic items to be sold near full value.


How would the GM keep track of which items the chars create themselves and which they looted?

Because creating items for 50% and selling them for 100%, would certainly upset WBL levels a lot more.


Because a lot of what you're describing is a GM fiat thing.

Some GMs hate magic item shops, so even if the rulebooks allow for 25000gp worth of magic items to be had, the GM doesn't have to make a single one a longsword, should he decide that noone uses longswords in the city of scimitars.

Some GMs will tailor loot for players, others will let the dice decide, others will build their NPCs with whatever gear seems cool. The fighter who decided to play with longswords has to live with what his GM drops. Same goes for the longbow ranger, the illusionist wizard and the wild shaping druid.

The 50% really just defines the crafting cost versus markup and overhead. In theory you could run a magic item business and sell them at full cost, but sales versus inventory mechanics would be required, and this is an adventuring sim, not an economics sim.


As others have already said, merchants (etc.) need to make a living from their markup. It makes sense that they pay less for your used crap because if they buy from you at full price and then mark the used crap up to something MORE than full market price, every potential customer will just buy new stuff at normal market price and your merchant will go out of business, broke and penniless.

We could play Merchants and Moneylenders (alliteration intended). We could track (simulated) real-world economy, supply and demand, booms, busts, recessions, and all the other stuff that makes world economies interesting.

Or we can have a simple mechanic. You wanna make something, you pay half what it's worth for materials and sell it for full price. 50% profit. You wanna buy something and resell it, you pay half what it's worth to buy it and sell it for full price. 50% profit. You want someone else to buy your stuff, he pays you half what it's worth and sells it to someone else for full price. 50% profit.

Easy peasy, no marketing degree required.

That's "why half price".


More to the original point, the entire reason your 100% sale mark-up sounds reasonable is because you frame it in an unreasonable scenario to eliminate the reasons for having a 50% sale price.

Specifically, you look at the one-man party. For which the rules are not designed. They're designed for the approximately four-man party. Therefore, any analysis of general rule design should look at a generic four-man party.

Beyond that, one of the fundamental reasons for the 50% sale price is to discourage over-optimization. It's the built-in risk of choosing to play a character that is dependant on a single weapon to be effective.

I'm not arguing the merit of that design philosophy. Frankly, I think the single-weapon feats are overly restrictive and should have been built closer to Fighter weapon categories. That way, the fighter would be about as happy with either a scimitar or a longsword, outside of personal preference of crit-dice vs damage die.


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Actually, the premise is wrong. If the party keeps all of their treasure, and never sell anything, they're not "at WBL" but rather "far above WBL". WBL actually assumes that about half of the treasure the party receives will be sold for half price.

Consider:

WBL for each party member at level 10 (just to pick a level) is 62,000.
WBL for each party member at level 11 is 82,000.

So during the encounters between reaching level 10 and reaching level 11, each party member is expected to accumulate 20,000 gp worth of additional wealth (80,000 gp total for a party of four).

If you only face CR 10 monsters, you need to defeat 20 such encounters to reach level 11 at the Medium XP track. The treasure value of 20 CR 10 encounters is 109,000 gp, which is almost 30,000 above the 80,000 needed.

If half the treasure is sold and half is kept, then the WBL increases by almost exactly 80,000 (about 55,000 gained from kept items, about 27,500 gained from sold items), which is the amount it should increase by.

If the 20 encounters you face are instead CR 10 NPCs (PC-class 11), the total treasure value will be magnitudes above what WBL assumes: Approximately 327,000 gp, which even if the party sells everything will lead to each party member gaining 40,000 gp rather than the 20,000 gp they should gain.


I am adding a houserule for this - you can sell for 25-75% of max value depending on your diplomacy, appraise and profession merchant rolls. So a solo fighter with dumped charisma will be even more underWBLed. But my present party has a cleric with high charisma and diplomacy and a rogue who came from merchant family - they make selling loot more profitable. Crafting mundane things was profitable even before - for 33% of full price, now good merchant can sell it for more profit than before while crappy ones will go red. And for magic items - isn't it actually logical to be making profit selling handcrafted magical items??? It just shouldn't be overwhelming. And with 1000gp craft per day it isn't that big anyway - on higher levels he makes more emoney by adventuring.


Tierre wrote:
And for magic items - isn't it actually logical to be making profit selling handcrafted magical items???

Yes, it is logical, but only if you take the time to find the right buyer (who may show up tomorrow, or next week, or next month, etc). Essentially, if you set up a "Magic Item Shop", and spend most of your time running that shop, then it would be logical that you'll make a profit.

But as most adventurers prefer to adventure, rather than running shops, they're not that likely to find the right buyer between adventures :)


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There is no eBay in pathfinder.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

This is why I argued that Craft feats should be construed to provide a customization advantage rather than a WBL hack.


The first assumption is wrong IMHO.

You're assuming WBL is a rule. It isn't. It's an indication of the "expected" wealth of the PC.

Should GM stick to it and worry if they arn't at WBL? Surely not... Life ISNT fair.

Nevertheless I try to put magical items which could be interesting for my own party and customize it and really don't like the "Ye olde magic shop"

Sovereign Court

If you could sell items for 100%, but craft for only 50%, you'd have a 50% profit margin, and why bother adventuring then? You'd be making 500-1000gp profit per day at no risk.

Silver Crusade

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Ascalaphus wrote:
If you could sell items for 100%, but craft for only 50%, you'd have a 50% profit margin, and why bother adventuring then? You'd be making 500-1000gp profit per day at no risk.

This is what I take to call the Shadowrunner's paradox.

Most people in the world get by quite comfortably doing stuff thats outrageously boring to the average PC. Adventuring for cash, from a grand standpoint, results in riches for a bunch of people, and ignoble death and poverty for the majority, especially if the adventurer fails to shore up a nest egg.

The advantage adventurers have is that they can get the starting funds from the first few adventures.

1000-3000gp goes a long way towards starting a business or hiring employees and even a4th level character is relatively talented and skilled.

The trick with the blacksmith crafting thing is that glutting the market does not result in exponential increases. The village of 50 only needs like 50 swords, probably less, not 'as many as I can make.'

I also don't think local authorities will appreciate if a blaksmith moves into town and starts cranking out discount swords, axes, armor and the like. And this means a PC Blacksmith might end up making horseshoes, nails, fittings, and bells and similar copper-piece level stuff that won't earn tons of cash.

The problem with the crafting thing is believing the market is just a giant pool of cash with no desire but to grab up +1 weapons. If there's a guy selling Arctic Warfare Magnums out of the back of his truck for 2,000 dollars a pop, I ain't buying. Not because I don't have the 2,000, but because 1.) I don't know if he's trustworthy, 2.) If its legal an 3.) What the hell do I need a .50 calibre sniper rifle for?

The sad fact of the matter is, its a lot more reasonable for heroes to just strip every pair of pants, socks, shirts, jerkins, and furniture out of dungeons they come across. Which is far less glorious, and far heavier.

Sovereign Court

So you need to get some credentials and wise up to the craft feats that have mass market applications, i.e. CWI due to it's wide scope and Brew Potion because everyone can use Healing Potions.

And then you move to a big city with an actual trade network.

The Exchange

WBL is an artificial construct who should be ignored thouroughly. It's not a rule, just a guideline. It's only usefull in convention so that a character is not wholly underpowered when he switches group. Even then, in 5 minutes, the party ca be balanced by giving away stuff or taking away stuff.

But the OP is asking an interesting question. Why half price? Why not 1/5th? 4th edition (boo! hiss!) was selling stuff for 1/5 of it's price. It got you thinkingabout "do I want to sell this or can it be usefull?" far more than selling for half.

And the answer is simple: Original D&D was selling stuff for half price. The rule was never revisited until 4th.

But feel free to change your game as you see fit, since WBL is an artificial construct who need to be shot in the dark and sent down to the bottom of the river for all the trouble it gave us.


With mundane items, used goods will sell for less than new ones, unless it falls into the category of 'art goods' or 'collectable'. Commodities sell for full value all the time (which makes you wonder how anyone makes money on selling salt) because they are things that keep their value.

The system generally assumes that PCs will dispose of items as quickly as is convenient rather than haggle over every penny.

Magic items are problematic because the game assumes that magic items CAN be routinely disposed of, given a large enough community. Glutting a market, by the rules, is basically impossible, so the 'sell for 1/2, craft for 1/2' is the quick way to dodge the issue.


Are wrote:
Actually, the premise is wrong. If the party keeps all of their treasure, and never sell anything, they're not "at WBL" but rather "far above WBL". . .

Thank you, Are, for posting the math I was about to show.

The writers at WOTC & Paizo were not mathematically illiterate when they wrote the system. Estimates for WBL factor in usable found items, unusable found items, consumables, selling off obsolete items, variance in the CR of encounters, variable types of treasure, etc.

Silver Crusade

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4th also admittedly tried to fix the problem of graveyard skulking lunatic PCs like the ones I play, who go around taking boots off of dead orcs for resale.

1 copper orc boots for sale cheap!

And even the healing potions won't go as much as you'd think. How often do you need to use them? I mean you'd want one, don't get me wrong, but after shelling out gold for daddy, mommy and the kid and you're good for a while. Ironically, the stat boosters would go further, but still wouldn't sell too well since the prices would be significantly higher for moderate boosts. Bear's endurance potions might go far as a sort of bedroom enhancement though.

Maybe more if you want to stockpile a little.

Adventurers really live in a world of their own economy. They make potions for their own use primarilly, not for resale value.


Helic wrote:

Commodities sell for full value all the time (which makes you wonder how anyone makes money on selling salt) because they are things that keep their value.

The only people who make money selling salt are the people who -- literally -- make it, as in work in a salt mine or evaporate it from the sea. Similarly, the people who make money from iron are the smelters, and the people who make money from tobacco are the farmers. But everyone else uses it as a store of value.

No one specializes in selling salt. But the local general store will sell it to you at cost for the same reason that the local bank will sell you 40 quarters for $10 -- it's a service they're expected to provide, but it's such a competitive market you can't put a markup on that particular service. But you can sell rope at a markup at the same store that sells salt at cost.


Philippe Perreault wrote:
WBL is an artificial construct who should be ignored thouroughly. It's not a rule, just a guideline. It's only usefull in convention so that a character is not wholly underpowered when he switches group.

Actually, it's useful if you plan to use any published adventure at all. If the party is over- or under-wealthed, they'll be over- or under- powered. The WBL guidelines let you figure out, first, whether any adjustment to the encounters is needed, and second, how much (and in what direction).

If the party has twice the equipment they should, you probably want to throw another goblin or two into the encounter.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
No one specializes in selling salt. But the local general store will sell it to you at cost for the same reason that the local bank will sell you 40 quarters for $10 -- it's a service they're expected to provide, but it's such a competitive market you can't put a markup on that particular service.

[tangent] That's probably an accurate description of colonial America. At other times and places throughout history, salt has been incredibly valuable. Wars were fought, kingdoms toppled, fortunes made and lost. History of Salt [/tangent]

Silver Crusade

The issue to remember too, is that we're bringing higher level economics into a fantasy medieval setting.

A lot of medieval economies were constrained by the feudal system, and a self-imposed jackass style belief in 'zero sum game' economics where exporting was always good, and importing was always bad.

Merchants functioned on a small scale, selling to people who could then benefit from the products, and most production lines were owned head to toe by the organization doing the producing (weapon manufacturers owned mines, owned blacksmith shops, etc).

The magical item crafting PC is a specialist, a single producer, who probably would do better making items for commission as opposed to trying to mass produce item for a market not built to absorb the mass production. And even with teleportation, the major issue that all merchants face still looms heavy.

Logistics.

How do you get your product to where it will sell? If you deluge waterdeep with masterwork swords, the price in waterdeep for masterwork swords is going to drop through the floor, but while this will attract merchants, unless your product's value outpaces the opportunity cost of someone going along the roads to get to the major city, you'll be selling 50gp mw longswords at a loss soon.


Orfamay Quest wrote:


No one specializes in selling salt.

The average modern person consumes 8 lbs of salt per year (if not more), and a society without canning and refrigeration uses a hell of a lot more. We worked it out for one of our city states in our game (region had 120,000 people) and the tonnage of salt needed annually was actually really impressive. Enough to warrant salt merchants, at least on the distribution end of things.

Mind you, as you say, these are the people with their fingers in the getting of salt in the first place.

Sovereign Court

If the market will swallow random magic item crap dredged up from dungeons, it'll also swallow magic items specifically crafted to meet current demand - logically, an "adventurer" manufacturing magic items would actually match the market's demands much better than shaking down a random dungeon would.

So if you sell found magic items for full value, crafting should also be for full value to prevent magic money making. In which case the crafting feat's real value is in guaranteeing you access to the item you want, rather than the vagaries of what's currently available and within a settlement's purchase limits.

Silver Crusade

Well, the idea of being able to sell the items off is an abstraction. If the players start making it a primary focus, then the abstraction goes away and the DM's well within his rights to ask who the hell is buying all their potions, wands and magical jerkins.

If the party wants to be merchants selling items, then so they shall be.

But don't fall into the mistake of the illogical nosense of like Fable 3, where the protagonist buys property and shops and then makes money by pushing the prices through the roof without any commensurate loss of sales.

Frankly, I prefer the random treasure generation method if just because it means the world doesn't feel like its catering to the PCs, particularly if a PC has an exotic weapon and then just /happens/ to keep finding magical throwing oboes or something.

..admittedly the anarchic siangham I generated through the random method was a little... given its a monk weapon principly, that can't be wielded by a monk.

Shadow Lodge

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The thread title led me to many memories of episodes of Pawn Stars. 50% is pretty typical. I have seen up to 90% on something they're sure to resell, and I have seen them offer a pittance for something they're not certain about.

The thing there, though, is that a +2 longsword would price higher than a +4 Ogre hook. I can see Rick now, "Look, that's a really great piece you have there, but we don't get a lot of Ogres in here."

As above, abstraction has pros and cons.


Well the good thing is that the Ultimate Campaign rules allow people to invest in properties and ask even moar "why?" questions when they try to convince the DM to have NPCs buy Cocoanut Manor from them for full price.


Much thanks to Are, for the math points.

I realize WBL is a guideline, rather than a hard rule, but if you are too far away from it, encounters still have to be tailored accordingly.

Given that Ultimate Campaign pretty much *does* allow you to be a merchant if you desire, I'm less concerned about the game effects of becoming a magic item seller. Even under the core rules, you can manufacture mundane items for 1/3rd value and sell them for half, so you are making a profit of 1/6th the item value. Players will find a way to break the WBL guidelines if they really want to - no system is abuse free. If we use a guideline that the NPCs should generally use the same rules as PCs use, merchants should be getting their markup via application of Profession checks, not inventory management - after all, as noted, the system is abstracted, and NPCs shouldn't be playing inventory games behind the scenes.

The more I think about it, the more I think there *should* be some kind of economy rules even for groups that don't want to play Merchants and Moneylenders.

Sovereign Court

Manufacturing mundane items isn't as much of a power-economic problem because the mundane craft rules happen to be broken; it takes FOREVER to make mundane items of any real value.

If your craft Take 10 is 30, and you make a DC 30 item, then your weekly production is 30 X 30 X (0.5 sale price - 0.33 materials = 0.17) = 153 silver pieces. At full sale value, 30 X 30 X 0.33 = 297 silver pieces. Per week.

If you can sell magic items for full value but craft for half, then your weekly output is 2000 (hurried crafting) X 7 (days) X 0.5 (materials) = 7000 gold pieces per week.

Silver Crusade

Ascalaphus wrote:

Manufacturing mundane items isn't as much of a power-economic problem because the mundane craft rules happen to be broken; it takes FOREVER to make mundane items of any real value.

If your craft Take 10 is 30, and you make a DC 30 item, then your weekly production is 30 X 30 X (0.5 sale price - 0.33 materials = 0.17) = 153 silver pieces. At full sale value, 30 X 30 X 0.33 = 297 silver pieces. Per week.

If you can sell magic items for full value but craft for half, then your weekly output is 2000 (hurried crafting) X 7 (days) X 0.5 (materials) = 7000 gold pieces per week.

Again, I think this is a sad function of game designers trying to make sure adventurers don't realize they can survive better by not being adventurers by making adventuring the only thing that appears valid.

Paizo, like WoTC, like TSR, didn't want us playing Spice and Wolf the RPG, they wanted us crwling in dungeons and wasting our gold and living wish fulfillment style. Hell, economics are nothing, my characters catch flak for being chaste teetotalers.

The game mechanics want you earning cash by beating up aboleths, not by selling poles, or fishing. The crafting rules primarilly exist so the player can make MIGHTY ITEMS, not so he can corner the market on wands of prestidig, or the like.


Derek Vande Brake wrote:
Part of the advantage of the crafting feats is to exceed WBL.

Well, thats one interpretation but is that really so? An item you craft for yourself can be said to be worth full market price for purposes of WBL. What if the purpose is to provide a degree of customization in low magic games or flavor rather than for any purpose related to WBL.


Chris O'Reilly wrote:
Derek Vande Brake wrote:
Part of the advantage of the crafting feats is to exceed WBL.
Well, thats one interpretation but is that really so? An item you craft for yourself can be said to be worth full market price for purposes of WBL. What if the purpose is to provide a degree of customization in low magic games or flavor rather than for any purpose related to WBL.

Nope, that was FAQed; items you craft are valued at crafting cost for WBL.

Silver Crusade

The problem with trying to square WBL with crafting rules is that the price for crafting most magic items is not right and bears no comparison to WBL except for arms and armor and most wands. The most broken of all the crafting rules are for staffs a arcane caster has to pay at a minimum 30000gp for a staff that has level equivalent spells.

For instance a 13th level wizard wants to craft a staff that has a maximized disintegrate would have to spend 23400 for one spell that takes 2 charges then he puts a empowered burning fireball again 2 charges 15600 + Continuous globe of invulnerability while held 31200gp +5000 gp for staff total cost 75200 gp/2 for self crafting 37650gp about 50% of the wizards total wbl not counting the cost of his sell book about 30000 gp and other magic items like robes wands rings and you see that a wizard totally blows the wbl table out of the water to even get gear that matches what he needs to adventure at that level. Wondrous items are about as bad start off with a +5 cloak of protection 25000 gp combine it with a cloak of comfort 12500+6250 and +3 protection 27000 gp for a total cost of with crafting of 35500gp so in two items you have about ½ of a 13th level characters total wealth by level and 28000gp spent on consumables you have70% of his total wealth spent and you have only crafted 2 items + consumables.

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