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We don't want to throw Astral Diamonds at the problem, but D&D's economics are badly in need of a serious overhaul. Here is an essay about the direction I would like it to go (note: assumes that we use 3e wish as opposed to the broken 3.5 version):
Spending the Loot: the Three (or so) Economies
"I'll give you five pounds of gold, the soul of Karlack the Dread King, and three onions for your boat, the Sword of the Setting Sun, and that cabbage…"
Life in D&D land is not like life in a capitalist meritocracy with expense accounts and credit cards. There is no unified monetary system and there are no marked prices. All transactions are essentially barter, and you can only trade things for goods and services if people genuinely believe that the things you are trading have intrinsic value and the people you are trading to actually want those specific things. Gold can be traded to people only because people in the world genuinely think that gold is intrinsically valuable and that they want to own piles of gold.
That means that in places where people don't want gold – such as the halfling farming collective of Feddledown, you can't buy anything with it. It's just a heavy, soft metal. But for most people in the fantasy universe, gold has a certain mystique that causes people to want it. That means that they'll trade things they don't need for gold. But no matter what they are giving up they aren't "selling" things because money as we understand the concept doesn't really exist. They are trading some goods or services directly for a physical object – an actual lump of gold. Not a unit of value equivalency, not a promise of future gold, not a state guaranty of an amount of labor and productive work – but an actual physical object that is being literally traded. And yeah, that's totally inefficient, but that's what you get when John Locke hasn't been born yet, let alone modern economic theorists like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, or Benito Mussolini. If you really want to get into the progressive economic theories that people are throwing around with a straight face, go ahead and check out theoreticians like Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas, Sir Thomas Moore, or Zheng He. If you want to see what conservative opinions look like in D&D land, go ahead and read up on your Draconis, Li Ssu, Aristotle, or Tamerlain.
The Turnip Economy
"We got rats! Rats on sticks!"
Most settlements in a D&D setting are really small and completely unable to sustain any barter for such frivolities as gold or magical goods. The blacksmith of a hamlet does not trade his wares for silver, he trades them for food. He does this because the people around him are farmers and they don't make enough surplus to hoard valuable metals. So if he took gold for his services, he would get something he couldn't spend, and then he wouldn't be able to eat. So even though people in the tiny villages you fly over when you get your first gryphon will freely acknowledge that your handful of silver is worth very much more than their radishes, or their tin cups, or whatever it is that they produce for the market, they still won't trade for your metal because they know that by doing so they run the risk of starving to death as rich men.
The economy of your average gnomish village is so depressed by modern standards that even the idea of wealth accumulation and currency is incomprehensible. But the idea of slacking off is universal. There is a static amount of work that needs to be done on the farm each year and the peasants are perfectly willing to put you up if you do some of their chores. Seriously, they won't let you stay in their house for a copper pfennig or a silver ducat, but they will give you food and shelter if you cleanout the pig trough. They have no use for your "money", but they do need the poop out of the pig pen and they don't want to do it. On the other hand, they also don't want to be eaten by a manticore, so if you publicly slay one that has been terrorizing the village the people will feed you for free pretty much as long as you live. That's why people pay money to bards. Bards spend a lot of time in cities and actually will take payment in copper and gold. And if they sing songs about you, your fame increases. And fame really is something that you can use to buy yourself food and shelter from people in the turnip economy.
"Costs" in the turnip economy are extremely variable. In lean times, the buying power of a carrot is relatively high and in fat times the buying power of a cabbage is very low. It is in this way that the people in tiny hamlets get so very screwed. No matter how much they produce or don't produce, they are pretty much going to get just enough nails and ladders and such to continue the operations of their farms. However, such as there is a unit of currency in the barter economy of the turnip exchange – it's a unit of 1000 Calories. That's enough food to keep one peasant alive for one day. It's not enough to feed them well, and it's not enough to make them grow big and strong, but it's enough so that they don't actually die (for reference, a specialist eats 2000 Calories a day to stay sharp and an actual adventurer eats 5000 Calories a day to maintain fighting shape). In Rokugan, that's called a Koku, and in much of Faerun it is called a "ration". It works out to about 2 cups of dry rice (435 mL), or a 12 oz. steak (340 g), or 5 cups of black beans (1.133 kg), or 4.4 ounces of cooking oil (125 g).
Higher Calorie foods like meat and oil are more valuable and lower calorie foods like celery or spinach are less valuable because a lot of people exist on the razor's edge of starvation. The really fatty cuts of meat are the most valuable of all (it's like you're in Japan or Africa in that way). The practical effect of all of this is that people who have a skilled position such as blacksmith or scribe get enough food to grow up big, healthy, and intelligent. The peasants actually are weak and stupid because they only get 1000 Calories a day – they won't die on that but they don't grow as people. This also means that the blacksmith's son becomes the next blacksmith – he's the guy in the village who gets enough food to get the muscles you need to actually be a blacksmith.
When you start a party of adventurers, note the really tremendous expenditures that were required to make your characters. A 16 year old first level character didn't just get a longsword from somewhere, he's also been fed a non-starvation diet for 5844 days. That means that at some point your newly trained Fighter or Rogue seriously had someone invest thousands of Koku into him to allow him to get to that point. If your character is a street rat or a war orphan, consider where this food may have come from. Perhaps when the orcs destroyed your village leaving your character alone in the world the granary survived and your character had a huge supply of millet to sustain himself until he could hunt and kill deer to augment his diet.
- A Note on Peasant Uprisings
Peasants may seem like they get a crap deal out of life. That's because they do. And regardless of whatever happy peasant propaganda you may have seen, peasants aren't really happy with their life even under Good or Lawful rulership. That's because they work hard hours all year and get nothing to show for it. So the fact that they don't get beaten by Good regimes or stolen from by Lawful regimes doesn't really make them particularly rich or pleased.
In Earth's history, peasant uprisings happened about every other generation in every single county from Europe all the way to China all the way through the entire feudal era (all 1500 years of it). It is not unreasonable to expect that feudal regions in D&D land would have even more peasant uprisings because the visible wealth discrepancies between Rakshasa overlords and halfling dirt farmers is that much more intense. Sure, as in the real world's history these uprisings would rarely win, and even more rarely actually hold territory (if lords can agree on nothing else, it is that the peasants should not be allowed to rise up and kill the lords). The lords are all powerful adventurers, or the family and friends of powerful adventurers, so the frequent peasant revolts are usually put down with fireballs and even cloudkills.
Students of modern economic thought may notice that cutting the remote regions in on a portion of the central government's wealth in order to buy actual loyalty from the hinterlands could quite easily pay itself off in greater stability and the ability to invest in the production of the hinterlands causing the central government's coffers to swell with the enhanced overall economy and making the entire region safer and stronger in times of war – but as noted elsewhere such talk is considered laughable even by Lawfully minded theorists in the D&D world. After all, since abstract currency doesn't see use and the villagers don't have any gold, it is "well known" that it is impossible to make a profit on investment in the villages. The only possible choices involve taking more or less of their food as taxes/loot as that is all they produce.
The Gold Economy
"What pleasures can I get for a diamond?"
"We'll… have to get the book."
People who live in cities mostly trade in gold. This is not just because living so far away from the dirt farmers makes the hoarding of turnips as a trade commodity a dangerous undertaking – but because people living in cities are surrounded by a lot of people who provide a wide variety of goods and services they are willing and able to trade for substances generally acknowledged to be valuable rather than trading directly for the goods and services that they actually want. These valuable substances range from precious metals (copper, silver, gold, platinum) to gems (pearls, rubies, onyx, diamond) to spices (salt, myconid spores, hellcandy flowers). In any case, these trade goods are traded back and forth many times before they are ever used for anything
When someone sells an item or a service for trade goods they are doing it for one of two reasons. The first is that they want something that the buyer doesn't have. For example, a man might want a barrel of lard or a bolt of silk – but they'll accept silver coins or something else that they are reasonably certain they can trade to a third party for whatever it is that they are actually interested in. Whoever is using the trade goods is at a disadvantage in the bargaining therefore, because while they are getting something they actually want, the other trader is essentially getting the potential to purchase something they want once they walk around and find someone who will take the silver for their goods. It is for this reason that the purchasing power of gold is shockingly low in rural areas: a prospective trader would have to walk for days to get to another place he might actually spend a gold coin – so all negotiation essentially starts with buying several days of the man's labor and attention. The second reason for accepting a trade good is the belief that the trade good may itself become more valuable. Indeed, when were crocodiles take over a nearby village all the silver becomes a lot more interesting. This sort of speculation happens all the time and is incredibly bad for the economy. People and dragons take enormous amounts of currency out of circulation and the resulting economic downturns are part of what makes the dark ages so… dark.
Gold and jewels can be used to purchase magic items that aren't amazingly impressive. No wizard is ever going to make a masterpiece just to sell it for slips of silver. However, there are more than a few magicians who would be willing to invest some time in order to get a handful of gold that they can use to live their lives easier with. Making even Minor magic items is hard work, and wizards demand piles of gold to be heaped on them for producing even magical trinkets. And because these demands actually work, there's really no chance to purchase anything that would take a Magician a long time to make. That means that Major magic items cannot be purchased with standard trade goods at all. There's literally no artificer anywhere who is going to sit down and make a Ring of Spellstoring or a Helm of Brilliance in order to sell it for gold – because the same artificer can acquire as much gold as he can carry just by making Rings of Featherfall or Cloaks of Resistance.
The Wish Economy
"They scour the land searching for relics of the age of legends. Scant remnants they believe will grant them the powers of the Vanished Ones. I do not. The Age of Legends lives in me."
Magicians can only produce a relatively small number of truly powerful magic items. While a magician can produce any number of magic items that hold requirements at least 4 levels below their own – a wizard is permitted only one masterpiece at each level of their progression. It is no surprise, therefore, that characters would be vastly interested in acquiring magic items produced by others that are even of near equivalence to the mightiest items that a character could produce. A character could plausibly bind 8 magic items, and yet they can only create one which is of their highest level of effect. Gaining powerful magic items from other sources is a virtual requirement of the powerful adventurer.
So it is of no surprise that there is a brisk – if insanely risky – trade in magical equipment amongst the mighty. All the ingredients are there: characters are often left holding onto items that they can't use (for example: a third fire scimitar) and they are totally willing to exchange them for other items that they might want (magical teapots that change the weather or helmets that allow a man to see in all directions). And while the mutual benefit of such trades is not to be downplayed, it is similarly obvious that the benefits of betrayal in such arrangements are amazingly amazing. Killing people and taking their magical stuff is what adventurers do, so handing magic items back and forth in a seedy bar in a planar metropolis is an obviously dangerous undertaking.
Tamerlain's Economy: The Murderocracy
"The soldier may die, but he must receive his pay."
Let's say that you don't want to exchange goods and services for other goods and services at all. Well, it's medieval times baby, there's totally another option. See, if you kill people by stabbing them in the face when they want to be paid for things, you don't have to pay for things. Indeed, if you have a big enough pack of gnolls at your back, you don't have to pay anything to anyone except your own personal posse of gnolls.
The disadvantages of this plan are obvious – people get super pissed when they find out that you murdered their daughter because it was that or pay for a handful of radishes. But let's face it: if that old man can't do anything about it because you've got a pack of gnolls – then seriously what's he going to do? And while this sort of thing is often as not the source for an adventure hook (some guy comes to you and whines about how his whole family was killed by orcs/gnolls/your mom/ ogres/demons/or whatever and suddenly you have to strike a blow for great justice), it is also a cold harsh reality that everyone in D&D land has to live with. Remember: noone has written [u]The Rights of Man[/u]. Heck, noone has even written [u]Leviathan[/u]. The fact that survivors of an attack may appeal to the better nature of adventurers is pretty much the only recompense that our gnoll posse might fear should they simply forcibly dispossess everyone in your village.
So people who have something that the really powerful people want are in a lot of danger. If a dirt farmer who does all of his bargaining in and around the turnip economy suddenly finds himself with a pile of rubies that's bad news. It's not that there aren't people who would be willing to trade that farmer fine clothing, good food, and even minor magic items for those rubies – there totally are. But a pile of rubies is just big enough that a Marilith might take time out of her busy schedule to teleport in and murder his whole family for them. And he's a dirt farmer – there's no way he has the force needed to even pretend to have the force needed to stop her from doing it. So if you have planar currencies or powerful artifacts, you can't trade them to innkeepers and prostitutes. You can't even give them away save to other powerful people and organizations.
That doesn't mean that there isn't a peasant who runs around with a ring that casts charm person once a day or there isn't a minor bandit chief who happens to have a magic sword. Those guys totally exist and they may well wander the lands trying to parlay their tiny piece of asymmetric power into something more. But the vast majority of these guys don't go on to become famous adventurers or dark lords – they get their stuff taken away from them the first time they go head to head with someone with real power. Good or Evil, Lawful or Chaotic, noone wants some idiot to be running around with a ring that charms people – because frankly that's the kind of dangerous and an accident waiting to happen. If you happen to be powerful and see some small fry running around with some magic – your natural inclination is to take it from them. It doesn't matter what your alignment is, it doesn't matter if the guy with the wand of lightning bolt is currently "abusing" it, the fact is that if you don't take magic items away from little fish one of your enemies will. There is no right to private property. Noone owns anything, they just hold on to it until someone takes it from them.
Beelzebub's Economy: The Trade in Favors
"I'm certain that there's something we can do to help you… but eventually you'll have to help us."
Every transaction in D&D land is essentially barter. People trade a cloth sack for a handful of peas, people trade an embroidered silken sack for a handful of silver, and people trade a powerful magical sack for a handful of raw power. But in any of these cases, the exchange is a one-time swap of goods that one person wants more for goods the other person desires. But there is no reason it has to work like that. Modern economies abstract all of the exchanges by creating "money" that is an arbitrary tally of how much goods and services one can expect society to deliver – thereby allowing everyone to "trade" for whatever they want regardless of what they happen to produce. Nothing nearly that awesome exists anywhere in the myriad worlds of Dungeons and Dragons.
What one can see in heavy use is the trade in favors. This is just like getting paid in money except that your money is only good with the guy who paid it to you. So you can see why people might be reluctant to sell you things for it. And yet despite the extremely obvious disadvantages of this system, it is in extremely wide use at every level of every economy. And the reason is because it's really convenient. There is no guaranty that a King will have anything you want right now when he needs you to kill the dragon that is plaguing his lands. In fact, with a dragon plaguing his lands, the King is probably in the worst possible position to pay you anything. But once the lands aren't on fire and taxes start rolling in, he can probably pay you quite handsomely. Heck, in two years or so his daughter will be marrying age and since she's just going to end up as an aristocrat unless she becomes the apprentice and cohort of a real adventurer…
Failing to pay one's debts can have disastrous consequences in D&D land. We're talking "sold to hobgoblin slavers" levels of bad. Heck, this is a world in which you can seriously go into a court of law and present "He needed killing" as an excuse for premeditated homicide, so people who renege on their favors owed are in actual mortal danger. Of course, everyone is in mortal danger all the time because in D&D land you actually can have land shark attacks in your home town – so it isn't like there are any less people who flake on duties and favors. Of course, if people know you let favors slide they might be less likely to pull you out of the way of oncoming land sharks. Even in Chaotic areas, pissing off your neighbors is rarely a great plan.
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This is a good post, with an excellent exegesis on how to keep an economy flavorful and true to the rules. I think this would be an excellent addition to Pathfinder sourcebook.
I have a few comments:
1) I loved the "fame as currency" aspect, and think that should probably have a mechanical tie-in. Essentially, towns want to have high-powered and benevolent adventurers around because you never know when the next orc horde might appear over yon hill. Adventurers should have reps commensurate with their level, with dictate the sort of treatment they will get. (1st-5th: Will feed for chores; 6th-10th: You can sleep in the hay barn my good sirs!; 11th-15th: hear come the legendary adventurers! Make way! The finest ale for these good people! 16th-20th: please sir, marry my daughters. Yes, all of them. Please stay. Don't leave. Please...) By paying bards well, you might get a rep better than you deserve. Treat bards poorly and it goes the other way (and there should be a separate treatment chart for disreputable adventurers ranging from "Begone varlets!" to "Hide!" to "Oh, gods, just surrender and hope they leave something for the crows!"
2) You kind of buried your rules about magic item creation in the middle there. That was the only real mechanical change and it should have been more prominent (or a separate post)
3) Right now, the game only works if you can feed the "Christmas Tree syndrome". In other words, the game expects people to have a good amount of magic items. Any economics system needs to either a) eliminate magic item dependency -- and I don't think Pathfinder is going that direction or b) explain it. Your system seems to eschew it without eliminating its necessity.
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I have a work in progress called DomesdayBook.
It pretty much covers the problems of economics including the capacity of farmers to farm a certain amount of land (when you have huge urban populace), the importance of getting access to fuel and nutritional foods, and what happens to productivity if you dont keep your peasants healthy and wealthy.
I love the Plague Era. More died from malnutrition than the plague because labourers were not getting enough to sustain what they needed to do. Farmers were not getting what they needed to survive and when they started scrounging wild gamebirds, they caught the plague because it had come into europe like the bird flu.
Two things kept you safe from fleas and lice with plague: Sulphur powder which they did not have much access to, and considerable volumes of Olive oil, both rubbed into the hair and skin.
DID you Know it takes five labourers 41 years to quarry granite for a small 3rd ed. DMG CASTLE at a cost equal to its manufacture (efectively doubling cost).
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The real problem is that while all of theory is useful to know so you understand how D&D economics really is, using it to create a functional system is just way too much effort to develop, and what is worse, way too much effort to use. Having to calculate costs for every purchase in every location across multiple commodity and currency types takes away valuable hacking, looting, and general role-playing time.
Recall for the moment that the current rules about Item Slots (with the waist and arms chakra and all that) aren't open content. They were written up in the Magic Item Compendium and Magic of Incarnum - neither of which are available for fair use. So rather than come up with something that is very much the same, I propose that we ditch the entire concept and just give people a maximum number of magic items.
-Frank
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The real problem is that while all of theory is useful to know so you understand how D&D economics really is, using it to create a functional system is just way too much effort to develop, and what is worse, way too much effort to use. Having to calculate costs for every purchase in every location across multiple commodity and currency types takes away valuable hacking, looting, and general role-playing time.
There was a time when you were expected to roleplay even the buying and selling.
"I tell you what, here are a dozen swords i picked off some Goblins...How about I trade you these for a new shield."
Yep, I take enormous amounts of currency out of circulation. It's all so shiny. }: )
I love the peasant uprising part. "Help! Help! I'm being repressed."
But even freeholders can get nasty.
"Yup...the price of Grain depends on its availability...the less ther is the higher the price." Alavar the Farmer listened to the Drunken Sage ramble on about econ-mics-uv-trad but had understood one thing.
"So if I was the only one with Wheat this harvest, I would get more for it."
"Thas ho..it werks!" The Sage Passed out.
Later that evening, Alvar's Neighbour watched as his wheat harvest burned.
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for me what kills the D&D economics is magic item pricing, while i don't have a fix for it (and believe me I have tried) one additional issue that often arises is the selling of mass amounts of loot the party couldn't possibly carry.
If you can more easily manage carrying capacities, storage, or weight allowances the problem wouldn't be so huge.
Just say no to portable holes, bags of holding, and extra dimensional spaces and the world will be a better place :)
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If you can more easily manage carrying capacities, storage, or weight allowances the problem wouldn't be so huge.
Obviously, it feels wierd when the players strip the dungeon down to the bedrock and head back home to sell it all. The problem, however, is that mid-to-high level parties are expected to have a certain level of magical wealth, without which they are not correctly balanced against their enemies. This magic must therefore be either bought or found.
As a DM, this leaves me a choice: I can either arrange things so that their enemies always carry around usable items, even when it wouldn't suit the enemy's play style, or I can let them sell the loot they took off the baddies and use that gold to buy usable stuff.
Very tiny spoilers for Pathfinder #1:
Both choices are a little lame, but until characters stop needing magic to survive, I'll just have to keep giving them treasure and places to sell that treasure.
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"You konw what we do to Arsonists in this Farming District?"
Bob the Farmer hoisted a bit of rope he had worked into a noose.
"It was Thuringian Firehounds I tell you! Thuringian Firehounds!"
QUESTION 1
a. FIRKIN OF SALT (WEIGHT: 200lb, VALUE: 1000gp)
B. FIRKIN OF SILVER COINS(WEIGHT: 500lb, VALUE: 2500gp)
WHich Barrel does your King use for Taxes?
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The Economicon: Making Sense of the Gold Standard:
"100 pounds of gold for a house? How does anyone make rent without a wheelbarrow?"
Since time immemorial, D&D has used the "gold piece" as its primary currency. It is apparently a chunk of reasonably pure gold of vaguely standardized weight that people use fairly interchangeably in different cities populated by different species. In the bad old days, each gold coin was a tenth of a pound, which was hilarious and inane. In the current edition, each gold piece is a fiftieth of a pound. That's 3.43 gp to the Troy Ounce, which means that in the modern economy, each gp is about $171 worth of gold. Obviously, gold is significantly more common in D&D than it is on Earth, gold is also undervalued because its status as a currency standard drives it out of industrial uses and causes inflation. Further, populations in D&D are orders of magnitude smaller than they are in the real world, so the gold per person is higher even with the same amount of gold. So the gold piece is massively less valuable in D&D economies than it would be in Earth's economies.
Nonetheless, things are really expensive in D&D, and the high price in gold means that there's a distinct limitation of how much wealth can be transported by any means available. The economies of currency transaction are actually so unfavorable that currency as we understand the term does not exist. Things don't have prices or costs – all transactions are conducted in barter and a common medium of exchange is heavy lumps of precious metal.
Wish and the Economy
An Efreet can provide a wish for any magical item of 15,000 gp or less. A Balor can greater teleport at will, but can only carry 30 pounds of currency while doing so. Even in platinum pieces, that's 15,000 gp worth of metal. The long and the short of it is – at the upper end of the economy currency has no particular purchasing power and magic items of 15,000 gp value or less are viewed as wooden nickels at best. You can spend 15,000 gp and get magic items, but people in the know won't sell you a magic item worth 15,001 gp for money. That kind of item can only be bought for love. Or human souls. Or some other planar currency that is not replicable by chain binding a room full of Efreet to make in bulk.
Powerful characters actually can have bat caves that have sword racks literally covered in 15,000 gp magic items. It's not even a deal because they could just go home and slap some Efreet around and get some more. But even a single major magic item – that's heavy stuff that such characters will notice. Those things don't come free with hope alone, and every archmage knows that.
Wartime Economies Make for Shortages:
Many people wonder why a masterwork dagger goes for more than its weight in gold. That's a pretty valid question to ask; certainly I'm not going to attempt to justify the 600 gp price tag on a masterwork walking stick – that's just an example of simplistic game mechanics run amok. But to an extent the crazy prices can be justified by the fact that every settlement in every D&D world is on a war footing all the time. The idea that Peace is somehow a natural state is a fairly recent one, and based on the frequency of wars all over the world – it's obviously just wishful thinking anyway. War is the default position of every major economy in the world, and that means that weapons have an immediate, and desperate, clientele. Iron is still relatively cheap, because you can't kill people with it right now, but actual weapons and armor are crazy expensive.
That doesn't explain the fact that the PHB charges you over a quarter Oz. of gold just to get a backpack, and it doesn't explain the fact that the markup on masterworking a buckler is the same as the markup on masterworking a breastplate – that's just a game simplification that makes no real-world sense. But it's a start.
Coins are Big and Heavy
"How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?"
From the standpoint of the adventurer, the primary difficulty of the D&D currency system is that the lack of a coherent banking and paper currency system means that there are profound limits to what you could possibly purchase even with platinum. But the currency system hurts on the other end as well. Untrained labor gets a silverpiece a week. That's 500 copper coins a year, which means that no matter how cheap things are they can only make one purchase a day most of the time. That's pretty stifling to the economy, in that however much gets produced, noone can buy it. Demand, from the economics standpoint, is strangled to the point where large production outputs don't even matter (remember that in economics Demand doesn't mean "what people want", it means "what people are willing and able to pay for", so if the average person only has 500 discreet pieces of currency per year, that puts an absolute cap on economic demand, even though the people are of course both needy and greedy enough to want anything you happen to produce).
What's worse, those coins are heavy. For our next demonstration, reach into your change drawer and fish out nine pennies. That's a decent lump in your pocket, neh? That's about one copper piece. Gold pieces are smaller (less than half the size, actually), but weigh the same. D&D currency, therefore, is more like a Monopoly playing piece than it is like a modern or ancient coin. There's no reason to even believe these things are round, people are seriously marching around gold hats and silver dogs as the basic medium of exchange.
Now, you may ask yourself why these coins are so titanic compared to real coins. The answer is because having piles of coins is awesome. Dragons are supposed to sleep on that stuff, and that requires big piles of coins. Consider my own mattress, which is a "twin-size" (pretty reasonable for a single medium-size creature) and nearly .2 cubic meters. If it was made out of gold, it would be about 3.9 tonnes. That's about eighty-six hundred pounds, and even with the ginormous coins in D&D, that's four hundred and thirty thousand gold pieces. In previous editions, that sort of thing was simply accepted and very powerful dragons really did have the millions of gold pieces – which was actually fine. Since third edition, they've been trying to make gold actually equal character power, and the result has been that dragon hoards are… really small. None of this "We need to get a wagon team to haul it all away", no. In 3rd edition, hoard sizes have become manageable, even ridiculously tiny. When a 6th level party defeats a powerful and wealthy monster, they can expect to find… nearly a liter of gold. That is, the treasure "hoard" of that evil dragon you defeated will actually fit into an Evian bottle.
There are two ways to handle this:
1. Live with the fact that treasures are small and unexciting in modern D&D.
2. Live with the fact that characters who grab a realistic dragon's hoard become filthy stinking rich and this fundamentally changes the way they interact with society.
But once you accept that the realities of the wish based economy, you actually don't have to live with characters unbalancing the game once they find a real mattress filled with gold. That's not even a problem once characters are no longer excited by a +2 Enhancement bonus to a stat or a +3 enhancement bonus to Armor. Which means somewhere between 9th and 13th level it's perfectly fine for players to find actual money without unbalancing the game. Really, you can stop worrying about it.
-Frank
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1. Live with the fact that treasures are small and unexciting in modern D&D.
Treasure is never small unless the Party is looking in the wrong place. The Agricultural District in THE SKINSAW MURDERS is 64 Acres of Farmland, producing about Six Tons of Grain in a Harvest. If the PCs failed horribly, they could still walk away with six wagons of Grain. Sure that amounts to little more 140gp...but it is better than a suit of armour they cant wear - considering it will feed 21 families for a year.
2. Live with the fact that characters who grab a realistic dragon's hoard become filthy stinking rich and this fundamentally changes the way they interact with society.
Frankly a Dragon should be near untouchable, and its hoard nigh unfindable. A Gold Dragon is most likely the owner of several dozen Vinyards. And not likely to be doing anything with his farms other than knocking up lots of popcorn for 'game night' when he has the Dragon Council over during the live broadcast of 'Kingdoms at War'.
All they should get from a Dragon's Destruction is the New Farmland available for their own Territorial Ambitions and someone else who wants the farmland.
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I did historical research for my coin system and I made silver my coin of commerce(equal to 1 D&D GP) and gold my coin of account. All but the least valuable coins have a value that is half specie and half fiat (as were most coins from Roman times to the 1700s). The lowest coins are 100% specie and 0% fiat (also precidented both historicaly and presently--even negative fiat value).
Mike
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There was a time when you were expected to roleplay even the buying and selling.
"I tell you what, here are a dozen swords i picked off some Goblins...How about I trade you these for a new shield."
Not to the degree of having tables for rates of exchange, rates of inflation, current supply, current demand, and every other relevant factor.
That is fun to program into the background of a CRPG, but it is not fun to sit around making 50 rolls on the economics tables for every bit of battle loot you want to sell.|
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Both choices are a little lame, but until characters stop needing magic to survive, I'll just have to keep giving them treasure and places to sell that treasure.
That is why I just gave my current group a pet artificer NPC in my current campaign.
Now the monsters have what they can use, and the NPC converts the battle loot into what the players want for their characters.It might be very cheesey, but at least it lets us focus on the campaign rather than the equipping. Gear runs in our first campaign were very annoying, so some solution was needed.
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There was a time when you were expected to roleplay even the buying and selling.
"I tell you what, here are a dozen swords i picked off some Goblins...How about I trade you these for a new shield."
Not to the degree of having tables for rates of exchange, rates of inflation, current supply, current demand, and every other relevant factor.
That is fun to program into the background of a CRPG, but it is not fun to sit around making 50 rolls on the economics tables for every bit of battle loot you want to sell.
Certainly not for Players...but I think there needs to be some major improvements for DMs so they can:
1. Improve Campaing Setting Quality beyond "Dragon Coughs up a Tear of Gold as you skewer it on your Longspear".2. Predict with reasonable accuracy how much produce is in a given district.
3. Calculate what is needed to feed and fuel a city of ten thousand when it has to be shipped in by Wagon. Considering Six wagons of Wheat is enough to provide grain to 21 families, 1,286 wagons will be needed to bring in the wheat alone. That means that the roads the PCs travel on between communities are heavy with traffic all the time. Ten wagons of firewood for the single family, means 45,000 wagons of firewood for the City of 10,000. Conceivably that is 5 wagons per urban populace or 137 Wagons per day.
4. Determine the effect of shortfalls when the crops are being burned off by Raiders.
5. Determine the Real Wealth of an Estate or Kingdom with some ease.
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Obviously, it feels wierd when the players strip the dungeon down to the bedrock and head back home to sell it all. The problem, however, is that mid-to-high level parties are expected to have a certain level of magical wealth, without which they are not correctly balanced against their enemies. This magic must therefore be either bought or found. *snip*
Actually you missed out a 3rd choice which is probably the easiest to control... Party wizard created magic items. If there was some way to give wizards a controlled power curve with regards to producing magic items for the party (without the effects on the general economy) this could become a very useful tool and may even make wizards more useful than just a simple spell slinger.
I'm not sure how to implement this but heres some ideas I have considered in the past...
Attuned Items: magic items are attuned to a specific individual
Restricted Items: items are restricted by class, race, level (HD), or even stats (thinking a little like Excalibur here) and can only be used by such an individual.
Rare components: acquiring items as part of quests (or harvested off powerful creatures) used to create non-standard items such as bags of holding, that every character wants but not everyone should have.
to reduce item creation madness I have also considered in the past having characters imbue soul stones that are used to power magic items for the character. you can then restict characters to X amount of sole stones which affects items that work all the time. items requiring activation by command (wands) or consumption (potions) do not require soul stones.
I also liked what wizard plan to do in 4e by making wands, orbs, staffs, and tomes the weapons of a wizard. this makes perfect sense to me and i'd like to see how it works in more detail.
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Certainly not for Players...but I think there needs to be some major improvements for DMs so they can:
1. Improve Campaing Setting Quality beyond "Dragon Coughs up a Tear of Gold as you skewer it on your Longspear".2. Predict with reasonable accuracy how much produce is in a given district.
3. Calculate what is needed to feed and fuel a city of ten thousand when it has to be shipped in by Wagon. Considering Six wagons of Wheat is enough to provide grain to 21 families, 1,286 wagons will be needed to bring in the wheat alone. That means that the roads the PCs travel on between communities are heavy with traffic all the time. Ten wagons of firewood for the single family, means 45,000 wagons of firewood for the City of 10,000. Conceivably that is 5 wagons per urban populace or 137 Wagons per day.
4. Determine the effect of shortfalls when the crops are being burned off by Raiders.
5. Determine the Real Wealth of an Estate or Kingdom with some ease.
1 is useful.
2 is not very relevant, particularly compared to having a better idea of what is being produced.3 is only barely relevant if 4 happens.
4 is slightly relevant but best handwaved.
5. is nearly impossible to do with anything less than significant effort, and so is not very useful.
If anyone really wants endless tables about this, pick up some Traveller material. The most extensive versions are in the long defunct Pocket Empires supplement for T4, but you can find other bits spread out through various versions. The Pocket Empire versions in particular drive home the single most crucial element: Do you really want to spend an entire session doing nothing but rolling dice to determine whether your empire produces an extra +1 modifier to one of the rolls you get to make the next session to determine whether your empire can build a new summer home for you? Or would you rather just go out and blow something up?
Again, this stuff is great - for programming a Civ-like sim to model economics. And DMs should know it so they know just how much they are diverging from anything even vaguely resembling an economy in the game.
More than a bit in the game though, and your next epic quest is looking for a new stud bull, anvil, or millstone, instead of taking out a dragon and wondering whether its hoard should be big enough for it to sleep on or small enough to haul away in a pair of handy haversacks.
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Good point. Last time I played Traveller I felt like I was working on a degree in economics. I was bored out of my gourd.
I think that economic background details could be more realistic and logical but should still stay in the background. We are talking an abstraction here. You go so far as to roll on some table to see how corn or gold is doing like Traveller and I'm out. My eyes glaze over and I could care less. I'd hire some npc to work the speculation market and just collect the flat profits every month.
Oh and leave the damn dragon's treasure hoard alone. I need to steal like every bed in a town and see how the villagers like that.
Economics in D&D fail. Period.
No need to try to make them better, or more realistic.
Once you introduce the Fabricate spell, economics go to pot.
Economics in D&D fail. Period.
No need to try to make them better, or more realistic.
Once you introduce the Fabricate spell, economics go to pot.
That opinion is incomprehensible. Factories do not invalidate economics, quite the opposite. A Wizard with fabricate can create a lot of wealth per day, but that's not really that big of a deal.
-Frank
Economics in D&D fail. Period.
No need to try to make them better, or more realistic.
Once you introduce the Fabricate spell, economics go to pot.
That opinion is incomprehensible. Factories do not invalidate economics, quite the opposite. A Wizard with fabricate can create a lot of wealth per day, but that's not really that big of a deal.
-Frank
Really? So a ninth level Wizard being capable of creating roughly 5000 vials of Alchemist Fire (assuming needing to create the vials as well) per casting doesn't screw up any economic system that is in place?
That is a fairly optimistic view.
Christ, I just try to make my economics believable to my players. They're not economists and I'm pretty savvy so I've never had a problem.
Frank makes some good points but I've got to agree that a few high level casters can really change a small economy, both for better or for worse, depending on what they do.
Certainly not for Players...but I think there needs to be some major improvements for DMs so they can:
1. Improve Campaing Setting Quality beyond "Dragon Coughs up a Tear of Gold as you skewer it on your Longspear".
Yah that happens all the time.
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2. Predict with reasonable accuracy how much produce is in a given district.
I say how much. What I say is accurate. I am DM. Worship me with fear and trembling.
3. Calculate what is needed to feed and fuel a city of ten thousand when it has to be shipped in by Wagon. Considering Six wagons of Wheat is enough to provide grain to 21 families, 1,286 wagons will be needed to bring in the wheat alone. That means that the roads the PCs travel on between communities are heavy with traffic all the time. Ten wagons of firewood for the single family, means 45,000 wagons of firewood for the City of 10,000. Conceivably that is 5 wagons per urban populace or 137 Wagons per day.
That's why they have these things called roads. There is traffic on them and I know it without doing any math. I'm more worried about colorful and interesting narration, to be honest.
4. Determine the effect of shortfalls when the crops are being burned off by Raiders.
Ummm. People starve. Malnourishment. Infant mortality. Crime rate. Do I have to calculate it. When you make Kraft dinner, do you count the macaroni, dingo?
5. Determine the Real Wealth of an Estate or Kingdom with some ease.
It's really expensive, way more than that +3 sword. Problem solved.
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Good point. Last time I played Traveller I felt like I was working on a degree in economics. I was bored out of my gourd.
I think that economic background details could be more realistic and logical but should still stay in the background. We are talking an abstraction here. You go so far as to roll on some table to see how corn or gold is doing like Traveller and I'm out. My eyes glaze over and I could care less. I'd hire some npc to work the speculation market and just collect the flat profits every month.
Oh and leave the damn dragon's treasure hoard alone. I need to steal like every bed in a town and see how the villagers like that.
For Traveller, most people tend to scour the published sectors for one of those "perfect" world combos where you can run a free trader and make such an obscene profit the GM agrees to give you power armor and FGMP-15's if you will only stop and play one of his adventures for a single session. After that, the GM's learn their lesson and just pretend the trade rules do not exist. ;)
And dragon, LEAVE THOSE BEDS ALONE! ;)
Really? So a ninth level Wizard being capable of creating roughly 5000 vials of Alchemist Fire (assuming needing to create the vials as well) per casting doesn't screw up any economic system that is in place?
No. It honestly doesn't. Remember that we are talking about a barter economy. Creating 5000 vials of alchemist fire is interesting and all, but who exactly are you going to sell it to? And for what? You don't seriously think that there is someone out there who is going to upend its market value of twenty five tons of gold onto your lawn in some reasonable amount of time do you? Even if there was, what the hell would you do with twenty five tons of gold?
Indeed, once you factor in the fact that Alchemist Fire materials have some kind of price, it's virtually impossible to imagine actually making a profit in any kind of reasonable amount of time by the expedient of transforming those materials into Alchemist Fire. But Alchemist Fire is also a really bad example because we have no idea what it is made of.
A better example for your position is transforming iron into masterwork weapons and armor. That transforms really fast and we know for certain where the raw materials come from (castings of wall of iron as it happens), and we can easily assume that there is a virtually bottomless market for it so long as the world stays at war (which is a pretty good bet because we are talking about D&D land).
But even so, who cares? Even though the demand is bottomless, it's still barter based so the demand is not infinitely elastic. The amount of masterwork swords sold in any given month is pretty much fixed, because people don't have very much money. If you make a few hundred extra that doesn't even put other sellers out of a job, because the auction yard doesn't ever clear on this or any month. The world is always in a state of over production, and your ability to over produce even more is essentially meaningless.
-Frank
Well, actually, the problem with high level economics is this.
If you just want to adventure, that's not the way D+D has ever been designed to be played.
When you are playing Fardeeg Hobergundy, somewhere around 12th level, he becomes Knight of the Lower Hills, since the Duke knows Fardeeg is tough. Now he has to spend money on a stronghold and taming the surrounding Lower Hills. Should Fardeeg take Leadership as a feat? Probably, if he ever wants to go on adventures again, or keep his holdings and new castle safe. Furthermore, let's say his domain borders on the Suretmarsh, and a lot of unpleasant creatures live in the Suretmarsh.
Seeing that his lands are safe under Lord Hobergundy, somewhere around 15th level, the Duke appoints Fardeeg the additional position of Warden of the Suretmarsh. Now, he has to spend money containing the threats that live in the Suretmarsh, and the Duke doesn't have to grant Fardeeg any money, because hey, that's Feudalism.
People forget that doing these things (Building Strongholds, forming towns, etc) COST MONEY. And they cost A LOT of money.
And if the PC decides to tell the Duke !@#$!#$! you, the Duke has far more money than Fardeeg does. He can hire any number of adventurers, would be rogues, or unpleasant courtiers to harass, offend, and tax him. If Fardeeg continues to be a nuisance, the Duke can repossess his castle, and strip him of his lands, if not his titles.
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Precisely. The biggest obstacle to having a sensible economy in D&D is the fact that people are supposed to be able to purchase +4 swords with gold. Six hundred and forty seven pounds of gold. That's not only completely ridiculous just from the standpoint of the party halfling rogue carrying in the weight of four men in gold coin just to upgrade his dagger - but it also means that player characters can never get out of the stupid Diablo economics and into positions of real authority because they never have gold to throw around even when they are staggering a team of mules with the stuff.
The solution is dead simple. In 3rd edition rules, you can wish for any magic item of 15,000 gp or less. And we just accept that, and then we don't let people buy magic items that are more expensive than that for gold.
This kills lots of birds with one stone. It means that we get Out of the perpetual debt engine caused by people being literally incapable of even carrying sufficient wealth to purchase the magic items that they need to fight level appropriate challenges. It means that people don't have to constantly live like a damn hobo to save money while they have literal wagon trains full of gold and gems because beyond a certain point the gold and gems no longer translate directly into personal power and they can start spending the stuff. It means that you can put cool architecture and massive dragon hoards into scenarios without unbalancing the game or making the players do stupid crap to pry all the valuable materials off the walls.
The idea that you can purchase a +4 anything with stupid huge piles of gold has got to go. It hasn't worked since 3rd edition started and it's not going to start working any time soon.
-Frank
I did historical research for my coin system and I made silver my coin of commerce(equal to 1 D&D GP) and gold my coin of account. All but the least valuable coins have a value that is half specie and half fiat (as were most coins from Roman times to the 1700s). The lowest coins are 100% specie and 0% fiat (also precidented both historicaly and presently--even negative fiat value).
Mike
I have also played with silver being the primary coinage. It is an easy change. Cost in gp become cost in sp, sp become cp, and cp become bits (I had copper coins that could be broken in smaller pieces - bits or "beggar's bits").
You have to scale back treasure awards some, but the result is that a masterwork longsword cost 31 gold and 5 silver instead of 315 gold and a +1 longsword cost 231 gold and 5 silver instead of 2,315 gold.
It does not help things much at high levels (an amulet of the planes would cost 12,000 gold insteas of 120,000 gold), but is still an improvement.
For my current home brew I reworked the coins . then I had to redo most of the prices for the cheaper stuff here what I came up with
I use silver,copper and bronze.
1 silver katar=10 copper brail
1 copper brail=10 bronze trance
1 bronze trance=4 bronze pence
1 bronze small trance=3 bronze pence
1 bronze half trance=2 bronze pence
1 bronze pence=1 bronze pence
Precisely. The biggest obstacle to having a sensible economy in D&D is the fact that people are supposed to be able to purchase +4 swords with gold. Six hundred and forty seven pounds of gold. That's not only completely ridiculous just from the standpoint of the party halfling rogue carrying in the weight of four men in gold coin just to upgrade his dagger - but it also means that player characters can never get out of the stupid Diablo economics and into positions of real authority because they never have gold to throw around even when they are staggering a team of mules with the stuff.
The solution is dead simple. In 3rd edition rules, you can wish for any magic item of 15,000 gp or less. And we just accept that, and then we don't let people buy magic items that are more expensive than that for gold.
This kills lots of birds with one stone. It means that we get Out of the perpetual debt engine caused by people being literally incapable of even carrying sufficient wealth to purchase the magic items that they need to fight level appropriate challenges. It means that people don't have to constantly live like a damn hobo to save money while they have literal wagon trains full of gold and gems because beyond a certain point the gold and gems no longer translate directly into personal power and they can start spending the stuff. It means that you can put cool architecture and massive dragon hoards into scenarios without unbalancing the game or making the players do stupid crap to pry all the valuable materials off the walls.
The idea that you can purchase a +4 anything with stupid huge piles of gold has got to go. It hasn't worked since 3rd edition started and it's not going to start working any time soon.
-Frank
The problem is the perpetual debt engine is endemic to the power creep inherent in the system. If at high levels, your game is more about worldbuilding and less about beating up stuff, then you don't need to worry about this.
I have a game where the characters are currently entering the ranks of the "Desperately Needing Strongholds" and if you don't suddenly find a way to come up with a few hundred thousand gold pieces, then you have to make that tradeoff. And three out of four characters in the group need them.
Okay, let's look at this practically. If this were a "realistic" pseudomideval fantasy economy, then in many parts of the world zircon would be more valuable than diamond, silver more valuable than gold, and aluminium and mercury more valuable than all of those combined.
Frankly, I like a bit of escapism in my fantasy, and I didn't sign up to play Wizards of Wall Street.
And for those of you about to jump at my comment about aluminium, bear in mind I said "aluminium" and not "tin".
On more than one occassion I have been tempted to have my players find a valuable aluminimum necklace just for the doubletake effect. Ah, to think it was once more valuable than gold.
The only real problem with the "economy" on D&D is the amount of money moving around. This has cause a break in the suspension of disbelief on a few occassions with my players. of course, if the christmas tree effect of magic items can be adjusted, then these problems may take care of themselves for the most part.
Okay, let's look at this practically. If this were a "realistic" pseudomideval fantasy economy, then in many parts of the world zircon would be more valuable than diamond, silver more valuable than gold, and aluminium and mercury more valuable than all of those combined.
Frankly, I like a bit of escapism in my fantasy, and I didn't sign up to play Wizards of Wall Street.
And for those of you about to jump at my comment about aluminium, bear in mind I said "aluminium" and not "tin".
On more than one occassion I have been tempted to have my players find a valuable aluminimum necklace just for the doubletake effect. Ah, to think it was once more valuable than gold.
The only real problem with the "economy" on D&D is the amount of money moving around. This has cause a break in the suspension of disbelief on a few occassions with my players. of course, if the christmas tree effect of magic items can be adjusted, then these problems may take care of themselves for the most part.
The problem of moving money around is, in my opinion, not a problem. Most PC's were willing, if there was no bag of holding readily available, to pay a gem merchant a ten percent fee to convert all their money into easily carryable jewels.
The economy does function, it's just that people have to remember that merchants exist.
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The idea that you can purchase a +4 anything with stupid huge piles of gold has got to go. It hasn't worked since 3rd edition started and it's not going to start working any time soon.
-Frank
Sure it works.
How?"You drop off enough gold to replace the cobblestones with solid gold bricks and get your new sword."
There. It worked.
If that seems excessive, just remember the description of Sarnath from the Doom that came to Sarnath. The whole city was made out of precious metals and valuable stones.
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Or, by the time you can afford a +4 sword, you prolly have a +3 sword, 3 +2 swords, 12 +1 swords, and just fought a bunch of lowly 5th level fighter hill giants with 27 more +1 swords.
So you find a guy with a +5 sword, and an extra +4 sword that he uses to carve the Thanksgiving turkey with, and trade him all those swords and a little gold for a +4 sword, and that guy arms a private army or something for his fort.
No. It honestly doesn't. Remember that we are talking about a barter economy. Creating 5000 vials of alchemist fire is interesting and all, but who exactly are you going to sell it to?
Who said anything about selling?
Hmm?
Once you use 1000 of those vials, people will give you almost anything you ask for to leave their land alone.
And with 4000 "in reserve," you can wreak havoc on any standing armies as well.
There is no real way to have a reasonable economy, that the majority of DMs will give two squirts about, in D&D. When you pack "ultimate cosmic power" in your little finger, the two sheep for a masterwork hand ax just doesn't mean much.
There isn't any realistic way to force resource distribution of an effective level into any game, other than your own personal game.
Especially with the design/battle cry of "keep it simple, stupid."
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i think we also tend to forget that adventures go to differnt countries and each country has a standardize currency. Thus they need to have money changers to take both foriegn and ancient coin. All based on wieghts and messures. The money changers are also ussually charge an exchange fee of 10% and will also infom the local tax collecters of the obvious wealth that has entered the town or city.
It is very possible to run a party out of coin if you actually use what has been done in real life.
Other than that I can see a party going to a city to trade food stuff for coin and livestock and seed to bring back to their home town to barter for more things later. This would end uup with the party enriching their home so that more adventures can be pulled from the local populous and may even help bring the violliage to a small town due to the riches the town has gotten.
No. It honestly doesn't. Remember that we are talking about a barter economy. Creating 5000 vials of alchemist fire is interesting and all, but who exactly are you going to sell it to?Who said anything about selling?
Hmm?
Once you use 1000 of those vials, people will give you almost anything you ask for to leave their land alone.
And with 4000 "in reserve," you can wreak havoc on any standing armies as well.
There is no real way to have a reasonable economy, that the majority of DMs will give two squirts about, in D&D. When you pack "ultimate cosmic power" in your little finger, the two sheep for a masterwork hand ax just doesn't mean much.
There isn't any realistic way to force resource distribution of an effective level into any game, other than your own personal game.
Especially with the design/battle cry of "keep it simple, stupid."
Wait a minute. Are you seriously suggesting that economic systems don't work because high level characters can destroy villages? Or are you saying that economics don't work because high level characters stop having low end expenditures? Either way, that assessment is stupid.
High level characters don't have to pay gold to stay in hotels because they can sleep in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. They don't have to pay gold for arrows or alchemist fire because they can use major creation to provide every day's ammunition for free. And this all conspires to not ruin the gold economy because the high level characters are naturally removing themselves from it.
A 10th level Wizard does not have to spend gold for stuff that he wants or needs on a day to day basis. And ironically it is therefore better for the game if he also can't spend gold to get the big ticket items that he uses to compete with monsters of his level. He's out of the gold economy. He's playing in the Wish Economy, and we should codify that.
-Frank
I say post some of this information as a web supplement but there is really no need for it in the actual rule books. Things move and cost as much as I need them to for my game.
I say post some of this information as a web supplement but there is really no need for it in the actual rule books.
I've always thought a "Complete Civilian" supplement would be great for 3rd edition (and now for Pathfinder). Expand the roles of NPC classes, really flesh out what you can and should do with Leadership, cohorts and followers. Introduce better explanations for economic and social systems, like what Frank has offered.-----------------------
Wait a minute. Are you seriously suggesting that economic systems don't work because high level characters can destroy villages? Or are you saying that economics don't work because high level characters stop having low end expenditures? Either way, that assessment is stupid.
Np. What I am saying is that no economics system is going to be good enough, simple enough, and useful enough to be worth the time and effort to put it together.
There are far too many variable to pay attention to, keep track of, and retain to make this exercise worth any value.
But hey, if you want the Pathfinder Development team to spend time and money making a 20 page or so chapter detailing the base cost of every item under the sun, then the charts necessary to detail, and randomize for those that want it, all possible local variables to affect those prices, then of course prevailing weather conditions, and make a tracker sheet for it - be my guest.
Oh yeah, then they would need to make a separate chapter on how to convert it back to the 3.5 system to ensure a "minimal effort" to use it with previous Pathfinder products.
Or you could just let it rest, and continue to use the simple - if unellegant - way that has been used for about a decade. More, if you count similar systems from previous editions.
But that would require you to pay attention to the posters who have told you that very thing in this thread.
hey, if you want the Pathfinder Development team to spend time and money making a 20 page or so chapter detailing the base cost of every item under the sun, then the charts necessary to detail, and randomize for those that want it, all possible local variables to affect those prices, then of course prevailing weather conditions, and make a tracker sheet for it - be my guest.
Where'd you get the idea that's what he wants? Is it really necessary to misconstrue someone's suggestion like that to make your point? All he's seeking is a chapter on economics that replaces the buckets of gold phenomenon with an easy to apply barter system. Heck, gp can even be the estimated unit of measurement, as long as people aren't lugging around tons of gold to upgrade their +3 sword.
This really is a modest proposal and not worth the snarkiness being thrown around.
I say post some of this information as a web supplement but there is really no need for it in the actual rule books.I've always thought a "Complete Civilian" supplement would be great for 3rd edition (and now for Pathfinder). Expand the roles of NPC classes, really flesh out what you can and should do with Leadership, cohorts and followers. Introduce better explanations for economic and social systems, like what Frank has offered.-----------------------
For fleshing out what you can do with the Leadership feat, although ALL of it may not be useful for your game, try Power of Faerun.
The campaign setting information may not be that useful, but everything else will be.
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All he's seeking is a chapter on economics that replaces the buckets of gold phenomenon with an easy to apply barter system.
Barter doesn't solve the problem, though. If my 15th level PCs are out looking for a sword with +5 or 6 worth of specific bonuses on it, that sword either exists for purchase, or it does not. If somebody has that specific sword, why would he sell it for buckets of gold and diamonds? Well, he probably wouldn't. But given that its one of the most powerful swords in the world, why would he trade it for a couple +4 swords and a suit of midrange magic platemail? And if he wants some lesser swords and armor, why is he not willing to take the buckets of gold and diamonds to go elsewhere and buy weapons that more exactly suit his needs than whatever the PCs stole from the last batch of demons?
Barter only works if both sides have exactly (or at least roughly) what the other guy wants. If my players scour the planes for some guy that's got the +5 Holy Doombringer, and when they find him, he wants a couple +4 Hyperflame Scimitars and a Cloak of Malarky, but they've got a couple Greatswords of Unending Might and a Chainmail of Being Elsewhere, then there's no trade to be made. They then have to go searching hither and yon to find the guy who wants the crap they've got in exchange for the crap the first guy wanted so they can eventually get the crap that they want.
Meanwhile, Ulgurush the Mad has conquered the Material Plane and brought forth an Age of Really Bad Stuff.
I personally find it easier to hand out loot that roughly matches the needs of my players, and let them sell the rest of the stuff as long as they're in a Big City. For really crazy-expensive stuff, I can either contrive a seller to exist somewhere, or I can tell them it's not available, or I can throw in a little sidequest. But I have absolutely no interest in wasting a 4-hour session on playing barter economy because the Fighter needs an armor increase, and I'm not going to write a sidequest for every magic item the players want that costs over 15-20k gold.
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Disenchanter, you are completely wrong. The economics rules presented are not simple. They are not functional. They only work at all at low levels. Once characters need to purchase +3 Swords or defend kingdoms, the crushing failure that is the 3rd edition Diablo style economics comes up and hits you right in the face. And no, the AD&D economics rules did not have those problems. They had different problems that you actually could just ignore until they went away.
High Level Characters Can Get Lots of Money
This has ever been so. In AD&D days they just handed out millions of gold pieces on occasion. There were cities made of precious metals. And we made spells like planar binding and plane shift that would give you as much money as you wanted, because it seriously didn't matter. And now these spells and planes are still around.
We seriously need to just accept the vast piles of gold that high level characters have, and adapt our economies to fit. In AD&D (1st and 2nd edition), we forbade characters from spending these piles of gold on ever more powerful magic swords, and in return we were rewarded by having the game not break when people did crazy crap to get gold, and we were rewarded by having characters not getting punished by spending gold they did earn on having fancy homes and hiring people to raise horses (or whatever) on your behalf.
The game is better if we segregate the gold expenditures out from the things higher level characters want and need to do. And by "better" I mean works at all.
-Frank
All he's seeking is a chapter on economics that replaces the buckets of gold phenomenon with an easy to apply barter ystem.
Is that all?
Hmmm...
So if a PC wanted to start a dairy farm, and had a +2 Short Sword to finance it:
S/he could "sell" it for about 50% of the value, as per the rules. Misconception #1; the item doesn't even have to be sold to a specific person.
Then take that gold. Misconception #2; the gold doesn't even have to really exist.
And then purchase a number of dairy cows - I don't recall a cow entry, but a workhorse would be close enough. Misconception #3; the cows don't have to be bought from anyone in particular.
And bingo. Barter system. And it has been there all along. Any loss of value from the "trade" could represent appraisal fees from the "sold" item(s) and the "bought" item(s), tranport costs, and tracking down the actual person(s) interested in the trade.
And here I thought Frank was looking for something difficult.