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I read the rules to say that the cost of making a magic item is half the market value. Note that this is the same as selling a fully charged magic item on the open market. Unless you run your own business, there's little economic sense in this model. One aspect of item creation feats would be to create items on the side, sell them in the open market, and make a profit. It just ain't the case.
Perhaps instead the cost to create a magic item should be 1/4 the market value. Thus, to sell a magic item, fully charged is 1/2 market value and the creator makes a profit in selling it to a merchant.
Just a thought.
I read the rules to say that the cost of making a magic item is half the market value. Note that this is the same as selling a fully charged magic item on the open market. Unless you run your own business, there's little economic sense in this model. One aspect of item creation feats would be to create items on the side, sell them in the open market, and make a profit. It just ain't the case.
Perhaps instead the cost to create a magic item should be 1/4 the market value. Thus, to sell a magic item, fully charged is 1/2 market value and the creator makes a profit in selling it to a merchant.
Just a thought.
PCs (generally) are not selling on "the open market", they are selling either to specific interested individuals, or to stores which then resell at a markup.
Should a PC actually go into a full out business selling magic items, and incur the expenses associated with doing so (rent, taxes, security, etc.), they should get market, or close to market price (after all, some things only move when their on sale...). I would then refer to such characters as a net-operating new-product commercial stores, or NON-PCs for short. :)
Crafting magic items is not intended to be a for profit venture.
Characters of a given level are assumed to have a certain amount of wealth. Obviously this isn't a static value, nor is it supposed to be exact. While being over or under by some percent isn't that big of a deal, being off by a large degree can easily be game breaking. This is more evident with inexperienced DM's and/or running a module as written.
The ability to craft items at 1/2 the market value is a more than respectable benefit. It's even better when you remove XP costs, like Pathfinder is doing and which is how I've always done it. Don't forget the secondary benefit of being able to create what you want and not having to rely on found treasure or being able to purchase/commission what you want (in other words the whim of the dice or DM).
Players should not have the means to set up shop and print money.
Use Planar Binding to Call an Lantern Archon and have it use its Continual Flame SLA on a sack of pebbles for a day. Then sell the pebbles for a fortune.
THAT's bad economics in D&D. Creating and selling magic items to get rich... *giggle*
This actually makes a lot of sense. The D&D economy is, and kind of has to be, very artificial, or else the PCs will abuse the s!$* out of it. (Our Age of Worms adventuring party, the all-dwarven "Adventure Capitalists", purchased the rights to the Whispering Cairns so as to open the Tomb of the Wind Dukes as a historical museum attraction, for example.) I seem to recall that there's some obscure clause in the DMG that prohibits players selling magic items they've created for exactly this reason. So, this new rule makes a lot of sense; it doesn't matter if that shiny new +2 Longsword came from the dragon's hoard or your wizard's workshop, because they're still the same item.
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I agree with the loss of the xp cost for items - it is effectively a penalty for creating items. On the cost, this is a bit more nuanced - you can use an item, or sell for half price and (if you have the feats) make one you want. This is effectively a cash neutral thing since you lose half the value on the item, and get half the value back when you make a new one. This doesn't seem a big problem to me. This also assumes, of course, that when handing out treasure you use the full price to callibrate its value, not the 50% production cost/resale cost.
The issue comes if you gove a PC tons of money. They can then effectively double the value of the loot by burning it to make magic items - this will double the value. I guess the solution is not to hand out too much loot in the form or coinage.
On making money, I think it is important to enforce the rule that all magic items, even the ones you make, only sell for the 50% resale price, not the full price. Does this make sense, economically? Not really, but it is a game balance issue. If PCs want to set themselves up as magic item factories, ask them to make those PCs NPCs and roll up new characters. Have the local magic item creating cartel come round and make them an offer they cannot refuse. Maybe, under the settlement wealth rules, no one actually has the cash to buy what they want where they have set up. Make them run it as a business - plans, forecasts, overheads, HR problems, employee fraud, competition (and hopefully they will get bored). None of these are perfect, of course, but PCs should be made aware that their attempts to unbalance the game will fail.
Note on the Lantern Archon trick -- while Planar Binding is a controversial spell that allows DMs some opportunity to screw with the players, this trick doesn't require it or even want it. Summon Monster 4 is just as good.
Note on the Lantern Archon trick -- while Planar Binding is a controversial spell that allows DMs some opportunity to screw with the players, this trick doesn't require it or even want it. Summon Monster 4 is just as good.
The Lantern Archon might not get wise enough to catch on to this, but I think the next time the player tried to summon anything, another being in the angelic hierarchy might show up and demand "recompense" in that situation.
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Magic item creation should be for equipping yourself and your party. Do NOT make it profitable to create magic items and sell them. If magic items selling is going to be profitable then high XP costs need to be reinstated.
While I support the idea of pawning magic items you get that you don't need anymore and that major cities probably do have a trinket shop or two, I don't accept for a second any wizard is a magic item factory.
Note on the Lantern Archon trick -- while Planar Binding is a controversial spell that allows DMs some opportunity to screw with the players, this trick doesn't require it or even want it. Summon Monster 4 is just as good.
Spells cast by summoned creatures end when they disappear. It's in the conjuration school description. That's why a calling effect is necessary.
And yes, there's a problem in Planar Binding. A much bigger problem than in creating magic items to get rich, especially for creating wealth. The Djinni (Create Wine, Minor Creation: Spices) comes to mind. So, before worrying about a caster burying himself in his laboratory to create and sell items, I'd worry about him using much more available and quicker ways to destabilize the economy.
My bad on the summons -- thanks for the catch.
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Magic item creation should be for equipping yourself and your party. Do NOT make it profitable to create magic items and sell them. If magic items selling is going to be profitable then high XP costs need to be reinstated.
While I support the idea of pawning magic items you get that you don't need anymore and that major cities probably do have a trinket shop or two, I don't accept for a second any wizard is a magic item factory.
I agree with you in principle. PCs should never make a profit from making items. Its too easy to abuse. But as for NPC casters, I take a different view. Rather than magic item factories, I have always conceived of it that in a D&D society that you would have many who functioned as commissioned "artists" whose products were made to order on a limited schedule. Since almost any tom dick or harry with magical aptitude can scribe low level scrolls or make potions, those would be readily available. But, if you want something more powerful or rare, and IF you can find someone to take the commission, you can order an item.
So what if magic items, instead of XP, required specific monster parts?
So, anyone wanting to make magic items for profit either has to hunt monsters or pay others to hunt them. In effect, they have to either adventure or support adventurers in order to continue to produce mystic items.
I'd also prefer a system where monsters fall into groups, and then the grouping is linked to certain spells. But I don't have time to create this system right now.
So what if magic items, instead of XP, required specific monster parts?
So, anyone wanting to make magic items for profit either has to hunt monsters or pay others to hunt them. In effect, they have to either adventure or support adventurers in order to continue to produce mystic items.
I'd also prefer a system where monsters fall into groups, and then the grouping is linked to certain spells. But I don't have time to create this system right now.
The problem with this is that adventuring becomes a resource acquiring expedition. With all intelligent adventurers become butchers and taxidermists to get the most value from their "kills". Not really where I want to go with gaming.
I guess I just like the notion of adding that as a possibility. If the characters can take Profession to take on a little extra earning money downtime, why not apply the same logic to drafting up a handful of scrolls, a few potions, or a wand for the local magic merchant up the street?
Tis easy. Let them take profession magical crafter. Have them make skill rolls for their down time, and depending on what they get, accord them x amount of cash. You can probably base it on a multiplier of the craft values, say of a weapon smith.
A mage with access to the spell fabricate, who also has high ranks in weaponsmithing or armorsmithing can make some serious gold as he can instantly make MW items if he rolls high enough. And if he doesn't, he still has regular items for sale. Provided that the market can take it.
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I've said thins in other places, so it needs to be said here.
There is a huge gulf beteen liquidating your loot and setting up a market. Just because you thionk you can set up stock doesn't mean that there is someone who is going to buy.
The DM create and controls the environment that the players exist it. Just because the players want to sell it doesn't mean some one is going to buy. And if exploting the market is that easy all the other NPCs are going to exactly the same thing too.
This is getting to be a real dead horse around here. If you have noticed many of the spells that you could use to make money or get a free magic item from are getting modified to prevent that.
As for my house rule any spell effect created by a summoned creature stops when the summoning spell duration ends. Short and sweet.
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Rather than magic item factories, I have always conceived of it that in a D&D society that you would have many who functioned as commissioned "artists" whose products were made to order on a limited schedule.
Commissioned anything would probably cost more then if you were to find someone selling it IMHO.
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Rather than magic item factories, I have always conceived of it that in a D&D society that you would have many who functioned as commissioned "artists" whose products were made to order on a limited schedule.Commissioned anything would probably cost more then if you were to find someone selling it IMHO.
I think that's why the retail is twice the cost of making the item. The rules already encompass the profit for the commissioned item. Who is going to spend the time and effort crafting a +1 flaming keen longsword without a buyer set up in advance? Yet these items were created at some point.
But whatever, not everyone has the same take on the role of magic items in their campaign. I'vw known good DMs who placed artifacts under player control, and others who preferred to play almost item free. personally, like the PFRPG take on items. I absolutely LOVE the take on staffs. Finally, non-artifact wizrd staffs as permenant items. yeah!
As for my house rule any spell effect created by a summoned creature stops when the summoning spell duration ends.
That's an official rule. Note, however, that there's a difference between called and summoned.
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There should be no such thing as a magic item "build to order" shop. Wizards who create magic items do it for the following reasons.
1. They are creating an item to enhance thier own power or that of an ally. (this is the predominant reason that there is a market for magic items that PCs loot)
2. They are being commissioned by a powerful lord to create an item on his/her behalf.
The point is that enchanted items are kept special, not something to by on the discount racks at WizMart.
I think this falls under the category of YMMV. The game is set up to support play under a number of premises. Magic item purchase and sale is considered a norm by the rules, even if you (and many others!) are not partial to the idea.
I would suggest that the largest influence on magic item availability should be your campaign world, its economy, and the level of magic in your campaign.
If you run a Realms campaign then items should be freely available. The official Wotc realms splatbooks list many shops, rules for magic fairs, and even had official item brokers (like the red wizard enclaves). If however, you are playing in a Conan like setting, I would even question the sale of anything beyond potions.
I run a Ptolus campaign, and because of the nature of the city (the dreaming apothecary) virtually anything can be bought. and you know what? It works. I also ran a long campaign set in the Wild Coast and Pomarj in Greyhawk. The party never reached any major cities, since they were too busy trying to contain Turosh Mak. Really nothing beyond potions or scrolls was available for sale. The only exceptions were quest rewards where circle of eight allies/members would offer their services as a reward for the rendering of a service. This system worked too. But I consistently had to up the treasure rewards to keep the party on pace with their level.
Ultimately, its a matter of taste. There is no "right" way to handle magic item availability.
Actually, with the elimination of XP costs, the economics are pretty realistic.
The economic model of magic item retail assumed in D&D is much more similar to perfect competition or monopolistic competition than to oligopoly or monopoly, which means the marginal revenue from selling magic items to the retailers is going to be pretty close to the marginal cost of producing magic items. So if it costs 1/2 the market price to make an item, well, that'll be roughly what the resellers are going to be willing to pay for it. If it were 1/4 the market price, that's what they'd be willing to pay the PCs for magic items. The market price, similarly, is going to be near the marginal cost to the retailers to buy the magic items and resell them (adding the costs of taxes, licenses, shop space, security, employees, losses to theft, and what economists call "normal profit"); a retail price of about double wholesale is a realistic rule of thumb.
Full-time crafters, now possible without XP costs, are going to have lower explicit costs than the hobby crafter, since they can buy their exotic crafting components in bulk, under long-term contract, they're somewhat more efficient with experience, whatever. They'll also probably get a bit more for their wares than a PC selling magic items would, because they provide a steady supply and will adjust what they're making to what the retailer wants them to make. The difference between those reduced costs and that somewhat higher price is their profit.
So, for a few rules-of-thumb instead of a detailed economic simulation, it's reasonable to have magic items cost 1/2 market price to make, be bought by retailers for 1/2 market price, and sold by retailers for full market price.
Commisioning wizards to make the items you need is a time-honored fantasy tradition dating back to Shannara.
When it comes to the magic item market, I personally dont see anything beyond the minor items of various types being easily available. The moderate and major magic items are much more specialized an unlikely to be readily moveable item. In an economy involving magic items, it makes sense that the moderate and major items become the big ticket items that high rollers buy (the magical version of Tiffany's).
My group tends to play in Realms and are regular customers of the various magic shops. The game master limits on the shelf items to the list of moderate items. Moderate and major items are rare finds in some shops or commissioned items. A magical crafter is not going to spend time creating the huge ticket items regulary and hope someone buys them. They are going to turn out minor items that they know will move.
Mix with this the fact that people rarely make over a gold piece a day and the market for even minor items is reduced mainly to government and organizations (who usually have their own crafters) and adevnturers (not the most stable of buyer pools).
Also keep in mind the gold piece limits of towns and cities. Korvosa has a gp limit of 40,000gp and that itself is going to be unusual to find items worth that much. Finding a buyer for anything above minor items is going to be very hard unless you sell to an organization or govenment. The possibility of selling items doesnt mean there are buyers for those items...as many broke merchants have found.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
I do have a potential problem with the 1/2 GP cost vs the former XP cost.
When I start a mid level or high level game (rather than at the start) its important to note that if you give players X amount of gold to buy equipment with, (say 10,000 GP) a character can effectively double that gold total by taking an item creation feat. Multiply this by multiple players taking different feats and most of your players will have vastly increased their wealth.
Maybe not allow them to use any starting cash on creating any items when they first create the character?
I do have a potential problem with the 1/2 GP cost vs the former XP cost.
When I start a mid level or high level game (rather than at the start) its important to note that if you give players X amount of gold to buy equipment with, (say 10,000 GP) a character can effectively double that gold total by taking an item creation feat. Multiply this by multiple players taking different feats and most of your players will have vastly increased their wealth.
Maybe not allow them to use any starting cash on creating any items when they first create the character?
Sounds like a GM issue to me, rather than a rules issue.
I wouldn't say it's a DM issue, but potentially both. The system inherently places more value in fungible goods than not. If your loot is a +1 sword and nobody wants it, then the party only gained a thousand gold. If the party kept and used it (fighter was without a magic weapon), then their value went up two thousand. But to top it all off, if the party manages to get 100 square yards of silk, then they just got 2000gp worth of magic items if there's a wizard in the party OR 1000gp of magic if they have to buy in the market.
While the current change is a noticeable improvement because there aren't wizards borrowing from the future for immediate power, this makes room for one to see the flaw in magic item economics.
Magic items are not cars that lose drastic amounts of value the moment they leave the lot. Not all merchants are part of a vast and powerful trading empire that can redistribute both wealth and items to desired buyers throughout the land, and thus be unnegotiable monoliths that function with a gross profit margin (sell a 10k ring with 5k profit...). And yet, this is not Liches and Logistics, and you should not have to keep track of the supply of cheese and its influence on how much you can buy that magic shield.
Many things can be solved if you rid the rules of the assumed 50% sell rate with magic items, and assume a 100% sell rate with magic. You will retain similar flavour flaws (no worse, at minimum), but you won't have an imbalance in character wealth because of crafters or whether the party kept their loot.
Remember when magic was rare, and talk of selling magic items was crazy talk? Anyway not a bash or anything just waxing nostalgic for the good olde days.
Carry on....
Remember when magic was rare, and talk of selling magic items was crazy talk? Anyway not a bash or anything just waxing nostalgic for the good olde days.
Carry on....
Had players looking to buy and sell magic items back when I was playing the Basic and Expert boxed sets. I think that aspect has always been there in the game. It is a logical result of a magical world setting to me.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
Remember when magic was rare, and talk of selling magic items was crazy talk? Anyway not a bash or anything just waxing nostalgic for the good olde days.
Carry on....
Had players looking to buy and sell magic items back when I was playing the Basic and Expert boxed sets. I think that aspect has always been there in the game. It is a logical result of a magical world setting to me.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
I agree that the ability to sell items has been with DND from the beginning. However, the premise was that a party of 4 would not gain enough permenant magic item that they'ld be selling them on a regular basis. Heck, I never sold a magic weapon in the old days... sooner or later i was going to build a sronghold or get a henchmen... and I'ld rather have the captain of my guard equiped with the magic longsword i no longer use than trying to get a buyer for it. With a standard 3.5 campaign i might as well sell it because i can easily buy one in the future.
Yup...nostalgic for the days when an entire party had less permanent magic items than single characters have taoday...
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I disagree with the OP's reasoning to some degree. The whole point to allowing PCs to make magic items is to fill out weaknesses and add flavor. D&D is not a game designed for making profits. If that is what the players want, they are playing the wrong game.
Also, that is a carry over from 3.0 and 3.x, not something new to Pathfinder.
And yeah it is also rather realistic as well. I have owned my own business and I can guarantee you that retail is usually twice the wholesale cost. If I made a product and it cost me $500, then I can realistically charge $1000 for it. I can charge more, of course, but then alienate a substantial percentage of potential customers. So, you look at volume of scale. I can sell two items for $1500 each and put in less work and make more profit, and just hope they both sell, or do more work and make less profit but be assured they sell.
So, if I make a wand of fireballs, my cost should be half of market price.
Personally I would rather not allow PCs make items at all. Or rather allow it but increase the amount of time. Hours become Weeks, Days become Months, Weeks become Years, and Months becomes Decades. So, yeah, you can make that +3 holy returning thrown axe, but it will require five years to do so. Please make your adventuring character while this one sits and makes items.
Remember when magic was rare, and talk of selling magic items was crazy talk?
No, I didn't get into the game before AD&D 1st edition.
The problem is that player-characters are simply residents of the game world. They're luckier and more powerful than most, but they’re living in exactly the same universe everyone else is. If NPC's can do something, so can the PC's. If PC's can do something, so can the NPC's. Run things any other way and you undermine the logic of the setting - which will eventually drive people away. The “Intent” of rules does not matter. Only their effect does.
If NPC's can make a profit making and/or selling items, so can the PC's. They may have to pick up an appropriate Feat, add some skills, or take some time - but they can do it the same way. Market glut may be a problem with high-level items - in which case the PC's will also be able to find occasional bargains.
If NPC's have to hire guards to protect their treasures, so do the PC's. If its a big expense for NPC's, it is for PC's.
If PC’s cannot use magic to make money - whether by selling spells and magical services, or by selling items, then NPC’s cannot either. There is no market for, and PC’s cannot normally buy, potions, scrolls, healing services, raise dead spells, or any other form of magical services. If they can, there is either a profit in it or its a part of some scheme to use or manipulate them.
If NPC’s can support themselves on rents, owning property, investing in mines, shipping, and other ventures, so can PC’s.
If the game rules cannot handle this sort of thing, then there’s a problem with them. It may or may not impact your games much - it all depends on how much depth you and your players want to go into on your worlds background, cultures, and functioning - but its still a problem with the rules. It may not be a big enough problem to go into vast detail on, but I’d say its probably worth some consideration and a page or so.
On related topics -
I've had parties of elves who were all perfectly willing to say "We've all got personal projects. Lets meet here again in ten years".
Where does the money go? If it goes to buy magical ingredients, these must either take vast amounts of simple labor to get (accounting for why they’re apparently available almost everywhere, yet would-be enchanters can’t simply collect their own), they must come from very far away (making it hard to have them be available everywhere and far cheaper at the source), or some such, if it gets used up directly somehow there must be limitless sources of gold out there somewhere, etc, etc, etc. (We usually use some of the rules from The Practical Enchanter, a free download at RPGNow. It also contains rules for pretty much dumping magical items entirely save for the occasional mighty relic and having the characters simply develop their own special powers as they go up in level or for disassociating wealth from magical items entirely, so you can be rich without being able to simply buy power upgrades).
Unless that money simply vanishes somehow, it goes back into circulation - which means that the money you spent on making items will be available to buy them again. Neatly enough, this does balance: Spend 10,000 making two items, pump 10,000 into the local economy, keep one item, and you KNOW that there is 10,000 out there to buy the one you made. You may have to wait a bit for it to concentrate - but the money will be in circulation and you are hardly the only source.
Now, for a drastically revised version of some material I posted on a related thread -
An XP cost will not work using the new XP tables: the ever-increasing size of the awards would either mean making creating items prohibitive at lower levels, annoying at mid-levels, and trivial at high levels or it would only be a real factor at low levels. It did work using the old tables. I understand the distaste for using experience points as a component: the name is counter-intuitive. After all, you're not getting amnesia or something when you make an item, so why should you lose some of your experiences?
On the other hand, they should probably have been called "essence points" or something originally. After all, I've had a lot of experiences, and none of them yet have let me choose to take a level as a spellcaster or withstand more blows from a sword. There's evidently something supernatural involved somewhere in d20 level advancement.
The problem with eliminating the XP cost without adding something else is that something has to give: relatively low-level casters can turn out useful potions and other minor items - effectively producing 500 GP worth of “value” per day under the current rules. Even if marketing delays, guard costs, storage costs, and similar limitations suck up 80% of this theoretical profit, that’s still an effective salary of 100 GP a day - more than enough to attract investors, fuel the development of guilds and consortiums, get young PC’s to sign up for a while, and to encourage as many people as possible to train as mages (of course, that might explain their - rather high - frequency in the population under the standard demographics). Are the services of a low-level character taking no particular risks worth 100 GP a day?
You do need some restraining factor. Major possibilities here include
1) Going back to the idea of "power components" - unique special ingredients which must be used in the creation of items. To avoid this becoming just another expense, and keep people from treating every monster as a potential component windfall, specify that such ingredients are always unique to the item, must be gathered by the person creating the item, must be ritually gathered for the creation of a particular item, and must be used relatively promptly. To be fair, let characters subtract the time spent on such a quest from the time required to make the item down to a minimum of half the usual time. As a side effect this means that most NPC’s will not be making powerful items; only adventurers will be able to obtain ingredients of that quality.
2) Setting some kind of personal limit. Each item must be bound to the makers mystical powers, and so a given creator might only be able to sustain a limited number of items, there might be some type of lifetime GP limit - perhaps the expected treasure amount for your current level - on how much power you can add to items, or - perhaps more interestingly - permanent magical items (anything except potions, scrolls, and limited-use talismans) are rare, unique, items whose power grows with their wielders, but their creator must invest one or more attribute points from relevant attributes in them to create them. 3) Major items must be powered by imprisoned spirits, such as outsiders or sacrificed mortals. This is dangerous, may call for pacts with strange entities, and gives each item a will of its own. Creating or using too many magical items is extremely dangerous: the binding spells begin to weaken, the items begin to act up, or other spirits come to claim or release the bound ones.
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My issue with this is the fact that it would be cheaper to buy a magic item from someone else then to make your own? That makes no sense to me. I also want to run a build game for my characters. Which they can build items, and such.
I think that the cost of making the items should either go down, or the price of them go up........
I think that one thing that is being overlooked in this discussion of magic item creation balance is what has kept the Artificer in my 3.5 Age of Worms campaign from crafting every single blessed item the party wants; time. Because of his craft reserve, I don't think our party Artificer has ever had to dip into his XP to craft magic items, so that has not been a factor. However, as I had to point out at one point in the game after every one had made wish lists of magic items, Kyuss and his minions are not just going to sit back and take a holiday while you craft every item in the Magic Item Compendium that you can afford. To craft every item he wanted to would have taken close to 3 months. All of the City of Greyhawk would have been undead by then...
I feel that the time constraints should definitely remain in place. If you have an evil demigod threatening to destroy the world, taking a week to craft a single item that can help your party out should be OK. Taking a year off to craft every non-artifact item in the DMG is not. To echo some previous posts; DM's, your players are running adventurers, not merchants. If they have enough time to sit around and craft magic items with nothing more pressing to do, they have waaay to much time on their hands IMHO.