When a PC uses the Craft skill to make a few gp, should the item be sold at full price or the regular "adventurer's loot discount" (50% of market price).
If the item is sold at full price, the Craft skill becomes much more lucrative than the Profession skill for a similar calculated check modifier (same number of ranks in their respective skill, same bonuses, same key ability modifier etc)
Beside the rationale behind selling the item at half price (lack of "marketing" skill), from whom are the PC buying their full-priced gear from? Those with a professional skill on top? If so, how can this relate to a PC?
I know that economy in D&D is a fragile concept at best, but this has been bugging me for a while...
thoughts?
'findel
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When a PC uses the Craft skill to make a few gp, should the item be sold at full price or the regular "adventurer's loot discount" (50% of market price).
I'll take a small stab at this.
When you use the Craft Skill to make a few gp, you are using it as it's most basic function and making general items (or filling a niche) in hopes that some will sell. As is usually the case, not everything you make will sell, so there will be some waste or leftover items that you will have to hold on to until next week, etc...
If someone is commissioning you specifically to make an item, I would feel justified in charging them half up front (for materials) and then half on delivery, equating to full price. Still, this will not be an everyday occurrence, unless your GM has a specific purpose for it in mind.
In the end, it is up to the GM to determine who is going to buy your items, if indeed anyone buys your items. It may be easier to own your own shop, but then there is the cost of running a shop to factor in that will eat into profits, too.
I guess my main point is that just because you make an item, does not mean that someone is going to buy it right away. If you are trying to offload a bunch of created items or found loot quickly, then you will probably at most get half price.
The "adventurer's loot" discount is basically the garage sale price, how much you can offload something for that is obviously not new, even if "lightly used" by some lich somewhere.
A craftsman sells at full price if operating on commission (in which case he's already found a buyer) or selling a new good, which is worth full price but finding a buyer may take a little bit longer.
It would also be reasonable to have merchants pay craftsmen 75% of the value of new items which they of course would then work at reselling for the full 100%
Part of that reasoning comes by looking at a couple feats in non-SRD material
Mercantile Background (FR)
Type: Regional
Sources: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Player's Guide to FaerûnYou come from a wealthy family with numerous contacts in the trading costers and craft guilds of Faerûn's bustling cities. You can get a good deal on almost anything you buy or sell.
Prerequisite: Dwarf (the Sword Coast or Underdark ), gnome (Lantan or Underdark ), halfling (Amn), or human (Amn, Lantan, Sembia, Shou Expatriate, Tashalar, Tharsult, Thesk, Turmish, the Vast, or Waterdeep).
Benefit: When you sell weapons, magic items, or other adventuring goods, you get 75% of the list price instead of 50%. Once per month, you can buy any single item at 75% of the offered price. You also receive an extra 300 gp to spend as you see fit during character creation.
Special: You may select this feat only as a 1st-level character. You may have only one regional feat.
Mercantile Background
Type: Ancestor
Source: Dragon #315You come from a long line of money-changers and merchants. You can get a good deal on almost anything you buy or sell.
Region: Shou Lung (Ti Erte), Island Kingdoms.
Benefit: When you sell items such as weapons or magic items, you get 75% of the list price instead of 50%. Once per month, you can buy any single item at 75% of the offered price.
You also receive an extra 300 gp to spend as you see fit during character creation.
I'd say an easy way to do it is to take ranks in Profession (merchant), and make weekly profession checks. But I am selling Magic Items! you say?
Well, yes, which means you need a shop or establishment in a fairly large city, which means an extremely large investment on the property or some hefty rent. You also need a staff of hirelings to watch the place and up-sell to traveling adventurers. You need advertising, perhaps printed posters tacked up in the town square, or hirelings who look for out-of-towners and drop your name. You also need guards or some kind of anti-theft defenses because you are selling items worth thousands of gp. All of this cuts into the high profit margin of you magic item business.
If you DO drop a couple thousand gold on owning your own shop, A DM should consider giving you a decent bonus to their profession checks for the investment. A +5 bonus would mean a general +5gp per week, +260gp per year (on top of what you make from the straight checks). Not too shabby, and in a few years the investment pays for itself.
I've heard of PCs getting into the shopkeeping business, particularly in places like Ptolus or Waterdeep.
I've always assumed that selling stuff at full price (rather than half) is one of the perks of investing in and maintaining that sort of joint. Of course, as others have pointed out, you also put yourself at the mercy of the market.
Like others have said, the "half price" thing is what you get for selling something immediately, automatically, and with zero effort. And that's the price in the PHB because it assumes that that's what most PCs will do. After all they're adventurers, not merchants.
Occorse, that whole "middleman" phase is abstracted over; there isn't (that I'm aware of) a skill for buying things at half price and selling them at full. The rules just assume that someone does it and the PCs don't care, which leaves the DM on his own if a player ever does decide to cut out the middle-man (which, like I said, does happen).
Our group had a stint going between places and selling gear from crafting. Mostly, we just bought low and sold high in trade goods.
Put plainly, if someone crafts an item and wants to sell it he's going to have a hard time finding anyone to buy it. He needs to find adventurers, or someone who will purchase it for full price: not another store.
When a PC uses the Craft skill to make a few gp, should the item be sold at full price or the regular "adventurer's loot discount" (50% of market price).
By RAW, it would be 50%. (Selling Treasure: "In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price, including weapons, armor, gear, and magic items. This also includes character-created items." Emphasis mine.)
This is done from a "balance" perspective. To keep the leash of character wealth strictly in the hands of the GM.
Now, if you want to talk about if it should be this way... I can't help you. Economics in D&D is such a tar pt.
The 50% sell-rule is generally took in example as the party goes to the city, they find a first blacksmith and want's to sell him 135 bolts, 45 daggers, 2 lightly damaged heavy crossbows, 3 heavy damaged light crossbows, 2 mw longswords, half a fullplate(not a halfplate) and 69 scale mails(damn orcs) with 69 mastershit greataxes.
You could get 100% of 10-15% up or down if you find a buyer that really needs it or knows someone that needs it and can cut in for a 5-10% commision.
In a rich town you could get full price for 30 mw longswords if city guard is cuurently on low suply and can't wait for their blacksmith to make new ones or sell few scrolls to a wizard that really needs them.
And it all depends on ranks in diplomacy also :p
I'd say an easy way to do it is to take ranks in Profession (merchant), and make weekly profession checks. But I am selling Magic Items! you say?
Well, yes, which means you need a shop or establishment in a fairly large city, which means an extremely large investment on the property or some hefty rent. You also need a staff of hirelings to watch the place and up-sell to traveling adventurers. You need advertising, perhaps printed posters tacked up in the town square, or hirelings who look for out-of-towners and drop your name. You also need guards or some kind of anti-theft defenses because you are selling items worth thousands of gp. All of this cuts into the high profit margin of you magic item business.
...
Also, once in a while the merchant will have to compensate losses of a few thousand g.p. after he bought a cursed ou fake magic item from an adventuring party (or the guy who identified it) that are now nowhere to be found.
Edit: Or the original owner or legal inheritor will come around and claim it with the legal stuff to back up the claim.