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How do people handle the sale of gems, jewelry, art, and other similar items that you typically use Appraise to find the value of? The only rule I could find in the book was that Weapons, Armor, and other Gear sold for 50%, where-as the Trade Goods were an exception, trading in for an equal amount. Of course, the stuff I'm curious about doesn't really fall into either of those categories.
What do people allow them to sell for in their own games?
A. 100%. If it appraises for 100 GP, you can trade it in for 100 GP like a trade good.
B. 50%. It's not on the Trade Good list, thus it sells for 50%.
C. Some in between value (I've often seen 95%). You can't sell it for full, otherwise the buyer can make no later profit, but you can sell it for a bit less.
I used to do A, but I remember a Society game way back in the day where some players bought jewelry for noble's outfits (to improve the charisma rating) then sold it at the end for full price. Checking with Josh, he said that the jewelry would only sell for half. Whether that was meant to be an estimate of the true rule or a Society one I am unsure of.
What do you think?
How do people handle the sale of gems, jewelry, art, and other similar items that you typically use Appraise to find the value of? The only rule I could find in the book was that Weapons, Armor, and other Gear sold for 50%, where-as the Trade Goods were an exception, trading in for an equal amount. Of course, the stuff I'm curious about doesn't really fall into either of those categories.
What do people allow them to sell for in their own games?
A. 100%. If it appraises for 100 GP, you can trade it in for 100 GP like a trade good.
B. 50%. It's not on the Trade Good list, thus it sells for 50%.
C. Some in between value (I've often seen 95%). You can't sell it for full, otherwise the buyer can make no later profit, but you can sell it for a bit less.I used to do A, but I remember a Society game way back in the day where some players bought jewelry for noble's outfits (to improve the charisma rating) then sold it at the end for full price. Checking with Josh, he said that the jewelry would only sell for half. Whether that was meant to be an estimate of the true rule or a Society one I am unsure of.
What do you think?
I am with you on A all the way. Generally I believe that using gems for your valuables becomes a necessity as soon as you run around with 1000+ gp.
In specific situations, I might not let items found be sold for their full price, if they are very rare, or uninteresting to buyers in generel. But then again, I would also make a certain decrease in weapons found, especially if they are non-medium sized, or have abilities that are not very useful to the potential buyers.
What is the Trade Goods list, you mention?
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Gems, alright, sure. I think they are almost necessary to be at 100% due to a lot of spells requiring X GP amount of diamond dust or black onyxes.
The trade good list is in the Equipment section and contains:
Merchants commonly exchange trade goods without using currency. As a means of comparison, some trade goods are detailed on Table: Trade Goods.
Table: Trade Goods Cost Item
1 cp One pound of wheat
2 cp One pound of flour, or one chicken
1 sp One pound of iron
5 sp One pound of tobacco or copper
1 gp One pound of cinnamon, or one goat
2 gp One pound of ginger or pepper, or one sheep
3 gp One pig
4 gp One square yard of linen
5 gp One pound of salt or silver
10 gp One square yard of silk, or one cow
15 gp One pound of saffron or cloves, or one ox
50 gp One pound of gold
500 gp One pound of platinum
What about items like a painting worth 50 GP? Or a mithril sextant worth 100 gp? 100%, as if trade goods? Less? 50%?
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Gems, alright, sure. I think they are almost necessary to be at 100% due to a lot of spells requiring X GP amount of diamond dust or black onyxes.
The trade good list is in the Equipment section and contains:** spoiler omitted **
What about items like a painting worth 50 GP? Or a mithril sextant worth 100 gp? 100%, as if trade goods? Less? 50%?
My expert opinion from watching too much Pawn Stars on history channel:
Anything that is combined or worked into a certain shape, my specialty stores will buy at 50-75%. Pawn shops and general stores would sell these at 50% to get them out the door, as they are not normal merchandise for the store, and normal collectors wouldn't look for one there, so they only buy for 25% of appraised price.
Gems - cut or uncut are a commodity for spells just as grain is a commodity for bread. These sell for full price.
I have always allowed trade goods (raw metals, art, gems, ect) to be sold at full price. I figure the cost penalty for equipment is due to it being used.
If you are using gems and such as party wealth allow them to sell upwards of 75%. Otherwise, too liberal of use and the PCs are going to fall behind on the wealth-by-level table.
This becomes a matter of linguistic nicety. The act of appraisal is the act of determining the value of an object. It's simple enough to say that the valuation that the appraisal skill gives you is an estimated sale price.
It should be at or near 100%, +/- some degree of randomness and degree of success Diplomacy or Profession(___) check...ideally with some commonsense situational adjustments.
To get to the gritty of the problem, there's a lot of adjustments to make, not the least of which is that every different sort of item has a very different sort of market behind it. A 500GP Gem, necklace, or painting are going to keep value in much different sort of ways, which details like the magic item economy and the situation of adventurers in the game will change.
But, to get to the spirit of the issue - and why I think the call for the noble's outfits was a good one - "utility goods" shouldn't be a store of value, but there's no /game/ cause to treat other goods, which, typically speaking, are merely being used as GP with flavor text, differently.
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I stick to about 50% - 75% for items that can be reasonable resold, such as art, jewelry, etc. My players typically haggle, so sometimes they get more, sometimes less.
I keep a chart of actual treasure values, so that if the characters are falling behind from bad haggling, I can boost it up here and there.
Gems are a little different. Long ago, my players all got together and decided gems were easier to carry than gold, so gems sort-of became an unofficial additional form of currency. Since then, most transactions of gems are done totally at full value. Sort of like putting your money into a travelers' check, then cashing it when you get to the next town.
I probably don't have to mention that Appraise is one of those skills that really the GM should be rolling (if you're into that). The possibility of being dead-wrong, but thinking you're dead-right always exists with this skill, and can often be harnessed to dramatic - and better yet, totally hilarious - results.
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As a general rule, I apply the usual 50% ruling at it.
HOWEVER, when I get players who like to HAGGLE, well, I let them have full value of the items and they get to work on their haggling skills some.
I used to just do a Diplomacy role and be done with Haggling, but since Skill Challenges came out I really really prefer their system as it engages the entire party and makes for some VERY entertaining roleplaying. And I encourage ROLEplaying whenever I can.
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Gems in my campaign are accepted just like gold (preferred even) in any town/city where a proper expert appraisal can be made. PCs can sell off gems for gold at a 10% loss.
Art and Jewelry sell at 50%.
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With artwork and historic curios, you have to judge artistic and historic value separately from raw salvage value. You could, for example, have three different combs worth 2500 GP. The first is made of tortoiseshell but is exquisitely crafted and is obviously hundreds of years old, making it a valuable antique but worthless if smashed. The second is rather crude, made of silver worth 5 GP as raw metal, set with a turquoise of acceptable quality worth 10 GP, but it has the hallmark of some legendary dwarven silversmith and is obviously a piece from his apprenticeship. The third is new, made of 50 GP worth of gold, set with rubies worth 2000 GP as a matched set, and makes up it's remaining 450 GP of value by dint of being new and fashionable.
Basically the first comb has most of its value from artistry and antiquity. The second has it from historic value, especially to collectors of the work of this particular dwarven silversmith. The third has a small bit of value from being fashionable, but isn't of any exceptional artistry, but makes up for it in ostentation due to raw wealth.
Appraise would easily reveal the value of the first and the third. The second would likely need Knowledge History to see if the otherwise unremarkable bit of silver jewelry has any historic value.
The way I view it, the raw gem and metal value sells at listed cost. The aesthetic and historic value can be haggled up or down, depending on the buyer. If you find a collector of dwarven silversmithing, you might be able to sell the second comb for far more than its worth. Similarly, if you find some noblewoman with exquisite taste and wish to give her a present, the first comb would likely please her far more (and gain you far more favor with her) than either of the others. The second is of interest to collectors only, and while she might appreciate it once the historic significance was explained, she'd never wear it and at best is something she'd hide in a drawer until the time came to regift it to the dwarven ambassador. The third? It's gaudy bling, and you might as well just hand her a sack of cash and insult her that way.
I know this is an old thread, but is there an official answer?
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Just pushing an idea here: Look at how people do business.
How would a trader make a profit, without scaring away clientele? Three examples I might pull out of my sphincter include
- The bazaar charges a fee for a 1-day trading license. Then you can do all the trading you want that day at full price. 80% of the proceeds of the licenses gets distributed among those businesses who registered at the bazaar, weighted by the number of transactions they recorded in the formal ledgers. The other 20% goes to the city, whose representatives act as witnesses for those ledgers and are paid equally (to reduce corruption).
- Each transaction has a 2-5% fee, or a fixed fee, much like those privately owned foreign exchange places.
- Consignment stores - look em up
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Just pushing an idea here: Look at how people do business.
How would a trader make a profit, without scaring away clientele?
Um, how do they do that? This is actually well-understood in the real world. They buy low, and they sell high. In other words, they buy something for considerably less than its "retail" value.
In the case of most mass-production goods, this is covered in the difference between wholesale and retail price. For example, that $100 pair of shoes you are coveting in the store window cost the store owner $50 from his wholesaler, who probably bought it for $25 from the manufacturer. Jewelry stores are also famous (infamous) for extremely high markups -- the reason that you see so many stores in the local mall selling diamond rings for 50% off is because they already more-than-doubled the price they paid for the ring. That $1000 wedding ring cost them less than $350, so they can still sell at $500 and make a profit.
If the goods aren't mass-produced (e.g., a pawn shop), you still have the markup. Whatever the dealer pays you, he expects to more than recoup when he resells it.
But there's no risk of "scaring away clientele" here, since literally everyone does it. Show me a store that sells goods at cost and I'll show you a store that can't make rent.
This is simplified in Pathfinder, but still fairly realistic. Almost all goods are sold (by the PCs) at 50% of retail price, and they're bought at 50% of retail price. If you want to sell your sword, or your violin, or your mother's wedding ring, you get half of what [the shopkeeper expects] someone else to pay for it.
In answer to the OP's question, the rules are pretty clear that trade goods are THE exception (not "an" exception) to the rule above. If it's not a trade good, you get 50% of value for it -- I'd also like to point out that the rules are fairly clear that trade goods trade as such in bulk : "Trade goods are usually transported and sold in larger quantities than the amount listed. A farmer may have 10- and 20-pound sacks of potatoes to sell to a large family or restaurant, and be resistant to tearing open a bag just to sell a few individual potatoes," so the mere fact your mother's wedding ring is made of gold doesn't make it a trade good; gold, the trade good, is sold in one pound ingots.
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AFAIK from the rules anything like gems, art of any kind and jewellery sells at 100% - if it says in an adventure the art/gems/jewellery is worth 1000gp, they can sell it for 1000gp
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AFAIK from the rules anything like gems, art of any kind and jewellery sells at 100% - if it says in an adventure the art/gems/jewellery is worth 1000gp, they can sell it for 1000gp
Well, here's what the rules have to say about it: (emphasis mine)
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.
Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.
It's a reasonable house rule that art can be sold for full value, but I don't think it's RAW.
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Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.It's a reasonable house rule that art can be sold for full value, but I don't think it's RAW.
I've been operating off the principle that gems and jewelry should be fairly easy to exchange.
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If art were sold at full value, who the heck would ever trade in art?
There's no profit!
Hence my three examples above.
Right down the street is a foreign exchange place. They trade cash for cash, which is the IRL equivalent to exchanging trade goods for cash.
They don't do it for love. They don't do it for fun. They do it for profit - they are a business.
The way to do such exchanges at 100% is to do them on the street, and then it's hit & miss and take alot of time. Alternatively, you set up a shop in a marketplace and sell your goods. But that might require a license, or appeasing the local merchant guilds (with cash), or whatever.
It's about as easy to gloss over as encumbrance, managing food & water while travelling, and other "mundane" mechanics. Simplify it if you want, but acknowledge that you're glossing it over for your gaming table.
We treat gems, jewelry, and art objects as different forms of currency. Their value is added to the PP, GP, SP & CP total.
Players will frequently want to keep individual items they may like, which then become included in their share of the gold, they may need to add back to the pot for expensive items.
Unwanted Magic Items, armor, weapons, and equipment are sold for half value. Scrolls, Potions, Magic Ammo, and single use magic items are simply divided up.
Trade goods, which for us is usually furs, spices, valuable raw materials (woods, ivories, horns), edibles, young critters and other things, can be sold for the local value 50%-100%. If it is known that there is a higher value available somewhere else, we need to take it there, for example, bear hides and honey. The hides go south, and the honey north several times a year with a teleporter.
Trade goods are about the only thing we have over anymore.
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There actually is a RAW answer: Gems and art are trade goods.
This treasure is made up solely of coins and gemstones, which can generally be traded for their full value....
This treasure is made up art objects, which can generally be traded for their full value.
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So, Economy 101 :
Paying with money made in valuable metal is just a gigantic form of troc... Even if the country the money is made from disappear you still have your amount of gold, you can melt the into ingot and sell them in the next country and get more or less as much gold pieces from this country gold pieces than you had in the previous country... ;)
The same apply to all metal and ore... And you should treat the gems the same too... Everything not manufactured should be sold the same price when you buy it and when you sell it...
Manfufactured Goods are different...
PF assume 200% price from the fabrication cost as a basis for magic goods... So when you sell your used magic goods you sell them for the same price as if you've made the object yourself...
Frankly I don't know why... Maybe there's an "adventurer tax" I don't know of...
If I decide to set up a shop, make magic object myself and sell them should I sell them the price it has costed me to make them in my shop ? :D
No, I think that if you sell your manufactured goods at 50% of their market price it's mainly because what you're doing is ths same as going to a pawn shop and sell your item... Quickly getting the cash, maybe haggling a little but no more than that... And usually you're selling them with gore and brain on it... :p
Art and Jewelry are also manufactured goods... If you go to town and sold them quickly you most probably get half their pricez for it...
Now if you take your time to polish your goods before selling them, get knowledge on the market and go sell your goods where it can sold well, and are willing to wait for days or weeks before someone buy it you could certainly sell your goods at, at least 100%, and if you play well maybe even more...
It's even more true for Jewelry and Art, if you take your time, make research on who made it, who has owned it before, the market of art and who is interested in buying this type of art for a lot then travel to this person and haggle with him I think you could got 200 to 300% the price... :)
Now my players are aware of this rules and still go to the pawn shop, 'cause you know, as they say "We are adventurers not merchant" :p
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In a previous game, the PCs started off in a town and we were poor. One of the things we ended up doing was getting jobs, and saving up enough to start our own business, manufacturing a product, marketing it, etc.
This may seem boring, but it led to adventures such as capturing saboteurs (groups of Rogues), tracking thieves through the sewers and into the hidden ruins under the city, dealing with treacherous business rivals, expeditions to get more materials, and wiping out raiders harassing our trade routes. Plus some political intrigue, like stopping the assassination attempt on an aristocratic customer, and investigating a local murder cult. Each adventure gave us more stuff to use or to sell as novelty items in our shop.
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There actually is a RAW answer: Gems and art are trade goods.
(from the appendix)
This treasure is made up solely of coins and gemstones, which can generally be traded for their full value....
This treasure is made up art objects, which can generally be traded for their full value.
I knew it was in the rules somewhere but couldn't find it
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So, Economy 101 :
Paying with money made in valuable metal is just a gigantic form of troc... Even if the country the money is made from disappear you still have your amount of gold, you can melt the into ingot and sell them in the next country and get more or less as much gold pieces from this country gold pieces than you had in the previous country... ;)
The same apply to all metal and ore... And you should treat the gems the same too... Everything not manufactured should be sold the same price when you buy it and when you sell it...
Yeah,.... not. A smelly nuisance in the stable is valuable fertilizer in the field. There's a reason that grocery stores don't sell me avocados at cost, despite the fact that they're not manufactured.
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Now the only thing to remember is that there is a Statblock for town and that when on of my player try to sell his +3 sword in a small village of 60 inhabitants his best offer will be 500GP :D
Yeah,.... not. A smelly nuisance in the stable is valuable fertilizer in the field. There's a reason that grocery stores don't sell me avocados at cost, despite the fact that they're not manufactured.So, Economy 101 :
Paying with money made in valuable metal is just a gigantic form of troc... Even if the country the money is made from disappear you still have your amount of gold, you can melt the into ingot and sell them in the next country and get more or less as much gold pieces from this country gold pieces than you had in the previous country... ;)
The same apply to all metal and ore... And you should treat the gems the same too... Everything not manufactured should be sold the same price when you buy it and when you sell it...
Yep... But food has always been a special case... Being a necessity it has always been frown upon when you try to make too much a profit of it... ;)
No one's benn ever lynched because they tried to sold jewelry four time the prices when jewelry are scarce... The same is not true for food ;)It's an indispensable job and at the same time a job where your margin can't be as big as other job but when there's abundance you're screwed noetheless since the price goes down and, once again, when food is scarce everybody will expect you from sharing with a low profit for the greater good so you're screwed again...
Producing food has ever been the most indispensable job and the less rewarding... I truly respect peoples in this line of works... :)
Some has quoted the Labour law, that's because if thos guys goes away you starve so they HAD to find a way to make them stay... :p
My players understand that very well so they have hired Druid to help for Crops ;)
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It's not a special case for things to be worth more or less in different places. People smuggle gold into India, risking arrest, in order to make a profit.
But Pathfinder does not attempt to simulate realistic economics.
(Also, what does 'troc' mean? Is it a type of jewellery? A giant bird? Some kind of man-eating gazebo?)
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(Also, what does 'troc' mean? Is it a type of jewellery? A giant bird? Some kind of man-eating gazebo?)
Sorry, it mean Barter :p
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Yep... But food has always been a special case... Being a necessity it has always been frown upon when you try to make too much a profit of it... ;)
Yeah,.... not. A smelly nuisance in the stable is valuable fertilizer in the field. There's a reason that grocery stores don't sell me avocados at cost, despite the fact that they're not manufactured.
Food-or-not has nothing to do with it, any more than manufactured-or-not has anything to do with it.
[b]Real[/i] Economics 101: prices are determined primarily by supply and demand. Each producer/seller (more on that in a moment) has a minimum price at which he's willing to participate in the market; each buyer has a maximum price. The market price is the point at which the number of sellers balances the number of buyers. This applies whether you're selling food, jewels, magic potions, or fidget spinners.
Looking at it from the seller's point of view, in general:
1) I need to make a profit, because I need to pay myself enough to eat, clothe myself, etc. And I'd like to make a big profit if I can.
2) If I can make 200 credits a day shining shoes, I'm not going to open a store that nets me only 100 credits a day.
3) All profits are net of my costs, including the cost I pay for items as well as my other costs like rent.
From those, we can see that there is literally nothing that an adventurer can carry that they can sell for the same price at which they can buy it, because the seller will insist on making a profit.
The only exception is something recognized as a universal store of value, like a ten dollar bill (or in older times, a silver shilling). Even there, in a realistic economy, you were unlikely to be able to buy and sell things at the same price. Those bureaux de change in every European capital? They're buying and selling dollars, but they sell dollars for more Euros than they buy them at, because that storefront isn't free, and the cashier still needs to eat. That cut diamond at the jeweler? He won't sell it to you for the same price he paid for it. Even the money counting machines at many banks take a cut of the pennies they count -- bring in a jar with 200 Euros in cents, and you'll probably get only 195 Euro bills for them.
Realistic economics is hard work. So Pathfinder simplifies it, because otherwise it's not much fun for a typical gaming group. But if anyone ever asks the GameMaster whether or not a particular good can be sold and bought at the same price, the answer should always be "no."
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If that good is Diamond Dust, then you start to cause problems. Spells require x gp worth of diamond dust. So if the price of diamond dust varies between transactions....then that raises alot of questions ruleswise.
Not really. Only one question : retail value or wholesale value?
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If players only get half price for selling magic items (etc), due the way the market works, why can't they buy things for half price?
Because that's the way the market works..
Let's say you -- as in, you, personally -- want to buy a violin. And let's say that I -- as in, I, personally, have one that I want to sell, whether it's because I make them, or because I have a violin around that I don't play anymore and I want the cash for it. In theory, you could buy it from me at a mutually agreeable price.
But in practice, you can't, because you don't know who I am, you don't know how to find me, and you don't even know that I have a violin I want to unload.
You do, however, know how to find someone who will sell you a violin, or you can, very easily. I can recommend Telford and Sons'; they've got a lot of them in stock, at very reasonable prices. I also know someone who will buy my violin, and oddly enough, they're the same people. But they won't sell the violin to you at the price they bought it from me. Steve Telford needs to eat, and they have a mortgage to pay on the shop, and.... oh, my, how those expenses do add up. So Telford marks up -- actually, he probably doubles, as that's fairly typical in boutique goods like that -- the price.
Now, perhaps you don't want to pay Telford's markup. In this case, you might try to find someone else with a violin to sell, maybe by walking house to house and knocking on doors. If you do this for long enough, you will probably find someone,.... but you won't be working and earning money for yourself while you do that. If it takes you a week of looking to find a violin, and you earn $10/hour, you just spent $400 in opportunity costs, which means that you are still "paying" $400 more than than the person selling you the violin is getting. You could also hire someone to knock on doors for you, but in this case, you'd still be spending money and the violin would still cost you more than the original seller gets. Or maybe you could place an ad in the paper, but ads generally aren't free. You get the idea.
And the same thing happens in any other business. Sell a used car to a dealer, he'll pay you less money than he will charge for the exact same car when he sells it.
It's also historically more accurate, and why gems were valued by the wealthy as convenient international currency.
I'm not sure why you think this was more accurate..... but that has never actually been true. Gems are notoriously poor "international currency" precisely because you can never be sure what a jeweler is going to give you for them. There's no such thing as a $2,000 diamond -- or a five-hundred (British) pound diamond, for that matter. There's only a diamond that you yourself paid $2,000 for. If you wanted international currency, you usually either armed yourself with the local currency beforehand (the London bankers would be happy to sell you Italian lira at a huge markup, but you know that a lira is always going to be worth a lira), or you used a currency from a major world power (pieces of eight, British sovereigns, or US dollars have all held that role) that you hoped would be acceptable at your destination, accepting that, again, you can't really control the exchange rate. But the idea that a medieval businessman planning a trip from London to Madrid would routinely arm himself with gems is not supportable.
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So much to read, so little time...
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But in practice, you can't, because you don't know who I am, you don't know how to find me, and you don't even know that I have a violin I want to unload.
Have you tried listing it on eBay?
I wonder how hard it would be to set up the Golarion equivalent?
(Of course, even on eBay you still can't buy and sell for the same price because someone has to pay the fees and postage costs.)
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Food-or-not has nothing to do with it, any more than manufactured-or-not has anything to do with it.
Real[/i] Economics 101: prices are determined primarily by supply and demand. Each producer/seller (more on that in a moment) has a minimum price at which he's willing to participate in the market; each buyer has a maximum price. The market price is the point at which the number of sellers balances the number of buyers. This applies whether you're selling food, jewels, magic potions, or fidget spinners.
Looking at it from the seller's point of view, in general:
1) I need to make a profit, because I need to pay myself enough to eat, clothe myself, etc. And I'd like to make a big profit if I can.2) If I can make 200 credits a day shining shoes, I'm not going to open a store that nets me only 100 credits a day.
3) All profits are net of my costs, including the cost I pay for items as well as my other costs like rent.
From those, we can see that there is literally nothing that an adventurer can carry that they can sell for the same price at which they can buy it, because the seller will insist on making a profit.
The only exception is something recognized as a universal store of value, like a ten dollar bill (or in older times, a silver shilling). Even there, in a realistic economy, you were unlikely to be able to buy and sell things at the same price. Those bureaux de change in every European capital? They're buying and selling dollars, but they sell dollars for more Euros than they buy them at, because that storefront isn't free, and the...
That's rreal modern economy... Before that you should take in account this :
Monarchy has a lot of monopoly on trade... They can fix price of virtually anything they want...Religion can ban the trade of any good if they want... Example : for a period the Catholic religion has banned usury, so only Jew can do it, in 1527 Catholic Religion has stated that Native American got a soul so you can't enslave them... etc.
Once again the economly was not like now, it was a bartering system, not a fluctuating value money based on the market system...
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At my table, gems, jewelery, artwork, and other inherently-valuable items are priced at what they can be sold for. So if you find a 500 gp emerald, you can sell it for 500 gp.
If you want to buy an item to more easily transport wealth, there's a 10% markup. So, buying a 500 gp gem costs 550 gp. A successful Profession (merchant) check drops the markup to 5%.
I also usually require a 5% fee to change money. So trading in a chest full of 50,000 cp will net you 475 gp.
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That's real modern economy...
Yes, but it also predates the Roman empire. Similarly, cows are modern animals (I can see some within a few miles of my house), but a Roman milkmaid wouldn't have any problem understanding how to milk one.
Monarchy has a lot of monopoly on trade...
I think we're back to "lolwu?" Ancient governments very rarely engaged in trade, instead (as modern governments did), they set rules about who could participate, charged taxes, and generally regulated it.
They can fix price of virtually anything they want...
Yes, they can do that. But they can't force producers to produce goods for a lower price than they're willing to accept, and they can't force buyers to pay a higher price than the buyers will accept. They can prevent a market from being made, but they can't force deals at the wrong price.
Once again the economly was not like now, it was a bartering system, not a fluctuating value money based on the market system...
Please, learn some economics. You're spouting gold-bug gibberish. Even Ron Paul would be embarrassed at this nonsense.
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But in practice, you can't, because you don't know who I am, you don't know how to find me, and you don't even know that I have a violin I want to unload.Have you tried listing it on eBay?
That's basically hiring someone to walk down streets knocking on doors for you. And you need to pay Ebay to do it, just as I said. The result is the same assymetry that I mentioned.
I wonder how hard it would be to set up the Golarion equivalent?
Probably incredibly expensive, since the nearest equivalent to the Internet involves buckets of magic, and magic is generally overpriced. Even sending a simple Email via message costs the equivalent of several thousand modern dollars; I can't imagine Ebay being cost-effective if you had to pay $1000 per person who read your ad.
But, more to the point, there are a lot of ways to make a more realistic fantasy economy, starting with variable markup depending on all sorts of things. For example, luxury goods and goods with thin markets generally have higher markup than ``the basics,'' because producers will compete on price (which generally reduces their margins). Supply and demand both fluctuate for all sorts of reasons -- as I sit, for example, they're expecting a 30 degree (Celsius) day, just like the past two weeks have been. I'd be willing to pay a lot more for iced coffee today than I would have back in December, but ice is also in a lot shorter supply because my supplier can't just cut it from a pond. (Pre-refrigeration, ice in midsummer was a luxury almost beyond price.)
I could make a set of tables and charts to control prices based on good types and supply/demand. Metagaming's Trailblazer (1981) used this as the core mechanic, and it was an "ok" game -- BoardGameGeek gives it a 5.6. But Sweet Jumping Jesus on a Pair of Sticks was it tedious to keep track of all the information. Given that Mathfinder already has a reputation in some quarters as being way too rules- and records-heavy, adding a hard-core economics simulator to PF would be like adding gyrostabilization and jet-assist to a ninja star.
Or, you know, we could just go for a simple "buy low, sell high" rule like "shopkeepers will only give you 50% of retail value for an item." Which is not only playably simple, but actually accurate for most of the boutique goods that adventurers will be dealing with.
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At my table, gems, jewelery, artwork, and other inherently-valuable items are priced at what they can be sold for. So if you find a 500 gp emerald, you can sell it for 500 gp.
If you want to buy an item to more easily transport wealth, there's a 10% markup. So, buying a 500 gp gem costs 550 gp. A successful Profession (merchant) check drops the markup to 5%.
I also usually require a 5% fee to change money. So trading in a chest full of 50,000 cp will net you 475 gp.
That seems both reasonable and realistic. The PF designers decided to simplify it even further (because multiplying by 0.05 is hard, I guess....) so goods are either (unrealistically) not marked up at all, or doubled. The question is whether a gem like an emerald is in category 1 (which is unrealistic, but convenient) or category 2.
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Please, learn some economics. You're spouting gold-bug gibberish. Even Ron Paul would be embarrassed at this nonsense.
Please learn some Middle-Age economics... ;)
From "On the formation of prices in the economy of the High Middle Ages" by Laurent Feller :
In the West between the sixth and the eleventh centuries, market exchanges and non-market exchanges intersect to the point of becoming confused for the observer, becoming one and the same, the elements of which cannot be distinguished from one another.
In this sense, it was possible to consider that there was no medieval economy, because production, exchange and consumption were not realities distinct from the social rites which surrounded them. Everything takes place as if the social forms and institutions of the early Middle Ages were similar to those found on the other side of the "great partition" among the "prime" peoples who form the object of study of anthropologists: it is henceforth presented as a truth of evidence that the entrenchment of the economic in the social tissue makes impossible, even useless, any effort of clarification and distinction. We are dealing with a structure in which all the elements interact with one another, and it is that interaction which makes sense, and not the evolution of a given object taken separately.
Don't try to compare with nowadays economy...
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would be like adding gyrostabilization and jet-assist to a ninja star.
Is that an option? Or is it covered by the seeking enchantment?
The value of ANYTHING is what others will pay for it.
For art, I usually roll a d20. Roll high, someone really likes it and will pay upwards of 75-100% for it, roll low, and no one really like them that much and the most the PC's will get is 50%.
Gems and Jewelry, start at 75%, if the PC's really screw up, make an enemy out of the jeweler, accidentally kill his daughter, etc... I give 50%, if they roleplay awesomely, I may reward that with upwards of 125%.
If they are lazy and just want to do a check and pass, they get no more than 100%.