Had the idea when responding on another thread. The problem it solves for my group is that the characters are perpetually far from civilization. They have all these things they want to buy as they level up, but there is nowhere to purchase anything. They are in the middle of an epic scale (not to be confused with epic level) adventure out in the middle of nowhere.
I'm still figuring out how I want it to work, but the idea is that it's the same merchant every time, and he(or she) has a knack for getting you what you want. I might create a "wish list" mechanism so he's ready to deal when he arrives.
What I'm looking for on this thread (other ideas always welcome), is what race/class is this merchant? Looking for flavor.
I'm not too worried about him getting killed by the party for freebie items. I'm thinking that killing him bears a curse. I love curses. I almost hope they kill him.
He/she will probably use their bag of holding as a delivery mechanism for the things they purchase. Long story.
Jade Empire, the video game, had something like this. There was a Divine Merchant that wanted to sell stuff to you to help him get his old position in the Divine Hierarchy back. He was essentially an outsider, and he contacted the player because of their "great potential" and more importantly, their high turnover of items.
Perhaps an outsider like that? Azata, Agathion, etc.
Sounds like an awesome suite of spells actually.
Give it a few versions, Summon Merchant I-V maybe. Each level determines item availability and GP limit.
I would also give them a costly component, in order to curtail its inclusion in yet another infinite gold scheme.
Nice idea, will steal.
As for a physical description of the actual summoned merchant, I can think of a few: imp, witchwyrd, mercane, denizen of Leng (can we just call them Denizens for short?)
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If the campaign has a god (or archdevil, celestial, etc.) concerned with wealth, greed, commerce or trade, that sort of individual would likely be willing to send a banker devil or merchant inevitable or something to the material plane to exchange various goods. The summoned merchant would likely buy goods at a 5% additional discount, and sell them at a 5% markup, as they have to make some sort of profit over what one would make just visiting a market, since no matter who they serve, it's a god of making money, not breaking even.
The merchant itself might be mechanical or insectoid (or both!) in appearance (if from a LN plane, with inevitables, axiomites, formians, etc.), or a ghostly entity that is noncorporeal, but able to selectively take items (like bags of coin or items to be purchased) and place them into it's satchel of holding (which is actually a bag of devouring type item that sends the items 'swallowed' directly to the vaults of the presiding diety), and reach into the satchel to produce the sought after item(s).
Depending on the power behind the summoning, the merchant might appear lean, aged and skeletal ('Scrooge-like' and utterly humorless in appearance), or be a portly broad-smiling and friendly glad-handling merchant dressed in bright colors with a fez tipped precariously on his balding head, or a mysterious possibly non-humanoid figure concealed in deep purple robes and speaking in a sepulchural voice.
'Haggling' should be strictly out of the question, for most powers that wish to profit by such a scheme. On the other hand, a chaotic power related to greed, or an archdevil like Mammon, might encourage a little bit of haggling, with the merchant having ridiculously optimized scores for this purpose, making almost any attempt to haggle a badly losing proposition... (In such a case, a series of spells from I-IX would make more sense, so that the haggling merchant-demon thing can have a bluff / sense motive check that scales with the level of the summoners, and a cash limit on items sold / bought per summoning based on the level of the spell, to prevent higher level spellcasters from using the lower level spells to outmatch the lower-level hagglers on anything but increasingly irrelevant lower-cost purchases.) I'd save the trouble, and just skip haggling altogether. At best, I'd leave it at a single spell, 3rd or 4th level, and have the only 'haggling' being the summoned merchant overcharging / underpaying by 5% or 10%, unless the summoner makes a Will save against his own spell (in which case he can make sales / purchases with a lesser upcharge, like 5% or even 0%).
The spell could have a focus component to call up the merchant, which will have a certain cash cost, which might scale with the type of merchant to be summoned (so, to call up a merchant able to buy and sell items worth 1000 gp, you might need a 100 gp focus, and the focus would be upgradable, being the only item a merchant will buy or sell at exactly cost, with no modifiers, as it's just pure profit for them).
Create a specialized series of summon monster spells. "summon merchant 1-9" higher level spells summon merchants with increasingly better goods. It's non combat so the spell lasts longer (min/level). Or just one spell whatever you like.
The spells all summon mercanes. You can kill then if you want, but they're summoned so they don't really die. Also they have the nifty secret chest spell like ability for storage of goods. Oh and killing mercane also causes the chest and unpaid for gear to vanish. I think its got the flavor your looking for. Then once the transactions are complete the mercane and its gear vanish.
Create a specialized series of summon monster spells. "summon merchant 1-9" higher level spells summon merchants with increasingly better goods. It's non combat so the spell lasts longer (min/level). Or just one spell whatever you like.
The spells all summon mercanes. You can kill then if you want, but they're summoned so they don't really die. Also they have the nifty secret chest spell like ability for storage of goods. Oh and killing mercane also causes the chest and unpaid for gear to vanish. I think its got the flavor your looking for. Then once the transactions are complete the mercane and its gear vanish.
I was going to suggest the mercane myself. It's literally designed for the role of the magical merchant.
I was going to suggest the mercane myself. It's literally designed for the role of the magical merchant.Create a specialized series of summon monster spells. "summon merchant 1-9" higher level spells summon merchants with increasingly better goods. It's non combat so the spell lasts longer (min/level). Or just one spell whatever you like.
The spells all summon mercanes. You can kill then if you want, but they're summoned so they don't really die. Also they have the nifty secret chest spell like ability for storage of goods. Oh and killing mercane also causes the chest and unpaid for gear to vanish. I think its got the flavor your looking for. Then once the transactions are complete the mercane and its gear vanish.
Plus they're outsiders. You can summon one currently with planar binding.
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k, I may have gone a little overboard. I let my players pick encounters randomly from my monster manuals by asking for page numbers and one picked a mercane just recently (though they don't know it yet). I generally prepare the encounters over the next week so they are ready to go at the next game session. In any case seeing this thread was just to perfect, so this is what I came up with and will be probably be using next time I run my game.
Rod of Summon Merchant
Description: The party finds an elegant ivory rod with platinum runes inscribed across its surface. The rod itself emanates divination, illusion, and conjuration magic.
Identification: If identified it can be determined that the rod has two functions. The first puts the user in contact with someone predetermined during the rods creation using illusion and divination magic. The second uses a variant of a summoning spell.
Usage: When the first function is used a huge translucent image of blue skinned humanoid appears towering over the PC’s. After a brief look around his gaze falls on the PC holding the rod and he smiles and something along the lines of, “Ah, a customer, what can I do for you”.
If there is no immediate threat apparent and the PC shows a desire to do business the blue skinned humanoid, who is a mercane merchant, tells them to activate the rods 2nd function telling them the command word if they haven’t learned it. When the second function is activated the mercanes translucent form solidifies and he then proceeds to do business with the PC.
Purchases: When buying merchandise from a character the mercane determines the price either by negotiating it or using fixed prices as desired by the game master. Each time he reaches into his pouch to get money he repeats the amount aloud and promptly pulls out exactly that much.
If a character wants to buy something they must make inquiries directly to the mercane, since he does not have any merchandise with him. As with gathering money once needed the mercane reaches into his pouch says the name of the item aloud and promptly pulls it out exchanging it for the gold.
Pure fluff: Periodically when making a purchase the mercane pulls out the wrong item and frowns. He then drops it back into the pouch raises his voice and says something like, “I said a ****, now move it.” A moment later a hand or appendage of some sort suddenly emerges from the bag holding the requested item. After taking it the mercane looks back at the party, if any of them appear confused or surprised he merely shrugs his shoulders and states, “Its hard to get good help these days” as he makes the transaction.
Item Background: Several years ago a mercane by the name of **** created the first of these rods. It works by first allowing the merchant to view the area determining if it’s safe and speak with those using the rod to see if the they want to make a transaction. The second function allows the merchant to be summoned to the rod location. Unlike normal summoning spells this always fails if resisted by the merchant so he may not be summoned if he does not wish to be.
Since its creation, a number of other successful planar merchants have begun utilizing these rods of merchant summoning as well. In addition a number of variants also exist. For example, one such variant is said to use a reverse summoning spell to summon the rods holder to the merchants’ store. Of course the individual doesn’t have long before the summons ends and they are sent back where they came from. This is considered useful, as it generally doesn’t give them enough time to leave and go elsewhere to do business.
...by the way I'm horrible at naming NPC's or for that matter just about anything so if anyone has any good ideas it'd be most appreciated.
I'm thinking going the mysterious route.
Big cloak, shadowy hood, featureless face. The seem strange to and creep out everyone.
I'm definitely thinking outsider.
Go custom on the race. Make it's delivery/storage method a racial ability so anything it has is actually stored on another plane.
As for class levels, you wouldn't need any.
Skill points equal to 6 + Int modifier (minimum 1) per Hit Die. The following are class skills for outsiders: Bluff, Craft, Knowledge (planes), Perception, Sense Motive, and Stealth. Due to their varied nature, outsiders also receive 4 additional class skills determined by the creature's theme.Straight Outsider HD gives you plenty of skill points and then necessary class skills for a merchant.
Background on them would be a mysterious race of neutral merchants/traders. They exist only to buy and sell. They don't take sides or have any agenda outside of completing a sale/purchase. They do not set up shops or travel to come across random customers, but find those who seek them.
You just described a Mercane Wearing a cloak and cowl. Plus with their secret chest ability they don't have to literally carry their wears all the time. They can summon them at will.
This reminds me of a futuristic/space travel campaign I ran many years ago. Since the PCs lived in a very technological world, there were little flying robots that represented various retailers. They'd buzz around the characters always trying to suggest items the PCs needed--
"Ooh, trying to break down a heavy steel door? Well, All-Mart carries an extensive line of explosives for just such an occasion. Or perhaps you'd be more interested in a high-powered cutting torch? Purchase now and delivery is guaranteed within ten minutes with our hyperspace-augmented shipping."
Things would get really out of hand during battles when the PCs would be getting suggestions from their robots for items that would penetrate their enemies defenses, and then they'd notice little retail robots taking orders from their enemies, too. A simple shoot-out could escalate into armageddon in a few minutes so long as the PC's credit limit was high enough.
[QUOTE="Revel
Purchases: When buying merchandise from a character the mercane determines the price either by negotiating it or using fixed prices as desired by the game master. Each time he reaches into his pouch to get money he repeats the amount aloud and promptly pulls out exactly that much.
He's got a specialized well of many worlds in his pocket and the other end is at his warehouse. Love it.
HAs a longtime opponent of magic marts, I would name the merchant Leland Gaunt. He only ever carries exactly what they want. Should make them just paranoid enough not to abuse it.
HAs a longtime opponent of magic marts, I would name the merchant Leland Gaunt. He only ever carries exactly what they want. Should make them just paranoid enough not to abuse it.
+2
I really like this idea, and am definitely going to yoink it for my home game.
Some further development/refinement I have planned, if anyone cares:
Rods tiered by "city size", and operating within those rules. Rod I equivalent to hamlet, up to Rod VIII equivalent to a metropolis. Maybe a "mythical" Rod IX equivalent to a planar metropolis.
So, to spin the example, a Rod I would have a 75% chance to have any item equal or less than 50gp, along with 1d4 minor items (the special stock). PCs could sell items of up to 500g value, and I would put a total "GP reserve" of 5x the purchase limit, so 2500gp in this case.
I'm going to also make a random table for the Rod's "contact", that is, the specific entity that specific rod calls. By their very nature, Merchant Rods will plainly display their function, how to activate it (perhaps in a number of languages equal to the rod's level), and the basic nature of the being they summon.
So our example Rod I might have inscribed down it's length in common: "Krevish the Imp's Utility Shoppe. Call my name thrice and let's make a deal!"
The rods function as a summon spell, operating normally in regards to spell subtypes (Krevish the Imp's Rod would be an Evil and Lawful summon spell) with a duration of 1 hour, time enough for haggling. The most common manifestation of an activated rod is to elongate into an arched doorway, or in some cases, unfold into a kiosk or small stall. The more powerful rods sometimes unfold into entire buildings with illusory representations of the available wares (to expidite shopping within the 1 hour time limit). In all cases, the rod creates a portal, through which the "merchant" arrives, and through which he takes his payments and returns with items. Only attended items can pass through the portal (tossing a necklace of fireballs or vial of acid through won't work).
A merchant could conceivably be tricked into carrying some sort of delayed weapon through, but assuming the merchant survives such an event, he will never respond to a use of the rod by the same PCs, and will respond in an appropriately irritated manner if summoned for them by a proxy.
Hmm, bout it for now, may pop back into the thread if I get more work done. Loving this idea though, very surprised I haven't seen it before.
A few of my other thoughts:
Rod is a 1/week item, to coincide with the settlement restocking rules and prevent possible abuse.
Rods need some degree of minimum space, perhaps a square with width and depth equal to the rod's level in 5' squares, or an equivalent amount of space.
Pricing Formula (shoot this to heck and back if you want, this is just a rough): Command Word, 1/week charge (figure /10 since 1/day is /5), No Space. Base Spell: Lesser Planar Ally (we assume that being summoned for this purpose is "within the creatures ethos" so no extra payment for that.)
(4x7x1800)x0.1x2= 10,080
With Planar Ally
(6x11x1800)x0.1x2= 23,760
With Greater Planar Ally
(8x15x1800)x0.1x2= 43,200
Many solid "shopkeeper" outsiders start at 2-3 HD (although a dretch or lantern archon isn't exactly the best of storefront help). We should also consider that this "version" of Planar Ally has far less versatility than its normal counterpart, and as such shouldn't cost as much. Finally, the purpose of these rods is to generate income for their "true owners", so creating them shouldn't be very expensive (relatively).
As such, I'm applying a 50% discount for versatility reduction, waiving the standard material component offering, and applying appropriate percentile Cuts/Increases as appropriate for the "effective HD" of the shopkeeper relative to the Planar Ally standard limits. With a round down or up as appropriate to make the cost simple.
So, with that in mind, let's break down the rods by "shopkeeper HD" and GP cost (to purchase).
Rod I 4hd 3,300
Rod II 6hd 5,000
Rod III 8hd 6,700
Rod IV 10hd 8,300
Rod V 12hd 12,000
Rod VI 14hd 16,000
Rod VII 16hd 20,000
Rod VIII 18hd 22,000
Not the greatest price spread, and actually rather cheap for access to a metropolis 1/week (although that's kind of the idea, but this might be too much). We applied a lot of discounts, let's add a bit of a surcharge as the sheer utility of the access, especially when stranded on other planes, really starts to pick up with higher limits.
Let's try the following for pricing. First number is just a rough rounding, second is following a progressing Fibanachi sequence, parentheticals are the level a character could afford one with his 25% of wealth spent on other items:
Rod I 3,000 (6) 2,000 (5)
Rod II 5,000 (7) 3,000 (6)
Rod III 7,000 (8) 5,000 (7)
Rod IV 10,000 (9) 8,000 (8)
Rod V 12,000 (10) 13,000 (10)
Rod VI 16,000 (11) 21,000 (12)
Rod VII 20,000 (11) 34,000 (13)
Rod VIII 25,000 (12) 55,000 (15)
Personally, I like the second price pattern. It's only roughly based on numbers we got via the hard magic item rules, but it seems to serve best the idea of an item that can be useful to a lower level party, yet is also potentially a great use of high level party resources as well. For a 18th level character, the 55k tag is not that much, especially "split" between the party as a "whole party" item, like most portable holes and instant fortresses are.
I think I'll make my "alignment" table next, with possible modifiers based on the alignment of the creature in question, like LE being a sort of "buyer beware" with a possibility of cursed items. Or CN being simply unpredictable in prices, with a random +/- to sale/purchase percentages.
Gonna keep posting my thoughts here, both for ease of reference for myself and for anyone else who likes where it's going.
I appreciate your efforts to "rules it out," but it's a DM functionality item. The merchant only has what you want them to have. Player:"I'd like a +5 vorpal greatsword." Merchant:"ohh,sorry. just sold the last one to an Archon. Tough break. I've got a+1 Dagger though. ;-)"
Although I don't think planar merchants are going to bother making these rods so they can sell mundane items like rope and candles. It's hardly worth their time and expense. I think these rods would serve best as a portable magic mart. My 2C, but it's your world.
I never liked magical Wal-marts. I think having a rod that can basically summon any and ever magic item a player could want to buy is too-powerful, boring, and well, for lack of a better way to put it, intellectually lazy.
In my campaigns, players find what they find, they craft what they can, and purchases are limited, random, and often requre side quests.
I use retired PC's as NPC's for such things as: merchants, rulers, assassins, sages, and guild masters. I have cleverly let players reitire PC's that I age and sometimes level-up come back in this manner. One of my favorites was a floating island arcane academy / war college somewhat akin to Forstburns Ice Razer. I have also created traveling caravans, and pirate-merchants in this manner.
Most of the work is done for me as the characters are created during game play.
I like the rod, it is very cleverly thought out, and could be used if implemented carefully and with contractual-strings-attached, but for now, I'll pass on it.
I like the rod, it is very clervely thought out, and could be used if implemented carefully and with contractual strings attached, but for now, I'll pass on it.
I can't decide if the rods should be rare, for obvious reasons, or purposefully distributed throughout the cosmos by planar merchants. Were I a merchant I would want the later, but only if it was safe (for me) and had the proper profit margins to make it worthwhile.
I can't decide if the rods should be rare, for obvious reasons, or purposefully distributed throughout the cosmos by planar merchants. Were I a merchant I would want the later, but only if it was safe (for me) and had the proper profit margins to make it worthwhile.
I like the rod, it is very clervely thought out, and could be used if implemented carefully and with contractual strings attached, but for now, I'll pass on it.
For high enough level merchants, "profit" is relative...profit could mean lore and information, it could mean sacking a rival, or it could mean eliminating an ancient blue dragon or some such. As long as strings are attached more than just payment in coin.
I would deffinatley attach strings if a player wants something so specialized as a +5 Vorpal Greatsword or some such.
For high enough level merchants, "profit" is relative...profit could mean lore and information, it could mean sacking a rival, or it could mean eliminating an ancient blue dragon or some such. As long as strings are attached more than just payment in coin.I would deffinatley attach strings if a player wants something so specialized as a +5 Vorpal Greatsword or some such.
Agreed in both points. However, from a gygaxian naturalist perspective if I were an immortal planar merchant who specialized in magic items I think creating one of these rods every century or so and scattering them strategically about the multiverse would be very very profitable not to mention helping to get rid of rivals by "accidentally" giving high level intrepid adventurers information that they use to cripple/kill your rivals. Naturally the adventurers would have no idea that that's what they were doing, but hey it's just business.
Agreed in both points. However, from a gygaxian naturalist perspective if I were an immortal planar merchant who specialized in magic items I think creating one of these rods every century or so and scattering them strategically about the multiverse would be very very profitable not to mention helping to get rid of rivals by "accidentally" giving high level intrepid adventurers information that they use to cripple/kill your rivals. Naturally the adventurers would have no idea that that's what they were doing, but hey it's just business.
For high enough level merchants, "profit" is relative...profit could mean lore and information, it could mean sacking a rival, or it could mean eliminating an ancient blue dragon or some such. As long as strings are attached more than just payment in coin.I would deffinatley attach strings if a player wants something so specialized as a +5 Vorpal Greatsword or some such.
Outsiders using PC's as unwitting pawns. NICE
I think I smell some alignment changes coming if the PC's fail a sense motive check.
I appreciate your efforts to "rules it out," but it's a DM functionality item. The merchant only has what you want them to have. Player:"I'd like a +5 vorpal greatsword." Merchant:"ohh,sorry. just sold the last one to an Archon. Tough break. I've got a+1 Dagger though. ;-)"
Although I don't think planar merchants are going to bother making these rods so they can sell mundane items like rope and candles. It's hardly worth their time and expense. I think these rods would serve best as a portable magic mart. My 2C, but it's your world.
To be fair, it is a magic item, DM functionality doesn't really apply unless you simply want to classify it as an artifact, in which case it can basically do "whatever the DM wants". As a magic item, it needs to function within the standard rules of the game, in terms of interacting with other spells, class abilities, and so on.
Besides, with at best a 16,000gp limit, the +5 vorpal greatsword argument is fallacious at best and willfully obtuse at worst.
As for mundane items being sold by "low end" merchants, I fail to see how it isn't worth the time and expense. Magic items are horribly resilient, able to survive centuries of wear and exposure, especially if made of durable materials.
A long lived or immortal outsider like my example Imp might only sell rope, non-masterwork weapons, first level potions and scrolls, and other generic shop type gear, but over the years the investment of the rod is going to pay off. Even if he only "makes a profit" of 20g a year, the rod pays for itself in 100 years. And I would be very suprised if such an item only made 20g of profit a year, when it could be activated 52 times and sell easily 1000gp of items each activation.
And finally, who's to say the Imp is the true owner of his business? He likely reports to a higher "merchant" who deals in more valuable goods, who in turn reports to a higher up, and so on. Delegation of tasks and trust with stock. The bone devil running the "Dis Grand Emporium" doesn't want to bother with Cure Light Wounds potions and 200' coils of rope, but he knows there are some people out there who want them, perhaps very badly. So he delegates.
My apologies, I am fairly certain you didn't mean to, but something about your post's wording came off as condescending. Perhaps I'm just being thin-skinned at the moment. Regardless, my posting had two purposes: to record my own thoughts on an interesting item, and to record them where others could view them and take from them if they so desired. If they aren't what you want, that's fine, but telling me "I appreciate your efforts" followed by "but" is just a polite way of saying "you wasted your time." As I have basically completed my version of the item for my game, and out of respect for your own ideas, I will refrain from posting further in this thread, so that you can continue the discussion in whatever manner you see fit. Again, my apologies.
Sweeet...lots of solid ideas to work with here.