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In the Core Rulebook, when rolling magic items for a settlement, it states: "Reroll any items that fall below the community's base value."
In Ultimate Campaign, when rolling magic items generated by buildings, it states: "[The magic] item's price cannot exceed the base value for the settlement (reroll if the item's price exceeds the settlement's base value)."
Can someone explain this to me? Thanks in advance.
In the Core Rulebook, when rolling magic items for a settlement, it states: "Reroll any items that fall below the community's base value."
In Ultimate Campaign, when rolling magic items generated by buildings, it states: "[The magic] item's price cannot exceed the base value for the settlement (reroll if the item's price exceeds the settlement's base value)."
Can someone explain this to me? Thanks in advance.
While I haven't seen any official FAQ, I think that the Ultimate Campaign version is wrong. There is already a 75% chance that any magic item under the base value is available by those rules. In the Kingmaker path where the Kingdom rules come from, you roll for special minor, medium and major items with no reroll. That would be the rule I'd use. While there may some duplication of minor items under this, once you get to the higher value settlements, there are no minor items of high enough value to try to roll for.
Oddly enough, it's not wrong in Ultimate Campaign. Sean K Reynolds has responded and pointed out that one of the problems with the kingdom rules in Kingmaker was that settlement magic items allowed for runaway economies, and this was one of the major problems with those rules. To counteract this, two things were done:
1) It is not possible to "sell" settlement magic items for BP.
2) The value of magic items rolled for the settlement are capped at the settlement's base value.
There are a number of people (myself included) who feel that doing both of those things is too much. One or the other would have done the job (and the first one really kicks it to the curb).
It is a completely reasonable house rule to allow the rolled items to exceed the settlement's base value (I do it that way and haven't noticed any problems so far), but it is definitely a house rule. The Ultimate Campaign rules override the CRB if they're in use (and don't forget that a large number of the items rolled will be potions or scrolls,which tend to be vastly under the base value), so don't be afraid to revert to the CRB method, but the wording in Ultimate Campaign was absolutely intentional.
Oddly enough, it's not wrong in Ultimate Campaign. Sean K Reynolds has responded and pointed out that one of the problems with the kingdom rules in Kingmaker was that settlement magic items allowed for runaway economies, and this was one of the major problems with those rules. To counteract this, two things were done:
1) It is not possible to "sell" settlement magic items for BP.
2) The value of magic items rolled for the settlement are capped at the settlement's base value.There are a number of people (myself included) who feel that doing both of those things is too much. One or the other would have done the job (and the first one really kicks it to the curb).
It is a completely reasonable house rule to allow the rolled items to exceed the settlement's base value (I do it that way and haven't noticed any problems so far), but it is definitely a house rule. The Ultimate Campaign rules override the CRB if they're in use (and don't forget that a large number of the items rolled will be potions or scrolls,which tend to be vastly under the base value), so don't be afraid to revert to the CRB method, but the wording in Ultimate Campaign was absolutely intentional.
In other words, major magic items slots might as well not exist since most major magic items are over the price range of even Metropolises?
Oddly enough, it's not wrong in Ultimate Campaign. Sean K Reynolds has responded and pointed out that one of the problems with the kingdom rules in Kingmaker was that settlement magic items allowed for runaway economies, and this was one of the major problems with those rules. To counteract this, two things were done:
1) It is not possible to "sell" settlement magic items for BP.
2) The value of magic items rolled for the settlement are capped at the settlement's base value.There are a number of people (myself included) who feel that doing both of those things is too much. One or the other would have done the job (and the first one really kicks it to the curb).
It is a completely reasonable house rule to allow the rolled items to exceed the settlement's base value (I do it that way and haven't noticed any problems so far), but it is definitely a house rule. The Ultimate Campaign rules override the CRB if they're in use (and don't forget that a large number of the items rolled will be potions or scrolls,which tend to be vastly under the base value), so don't be afraid to revert to the CRB method, but the wording in Ultimate Campaign was absolutely intentional.
How could it lead to a runaway economy? I reread the section on Magic Items in Settlements, and it looks like high-priced magic items would still need to be purchased with wealth from some source -- either the PCs' GP or the kingdom's BP. How does one "sell" the magic item if it isn't owned by the PCs or the kingdom yet?
Unless I'm missing something, I don't see the danger. And I rather dislike special buildings only producing those items that you have a 75% chance of finding easily anyway (and if it's not available, it might be available in one week).
In the Kingmaker rules it was possible to make a check (I forget which kind), and "sell" settlement magic items, in return for BP: 2 for a minor, I forget how much for a medium (I think 6), and 15 for a major. As such it was trivially easy to make a settlement that gave a massive return compared to the cost of the buildings.
And while it is true that major armor, weapons, rings, rods, staffs, and wondrous items tend to be worth more than 16,000 gp, that still leaves potions, scrolls and wands (20% of major items, using the CRB table) which tend to come in much lower. Re rolling the whole item, if you exceed the base price, increases the likelihood of needing to settle for one of those types.
This also has the (possibly intentional) side-effect of keeping permanent magic items under the control of the GM/crafters.
As I said, though, I ignore the limit and allow the specific items to exceed the base value, and it doesn't seem to be hurting my game at all.
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Ah. I looked up the rule you're talking about and I see the change from the original kingdom rules in Kingmaker to Ultimate Campaign:
Kingmaker on the "Income Phase":
Step 3—Sell Valuable Items: You can attempt to sell items
that cost more than 4,000 gp through your city’s markets
to bolster your kingdom’s Treasury; these can be items you
recover during an adventure or they can be magic items
currently held by any of your cities.
Ultimate Campaign on the "Income Phase":
"You cannot use this step to sell magic items held or created by buildings in your settlements; those items are the property of the owners of those businesses."
Wow, so I see absolutely no reason to cap magic items at the Base Value. The "runaway economy" problem has been solved. And this cap also has the disadvantage of creating a different definition for Base Value.
I think this needs to be errata'd. I'm definitely house-ruling this out.
That's nice to know. Now I won't see as many magic item shops being made. In the original kingdom building rules, a magic item shop was one of the first things you built. It was the easy path to extraordinary wealth. This will change kingdom building substantially.