|
I'm not sure if there's a thread on this already, and if there is I'd appreciate someone linking me to it, but how does shopping for expensive items at high level work exactly?
Most cities of even metropolis size seem to have a base gp limit of less than 25k. So where can I buy anything more expensive than that? I know cities can place an order for the item or you could commission it to be crafted or even craft it yourself, but in a campaign where you are in any way time-bound waiting 75 days to craft something like a Robe of the Archmagi just isn't feasible.
Am I missing something obvious here? (I hope so)
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i0jn&page=1?High-Level-Economics
Stated way better than I ever could. Also, as an aside, here is one planar example of how neutral evil fiends (daemons) use high level economies. I even added a wish token if you will, whereby a concentration of magical energy equating to a wish and limited wish have their own token of economy, such as a crystal.
Herein also explains how you could have entities with mountains of gold, but higher level people and monsters stop caring about some soft yellow metal. Magic Battery or GTFO.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/daemons
Mindless Spirits (10 gp): While it’s possible to capture the vital essences of vermin, basic oozes, and other such unthinking creatures, these paltry spirits are worth very little.
Animal Spirits (25 gp): This category contains creatures of animal-level intelligence, whose spirits—while presumably worth something to some deities, as reflected by the value of animal sacrifice—are rarely traded in the soul markets. In fact, though the existence of animal spirits is undeniably real, there’s rampant debate in many societies over whether such things truly count as “souls.”
Basic Soul (100 gp): This is the soul of a standard intelligent creature—a commoner, a low-level adventurer, a sentient monster of low CR, or any of the other hordes of weak or mundane folk who live out their lives with a normal amount of pomp and excitement. This is the lowest category of souls which interests daemons, who see animals and other nonsentient creatures as hardly worth the time to destroy.
Noteworthy Soul (500 gp): The souls of mid-level characters, rulers, famous or influential people, and other powerful, accomplished, and otherwise important people draw greater attention than basic souls, and drive bidding higher accordingly.
Grand Soul (1000–5000 gp): High-level characters, great heroes, dragons, powerful aberrations, and other such spirits of fabulous power and forceful personalities offer equally significant rewards to those who manage to contain their essences.
Unique Soul (priceless): For the truly unique souls—those of legendary figures, epic heroes, and other massive presences—there can be no going price. The unique sparks that live within these creatures are valuable beyond compare, and the frantic bidding (and backstabbing) that arises when one of these trapped spirits comes up for sale is the sort of thing fiends and undead wait thousands of years for, paying nigh-unimaginable prices for the right to consume or display such an artifact.
Using Souls
In addition to consuming them for the sheer joy of destruction, daemons use souls to empower themselves, conduct strange experiments, construct their hideous domains, and more—and mortal spellcasters have followed their lead. Of these varied uses, the most common is the creation or recharging of magic items, using the life force contained in soul gems and other such vessels—or drawn out of the victim directly at the moment of casting—to empower the magic being worked. In these cases, souls should be assigned values based on the categories presented here and then treated as material components, reducing the gold expenditure necessary to cast the spell according to the souls’ value. (Thus a spell that requires 400 gp to cast might instead cost 300 gp and a basic-level soul.) Souls used in this manner are consumed and destroyed utterly.
Souls are especially useful in the creation of intelligent items. In these cases, usually only one soul crystallizes as the intelligence embedded into the item, though other souls may be cannibalized in the item’s creation. Item alignment, item ability scores, and languages spoken by the item mirror those of the soul used to provide the item’s intelligence. Scholars have long debated whether the intelligence in such an item is the soul used, or if the soul is destroyed and the intelligence is only patterned on it—the implication being that recovered intelligent objects (especially of daemonic origin) might be destroyed in order to liberate the souls used in their construction. As instances of both have been reported over the centuries, the question remains open, though few adventurers are willing to destroy their prized weapons based on conjecture.
Beyond the means described above, daemons have myriad additional means of trapping, keeping, and subsequently using souls for constructing permanent objects and effects, such as a liquid form of soul-stuff mixing multiple souls, a crystalline dust formed from soul gems, and even ink created from souls and used to write down the names of the doomed, imprisoning them in elaborate poems penned on the daemons’ own flesh. Something intrinsic in daemonic nature allows for this flexibility, as some of the same methods they routinely use fail spectacularly when attempted by non-daemons, including such creatures as night hags, devourers, liches, and followers of some fiendish lords, who themselves possess a vested interest in exploiting some or all of these methods.
|
|
Thanks for the response toascend, there's some really interesting ideas there.
But most of the adventure paths paizo publish end at level 15+ and at that stage you are sitting on so much loot and cash that it's impossible to sell or buy anything.
For example if I want a headband of vast intelligence +6, where can I actually buy one given that I can't find a city with a purchase limit higher than 23,500gp.
Actually in Golarion (since Paizo is using the rules about settlements and magic item availability in GMG) the highest base value you can find is 30400gp.
|
|
I was using the stats for Magnimar as presented in Rise of the Runelords but Leo is right.
I guess that means high level purchasing is limited to that amount, crafting (not feasible where there are time constraints) or commissioning an item to be made (also not feasible when there are time constraints).
Just sad that my mage will never get his metamagic rod of quicken spell :(
Am I missing something obvious here?
A lot of people ignore those rules, IME.
I'm not sure if there's a thread on this already, and if there is I'd appreciate someone linking me to it, but how does shopping for expensive items at high level work exactly?
Most cities of even metropolis size seem to have a base gp limit of less than 25k. So where can I buy anything more expensive than that? I know cities can place an order for the item or you could commission it to be crafted or even craft it yourself, but in a campaign where you are in any way time-bound waiting 75 days to craft something like a Robe of the Archmagi just isn't feasible.
Am I missing something obvious here? (I hope so)
That price is just a 75% chance that particular item will be there as per the rules:
"There is a 75% chance that any item of this value or lower can be found for sale in the community with little effort. If an item is not available, a new check to determine if the item has become available can be made in 1 week."
However the rules go on that settlements have a number of major magic items as stated here:
"This line lists the number of magic items above a settlement's base value that are available for purchase. In some city stat blocks, the actual items are listed in parentheses after the die range of items available—in this case, you can use these pre-rolled resources when the PCs first visit the city as the magic items available for sale on that visit. If the PCs return to that city at a later date, you can roll up new items as you see fit."
If your at least 9th level you should be able to Teleport/Plane Shift to local/planar metropolises to be able to find 3d4 major magic items per each. You can also visit Large Cities for 2d4 major magic items, small cities for 1d6, or even large towns if your desperate for 1d4 major magic items. Robe of the Archmagi has a bunch of number on a d% so have at it!
@Anzyr
Only problem is if the GM has limited amount of cities in the setting. The GM doesn't have to create cities for you to teleport to.
@Anzyr
Only problem is if the GM has limited amount of cities in the setting. The GM doesn't have to create cities for you to teleport to.
What? No shopping mall? So unfashionable! [/ragequitcampaign]
What? No shopping mall? So unfashionable! [/ragequitcampaign]@Anzyr
Only problem is if the GM has limited amount of cities in the setting. The GM doesn't have to create cities for you to teleport to.
If I am the wizard, I would just craft my own gear... and the parties...
The fighter might finish making normal full plate by the time I am done and just cast fabricate to make a masterwork version.
I'm not sure if there's a thread on this already, and if there is I'd appreciate someone linking me to it, but how does shopping for expensive items at high level work exactly?
Most cities of even metropolis size seem to have a base gp limit of less than 25k. So where can I buy anything more expensive than that? I know cities can place an order for the item or you could commission it to be crafted or even craft it yourself, but in a campaign where you are in any way time-bound waiting 75 days to craft something like a Robe of the Archmagi just isn't feasible.
Am I missing something obvious here? (I hope so)
I wrote about that HERE. You can get anything in any metropolis with a Diplomancer Rogue [DC 35].
The thread concentrates on teleporting to multiple great cities until you get to the one where the 3d4 major items contain what you want.
High Level Economics
Linkified.
/cevah