Why is INK so bloody expensive?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Not talking about a mage scribing spells over. I'm talking about a dang vial of ink. 8 GP for an ounce of ink? 16 gp for colored ink? For, basically, pureed flower petals emulsified in something slightly thicker than water? Seriously? IS there actually a reason, or is it just "because blarf"?

The Exchange

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I mean, ink is stupid expensive in real life too though.


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Well, it's not as simple as pureed flower petals, so I expect the cost is pretty high because of that. You can get very inexpensive writing implements if it's not for anything fancy or permanent, simply using sticks of charcoal.


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I doubt the PF team considered the exact manufacturing of ink. I think it's expensive in PF because up through the Dark Ages in the real world ink was actually very expensive (whether because of materials or labor costs or both). AFAIK all such prices come from such considerations.

If you do want to consider specific medieval ink-manufacturing methods, here's something from a quick Google search.

Sovereign Court

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Ink and magnifying glasses are exorbitantly expensive for the same reasons.


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I think they get their ink from Hewlett-Packard. Makes 16gp/ounce look cheap.


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Alright, fuzzy, you provide a good point. I would mention, however, that it's more expensive for a single vial of ink than to make a suit of leather armor... bloody "luxury" items...

Quid, the purpose is to allow a character with no proficiency, and the Unlearned drawback (ran away at 8, no formal education since... I'm lucky my DM isn't making me be illiterate) to make on-the-fly knowledge checks for very, very specific topics. So, not fancy, but permanent.

Deusvault, ink is (Even by Fuzzy's manual) time consuming, but not difficult. Debark some hawthorn, soak the (*&)%$ out of it, then boil it until it becomes black and thickens. Even today, a *good* magnifying lens is expensive because of the precision of them, much like glasses.

Mudfoot, if you think that's expensive, go generic. You'll pay half the price... for a quarter of the ink. :P


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The real question, if Pathfinder is roughly based around Medieval/Renaissance economies, is why is gold so cheap? A bit of silver paid for a lot (when you find people that took coin instead of barter). Gold wasn't something anyone except the nobles, catholic church and very wealthy merchants used. 2gp for a leather backpack? 3gp for a common wooded shield? 1 gp for a piece of flint and steel? Yes, all this starts way back in the devaluation of gold back in 1st ed AD&D, but its still funny to see common items so steeply priced and when you think about adventurer's carrying around what would literally be a king's ransom in just gold, makes you think there should be gangs of pickpockets and bandits following them around.

Silver Crusade

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Damn dwarves, diggin' up all that metal and gems and flooding the market...


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No doubt been pointed out before, but as an interesting note a Scrivener's Kit costs 2 gold & says

SRD said wrote:
This soft leather case contains a vial for holding ink, an ink pen, spare pen nibs, a small container of pigment for making ink, a tiny knife for cutting quills into pens, a blotter, and a small ruler.

Flood the market with jet black ink!


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Joey Cote wrote:

The real question, if Pathfinder is roughly based around Medieval/Renaissance economies, is why is gold so cheap? A bit of silver paid for a lot (when you find people that took coin instead of barter). Gold wasn't something anyone except the nobles, catholic church and very wealthy merchants used. 2gp for a leather backpack? 3gp for a common wooded shield? 1 gp for a piece of flint and steel? Yes, all this starts way back in the devaluation of gold back in 1st ed AD&D, but its still funny to see common items so steeply priced and when you think about adventurer's carrying around what would literally be a king's ransom in just gold, makes you think there should be gangs of pickpockets and bandits following them around.

Because it's not "roughly based around Medieval/Renaissance economies"?

It's based around gold rush economies so adventures can find huge piles of treasure.


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Joey Cote wrote:

The real question, if Pathfinder is roughly based around Medieval/Renaissance economies, is why is gold so cheap? A bit of silver paid for a lot (when you find people that took coin instead of barter). Gold wasn't something anyone except the nobles, catholic church and very wealthy merchants used. 2gp for a leather backpack? 3gp for a common wooded shield? 1 gp for a piece of flint and steel? Yes, all this starts way back in the devaluation of gold back in 1st ed AD&D, but its still funny to see common items so steeply priced and when you think about adventurer's carrying around what would literally be a king's ransom in just gold, makes you think there should be gangs of pickpockets and bandits following them around.

Perhaps because most bandits don't like quick horrible and painful death?


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It's based around a trio AFAICT:
(1) dark ages reality, though probably not researched in depth (but they can use Wikipedia and Google as well as anyone else)
(2) gold rush economy, so that adventurers can't buy the world with one haul
(3) game workability, and this one trumps the other two but hard. Pretty sure the prices for armor, say, come largely from this.

So the fact that ink costs gold at all is from #2, but it's price relative to other gear is from #1. I don't think #3 comes into this one.


Because birogolems are CR 13.


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And Krakens are CR 18.


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This thread is quickly going to devolve into a create water style analysis about why a bunch of druids summoning squid couldn't just drive the price of ink down to free, isn't it?


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Iron gall ink (the ink that bonded so well to parchment that we still have texts older than 1000 years that are still perfect) required technique to prepare properly, but still was fairly cheap to produce... Only spurious "gold rush economics" justify a single vial of it costing more than a year's of a farmer's revenue.

Silver Crusade

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Personally, I think "luxury" items that aren't significant game changers probably are negligible as far as cost. As long as they aren't pulling any shenanigans and they're near civilization I just let them have basic sundries (soap, ink, charcoal, etc.) unless there is a plot related reason why they wouldn't (stuff got stolen/destroyed, etc.)


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quibblemuch wrote:
This thread is quickly going to devolve into a create water style analysis about why a bunch of druids summoning squid couldn't just drive the price of ink down to free, isn't it?

Is the time to milk a squid greater than the summoning duration? Is the ink considered part of the squid enough to disappear once the summoning ends? What if i want different coloured inks? do I need to fleshwarp a squid for that?


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So, to the gentleman that linked the Scrivener's kit, thank you. That's pretty much what I needed to find.

Scarab Sages

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I've always wondered whether the scrivener's kit was enough to make ink with, or if you still had to buy ink separately. The wording is vague.


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I imagine the "pigment for making ink" mentioned in that kit is equivalent to a Chinese ink stick, and thus allows for the making of ink by scraping and mixing with a proper medium... for some reason, said course of action costs a whole big lot when you decide to buy ready made ink.

Scarab Sages

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I don't know if we could get one of the designers to weigh in on this? I'm honestly interested in knowing the answer, since so many of my characters are of the "the party brains" variety who pick up writing supplies - is the scrivener's kit enough, or does one need to buy the 8-gp vial of ink as well?


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Klorox wrote:
Iron gall ink (the ink that bonded so well to parchment that we still have texts older than 1000 years that are still perfect) required technique to prepare properly, but still was fairly cheap to produce... Only spurious "gold rush economics" justify a single vial of it costing more than a year's of a farmer's revenue.

The average farmer earns significantly more than 16gp in a year.


Yeah, by poor lifestyle cost of living, they still must be earning about 40-50 gp per year... looks like Golarion has suffered major inflation over the centuries, which explains why a lot of things are ridiculously expensive.

Silver Crusade

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Why even use ink, stick to charcoal. Any adventurer worth their salt should have the burnt remains of the last town they rolled through on hand, at least as a memento.


charcoal smudges... not good for writing.

Dark Archive

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Matthew Downie wrote:
And Krakens are CR 18.

And their control of the ink market is total. Anyone who attempts to move into that market ends up chum.

There's probably a conspiratorial reason for that, as well. Something they put into the ink that has some subtle affect on the wizards whose livelihoods depend on it...

Silver Crusade

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Klorox wrote:
Yeah, by poor lifestyle cost of living, they still must be earning about 40-50 gp per year... looks like Golarion has suffered major inflation over the centuries, which explains why a lot of things are ridiculously expensive.

Probably as a result of high level characters mining tons of gold, mithral, and adamantine from the elemental plane of earth and brining it back to the material plane.


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Set wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
And Krakens are CR 18.

And their control of the ink market is total. Anyone who attempts to move into that market ends up chum.

There's probably a conspiratorial reason for that, as well. Something they put into the ink that has some subtle affect on the wizards whose livelihoods depend on it...

*shakes tiny fist*

Curse you, Inkluminati!

Scarab Sages

*BUMP*

I'm really interested in what a developer would have to say about this.


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In the real world printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet.

Article

Printer ink is more expensive, per ounce, than gold.


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Have you tried milking a squid for ink...not as easy as people think, and the big ones (though full of more ink) likely take issue with the harvesting process. ;)

Silver Crusade

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Snowlilly wrote:

In the real world printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet.

Article

Printer ink is more expensive, per ounce, than gold.

An ounce of printer ink covers a lot more area than an ounce of gold. Also that's not true going by your article in which a gallon of printer ink is $4731, while an ounce of gold is $1194.90

Here, this is fun.


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Squid farm, edible and ink generating...hmmmm I wonder if I could get some startup capital...

GM Beernorg brand Eco-Ink, 100% natural, plus, squid, it's what's for dinner (actually squid populations around the world are increasing greatly)


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IMHO, charm squids into giving you the ink in return for food and or get a squid familiar and get the ink as a by product.
MDC

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