Elysian Bronze can be nice, depending on what you are fighting.
It is designed to fight off more classical monsters like magical beasts and monstrous humanoids. It always gives a +1/+1 against those types, and gives another +1/+1 against specific species of those types after you smacked them once today. That is a total of +2/+2- about half of the effect of the bane enhancement.
So it is a rather nice material. Only costs +1000, a price which doesn't mean much past a certain level... but the bonuses it provides certainly does.
So grab it if you are going for more of a greek campaign. I would certainly want it on hand if I had to kill a medusa or chimera.
I think it's +1 damage, and then +1 to hit after you damage them, for a total of +1/+1.
Whoops, you are right. It is a constant damage bonus, and an activated attack bonus that comes with a hit (and lasts 24 hours against members of that species).
Still.... bonuses that come relatively cheap. It is something you will actually see actively used. Adamantine is nice, but unless people go sunder happy on either side, you don't notice it too much. But the bronze? That may well come up.
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It seems to me that the issue with most materials is either they are too niche use, or the bonuses they have are offset by always on drawbacks... not much of an issue for single use NPC's, but Adventurers expecting a certain CR challenge x times a day knowing that going in they have an issue... they have a problem.
M1k31 wrote: It seems to me that the issue with most materials is either they are too niche use, or the bonuses they have are offset by always on drawbacks... not much of an issue for single use NPC's, but Adventurers expecting a certain CR challenge x times a day knowing that going in they have an issue... they have a problem. i agree theres quite a few neet materials that would be fun to use if it wernt for the you take x damage per round while touching these items clause
Honestly if it stopped there you'd be fine, but when these items are Armor you're putting on outside of combat, or causing saves for effects continued hours after the fact... you start to wonder what kind of crazy is making anything with this stuff... which should be worse when unrefined/raw.
Don't forget your griffonmane shirt/pants for that +2 bonus to fly checks.
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Yeah, Mithral and Adamantine see such heavy use because they provide bonuses that will stay consistently useful and no drawbacks beyond added cost. Compare that to giving you a small bonus against one specific creature type, a small skill bonus, and something slightly useful but with a big downside.
_Ozy_ wrote: So, if players find 'rare' mithral and adamantine, does that mean they can now retire with a kings ransom? Supply and demand. Sure, if they want the game to end, or retire their character and play a different one.
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Pink Dragon wrote: _Ozy_ wrote: So, if players find 'rare' mithral and adamantine, does that mean they can now retire with a kings ransom? Supply and demand. Sure, if they want the game to end, or retire their character and play a different one. I think you're kind of missing my point. If adamantine/mithral materials are so rare, and in such high demand, their price would be astronomical because there would be very wealthy people out there willing to buy for that price.
The adventurers would be best off selling whatever mithril/adamantine they came across and buying loads of magical gear that more than made up for the loss of the special material armor/weapons.
What? They can't be sold for that much? They aren't that valuable? Then fine, the adventurers can also find it for the lower price.
The only way you can keep it both rare and not worth much is if nobody wants it. And if nobody wants it despite the obvious advantages (except for the adventurers), you're deliberately screwing them.
_Ozy_ wrote:
The only way you can keep it both rare and not worth much is if nobody wants it. And if nobody wants it despite the obvious advantages (except for the adventurers), you're deliberately screwing them.
There's plenty of ways to make something rare but not very hockable on the market. One idea I've been toying with is that Mithril and Adamantine are indeed vanishingly rare metals and all current examples of them are basically heirlooms from notable families (essentially making them Valyrian Steel weapons from A Song of Ice and Fire). They can be bestowed or pried from the cold dead hands of another person but selling them simply isn't doable due to either sentimental value (you wouldn't sell your family's relic blade would you?), bureaucratic issues (well I could buy the Stark's mithril fullplate from you, but that would probably lead to me getting eaten by dire wolves in retribution as they go to reclaim it), or more simply there isn't a price that can paid for these near unique items (The lost adamantine fork of house Cutlery? There's no price we could put on such an item, however you do have our eternal debt for returning it to us... [rp reward goes here].)
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What, mithral/adamantine can't be reforged?
There exists no black market or illicit trade of goods in your world?
Yes, one can invent different ways to deliberately screw the players, but it's rare that they actually make any amount of sense.
_Ozy_ wrote: What, mithral/adamantine can't be reforged?
There exists no black market or illicit trade of goods in your world?
Yes, one can invent different ways to deliberately screw the players, but it's rare that they actually make any amount of sense.
Well it would basically be the same reason there's no market for minor artifacts which is the type of flavor I was trying to invoke. Some things you can't put prices on due to their history or rarity and if you could, it's more than any one person/organization has in their pocket.
Besides, not throwing 100k gp at my PCs because they decided to sell a mithril spork because ECONOMICS isn't screwing them over. "No, I'm not going to let you guys break WBL over your knee, you find no buyer and/or some shady guy offering normal selling price." Yeah, real mean GM there, not breaking the item track there...
And that's not even getting into the idea that pathfinder economics make no sense to begin with.
Damn this is tough. Think it depends on the situations I get in?
Quilted Cloth + Armored vest is pretty sweet as it gives you medium armor with DR 3/- vs ranged attacks. Not a special material per se but it's basically functioning as one.
Fire-forged steel: My home games have had a lot of fire pop up in them and that combo'd with hot summer environs makes the fire resist 2 pretty strong for most of my players.
Frost-forged steel: Can be interesting for similar reasons, want to see this show up in a winter game as a good cold weather resister.
Viridium: green glass like rock that gives you leprosy. Very cool. Use it in my home games as an alternate material weakness for mythos creatures, forcing players to have to deal with lead lined cases and potential debilitating sickness in order to effectively fight off the alien horrors.
Obsidian: A great special material when you build around it with Splintering Weapons and Primitive Weapon Master. Nothing like having a slayer with a million obsidian knives and just dancing through everyone snapping off d4 bleed.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: _Ozy_ wrote: What, mithral/adamantine can't be reforged?
There exists no black market or illicit trade of goods in your world?
Yes, one can invent different ways to deliberately screw the players, but it's rare that they actually make any amount of sense.
Well it would basically be the same reason there's no market for minor artifacts which is the type of flavor I was trying to invoke. Some things you can't put prices on due to their history or rarity and if you could, it's more than any one person/organization has in their pocket.
Besides, not throwing 100k gp at my PCs because they decided to sell a mithril spork because ECONOMICS isn't screwing them over. "No, I'm not going to let you guys break WBL over your knee, you find no buyer and/or some shady guy offering normal selling price." Yeah, real mean GM there, not breaking the item track there...
And that's not even getting into the idea that pathfinder economics make no sense to begin with. Artifacts can't be 'transformed' into something different and useful. Adamantine/mithral can. It can be reforged into new armor and weapons that the characters want, with the side effect of destroying the original. Kind of like melting down gold and selling the gems from 'priceless' jewelry.
The whole point is that you CAN'T prevent them from selling valuable stuff without pulling a 'GM ex machina' on them and eroding the credibility of your world in general. If you don't want them to get 100k from selling a mithral spork, there's an easy solution:
don't mess with the value of adamantine/mithral
It's not a question of 'being mean', it's a question of being credible. Both as a GM and as world. Saying that items have an extreme value, but the PCs can't actually access any of that value if they happen to find those items isn't mean, it's just not credible.
_Ozy_ wrote:
The adventurers would be best off selling whatever mithril/adamantine they came across and buying loads of magical gear that more than made up for the loss of the special material armor/weapons.
Magic items, aside from lower level potions and scrolls, are even rarer than adamantine and mithral in my home game.
Even so, the PC's are having no trouble keeping up with the monsters in power level.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
The only way you can keep it both rare and not worth much is if nobody wants it. And if nobody wants it despite the obvious advantages (except for the adventurers), you're deliberately screwing them.
There's plenty of ways to make something rare but not very hockable on the market. One idea I've been toying with is that Mithril and Adamantine are indeed vanishingly rare metals and all current examples of them are basically heirlooms from notable families (essentially making them Valyrian Steel weapons from A Song of Ice and Fire). They can be bestowed or pried from the cold dead hands of another person but selling them simply isn't doable due to either sentimental value (you wouldn't sell your family's relic blade would you?), bureaucratic issues (well I could buy the Stark's mithril fullplate from you, but that would probably lead to me getting eaten by dire wolves in retribution as they go to reclaim it), or more simply there isn't a price that can paid for these near unique items (The lost adamantine fork of house Cutlery? There's no price we could put on such an item, however you do have our eternal debt for returning it to us... [rp reward goes here].) I will point out that Tywin Lannister rather famously offered outrageous sums of gold to several impoverished houses that had Valyrian Steel weapons.
If it has value, someone will be willing to pay for it.
Chengar Qordath wrote:
I will point out that Tywin Lannister rather famously offered outrageous sums of gold to several impoverished houses that had Valyrian Steel weapons.
If it has value, someone will be willing to pay for it.
It's not a perfect metaphor, but the basic gist of it still holds. I guess in PF terms the easiest way to put would be to consider them all minor artifacts just without the esoteric destruction conditions. No one knows how to make or alter them (beyond slagging them anyway), there's an extremely limited number of them, and are essentially deemed priceless/beyond the realm of any buyer to pay for (also known as putting a "-" next to the item price tag in your GM notes much like how the rules handle such things).
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if your withholding materials from your martial characters are you also withholding spells from your spell casters, are you saying no wizard you cannot cast fireball as fireball is rare and expensive and you alredy casted your fireball for this month or no cleric you cannot cast cure light wounds you alredy casted it 3 times this month?
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Pink Dragon wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
The adventurers would be best off selling whatever mithril/adamantine they came across and buying loads of magical gear that more than made up for the loss of the special material armor/weapons.
Magic items, aside from lower level potions and scrolls, are even rarer than adamantine and mithral in my home game.
Even so, the PC's are having no trouble keeping up with the monsters in power level. Well, sure, house rules can usually be tweaked to avoid TPKs.
Not sure how that changes the issue of credible economics.
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Lady-J wrote: if your withholding materials from your martial characters are you also withholding spells from your spell casters, are you saying no wizard you cannot cast fireball as fireball is rare and expensive and you alredy casted your fireball for this month or no cleric you cannot cast cure light wounds you alredy casted it 3 times this month? *shrug* some people think martials have it too easy. ;)
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: Chengar Qordath wrote:
I will point out that Tywin Lannister rather famously offered outrageous sums of gold to several impoverished houses that had Valyrian Steel weapons.
If it has value, someone will be willing to pay for it.
It's not a perfect metaphor, but the basic gist of it still holds. I guess in PF terms the easiest way to put would be to consider them all minor artifacts just without the esoteric destruction conditions. No one knows how to make or alter them (beyond slagging them anyway), there's an extremely limited number of them, and are essentially deemed priceless/beyond the realm of any buyer to pay for (also known as putting a "-" next to the item price tag in your GM notes much like how the rules handle such things). So, once again we're in a situation where the PCs, no matter what, can't find a wealthy buyer for a mithral spork they happened to find.
Not credible.
Lady-J wrote: if your withholding materials from your martial characters are you also withholding spells from your spell casters, are you saying no wizard you cannot cast fireball as fireball is rare and expensive and you alredy casted your fireball for this month or no cleric you cannot cast cure light wounds you alredy casted it 3 times this month? At least with what I'm doing, yeah. Certain spells are indeed being restricted/banned and some rare material components are indeed difficult/impossible to find at the start.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: Lady-J wrote: if your withholding materials from your martial characters are you also withholding spells from your spell casters, are you saying no wizard you cannot cast fireball as fireball is rare and expensive and you alredy casted your fireball for this month or no cleric you cannot cast cure light wounds you alredy casted it 3 times this month? At least with what I'm doing, yeah. Certain spells are indeed being restricted/banned and some rare material components are indeed difficult/impossible to find at the start. Well, I think it's pretty important to mention off the bat that you're not really playing Pathfinder anymore. That changes the balance of things entirely.
_Ozy_ wrote:
So, once again we're in a situation where the PCs, no matter what, can't find a wealthy buyer for a mithral spork they happened to find.
Not credible.
Riddle me this then. If during the course of one of your games you decide to toss a Deck of Many Things at your PCs. Rather than using it, they figure "Hey, this thing is a powerful artifact, surely there's some wealthy buyer for that"
What's your play? Do you just throw some arbitrary few million gp at them because surely there's some joker with that much capital and interest in the item (probably one of those anon level 20 wizards who scribes wish scrolls for the market)?
_Ozy_ wrote:
Not sure how that changes the issue of credible economics.
My group doesn't play the game for credible economics. They play to have fun, and they appear to me to be having fun.
Pink Dragon wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
Not sure how that changes the issue of credible economics.
My group doesn't play the game for credible economics. They play to have fun, and they appear to me to be having fun. On top of that, claiming Pathfinder as written has credible economics is likely to get you laughed out of the room.
Tarik Blackhands wrote: Lady-J wrote: if your withholding materials from your martial characters are you also withholding spells from your spell casters, are you saying no wizard you cannot cast fireball as fireball is rare and expensive and you alredy casted your fireball for this month or no cleric you cannot cast cure light wounds you alredy casted it 3 times this month? At least with what I'm doing, yeah. Certain spells are indeed being restricted/banned and some rare material components are indeed difficult/impossible to find at the start. so you use spells per month instead of spells per day? how do you have players still?
Lady-J wrote: Tarik Blackhands wrote:
At least with what I'm doing, yeah. Certain spells are indeed being restricted/banned and some rare material components are indeed difficult/impossible to find at the start.
so you use spells per month instead of spells per day? how do you have players still? Don't put words in my mouth please. All I said was that some spells are restricted/banned. I didn't say anything about monthly castings or anything of the sort.
In a strictly hypothetical situation, lets say in my world there's no diamonds anywhere. That means stuff like raise dead and similar cannot be cast at the start, it would be findable post plot where they find a land where diamond mines exist. That's the sort of set up I'm making (ignoring a few other generic bans due to flavor or mechanical reasons).
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How about we stop debating the merits of Tarik's houserules and get back to discussing special materials?
Tarik Blackhands wrote: Lady-J wrote: Tarik Blackhands wrote:
At least with what I'm doing, yeah. Certain spells are indeed being restricted/banned and some rare material components are indeed difficult/impossible to find at the start.
so you use spells per month instead of spells per day? how do you have players still? Don't put words in my mouth please. All I said was that some spells are restricted/banned. I didn't say anything about monthly castings or anything of the sort.
In a strictly hypothetical situation, lets say in my world there's no diamonds anywhere. That means stuff like raise dead and similar cannot be cast at the start, it would be findable post plot where they find a land where diamond mines exist. That's the sort of set up I'm making (ignoring a few other generic bans due to flavor or mechanical reasons). i did not put words in your mouth you said them yourself
Lady-J wrote: if your withholding materials from your martial characters are you also withholding spells from your spell casters, are you saying no wizard you cannot cast fireball as fireball is rare and expensive and you alredy casted your fireball for this month or no cleric you cannot cast cure light wounds you alredy casted it 3 times this month? I can play the selective quote game too you know.
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Quoting upthread slightly, it's always bothered me when GMs are like "Nope, your metal weapons/armor cannot be reforged, completely impossible, they're 100% set once they're made." I swear, some people seem to not understand how metallurgy and blacksmithing work. Barring finding a facility that can work mithral and adamantine (According to the Golarion setting, those two are particularly hard to work with because of how hard they are) it's completely possible to melt down sword and axe blades for example to make something else. Swords to ploughshares and all that.
Dark Midian wrote: Quoting upthread slightly, it's always bothered me when GMs are like "Nope, your metal weapons/armor cannot be reforged, completely impossible, they're 100% set once they're made." I swear, some people seem to not understand how metallurgy and blacksmithing work. Barring finding a facility that can work mithral and adamantine (According to the Golarion setting, those two are particularly hard to work with because of how hard they are) it's completely possible to melt down sword and axe blades for example to make something else. Swords to ploughshares and all that. Indeed, though I would point out that reforging can pretty quickly lead to complications when you're dealing with different types of weapons. Frex, since Game of Thrones has already come up, the Starks' Valyrian greatsword getting melted down and remade as two longswords.
Just saying, I could easily imagine my players getting an adamantine sword and asking how many adamantine spearheads they could make out of it.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: Pink Dragon wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
Not sure how that changes the issue of credible economics.
My group doesn't play the game for credible economics. They play to have fun, and they appear to me to be having fun. On top of that, claiming Pathfinder as written has credible economics is likely to get you laughed out of the room. I keep seeing this sort of sentiment, but I think people don't really understand how jarring it is to be playing a game, and then the GM comes up with something that makes absolutely no sense.
Not in a 'this is a fantasy world' way, but in a 'how the hell does that make any sense whatsoever'.
Like, you're in a hamlet somewhere, and the rooms at the inn cost 100gp per night, for no good reason at all other than the GM wants to drain some money from the group.
'But hey, Pathfinder doesn't need credible economics'.
Perhaps, but it benefits from verisimilitude, just like any type of story telling. And breaking verisimilitude, just because you can, is crappy story telling.
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Dark Midian wrote: Quoting upthread slightly, it's always bothered me when GMs are like "Nope, your metal weapons/armor cannot be reforged, completely impossible, they're 100% set once they're made." I swear, some people seem to not understand how metallurgy and blacksmithing work. Barring finding a facility that can work mithral and adamantine (According to the Golarion setting, those two are particularly hard to work with because of how hard they are) it's completely possible to melt down sword and axe blades for example to make something else. Swords to ploughshares and all that. Hey, people don't play Pathfinder for 'credible metallurgy'.
;)
_Ozy_ wrote:
I keep seeing this sort of sentiment, but I think people don't really understand how jarring it is to be playing a game, and then the GM comes up with something that makes absolutely no sense.
Not in a 'this is a fantasy world' way, but in a 'how the hell does that make any sense whatsoever'.
Like, you're in a hamlet somewhere, and the rooms at the inn cost 100gp per night, for no good reason at all other than the GM wants to drain some money from the group.
'But hey, Pathfinder doesn't need credible economics'.
Perhaps, but it benefits from verisimilitude, just like any type of story telling. And breaking verisimilitude, just because you can, is crappy story telling.
I don't see how you find the excuse of "they're effectively minor artifacts, there are no buyers to be located" as breaking verisimilitude. I mean, really. Describe to me how that shatters your suspension of disbelief when the homebrew dossier (probably) said such a factoid up front. Like I said prior, it's no more or less immersion breaking than the GM telling me that there's no buyers for a Deck of Many Things. Unless of course you run your games where indeed you can just go to any major big city and sell a Deck for a few million GP to some random archmage in which case I'll go and say that ruling is in the minority.
Edits: guh, gotta clean up grammar.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
I keep seeing this sort of sentiment, but I think people don't really understand how jarring it is to be playing a game, and then the GM comes up with something that makes absolutely no sense.
Not in a 'this is a fantasy world' way, but in a 'how the hell does that make any sense whatsoever'.
Like, you're in a hamlet somewhere, and the rooms at the inn cost 100gp per night, for no good reason at all other than the GM wants to drain some money from the group.
'But hey, Pathfinder doesn't need credible economics'.
Perhaps, but it benefits from verisimilitude, just like any type of story telling. And breaking verisimilitude, just because you can, is crappy story telling.
I don't see how you find the excuse of "they're effectively minor artifacts, there are no buyers to be located" as breaking verisimilitude. I mean, really. Describe to me how that shatters your suspension of disbelief when the homebrew dossier (probably) said such a factoid up front. Like I said prior, it's no more or less immersion breaking than the GM telling me that there's no buyers for a Deck of Many Things. Unless of course you run your games where indeed you can just go to any major big city and sell a Deck for a few million GP to some random archmage in which case I'll go and say that ruling is in the minority.
Edits: guh, gotta clean up grammar. Because adamantine and mithril can be reworked into items that are useful to others, and don't have the downsides typically associated with artifacts.
Furthermore, artifacts actually should be marketable if you find the right buyer, so I don't see how comparing mithral/adamantine objects to artifacts changes the economics. It just means you should expect a higher price under your system.
The disbelief is thus:
You have this super valuable item that you absolutely can't find anyone to buy.
That is literally unbelievable.
_Ozy_ wrote:
Because adamantine and mithril can be reworked into items that are useful to others, and don't have the downsides typically associated with artifacts.
Furthermore, artifacts actually should be marketable if you find the right buyer, so I don't see how comparing mithral/adamantine objects to artifacts changes the economics. It just means you should expect a higher price under your system.
The disbelief is thus:
You have this super valuable item that you absolutely can't find anyone to buy.
That is literally unbelievable. It changes the economics because they effectively hit the same point of "non-marketability" aka too rare as every bloody artifact in the book regardless of whatever you can do with them. The reason you can't just walk down to the local city and hock an artifact (beyond meta reasons of breaking WBL over your knee) is that they are in a word priceless. They go for prices that would beggar kings due to their rarity/effects and as such you can't just go and find some random black marketeer or patron to go on a limb and buy it (at least that's the implication of it). So yes, you have a rare and super valuable item just like if I was waving around a Deck of Many Things (or some more universally useful artifact) and just like with the deck, there's no buyers. 99.9% of people lack the capital and desire for such a thing.
If that's unbelievable to you then I don't know what to say beyond the fact the conversation might as well be dropped to prevent us from going in circles saying the same nonsense.
_Ozy_ wrote: Dark Midian wrote: Quoting upthread slightly, it's always bothered me when GMs are like "Nope, your metal weapons/armor cannot be reforged, completely impossible, they're 100% set once they're made." I swear, some people seem to not understand how metallurgy and blacksmithing work. Barring finding a facility that can work mithral and adamantine (According to the Golarion setting, those two are particularly hard to work with because of how hard they are) it's completely possible to melt down sword and axe blades for example to make something else. Swords to ploughshares and all that. Hey, people don't play Pathfinder for 'credible metallurgy'.
;) Depends. Marvel adamantium is an alloy with a technologically impossibly high melting point, so you're only chance to shape it is before it's cast the first time. Unless you're Magneto.
The Sideromancer wrote: _Ozy_ wrote: Dark Midian wrote: Quoting upthread slightly, it's always bothered me when GMs are like "Nope, your metal weapons/armor cannot be reforged, completely impossible, they're 100% set once they're made." I swear, some people seem to not understand how metallurgy and blacksmithing work. Barring finding a facility that can work mithral and adamantine (According to the Golarion setting, those two are particularly hard to work with because of how hard they are) it's completely possible to melt down sword and axe blades for example to make something else. Swords to ploughshares and all that. Hey, people don't play Pathfinder for 'credible metallurgy'.
;) Depends. Marvel adamantium is an alloy with a technologically impossibly high melting point, so you're only chance to shape it is before it's cast the first time. Unless you're Magneto. Yeah, I've had GMs treat adamantine as adamantium. It was their way of saying, "You're gonna use what I give you, and like it. And don't try selling it, no one can afford it."
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
Because adamantine and mithril can be reworked into items that are useful to others, and don't have the downsides typically associated with artifacts.
Furthermore, artifacts actually should be marketable if you find the right buyer, so I don't see how comparing mithral/adamantine objects to artifacts changes the economics. It just means you should expect a higher price under your system.
The disbelief is thus:
You have this super valuable item that you absolutely can't find anyone to buy.
That is literally unbelievable. It changes the economics because they effectively hit the same point of "non-marketability" aka too rare as every bloody artifact in the book regardless of whatever you can do with them. The reason you can't just walk down to the local city and hock an artifact (beyond meta reasons of breaking WBL over your knee) is that they are in a word priceless. They go for prices that would beggar kings due to their rarity/effects and as such you can't just go and find some random black marketeer or patron to go on a limb and buy it (at least that's the implication of it). So yes, you have a rare and super valuable item just like if I was waving around a Deck of Many Things (or some more universally useful artifact) and just like with the deck, there's no buyers. 99.9% of people lack the capital and desire for such a thing.
If that's unbelievable to you then I don't know what to say beyond the fact the conversation might as well be dropped to prevent us from going in circles saying the same nonsense. 99.9% of people can't afford the 'true value', So that's like what, a dozen or so people in a large city?
What percentage does that drop to if you're willing to accept 200k? 50k?
So yes, that's unbelievable to me, as you're insisting on constraints that aren't necessarily true (only sell for 'full' value). Especially because artifacts carry with them undesirable properties, such as bad effects, divine/infernal interest, and other things that just don't apply to mithral/adamantine.
A black market purchaser doesn't need to have personal interest in an artifact or adamantine/mithral item, they just have to believe they will be able to sell it to a buyer for a decent profit. And if the seller is willing to take a fraction of the 'true value', that's really a no-brainer for the merchant.
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The Sideromancer wrote: _Ozy_ wrote: Dark Midian wrote: Quoting upthread slightly, it's always bothered me when GMs are like "Nope, your metal weapons/armor cannot be reforged, completely impossible, they're 100% set once they're made." I swear, some people seem to not understand how metallurgy and blacksmithing work. Barring finding a facility that can work mithral and adamantine (According to the Golarion setting, those two are particularly hard to work with because of how hard they are) it's completely possible to melt down sword and axe blades for example to make something else. Swords to ploughshares and all that. Hey, people don't play Pathfinder for 'credible metallurgy'.
;) Depends. Marvel adamantium is an alloy with a technologically impossibly high melting point, so you're only chance to shape it is before it's cast the first time. Unless you're Magneto. Immune to the fabricate spell?
_Ozy_ wrote:
99.9% of people can't afford the 'true value', So that's like what, a dozen or so people in a large city?
What percentage does that drop to if you're willing to accept 200k? 50k?
So yes, that's unbelievable to me, as you're insisting on constraints that aren't necessarily true (only sell for 'full' value). Especially because artifacts carry with them undesirable properties, such as bad effects,...
Pathfinder economics are nothing but constraints that aren't necessarily true (aka why the value of gold never fluctuates, any item anywhere is always worth exactly the same, and there is absolutely no sense of supply and demand, to say nothing of how abuses of magic can end any form of scarcity). At the end of the day, players aren't meant to sell certain items because the rules say no, with the setting dressing basically being "there's no buyers" for whatever reason. All those house rules do is add another set of items to the list. You can call that unbelievable or whatever but at this point I'm done arguing my stance since we're hitting that circles thing I mentioned earlier.
Armor: Mithral (especially if medium) or Adamantine (especially if Dwarf)
Weapons: Adamantine
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
99.9% of people can't afford the 'true value', So that's like what, a dozen or so people in a large city?
What percentage does that drop to if you're willing to accept 200k? 50k?
So yes, that's unbelievable to me, as you're insisting on constraints that aren't necessarily true (only sell for 'full' value). Especially because artifacts carry with them undesirable properties, such as bad effects,...
Pathfinder economics are nothing but constraints that aren't necessarily true (aka why the value of gold never fluctuates, any item anywhere is always worth exactly the same, and there is absolutely no sense of supply and demand, to say nothing of how abuses of magic can end any form of scarcity). At the end of the day, players aren't meant to sell certain items because the rules say no, with the setting dressing basically being "there's no buyers" for whatever reason. All those house rules do is add another set of items to the list. You can call that unbelievable or whatever but at this point I'm done arguing my stance since we're hitting that circles thing I mentioned earlier. I don't think you understand the difference between artificial constraints that are easy to ignore (the fundamentals of a gold-based economy) compared to glaring inconsistencies that refute human nature.
There is a simplistic sense of supply and demand. Rare material that people prefer is more expensive than common material. Supply and demand in action.
Heck, the fact that you are calling artifacts 'priceless' is a function of simplistic supply and demand. It wouldn't make much sense to be able to buy a deck of many things for 10gp, would it? Would your players swallow that sort of 'house rule' without any questions?
Of course not. Because it's fundamentally silly, just like the idea that you can't ever find buyers for things that people value. Now, I'm not saying that you should be able to sell an artifact for millions at your local magic mart, but if you're in a large city, saying that you can't find a buyer for any price defies belief, no matter what house rules you have imposed. It literally means that people don't act like people in your world.
_Ozy_ wrote:
I don't think you understand the difference between artificial constraints that are easy to ignore (the fundamentals of a gold-based economy) compared to glaring inconsistencies that refute human nature.
There is a simplistic sense of supply and demand. Rare material that people prefer is more expensive than common material. Supply and demand in action.
Heck, the fact that you are calling artifacts 'priceless' is a function of simplistic supply and demand. It wouldn't make much sense to be able to buy a deck of many things for 10gp, would it? Would your players swallow that sort of 'house rule' without any questions?
Of course not. Because it's fundamentally silly, just like the idea that you can't ever find buyers for things that people value. Now, I'm not saying that you should be able to sell an artifact for millions at your local magic mart,...
Funny thing is that really the only house rule there is which items are in the "priceless" list. Pathfinder already has that list (artifacts) and if you go down that list you can't even fall back on the "oh they have downsides or possible bad attention" unless you want to tell me that Staves of the Magi or Spindles of Perfect Knowledge aren't useful enough/have enough bad reputation to shy away buyers. The book lists them as priceless and gives you a pretty basic reason that there's generally no people who have the capital or desire for it and leave it at that. It doesn't make perfect sense there and neither does it make perfect sense when the list is expanded. It's just another little detail that's overlooked by virtually everyone because PF ain't anything close to a simulation whether it be economics or otherwise.
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plus the prices for mithril and adamantine alredy reflect how rare the material is. plus you could just reserch a spell that converts items into gold coins and bypass all need for a buyer
Tarik Blackhands wrote: _Ozy_ wrote:
I don't think you understand the difference between artificial constraints that are easy to ignore (the fundamentals of a gold-based economy) compared to glaring inconsistencies that refute human nature.
There is a simplistic sense of supply and demand. Rare material that people prefer is more expensive than common material. Supply and demand in action.
Heck, the fact that you are calling artifacts 'priceless' is a function of simplistic supply and demand. It wouldn't make much sense to be able to buy a deck of many things for 10gp, would it? Would your players swallow that sort of 'house rule' without any questions?
Of course not. Because it's fundamentally silly, just like the idea that you can't ever find buyers for things that people value. Now, I'm not saying that you should be able to sell an artifact for millions at your local magic mart,...
Funny thing is that really the only house rule there is which items are in the "priceless" list. Pathfinder already has that list (artifacts) and if you go down that list you can't even fall back on the "oh they have downsides or possible bad attention" unless you want to tell me that Staves of the Magi or Spindles of Perfect Knowledge aren't useful enough/have enough bad reputation to shy away buyers. The book lists them as priceless and gives you a pretty basic reason that there's generally no people who have the capital or desire for it and leave it at that. It doesn't make perfect sense there and neither does it make perfect sense when the list is expanded. It's just another little detail that's overlooked by virtually everyone because PF ain't anything close to a simulation whether it be economics or otherwise. All that means is that Pathfinder doesn't set a sell price, it's up to the GM to figure it out.
Again, I'm not talking about an economic simulation, I'm talking about altering basic human behavior to such an extreme that it breaks the suspension of disbelief.
"I can't find anyone to buy a Staff of the Magi? Really? Not even for 100k? 50k?"
Yeah, no. If the players would buy an item for that much (and they would) then certainly someone else would as well. Settlements have a purchase limit, so you should certainly be able to sell for that.
If you can plane shift, you can reach some markets that truly have a lot of disposable cash.
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