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So there you have it, NPCs don't in fact follow the same rules as PCs. The Golarion economy is saved! lol
That doesn't actually help in the slightest. An economy in which a potion of fire resistance costs 1/4 of a ring of fire resistance is utterly broken, if we assume that the rest of the way Golarion economics works is similar to the real world. Nothing in the lore published to date suggests it doesn't.
In order to make this make sense to anyone that has middleschool levels of knowledge of economics or better you need to start positing some utterly crazy stuff, like NPCs are all selling to each other at reasonable prices but starting acting like it's the episode of Simpsons where the movie studio comes to Springfield whenever adventurers are around and they jack the prices up to crazy levels.(Oh, and they all have at will detect thoughts with a save DC of 500 because you can't even pretend to be a regular person and get regular person prices).
Or perhaps every nation on Golarion is Socialist/Communist and the central planners have dictated this pricing, because they think it's a good idea, and squads of divination wizards go around finding black markets that sell at market rates and put an end to them.
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the issue here is that even items that don't have usage restrictions and work for everyone are still priced at the same exact value.
in short, the "limitations" of wands are not factored in their price at all.
An item's price is solely based on the effect and level it produces, and ease of use, or limitations of use, are not factored in.
People just compare wands because they are the easiest since they have exact potion equivalents. But all permanent items are priced on the same model basically. Which is "level of effect".
With consumables just being based around "a batch of consumables is equal to an equal permanent item".
And to me, and those agreeing with me, this is terrible pricing model, since it destroys the niche of consumables (their niche being "they are better if you use a handful, but worse if you plan on sticking with using said effect")
If a "handful" of consumables costs more than an equal level permanent item, then what's their point? Just buy the permanent.
And if you get consumables as loot, just sell them since they are so extremely expensive that you can get extra permanent items just by selling a handful of them.
Saving up for a Ring of Fire Resistance might be the optimal long-term investment strategy, but only if you live long enough. Turning up your nose at an "overpriced" Scroll of Resist Fire in the meantime looks smart, right until the moment you get roasted by a fire elemental in the next dungeon.
Consumables also offer greater versatility-for-the-price compared to permanent items. If you somehow know that your current quest will take you to the Plane of Fire, that Ring of Fire Resistance is the obvious choice (assuming you can afford it). But if you're not sure what you'll encounter next, getting four or five different scrolls/potions/talismans with a variety of potentially-lifesaving effects might be a better use of your gold.
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Saving up for a Ring of Fire Resistance might be the optimal long-term investment strategy, but only if you live long enough. Declining to waste your money on an "overpriced" Scroll of Resist Fire in the meantime looks smart right up until the moment you get roasted by a fire elemental in the next dungeon.
Consumables also offer greater versatility for the price compared to permanent items. If you somehow know that your current quest will take you to the Plane of Fire, that Ring of Fire Resistance is an obvious choice (assuming you can afford it). But if you're not sure what you'll encounter next, getting four or five different scrolls/potions/talismans with a variety of effects might be a better use of your gold at the moment.
As I mentioned to someone earlier, this argument only makes sense if the scenario where you gather enough consumables to sell them and replace them with a permanent item before an opportunity to use them only happens very rarely, and in my games it happens almost every session.
Also, the ring of fire resistance is the obvious choice if you expect to take fire damage more than 4 times in your life. Again, I don't know about your games, but in mine...
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As I mentioned to someone earlier, this argument only makes sense if the scenario where you gather enough consumables to sell them and replace them with a permanent item before an opportunity to use them only happens very rarely, and in my games it happens almost every session.
I think you might be taking an out of context lesson and applying it to somewhere conditions are notably different. I just did a quick skim of Hellknight Hill for consumables and found a grand total of 29 potions, elixirs, and scrolls (there might be another consumable or two, but not all that many).
Most are level one to three.
That adventure takes you to level 5. And that's the number found in the whole adventure. I'm...rather deeply skeptical that the 'take and sell eight of these, buy one permanent item' strategy is meaningfully usable in that adventure. Certainly not more than once.
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then the AP is outside of the guidelines of the rewards a party should expect on average though.
on average the loot table says that you get 1:1 permanent and consumables of the same level (and slightly more consumables than that but of lower level).
No, it isn't. Do the math. The table on p. 509 actually gives a party precisely 29 items from level 1 through level 5.
That's more than a 1 to 1 ratio on permanent items, you're quite right, but it's still not enough for you to reliably trade 8 of them for something permanent all that often.
I'm not saying it'll never happen, but once a session? No chance.
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oh, i wasn't debating the 1 per session, sorry, mssed that this was what you were refering to.
i just see them about a 1/8th, or 15% increase in "permanent" items strictly due to selling them all.
And i dislike that their optimal use is this, selling them to cash in permanent items.
That still isn't practical. Or optimal. Most items you get are levels behind, or very useful in situations you're likely to get into during the adventure you acquire them.
Using level 3 healing potions (or potions or scrolls of other relevant things), might save your life. Saving them up might eventually get you a level 3 item...but probably not until you're more like 5th level.
Getting an extra much lower level item is not, IMO, worth avoiding using potentially game changing or life saving short term assets.
Now, stuff you don't use will absolutely eventually get sold, but I really don't think that's as big a deal as you're making it out to be.
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Right, but over the course of level 3, you get precisely two level 3 consumable items, and two level 4 ones. That's not enough to get a level 3 Permanent Item. It's not even half of enough. Add in the level 2 ones, and it probably is half enough, but only half.
You would need to save up and invest every single consumable you get between 3rd and 5th levels (a total of 18 consumables) in order to afford a single level 5 item.
So...you're either getting below level items by selling consumables, or you're selling a lot more than 8 of them.
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I just did a quick skim of Hellknight Hill for consumables and found a grand total of 29 potions, elixirs, and scrolls (there might be another consumable or two, but not all that many).
Most are level one to three.
That adventure takes you to level 5. And that's the number found in the whole adventure. I'm...rather deeply skeptical that the 'take and sell eight of these, buy one permanent item' strategy is meaningfully usable in that adventure. Certainly not more than once.
I'd make 3 points
1) Hellknight Hill was written while the rules weren't finished, and is also the first 2e AP, it may not be particularly representative of what is to become "standard". We do however only have 2 data points right now, so it is what it is.
2) Levels 1 and 2 are a bit wonky in terms of magic items in 1e, that may also be the case in 2e.
3) In order for an AP to utilize the "you'll use consumables because you'll need them to survive" it has to run a very fine line of not overwhelming you, versus not being too easy. If it overwhelms you, you need to spend resources raising characters or restorations or the like putting you further and further behind the 8-ball as the game progresses. Conversely, if it is too easy, that makes it possible for the PCs to sell consumables and replace them with permanent items. This puts them more and more ahead of the power curve as each time they do this, the get relatively more resources and things become even easier.
Survival Horror computer games usually handle this by dynamically allocating how much ammunition and healing you find based on how well you are doing. As a series of 6 pre-published books, this isn't really possible for an AP.
I think that fundamentally Paizo have chosen to make a number of design decisions around how consumables will work in the game that are mutually exclusive, and based on prioritizing some over others, the fallout is that resource wise, consumables are not worth consuming.
Right, but over the course of level 3, you get precisely two level 3 consumable items, and two level 4 ones. That's not enough to get a level 3 Permanent Item. It's not even half of enough. Add in the level 2 ones, and it probably is half enough, but only half.
You would need to save up and invest every single consumable you get between 3rd and 5th levels (a total of 18 consumables) in order to afford a single level 5 item.
So...you're either getting below level items by selling consumables, or you're selling a lot more than 8 of them.
You may have already answered this elsewhere, but do you think that consumables are appropriately priced? Do you believe that the cost of consumables justifies purchasing them or crafting them over continuous items? If you had a choice between 4 appropriately leveled consumables vs 1 appropriately leveled permanent item which would you choose?
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I'd make 3 points
1) Hellknight Hill was written while the rules weren't finished, and is also the first 2e AP, it may not be particularly representative of what is to become "standard". We do however only have 2 data points right now, so it is what it is.
Nope. It very closely matches the chart on P. 509. This is an example of the basic standards the system expects in an entirely consistent way.
2) Levels 1 and 2 are a bit wonky in terms of magic items in 1e, that may also be the case in 2e.
They're not by the chart. Well, 1st level is very slightly (getting three 1st level Items instead of two 1st and two 0 level), but not enough to matter.
3) In order for an AP to utilize the "you'll use consumables because you'll need them to survive" it has to run a very fine line of not overwhelming you, versus not being too easy. If it overwhelms you, you need to spend resources raising characters or restorations or the like putting you further and further behind the 8-ball as the game progresses.
Something doesn't need to actually be necessary to survive for it to be a good idea for PCs to use it.
Say you're a bunch of humans going to be fighting in pitch darkness and have a consumable granting darkvision. That encounter is probably balanced so that you'll win going in literally blind...but do you really want to risk that when, for 5 extra GP, you can give the Fighter Darkvision?
Or say that your comrade is dying but has a potion of healing on them. Sure, you could do a Medicine check and gamble they survive...but it's probably a better idea to use the potion.
Or say someone seemingly friendly is trying to talk to you but you can't understand, and you have an elixir of comprehending but no spells to help that situation. Is missing what they're saying gonna make you flat out lose? Probably not, but you probably do want to use the consumable.
Those are the kind of situations I'm talking about.
Conversely, if it is too easy, that makes it possible for the PCs to sell consumables and replace them with permanent items. This puts them more and more ahead of the power curve as each time they do this, the get relatively more resources and things become even easier.
You're overestimating the impact of an occasional extra item on PC power. Especially since items don't scale very much. By 18th level, an extra 5th level item is, at best, probably a +1 on one of your non-invested Skills. And selling all consumables gets you only one item every 3 levels or so at most. so at 8th, you have maybe one extra 8th, and then one extra 5th that matter? That's not bad, but it's not much better than the 8th level item alone in many ways.
So this doesn't snowball very much. Nor, given that many of the consumable are niche utility stuff, is having permanent items always gonna be better, especially given the sheer number of consumables you're giving up. 18 consumables are flexible in a way a single permanent item cannot be.
Survival Horror computer games usually handle this by dynamically allocating how much ammunition and healing you find based on how well you are doing. As a series of 6 pre-published books, this isn't really possible for an AP.
Again, this is less necessary since the benefits of saving and investing are never much better than one on-level item, and another at, what, level -3 at best? Giving up all consumables for that is not a great trade, IMO.
I think that fundamentally Paizo have chosen to make a number of design decisions around how consumables will work in the game that are mutually exclusive, and based on prioritizing some over others, the fallout is that resource wise, consumables are not worth consuming.
I'd agree they're not worth purchasing. I would not agree they aren't worth consuming.
You may have already answered this elsewhere, but do you think that consumables are appropriately priced? Do you believe that the cost of consumables justifies purchasing them or crafting them over continuous items? If you had a choice between 4 appropriately leveled consumables vs 1 appropriately leveled permanent item which would you choose?
I think basically no PC will ever buy consumables. That's a pretty objectively correct assessment of the results of the rules.
Whether that's good or bad I think is a tad more unclear. We need to try out the game and see how it works in play.
And I think that the idea that everyone will always sell all their acquired consumables is exaggerated and will happen very rarely if at all. Consumables are definitely worth less than 1/4 of a permanent item, but having 18 different consumables for various situations is better than a single on-level item.
Now, many of those 18 will eventually be sold as you 'level out' of them, but by the time you've leveled out of them the money will be a drop in the bucket...and by 'many' I mean maybe half. Not all of them by any means.
As I see it, it is actually wands specifically that are my problem now that I realize that the limits of investment only apply to items with the investment tag.
They are just way too good to ever consider carrying consumables, and basically fully recreate the problem of wizards (but any caster class) essentially carrying every spell they could ever care to cast from low levels. Really any character can now do this with the investment of a single 2nd level multiclassing feat in the tradition. By 7th level, it seems that most casters are going to be walking around with 5-10 first level wands, so maybe not all the spells, but a vast majority of them.
This is largely the same thing that happened in PF 1, except now the wands recharge every day, so there isn't even really an upkeep cost of being the wizard with one of everything anymore.
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A Wand of a 1st level spell is 60 GP. An individual 7th level PC has 720 GP of total items, and likely only 125 GP of it in negotiable currency.
So you can afford maybe two 1st level Wands before it starts really hitting your ability to afford anything else. Now, if the whole PC group spend every bit of actual money on Wands, then you can afford more like 8, but that's super niche and unlikely.
A Wand of a 2nd level spells is 160 GP and you have to team up to afford even one or two of them as a party at the same level.
Now, by higher levels this becomes a bit more of an issue, at least with spells at least 4 levels or so below what you can cast...but also the consumables you acquire at those levels are gonna be way higher level. The question at that point tends towards whether a really high level consumable is worth a really low level Wand. And that seems like a pretty situational question, actually.
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A Wand of a 1st level spell is 60 GP. An individual 7th level PC has 720 GP of total items, and likely only 125 GP of it in negotiable currency.
So you can afford maybe two 1st level Wands before it starts really hitting your ability to afford anything else. Now, if the whole PC group spend every bit of actual money on Wands, then you can afford more like 8, but that's super niche and unlikely.
A Wand of a 2nd level spells is 160 GP and you have to team up to afford even one or two of them as a party at the same level.
Now, by higher levels this becomes a bit more of an issue, at least with spells at least 4 levels or so below what you can cast...but also the consumables you acquire at those levels are gonna be way higher level. The question at that point tends towards whether a really high level consumable is worth a really low level Wand. And that seems like a pretty situational question, actually.
This is true at wealth by level but wont be true in play or at least not at my table. The whole party will sell any item that doesn't immediately fill an essential need and spend all down time crafting wands with their spare gold.
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This is true at wealth by level but wont be true in play or at least not at my table. The whole party will sell any item that doesn't immediately fill an essential need and spend all down time crafting wands with their spare gold.
Good for them? I'm pretty sure they'll wind up behind in the math by a fair bit if they really do this as much as you seem concerned about, making this a pretty bad idea.
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This has been an interesting thread. I honestly feel very sorry for GMs whose players invariably just sell every consumable they get in order to buy specific things they want.
However, I don't really think this is even a viable approach in PF2. I feel like the magic-mart conceit has basically been written out of the game.
Buying and Selling
After an adventure yields a windfall, the characters might have a number of items they want to sell. Likewise, when they’re flush with currency, they might want to stock up on gear. It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.This assumes the characters are at a settlement of decent size during their downtime. In some cases, they might spend time traveling for days to reach bigger cities. As always, you have final say over what sort of shops and items are available.
So you can't just casually sell a massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want.
This has been an interesting thread. I honestly feel very sorry for GMs whose players invariably just sell every consumable they get in order to buy specific things they want.
However, I don't really think this is even a viable approach in PF2. I feel like the magic-mart conceit has basically been written out of the game.
So you can't just casually sell a massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want.Buying and Selling
After an adventure yields a windfall, the characters might have a number of items they want to sell. Likewise, when they’re flush with currency, they might want to stock up on gear. It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.This assumes the characters are at a settlement of decent size during their downtime. In some cases, they might spend time traveling for days to reach bigger cities. As always, you have final say over what sort of shops and items are available.
Formulas
If you have an item, you can try to reverse-engineer its formula. This uses the Craft activity and takes the same amount of time as creating the item from a formula would. You must first disassemble the item. After the base downtime, you attempt a Crafting check against the same DC it would take to Craft the item. If you succeed, you Craft the formula at its full Price, and you can keep working to reduce the Price as normal. If you fail, you’re left with raw materials and no formula. If you critically fail, you also waste 10% of the raw materials you’d normally be able to salvage.The item’s disassembled parts are worth half its Price in raw materials and can’t be reassembled unless you successfully reverse-engineer the formula or acquire the formula another way. Reassembling the item from the formula works just like Crafting it from scratch; you use the disassembled parts as the necessary raw materials.
So you are free to casually disassemble a "massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want."
A Wand of a 1st level spell is 60 GP. An individual 7th level PC has 720 GP of total items, and likely only 125 GP of it in negotiable currency.
So you can afford maybe two 1st level Wands before it starts really hitting your ability to afford anything else. Now, if the whole PC group spend every bit of actual money on Wands, then you can afford more like 8, but that's super niche and unlikely.
A Wand of a 2nd level spells is 160 GP and you have to team up to afford even one or two of them as a party at the same level.
Now, by higher levels this becomes a bit more of an issue, at least with spells at least 4 levels or so below what you can cast...but also the consumables you acquire at those levels are gonna be way higher level. The question at that point tends towards whether a really high level consumable is worth a really low level Wand. And that seems like a pretty situational question, actually.
A correction: a pc at 7th level has 1200-2000 gp, depending on how close to level 8 they are. The party gets the amount in the total value column of table 10-9 per level, not cumulatively. From page 508:
"Table 10–9: Party Treasure by Level on the next page shows how much treasure you should give out over the course of a level for a group of four PCs. The Total Value column gives an approximate total value of all the treasure, in case you want to spend it like a budget....
For instance, between the time your PCs reach 3rd level and the time they reach 4th level, you should give them the treasure listed in the table for 3rd level, worth approximately 500 gp"
500 gp is the Total Value column entry. Thus, a 7th level party has accumulated a bit over 5-8k gp, depending on how close to level 8, so everyone has 1.2-2k ish.
It seems reasonable to also read the individual wealth table this way, because if you don't then a party member starting above 1st level will be severely behind in wealth compared to everyone else.
160 gp is a lot more affordable out of 2k than out of 720
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I do not see how that helps - nobody says that selling these raw materials is any easier than selling the consumable. Probably not an awful lot of People interested in Phoenix Feathers or volatile acids that were not interested in an alchemical bomb.
You're missing the point: you can use the raw materials to make another item: one's that's actually useful. It's what people will do if the DM starts making it hard to sell things.
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So you can't just casually sell a massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want.
Except you can just take a few days in a decent sized town to play shopping simulator 2019 while your players roll their eyes and ask if you can just get on with the game. Most Adventure Paths have plenty of these situations available (and if they don't they find a way around it - eg. the planar merchant in Reign of Winter)
Alternately, you can say "no, you can't sell stuff, or buy the stuff you want because I said so" (even though the rules imply that this is a perfectly reasonable thing for the players to do) because you need a fix for the players trying to do the glaringly obvious thing based on the situation the rules have presented. I'm sure they'll think you're a fantasic GM as a result, and not a complete stick in thew mud.
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A correction: a pc at 7th level has 1200-2000 gp, depending on how close to level 8 they are.
Ah, you're right. Still getting used to the new math. Their total spare cash remains only a bit over 200 gp per individual though (as the level begins), which still leaves wands a bit more limited than '7 or 8 for every caster' by 7th level.
Still, that is a bit more than I was thinking. Wands could possibly be an issue.
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So you are free to casually disassemble a "massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want."
I mean, sure, if anyone thinks it's a fun and worthwhile activity to spend multiple days of downtime making craft checks to disassemble all the consumables they get, and then multiple more days of downtime selling the disassembled parts a few at a time, then I'd say go for it. Speaks to some commitment to concept on their part.
Still a long way away from the old "can buy anything you want at cost and sell anything you have at half cost" system.
Except you can just take a few days in a decent sized town to play shopping simulator 2019 while your players roll their eyes and ask if you can just get on with the game.
Firstly, my players love to roleplay interactions with every damn shopkeep to try and get more money for what they're selling or barter for cheaper prices on what they're buying, to the extent that I've summarily banned "shopping roleplay" from my table in PF1 games because I found it incredibly tedious and repetitive. I'm very happy that this system has been rolled into downtime activity for PF2, which backs up my original desire that extended conversations with Mr-Magorium-the-elderly-stall-owner, using diplomacy and/or intimidate checks to shave pennies off the cost of items, are not really intended to be part of the game, as standard (obviously exceptions for particularly important/rare items and story-relevant items and NPCs). So, you're definitely off the mark with the idea of me making my players waste time simulating all the shopping.
Secondly, even if you don't have a table of players who want to RP bartering every transaction, how is the new system going to take longer and lead to more eye-rolling players than the old one?
PF1:
"You're in the city"
"I want to sell a +1 dagger, 4 longswords, 2 hand crossbows, 3 potions, 7 rubies, this weird AP-specific item, and this valuable painting"
"ok sure, that's X gp"
PF2:
"You have some days of downtime to spend. You're in the city."
"I want to sell a +1 dagger, 4 longswords, 2 hand crossbows, 3 potions, 7 rubies, this weird AP-specific item, and this valuable painting"
"Ok, that takes 5 of your downtime days and you get X gp"
The difference isn't how long or boring it is at the table, it's that downtime days are an actual resource you have available to manage in PF2. So you can probably sell the stuff if you're in an appropriate location, but you could spend that time earning an income, or crafting something new, or retraining one of your character choices, or doing an AP-specific special downtime activity, as there is available in Age of Ashes. And also, there might well not be enough days to sell all your stuff before plot rears its head/gets in the way.
Edit: just to be clear, I banned "shopping roleplay", not the ability to buy and sell things when in an appropriate settlement
A correction: a pc at 7th level has 1200-2000 gp, depending on how close to level 8 they are.Ah, you're right. Still getting used to the new math. Their total spare cash remains only a bit over 200 gp per individual though (as the level begins), which still leaves wands a bit more limited than '7 or 8 for every caster' by 7th level.
Still, that is a bit more than I was thinking. Wands could possibly be an issue.
I too started from a position of thinking that "this is all fine." But I know that wands and wand crafting were what threw things off the fastest in PF1 as far as "my party has every useful low level spell at their finger tips," and I don't really see how PF2 changed that.
Smart parties are going to make sure that major spell lists are covered (probably at least 2 arcane/occult and primal/divine), which can be done by picking up one 2nd level feat, since the basic multi-class casting feats open up all wand usage.Wands will far surpass casting slots for spells levels 3 or 4 levels behind maximum. How big of a problem is this? I probably wont find out till I see it at my table, but I already know it is the tactic that my party will lean into as soon as they see it.
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Potions of healing only really help in PF2 when in combat, and even then it is a pretty Hefty 2 action commitment to drawing the potion and drinking it. Maybe parties hold on to one or two, but as far as stabilizing a dying comrade, it is actually a huge waste of party resources if potions are the only resources you have to use. A level 1 wand of heal becomes an incredibly cheap resource after not very long.
Secondly, even if you don't have a table of players who want to RP bartering every transaction, how is the new system going to take longer and lead to more eye-rolling players than the old one?
The magic item system of PF1 is drove my table away from pathfinder, because it became and easy power creep mini-game. I'd rather not see it back in PF2.
The magic item system of PF1 is drove my table away from pathfinder, because it became and easy power creep mini-game. I'd rather not see it back in PF2.
Secondly, even if you don't have a table of players who want to RP bartering every transaction, how is the new system going to take longer and lead to more eye-rolling players than the old one?
That's fine, but I don't really see how it's relevant to my post? I was replying to vagabond saying that it will be like a shopping simulator and that players will get bored, by pointing out that it's not different from 1st edition in that respect. Nothing to do with power creep/the concept of a magic item economy more broadly
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One action to get some emergency healing that's more cost efficient, action economy efficient, and will be there with me forever, sounds much better in the long run that spending all those actions and gold in a single combat.
But you do you, a niche occasion that may arise once doesn't justify a whole category of items being relegated to piles of gold.
If you're only ever going to play a character that is able to cast either divine or primal spells and then always make sure to buy a wand of heal, than that's an entirely valid choice and you're welcome to make it.
But that doesn't mean everyone wants to do that. And it does mean that in this scenario, you're the one relegating healing potions to "piles of gold", because you've made decisions that mean you're not going to use them. That's not a problem with the game.
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it IS a problem of the book when they have blatantly overpriced consumables that make the value:cost so ridiculous that you are ALWAYS better off selling them in favor of permanent items.
Again, you are not always better off selling off all consumables by any means.
I don't think it works that way - the raw materials of the consumables will not be the same raw materials you use to create permanent items. They just have the same monetary value for simplicities sake.
I see no evidence that it works like you say. Raw materials are raw materials: just like you don't have to spell out what exactly is in your spell component pouch, the game doesn't CARE what's in your raw material pile as long as the GP price is paid.
I mean, sure, if anyone thinks it's a fun and worthwhile activity to spend multiple days of downtime making craft checks to disassemble all the consumables they get, and then multiple more days of downtime selling the disassembled parts a few at a time, then I'd say go for it. Speaks to some commitment to concept on their part.
If the DM is telling you that you can't sell or buy anything were you're at, it's not commitment but your only option to get rid of items you aren't going to use and get ones you'll actually want to have. IMO it's better to do that at the tiny village instead of taking those days to travel to a larger city to sell and buy instead as the other party members can do downtime actions too.
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I see no evidence that it works like you say. Raw materials are raw materials: just like you don't have to spell out what exactly is in your spell component pouch, the game doesn't CARE what's in your raw material pile as long as the GP price is paid.
I don't think that follows logically. The pricing structure generalises "cost of raw materials" as half the cost of just buying it pre-made, but nowhere does it include "raw materials" as a specific thing you can buy. There isn't a "raw materials" entry in the equipment table. The generalisation is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...", by saying you need raw materials equal to half the cost of the item and leaving the details up to the PC and their GM, not by saying all the raw materials for every item are homogenous.
In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand
If the DM is telling you that you can't sell or buy anything were you're at, it's not commitment but your only option to get rid of items you aren't going to use and get ones you'll actually want to have. IMO it's better to do that at the tiny village instead of taking those days to travel to a larger city to sell and buy instead as the other party members can do downtime actions too.
Fair enough, although I think it's fairly situational and also that since iirc disassembling items takes as much time as crafting them, you'd have to be pretty far from the nearest city for it to be objectively the better option. And as you can see from the above, I don't agree with the concept that you can make any magic item from the constituent parts of any other. *shrugs*