Is there a question?
Times are tough, all across Golarion, and that is why, here at Ranzak's discounted wagons, we are happy to sell you only slightly stolen wagons at only half the cost of our longshank competitors. For the low, low price of only 50 gp, you can take this mostly undamaged wagon off our hands today, right now, before the local sheriff arrives, we'll even throw in these pleasantly perforated, mostly red riding cloaks for free...
If there is something that the party is going to use for mostly flavor/organization building, it might be better to fold it into the mini-game system you are using to run it, or make it more of a story/quest item than a standard item purchase. Even as vehicles are expensive, wagons in particular are the kind of thing that you are not going to break the game giving your level 4 or 5 party the opportunity to acquire an extra wagon or two, even if they never end up paying for it.
As an evil GM, it can be fun to do things like give the party the opportunity to kill off a bunch of pirates on a Galley, only to realize they have no way to move it on their own and thus no way to really sell it, so they use it instead as a bargaining chip with a local group that would be able to move it/use it.
Yeah I basically agree... pretty high cost for a mostly cosmetic/narrative item.
The in-game economy in any of these RPGs (PF2 really isn't different) tends to work pretty well for combat-related stuff, but tends to fall apart for out-of-combat stuff.
How much does it cost to stay a night at an inn? Or a fancy inn? Or to sleep outside under the stars? Most games supply a value to that. But what does it GET you?
How much does it cost to walk across the countryside? To Teleport? To ride a horse, fly a griffon, or sail along the coast? There's typically a price associated with these things (or at least some of them), but the narrative impact is all very far up in the air.
Sure you can say "you slept outside last night, your face is thus dirty and you smell like grass, so you get a -2 when interacting with the Duke who is dressed in fine silks and is freshly bathed." And maybe the story has some sense of urgency, so cheaping out and walking vs paying for passage on a ship that can get you there a month ahead of time means the enemy has some advantages.
But ultimately, the choice needs to be one that comes from the narrative. And GM and players need to decide together what the impact of these choices are. If they are small, or meaningless... why are you charging?
I don't make my players pay for every night at the inn, nor do I count coppers for drinks. I even let them narrate "I buy a round for this NPC and start talking" without making them mark off a coin. Some of my players do, some don't, and I'm fine with that too - the players who don't mark it off are into it in their own way, the ones who do are into it in THEIR own way.
I'm circling around to the idea that for non-combat expenses, it's probably best to just hand wave it. Unless the players really want to be immersed into the fiscal aspects of the mundane side of being a big old hero. For me? Let's skip Excel-Finder and get to Pathfinder. I want to play the heroic side of the game, not the financial side. Money is fun when I can afford awesome gear, it's lame when I spend time fidgeting with it.
Unless the players really want to be immersed into the fiscal aspects of the mundane side of being a big old hero. For me? Let's skip Excel-Finder and get to Pathfinder. I want to play the heroic side of the game, not the financial side. Money is fun...
My players are in the habit of calling that aspect of the game, WAGON PACKER (tm), Most of them don't like playing it too much, a couple do. We mostly don't deal with it.
Yeah I basically agree... pretty high cost for a mostly cosmetic/narrative item.
Vehicles cover 2 things: they carry passengers [that then don't need to know how to Ride or spend actions to Command an Animal] and they carry 100 bulk per Large creature pulling it. [1000 Bulk for water vehicles] Both those are pretty valuable non-cosmetic/narrative effects.
Just looking at horse pricing, a pack horse is 2 gp and a cart is 3 gp which isn't out of place to carry an additional passenger AND 100 bulk when a riding horse is 8 gp. IMO, it's a bargain.
Lets look at the Wagon vs riding horses: Wagon [25 gp] + 2 pack horses [4 gp] = 29 gp. For 3 riding horses it's 24 gp. So 5 gp difference but the vehicle only needs one driver leaving 2 people their actions and it carries 200 extra bulk. Still seems like a bargain.
As to the limit of passengers to 2, IMO this is a limit of people that have a specific seat that easily allows actions. I see no reason additional passengers couldn't be inside the bed/container area but they wouldn't be able to easily fight or observe things. So IMO, you can mark off from the 100 Bulk carry, Small creatures are 3 bulk, Medium creatures are 6 and Tiny ones are one [familiars].
I DO wish they would have made a wider variety of options for number of passengers, size and creatures pulled but making those changes aren't too difficult.