As a sort of generic pricing, what are people's views about the GP value of things like +1 swords etc.

I appreciate this can be seem as gameworld specific, so prices could vary wildly.  However, given that magic items in general are far rarer in 5E than other editions, I would say that the value of magic items must be far greater, if you can find any to buy.

One of the characters wanted to get a magical Short Sword, so I put one one as belonging to the Trader in Hommlett.

He sold it to the character at an exorbitant price of 10,000 GP, which was a large % of the coin value of what they got out of the Moathouse.

It was the shop owner's personal item and very distinctive in appearance, so they will be identifiable fairly easily to the right people.

The party also sold the Necklace they got in the Moathouse, which was the Boss Cleric's badge of office, so as detailed in the Scenario, the Shop owner, who is actually working for the Evil elemental cult, will pass on they killed the cleric and a high level assassin will go after the party as retribution.
The scenario says the Assassin is 10th level, I'll probably drop that to about level 7.
The party is nearly level 5.

Anyway, in PF, a +1 magic Short Sword comes in at about 2,000 gp.
I charged 5 times that, but then it was a seller's market, given the remote location and the rarity of magic items.

Also, given they weren't really any places near that could reasonably sell magic items in general and there were no training costs etc, there's not a lot for the party to spend money on apart from potions really.

Excessive? About right?   Depends?

Without knowing what it takes to make a +1 sword there no bottom line to judge it value.

For example in GURPS Magic it assumes that Magic Items cost $33 per point. This figure was arrived at by the fact the mechanic of Slow and Sure Enchantment allows the caster to contribute 1 pt per day. So a magic items that takes 100 points to take will require 100 days of enchantment to create.

A journeyman enchanter is assumed to make $700 per month. With a work month equally 22 days. So the baseline is at $700 / 22 or $31.81 a day. However a Journeyman possess a 15 skill. So there is a 95% chance of failure which needs to be factored in. This results in a cost of $31.81 / .95 or roughly $33 per point of enchantment.

If there are any specific material component they will need to added in as well at double their cost.


To calculate what a 5e magic item cost we need to know

• Monthly wage of a enchanter
• Material cost
• Time required to create the item.
• The chance of failing to make an item.

After that you can calculate the cost.

Based on 5e's price list I would say whatever it winds up being it will be close to classic D&D. In which case you can use this list I created in the interrim.

http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Magic%20Costs%20Rev%205.pdf

I would change the bonuses above +1 to be 10 times for +2 and 1000 times for +3 and cap it at +3.

For example instead of

Protection +1 1,500d
Protection +2 3,000d

use

Protection +1 1,500d
Protection +2 15,000d

with 1 d = 1 gp

Beating a dead chocobo, perhaps, but I soured on the whole accountancy of magic items in 3e.

My approach is to treat magic items more as special character THINGS.

You can put feats toward a pool of 'bond with magic items,' which can be established when you acquire an appropriate magic item.

Magic items are then cost balanced to be like feats... so a magic item might be 'worth' multiple feats. You can eyeball feats that give spells for various effects.

(If I ever see the chance to actually RUN a game I'll come up with concrete examples, or maybe some small pdf to sell)

Quote from: Will;794352Beating a dead chocobo, perhaps, but I soured on the whole accountancy of magic items in 3e.

My approach is to treat magic items more as special character THINGS.

You can put feats toward a pool of 'bond with magic items,' which can be established when you acquire an appropriate magic item.

Magic items are then cost balanced to be like feats... so a magic item might be 'worth' multiple feats. You can eyeball feats that give spells for various effects.

(If I ever see the chance to actually RUN a game I'll come up with concrete examples, or maybe some small pdf to sell)

Yeah I hear what you're saying.. All magic items are individual and special snowflakes etc..
However the dnd I'm running right now is pretty light and we're just having a laugh.
I'm not interested in putting in loads of time to prep and mess around.
For the purposes of this thread imagine a world where Magic items CAN be manufactured to a degree on a small scale in the right places, such as large cities in a world where there's a lot of magic.

So really,  I'm interested in a kinda vague rule of thumb type situation. Not the merits of putting lots of work into beautifully crafted, individual story lines for every single magic item that exists.
I'm not saying putting in all that work is bad, but I just don't have time for that at this time.

@ Estar.

Thanks for the PDF link.

It looks like the base price for an item is very low according to your PDF.
Meaning it looks like I charged way more than you would have suggested.

In general the guidelines are very useful though and I can work with that thanks.

I'll probably just raise the base price dramatically for bonus items (meaning +1 etc) and work from there.

It doesn't have to be serious...

The Magic Sword of Poot
Can cast stinking cloud once per long rest.
Must make a loud rude sound when activated and once per round of combat.
Failure to do so makes your character disadvantaged at all actions due to bloating.

Quote from: danskmacabre;794338He sold it to the character at an exorbitant price of 10,000 GP, which was a large % of the coin value of what they got out of the Moathouse.

For simulation it seems ridiculous that a small town trader would be charging 10,000gp for anything. As soon as he had 10,000gp he'd be in extreme danger of somebody mugging him.

D&D has always had a big problem with grotesquely inflated numbers. My view is that if a trader has a magic sword, he will want to sell it as quickly as possible for as much as possible, and at a profit. As it is a durable item that profit might well be no more than double the purchase price, possibly less. If adventurers offer him 10,000gp he'll presumably take it then skip town, aiming to head for Dyvers, and retire to a life of luxury - hopefully Dyvers has a secure and honest bank where he can deposit his winnings. But if he paid 300gp for that sword he might well have sold it for 600gp, possibly less.

In my Halls of Tizun Thane game the PCs found a magic orb of scrying. They tried to sell it to a travelling merchant, who headed a substantial caravan - luckily he was honest and didn't just take it from them. He offered 1000gp, then 1500gp, which they refused. That seemed to me the sort of amount he'd have in his coin chest, a more important factor than the notional value of the item.

Quote from: S'mon;794388For simulation it seems ridiculous that a small town trader would be charging 10,000gp for anything. As soon as he had 10,000gp he'd be in extreme danger of somebody mugging him.

D&D has always had a big problem with grotesquely inflated numbers. My view is that if a trader has a magic sword, he will want to sell it as quickly as possible for as much as possible, and at a profit. As it is a durable item that profit might well be no more than double the purchase price, possibly less. If adventurers offer him 10,000gp he'll presumably take it then skip town, aiming to head for Dyvers, and retire to a life of luxury - hopefully Dyvers has a secure and honest bank where he can deposit his winnings. But if he paid 300gp for that sword he might well have sold it for 600gp, possibly less.

In my Halls of Tizun Thane game the PCs found a magic orb of scrying. They tried to sell it to a travelling merchant, who headed a substantial caravan - luckily he was honest and didn't just take it from them. He offered 1000gp, then 1500gp, which they refused. That seemed to me the sort of amount he'd have in his coin chest, a more important factor than the notional value of the item.

Depends on the whole economy thing though.
If a backpack costs 2gp then gold simply isn't worth as much as it was in the medieval period.
So if you use the 5e equipment prices and a longsword costs 15 gold then a magic sword might cost 10,000.

generally I always slip D&D coins down a rank. What costs gold on the equipment list I switch to silver etc

In terms of simulation, it makes more sense to deal in trade goods at higher levels rather than coin. So you end up having to sell your +1 sword for a herd of cows or the like. Its only the really big trading cities that will have huge amounts of actual coin sitting around doing nothing.

In terms of price. 10,000 GP is the price of a sailing ship. If you think a +1 sword requires the same amount of manufacture and has about the same rarity as a sailing ship, then that is a good price. Otherwise, find an item you think does have the same amount of manufacture and rarity, and use the price of that instead.

Quote from: jibbajibba;794391So if you use the 5e equipment prices and a longsword costs 15 gold then a magic sword might cost 10,000.

If a longsword costs 15gp then a +1 longsword might cost 75gp - if all it does is give you a slight increase in damage output it has to compete with eg a 2-handed sword that also does more damage but needs two hands and is less accurate. If you need it to fight undead immune to normal weapons, and it is the only way to do so, then you might pay a lot more. If you have tons of disposable cash you might pay a lot more. If you want it as a status symbol you might pay a lot more.
If they cannot be manufactured then the price is whatever the market will bear.

BECM had +1 swords costing 10000gp to make. 4e had +1 swords selling for 72gp, purchase price 360gp. There's no set reason for any particular value beyond what you'd expect from the rather minimal increase in actual combat power.

(15gp is actually a pretty plausible price for a medieval arming sword, in terms of relative purchasing power - yes IRL it'd more likely be 15 silver pennies, or at most 15 1/240 lb gold coins, ie much smaller than the 1/50 lb ones of 5e. But it's not totally outrageous, not like the 15gp lanterns and 10gp 10' poles of yore.)

Quote from: jadrax;794392In terms of simulation, it makes more sense to deal in trade goods at higher levels rather than coin. So you end up having to sell your +1 sword for a herd of cows or the like. Its only the really big trading cities that will have huge amounts of actual coin sitting around doing nothing.

In terms of price. 10,000 GP is the price of a sailing ship. If you think a +1 sword requires the same amount of manufacture and has about the same rarity as a sailing ship, then that is a good price. Otherwise, find an item you think does have the same amount of manufacture and rarity, and use the price of that instead.

That's a good approach. In most pre-5e games +1 swords seem much more common than sailing ships, so they should cost a lot less. 1e and 3e both used 2,000gp or so (1e sale price, 3e purchase price), which seems high but comprehensible in 1e if it's the only way to hit relatively common monsters such as gargoyles and incorporeal undead. In 3.5e where they no longer bypassed most DR it felt more of the screw-the-fighter foundational principle of 3e.

If I was running a Village of Hommlet game I'd likely stick to 1e pricing & economics where possible, which means that magic items generally are never for sale, but can be sold for lots of money.

Quote from: estar;794351However a Journeyman possess a 15 skill. So there is a 95% chance of failure which needs to be factored in.

Where I come from, if you have a 95% chance of failure you would be lying about having a skill of 15.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;794414Where I come from, if you have a 95% chance of failure you would be lying about having a skill of 15.

err success

Quote from: S'mon;794393If a longsword costs 15gp then a +1 longsword might cost 75gp - if all it does is give you a slight increase in damage output it has to compete with eg a 2-handed sword that also does more damage but needs two hands and is less accurate. If you need it to fight undead immune to normal weapons, and it is the only way to do so, then you might pay a lot more. If you have tons of disposable cash you might pay a lot more. If you want it as a status symbol you might pay a lot more.
If they cannot be manufactured then the price is whatever the market will bear.

BECM had +1 swords costing 10000gp to make. 4e had +1 swords selling for 72gp, purchase price 360gp. There's no set reason for any particular value beyond what you'd expect from the rather minimal increase in actual combat power.

(15gp is actually a pretty plausible price for a medieval arming sword, in terms of relative purchasing power - yes IRL it'd more likely be 15 silver pennies, or at most 15 1/240 lb gold coins, ie much smaller than the 1/50 lb ones of 5e. But it's not totally outrageous, not like the 15gp lanterns and 10gp 10' poles of yore.)

Fair point though I think a +1 sword costing 75gp is the same logic as a backpack costing 2gp. Ie its useful in game terms so we should put a tax on it like 15gp hooded lanterns for example. In a more nuanced economy the value of things shouldn't depend on their utility in play but rather their rarity as items and the complexity of manufacture (as you go on to point out).
A finely wrought sword on an antique blade with a long history might be worth hundreds or thousands of GP even though its just +0/+0

Quote from: S'mon;794388For simulation it seems ridiculous that a small town trader would be charging 10,000gp for anything. As soon as he had 10,000gp he'd be in extreme danger of somebody mugging him.

D&D has always had a big problem with grotesquely inflated numbers. My view is that if a trader has a magic sword, he will want to sell it as quickly as possible for as much as possible, and at a profit. As it is a durable item that profit might well be no more than double the purchase price, possibly less. If adventurers offer him 10,000gp he'll presumably take it then skip town, aiming to head for Dyvers, and retire to a life of luxury - hopefully Dyvers has a secure and honest bank where he can deposit his winnings. But if he paid 300gp for that sword he might well have sold it for 600gp, possibly less.

In my Halls of Tizun Thane game the PCs found a magic orb of scrying. They tried to sell it to a travelling merchant, who headed a substantial caravan - luckily he was honest and didn't just take it from them. He offered 1000gp, then 1500gp, which they refused. That seemed to me the sort of amount he'd have in his coin chest, a more important factor than the notional value of the item.

You'd be right if he was just some faceless trader, but that trader is sort of spying for the elemental cult, so he's sticking around anyway.
They didn't hand over 10k in gold pieces anyway, they traded Lareth's seal of office (worth 5k) and some gems.
The trader handed over a very distinctive Short sword for the assassin to trace them with (they're fairly distinctive anyway mind).  So it's not quite as black and white as you portray.