Undercrypt, you asked “Has all of that wonderful economic modeling trickled down into the equipment table yet? Some of the prices are surprising. (Chain mail armor seems like it would require a lot more in materials, craftsmanship and time than two suits of leather armor, a barrel probably made by a cooper seems more valuable than a 10’ pole, a big stick is 2cp if you light it on fire but 1gp if you hit someone in the face with it, etc.)”
The answer is “yes and no”. Some of the prices have been adjusted, but others have not. Items for which we have commonly recorded prices from the classical and medieval ages are usually more accurate than esoteric D&D items. Items where the price has been noticeably reduced are usually more accurate. D&D notoriously inflates the prices of equipment. For example, a shortbow or longbow was a peasant’s weapon, but D&D has traditionally made them more expensive than swords. In ACKS, bows are much cheaper than in other versions of the game.
In order to keep ACKS’s prices somewhere similar to traditional D&D prices, I made the decision to assume that the equipment on the lists was good quality. The treasure section has information on low-quality weapons. For example, a knight’s sword is 10gp. A peasant’s sword is probably rusty, off-balance, and shoddily constructed, and therefore 4gp. Leather armor is 20gp, but a peasant’s makeshift rattling leather armor is only 12gp.
That said, we could certainly use another pass through if anyone sees any prices that seem seriously off-key.
“In order to keep ACKS’s prices somewhere similar to traditional D&D prices”
can you explain that a bit more to me. What would a “peasants” plate armor cost? What in game effect does a 4gp sword have against a 10gp one and why wouldn’t a 1st level PC opt just to buy the 4 gp one? Is 12gp leather armor actually, “leather armor -1?”. Isn’t a high quality weapon or armor exemplified by a +1 weapon? When I think of Arya’s sword “Needle” in Game of Thrones, I think, "ok…+1 sword, high quality delineated from a “common” weapon.
The only rational I can see for making 1st level PC’s (nay, 1st level fighters specifically) buy a 10gp sword, is that ACKs wants to put an understandable limit on what 1st level PC’s can start with; with that said, isn’t the best approach to adjust starting gold, rather than “break” a defining feature of ACKs, which is to provide a workable system for the costs of items in-game?
In CHAINMAIL’s man to man section (pg. 26), describes the “leader” as having a +1 on all dice and, “the best weapons and armor available for their origin and period.” This “leader” became the “veteran” 1st level fighter in d&d (getting +1 hp, saves, and damage over 0-level men). So, I don’t see the rational for trying to “price out” plate armor and a good sword and shield from a 1st level fighter; after all, the 1st level fighter is head and shoulders above 0-level men in prowress and has already proven himself in battle.
Inflated costs to weapons and armor only effect 1st level fighter PCs, not NPC’s and not really any other classes. What am I missing? It doesn’t even seem to effect all 1st level PC’s, just the “first” 1st level PC’s as second generation PC’s (those taken from the list of hirelings, henchmen, nephews of retired PC’s, presumably would have had their equipment bought from the blacksmith hireling of the original PC, who’s equipment costs are different from those on the equipment table!
Ahh, right then. “Show us the good stuff, lives are on the line.” (And, of course… http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html )
Given that, the only things that jump out are a few odd supplies.
Barding ranges from twice as expensive as comparable armor (leather) to ten times as expensive as comparable armor (plate). The 10x side of the spectrum seems to make sense, making a rough guess on the surface area of a horse - are the low ends too cheap?
Super-expensive herbs. 5g for a pound of garlic makes baby Romans cry. 5c puts it in the same class as cheese. Saffron, super-expensive import, sure… and maybe Belladonna and Wolfsbane are rare and take skill to identify (and hopefully aren’t showing up on toast).
Grappling Hook (25g) seems like three or four Crowbars (1g) worth of material/effort.
If I think of the 10’ pole as a particularly strong and well-balanced piece of wood used for moving your barge and that could serve as a Lance in a pinch, then, sure, 1g. It really looks like a peasant’s get-rich-quick scheme, though - “For your cow, I give you not 10, but 11 long sticks! You get a deal!”
If I’ve got the right impression of the time period, the Spellbook looks super cheap at 2s/page. I suppose a realistic price might put it out of the hands of the 1st level casters, though. Maybe wealthy mages are subsidizing the book industry.
“What in game effect does a 4gp sword have against a 10gp one and why wouldn’t a 1st level PC opt just to buy the 4 gp one? Is 12gp leather armor actually, “leather armor -1?”. Isn’t a high quality weapon or armor exemplified by a +1 weapon?”
I think high quality weapons are represented on the standard equipment list. Low quality arms and armor actually have mechanical drawbacks, as described on page 237 of the v16 ACKS document. Maybe the equipment section needs an explanation that characters can opt for lower quality arms, but that they will have penalties like scavenged weapons.
@Bargle: I can think of two other possible solutions to this.
“Peasant” arms and armor simply have a chance to break and need repairs. Weapons break on attack throws of 1 and armor will break if struck with a natural attack throw of 20. The item then needs to be repaired to return to working order. Weapons and armor of quality are obviously not immune to wear and tear, but it’s assumed they are being mended and cared for between combat. Items of lower quality are on top of that prone to more catastrophic failure (blade shatters, pommel cracks, straps break, etc).
I also think that some of this can also be handled by the DM at the table. For example, clothes offer no mechanical benefit, but you’d be hard pressed to find a player willing to save his coin by wearing a 5cp loincloth when all his fellow companions are splurging on “resplendent red silk with golden threads”.
BARGLE: Can you explain that a bit more to me. What would a “peasants” plate armor cost? What in game effect does a 4gp sword have against a 10gp one and why wouldn’t a 1st level PC opt just to buy the 4 gp one? Is 12gp leather armor actually, “leather armor -1?”. Isn’t a high quality weapon or armor exemplified by a +1 weapon? When I think of Arya’s sword “Needle” in Game of Thrones, I think, "ok…+1 sword, high quality delineated from a “common” weapon.
It’s all about where one puts the baseline. My assumption is that the baseline should be a well-made weapon or armor for a man-at-arms. Masterfully made weapons would be above that and shoddily made weapons below it. Peasants would use shoddy weapons.
Historically, a peasant’s sword might cost 50 pence (2 shillings) while a knight’s sword might cost 500 pence (2L). Since 1 pence = 1sp (approximately) in ACKs, that’s a range of 5gp to 50gp for a sword. ACKS puts a baseline sword at about 10gp with no modifiers. Using the rules for Scavenging Treasure in the Treasure Section, a 4gp sword (off-balance, loose hilt, shoddy construction) would be -1 to attack, -1 to initiative, and break on a roll of 1d20. Obviously an adventurer would prefer to use the 10gp sword, but if you’re outfitting 10,000 peasants, 40,000gp might be more affordable than 100,000gp.
So while one might find historical evidence that “10gp is too much for a sword - that’s 3 times the monthly wage of a peasant, and we know peasants could and did own swords.” But the sword they owned was a 4gp (shoddy) sword, not a 10gp (well-made) sword.
This is one major problem with assessing historical prices - one can’t always tell quality and quality makes a huge difference. Horse prices, for instance, varied as much as car prices do in our own day. Nowadays you can buy a used clunker capable of driving yourself around for $5,000, or you can buy a Ferrari for $500,000. Likewise, in the Middle Ages you might see a horse go for 500 pence and another horse go for 500,000 pence. We’ve provided a reasonable range at 30gp to 250gp, which in modern terms is something like a Honda Civic to a Lexus. But that obviously leaves off nags and brokedown gimps on the one side and Bucephalus King of Horses on the other…
I hope that explains it.
Good notes on those prices, Undercrypt.
Blizack, thanks for pointing out the mechanics in the rules! I don’t think most folks have gotten that far yet.
Edit: I apologize if I’m missing some information from the v16 rules, like the stuff blizak mentioned in the above post, until I get my desktop’s Internet working, I’m stuck reading the rules on my old Mac laptop that doesn’t read .doc files well so I haven’t been able to get into the weeds as well as I’d liked–don’t worry, I won’t let that stop me from mouthing off about the direction of your game.
- Regarding 4gp-250gp swords: That’s a little too much detail for what I would use I think, but as long as I can hire a blacksmith and can make 100 “generic” 10 gp sword for my high level PC without the math coming out wrong (i.e. It costs more to hire a blacksmith than it does to just go around to random shops, I’m cool with it.
As I mentioned, my preference is for a single number (long sword = 10gp) and have the math work out rather than get bogged down in the difference between a 4gp sword and a 10gp sword. I just don’t want to be playing ‘papers and paychecks’–cause it’s not just swords, I would rather not have an inventory of 23 ogre toes, 13 spleens, 3 bags of grain for my peasants on the north side of the slope, etc, etc. I just want to outfit my army with my adventuring loot saved up over 10 levels and not be counting pennies and individual body parts. I’ve read some writing by you or tavis toward not getting too bogged down in the minutae, so I trust your direction. - Honestly, when it comes to equipment, I’d be happy if nothing cost less than 1gp (and if that means garlic is sold by the bushel, so be it, or if the equipment list for 10’ poles are 1gp for a faggot of 10. Anything to make the math easier to do in my head. Too me, that’s one of the beautiful things in the FFC. Everything is in GP, makes for easy army construction on the fly–more 0d&d less ad&d (I shudder at the thought of trying to build a castle from the DMG). It means I can just hand a player a 9th level baron with 100,000gp and have him build a barony for a war-game in 15 minutes.
- unrelatedly. I notice that 1st level fighters are called, “men at arms”. You aren’t worried about people confusing 0-level hirelings with “men at arms” by using that level title? Are all, “men at arms” suppose to be 1st level fighters in ACKs?
It is almost like there are two equipment lists- one for shopping (appearing in the Player Character section) that is geared toward ‘baseline’ items. And then another one that is more in the DM section that covers the full range of objects the PCs might encounter. Like if they decide to attack a peasant village and loot them for all their peasant swords.
Differing quality items only come up as finds, and a Referee could choose to ignore that rule entirely. But as far as streamlining the gearing-up phase for a new character, only presenting them with relevant information makes sense.
Personally I am a huge fan of in depth equipment lists, and also the silver standard for FRPGs. I like the idea that in a desperate brawl my character might be able to grab that 5 copper cast iron frying pan from his pack and clock a kobold with it. But that can just be an alternate equipment list where the prices still match the overarching price model.
I think the list prices for standard items with price modifiers for scavenged or otherwise shoddy items works fine. I do wonder if there should be masterwork/superior quality items for weapons and armor. There’s a huge gap between a normal sword at 10 gp and a sword +1, with an indeterminate value but a minimum fair value of well more than 10,000 gp (5000 gp for the enchantment cost, 5000 gp for the monster parts, plus 1 month (or half a month with a formula) of time by either a spellcaster of 9th level or a spellcaster working under the supervision of a 9th level caster). The 2L (=50 gp) knight’s sword might be worth including; certainly, real world swords made by master smiths or using unusually high quality metals were greatly prized and treated as worth more than an average, non-shoddy sword, and that’s without the power that an actually magical weapon would add.
On a related note, according to the scavenged equipment rules, shoddy armor can break when a character rolls a 1 on an appropriate check… but I’m not sure what that means for armor. (I understand a shoddy sword breaking on a 1 on an attack roll). Is that about saving throws? Roll a 1 on an appropriate saving throw and your shoddy armor breaks makes sense, although it’s likely relatively rare. Maybe shoddy armor should break when an opponent rolls a 20 on an attack roll?
Personally, I don’t like fiddly bits between magical and non magical swords. An wonderfully crafted sword (250gp) with a gold dragon Mahogony hilt with sapphire eyes (2000gp gems) works for me. Giving one of those to a trusted retainer for services rendered might increase his loyalty/morale by +1, but doesn’t go as far as a magic sword would (perhaps loyalty increase and +1 hit/dmg)
What’s the GP sale value of a +1 sword? You mentioned the creation cost, they aren’t the same right?
I don’t think a sale value is listed for magic items. I presume that the creation costs set a floor for a magic item–presumably, it’s worth the time and energy to make magic items despite their costs, and that implies that PCs are expected to value magic items at more than their creation costs. But it doesn’t directly tell us what they end up being worth, just that it is presumably at least equal to the creation costs. (Applying the rule of 33 suggests that a sword +1 with 10K in creation costs might be worth 10,300 gp… but I’m skeptical. I bet it’s worth more than that.)
I haven’t reached the number-crunching economic goodness yet, but with a creation cost of 10K+, just how big is the market for magic swords? How many people in the city (barony, empire) can afford to drop that much on something like a sword? How many mages/priests are there powerful enough and rich enough to create them? If the answer to either of those questions is “extremely few,” then magic swords aren’t mass market items that will be bought and traded like common goods - they’ll be treated like great works of art. Extremely valuable far beyond the creation cost, traceable histories, lists of known owners, auctioned off when necessary to absurdly high bids, named (the Hope Diamond, the Messiah Stradivarius), etc.
I guess a better question might be at what level of magic does that occur, because I suspect there’s a point where it undoubtedly would. If the Magic Sword +1 is a diamond - expensive, yes, but there are enough people who can afford them to make a trade of it - at what point is the magic so rare and powerful that it reaches Stradivarius level? Is it +3? +5?
That wonderfully crafted but non-magical jewel-encrusted sword sounds like a candidate for the Reserve Experience Fund. I don’t think I mentioned how much I like that rule. Using role-playing spending to soften the blow of mid- to high-level character death is gleeful.
Do we really need generic +x magic swords?
I have to review the monster section but I would like to see no differentiation between “pluses” needed to hit a monster, I mean instead of +1/+2/…/+5 or better I would just like “hit only by magic” and for really special monster “hit only by a weapon forged in the pools of wisdom on the moon” or something like that… 
Regarding magic item sale, the way I’ve handled it is to treat magic item sale something like the sale of a stolen used car: Very suspicious. Most magic items were looted from somewhere. Who has a prior claim of ownership? Who is going to come looking for it? Many magic items are cursed. Is this one cursed? The only way to know for sure is a lengthy and expensive ID process (costing 1,000gp). In short: “You found this WHERE?” and “if this magic item is so great, why are you selling it?”
Finally, market prices would tend to be depressed by the fact that with a sample or formula prices are halved. The very best (most efficient) manufacturers would set the prices. So, for instance, if someone were to want to sell a magic sword, I’d start with the cost (5,000gp), halve it (2,500gp) and then subtract the cost for an ID to make sure its not cursed (1,000) and make that the opening offer.
There’s obviously no real world economic example of magic items, but most high-value hard to appraise items in our world (cars, jewelry, fancy watches) function similarly. You don’t get nearly what it’s “worth”. As a result, only desperate adventurers sell their items. Most with an item they dont want give it to hirelings, or give it away as a gift (for back-up XP for the back-up PC).
I haven’t been explicit about this in the ACKS rules…should I be? Let me know what you think.
I never much liked the idea of buying and selling magical items, either. It works in certain settings, I suppose. I would recommend explicitly spelling out the objections to the idea in the rules, but maybe providing simple guidelines to prices for people who absolutely must have them.
Alex - I think you should go for it, even it’s a simple blurb like what you have here. If the DM has a list of creation costs (or if that could be included in the item lists), the DM would have everything he needs to adjudicate magic sales.
I’m not a big fan of magic shops either - my world’s are usually “low magic”. But I see part of the premise of ACKS as ‘D&D taken to it’s logical conclusions’ - rulers are powerful, the economy makes sense, tactics and the military rules will take into account the existence of magic. It’s only sensible that adventurers will eventually stockpile enough magic items to sell (if not the PC’s, then certainly some of the other NPC adventuring companies in the world).
If a sword +1 only has a value of ~1500 gp, why do mages ever make them? If making magic items doesn’t produce value for the spellcaster, why is there a functioning (and expensive) market in monster parts? Also, isn’t the cost of a magic sword 10,000–5000 in gold plus 5000 in monster parts? Sure, that gets halved to 5000, but why halve it again? Why would a mage ever buy monster parts to make into a magic item that’s worth less than the monster parts were?
I agree that magic item markets would be illiquid, full of information problems, and so forth. I’m not suggesting that you can walk into your local magic item shop and buy an off the rack sword +1. I’m also not suggesting that PCs can sell magic items that they find in a dungeon for top gold piece values. But if spellcasters regularly make magic items, enough to create a liquid market in monster parts, they must be doing that for a reason. When the Exarch Lazar’s vassal’s eldest child comes of age, and the Exarch decides to give a princely gift (partly to demonstrate his wealth and power, partly to secure the vassal’s loyalty, partly to secure the vassal’s child’s loyalty, partly because it’s socially expected), I would think that giving the young noble a magic sword would be a perfectly normal gift, bearing in mind that the Exarch’s realm gives him something like 1.4 million gold pieces in revenue per month. Actually, an exarch with a treasury of millions of gold pieces probably gives a much better gift to a relatively close associate than just a +1 sword, because a +1 sword doesn’t demonstrate much wealth and power, but let’s continue the example. So, where does the Exarch get that magic sword? One possibility is that he has a mage retainer make the sword, at a cost of 2500 gold plus 2500 gold in monster parts. That makes sense if Exarch Lazar values a magic sword at more than 5000 gold plus the mage retainer’s time. Of course, if there are scads of magic swords in the dungeons of Southern Argolle, then he might simply have an existing sword IDed to make sure it’s not cursed, and give that instead. So it only makes sense for him to have his vassal mage make a sword if the sword is worth at least 5000 gp–perhaps in part because he wants a magic item with a known provenance so that he can assure his vassal, “don’t worry, there aren’t any curses, this was custom made for your child.” And consider the mage’s perspective. A mage has to have a good reason for doing the work–otherwise, why buy all these monster parts and spend all of this gold?
I would expect that to produce a bifurcated market, much like the real-world market for cars. On the one hand, you have brand-new cars, which have a high cost, substantially higher than the costs of manufacture. The analogy to that is the made to order magic item market–if you go to the right wizard’s tower, and plunk down a large enough bag of gold, she’ll make you a magic item, but you’ll have to pay her for her time as well as the full cost of the components (i.e., 2500 gp for the gold cost, 2500 gp for the monster parts, plus compensation for her very valuable time). You’re going to end up spending a small fortune. There’s also a highly illiquid and messy market for used cars, which sell below their manufacture costs but have problems associated with them. And some of them may have clouded titles, because they were stolen or whatever. (This raises the question of whether there are doctrines like market overt, where magic items sold openly come with good title even if they were previously stolen, but that’s besides the point.) That’s the equivalent of selling a magic item you found in a dungeon. And those may sell at substantially below manufacture costs, at least if you need to sell it now (if you’re willing to do lots of merchantly legwork, you might get a higher price). But if the market for the second set of items is really depressed–if magic swords have an actual market value of something like 1500 gp, because you also need 1000 gp for the mechanic (I mean the mage) who IDs them, then it’s probably because characters don’t actually value magic items very highly. They’d much rather have the cash. And if that’s true, then the made-to-order market probably also doesn’t exist–you destroy value when you turn some cash and some nice ogre skulls into a worthless old magic sword. And mages probably don’t make magic items for their own purposes either, because they’d rather have the cash to hire a bigger army or something. But that implies that the whole monster parts economy collapses.
And what about the refurbished market? If I were a high level spellcaster who could sell a newly made magic sword for 10,000 gold or whatever, I bet that I could sell a pre-identified, guaranteed safe used magic sword for 8,000 gp. At that point, I’d certainly be willing to buy your used magic sword for 4000 gp or something, contingent on the identify process coming out okay, at least if I had plenty of ready cash. That’s like the factory certified, dealer sold used car market.
The traditional way to handle this in fantasy gaming is, I believe, tails I win, heads you lose. “You want to sell your magic sword? Oh, no one wants to buy a used magic sword… they’re not that valuable and it could be cursed. And even if you made it from scratch, they don’t trust you and won’t pay you even what you spent on making it. I guess you could get 1000 gp for it.” “Oh, you want to buy a magic sword? Well, they’re really valuable, and the people who have them don’t want to sell them. I guess you could get a high level mage to make you one, or pay a desperate noble a fortune for an existing one… but it will run you like 15000 gp.” In a sense, that works. It forces the PCs to adventure for wealth. It means that when they find a magic sword in the treasure hoard, it’s extra exciting, because they can’t buy it. And it means that magic items don’t get treated as another form of gold. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I believe that it’s directly contrary to the “the whole economic system makes sense” ethos of ACKS.
I think you should be explicit about your economic assumptions about magic items, but I think you should also check whether they hold together with the idea of markets in monster parts and making magic items as a core part of the spellcaster endgame.
Great post astrongmorse.
I try and look at CHAINMAIL. Why is a magic sword worth 10 points? Obviously to the “player” the 10 point army buy is worth it so that you can make a “Demi-hero” out of an elf.
20 elves cost 4 points
Magic sword costs 10 points
Hero costs: 20 points
So it’s cheaper to buy a magic sword and use an elf from the 20 you’ve already bought. Sure an elf with a magic sword doesn’t attack 4x and doesn’t fight as well as a hero on the FCT, but the again if the opposing player buys a troll, or wraith, dragon, or has a hero you need something and if you are cashed starved a magic sword is a cheap force multiplier.
For those who can afford a hero (henchmen in d&d parlance) for you army a 10 point sword only improves upon your investment.
What’s the lesson then? The lesson is that the cost of a magic sword needs to be worth it’s price. If I’m building an army with 100,000gp (10,000 points in the FFC), a 5000gp sword (500points) must be worthwhile. Obviously used/second hand swords complicates this. If a magic sword is worth 500 points for the purposes of army building, by the mere fact that it is bought used, shouldn’t lower the point cost to 250, or raise it to 750 withought a good reason.
The FFC talks about buying additional “special units” beyond what is typically allowed (normally 15% of budget) at an inflated price (double cost+spells). Which is kind of like buying “used” perhaps. Translated into ACKs, if you didn’t find the magic item/henchman while adventuring or make it yourself, it’s going to cost you extra to add one to your army. Dragon subdul comes to mind as well. In 0d&d the sale price of a subdued dragon is 500-1000gp per hit point, the offer made by an NPC is determined by rolling a d6. 1 = 500gp per hit point, 2 = 600gp per hit point, etc. For some people it’s obviously less costly to go subdue your own dragon, rather than spend 66,000gp on an 11 HD red.
Similar to your rules for wizard spells/spell books the verisimilitude might only need the right language to describe it in order to make the rule palatable enough to, “suspend” the requisite “disbelief” if you will.
ALEX: This is what I get for doing a brief response over my morning coffee! Thoughts below.
If a sword +1 only has a value of ~1500 gp, why do mages ever make them? If making magic items doesn’t produce value for the spellcaster, why is there a functioning (and expensive) market in monster parts? Also, isn’t the cost of a magic sword 10,000–5000 in gold plus 5000 in monster parts? Sure, that gets halved to 5000, but why halve it again? Why would a mage ever buy monster parts to make into a magic item that’s worth less than the monster parts were?
ALEX: Several responses here! First, let me be clear that I was talking about the value of unidentified magic items found by adventurers in dungeons. The value of a sword +1 in other contexts could vary dramatically.
I agree that magic item markets would be illiquid, full of information problems, and so forth. I’m not suggesting that you can walk into your local magic item shop and buy an off the rack sword +1. I’m also not suggesting that PCs can sell magic items that they find in a dungeon for top gold piece values.
ALEX: Agreed in full!
But if spellcasters regularly make magic items, enough to create a liquid market in monster parts, they must be doing that for a reason.
ALEX: I think there are three main reasons why spellcasters would make magic items. First, they may do it for the experience. This may seem silly, but consider that every year, millions of doctoral thesis are written at enormous time and expense, almost none of which ever have market value or even see a market at all. They are created simply for the experience gained in creating a doctoral thesis. Likewise with the many experiments of Renaissance and Enlightenment gentleman-scholars, or the many odd pieces of code and script written by modern hackers. Let’s call this “experiential creation”.
ALEX: Second, they may do it for their own utility. For instance, a mage may desire to have a ring of protection in order to protect himself. Let’s call this “personal creation”.
ALEX: Third, they may do it on commission – let’s call this “bespoke creation”.
When the Exarch Lazar’s vassal’s eldest child comes of age, and the Exarch decides to give a princely gift (partly to demonstrate his wealth and power, partly to secure the vassal’s loyalty, partly to secure the vassal’s child’s loyalty, partly because it’s socially expected), I would think that giving the young noble a magic sword would be a perfectly normal gift, bearing in mind that the Exarch’s realm gives him something like 1.4 million gold pieces in revenue per month. Actually, an exarch with a treasury of millions of gold pieces probably gives a much better gift to a relatively close associate than just a +1 sword, because a +1 sword doesn’t demonstrate much wealth and power, but let’s continue the example. So, where does the Exarch get that magic sword? One possibility is that he has a mage retainer make the sword, at a cost of 2500 gold plus 2500 gold in monster parts. That makes sense if Exarch Lazar values a magic sword at more than 5000 gold plus the mage retainer’s time.
ALEX: This is a great example of bespoke magic item creation.
Of course, if there are scads of magic swords in the dungeons of Southern Argolle, then he might simply have an existing sword IDed to make sure it’s not cursed, and give that instead. So it only makes sense for him to have his vassal mage make a sword if the sword is worth at least 5000 gp–perhaps in part because he wants a magic item with a known provenance so that he can assure his vassal, “don’t worry, there aren’t any curses, this was custom made for your child.” And consider the mage’s perspective. A mage has to have a good reason for doing the work–otherwise, why buy all these monster parts and spend all of this gold?
ALEX: I don’t think that there has to be an “open market” price of 5000gp in order for a mage to be able to justify charging well more than 5,000gp for a bespoke sword. The bespoke sword doesn’t even need to be functionally better. It can make sense for Lazar to spend at least 5,000gp if doing so creates an item with social status. I would assume that the hilt of the Lazar sword would be adorned with the silver and blue colors of the Lazar family, and perhaps it would have a motto etched in runes on its blade. The pommel might be fastened in a shape of a tower, which is the Lazar family symbol. The blade could have the wizard’s mark who made it – perhaps a famous wizard. It could come with a scroll announcing the day of its creation and the parts used to make (“Its edged was quenched in the blood of ogre champions slain by Marcus Odysios during the Great Invasion.”) All of this adds enormously to the value of something. It’s like buying a ROLEX, or a Porsche, or a bespoke suit from Saville Row.
I would expect that to produce a bifurcated market, much like the real-world market for cars. On the one hand, you have brand-new cars, which have a high cost, substantially higher than the costs of manufacture. The analogy to that is the made to order magic item market–if you go to the right wizard’s tower, and plunk down a large enough bag of gold, she’ll make you a magic item, but you’ll have to pay her for her time as well as the full cost of the components (i.e., 2500 gp for the gold cost, 2500 gp for the monster parts, plus compensation for her very valuable time). You’re going to end up spending a small fortune.
ALEX: I agree completely!
There’s also a highly illiquid and messy market for used cars, which sell below their manufacture costs but have problems associated with them. And some of them may have clouded titles, because they were stolen or whatever. That’s the equivalent of selling a magic item you found in a dungeon. And those may sell at substantially below manufacture costs, at least if you need to sell it now (if you’re willing to do lots of merchantly legwork, you might get a higher price).
ALEX: I agree completely.
But if the market for the second set of items is really depressed–if magic swords have an actual market value of something like 1500 gp, because you also need 1000 gp for the mechanic (I mean the mage) who IDs them, then it’s probably because characters don’t actually value magic items very highly.
ALEX: Not necessarily true. With used cars, part of the reason a used car’s value plummets when you drive it off the lot is that the market assumes that if you want to sell such a new car, there must be something wrong with it. This is also true when business owners try to sell their business – if you think it’s such a great business, why great rid of it? I believe this would be the case with magic items. If you want to sell them, there’d be an immediate assumption that there’s something wrong. So it’s not necessarily that characters don’t value items, it’s that buyers assume sellers don’t value the item for suspicious reasons. OR that they are desperate for cash and can be taken care of. And keep in mind that these aren’t just used items. They’re stolen used items that got dug out of some godforsaken crypt where they’ve lingered in the clutches of the dark powers.
They’d much rather have the cash. And if that’s true, then the made-to-order market probably also doesn’t exist–you destroy value when you turn some cash and some nice ogre skulls into a worthless old magic sword. And mages probably don’t make magic items for their own purposes either, because they’d rather have the cash to hire a bigger army or something. But that implies that the whole monster parts economy collapses.
ALEX: I disagree with you here. There would continue to be a market for monster parts because of experiential, personal, and bespoke magic item creation. I also assume monster parts have a trophy/decorative function, similar way to the ivory trade, ostrich feathers, bear skins, etc. “This couch is made with real Naga hide? Wow!”
And what about the refurbished market? If I were a high level spellcaster who could sell a newly made magic sword for 10,000 gold or whatever, I bet that I could sell a pre-identified, guaranteed safe used magic sword for 8,000 gp. At that point, I’d certainly be willing to buy your used magic sword for 4000 gp or something, contingent on the identify process coming out okay, at least if I had plenty of ready cash. That’s like the factory certified, dealer sold used car market.
ALEX: I agree with you here somewhat here. In the Auran Empire campaign, a chapter of wizards that operates something called the Tower of Knowledge will buy magic items for cheap, evaluate them, and re-sell them at a higher price later. I’ve contemplated whether there should be some system in place to evaluate what sort of items might be for sale on the secondary market.
The traditional way to handle this in fantasy gaming is, I believe, tails I win, heads you lose. “You want to sell your magic sword? Oh, no one wants to buy a used magic sword… they’re not that valuable and it could be cursed. And even if you made it from scratch, they don’t trust you and won’t pay you even what you spent on making it. I guess you could get 1000 gp for it.” “Oh, you want to buy a magic sword? Well, they’re really valuable, and the people who have them don’t want to sell them. I guess you could get a high level mage to make you one, or pay a desperate noble a fortune for an existing one… but it will run you like 15000 gp.” In a sense, that works. It forces the PCs to adventure for wealth. It means that when they find a magic sword in the treasure hoard, it’s extra exciting, because they can’t buy it. And it means that magic items don’t get treated as another form of gold. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I believe that it’s directly contrary to the “the whole economic system makes sense” ethos of ACKS.
ALEX: Perhaps this is the crux of our disagreement. I think that sort of price disparity makes total sense! “Tails I win, heads you lose” is how most markets operate. Have you ever tried to buy jewelry? Let’s say you buy jewelry from Tiffany’s for thousands of dollars. Later, you try to resell that jewelry. You will be lucky to sell it for hundreds of dollars. Or look at Gamestop’s used game practices. Sell a used game to Gamestop and they will pay about $5. But if you buy the same used game from Gamestop it will cost you $30. (And that’s despite the existence of eBay markets for both!) In an ancient/medieval world filled with force, fraud, curses, information asymmetry, and more, this will be even worse.
ALEX: The strange thing about our modern economy is that we’ve managed to eliminate this price asymmetry in some places, with eBay and so on, not that this price asymmetry exists. Price asymmetry should exist. For most of history, everything other than commodities has by and large been priced like jewelry. We take for granted in our modern eBay economy that anyone can sell anything and get something approaching a market price, but in fact, most of the time, markets have been characterized by deep information asymmetries. If Marcus the Fighter finds a magic sword +1 in dungeon and tries to sell it in town, he’s not going to get anywhere near what it would cost Quintus the Mage to make a sword +1. On the other hand, if Marcus realizes that the sword is Surdigan, blade of the Surdius family of Arganos, and he has the blade cleaned, identified by a sage (1,000gp), and transported to Arganos, where a merchant meets with the Surdius family on his behalf (10% commission), maybe they’ll pay for it. Or maybe they’ll demand it as a right, as stolen property…