Magic Treasure & gpv

[bighara]

After lucking into my group agreeing to give C&C another shot, we've just finished the first crawl. I gave thema few magical odds & ends and a fair bit of coins + valuable goods (I have been accused of being a stingy GM, I am trying to be a little more liberal with loot).

My problem is arising from the fact that I dislike worlds where every magic item has a price tag. I have a couple players who love bookkeeping when it applies to things like treasure, so they constantly want to know how much a given item is "worth." The idea being if a party member wants the item, they "buy" the other PCs' shares in it from them. All very fair I suppose, but I cringe when they want exact values for everything from a +1 dagger to a potion of healing to an Amulet of Health. I don't like to run settings where enchanters or what have you are sitting in the marketplace with shelves of magical items for sale. Likewise, most people aren't going to have the cash to buy it off the PCs in the first place.

I personally favor the "round robin" method of dividing magic, where each person chooses from the list in turn. But I'm not a player so I don't want to interfere with the party's inner workings.

How have you dealt with players wanting to quantify every last item? (FWIW, the item creation/sale costs were one of the things I LOATHED about 3.X).

[The Pugilist]

Oddly, in all the 2/3.5/4e games I have played in or ran, the loot has been divided in a "who needs it most" fashion. Typically, if someone specific is suggested and they just got a new item, they will defer to someone else.

I'm sorry to say that I think it is a group dynamic and not a game one.

[bighara]

The Pugilist wrote:
Oddly, in all the 2/3.5/4e games I have played in or ran, the loot has been divided in a "who needs it most" fashion. Typically, if someone specific is suggested and they just got a new item, they will defer to someone else.

I'm sorry to say that I think it is a group dynamic and not a game one.

Oh, I never thought it was a problem with the system, I'm just curious if any other people have had similar situations and how've they've handled it.

[GameOgre]

I run price for magic more like a real world market or jewlery shop.

There isnt a shop churning out magic items by the hundreds in my game. So magic items are rare.

However rare doesnt mean that in a huge city with the right type of structure there can't be a Magic Shop. The one I use is owned by a Goblin( rumored to have once been a human thief.His name is Woe)

Old Woe buys and sells all the items that come through his shop himself and let me tell you,he is out to make money!

You can find anything from fake amulets to ward off evil or bring luck to real power items. Temp one shot items that cast one spell are the norm but in the back he does carry a large selection of items.

He doesnt let the buyer go back and look through things. He asks a lot of questions and wants to see how much money the mark(err customer) has to spend.

He also collects history on items and knows his product well. Even a simple +1 longsword normally has a history and with the right spit and polish can look amazing!

This is not to say he doesnt have some powerful items. He does, it's jut that you have to be very rich to offord them.

He also buys items of all types. He haggles for the lowest price and NEVER overpays. He often will offer another item of lesser ability/ cost in trade.

Make magic item selling and buying(if you want to have them at all) a rich role playing action.

Remember he is the one in power in any haggle. He doesnt (need) the item if buying(don't like that price then look elsewhere!) and doesnt (need) to sell.

Err oh and also as to your question if you really must use a price table to get a rough figure,I think most of the DMG's had them in the back.
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[Buttmonkey]

Personally, I would be very hesitant about giving your players a gp value for magic items. For starters, I assume that they have cast identify or otherwise found out what the magic items are specifically. There's no point in telling them they found a mysterious magical sword of unknown power only to then give them a gp value that matches a +1 sword exactly. Even assuming the players have fully identified a magic item, unless there is a real market in your game world for magic item trade that is so extensive that fixed pricing exists, the players' question as to gp value is really sort of meaningless. If an active market in magic items does exist in your world, tell the players they need to have the item(s) appraised if they want to know the precise value (and then charge them 20% of the value for an appraisal fee or something similar). Otherwise, they can just guess themselves like they would have to in the "real" world. Finally, you may just want to give them the BTB gp values if it is necessary to keep them playing (I would hope that the lack of info that they aren't entitled to wouldn't drive them away, but sometimes you have to work with what's at hand, even pain-in-the-ass players).

[Omote]

I've run into this sitaution a few times, as most of my players are avid (monstrous) 3E fans. Since sometimes Ican't come up with a price for an item on the fly, I'll make a best guess decision. I will go to the M&T book and get an idea of how much the item costs from the lists presented, and then quote the price (this usually doesn't take more then a minute to do). Even if the quoted price is too high or too low, I explain it that not every item has the same value (even if the item is same type of item, i.e. two +1 daggers). I explain this as some places find certain items more valuable than others, even when the same item is in question. This also leads to some roleplaying opportunities where the PCs might travel to a different city to get a better price.

-O
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[Aladar]

With very few exceptions, I have never had this problem in any of my games. I spread out a limited amount of magic items throughout my dungeons that will each benefit all of the different PC types.

Our group is usually pretty good at giving the items to which ever PC (or in some cases an NPC) can use an item to benefit the whole party the most over a campaign.

If none of the PCs want or need an item, they usually donate it to a worthy temple, nobleman, or some such.
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[Lord Dynel]

Having come off a near complete run of 3.x (running it most of the time from 2000 to 2007), I noticed a change in my players. This was never an issue in my 2nd Ed. (or earlier) games. I don't know if 3e lent itself to this, but my players definitely started this type of behavior after starting 3e.

I don't go with the "magic shop" mentality in my games. My players have been able to find buyers and sellers (though mostly the former) in larger cities via higher level wizards and fences. They're mostly buyers and they offer only disposable items (potions, scrolls, items with charges - and never fully charged). My problem usually stems from being a bit too liberal with magic items - when the group has too many magic items they get the bug to trade them in, sell them off, etc. I've started to change my philosophy, though, going with the notion that magic items just aren't mass produced (or not anymore ) and magic items are becoming near-legendary items.

That being said, the solution that I've found to be a good solution is to selectively place items in adventures specifically for the characters - placing items you know that will be used. I don't restrict disposal items, only permanent ones. I'm running The Temple of Elemental Evil, and man does that adventure bleed magic items. It involves me revising the adventures and removing a good portion of items that I feel are superfluous, replacing treasure placement altogether if the items aren't going to be of use to the party. I've found this works pretty well.

[serleran]

In every game I run, all items are worth what you can get for them. If you have a magic item and are looking to trade it, that is your business... but, you'd better be aware that the person trying to get it is looking for as low as he can, too. Cursed items can be just as valuable as regular magic items, if you know how to unload them. I do not believe in the concept of a "magic shop" so those don't exist -- basically, trades come down to temples, wizards (individuals and organizations), certain NPCs, and monsters.
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