D&D 5E [+] Design & Development: Magic Item Pricing

[CapnZapp]

2. Price expressed as a level
A fundamental property of any magic item price list is that the prices actually don't matter unless you have decided how much gold the adventurers are going to get their hands on.

In other words, whether a magic sword costs 1000 gp or 99999 gp is meaningless unless you say something like "at 5th level, I aim for each of my player characters to have gained very roughly 4500 gp".

Yes, this leads us to the - much maligned - "expected wealth" tables of 3rd edition. Except in 5th edition you are free to hand out much less (or much more, but mostly much less) gold, since no magic items are actually needed for the game to work.

Sure, I think most players expect to be able to buy a few potions of healing, a plate mail for the fighter and a magic weapon at somewhere between 3rd and 7th level. Other than that, the PCs are entitled to nothing.

Edit: this thread does a much better job of introducing "wealth curves":
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?619626-Design-amp-Development-Wealth-Curves

Let me show you a graph.



Here we have four wealth curves. Note the absence of the word "expected"

The lowest, blue, one is based on the "Starting Equipment" table in the DMG for a standard campaign. We can read that as the designers opinion on what a character ought to have as a bare minimum. As you can see, it's essentially peanuts compared to the "Treasure" line.

This "treasure" line, the red one, is (approximately) what the random loot tables of the DMG actually results in, if you follow the official guidelines for number of hoards per level and so on.
Feel free to check this out if you don't believe me. I used these figures: http://blogofholding.com/?p=6760 But the main point is that my line doesn't have to be particularly correct. Just as long as you yourself have some idea of how much gold your party will have amassed at levels 5, 11 and 17!

The yellow and green lines are mostly there for comparison, being based on d20. The yellow line is "expected wealth for NPCs in 3rd edition". The green line is "expected wealth for PCs in Pathfinder".

---

So. Should a magic sword cost 1000 gp? Or 10000 gp? Or somewhere in between?

Actually, to have a fruitful discussion, I propose that the relevant question is instead:

At what level is a player character supposed to be able to afford his magic sword?

This is because if we agree the answer is "5th level" then that can mean 500 gp for a low-cash campaign, 4500 gp for a standard 5th edition campaign, and 10500 gp for a Pathfinder:ish campaign!

And if we end up saying a Staff of Frost feels about right for a level 11 character, that means 5000 gp for a "blue" campaign (going by the line colors above), 21000 gp for a "yellow" campaign, 35500 gp for the "red" campaign, and finally 82000 gp for a "green" campaign.

At this initial stage, we don't put a price in gold pieces such as 35500 gp on the staff. We put a price of "11th level" on it.

Instead of quarreling about how much gold your favorite character had or did not have at a certain level, we will focus on what's really interesting, namely at what level he's supposed to afford certain items.

And there I will argue 5th edition can and should differ significantly from 3rd edition.

 

[CapnZapp]

(cont'd)

I don't feel it is a make or break issue, but still, I think it's worth clarifying:

What does it then mean a staff is priced at 11th level?

If we assume a "red" campaign, does it mean the sticker price is 35500 gp?

No and yes.

What "assuming a red campaign" really means a level 11 character will have amassed 35500 gp (roughly, could be 20K or 40K in any given campaign) in total, including every penny he or she has earned and spent.

So the only way the character can afford something costing 35K is by saving up everything since level 1, which is clearly unreasonable (or pooling together the wealth of two or more party members).

This is why previous editions discussed how much of a character's wealth can be poured into a single item (or even allowed to, for higher level starting characters)? I seem to remember a rule of thumb saying "a third", meaning that our example character can be expected to have his most valuable item valued at, say, 15000 gp, and then three more items at maybe 4000 gp a piece. The remainder (~7000 gp) is not available anymore (spent on consumables, purchasing regular non-magic equipment and things like carousing).

But still, the "price 11th" shorthand really loses much of its simple directness if we won't be able to do a direct conversion (given our chosen line color).

So I don't know. Perhaps we will relatively painlessly agree on which wealth curve to use, and thus be able to put actual monetary amounts on things. If we don't have to say "11th" we can calculate, say, "half of 35K" and put an actual price tag on the staff, such as 17000 gp.

Not there yet, though. The advantage of sticking to prices expressed as levels is that we can skip arguing which wealth curve is "best".

 

[jaelis]

I like the idea of assigning a level to items rather than a gp cost.

I have no idea though what a good basis for assigning levels would be, in general.

 

[CapnZapp]

Continuing to lay down my design fundamentals:

If all we want is a 3rd edition inspired campaign, we already have Sane Magical Prices, which, to the best of my knowledge, assumes that the pricing formulas of 3rd edition still hold true.

(And then tweaked, of course. For example, +3 weapons are priced as d20 +4 weapons. And there are several items that functions differently and so merit a different price)

But roughly speaking, Sane assumes the d20 philosophy. And if that's what you want, you don't need this thread.

Myself, however, I am arguing that 5th edition is fundamentally different than 3rd edition, and needs and deserves a thoroughly updated price mechanism.

For instance, high level spells are at a premium in 5th edition. We should not allow level 9 scrolls on the cheap - what's the hard limit on 1 spell per day worth if all you need to do is unload a few tens of thousands of gold on scrolls? If you look at the wealth curves above, a level 20 character will easily amass 300,000 gp or even double that, given the DMG treasure distribution charts (the red line).

In fact, scrolls need to be fundamentally more expensive than in 3rd edition (and therefore Sane). The edition is after all built upon "no magic items needed", so infusing dozen of scrolls throws everything out of whack.

On the other hand, the DMG assumption that a consumable should reasonably cost half of the equivalent permanent item is of course completely bonkers. Utility, folk! When you feature magic shops you give players a choice (that's the whole point!), and no player will ever pay X for a single-use item when a permanent use-as-much-as-you-like item costs 2X.

Magic weapons. In 3rd edition, the formula is simply bonus squared in thousands of gold. But in 5th edition, with bounded accuracy, the need for (and therefore value of) a +1 bonus is much lessened. Don't get me wrong, it's still great. But want < need. A +1 bonus is a luxury, not a requirement. Having a magical weapon at all, however, is very much a requirement - lots and lots of monster manual critters are resistent to non-magical weapons.

Now, pricing that +1 Longsword at 1000 gp is, in the context of 5th edition, nuts. Just like the official drop policy, it results in that monster damage resistance almost never comes into play (barring the odd wererat at level 4, like).

Since our price list is meant to meaningfully adhere to what is needed to make 5th great, I will argue that the "magicness" itself is a valued property of magic swords. Just as a talking point, say we price "magicness" at 5000 gp, and keep the "bonus squared" formula otherwise. This means a +1 Longsword costs 6000 gp, a +2 Longsword costs 9000 gp and a +3 Longsword costs 14000 gp.

The specific gp values aren't important right now, but the changed ratio between the three tiers is. Before, a +2 weapon cost four times as much as a +1 weapon. Now, with this example, a +2 weapon costs 50% as much as a +1 weapon. I would argue that comes much closer to the actual usefulness in a 5th edition context. (Remember, this is an example. I could be convinced the ratios should be different)

Also it means a +1 weapon no longer costs about as much as mundane full plate, which I think is plain wrong. A magic weapon should IMHO cost more than that, and in this example it costs four times as much. A +1 Longsword becomes reliably available at 6th level, given the red line, and that assumes the character doesn't prioritize anything else. This should allow a few encounters where damage resistance is a real problem, and it hopefully means spells like "Magic Weapon" sees actual usage (in all my campaigns, enough magic weapons have dropped by 6th level that nobody has ever have had to face damage resistant beasts without one, except that odd wererat as I said earlier).

Okay, so that's skimming the top, of issues where I believe 5th edition makes for a fundamental shift visavi d20 (3E/PF). If you have any issue like this, I'm interested in hearing about it!

 

[CapnZapp]

(Of course, myself I'm inclined to add back actual utility into +2 and +3 weapons beyond the mere +5% hit and damage.

If I were to say that any CR 10+ creature with resistance to blunt/slash/pierce is upgraded to resistance to +1 weapons; and that any Epic (CR 20+) creature is upgraded to resistance to +2 weapons, the luxury of having a +3 Longsword is reverted back into actual need.

And then, of course, a +2 weapon can go back to costing many times more than a +1 weapon. Even the power of ten used by the DMG rarity system wouldn't be inconcievable! Let me illustrate:

+1 weapon 4000 gp
+2 weapon 40000 gp
+3 weapon 400000 gp

...given the red wealth curve. Not coincidentally this can also be written:
+1 weapon tier II (5th level)
+2 weapon tier III (11th level)
+3 weapon tier IV (17th level)

But of course this assumes house rules, so I won't pursue it further. Just an example of how different this edition is and can be)

 

[Blue]

(cont'd)

I don't feel it is a make or break issue, but still, I think it's worth clarifying:

What does it then mean a staff is priced at 11th level?

If we assume a "red" campaign, does it mean the sticker price is 35500 gp?

No and yes.

What "assuming a red campaign" really means a level 11 character will have amassed 35500 gp (roughly, could be 20K or 40K in any given campaign) in total, including every penny he or she has earned and spent.

So the only way the character can afford something costing 35K is by saving up everything since level 1, which is clearly unreasonable (or pooling together the wealth of two or more party members).

This goes hand-in-hand with something you were talking about before, which was still giving out items.

Just for example, I'm going to pretend that item rarity is useful and consistent.

There was an analysis of the treasure tables about how many items /the party/ should have at any given level.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-of-quot-Typical-quot-Magic-Item-Distribution

Going with the useful fiction that this is a good distribution, what we're really looking at is /how much have I decreased found items/ because that should equal /how much money the party as a whole has to buy items/.

In other words, the amount of items held back should determine how much spare money, when pooled by the entire party, they have to purchase.

This is building on the idea of rating items in levels - because there is no set gold/wealth-by-level chart. But it then needs to multiply that by how much you are holding back in found items so that it works out.

(And, of course, the multiplier for how much magic above/below the baseline that DM wants.)

 

[Nevvur]

I think you're on the right track ascribing magic items a "level" as a basis for price, but I'm not sure consensus on the level a PC should get a magic sword is a sound basis. I'd like to see something based a little more on system maths.

I tried using existing spell effects and their corresponding levels as this basis. For example, I used Magic Weapon to derive level 5, 9, and 15 for +1/2/3 weapons. Flame Blade spell generated level 9 for a flame tongue sword. These results felt alright, but the system was kind of weird, complicated, and arbitrary, and broke down when I tried to create a Bag of Holding - that ended up being Level 9 also - so I'm not going to post it here unless it's of particular interest to anyone.

Just wanted to pitch some alternate ideas as you continue your work. Maybe you can suss out a better system from the idea of using spell effects as the basis. Whichever approach you end up taking, good luck.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

(Of course, myself I'm inclined to add back actual utility into +2 and +3 weapons beyond the mere +5% hit and damage.

If I were to say that any CR 10+ creature with resistance to blunt/slash/pierce is upgraded to resistance to +1 weapons; and that any Epic (CR 20+) creature is upgraded to resistance to +2 weapons, the luxury of having a +3 Longsword is reverted back into actual need.

And then, of course, a +2 weapon can go back to costing many times more than a +1 weapon. Even the power of ten used by the DMG rarity system wouldn't be inconcievable! Let me illustrate:

+1 weapon 4000 gp
+2 weapon 40000 gp
+3 weapon 400000 gp

...given the red wealth curve. Not coincidentally this can also be written:
+1 weapon tier II (5th level)
+2 weapon tier III (11th level)
+3 weapon tier IV (17th level)

But of course this assumes house rules, so I won't pursue it further. Just an example of how different this edition is and can be)

I'd really like you to explore this house rule (in another thread, I presume).

 

[jodyjohnson]

I think one of the things that made the 3.x system an issue in some games was the way +Items scaled. You could get 4 +1 items for the cost of a +2. 4 +2 items for the cost of a +4 etc. Combined with the multiple named bonuses this is where Armor Class could go off the rails.

For weapons it wasn't a big deal because there was a tendency to get one big one, but on the defense side it was more efficient to get many different bonuses that stacked. 5e still has stacking defensive bonuses and I think fungible magic would recreate the issue especially if the scaling is at x10 instead of x4.

The value of a plus for armor is very dependent on where it sits on the armor chart. A +1 at the top of the category is very valuable while a lower armor like Splint, Chain shirt, or leather is effectively a more durable version of the mundane next category. Chain can be plus +2 and only slightly more valuable than 1500gp Plate. +1 Plate is on the Legendary table but I've seen DMs hand it out at level 5 because the book says +1 Armor is only Rare.

I do like framing cost as Level because the Gold rewards are all over the map depending on how the DM/table sees the value of a Gold piece.

 

[Oofta]

I think one of the things that made the 3.x system an issue in some games was the way +Items scaled. You could get 4 +1 items for the cost of a +2. 4 +2 items for the cost of a +4 etc. Combined with the multiple named bonuses this is where Armor Class could go off the rails.

For weapons it wasn't a big deal because there was a tendency to get one big one, but on the defense side it was more efficient to get many different bonuses that stacked. 5e still has stacking defensive bonuses and I think fungible magic would recreate the issue especially if the scaling is at x10 instead of x4.

The value of a plus for armor is very dependent on where it sits on the armor chart. A +1 at the top of the category is very valuable while a lower armor like Splint, Chain shirt, or leather is effectively a more durable version of the mundane next category. Chain can be plus +2 and only slightly more valuable than 1500gp Plate. +1 Plate is on the Legendary table but I've seen DMs hand it out at level 5 because the book says +1 Armor is only Rare.

I do like framing cost as Level because the Gold rewards are all over the map depending on how the DM/table sees the value of a Gold piece.

I think the difference between a standard and +1 armor comes most into play with medium armor. +1 Breastplate is more valuable to someone who cares about stealth than half plate for example.

An ideal solution might let me plug in a couple of simple variables. First is on a sliding scale, how much magic do I want my players to have and at what level on a scale of 1-10? For example at a 10, at 20th level players all have +3 on everything, magic rings up the wazoo, so on and so forth. What other expenses do I expect the players to incur or what else do I expect them to spend money on? That works for the +n items. If I expect people to have or buy a +1 weapon by the time they're 3rd level, +2 by 9th and +3 by 18th multiply that by how many items, etc.

The problem is how do you value things that stack? Or do you just ban +n shields and say rings of protection don't work if you're wearing magic armor? Then there's the non-plus items. How much is a bag of holding worth? In a game that emphasizes encumbrance and realistic/heavy loot it has more value than one that does not. Sovereign glue? May not seem like it's worth anything but what if you created a mundane metal face mask and glue it to someone's face with no breathing holes? An invisible assassin could take out just about any living person with relative ease. Or a wand of magic missiles. In a world with few wizards they could be incredibly rare, in a world where special forces soldiers get enough training to use magic devices they could be army surplus.

Still, you could do it. To keep things relatively simple, put everything into a price category with a "standard" categorization that could be used as a baseline. Then plug in expected level of magic at a certain levels subtract allowance for found items. That should give you a gold allowance for purchasing items. Given that add in living and other expenses. If you've balanced the two sides of the equation (price means nothing without knowing how much PCs have to spend) that should give you a guideline.

Personally I'm too lazy to go through all the items to come up with my own category so I'd probably use rarity as my price category with a couple of tweaks.