D&D 5E Recommendation: Handy (and sane) D&D 5e magic item pricelist

[robus]

The DMG does have something similar - prices based on rarity of item, which in it's own way is based on their effects on the game (as interpreted by WotC), and with consumable items costing less.

Not putting that all in list form just means not having a list that constantly repeats the same 10 prices over and over again.

It would make an excellent PDF though...

 

[pdegan2814]

In the online community I'm a part of, there are several DM's who run one-shot games from time to time with various players. As part of the character creation guidelines, the DM will usually include a gold allotment that can be spent on items from that Sane Prices list, with the size of the allotment based on the level of the characters being rolled up. It's a simple and consistent way for the players to gear up.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The prices look rather low to me as well. In the last campaign I was in we played by the book (randomly rolled treasure) and I'd estimate that my character earned somewhere around 50,000 gp on the way to level 15 (plus another 100,000 gp thanks to two lucky draws from the deck of many things). That would have been a lot of magic items from the list if we'd have been able to buy them freely. Instead, most of it was spent on our war effort against the illithid (zombified giants don't come cheap), building a temple for the fledgling deity we befriended, and the rest became a respectable nest egg for retirement. Personally, I prefer not to be able to buy magic items. In my experience, when you can buy them you generally have to buy them to keep up with the rest of the party. Then you no longer have money to spend on cool stuff, like the aforementioned zombified-giant soldiers. That's just my take on it though, to each his own.

While I don't typically allow the buying of magic items, a while back I did write up such a system for someone else. It does not use the treasure system found in the DMG, but rather returns to the 3.x idea of wealth by level, wherein you are expected to have a total gp value of items and gold based on your level. In my opinion, if you allow freely buying magic items then this is the sanest approach. It assumes that the PCs will spend the vast bulk of their wealth on magic items, with a small amount of petty cash left over for inns and such. As such, your players won't end up with more magic items than assumed by the game's baseline. Obviously, if you want a campaign with more or less magic items than the baseline, simply adjust the wealth by level table as desired.

Sheet one has the magic items and their costs. Sheet two shows the wealth by level. Sheet three has a brief explanation. It's not perfect but I believe it to be functional.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SprfaZ63l4aminf040U6Mk1NVKTkWTkEcbOIAmdxeUU/edit?usp=sharing

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It's a simple and consistent way for the players to gear up.

As would be having the players use the table on page 38 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.