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N1njato
Ebon Hand Cultist
(3/10/04 9:12 pm)
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Town GP limit vs item availability??
One of my players thinks that the GP limit of a town means that *any* item under that price is readily available. He's got a lot of armour smithing skills and said casually "Ok I buy some adamantite bars and..." and I was like "Whoa. Slow down. You want to buy what?!!". I know what it says in the DMG about Gp limits etc, but I have a major problem with Adamantite/Mithril being available anywhere that has a GP limit high enough. He strongly disagrees, even claiming "that's gay". I want to be fair with him. I already allowed his 4th level character (started at 4th) forge a suit of Mithril full plate...! I reasoned that before he has joined the party he's had enough out of game time (I think 185 weeks or something to make it) so I allowed him to do it. I think even this was overly generous.
Question is, what do you guys think? GP value means *anything* under that is available. Mithril and Adamantite aren't that expensive as raw materials, so despite them being 'very rare' they'd be in about half the cities of the world in fair abundance. I have a problem with that reasoning.
Edited by: N1njato at: 3/10/04 9:13 pm
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Gansk
Staj
(3/10/04 9:36 pm)
Reply
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
As the DM, you have the right to make the player roleplay any equipment purchase he makes, and in this case I would. The guidelines that I apply in my own game is that anything in the PHB that is less than 50 gp can be considered available for purchase without roleplaying. The player should not know that there is a 800 gp limit in Hommlet.
Would you let the player buy 15 cure light wound potions or would think about how NPC's could make that available for him and then roleplay the wheeling and dealing?
As far as the availability of these specific materials, I forget the percentage chance that the DMG gives as far as which magic items would be constructed with this material. Whatever that chance is, lets say 5%, I would roll to see if it was available each week from the local armorer. That forces the player to make a choice - be patient and wait, or go to Verbobonc and increase his chances by inquiring with each of the armorers there.
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N1njato
Ebon Hand Cultist
(3/11/04 2:20 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
He was actually in Verbobonc and expected the adamantite to be readily available. Considering I let him forge a suit of mithril full plate with no roleplaying (he started at 4th) I felt I needed to draw a line here. I even warned him of it beforehand but I suppose he didn't get the hint. I just see materials like that as extremely rare and I can't see bars of it lying around waiting to be forged, even in a larger city like Verbobonc.
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msherman
Briar Beast
(3/11/04 4:59 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
I'd actually let them do it. This module is already resource-restricted enough, with the action taking place so far away from a major city, and on such a tight timeline. Since they get to Verbobonc so infrequently, I'd recommend that you let them "go to town" whenver they... uh... go to town. 
IMC, I allow pretty much any non-magical item, including already-forged mithral armor and silver weapons, to be bought off the rack in Verbobonc. I also allow healing potions of any sort, any scroll of 3rd or below and a selection of higher level scrolls, potions, and other magic items to be bought off the rack. For example, one of my characters is looking to improve her AC currently, and I told her she could get a mithral breastplate (non-magical) or an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 off the rack, but would have to commission crafting of an Animated Shield +1. The criteria I'm using is a vague "coolness factor", not price. "Animated" is cool, "+2" not so much.
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 Infiniti2000
Night Beast
(3/11/04 6:09 am)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
I would also let them do it. It is Verbobonc afterall. I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that there is not enough material immediately available and it will take N weeks or months to have it shipped. Express delivery (via teleport) will be very expensive.
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N1njato
Ebon Hand Cultist
(3/11/04 7:55 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
I told the player that yes, you *can* get mithril/adamantite but I just thought that it would take the rarity out of the item if I simply gave it to him. I thought of a hook into the crater ridge mines... a vein of adamantite was seen there by a fleeing NPC as he ran away from (insert nasty monster).
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Caedrel
Ghoul Worm
(3/11/04 5:41 pm)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
The rarity of an item is built into its market price - while "rare", there is enough adamantine about for a viable market to exist where the laws of supply & demand hold true. If it was too rare so as to be not available in a town with a given gp limit, that means it must cost more than the gp limit itself.
Which doesn't mean you have to just "give it to him"... the roleplaying aspect of the small group of armoursmiths who have a store of the precious stuff has already been suggested above...
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fjeTheNarrator
Human
(3/11/04 7:30 pm)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
I actually roleplay Verbobonc as a rather large city with most things the players would want rather regularly available.
I've been using a pretty cool resource I found
schamle.com/verbobonc/ind...erbobonc=&
The "Overview" section has a nice PDF. It's useful in that it details alot of stores and gives what's available in town and around town.
It's made the town pretty "real" to my players. They don't mind the 4-day ride back to Verbobonc to gear up, sell stuff, and rest (although I think they're starting to notice that when they're gone for almost a month, the CRM has a chance to replenish ... secretly I'm gearing up to totally repopulate the cleared Earth Temple. They've left it empty for almost two months now, and some Myconids (he he, Mr. Kaze) are getting ready to move in and take over. The party has already seen some mushrooms cropping up.
As to the data I'm using on Verbobonc, finding that kind of metal wouldn't be a big problem. I don't see why it would, anyway, it's a rather large city. Where ELSE would people find that sort of stuff?
--fje
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N1njato
Human
(3/11/04 11:14 pm)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
I love chocolate. I especially love a chocolate from England called "Flake". I think it's probably the best chocolate there is. I can't have any. Why? Because I live in Tokyo. Tokyo is one of the richest cities in the world. I don't have a clue as to where to find "Flake". I think I could probably buy a multi-million dollar house if I had the money, but for the life of me, I can't find a Flake anywhere. They cost less than 1 US dollar. But low and behold, the elusive Flake has yet to be found here, despite the fact this is one of the richest cities in the world.
Get my point? I don't see gold piece value equalling availability. I have a 3G cell phone. You can't get them in the US. Why? Because they're not available. Is it because the US has a low $$$ value? No, they're simply not available in the US. It has nothing to do with the US being able to cover the costs.
I understand the laws of supply and demand. Low supply, high demand, high price. That's fine. *IF* you can find something you need, then that's the price it's worth. But if it's not there, then it's just not there. It's a convenient rule of thumb for most other items, but I don't think it should be used in all cases.
To answer the question of 'where else would you find the stuff you need?'. That's half my point. The Lortmil mountains? Another adventure hook? Rare items and spell components are great ways to pull PC's into adventures. I'm hardly going to get a PC go on a quest for a +1 Long Sword, but for special, rare items, I think it worthwhile to make the party work for them a little more than going to the corner store. A 2 minute roleplay for a half dozen bars of Adamantite doesn't seem justified in my opinion. It should take blood and sweat and effort.
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fjeTheNarrator
Human
(3/12/04 6:55 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
Well, I live outside of Cincinati, Ohio, USA and I can probably find "Flake" within a 15 minute drive. We've got this crazy Super-Supermarket that has just about everything from anywhere. Want some traditional South African cuisine? Head on down to Jungle Jim's. Been jonesin' for a candy bar you can only find in Ireland? Break it on down t'Jungle Jim's. Hot for some weird snack from Tokyo that I can't read the label on? Yea ... you guessed it, Jungle Jim's.
In the end, of course, it's your game. We all play it differently. I wouldn't have let the guy in the game with the first shirt, and I'd let him find the stuff he needs in Verbobonc without too much trouble. Different people, different games. I guess I see Mithril as sort of like Pocky. In Japan, Pocky is pocky ... In America, Pocky is cool. It's from Japan, and therefore not "common", but at the same time, I can find it in the foreign food section of the local grocery store ... I have to pay more, and I'm sure people in Japan think: "Dude, that's so last decade." But it's available and whatnot. Now if it were Hizragkur available only in the underdark and the last known deposit was mined by dwarves 7,000 years ago ...
Mithril being a quest item in your game makes your game unique. Each of us runs a unique game. That's the joy of D&D.
When people talk about "Dude, what's available in Verbobonc?" I like to pass along the little tidbit of knowledge I found on the internet. Not saying anybody has to use it, or that it'll make their game better, but it's a resource and it's there and in the spirit of DM fraternity I like to spread the wealth.
--fje
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Infiniti2000
Night Beast
(3/12/04 10:08 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
You can buy Flake over the Internet. Although the PC's don't have internet access, the same principle applies. You pay an intermediary to go acquire the materials and bring it back, at a higher cost.
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blakwind
Staj
(3/12/04 11:28 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
N1njato,
It's your campaign. You can decide if magic items and exotic materials are widely available at market price, extremely scarce, or somewhere in between. This will impact the flavor and atmosphere of your game, and influence the choices that your players make as they advance their characters. Once you decide, for fairness and campaign continuity, don't change your mind.
RttToEE is a HUGE adventure that takes many sessions and hundreds of hours of real time to complete. It's also very challenging. Taking these observations into account, many DMs on this board allow PCs to buy and sell magic items freely, at least in Verbobonc and other large cities. That approach is consistent with the D&D core rules and the text of the adventure. Resolving the "out of the dungeon" events off-camera (i.e. outside of game time) leaves more game time to focus on bringing down the cult of Tharizdun.
On the other hand, my own campaign is set in a homebrew world where the trade in magic items and exotic materials (especially mithral and adamantium) is highly restricted. Artificers are scarce and command high prices (in wealth and services). If the PCs do seek to acquire something scarce, we roleplay it out and make an adventure of it. Likewise, it can be very difficult to sell unusual loot -- how many collectors would actually be interested in acquiring the Eye of Tulian, for example? My players and I have enjoyed this style tremendously. It does make for a long campaign -- it took us two years to bring down Imix -- but it was great fun getting there.
To summarize my own humble opinion:
1) It's up to you, based on the flavor you want to achieve for your campaign.
2) In many (perhaps most) 3E campaigns, magic items and exotic materials are freely bought and sold.
3) I wouldn't allow it in my campaign.
4) Ask yourself what style you and your players would most enjoy. See point #1. Make a decision and stick to it.
I would caution against trying too hard to reconcile the D&D economy with modern business concepts on pricing, scarcity, supply and demand, symmetry and asymmetry of information, and what not. That way lies madness. Many people, myself included, have attempted this of reasoning. It doesn't work well because the D&D economy described in the core rules wasn't designed by economists to be "realistic" -- it was designed by game designers to be balanced and fun.
Good luck, and please let us know what you decide!
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Mr Kaze
Staj
(3/12/04 6:21 pm)
Reply
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
Quote:
I reasoned that before he has joined the party he's had enough out of game time (I think 185 weeks or something to make it) so I allowed him to do it. I think even this was overly generous.
Well, I'm not doing the original crafting math for myself, but...
185 weeks -- that's over 3 years of straight armorsmithing to build a suit of mithral full plate? The PCs in my game have gone from level 6 to just shy of level 9 in 33 adventuring days, about a third of which they spent recovering from a 50% fatality fight that they ended up losing.
What kind of a hero sits around for three years in the prime of their life building a suit of armor when they could be out thumping down bandits, hobgoblins and evil cults *before* they get big bad-@$$ leaders?
So he wants to craft an adamant item? Well he certainly should be able to at least import some adamant bars -- if he doesn't have a sizeable block of Knowledge (Local) to get into the private markets, he'd probably do well to go see somebody who can send a message to order some adamant bars for him. They'll show up on the next caravan in a few (1d4 + 2) weeks or somesuch. I'd expect that it's standard cost -- S&H is probably included in the DMG price. Then he's free to craft his little heart out. Meanwhile, the cult is pillaging, burning and doing all of those little ritualistic things necessary to bring about the end of the world.
This is why I keep my PCs on a timer. It's not that I don't want them to craft their own items; it's that I don't want the crafting to slow them down. (One of my players had calculated out how many standard arrows he could craft per hour such that he could be reloading his quiver while the rest of the party was generally paused to recover from a combat -- no pause in the adventure required. Makes me happy.)
Of course, if my PCs all go for a level without adding any defeated enemies' gear to their own getups, then I tend to go in and re-seed the available loot with a special item or two to help offset their desire to mosey back to town in the middle of the adventure.
::Kaze
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Caedrel
Ghoul Worm
(3/12/04 8:14 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
Quote:
I would caution against trying too hard to reconcile the D&D economy with modern business concepts on pricing, scarcity, supply and demand, symmetry and asymmetry of information, and what not.
I concur 100%, but I would also propose that there is considerable value in coming to grips with the concept that the modern economic theory of supply & demand is dervied from: namely, that the price someone is willing to pay for an item bears a proportional relationship to the benefits they expect to reap from it.
I would further propose that this is exactly what "game balance" is all about - we often talk about this item or that feat being "broken", when what we actually mean is that the power conferred by said item or feat is disproportionately large when compared to its cost.
I suppose that's my point: the game designers have given us these guidelines to use. If you don't want your world to work that way, that's perfectly ok - I'm just saying it would be helpful to understand some of the implications that may follow, because the further away one goes from the rules as written, the less of a common reference we have and the more "out there by yourself" you are. For example, I suspect Mr Kaze doesn't find this forum as specifically helpful as many other DMs because his campaign is so different (really, really different!)... it's just as well he's demonstrated sufficient creativity and forethought to support it all by himself Me, I'm a lot lazier - I'll take whatever help I can get
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N1njato
Staj
(3/13/04 12:09 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
Quote:
What kind of a hero sits around for three years in the prime of their life building a suit of armor when they could be out thumping down bandits, hobgoblins and evil cults *before* they get big bad-@$$ leaders?
This hero in particular started off at 4th level, so I assumed in his life before play, I allowed him to use his skills to craft the armour, seeing as how he had yet to start the campaign. I told him though that after he starts play, time passes as normal.
I've read everyone's opinions here, and they've been really great. Lots of wisdom and thought has been put into them and I appreciate the advice everyone's given.
I think I'm going to stick to my guns on this one. I'll allow my players to buy most items in the DMG if the gold piece value = the town gp value as usual. But for the rare items (mithril/adamantite), I'm going to make them work harder to acquire them. I'm considering making the town gp value mean "It's in town, somewhere. Now go find it". Meaning that the items are around, but maybe they're not readily availble for purchase at an actual store. Maybe they're hidden somewhere, a theives guild has some in their stash, the priest is keeping one for safekeeping etc.
I think the comments made here make a lot of sense, and are great ideas. I just want to keep the mithril and adamantite in particular 'special' materials, not just 'expensive' materials. Players shouldn't be like "Ok I have 5,000 gp. I go and buy a mithril shirt". But they could say "Ok I have 5,000 gp. I'll buy an enchanted sword and maybe a ring of protection". That's just the way I like to play. Enchanted items are everywhere, and much less rare then mithril IMO. That way, when they do actually see s mithril shirt, they'll be like "Whoa. Mithril." and not "Oh, Mithril. Must be worth at least 5,000 GP".
As a last request, if anyone can remember, what pages are the GP values for items actually explained in the DMG? And where does it talk about a town GP limit = items available for purchase?
Edited by: N1njato at: 3/13/04 12:39 am
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msherman
Briar Beast
(3/13/04 5:05 am)
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
I think you're vastly overestimating the rarity of mithral -- a mitrhal shirt is only 1100gp list price, so in a standard D&D economy, it would be pretty easy to come by. Of course, you're welcome to change the prices and rarities in your game, it is your game, but make sure you're aware of the ripple effects. Also, make sure you follow rule 0 -- let your players know ahead of time that you're playing with a modified economy, and make sure they understand the ground rules (and whatever in-character knowledge of the economy their characters would have).
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Narben
Human
(3/15/04 5:37 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
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Re: Town GP limit vs item availability??
Supply and demand does come into the equation when buying bars of adamantine from Hommlet.
GP limits for towns aren't there to screw the players but to give an idea of the level of wealth of a particular village. It represents the maximum the local economy can handle.
There is no incentive for a smith to stock raw bars of adamantine that individually would be worth less than the 800gp limit when there's no one in the area that could afford to buy a finished product.
Personally I'd rule that special materials aren't costed as individual items but as a whole. A single bar might be cheap and by some fluke the local smith might have a single bar that he once bought and never found a use for, but enough metal to build a set of plate just sitting around gathering dust is highly unlikely
As far as buying adamantine in Verbobonc goes there shouldn't be a problem. It has a 40,000 gp limit. A finished suit of heavy armour only has a 15000gp cost added. It's more a question of whether the player has the time to make a suit buying the raw ingredients. If you want to be picky you could charge him "forge fees". It's not like he's walking around with his own portable forge. Even if he buys the raw materials he still needs somewhere to make the item and I doubt that the smiths in the city are interested in letting someone borrow their equipment for free. If anything he should be considered a rival. They're losing business because he refuses to buy the finished armour.
Edited by: Narben at: 3/16/04 6:27 pm
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Roland the red
Staj
(3/17/04 7:59 am)
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For the mathematically minded
I use the following as a rule-of-thumb, and I deviate quite a bit:
Alway available: any item less than 10% of GP limit
90% chance available: Any item less than 20% of GP limit
80% chance of available: Any item less than than 30% of GP Limit
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.
.
10% chance available: Any item less than 100% of GP limit.
This is a monthly availablity...
Example: a town with GP limit of 10,000gp
Player says I want to buy a +2 sword (8000gp)
So the sword is 80% of towns GP limit, then there is a 30% chance its avalable.
For some towns I give a "mercantile" bonus or penalty.
For instance:
Mulmaster in the Forgotten Realms is known for its iron works, +20% availability for iron works (swords, armor, etc.)
Or any Thayan Enclave in the Realms, +30% availability of 'disposable' magic...
You get the idea...It is good for on the fly calculations. I let players "special-order" anything up to GP limit, but at an appropriate time delay and usually a nominal fee (10% of price)
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N1njato
Staj
(3/17/04 7:19 pm)
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Re: For the mathematically minded
Cool sounds good. I wish there was something like this in the DMG... 
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