More realistic D&D Economy?

[Alent]

Both the "Debunk the Tippyverse" thread and a campaign I'm working on has me wondering, is there a better set of rules for a 3.5e economy somewhere? RAW doesn't just omit the very possibility of it, it takes anything resembling supply and demand and contradicts it explicitly by disconnecting resource mass from product result. (The same 3000gp of adamantine gets you a 1 pound dagger or an 8 pound greatsword, other examples abound.)

Main things I'm looking for are:

• Spell reagents like diamond dust quantified by weight instead of cost.
• Rules and tables for determining the yield of mines. RotD has profession(mining) rules that only cover the rock excavation part. Other professions would be nice, but mining is my primary concern as it's one of the IRL professions I know the least about.
• Better spell component pouch rules.
• An explanation or quantification on the "stuff" required for craft wondrous item. I like to joke that the "stuff" is a blueprint drawn in wizard's spellbook ink and purchased from an eve online player. I'd like something more plausible.
• Mundane and Alchemical consumables that take resources to make rather than X value of GP.

My desire for a materials based economy isn't out of a desire for absurdist realism with dwarf fortress grade bookkeeping and procedural simulationism. (Although I am a simulationist!) The campaign I'm working on begins with a forward mining expedition in a barren wasteland before opening up into a sandbox, and the group will be isolated from anything resembling a city for most of the initial arc. I both want to have realistic bartering between expedition members, and create a situation where long term resource management is a factor, but not excessively complicated for the players. I'm expecting as the DM to have to do most of the community resource tracking myself, and have players only worry about whatever resources are important to them due to class features or personal interest. (Telling them would be fun- "Save some guano for the rest of us! The orcs killed our last dire bat last night.")

I'd also like to use the same system for the economy for the entire game for consistency, rather than just freeform it for the expedition only and hope nobody cared the local fiat currency was DM fiat.

So, is there anything like this out there? Or would I need to homebrew it myself?

[Sam K]

The problem with creating a realistic D&D economy is that D&D isn't realistic! You have the vast majority of the people living at a dark ages (or for some races, bronze or stone age) level, while a small percentage hav access to 3d printing, tactical nuclear strikes and a fleet of amazon (the company, not the female warrior tribe) drones dropping off whatever you need whenever you need it.

Magic messes up supply and demand. From the humble wall of salt to organized mining expeditions to the plane of earth to secure infinite diamonds for ressurections. The two outcomes I've seen when trying to make more detailed D&D economics is either a set of arbitrary restrictions boiling down to "You cant do that because it would ruin my economic model", or the tippyverse.

That said, assuming you and your players are all willing to play along with a "realistic" economy you could probably homebrew it. It will be very vulnerable to "market manipulations" by clever players, but if they dont want to do that, no worries.

[Anxe]

Figuring out the weight to cost ratio of gems shouldn't be that hard. It then becomes just a question of where the gems are cheaper and where they are more expensive.

I can't help you with mine yields. Consult a mine foreman?

The best way of making the spell component pouch realistic is to not have it. Your players must find/buy all the components they need.

Your last two questions are kind of the same. Mundane items are relatively easy. A suit of armor takes leather, metal, and fuel for the forge to make. You can figure out the rest. For magic, the DM has a lot of wiggle room. In my campaign giant hearts are an important component in making teleportation magical items. The bigger the giant the more you can do with it. This also introduces additional rewards for players that like to butcher their kills.

[Amphetryon]

This is, in my opinion, one of the things Frank & K got right in their Tomes. Paraphrased, they propose something of a dual economy, where mundane things are paid for with mundane money, layered underneath a Wish economy that non-adventuring types simply never have cause or opportunity to interact with.

[Slipperychicken]

1. Get ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King System)

2. Read it.

3. Behold the internally-consistent economic system.

4. Cry tears of joy.

[Boci]

The best way of making the spell component pouch realistic is to not have it. Your players must find/buy all the components they need.

I disagree. Quite vehemently. Not only does the OP now need to check every material component ever and decide whether it is available in the setting or not. Whilst doing this they need to pay attention to balance of making certain core spells unavailable.
Then once that is done they have to have a list of every material component in each settlement, the possession of each group, and where those naturally occurring can be found on the map.

This is not a good solution. A better one would be to remove it by giving all casters eschew material component as a bonus feat at level 1.

OP, regarding the constructions of magical items, is their only one way to do it, or can different casters construct the same ring of +1 protection from different ingredients?
Personally I think an almost monster hunter style use ingrediants of slain beasts could work well here.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The arms and equipment guide has some loose guidelines, IIRC. I don't recall how good they are but it's something.

[Zanos]

The best way of making the spell component pouch realistic is to not have it. Your players must find/buy all the components they need.

They abstracted that system with spell component pouches because it is awful.

I don't want to roleplay collecting bat guano for three weeks. I don't want to think about bat guano. I don't want my character concept interacting in any significant way without bat guano 99% of the time.

If you make material components irritating, Eschew Materials just becomes a feat tax.

[Slipperychicken]

I don't want to roleplay collecting bat guano for three weeks. I don't want to think about bat guano. I don't want my character concept interacting in any significant way without bat guano 99% of the time.

If you make material components irritating, Eschew Materials just becomes a feat tax.

Also, people don't like roleplaying material components, especially to spells like Hideous Laughter (i.e. throw tiny tarts at the target while waving a feather at him, and then he collapses on the ground laughing for the rest of the fight). It's kind of hard to take your character seriously when you have to do that kind of silly shenanigans all the time.

[Anxe]

It's the most significant way of balancing wizards that I've seen. Do you have a better suggestion for making spell component pouches make sense? I suppose you could give it a certain amount of uses. Good for 10 spells with components! Or it could be that it holds two spells worth of components for every spell ever. Either way is not realistic. Listing every components price and availability is realistic, but a chore. Coming up with that stuff on the fly is pretty easy though. Bat guano won't be available anywhere except at wizards guilds, etc.

[Zanos]

It doesn't balance anything because plenty of great spells have no material components.

[Boci]

It's the most significant way of balancing wizards that I've seen.

At that point you may as well just go through every individual spell and rebalanced the problem ones. It would probably be less effort.

Do you have a better suggestion for making spell component pouches make sense?

Remove it? Now the fact that it doesn't make sense isn't a problem, and on the plus side, this solutions will not take literally hours of out of game planning, and slow down shopping sprees.

[Slipperychicken]

It's the most significant way of balancing wizards that I've seen. Do you have a better suggestion for making spell component pouches make sense? I suppose you could give it a certain amount of uses. Good for 10 spells with components! Or it could be that it holds two spells worth of components for every spell ever. Either way is not realistic. Listing every components price and availability is realistic, but a chore. Coming up with that stuff on the fly is pretty easy though. Bat guano won't be available anywhere except at wizards guilds, etc.

I recall some advice, which was to have casters refill their pouches each week of use (or each time they stop in town) for 5gp. In that case, it would only be fair to let them stock extra components, at a rate of perhaps 5gp per week.

I might also consider let them make survival checks (DC 15-20?) to find and create a 1d6 days worth of components in the wild, although some things might warrant a higher check or be disallowed.

[watchwood]

After the first few levels the caster will simply throw gold at the problem, and component tracking will be something of a pointless waste of time again.

[Boci]

In E6 for a sorcerer I could see micromanaging material components as potentially worthwhile, getting a sense of immersion, but even then its not going to be everyone cup of tea. And with a wizard/at levels.both its just not worth the effort.

[Anxe]

I recall some advice, which was to have casters refill their pouches each week of use (or each time they stop in town) for 5gp. In that case, it would only be fair to let them stock extra components, at a rate of perhaps 5gp per week.

I might also consider let them make survival checks (DC 15-20?) to find and create a 1d6 days worth of components in the wild, although some things might warrant a higher check or be disallowed.

That's a fix that could work. Norren is this what you were looking for?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Why do people keep thinking the balance problem with casters is in the casters themselves? It isn't and never was. The source of the balance problem with casters is, and always was, in the spells.

If you want to balance casters with non-casters you have to fix or remove the problem spells.

If you're shooting for a lower level of power than the game's baseline you can tweak the caster's class and casting mechanics -after- that.

[Anxe]

Well, I think this was originally about the realism of a magical spell component pouch that has infinite amounts of junk in it, not balance. I just kinda took it there.

[Alent]

Well, Firefox blew up halfway through my first reply, so... here goes take two:

The problem with creating a realistic D&D economy is that D&D isn't realistic! You have the vast majority of the people living at a dark ages (or for some races, bronze or stone age) level, while a small percentage hav access to 3d printing, tactical nuclear strikes and a fleet of amazon (the company, not the female warrior tribe) drones dropping off whatever you need whenever you need it.

Your reading of "more realistic" as "realistic" aside, your premise is flawed. We live in a world of unequal knowledge, technology, and resource distribution. Your example of what is unrealistic compared to the real world can be applied to the real world with little difficulty and demonstrate the real world is less realistic than itself. It's recursive.

Magic messes up supply and demand. From the humble wall of salt to organized mining expeditions to the plane of earth to secure infinite diamonds for ressurections. The two outcomes I've seen when trying to make more detailed D&D economics is either a set of arbitrary restrictions boiling down to "You cant do that because it would ruin my economic model", or the tippyverse.

We agreed banning the Wish/Miracle lines was a good houserule a while back, and the world is planar locked for plot reasons unrelated to economics- no one gets in or out, not even to their conjured demiplanes. That more or less sinks the major exploits I know about save wall of salt.

On that point, wall of salt is self-resolving in an actual economy. That reminds me that I need to re-read It's Hot Outside as many things from it will be relevant to the setting- it's a barren wasteland. Shapesand will be a thing alchemists get paid for, for sure.

Anything else I should be aware of, exploit wise?

That said, assuming you and your players are all willing to play along with a "realistic" economy you could probably homebrew it. It will be very vulnerable to "market manipulations" by clever players, but if they dont want to do that, no worries.

I expect my players to engage in market manipulation and smuggling, that's why I want a more realistic economy. Greed drives my players and NPCs both.

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The best way of making the spell component pouch realistic is to not have it. Your players must find/buy all the components they need.

That is what I wanted to accomplish, but I assumed they would still need a container that functioned as a free action to draw spell materials from. I also am strongly considering going through the material components list and dropping or changing any spell component that looks like something out of the "An orc barbarian that thinks it's a wizard" thread. (EG: throwing Tarts and feather waving totally seems like something Thog would do.)

Of the items of my wishlist, this is the one that seems the most awkward one to realize. Trying to read the SRD spell list, I didn't realize how many spells lacked components or had components that cost more than 1gp. My table's previous DM had always overlooked them unless it dealt with resurrection.

I may just have to give up on this one, but I'll mention a few more thoughts in replies to others below.

Your last two questions are kind of the same. Mundane items are relatively easy.

Er, I was trying to say "mundane consumables". It's still simple enough, but I was trying to cover the bases. Alchemical supplies and spell components are not entirely unrelated, either, I'll add. Gunpowder rockets or wizard fireballs, they're still bat guano and sulfur.

For magic, the DM has a lot of wiggle room. In my campaign giant hearts are an important component in making teleportation magical items. The bigger the giant the more you can do with it. This also introduces additional rewards for players that like to butcher their kills.

I like this. It gives me MonHunt vibes.

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This is, in my opinion, one of the things Frank & K got right in their Tomes. Paraphrased, they propose something of a dual economy, where mundane things are paid for with mundane money, layered underneath a Wish economy that non-adventuring types simply never have cause or opportunity to interact with.

In what ways this better or more simple than parallel Commoner, Adventurer, and Caster economies?

Where do I find them, also? They seem to be forum posts from Minmaxboards on one of their previous domain name iterations?

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1. Get ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King System)

2. Read it.

3. Behold the internally-consistent economic system.

4. Cry tears of joy.

I'll put that on the reading list. That's an OSR product, isn't it?

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I disagree. Quite vehemently. Not only does the OP now need to check every material component ever and decide whether it is available in the setting or not. Whilst doing this they need to pay attention to balance of making certain core spells unavailable.
Then once that is done they have to have a list of every material component in each settlement, the possession of each group, and where those naturally occurring can be found on the map.

Actually... This is part of why I was asking. I'm also splitting up the spell lists by faction as a throttle on tier 1's, so every city or nomad group logically must have ways of procuring the material components for their spells. Depending on how I decide to treat spell components, I might have to check every spell in the setting for material components. I figured this was a good time to address the quirk that is the pouch. (I liked how Kelb posted the other half of this thought while I'm proofreading.)

The world is a barren wasteland of constantly moving cities where everyone depends on conjured food and water to survive, not a regular green world. The factions each becoming different and isolationists is a natural consequence of having to constantly fight over what few resources they find, but it also makes some ordinarily common resources quite rare.

OP, regarding the constructions of magical items, is their only one way to do it, or can different casters construct the same ring of +1 protection from different ingredients?
Personally I think an almost monster hunter style use ingrediants of slain beasts could work well here.

I had hoped to find a canned system, so I really hadn't developed designs of my own on this. I don't want to go "one true way to make everything" since the campaign is about being resourceful and surviving. I really like the MonHunt idea, I will probably try that.

... Wonder if I could convince them to cut off dragon and wyvern tails before they kill the critter.

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The arms and equipment guide has some loose guidelines, IIRC. I don't recall how good they are but it's something.

Noted, I'll give that a looksee. That's 3.0, isn't it?

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It doesn't balance anything because plenty of great spells have no material components.

This. This is the one thing I'm noticing at a cursory glance. I would actually say it seems like less than 1/3rd of spells have material components, and it's utterly random if they have cost or not.

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I recall some advice, which was to have casters refill their pouches each week of use (or each time they stop in town) for 5gp. In that case, it would only be fair to let them stock extra components, at a rate of perhaps 5gp per week.

I might also consider let them make survival checks (DC 15-20?) to find and create a 1d6 days worth of components in the wild, although some things might warrant a higher check or be disallowed.

This is something to ponder. It isn't what I was looking for, but as a mechanic, it feels solid.

Shelfing discussion of material components... The one that I haven't seen much commentary on is profession(mining).

I know it's fun to argue about ways to hobble tier 1's tho'.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That's 3.0, isn't it?

Technically, yes. Does it matter?

[Amphetryon]

Where do I find them, also? They seem to be forum posts from Minmaxboards on one of their previous domain name iterations?

I believe they're affiliated with The Gaming Den. I'm not, and haven't been there very often to verify this is still the case.

[Alent]

Technically, yes. Does it matter?

Was just curious, Hadn't looked at that book in a while. I'm pretty open to stuff as long as it's reasonable.

[Anxe]

You could start looking on mining at the wiki entry. It seems like too much work for me to help you out there. Sorry.

[Someonelse]

Re: spell component pouches

When I DM, I make spell casters buy a new component pouch every time they level up.

That's just my 2cp

[Sivitri]

My old DM supplied me with the Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign guide, which has some nice ideas for dealing with economy, as well as landowning/running businesses on the side/armies/kingdoms...Pretty much everything to flesh out a world. It's helped me a lot.

Also, I love the idea of using MonHun strats when it comes to dealing with monster bits and pieces. That was going to be a core component to getting rare items in my campaign. You want a flaming sword? You better go get the heart of a fire elemental, then.

[jedipotter]

1. Using spell components is a great way to balance spells. If you play a more Old School style game. In the New Way, it is a waste of time as the players will just overcome it and the DM will just let them. You get a couple of blank sheets of paper, and have the player write down everything they have in the pouch. Keep track of sizes and weights and how much is in the bag. Don't have magic marts with all the components, have the spellcaster search for some of them. And it's even better if the adventure takes place miles from the nearest store(the whole idea of shops and stores everywhere is so video game).

Suddenly lots of spells won't be able to be cast. No bulls or foxes around, you can't cast bulls' strength or foxes cunning. You'd need to find a ghoul first to cast ghoul touch. No horse hair, no mount. No mica, no glitterdust or shatter. And remember it only works Old School where if the player says ''I buy a hundred of each component''. the DM says ''No you don't''.

2. A simple, blanket rule for creation spells: it is not as good as the real thing. You could make it something like 50% as good. It is fine for an emergency, but not for long term use. Have it look and feel fake...maybe occasionally give off whisps of smoke. Have a 50% chance that they fail when used for anything.

3. Even if you used magic to make money.....there is a limit. If the town has 10,000 gold coins...well, that is all they have. So, no matter what, that is all you can make. And that assumes that every single person would buy whatever your selling.

[Spuddles]

The problem with creating a realistic D&D economy is that D&D isn't realistic! You have the vast majority of the people living at a dark ages (or for some races, bronze or stone age) level, while a small percentage hav access to 3d printing, tactical nuclear strikes and a fleet of amazon (the company, not the female warrior tribe) drones dropping off whatever you need whenever you need it.

you must not get out much, because that is exactly what real life is like and has been for the past 100 years.

the future is here, its just not evenly distributed
--William Gibson

[Boci]

1. Using spell components is a great way to balance spells. If you play a more Old School style game. In the New Way, it is a waste of time as the players will just overcome it and the DM will just let them. You get a couple of blank sheets of paper, and have the player write down everything they have in the pouch. Keep track of sizes and weights and how much is in the bag. Don't have magic marts with all the components, have the spellcaster search for some of them. And it's even better if the adventure takes place miles from the nearest store(the whole idea of shops and stores everywhere is so video game).

Suddenly lots of spells won't be able to be cast. No bulls or foxes around, you can't cast bulls' strength or foxes cunning. You'd need to find a ghoul first to cast ghoul touch. No horse hair, no mount. No mica, no glitterdust or shatter. And remember it only works Old School where if the player says ''I buy a hundred of each component''. the DM says ''No you don't''.

And have you actually put the work in for that? Listed every material component, where they can be bought, where they grow natural, in what quantities, the price, seasonal variance? Bear in mind you would have to redo this every time you made a new campaign world.

And them the player takes Eschew Material Component, negating all that work.

[awa]

even when i played second edition non valuable components tended to be ignored. A few hairs or a bit of dung from a bull a player could get like 10,000 castings every time they entered a large farm. Its a lot like when i had a dm who wanted to role-play every shopping trip at best everyone but the shopper was bored at worst everyone was bored sometimes people would skip shopping just to get on with the adventure becuase no one wanted to spend 20 min so the player could replace a dagger.

Restrictions on the material components pouch (barring stuff like ice assassins or free action shenanigans) don't appreciable weaken the caster what they do is make them less fun to play it's like the bartering example the dagger price increases slightly becuase they don't want to deal with the problem.

Now if material components were interesting and the game was designed to use them as anything more then completely arbitrary in both power and availability.
For example allowing you to remove verbal components or cast more powerful spells and the game was balanced around that could be fun and interesting.

[jedipotter]

And have you actually put the work in for that? Listed every material component, where they can be bought, where they grow natural, in what quantities, the price, seasonal variance? Bear in mind you would have to redo this every time you made a new campaign world.

And them the player takes Eschew Material Component, negating all that work.

The ''work'' is worth it. To have characters run out of components adds great fun, and even more balance, to the game. When the spellcaster can't use half a dozen spells as they can't get the components, they have to use other spells or even just think their way out of things. It suddenly makes spells with no material components or easy ones very common, and other spells very rare.

And sure they can take Eschew Components. Though note the house rule that says ''monster parts all have a value of greater then one gold''. And fix a couple of the other material components that have ''no cost''.