More realistic D&D Economy?

[Slipperychicken]

But what if the bat hasn't eaten anything. which as a summon it hasn't?

Who says? Summons aren't created, but pulled in from somewhere else. Surely at least some of those bats must have eaten something prior to the casting.

[torrasque666]

Who says? Summons aren't created, but pulled in from somewhere else. Surely at least some of those bats must have eaten something prior to the casting.

No, Called creatures are pulled from elsewhere. Summoned creatures are made out of magical energy, hence why they wink out in an AMF whereas called ones don't.

[RegalKain]

No, Called creatures are pulled from elsewhere. Summoned creatures are made out of magical energy, hence why they wink out in an AMF whereas called ones don't.

Mind telling me where I can find that tidbit? Because Summon Monster, says that they are summoned from their home plane and appear where designated, not that they are created from magical energy. Unless I'm somehow mis-reading, which I don't think I am.

OT: Our E6 group recently did the MonHunt thing, and all of us really enjoyed it, we didn't have any component heavy casters at the time, but enchanting armor and things (Like making something a +1 Fiery Long Sword) required monster parts, both for the magic of the +1 and different parts for the magic of fiery, we used a Crystal system to swap things in and out, basicially you enchanted the weapon, and that allowed it to have crystals of a higher grade and power attached to it, this allowed you to keep an assortment of crystals around for different situations, and still use the same weapon. We felt it went better with the fluff side of things like a family sword passed down through the generations etc, also allowed players to keep the weapon they had from the start and slowly upgrade it and utilize it in different ways and so forth. That said though, it took my friend and I around 12-14 hours to put what we did together, and within the first thirty minutes of gameplay we were making hot-fixes on the side as we saw problems arising, so doing this sort of economy overhaul is no small matter, but IMO it makes the game a great deal more fun.

It's been mentioned a few times in here, but once you have certain Homebrew rules, porting them from campaign to campaign is a lot easier then re-creating the system, for instance, let's say Bats ONLY spawn in the desert, and that's the ONLY place to get bat guano, or towns that import it from said desert towns, that's easy to setup in any world that has a desert, if you have a world that has no desert, or suitably equivalent place then you may have to change it some, but that's only if you get very specific, make it so they spawn in deserts and cave systems. If you are going to argue your world has neither, I'm beginning to wonder who built your world and what they were thinking.

As for the issue of "what about the shaman on the island" as someone else said, maybe he doesn't use fireball? Maybe his ancestors have researched a new version of fireball that's called waterball instead, it still explodes and has the concussive force, it just doesn't burn, it uses fish eyes instead of bat guano, this is where as a DM and as a player, you can have some fun with the world-building that D&D offers. But my players and I find theory-crafting and especially world-burning very fun that's going to vary from group to group, tell you what, if someone wants to help me compile a list of all spells with material components, we can start working on something like that, get all the currently known components listed, figure out how many variations there are etc, then go down the list of where to find them so on and so forth.

[Zanos]

More than a couple core settings are more or less aetheistic (dark sun, eberron, ravenloft), so not really.

Nevermind that Economic Theory is not one of Mystra's domains (and whether or not she has complete control over the weave isn't particularly well defined).

For what it's worth the stated version of Mystra has the Deny Weave SDA, preventing people from casting spells at all whenever she feels like.

[Slipperychicken]

No, Called creatures are pulled from elsewhere. Summoned creatures are made out of magical energy, hence why they wink out in an AMF whereas called ones don't.

Actually..

Summoning
A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again.

When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have, and it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.

[torrasque666]

Sorry, my error. Got that info from dndwiki.com's article on Conjuring. Made it seem like they were things conjured out of thin air.

[Stella]

Regardless of the interpretation of how Summoning Spells work, neither appears to cause bat crap generated by a Summoned Bat to disappear once the Summoning spell expires.

And... Eschew Materials ignores a pile of issues with regards to DMs attempting to screw casters over via making their spell components difficult to obtain. As if that was in any way a class balancing rule in any event, because it is not. Not by a long shot.

[Telok]

And if you really did have a bat guano economy why hasn't someone set up parts harvesting farms and started selling the parts by now? Especially in places like Sigil.

Since there were real life Pacific islands with economies based on bird crap half a century I wouldn't scoff at a guano economy.

[Thanatosia]

Also on the subject of Bat Guano and Realistic Economies, there's no way Bat Guano would not be readily available anywhere Wizards tend to wonder by - the gold to be made if no one else is supplying the service would blow actual farming away.

And because a Peasant's Time is worth such a miniscule amount compared to the value of a 5th level Wizard's time it would be insane for the Wizard to ever gather his own Guano - it would be like a Corporate CEO of a million dollar company spending time manning the Cash Register or Unclogging the Toilets.

[Boci]

In any case, that one subsection of my post doesn't even have to rely on a deity (consciouysly or otherwise) manipulating metaphysical reality. It can literally be a physical trait of the planes.

So the planes, which pre-date currency, have a physical trait that takes into account the value of the metals that make currency, despite having societies that do not use gold or silver as the basis of their currency?

Or you could just ignore that sentence fragment that was picked out and note that the rest of my post stands quite well on its own merits.

Its stands quite well in an OOC balance reasoning, but not an in universe "this totally makes sense" reasoning.

[Boci]

No, the planes are not "aware" of the currency value of anything. What they are "aware" of is the rarity of the items. The gold piece value is simply a human way of expressing that rarity. Goods are valuable (a quality expressed in dollar value in modern times) precisely because because they are rare.

What about the elemental plane of earth? Can I take a piece of never melting ice there and transmute it into a bajillion gold pieces?

Plus this means that over time you will get more and more gold out of the same amount of lead, because each time you make gold you decrease its value.

[Ashtagon]

What about the elemental plane of earth? Can I take a piece of never melting ice there and transmute it into a bajillion gold pieces?

Plus this means that over time you will get more and more gold out of the same amount of lead, because each time you make gold you decrease its value.

Yes to both. Of course, once you make a bajillion gold pieces, you've flooded the market with gold, and as soon as people realise you have that much gold, they'll be charging you prices based on the fact that gold is no longer all that rare.

Like I said, realistic economies are way too complicated for most GMs who wish to remain sane.

[Boci]

Yes to both. Of course, once you make a bajillion gold pieces, you've flooded the market with gold, and as soon as people realise you have that much gold, they'll be charging you prices based on the fact that gold is no longer all that rare.

Economics doesn't work that way. As long as the wizard doesn't broadcast his secret (and why would he?), he can buy what he wants and keep most of the gold in storage, barely impacting the material plane economy.

Like I said, realistic economies are way too complicated for most GMs who wish to remain sane.

Fair enough.

[Ashtagon]

Economics doesn't work that way. As long as the wizard doesn't broadcast his secret (and why would he?), he can buy what he wants and keep most of the gold in storage, barely impacting the material plane economy.

Any reasonably intelligent merchant will note that the wizard ALWAYS has enough gold and never sells anything to acquire more gold, and can logically conclude that he has an infinite (or effectively so) supply of gold, and so would adjust his prices accordingly.

And if he isn't buying in significant quantities, then he's made gold that he isn't using, so in effect he hasn't benefited from all his work making lead (or whatever) into gold anyway.

[Boci]

Any reasonably intelligent merchant will note that the wizard ALWAYS has enough gold and never sells anything to acquire more gold, and can logically conclude that he has an infinite (or effectively so) supply of gold, and so would adjust his prices accordingly.

No, not at all. The wizard could have defeated a party of high level adventuring party, netting themselves around 400,000 to 2 million value in coins, could be a noble in a flourishing kingdom, could have defeated a dragon and taken its hoard, could have inherited a lot of gold, could be selling magical items to a different merchant, potentially of a different race on another plane.

So no, your "logical conclusion" is anything but, and that is assuming the wizards always goes to the same merchant.

[1eGuy]

And yet people who oppose them can still cast magic. Same result: no singular or unified will over magic means magic will not have a universal value for a metal. Just because a god is the god of magic doesn't mean they control magic down to the tiniest detail, even if they could, they don't.

If the DM says they do just that, then they do.

[Slipperychicken]

Any reasonably intelligent merchant will note that the wizard ALWAYS has enough gold and never sells anything to acquire more gold, and can logically conclude that he has an infinite (or effectively so) supply of gold, and so would adjust his prices accordingly.

Merchants don't adjust prices according to their buyers' wealth, but to demand.

If the wizard happens to be willing to throw down 10gp for a pound of bat guano (because that's pocket change to a wizard, and the wizard's time is much too valuable to spend haggling over such a measly sum), the merchant will surely notice and charge as much as he thinks will maximize his profit (keeping good relations with the Wizard, but also earning a healthy margin for each transaction).

Of course, if the wizard still acts like a penny-pinching miser in spite of his endless wealth, shopping and haggling to the bitter end for every last copper, utterly unwilling to pay one penny above market price, then the merchant won't see much benefit to charging him a premium. Doubly so if the wizard sees our hypothetical 10gp for a pound of bat guano as an insult and goes to another merchant instead (to say nothing of what would happen if the wizard perceives this as an insult and swears vengeance against the merchant for his extortionate pricing).

[Boci]

If the DM says they do just that, then they do.

And then the DM would be expected to lay out a full list of results from such a change in setting lore, not just bring it up when they don't like a logical application of the fluff.

Not actually true. This phenomenon actually happens in the real world. Thailand is the most obvious example, but I have even observed it happening in "western" countries.

And i the wizard a tourist?

Plus that isn't all about extra wealth of tourists. Its also that tourists:

a. Are generally in a more money spending mood since they are on holiday
b. Often do not know the market price of what they are buying

Plus tourist prices is an attitude to the whole customer basis, not a individual one who happens to be very wealthy.

So its not a very good comparison at all.

And even if it were, you are still yet to justify how the merchant knows the wizard has effectively infinite wealth.

[Shinken]

You could use the wealth rules from d20 Modern.
Also,

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

So sadly true.

[Slipperychicken]

Not actually true. This phenomenon actually happens in the real world. Thailand is the most obvious example, but I have even observed it happening in "western" countries (DVD zones is the most notable example for western countries, where zone 1 and zone 2 (Europe and USA) DVDs are routinely set at higher RRP prices than other zones, in order to gouge the market for all it is worth).

http://www.travelfish.org/board/post...-tourist-price

That works precisely because the tourists have higher demand than native thais. They're willing to pay more money for the same service.


EDIT: Also, it's typically called 'price discrimination' or 'tiered pricing'. In those cases, sellers notice that different market segments are willing to pay different prices, and charge each segment what it's willing to pay. A similar effect occurs when companies give discounts to students, children, and the elderly, because those groups don't have as much demand as the general population.

[Shinken]

That works precisely because the tourists have higher demand than native thais. They're willing to pay more money for the same service.

But that's not what demand means.

[1eGuy]

And then the DM would be expected to lay out a full list of results from such a change in setting lore, not just bring it up when they don't like a logical application of the fluff.

Well, that's easy:

"Sometimes spells fail because the god of magic doesn't like your application of the power or because you didn't go to church or because she's in a bad mood."

Similarly, and a bit more restrictively: "The god of storms doesn't allow you to cast that control weather spell today." which isn't even much of a change to the game's assumptions. If you have gods of X, then it's not a big surprise if they control X, is it?

Anyway, logic and magic (and gods) are pretty well opposites.

And even if it were, you are still yet to justify how the merchant knows the wizard has effectively infinite wealth.

Any shopkeeper knows that if someone keeps turning up and buying expensive things without even haggling then that is someone they should try selling more expensive things to.

[1eGuy]

That works precisely because the tourists have higher demand than native thais. They're willing to pay more money for the same service.

Another way of looking at it is that the tourists have a greater supply of money, so the money is worth less - which is the reason sane economists say you should avoid just printing more money when you're in trouble.

[Boci]

[QUOTE=1eGuy;17595922]Well, that's easy:

"Sometimes spells fail because the god of magic doesn't like your application of the power or because you didn't go to church or because she's in a bad mood."

Similarly, and a bit more restrictively: "The god of storms doesn't allow you to cast that control weather spell today."

That is known as DM fiat and is considered bad form by most posters on this forum. On the other hand, "I know magic can easily break the D&D economy, please don't" will generally be considered perfectly reasonable.

which isn't even much of a change to the game's assumptions. If you have gods of X, then it's not a big surprise if they control X, is it?

Kinda is a big surprise, since its a significant chance to a setting if people with opposing aliment and goals to the God of X can no longer use X. See the Giant's take on the matter in his most recent comic page.

Any shopkeeper knows that if someone keeps turning up and buying expensive things without even haggling then that is someone they should try selling more expensive things to.

That assumes that:
a. the wizard doesn't try to haggle
b. the wizard always goes to the same merchant

And even if both of those are true, how is being offered expensive goods that bad a thing?

[Slipperychicken]

That works precisely because the tourists have higher demand than native thais. They're willing to pay more money for the same service.

But that's not what demand means.

You sure about that?

Wikipedia

Demand is a buyer's willingness and ability to pay a price for a specific quantity of a good or service. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers at various prices. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand.[1] (see also supply and demand). The term demand signifies the ability or the willingness to buy a particular commodity at a given point of time.

Webster's dictionary, demand
willingness and ability to purchase a commodity or service <the demand for quality day care>

Dictionary.com, demand
Economics .
a.
the desire to purchase, coupled with the power to do so.
b.
the quantity of goods that buyers will take at a particular price.

The free dictionary, demand
5. Economics
a. The desire to possess a commodity or make use of a service, combined with the ability to purchase it.
b. The amount of a commodity or service that people are ready to buy for a given price: Supply should rise to meet demand.

[ace rooster]

Are you looking for a way to make a functional economy in a D&D world, or a way of handling one in rules? The distinction is important, as I always just assume that a functioning economy exists, and that the rules as presented are a streamlined simplification that is only appropriate for small scale transactions (or uses in the case of spells). As such, if a player assumes that the DM is going to follow the rules for industrial applications the DM will just say "no, this is outside the scope of these rules, and no I am not going to homebrew rules so you can set up a 10ft pole factory."

The system I usually assume is based on conservation of magic, with there being processes for converting materials reversibly; for example, converting gold to lead releasing the value in magic power for use in crafting, or the reverse using the same amount of magic to transmute into gold. The processes for making things like diamonds take a very long time, and requires very specific conditions, so you cannot just transmute at will, but 1000gp worth of diamonds is something concrete.

If you are looking to actually build consistent rules (that players won't just break), then we have to start by assuming that everything costs what it does for a reason. Mostly the cost of things reflects the difficulty of crafting them, so the main difficulty is justifying why level 1 wizards charge as much as 5 days in a good inn per spell. There are plenty of them about, and they can cast at least 4 spells per day. There is no way that there is demand for that many spells at that price, as most things that mending would be used for will be less than 5gp, so it would be cheaper replacing it. There must be some other factor that causes spellcasters to hold back on casting spells, and would make it a bad idea for PCs to start undercutting them. A guild would have some impact, but I would doupt they would limit mending to only high end jewelery uses (which it would be at 5gp per casting) so there must be some other factors as well.

Magic economics can be handled by assuming that channeling enough energy to kill someone at range in 6 seconds will have some impact on the caster and the enviroment that is not covered in the rules. Something like the impact of 50 cigerettes on the casters health would not be combat relevent (hence would not appear in the rules), but would mean that casters would not want to cast spells on a daily basis. If casting spells suptly pollutes the area around in a way that is not noticable then again casters would not want to be slinging spells too much, especially if it makes casting harder in future (a high background level of magic causes spells to cast spontaniously, but adding more magic is difficult). Think effects like necromancy attracting ghouls and causing the dead to rise occasionally, but causing necromancy spells to be harder to cast in the area. Conjuration could draw through outsiders, with the evil ones happy to cause mayhem and the good ones annoyed to be stuck. Abjuration causes magic to just go mad, and transmutation could be responsible for owlbears (I can't think of any other reason for them to exist). Casters who want to stay hidden would be forced to keep their magic to a minimum, with things like dragons very easily finding the effects of long term magic use on an area.

Personally I would steer well clear of solid rules for economics, and basically say just stare at any player that tries to do anything that requires them until they change their mind. I might make up some rules relating to profession merchent and investing money on trade goods, but unless the PCs manage to set up the east india company (having shut down the pirates), the PCs will not be able influence the large scale economics of the world. Similarly I would start making rules about low level backlash if I have PCs that start overusing magic on a daily basis (This is something I make clear at the start). Expect tumors with massive SR within a year if you are casting 50+ levels of spells a day.

Hope this helps.

[Thanatosia]

Any reasonably intelligent merchant will note that the wizard ALWAYS has enough gold and never sells anything to acquire more gold, and can logically conclude that he has an infinite (or effectively so) supply of gold, and so would adjust his prices accordingly.

So do you think Big Macs suddenly cost $1,000 the instant Mark Cuban walks into the doors of a Mcdonalds? Cuz no, that's not how things work generally speaking.

If the Merchant knows for a fact that the Wizard has virtually endless money (and simply having enough gold and never selling anything is not an indicator of this - esp if the Wizard is not a well known local figure, and if he IS a local figure, screwing with him is much more hazardous), and is reasonably sure he has a complete monopoly on something the wizard needs, he might gouge the wizard to a certain degree. But more likely any overt abuse is going to result in the Wizard simply walking out of the store and offering anyone else willing to go into the nearby caves and scrape up some droppings a figure that while still completely insignificant for him, is still going to be very well worth the time of someone else to drop whatever they are doing and run for the hills with a bucket.

[jedipotter]

Yeah, that's a totally appropriate response. Not "Okay, DC: 15 survival check, are you asking any other players to help?"

This isn't the caster not playing with the other players, this is the caster playing under the rules you put forth, and you punishing them for trying to intelligently interact with these rules rather than nerf themselves as you intended.

Well the question was not ''what if the player asked the rest of the group to help his character find some needed things. '' It was what if the whole group was bored waiting around for the one player.

I do punish people for being problem players.

The more I read your anecdotes of how you solve problems as a GM the more I wonder why anyone plays with you. You essentially doomed that player from character creation because their only choices are going without their only class feature or dying.

More accurate to say: You can't cheat and play a broken spellcaster. Is it a bad thing to drop spellcasters down to like Teir 3? I don't think so....

Even if you do fix the component pouch, you are still left with the problem that they are kinda stupid. Wanna talk realism? Cool. What are the material component for a fireball to a tribal sorcerer who grew up on an island where bats are not native? Or are bats native everywhere?

Well, it is not stupid at all. It works like this....not bats around, then no one is casting fireball. Simple. Easy. It is a great way of avoiding the ''everyone in the world knows the same twelve spells'' problem.

[1eGuy]

Well, that's easy:

"Sometimes spells fail because the god of magic doesn't like your application of the power or because you didn't go to church or because she's in a bad mood."

Similarly, and a bit more restrictively: "The god of storms doesn't allow you to cast that control weather spell today."

That is known as DM fiat and is considered bad form by most posters on this forum.

The DM is simply playing an NPC - the god - like any other; that's a big part of the DM's job.

Kinda is a big surprise, since its a significant chance to a setting if people with opposing aliment and goals to the God of X can no longer use X.

Sure, but it doesn't require a detailed break down as you suggested; simply a statement that that's how this DM's campaign works. Players will be able to predict most of the details from common sense or work them out from exploring the possibilities in-game. Which is good because then the DM can introduce the exceptions as part of game play and adventure plots etc.

That assumes that:
a. the wizard doesn't try to haggle
b. the wizard always goes to the same merchant

Yes. I think those were the assumptions.

[Shinken]

You sure about that?

Sorry, I was wrong. I was assuming it meant the same as its cognate in Portuguese.