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[Criptfeind]

Very interesting read.

But yea, economics in D&D are horribly broken.  Adventurers basically have prices inflated far beyond what anyone working as a normal laborer can afford(a normal laborer would have to work 3 days just to afford a 1 day stay at a poor inn with poor food).  Heck for the price of 1 day of poor food, you can get 5 loaves of bread; far more than anyone could eat in a single day.  If your stableboy is a trained laborer, the feed that he gives each horse is worth 1/6 of his day's wages.  It's all just hand-waved away so you can get back to crawling through your dungeons and saving the world.

I do not see the issue with any of that. :/ That all seems about right for the times.

Also, for the addy, there are not rules for making the prices go up or down because it assumes by the time you can do that you will be doing it in a extra planer areas where it does not matter. If the economy is uneffect that is because your GM did not care enough to change it. Which is fair since DnD is not suppose to be a economic simulator.

Edit: I think the biggest issue on the low level area is that valuable metals are not in fact valuable, which is easy to fix if you inject iron and bronze (maybe other) coins into the system.

[Hastur]

well i would play this. I could also run this kind of thing. Let me say that dnd economics are really bad. Dnd 3.5 isnt my favorite system by far, but at least its not a RTD game.

lets play a game where we are PIRATES/traders! i think that would be easier for you to Gm and do the stuff you are looking for. (pirates was gonna be my next game i ran )

fortress/dungeon/pirateship, its all the same thing if the pc's stay on it.

[mainiac]

I do not see the issue with any of that. :/ That all seems about right for the times.

And the peasant outfit costing one eightieth of the price of the cloth?  The one pound lamp that costs no more then one pound of slag iron?  The ten foot pole that could be melted down into four times it's cost in iron?  The sack that costs as much as an outfit but could still be cut into cloth and sold at a profit?

I think that if you wanted a realistic system, it would be based off this three step system.

First come up with the base price of a material where it is made.  So you have a price list like:
Linen costs 1 silver a yard
Wool costs 3 silvers a yard
Silk costs 9 silvers a yard
Iron costs 2 silver a pound
Steel costs 2 gold a pound
Mithral costs 20 gold a pound
...and so on

Then you modify this price according to availability.  Right at the source, it's maybe 33% off.  If it comes from another continent, triple the price.

Step three is factoring in the labor.
Apprentice labor: 5 cp/day
Journeyman labor: 1 silver/day
Master labor: 2 silver/day (that is someone who runs their own shop, not a supreme master of the trade)
...and so on

So a masterwork sword is about 8 gp for 4 pounds of steel and 6 gp for a month of master labor.  That's 14 gp, a bargin!  Well, that 14 gp is actually a pretty substantial fortune if you are living in a world where copper coins actually have some value to them.

[Jack A T]

The ten-foot long ladder that costs far less than a ten-foot long pole?

[mainiac]

The ten-foot long ladder that costs far less than a ten-foot long pole?

Crap, why was I thinking of investing in love potions?  I just needed to buy ladders and break them down for parts!

[Araph]

I like the idea of a three step system. It would make all of the prices closer to what they would realistically be. We would need to price all the base materials and all the of the potential jobs we would encounter, though.

Following a different idea, what would everyone think of a campaign where we play as monsters instead of PC's? It would mostly be home-brewed stuff, so that everything would be LA 0. I like the idea of it being like DF's Kobold Camp mod. We'd have to survive near some village, but heroes and guards would be attacking us.

[Criptfeind]

And the peasant outfit costing one eightieth of the price of the cloth?  The one pound lamp that costs no more then one pound of slag iron?  The ten foot pole that could be melted down into four times it's cost in iron?  The sack that costs as much as an outfit but could still be cut into cloth and sold at a profit?

The ten-foot long ladder that costs far less than a ten-foot long pole?

Despite that hilarious posting on the internet where you must have read this, none of that is by RAW.

There is a issue with mass, but who cares?

Edit: In case you did not get what I am saying:

Just case some random person on the internet was inflamed at this stuff does not mean it is true. Before you say such things you should really go look up the real rules on making stuff. (They are crazy of course, but that is not here nor there.)

You are like the guys who think pun pun is possible because they read such a rad thing online it must be oh my god infinite loops so cool!

[mainiac]

Despite that hilarious posting on the internet where you must have read this, none of that is by RAW.

According to the d20 srd, linen is 4 GP a square yard.  According to the d20 srd, a peasants outfit is 1 silver.  It looks like I pooched the math slightly (geez, what's wrong with me lately?).  But that still comes out to a peasants outfit costing as much as a 5.7 inch wide square patch of linen.  And linen is the cheapest cloth I am aware of in a dnd setting.  That's enough for a scanty loincloth and not much more.

A more realistic price for a peasants outfit would be about 10 GP if linen costs that much, as that's the basic price of the materials and the stitching wouldn't cost very much.

[Criptfeind]

That breaks down on:

1: So what? That's not how you make things and you know it.

2: Peasants do not wear linen.

[Hastur]

I like the idea of a three step system. It would make all of the prices closer to what they would realistically be. We would need to price all the base materials and all the of the potential jobs we would encounter, though.

Following a different idea, what would everyone think of a campaign where we play as monsters instead of PC's? It would mostly be home-brewed stuff, so that everything would be LA 0. I like the idea of it being like DF's Kobold Camp mod. We'd have to survive near some village, but heroes and guards would be attacking us.

Back on topic. I'd play. there is interest. and if everyone hates it it will peter out and die. So whatre we waiting for? Just dont let the economy beards in to try to argue their economics/rules lawyery at you and focus on the fun stuff.

[mainiac]

That breaks down on:

1: So what? That's not how you make things and you know it.

2: Peasants do not wear linen.

You don't make things from materials?  No matter what process you make things buy, a set of medieval clothing is gonna take at very least a couple of square yards of fabric.  And linen was in the medieval times the cheapest fabric around, costing approximately one third the price of wool and maybe one tenth the cost of silk.  (Cotton was not available in the European cultures that DnD is based on.)  If they weren't wearing linen, they were going naked.

The thing is these prices aren't off by a little bit, they're off by an absurdly large amount.  Even if you fudged every number to make it less absurd, it would still be easy to make a huge profit buying peasant clothing, cutting it into strips and sowing it back into second rate linen.

[Jack A T]

The ten-foot long ladder that costs far less than a ten-foot long pole?

Just case some random person on the internet was inflamed at this stuff does not mean it is true. Before you say such things you should really go look up the real rules on making stuff. (They are crazy of course, but that is not here nor there.)

1. Actually, I didn't find it on the internet.
2. Crafting rules are a large part of why the 10 ft pole/ladder issue is amusing, because they get rid of quite a few of the possible justifications for the prices.  The only cost involved in crafting is the raw material cost, which is based on the base price of the item.

Material costs:
*10 ft ladder (20 lbs): 0.1 sp (rounded to nearest cp)
*10 ft pole (8 lbs): 0.7 sp (rounded to nearest cp)
*Tower shield (45 lbs, almost all of which is definitely wood): 100 sp

Also notable: a metal buckler costs far more in the way of raw materials, per pound, than a heavy steel shield.

Something is still wrong here.

[Criptfeind]

You don't make things from materials?

Yup.

[mainiac]

You don't make things from materials?

Yup.

Care to elaborate?  What exact do you make things from, if not materials?

[Araph]

Economics discussions aside, are enough people interested in starting a D&D group to validate making a group? And if so, what direction would it take? It seems like trade is turning into the main focus, but that may just be because it's being argued over more.