Author Topic: How do you treat magical items?  (Read 11904 times)

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: How do you treat magical items?
« Reply #40 on: May 31, 2012, 04:17:45 AM »
@Captnq

I'm going to essentially ignore your screed.  Unless things are being sold at their marginal cost, that is, the cost it takes to make them, then the fact that the production technology is stable does not matter much for the price.  It depends what the market can bear.  Absent serious market power, a 100% increase over the costs of production is hard to imagine being sustainable.  Market power would be something like being the sole supplier, it's common nowadays due to enforceable patents. 

I also feel compelled to point out that inflation is not the sole price-changing economic force out there.  Likewise, there were prices, and price fluctuations, long before industrialization.  This is not contentious -- there's a whole discipline of this stuff out there.   

And, that's setting aside weird things, like your contention that it's a universe where magic items are completely standardized and prices cannot fluctuate for long, but there can be the magical equivalent of Ikea.  Or, if magic items are sufficiently expensive to be out of reach of most of society, then why is all economic activity closely pegged to it? 

More important than all that, though:  your post is obnoxious.  I don't care that you disagree with me.  I care that you're being a dick.  Think about what kind of poster you want to be and what kind of community you want to be part of -- one capable of having discussion, or one that caters to screeds like yours. 


P.S.:  note that the "one price" referred to in the Law of One Price is the efficient price, meaning the marginal cost (or infinitesimally above that).  It's the same price you get from any competitive frictionless (i.e., perfect) market. 

D&D's prices are twice the marginal cost.  Although that's just in gp.  I don't know how the numbers work out once you include xp costs, not to mention feat costs, training costs (getting high enough level to make it), opportunity costs, etc.  But, how we're back into "fuck it" territory.  Which, I'm fine with, it's my preferred solution b/c I don't think there's even an attempt to rationalize these things in the rules. 
« Last Edit: May 31, 2012, 04:21:03 AM by Unbeliever »

Offline Endarire

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Re: How do you treat magical items?
« Reply #41 on: June 09, 2012, 04:28:56 AM »
Considering I'm a big proponent of my module, The Metaphysical Revolution wherein magic is mass produced, that should tell you.