The Sundered Way - OOC

[spiderwrangler]

Looks like you healed Tess on May 31st as well? Think that was right after you guys cleared the room you and Rudy retreated to?

[M0rtimer]

I've still got two spells prepared I believe, I'll have to check the sheet once I'm home- So I can heal Maji... Soon as I can get in melee range, at least.

[spiderwrangler]

Maji has been pulled back to where he is adjacent to both Ulmwin and Coljin.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

I think Randy has one more heal left, but it looks like the RNG fairy has it in for Randy. I'd like to save it if possible for later. And I guess we still have healing potions left. I don't believe Randy has used his yet.

[Arch Lich Burns]

We also have goodberries in case of emergencies.

[thinkslogically]

Yup. Also there's a bunch of bad news coming up from downstairs. I don't know how exactly Nemeia is going to convey that information yet, but this isn't going to get better any time soon...

[spiderwrangler]

I have a tendency to over build things... I think after you guys get out of here, I'll be trying to be more mindful of not tying you up for 6 months underground at a time...

[M0rtimer]

All that precious xp, though...

[spiderwrangler]

I'll just give you fewer high power beasties!

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Just remember to make the hallways two people wide. Single file is pretty much straight attrition.

[spiderwrangler]

Yeah, the narrow hallways hamper the baddies as much as you guys, but it does drastically cut back the dynamics of battle.

((Forum ate this post...))

We talked about crafting previously, and the PHB is rather vague in parts. WotC just released an Unearthed Arcana about downtime activities, including crafting. It seems pretty straight forward, and much more simple than the existing rules, from what I can tell at a skim. If you want to, have a look at it, I'll likely be allowing you guys some downtime following this current adventure, and be using this more than the PHB.

The section on potions of healing would be of particular interest to Maji...

[thinkslogically]

I'll just give you fewer high power beasties!

I think this may just be the nature of D&D on a forum! You guys have been trapped in one conversation in my game for like 2 weeks now...

[Arch Lich Burns]

I remember that UA. I like to pretend it does not exist. The first healing potion is okay but everything else is...bad. And that's not getting into the complications you can get into for just making a potion/scroll.

9th level scroll: 250,000 gp
Legendary Item: 100,000 gp

How does that make sense? You can't even make a profit from selling the legendary item you make, getting much less than you take to craft it. 37,500. While buying a legendary item is 2d6x25000 making it better to buy than create.

Creating magic items is more expensive than finding one of the same tier. So while the 1st level spell healing potion is better than it currently is..the other stuff is kinda junk....

[spiderwrangler]

I remember that UA. I like to pretend it does not exist. The first healing potion is okay but everything else is...bad. And that's not getting into the complications you can get into for just making a potion/scroll.

9th level scroll: 250,000 gp
Legendary Item: 100,000 gp

How does that make sense? You can't even make a profit from selling the legendary item you make, getting much less than you take to craft it. 37,500. While buying a legendary item is 2d6x25000 making it better to buy than create.

Creating magic items is more expensive than finding one of the same tier. So while the 1st level spell healing potion is better than it currently is..the other stuff is kinda junk....

Who is building legendary items for profit? In order to craft one, you're going to have to "face" a creature of 19+ CR in order to get some vital component, and a single person crafting it would spend 500 workweeks on it. This isn't something to be made on a whim to try to make a quick buck, this is the pinnacle of a craftman's life's work. If you're crafting a legendary item, it's a big deal. The base purchase prices are quite low, likely to reflect a lack of buyers able to finance purchasing such an item this would perhaps be setting dependent, as most individuals capable of buying a legendary item would be fellow adventurers (or villains).

Yes, finding one on an adventure is going to be cheaper, but there is more risk involved... you need to be taking on something of 17+ CR to even have a 20% chance of rolling on the table that contains legendary items (7% chance when facing CR 11-16)... and again, no guarantee of what it is going to be. Crafting your own takes time, materials, and money, but you'd end up making exactly what you want (barring complications).

As for buying, yes, the math they give is 2d6 x 25000, but is only a better purchase price than crafting if you roll 1-3. 4-12 (91.67% of the rolls) are going to be the same or more expensive to buy. And that's not taking into account that you need to search to find who might have a legendary item for sale, much less if it's one you are interested in. In order to even catch a rumor of a Legendary item, you'd need to spend 10 weeks (or 1000 gold, or some of each) as well as make a Persuasion check of 31 to even get a chance to try to buy one. That's going to be well out of the reach for most characters.

9th level spells can alter the fabric of reality, they SHOULDN'T be cheap and easy to make.

I think that 5e may have dialed it back a touch too far on limiting magic items, but it seems you're advocating too far in the other direction.

So far I think this UA makes more sense than the PHB, though I do want to read through it a bit more.

[spiderwrangler]

I don't think it's perfect by any means, but gives me a more coherent starting point.

[thinkslogically]

You could also have a look at the "Sane Magical Prices" homebrew that's been developed over on the GitP forums (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... tem-Prices). It doesn't solve everything, but it does try to even out some of those pricing discrpancies like the one Burns talked about. Our current RL DM is using it for his campaign, but aside from making healing potions REALLY expensive we haven't played long enough to get a feel for it yet. I do know we're getting a lot of gold for our questing troubles, but that might be because I was pretty stingy with loot when I DM'd

I do quite like the quest-hook potential that a low-magical-item setting brings with it. If the only people who can afford to buy magical stuff are the elite <1% with all the money, that already tells something interesting about the society in general, but arguably at that point you're also looking at a market where everything magical has essentially become priceless anyway, so PHB prices aren't going to matter nearly so much as the in-game setting / buyer. Normal people simply can't afford the PHB prices (50GP for a healing potion is absurdly out-of-reach compared to even a modest living expense of 1GP a day and that's one of the cheapest magical things in there!). The fact that these sorts of items can be found for sale at all is kind of crazy, because who the hell is buying them?

On the other hand, that kind of thing can work great for quests and plothooks, because it means that there's no real point in crafting an item you aren't going to use yourself unless you have a buyer ready to fund the whole endeavour or who's willing to buy what you're selling.

Anyway, I guess the point is that the 5e economy requires an awful lot of mental gymnastics to make it work in any way that makes sense, so it's probably not worth taking too seriously. These things are (IMO) largely there as a means to a murderous end for teh sorts of bands of adventurers who take on dragons and loot their hoards. I don't think it's really designed as a working trade-simulator.

[spiderwrangler]

Yeah... I have the sane prices thing to reference as well, since the DMG/PHB really only offer base prices for the different rarities. We'll see how much it comes up.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

I'm going to be out of pocket until about noon tomorrow. If any rolls need to be made by Randy in the meantime, Spider could do it and I catch up with what's going on later.

[spiderwrangler]

Noted!

[thinkslogically]

So what does Randy know about Nem right now, and how much of that is stuff only he knows?

I know he saw her eyes when she was unconscious, but I don't remember if there's anything else he knows at this point.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Randy also has noted that Tess seems to have a way with locks, in that the door is locked and then after Tess goofs with it, it suddenly isn't. Some of this Holger knows, of course. Just because of the eye color, Randy is going to be wondering about if she is truly human, or just masquerading? I don't know that he's noticed her dark vision per se, but he might be wondering about that too. It's pretty obvious to him that if she's going through that much trouble to hide her eye color that 1) It's probably her true eye color and 2) for her to hide it that quickly after being roused from unconsciousness she either used some form of slight of hand or magic. He's more curious at this point, rather than suspicious. Tess has proven a valuable member of the party and hasn't done anything to arouse suspicion of foul play. He's going to assume she has her reasons and leave it at that. It's up to Tess if she wants to make him a full ally or not. Being an acolyte, he would hold the same confessional rules that the full priesthood follows.

[M0rtimer]

I think Ulmwin had at one point noticed that Tess was doing awfully fine without any kind of lightsource, but ultimately didn't think much of it and is otherwise clueless.

[spiderwrangler]

(( Doesn't Tess have a set of lock picks now? ))

She *may*, but is also avoiding it being common knowledge.

[thinkslogically]

Ok. I guess I'm curious how common the knowledge would be that people can change their eye colour and stuff. I mean, if I saw a pupilless, yellow eye in an unconscious person I'd probably assume it was a trick of the torchlight. But then again, that's what I'm hoping for!

I've been trying to be careful about the light thing, but just trying to keep track of what Nem knows and what I know also, yes. She is proficient at lockpicking and stuff, but she's not sharing that info. You guys are just bad at noticing doors are unlocked!

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Remember: Randy is essentially an archivist with a military background and survival training. He's 1) normally observant. 2) Familiar with field medicine and would know what's normal and what's not in examining an unconscious person, 3) probably have a fair idea of what magic can and can't do from his various backgrounds.