baronfulmen:darker-than-darkstorm:dare-to-dm:waffle-sorter:dare-to-dm:Granted, a cantrip is a little
baronfulmen:darker-than-darkstorm:dare-to-dm:waffle-sorter:dare-to-dm:Granted, a cantrip is a little nicer than a crossbow in some ways. You never need to worry about running out of ammunition or being disarmed (unless someone literally removes your arms) or having your weapon stolen.So, it’s more comparable to getting a crossbow with the Impervious, Called and Endless Ammunition enchantments. Which would cost 32,000 gold! 32,000gp sounds a lot better than 50gp for your soul, but I still think you could do better than a 1d10 cantrip. If your soul is worth only 32,000gp, why not try going for one of these options instead!A flaming, shocking, corrosive, seeking crossbow, which is a way better weapon IMO for the same priceA belt that can turn you into a mermaid once per dayA magic cauldron that can create zombies, with enough money left over for materials to make 80 of the damn thingsA headband that gives you cold resistance, a breath attack, and lets you transform into a giant wolfA Deluxe Flying Broom that comes when you call itA Bag of Holding III, which is powerful enough to hold the 24,600 gold pieces you have left over after buying it with your straight cash payout640 cowsA magic circlet that protects the soul you no longer own and 2000gp worth of booze to appreciate the irony (tags from @dare-to-dm)Particularly because 5e doesn’t supply the tools for it. Even to the extent that those items exist, in the core books there’s no canonical value for any specific magic item other than the basic potion of healing, just a range based on rarity (”very rare” means “somewhere between 5,001 and 50,000 gp”) …The section on “buying and selling” magic items in the DMG is four paragraphs long, and three of them explicitly assume that magic item trade is rare and/or difficult in any given campaign world. And the most it says is ‘these are the types of venues that might be relevant’. Sometimes I wonder how much actual effort went into the 5e books. That’s part of what I love about Pathfinder. It’s a huge, complicated system. But it gives you the tools to answer almost any hypothetical issue you could come across! And makes all the information freely available online in a way that’s not too difficult to navigate.Whereas the main benefit of 5e seems to be its simplicity. I’m playing in a 5e campaign, and the last time my character leveled up, it took me 30 seconds to update my stats. I’ll grant you, the same thing takes me closer to 30 minutes in Pathfinder. But I enjoy it a lot more! Leveling up in Pathfinder tends to add more options rather than just higher numbers. There’s a few situations like that in 5e, but it’s mostly just Slightly Bigger Numbers. (And a lot of numbers go up a lot less frequently than Pathfinder, like Proficiency Bonus) Pricing in 5e is absolutely ridiculous, and might as well be nonexistent for magic items. For example:HUH. Looks like even at its most expensive it’s cheaper to buy a magical spyglass than a normal one. COOOOL.When I point this out I get some RIDICULOUS responses, like “I don’t know, seems like lenses are really hard to make so maybe that’s fair” which only makes any sense if you absolutely ignore the rest of D&D.And then to make things worse, in a later sourcebook they were like “yeah to fix this we’re going to say that ACTUALLY it’s not just common / uncommon / rare / very rare, there’s also a further distinction between MINOR magic items and MAJOR magic items.Which are which?HahaHahahahahahaWell you can cross reference a table in the DMG for some of them, but for the rest I guess you just have no way of knowing! Gooooooood luck! As someone who has been running games and playing in Pathfinder for close to a decade now, I can say that there are things I love and hate about the system.Pathfinder has many more specific rules, options and world information. It gives the GM and players a ton to work off of. However, when I run my games, I tend to ignore 50% of the rules just to simplify the game!However in 5E it seems like many of the basic rules are not clearly given leaving the community to come up with their own way of doing things. Personally I think I prefer having the option of ignoring rules, only looking at them when I need them, rather than needing to try and figure out how much a merchant will buy a magic item for if my players want to sell it. IMO, both systems have their pros and cons. Pathfinder could probably be simpler. 5e could be more complicated. But I think both bring something to the table in their own way. But in both systems, the economy is fucked. Adventurer’s are absolutely the 1%. The amount of wealth they gain is absurd compared to the rest of the NPCs. Magic items are far and beyond anyone’s ability to casually purchase, despite the fact even minor items would vastly improve common life.I try to justify it in games by saying it’s intentionally designed this way. The wealthy and powerful don’t want to share magic with the commoners. There are also excuses of “If everyone had access to magic there is no telling what irresponsible people would do.” or “It’s too dangerous to let common people have magic. Better to keep it expensive and exclusive.” But obviously those excuses don’t hold a ton of weight. ANYWAY, Dare-to-DM is right. Don’t let a fucked economy tell you what your soul is worth. I bet it’s a legendary item. That’s why all the devil’s are after it. -- source link
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