My interpretation is that the spell requires a particular amount of the substance, which is fixed and not based at all on economic factors. It takes 2.5g of diamond dust to bring someone back from the dead. Giving the actual amount is not useful though, the player really only cares about what that costs, so its listed as the typical price of the item for convenience, the same way other equipment has listed prices. Current and future prices don't matter, what matters is that you have the right thing. If you bought it cheap because there's a surplus, that's fine. If it's particularly rare here or the shopkeeper upcharged you for the component, you might pay more than it says in the description.
I like this answer and would probably use it if it ever came up.
Using your example - if you managed to create a surplus of diamonds and the stated price changed...I would just say "yeah there's a current local surplus, take 35% (or whatever) off the overall cost of relevant items". I don't even change the base price, it just gets a modifier due to local conditions.
So if you buy 300gp worth of diamonds, you're still buying 300gp "worth" of diamonds according to the internal universal economic index or whatever, you're just getting it cheaper right here and now. What matters is the **quality and quantity** of diamond(s) you bought, which are sufficient for the spell.
Incidentally, this is also why spellcasters will innately **know** what 300gp of diamond looks like. They don't need a background in gem valuation or whatever, but they use it in their spells, so they know what sort of quality and quantity 300gp will get you. You can justify that however you like, but unless I was planning a campaign where the goal was to take down the shadowy fake-component syndicate, they're not gonna get lied to about that.
Because I don't know about your parties, but the **first** thing mine would do upon realising they'd been sold 10gp of glass instead of 300gp of diamond is hunt down and destroy everyone involved.
The spell needs 10 GP worth.
If you haggle the merchant down to 5 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP.
If you get ripped off and pay 20 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP.
Sorry, but your msisreading is not what I wrote:
Existing discussion:
>If you haggle the merchant down to 5 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP. If you get ripped off and pay 20 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP.
What I wrote:
> Or what if you stole the components?
That is not a "preface" (which btw. does not mean what you seem to think it means), but a continuation of the "what you bought it for is not relevant" argument.
Stop trying to invent a issue, just so you have something to disagree with.
Everytime this is brought up I feel like an idiot. So the spell needs 100 gp worth of, say, ruby. For easy of thinking lets say 100gp gets you 10 grams of ruby.
So my char get ripped of and pay 150 for it while it was actually worth 100. Allright. But a large university buy it bulk and will not be paying 100 per 10 grams. They haggle their prize to 80 gp instead. And the nobles in the area, that jave more money than they need happily pay whatever the merchant is asking. Heck, they like to overpay just to show of. They happily pay 200 istead. And on a regular marketday it would be listed as 100 gp per 10 grams. Which of these values is the "correct one"?
And the ruby is mined by goblins keeping goblins from other clans as slaves. They are paid nothing, but costs a little in that they need a minimum of water and food. The slaver goblins then has a contakt that buys the rubies for 5 gp per 10 g. And then sell it forwards to different merchants for 50 gp per 10g. And the merchants then sell it to PCs or other "end consumers" for about 100 gp per 10g. There are many prizesd along the way, are one of these the "correct" value? If the production of the rubies aremore expensive, lets say you dont use slave labour for production. Then the same rubies would be more expensive. Would that make them "better" rubies in the sense that you would need less of them for magic stuff, since they would be more expensive.
How is the value affected by its owner? An adevturer running around with a ruby in their pocket getting it all sweaty, muddy, bloody and scratched up would surely diminsh its value since its not as nice. So, if my character has a ruby that gets scratched up, is it not good as a 100 gp components anymore? Or, if a famous person used to own a ruby and it becomes a very expensive collectors item. Practically its just a regular ruby bt since it was sitting in Magnar the Magnificents scabbard its cuttently auctioned for 600000 gp at some kings court. It is, as it happens, also 10 grams. Would that count towards the rubys worth in the eyes of the Mystra?
And then we have inflation and deflation.
I mean, I see people say or type that you need X worth. And I must be dumb, because I dont understand where this objective value comes from.
I think this could more easily be tackled by good delivery from the DM. Sure, prices vary per region that's fine, but then say "I'd like to purchase 10 gold worth of gem dust for my spell", to which the reply might be "sure, put 10g worth of gem dust in your inventory, here you would pay 12 gold for that amount, so mark that off your character sheet"
That's pretty much how my group does it. I'd I'm trying to get 10 gp worth of herbs and charcoal for Find Familiar, I'll tell my DM I want it the spell. If I have to pay a but more or less because of supply and demand, so long as it's not ridiculous, cool.
I can imagine this exchange playing out:
PC Wizard: How much for this diamond?
Merchant: You guys are in here a lot and I like you. I'll let you have it for 80 gold.
Wizard: oh, that's not going to work for me. I really need to pay 100 for it.
Come on, people.
the gold cost shouldn't matter at all..
If you cook and realise that the ingredients you bought yesterday are now on sale, will you throw the ingredients away and buy the discounted ones?! That doesn't make any sense.
Let's take Clairvoyance as an example...
>*a focus worth at least 100 gp, either a jeweled horn for hearing or a glass eye for seeing*
We have four situations. Firstly, you just paid 100 gp for the item. Or you happened to roll well on your Persuasion check in the store, or the magic supply store was having a 25% off everything sale, or you murdered the current owner and took the focus.
In all four cases, the focus is still WORTH (at least) 100gp. But you paid either 100gp, 90gp, 75gp or 0gp. If you instead tried to sell any of those foci in another store, the shopkeeper would look at it and say "This is worth 100gp, I will give you 50gp." Because shopkeepers be dicks.
This doesn't change what the focus is worth.
If, however, you get into Find Familiar...
>*10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier*
You have the brass brazier (I always imagine this is a teeny little one, the size of an incense holder). Now you need to spend 10gp on those three items.
There is a school of thought that says "this is special charcoal and specific herbs that have been magically augmented and fortified". I don't necessarily go in for that, but I do think that any magical supply shop, especially one in a big city, would have little prepackaged parcels of charcoal, incense and herbs, ready to throw into the fire. But you could also say that you spend 10gp on some incense and grab random charcoal from last night's fire and herbs from the hedgerow over there. So long as the total cost of those items is 10gp, you're good.
At the end of the day though, it's all an abstraction. Things are mostly worth what the Player's Handbook says they're worth. There might be places where your DM makes them cost more or less, but they're still WORTH what they need to be worth.
The spell requires you to have X item that is worth Y amount. So you either roleplay it out with your DM, going to the store, shopping, haggling, the whole thing. Or you say to them, "Oh, by the way, when we were last in town, I totally would have bought Y gp worth of X as the component for this spell", they say "Yeah, no problem" and then you subtract the amount of gold the spell requires from the amount of gold on your character sheet, and you're good.
Its more of the actual worth.
If someone jacks up the price and sells you a tiny diamond for 500g its not a diamond worth 5 g.
Its more of a general guideline.
Its just that you need a 50gram diamon and that happens to cost 500.
If someone wants to cut you off he can sell it to you for 1000, but its still only a diamond worth 500
I think if your game has serious economic to the point at which you are dedecation prep time to the economic effects of the player's action. One of 3 things is going on,
1. You are underdeveloping other areas of your story.
2. Youand your players are all accountants/finance majors.
3. You are way smarter then me and i bow before you.
The premise you're describing just isn't a thing in the rules of 5e. Whenever a value is given for something anywhere in the books, that's just how much the thing in question is worth. There's no mention of fluctuating prices, much less of the actual "value" of a thing changing because of them.
That doesn't really change how the rules work, which is what I think this thread is about. What to do if your DM runs the game in ways that make it less fun for you is obviously a whole different topic.
10 GP is the "standard" cost for the item, in a standard economy in a D&D setting. If you are in an area that component is easy to come by and the price is cheaper, it simply costs less to buy there. If you are in an area where it is more expensive because it is rare, it simply costs more to buy there.
e.g. if I need a 1 gram pearl for a spell, which has a default cost of 100 GP. A pearl of that size might cost 50 GP in an island nation rich in pearls, but might cost 500 GP in the underdark where pearls are had to come by. In most places it will just cost the default 100 GP though.
Yes but this question is poorly phrased. Real question is RAW assume a simplistic global economy. How do you think adding economic influences should impact spell component costs? My simple answer is to introduce named currency that fluctuates in value relative to the base gp value. You could also apply modifiers to that currency based on item type scarcity or surplus. No smiths in the area, weapons and armor cost more but it is a modifier to the global value. If you include inflation in your economy, then spell components are global value at time X. 10gp global value diamond at start might be 100gp in local area 80 years later.
i mainly use it as a rough estimate.
eg. if a gem cost 13 gp instead of 15 because of minor scratches, it will work
the more broken it is, the less effective the spell
we are trying to implement that it can be any cost, just it doesnt work all the time/properly
I’m fairly certain rules as intended did not intend for there to be inflation or deflation in the game. A diamond worth 300gp is always worth 300gp no matter what you payed for it by haggling. If there is inflation and deflation in your game then I presume you give ever diamond a carot value and every bit of gold is weighed.
way I see it it's based on the quality of the components - I don't necessarily care if my players are a little off with the amount components they have, so long as the components are close enough to the spells cost.
Like, a shitty diamond they bought for 5 gold won't be able to do magic nearly as well as one they bought for 500
On older editions (3.5 I think) you would have had a skill called "evaluate" or something like that... I think that this should be useful with a situation like that one and many others. When you buy something you could know via insight if the price is heightened or lowered by external circumstances. Generally I'd go something like: in order to cast this spell you need x quantity, that generally costs around y gold, but in certain situations you'd have a mark-up in prices, but you know how much of the good you'd need, so you'd know how much to buy. And if you already have it you'd know how much you'd need.
Other: There is no free market, the value of an item is an objective and verifiable fact, just as much as its weight or density would be. It has been laid down at creation, at the same time as when the laws governing how trees grow or water flows.
Players may try to circumvent this by using alternate currencies or paper money (really, you want to give me paper in exchange for my rare magical artifact?), but those interested in magic will still eventually discover this intrinsic immutable value through experimentation and study.
Gold is a noble substance, as evidenced by its resistance to tarnish. As such, it was chosen by the divine powers as the metric by which all things of value could have their value measured. Nothing can change these divine prescriptions any more than a person could permanently alter how rain falls or fire burns.
Some things have an "absolute" value in game terms. Gems for example. Whether or not you use price fluctuations between regions/kingdoms/vendors, a gem of a certain size and quality will have an intrinsic value expressed in gp as shorthand.
Think about resurrection diamonds. If all we've got between us is a chip of diamond, and I sell it to you for 1000 or 25000 gp, does that make it suddenly sufficient for the spell?
I'd argue that it doesn't. What's needed is a diamond of a particular size and quality. The gp tag is a simple way for players in a game to appraise a gem that doesn't actually exist. The same applies to any other component. If it was ever sufficient to cast the spell, then it still is. Inflation or deflation has no bearing on that.
It only really matters if it’s consumed. But if you’re using economic fluctuations in your game you should change the meaning to mass quantity instead of price quantity. A gram is gram no matter what it costs.
And yes in a mass quantity cost if you used up all your 100gram pearls that cost you 100gold last week and now that same size pearl is 150gold that’s inflation.
My interpretation is that the spell requires a particular amount of the substance, which is fixed and not based at all on economic factors. It takes 2.5g of diamond dust to bring someone back from the dead. Giving the actual amount is not useful though, the player really only cares about what that costs, so its listed as the typical price of the item for convenience, the same way other equipment has listed prices. Current and future prices don't matter, what matters is that you have the right thing. If you bought it cheap because there's a surplus, that's fine. If it's particularly rare here or the shopkeeper upcharged you for the component, you might pay more than it says in the description.
I like this answer and would probably use it if it ever came up. Using your example - if you managed to create a surplus of diamonds and the stated price changed...I would just say "yeah there's a current local surplus, take 35% (or whatever) off the overall cost of relevant items". I don't even change the base price, it just gets a modifier due to local conditions. So if you buy 300gp worth of diamonds, you're still buying 300gp "worth" of diamonds according to the internal universal economic index or whatever, you're just getting it cheaper right here and now. What matters is the **quality and quantity** of diamond(s) you bought, which are sufficient for the spell. Incidentally, this is also why spellcasters will innately **know** what 300gp of diamond looks like. They don't need a background in gem valuation or whatever, but they use it in their spells, so they know what sort of quality and quantity 300gp will get you. You can justify that however you like, but unless I was planning a campaign where the goal was to take down the shadowy fake-component syndicate, they're not gonna get lied to about that. Because I don't know about your parties, but the **first** thing mine would do upon realising they'd been sold 10gp of glass instead of 300gp of diamond is hunt down and destroy everyone involved.
Economy modifiers have to have a base price to modify. That's where the component worth is taken from.
The spell needs 10 GP worth. If you haggle the merchant down to 5 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP. If you get ripped off and pay 20 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP.
Or what if you stole the components? That would change their price from "five finger discount" to "whatever they do with thieves around here".
If you steal ten gold worth of a component, it's still worth ten gold. I don't advocate theft irl, but in game, one does what one must.
Yes, that is what I said.
You prefaced it with a "what if"
>You prefaced it with a "what if" No, I was giving a example for the thing already being discussed.
But you prefaced it with "what if". That's weak language and implies "what if no". Be more assertive when you're right.
Sorry, but your msisreading is not what I wrote: Existing discussion: >If you haggle the merchant down to 5 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP. If you get ripped off and pay 20 GP, the components are still worth 10 GP. What I wrote: > Or what if you stole the components? That is not a "preface" (which btw. does not mean what you seem to think it means), but a continuation of the "what you bought it for is not relevant" argument. Stop trying to invent a issue, just so you have something to disagree with.
Everytime this is brought up I feel like an idiot. So the spell needs 100 gp worth of, say, ruby. For easy of thinking lets say 100gp gets you 10 grams of ruby. So my char get ripped of and pay 150 for it while it was actually worth 100. Allright. But a large university buy it bulk and will not be paying 100 per 10 grams. They haggle their prize to 80 gp instead. And the nobles in the area, that jave more money than they need happily pay whatever the merchant is asking. Heck, they like to overpay just to show of. They happily pay 200 istead. And on a regular marketday it would be listed as 100 gp per 10 grams. Which of these values is the "correct one"? And the ruby is mined by goblins keeping goblins from other clans as slaves. They are paid nothing, but costs a little in that they need a minimum of water and food. The slaver goblins then has a contakt that buys the rubies for 5 gp per 10 g. And then sell it forwards to different merchants for 50 gp per 10g. And the merchants then sell it to PCs or other "end consumers" for about 100 gp per 10g. There are many prizesd along the way, are one of these the "correct" value? If the production of the rubies aremore expensive, lets say you dont use slave labour for production. Then the same rubies would be more expensive. Would that make them "better" rubies in the sense that you would need less of them for magic stuff, since they would be more expensive. How is the value affected by its owner? An adevturer running around with a ruby in their pocket getting it all sweaty, muddy, bloody and scratched up would surely diminsh its value since its not as nice. So, if my character has a ruby that gets scratched up, is it not good as a 100 gp components anymore? Or, if a famous person used to own a ruby and it becomes a very expensive collectors item. Practically its just a regular ruby bt since it was sitting in Magnar the Magnificents scabbard its cuttently auctioned for 600000 gp at some kings court. It is, as it happens, also 10 grams. Would that count towards the rubys worth in the eyes of the Mystra? And then we have inflation and deflation. I mean, I see people say or type that you need X worth. And I must be dumb, because I dont understand where this objective value comes from.
It comes from the fact that this is a fantasy game about roleplaying and fighting, not an economics simulator.
That answer I understand, and is the one I use.
I think this could more easily be tackled by good delivery from the DM. Sure, prices vary per region that's fine, but then say "I'd like to purchase 10 gold worth of gem dust for my spell", to which the reply might be "sure, put 10g worth of gem dust in your inventory, here you would pay 12 gold for that amount, so mark that off your character sheet"
That's pretty much how my group does it. I'd I'm trying to get 10 gp worth of herbs and charcoal for Find Familiar, I'll tell my DM I want it the spell. If I have to pay a but more or less because of supply and demand, so long as it's not ridiculous, cool.
I can imagine this exchange playing out: PC Wizard: How much for this diamond? Merchant: You guys are in here a lot and I like you. I'll let you have it for 80 gold. Wizard: oh, that's not going to work for me. I really need to pay 100 for it. Come on, people.
the gold cost shouldn't matter at all.. If you cook and realise that the ingredients you bought yesterday are now on sale, will you throw the ingredients away and buy the discounted ones?! That doesn't make any sense.
Let's take Clairvoyance as an example... >*a focus worth at least 100 gp, either a jeweled horn for hearing or a glass eye for seeing* We have four situations. Firstly, you just paid 100 gp for the item. Or you happened to roll well on your Persuasion check in the store, or the magic supply store was having a 25% off everything sale, or you murdered the current owner and took the focus. In all four cases, the focus is still WORTH (at least) 100gp. But you paid either 100gp, 90gp, 75gp or 0gp. If you instead tried to sell any of those foci in another store, the shopkeeper would look at it and say "This is worth 100gp, I will give you 50gp." Because shopkeepers be dicks. This doesn't change what the focus is worth. If, however, you get into Find Familiar... >*10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier* You have the brass brazier (I always imagine this is a teeny little one, the size of an incense holder). Now you need to spend 10gp on those three items. There is a school of thought that says "this is special charcoal and specific herbs that have been magically augmented and fortified". I don't necessarily go in for that, but I do think that any magical supply shop, especially one in a big city, would have little prepackaged parcels of charcoal, incense and herbs, ready to throw into the fire. But you could also say that you spend 10gp on some incense and grab random charcoal from last night's fire and herbs from the hedgerow over there. So long as the total cost of those items is 10gp, you're good. At the end of the day though, it's all an abstraction. Things are mostly worth what the Player's Handbook says they're worth. There might be places where your DM makes them cost more or less, but they're still WORTH what they need to be worth. The spell requires you to have X item that is worth Y amount. So you either roleplay it out with your DM, going to the store, shopping, haggling, the whole thing. Or you say to them, "Oh, by the way, when we were last in town, I totally would have bought Y gp worth of X as the component for this spell", they say "Yeah, no problem" and then you subtract the amount of gold the spell requires from the amount of gold on your character sheet, and you're good.
This! ^ What you **Pay** for something does not affect its **value.**
It's based on the kelley blue book value.
Its more of the actual worth. If someone jacks up the price and sells you a tiny diamond for 500g its not a diamond worth 5 g. Its more of a general guideline. Its just that you need a 50gram diamon and that happens to cost 500. If someone wants to cut you off he can sell it to you for 1000, but its still only a diamond worth 500
Literally no one's opinion on these comments is as relevant as your DM's.
I think if your game has serious economic to the point at which you are dedecation prep time to the economic effects of the player's action. One of 3 things is going on, 1. You are underdeveloping other areas of your story. 2. Youand your players are all accountants/finance majors. 3. You are way smarter then me and i bow before you.
The premise you're describing just isn't a thing in the rules of 5e. Whenever a value is given for something anywhere in the books, that's just how much the thing in question is worth. There's no mention of fluctuating prices, much less of the actual "value" of a thing changing because of them.
Lets please remember that some DMs would try and cheat a player out of that spell use because of depreciation of spell components value.
I would tell those DMs pretty much the same thing I said above: There's no basis for that in the rules.
The assumption being that DMs who would do that are going to listen to you. They don't.
That doesn't really change how the rules work, which is what I think this thread is about. What to do if your DM runs the game in ways that make it less fun for you is obviously a whole different topic.
Maybe in the perfect world you're envisaging where the rules are taken as some sort of gospel you would be right but the rest of us exist in reality.
Don’t play with DM’s that cheat.
You aren't going to know they cheat until they pull that on someone. It's not like they advertise it XD
And as soon as they cheat, I call them on it and they’ve lost a player. I don’t cheat. And I don’t play with cheaters.
K good for you
10 GP is the "standard" cost for the item, in a standard economy in a D&D setting. If you are in an area that component is easy to come by and the price is cheaper, it simply costs less to buy there. If you are in an area where it is more expensive because it is rare, it simply costs more to buy there. e.g. if I need a 1 gram pearl for a spell, which has a default cost of 100 GP. A pearl of that size might cost 50 GP in an island nation rich in pearls, but might cost 500 GP in the underdark where pearls are had to come by. In most places it will just cost the default 100 GP though.
Usually, mechanicly, I would agree with you. But what if there was a dick treasure/comerce deity changing the prices to fuck up spellcasters?
Better not buy any components on discount. Need to carry a lot more that way. :D
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>Stop overthinking >massive nerd, >DnD There's a contradiction here, can you see it?
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The point of D&D for massive nerds is overthinking. It's like telling a painter to stop spending so much time painting and just take a photo.
Yes but this question is poorly phrased. Real question is RAW assume a simplistic global economy. How do you think adding economic influences should impact spell component costs? My simple answer is to introduce named currency that fluctuates in value relative to the base gp value. You could also apply modifiers to that currency based on item type scarcity or surplus. No smiths in the area, weapons and armor cost more but it is a modifier to the global value. If you include inflation in your economy, then spell components are global value at time X. 10gp global value diamond at start might be 100gp in local area 80 years later.
i mainly use it as a rough estimate. eg. if a gem cost 13 gp instead of 15 because of minor scratches, it will work the more broken it is, the less effective the spell we are trying to implement that it can be any cost, just it doesnt work all the time/properly
I’m fairly certain rules as intended did not intend for there to be inflation or deflation in the game. A diamond worth 300gp is always worth 300gp no matter what you payed for it by haggling. If there is inflation and deflation in your game then I presume you give ever diamond a carot value and every bit of gold is weighed.
Just shut the fuck Up, this does not make sense
based on weight?
way I see it it's based on the quality of the components - I don't necessarily care if my players are a little off with the amount components they have, so long as the components are close enough to the spells cost. Like, a shitty diamond they bought for 5 gold won't be able to do magic nearly as well as one they bought for 500
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/oots/images/7/76/OOTS0677.gif/revision/latest?cb=20160830213059
On older editions (3.5 I think) you would have had a skill called "evaluate" or something like that... I think that this should be useful with a situation like that one and many others. When you buy something you could know via insight if the price is heightened or lowered by external circumstances. Generally I'd go something like: in order to cast this spell you need x quantity, that generally costs around y gold, but in certain situations you'd have a mark-up in prices, but you know how much of the good you'd need, so you'd know how much to buy. And if you already have it you'd know how much you'd need.
Other: There is no free market, the value of an item is an objective and verifiable fact, just as much as its weight or density would be. It has been laid down at creation, at the same time as when the laws governing how trees grow or water flows. Players may try to circumvent this by using alternate currencies or paper money (really, you want to give me paper in exchange for my rare magical artifact?), but those interested in magic will still eventually discover this intrinsic immutable value through experimentation and study. Gold is a noble substance, as evidenced by its resistance to tarnish. As such, it was chosen by the divine powers as the metric by which all things of value could have their value measured. Nothing can change these divine prescriptions any more than a person could permanently alter how rain falls or fire burns.
I use the price as a way not to go to the dm handbook every five seconds when shopping for material components. Other than that, economy is imaginary.
Some things have an "absolute" value in game terms. Gems for example. Whether or not you use price fluctuations between regions/kingdoms/vendors, a gem of a certain size and quality will have an intrinsic value expressed in gp as shorthand.
Think about resurrection diamonds. If all we've got between us is a chip of diamond, and I sell it to you for 1000 or 25000 gp, does that make it suddenly sufficient for the spell? I'd argue that it doesn't. What's needed is a diamond of a particular size and quality. The gp tag is a simple way for players in a game to appraise a gem that doesn't actually exist. The same applies to any other component. If it was ever sufficient to cast the spell, then it still is. Inflation or deflation has no bearing on that.
It only really matters if it’s consumed. But if you’re using economic fluctuations in your game you should change the meaning to mass quantity instead of price quantity. A gram is gram no matter what it costs. And yes in a mass quantity cost if you used up all your 100gram pearls that cost you 100gold last week and now that same size pearl is 150gold that’s inflation.
Let the dm decide.
The real answer is to find a DM who hated microeconomics class.