Yames said:
I guess my issue is that the economy's don't seem to be compatible or proportional. Once a player has a bit of a coin surplus they are stuck dealing with high level characters that already have astoundingly large amounts of wealth and therefore have the power to arbitrarily inflate the prices of Ritual scrolls, and magic items. Or they run into a wall in that they do not have anything of value to trade.
As far as arbitrarily inflating the prices of ritual scrolls and magic items, I am not so sure it is arbitrary.
If you're thinking of the same effects that I am, such as Cloak, Bane, Expanded Enchant, Spell Parry, Spell Store, Damage Aura, Protection Aura, Arcane Armor, Earth Aura, Spirit Link, Spirit Lock, Regeneration, Controlled Spirit Store, Preserve, and Permanent Duration, then I am of the opinion that those items are worth more because they allow the owner to (a) customize their item, (b) use the maximum difficulty, and (c) are generally useful to nearly all players and so in much more demand. They are worth what someone is willing to pay for them in my opinion.
Cpt.MarcusNelson said:
... not have a way to liquidate assets ... often times driving the price up far beyond its market value because the supply and demand for useful mid level items is so drastically skewed....
Cpt.MarcusNelson said:
A NPC merchant buying ritual scrolls at a fair market value so players who can't use them would be able to offload something like a planar gate scroll which has no value to the player base but should fetch more than 10 measly gold.
Fair market value is what the market is willing to pay for it.
If you are having trouble liquidating assets you are not talking to the right people.
You know my character is a merchant that buys and sells nearly everything and I haven't heard a peep on any assets from your group that you were willing to liquidate.
As far as the scrolls and fair market value you should probably know a few things:
1) Not all Ritual Scrolls are "useful". I define "useful" as providing an effect or service that can be utilized to provide a benefit for the owner of appropriate value. Some scrolls are considered by many to be practically "useless", such as Enchant or Extend Battle Magic Duration. Some scrolls are considered to be "nice-to-have-but-serve-no-immediate-progress-to-my-goals", such as Planar Asylum, Planar Gate, Gift of Life, Whispering Wind, etc.
2) The "nice-to-have-but-serve-no-immediate-progress-to-my-goals" Ritual Scrolls are often considered to actually be a risky investment! Quite often they are not needed except in support of a Plot story-line in which case the PCs involved on the quest practically demand the Ritual Scroll without compensation to "save the world/continent/kingdom/county/city/orphanage/hamlet/grandmother/cousin's dog or some other "doom" scenario. In those situations the person that actually put coin towards the scroll, but not included in the quest, loses the scroll
and the money he spent on it.
3) "Useful" Ritual Scrolls have perceived inflated prices because they are useful to furthering the goal of the PC that is offering that inflated price. Unless you and your brother are talking about attempting to acquire scrolls? Because if you are, especially from High Level Ritual Casters, those items are definitely going to have inflated prices because the people you are trying to buy from have their own plans for that scroll! They don't want to part with it, but will if the price is right.
4) Scrolls are currently generated randomly (usually unless Plot specifically picks them out). Meaning, according to the Treasure Policy, one scroll is just as valuable as another and therefore just as likely to drop. Since there are just as many Preserve Duration scrolls as there are Whispering Wind scrolls (in theory) the Supply/Demand effect takes effect. Since Preserve Duration is used much more often and is much more useful the Supply/Demand of those scrolls favors the Seller, where-as the Whispering Wind ritual, being that it is only used once, can only be used in the chapter that it drops, and is dependant on the Ritual Caster's Formal Skill the Supply/Demand favors the buyer.
I am also going to point out that I have been playing 11 years and the only Restricted MI I have ever had were generally 1-shots or the occasional Cloak that wasn't really useful to the other people. All of my other magic items are LCO that I have acquired by spending copious Goblin Stamps or because it was easier than to pay me for my services.
I have also been scraping and dealing and selling booze and doing what I can for my current character to build a 20-rit item. I have been working on this goal for probably 4 years, now, and I have to do a majority of ritual acquisition by buying/selling/trading because of the way I have developed my character; i.e. my character doesn't like to adventure. Therefore, that leaves my character only able to get what he wants by using the economy.
Polare said:
2. This is one of my personal pet peeves: people can make IG money by OOG means. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, can get basically infinite IG riches by bringing fudge, or root beer, or whatever in game and selling it for gold. I absolutely 100% hate that with a passion - it substantially devalues every single IG action that can be done to get IG money, and makes a character's IG actions to get said money nearly meaningless. Time and again I've seen the guy who works his butt off for a great IG con, or heist, or raid, or something, only to be *easily* outspent when trying to bid for the neat magic item by the guy who bought a case of bottled root beer and sold it for IG money. That quite frankly sucks, and my personal opinion is that no matter what else is done, the Alliance economy will *never* work because of this factor. I do realize though that my opinion on that is in the minority, and it's not something I often bring up or push for the reason that I don't expect it will change
Druk said:
Personally, I'd like to see players who are bringing items into sell, be required to pay an IG price for materials and supplies, as well as have the Merchant skill or an appropriate Craftsman skill. I'm not saying you should need that to sell any item, if another player likes your hat and offers you some coin for it, that's great. But, if you're making hats and bringing them to sell IG, then you should at least have Craftsman: Haberdasher and be paying a price at logistics to reflect costs of production, just as with any production item.
Polare said:
I would support the alternative of "you need to spend some IG "materials cost" money to bring OOG items in to sell" - I have seen (and used) this system in other LARPs. It is a pain in the butt for Logistics, unfortunately.
I sell booze IG. I have spoken several times with Bryan on the subject and I pretty much agree with him which is why I have begun paying IG money at logistics for Valuable Item tags to attach to the bottles of my booze signifying the cost of production of the booze. Anyone with the Merchant Skill can evaluate my booze and determine the cost of production, but people still pay 10-20 times more than the production value for my booze.
I also agree Joe which is why I have CS: Brew Master, Herbal Lore, and Alchemy to support my character's knowledge of making alcoholic beverages.
I justify my use of this system in that I do this to acquire my share of Treasure Policy instead of adventuring. My character spends less time killing things and more time sleeping/drinking/RPing and peddling his wares.
Cpt.MarcusNelson said:
Did not mean to trivialize your build phedre. Mearly musing. You would be good to ask though. Is it economicly feasable for you to produce 2-3 rit one years and sell them from between 10-20 gold?
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I have 90 Build Points sunk into Celestial Formal which is just under a third of my Total Build. And I would say that now, it is not economically feasible in the current incarnation of the Treasure Policy to produce 2-3 rit one years and sell them for between 10-20 gold. The scrolls themselves cost between 5-20 gold (depending on if you are talking about Cloak, Bane, or Expanded Enchant and the person you are buying from), then the Reagents cost between 1-2 gold (depending on who and where you are buying your reagents) of which you typically need around 4 per ritual. The ROI is so poor that it is not feasible.
P.S. Sorry for the long post. I wanted to make one reply post to keep my thoughts from jumbling.
I am not sure if this post is on topic or not or even if this post contributes to the discussion ... I just wanted to comment on several posts and thoughts that have been thrown out there.