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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:22 pm 
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WodenKrait wrote:
It is too cheap. Even a labourer digging ditches could expect to be paid 1 florin a day, so I'd put the labour cost at least five times higher.

Interesting. On my assumption of a subsistence cost of 3p per person per day, a labourer earning 1F per day can support 3 people, which seems reasonable.

The cost of a basic +1 sword is 462 times a labourer's daily pay. Comparing this to today's prices, let's assume a labourer today works an 8-hour day and earns the UK's minimum wage of £6.50 per hour (£52 per day). That would put the cost of a +1 sword at a smidge over £24,000. Suddenly 462F for a +1 sword doesn't actually sound that cheap...

Although the point of my including the formula was just to demonstrate a mechanism for calculating the cost of an item, not to determine an appropriate sale price in everyone's campaign. You might find that, as with the labourer, the Mystic wants to support himself and two others on his wage (and at his standard of living), so should multiply that price accordingly.

However, the higher the price, the less of the market - at 462F, +1 swords are like expensive cars - affordable for the middle classes. A +2 sword produced by a 6th rank mystic, however, would cost 3,270F (equivalent to approximately £170,000 in today's money, using the same assumptions about the labourer's wage as a suitable comparison).

Again, the comparison isn't really the point, but hopefully it demonstrates how the economics of a magic item shop might work, even if the prices aren't appropriate for most campaigns.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:40 pm 
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Quote:
Interesting. On my assumption of a subsistence cost of 3p per person per day, a labourer earning 1F per day can support 3 people, which seems reasonable.


To be fair, my estimate is based on various comparisons with wages during the high and later middle ages', and actually comes to 240 florins per year, or about .66 f/day, but it is about one actual florin per day worked once you account for all the non-working days (of which there were many in the middle ages).

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Again, the comparison isn't really the point, but hopefully it demonstrates how the economics of a magic item shop might work, even if the prices aren't appropriate for most campaigns.


I think it's true that magic item shops aren't really appropriate for DW, for a host of economic and social reasons. The market for magical items will be more like the black market for illegal weapons and the radioactive cores from old x-ray machines: rarified, expensive, and terrifying to the average person.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:10 am 
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WodenKrait wrote:
I think it's true that magic item shops aren't really appropriate for DW, for a host of economic and social reasons. The market for magical items will be more like the black market for illegal weapons and the radioactive cores from old x-ray machines: rarified, expensive, and terrifying to the average person.


I love that analogy - the supernatural having the same connotations to the superstitious folk of Legend as we would ascribe to radioactive materials today.

I'll definitely use that when setting the mood with my players for our next campaign - I didn't quite get the mood right first time around, but then I guess we're all learning...

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:50 pm 
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Anything that fires up the dragwars crowds and gets them at each others throat would be great. Wake up these undead lurkers that shuffle around and don't have much to say.

Not into the magic shop thing, but since dwarfs are greedy, and at 7th rank they can do some amazing stuff...

Its a bit like those Japanese swordsmiths, masamune and the other guy. They'd compete to promote their products and I'd suppose they'd tailor their swords to specific individuals in mind. Perhaps some other descriptions rather than +1 sword, like finer adjustments, d9,4 or ... +2 DEFENCE only or +3 SPEED when thrown....

I wonder what materials they'd use. Is a mystic just going to sit there and stroke his sword all day or is he going to try to capture some human essence, the sorrow of a thousand orphans, the tears of a lot of stray dogs, the blood of innocents and all....

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