| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Ergdusch |
Posted - 08 Jul 2008 : 13:53:07
According to the 3.5 rules the following rule aplies on Selling Loot:
quote:
In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price.
Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.
Now my question is:
What actually qualifies as a trade good in the sense of the rule? |
| 27 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 14 Jul 2008 : 01:38:32
Thanks, capnvan.
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| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 13 Jul 2008 : 20:57:39
What exactly is listed in the Complete Barbarian, and how is it organized? It's not a book I've ever felt a compelling need to purchase.
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| Faraer |
Posted - 13 Jul 2008 : 03:08:39
Aurora's isn't an automatically reliable source, being written by several people with widely variable understanding of the Realms (I don't know exactly who wrote what, but that much is evident by the credits and the content). |
| The Sage |
Posted - 13 Jul 2008 : 01:55:34
Indeed. It should be noted that not all cotton is from Maztica. Cotton is also imported from Saradush and Cormyr, for example. And there are references elsewhere in previous sources.
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| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 13 Jul 2008 : 00:56:57
I'm going by what's in Aurora's. I haven't made an exhaustive study of the matter.
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| Faraer |
Posted - 13 Jul 2008 : 00:17:29
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
A towel made of cotton, for example, is outrageously expensive, because the only source is Maztica, and Amn dominates the trade.
There are many references to cotton before the 'discovery' of Maztica (and a few to towels). |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 21:32:27
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
Thanks, that's one song I did not need to get stuck in my head right now.
As for the different parts of monsters and their price. This was printed several places in 2ed. Complete Barbarians Handbook had one list, I think that one originally came from a Dragon article and formed the basis for the comments in the Compendiums. I could be wrong though. I think there also was quite a list of magical uses for creature parts in the Players Options Spells & Magic.
The Monstrous Compendium series was started long before the PHBR series (and barbarians came late in that series), and the Player's Option books came out after that.
I meant that the Dragon article was the basis for all of them. I cant remember the number, but it was during the 1ed. years.
Huh. Well, the first edition books, as I recall, didn't have too much monster info... And 1E was the only edition of the game not to have literally thousands of monsters. |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 19:48:25
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
Thanks, that's one song I did not need to get stuck in my head right now.
As for the different parts of monsters and their price. This was printed several places in 2ed. Complete Barbarians Handbook had one list, I think that one originally came from a Dragon article and formed the basis for the comments in the Compendiums. I could be wrong though. I think there also was quite a list of magical uses for creature parts in the Players Options Spells & Magic.
The Monstrous Compendium series was started long before the PHBR series (and barbarians came late in that series), and the Player's Option books came out after that.
I meant that the Dragon article was the basis for all of them. I cant remember the number, but it was during the 1ed. years. |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 19:41:28
Scererar, I've taken your recommendation and requested A Splendid Exchange from my local library. Thanks for the tip!
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| Hawkins |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 16:14:34
Still if there is a complete (or close to complete) list in a single source(in the case the Complete Barbarians Handbook), it would be nice to only have to buy one thing to try and implement it in the 3.5 rules set. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 13:15:27
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
Thanks, that's one song I did not need to get stuck in my head right now.
As for the different parts of monsters and their price. This was printed several places in 2ed. Complete Barbarians Handbook had one list, I think that one originally came from a Dragon article and formed the basis for the comments in the Compendiums. I could be wrong though. I think there also was quite a list of magical uses for creature parts in the Players Options Spells & Magic.
The Monstrous Compendium series was started long before the PHBR series (and barbarians came late in that series), and the Player's Option books came out after that. |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 10:12:54
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
Thanks, that's one song I did not need to get stuck in my head right now.
As for the different parts of monsters and their price. This was printed several places in 2ed. Complete Barbarians Handbook had one list, I think that one originally came from a Dragon article and formed the basis for the comments in the Compendiums. I could be wrong though. I think there also was quite a list of magical uses for creature parts in the Players Options Spells & Magic. |
| scererar |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 04:00:08
quote:
Originally posted by Ergdusch
According to the 3.5 rules the following rule aplies on Selling Loot:
quote:
In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price.
Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.
Now my question is:
What actually qualifies as a trade good in the sense of the rule?
A book that I am reading, called A splendid exchange; How trade shaped the world. Covers just about anything and everything that you would want to know (at least from the perspective of the author) about the history of trade, since the beginning of the recorded trade in RW history. The more modern time periods are not so interesting IMO, but the information covering early trade, protecting goods, routes, transportation, reasonings behind trade exchange rates, what constituted as trade goods during different time periods, etc. All great information, that could potentially be incorporated into a campaign in some form. |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 11 Jul 2008 : 01:31:31
The Mongoose Publishing Quintessential Druid has a section (p. 32 et seq.) on "harvesting" (so-called) "monsters." I think that monster-harvesting is a good thing for a D&D game, otherwise it's "Let's all go to the Old Xoblob Shop for Chimera spit," as opposed to the more desirable, "Oh my patron goddess, we're supposed to get what from that thing?!"
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 10 Jul 2008 : 19:27:43
quote:
Originally posted by HawkinstheDM
Is the Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog the one which details the value and uses of different bits of monsters? I am not at all familiar with the 2e materials.
Not at all. Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog is the Realms equivalent of a Sears catalog. The sections are:
quote:
Rangers’ Field
Thieves’ Corner
Bards’ Emporium
Priests’ Alcove
Wizards’ Laboratory
Laborers’ List
Inn and Tavern
Scribes’ Desk
Storage Items
General Hardware
Tailors’ Corner
Clothes and Shoes
Boom’s Garden
Jewelry
Household Accoutrements
Personal Supplies
Illuminations
Diversions
Aurora’s Larder
Breads
Cheese Shop
Wines and Ales
Exotics
Wilderness Gear
Priest in a Poke
DaRoni’s Workshop
That's basically the table of contents, with the page numbers removed. Each section has what you'd expect. The Scribes' Desk, for example, has blank books, pens, ink, map-making stuff, scrollcases, paints, and paper.
The different uses for monster bits were part of the monster descriptions back in 2E. Almost every monster had a full-page entry, if not more. There was a stat block (which was a lot simpler than the 3E stat block), a picture, and then the actual info (which was maybe 60% of the page, unless it was a multi-page critter). The info started off with a description, usually a couple of paragraphs. This description gave the actual appearance of the critter. Next was Combat, which gave all the details on how it fought. The third section was Habitat/Society, which described how the critters lived -- lair/hunting grounds, activity cycles, grouping, and things like that. The last section was Ecology, which described how the critter interacted with its environment. In this section, it was noted if any body parts/fluids/whatever from this critter had specific uses.
If you check out some of the boxed sets that are available for download on the Wizards downloads page, you can see how these monster entries were set up.
Early in 2E, they released Monstrous Compendiums, which had all the monsters on loose-leaf pages that could be put into 3-ring binders (MCs 1 and 4, the Dragginglance appendix, came with 3-ring binders). They later got away from that, and went back to the book of monsters format of 1E. They kept the actual listing format until 3E, with its emphasis on combat, chucked all that "non-essential" ( ) info out the window. |
| Hawkins |
Posted - 10 Jul 2008 : 17:41:03
Is the Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog the one which details the value and uses of different bits of monsters? I am not at all familiar with the 2e materials. |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 20:07:08
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 19:32:41
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
Ach! My copy is on real paper. Four dollars for a few blips of 1s and 0s? "Ach!" I say again.
I think it's safe to say to those without vast personal libraries that the Masters, great and small, high and low, regard Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog as a tremendously useful book, eh?
I consider it an essential resource for all Realms PCs. |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 18:59:00
Ach! My copy is on real paper. Four dollars for a few blips of 1s and 0s? "Ach!" I say again.
I think it's safe to say to those without vast personal libraries that the Masters, great and small, high and low, regard Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog as a tremendously useful book, eh?
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 16:47:17
quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
One nitpick, Jamallo: Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog is not a free download. Which sucks, because it is such a valuable resource.
It is available as a PDF download at paizo.com however, for just $4US.
Indeed. I made a point of buying that one a while ago.  |
| The Sage |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 15:17:21
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
One nitpick, Jamallo: Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog is not a free download. Which sucks, because it is such a valuable resource.
It is available as a PDF download at paizo.com however, for just $4US. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 14:33:24
One nitpick, Jamallo: Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog is not a free download. Which sucks, because it is such a valuable resource. |
| Jamallo Kreen |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 09:51:42
Several Mongoose Publishing Conan RPG books (starting with Pirate Isles, which best explains it) feature a full-page chart of trade goods by geographical regions. If you are in the same region as the goods in Column A, the price is unchanged from the book value (but since you'll have stolen it if you are a pirate, most of its value is profit). If you travel to another region a few hundred miles away, your goods will be considered "uncommon" (and thus ten times more valuable) unless that region supplies it, too. If you travel much further, say 1000 miles -- or perhaps to the far end of the Thurian continent if you are very adventurous (or very stupid) -- the goods become "exotic" if the region and its near neighbors don't produce it, and the cargo is worth 50 times its value at the source. Goods are considered to be so many "cargoes," which are either by the pound (for precious metals or gems, for example) or by the ton, and for ease of calculation, the three categories are worth 1000, 10,000, and 50,000 each, depending on whether the cargo is common, uncommon, or scarce. (Those prices are in silver pieces, by the way -- the Hyborian Age has almost no gold coinage, so gold is traded as a bulk commodity.)
The most easily comprehensible "exotic" goods in the Hyborian lands (i.e. antediluvian Europe) would be gems and spices, some of which are obtainable only from the Orient, thousands of miles away; silk, on the other hand, is produced in the pseudo-Indian and pseudo-Iranian areas, so its price would only be ten times its value at source, unless one found a customer who wanted Khitan silk for its snob appeal, but it would probably have to be embroidered with Khitan designs in order to impress the nobles next door.
Take those mechanics and that chart, start plugging in the trade good information from the map in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and you will know what's valuable where. Don't forget, however, that local conditions can cause prices to rise and fall. In my own campaign, for example, the PCs successfully ambushed Vurgrom the Mighty after he had plundered Tezir, and seized Vurgrom's cargo (which he had just stolen from Tezir). Grain and chainmail. Not exactly a fortune in gold, but it was all sold in Telflamm, which was besieged at the time, and so the cargo was "uncommon" and sold to the Telflammar government for ten times the listed price.
If you have Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog (now a free pdf download), look at the prices carefully and you'll see this value scheme applied to what we would consider absurdly common items. A towel made of cotton, for example, is outrageously expensive, because the only source is Maztica, and Amn dominates the trade. The original Forgotten Realms Adventures lists many cities and their noteworthy produce, such as glass or ceramics.
Another helpful book is The Free Companies, which does not include the chart, but which does have rules for looting and plundering, including how much you can squeeze out of a town or village before it's utterly destroyed. Since we have the money limits for the major Realms cities and significant towns and villages, it is fairly easy to see what the PCs might rake in if (just hypothetically) they were to plunder (for example) Secomber or Amphail or Serpent's Cowl. Most of the actual value would be in the form of (mostly) local goods. If the PCs were to plunder a town at the edge of an ebony forest, most of the swag would probably be lumber, but lumber of a type for which there is an enormous demand everywhere else in the world.
Matthew Sprange should send me a crate of Mongoose books considering how much free publicity they get from me! 
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| Ergdusch |
Posted - 09 Jul 2008 : 08:13:59
Thanks folks! That clarifies the matter entirely.
Much appreciated. |
| Purple Dragon Knight |
Posted - 08 Jul 2008 : 21:42:54
In game terms, trade goods are anything bought by the PCs with their own gold. Anything found in a dungeon lying around is sold at half-price (except for coins, gems, and artwork, as well as anything artificially more expensive than its regular, unadorned version; i.e. a jeweled dagger worth 4,000gp due to the 18 emeralds on its pommel is NOT subject to half-pricing and is treated like an art object...) |
| The Sage |
Posted - 08 Jul 2008 : 14:33:13
Agreed. Like the trade-goods of Rashemen for example... wool, furs, and carved stone and bone. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 08 Jul 2008 : 14:17:56
quote:
Originally posted by Ergdusch
According to the 3.5 rules the following rule aplies on Selling Loot:
quote:
In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price.
Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.
Now my question is:
What actually qualifies as a trade good in the sense of the rule?
I'd say any simple commodity exported from another area in large amounts. Food and common metalwork, for example, or horses and rothe, but not magical items or Elverquisst. |
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