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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

There's a chapter on trade in the 3.x sourcebook Power of Faerūn. This book is available as a legal pdf from DriveThruRPG.com

In 2E, there was a great resource called Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog. It's more focused on stuff to buy, but the background was that Aurora was a merchant-mage who teleported goods to her various outlets for sale. The economic ramifications of this weren't explored; it was just a handy resource for equipping characters/homes/inns/wizard's workshops/etc.

Even without the potential of magical rapid transport, D&D economics has always been a little fuzzy, though... There's a disparity between daily wages commoners can earn and listed prices for goods and services, and the impact of adventurers casually throwing around thousands of gold pieces is readily ignored.

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Originally posted by Gelcur

Ed has mentioned details here and there over the years. I don't have any direct quotes on hand but if memory serves, it was something along the lines of "portal networks are highly coveted, well guarded, kept secret, AND come with their own different dangers." One of those dangers if I remember right is taking various magics through them can cause them to misbehave. And I also vaguely recall magical monsters lurking in and around portals.

The other side of the coin is if you are constantly marching caravans of goods through a portal it is NOT going to stay secret for long. All this I think explains why overland and oversea travel has not disappeared due to magic. A merchant very well might have access to a portal but will only uses it to deliver goods if the buyer makes it worth the risk. I think of it like the crazy Overnight Fee at the post office.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Even without the potential of magical rapid transport, D&D economics has always been a little fuzzy, though... There's a disparity between daily wages commoners can earn and listed prices for goods and services, and the impact of adventurers casually throwing around thousands of gold pieces is readily ignored.

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Originally posted by Kentinal


I did try to build a re;m using third Edition and had to fill in gaps, however did have a framework that can work - if the crops come in, the mages are on staff, that security is good to get mages and others from disrupting. Also that the religions donated much of donations extorted by custom (Tithe) was donated/supported the lower income population.

I was never comfortable because details were not filled in with ways that fit all the rules. Each Edition that I looked at always had issues, price disparity being most common. Wage scales often unrealistically high or low and so on.

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Originally posted by SaMoCon


The tie-in of this topic to "Epic Geo-Poltical conflict" seems... too detached from the people. All models of economics are about deciding how resources are to be moved between people. The free market is people deciding for themselves what and how they trade based upon agreements without non-market influence (governments, mobs, guilds/unions, compulsive magic, etc...) forcing decisions, but the free market rarely exists even in our modern world. Most people performing trades have burdens of taxes, limitations of goods from either scarcity or protected monopoly, limitations of mandates for how much can be traded or when, and may have their trades nullified by non-government actors or bad-faith bargains. Geo-political conflict exacerbates all of these problems as people hoard goods, flee potential areas of combat, and curtail luxury spending in anticipation of hard times ahead. Even if war does not happen, the economic hit imperils the citizenry and makes the countries involved poorer.

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Originally posted by Ayrik

Consider the price of hiring an NPC to cast spells for you. In 1E/2E, the "suggested" per-casting price of a 5th-level teleport or astral spell was about 2000GP-4000GP, while a 7th-level teleport without error or planeshift was about 3500GP-7000GP - plus the cost of any consumable material components.

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The North / The Wilderness, p.70:

Perfectone Services

• Personal Teleport is simply that: transporting a person from one city to another. [...] costs 400 gp per individual and has a 5% chance of failing.


• Personal Teleport Without Error is error-free transportation from one city to another.
  This service costs 600 gp per individual and utilizes the teleport without error spell to insure accuracy.


• The Shadow Caravan is a service that transports cargo through the Ethereal Plane in order to arrive at the destination safely. Unfortunately, there's always a chance for ambush in the ether. Regardless of distance traveled, the service costs 225 gp per load (equating to approximately one ton).
  There is a 15% chance of ethereal ambush, and if ambushed, the caravan loses 1d100% of its cargo. Perfectone Mercantile takes no responsibility for lost cargo.


• Shadowport (SP) [...] is a trip into the Ethereal Plane for the traveler at the cost of 375 gp per individual, or 300 gp per person in a group of three or more. The trip takes one hour of real time for every day's travel by caravan, though the traveler feels only one minute (per hour real time) pass.
  There's a 15% chance the traveler does not arrive at the destination for 1d4 weeks, though the traveler doesn't feel the time differentiation.


• Teleport Cargo (TC) is a service that instantly teleports cargo from one city to another. The service costs 325 gp per load (one ton).
  ThereĀ’s a 5% that the cargo is partially damaged in transport. If so, 5d10% of the cargo is shattered beyond recognition or teleported into solid ground, lost beyond salvage. Perfectone Mercantile takes no responsibility for lost cargo.


• Teleport Cargo Without Error (TCE) is a service that unerringly teleports cargo. The service costs 400 gp per load (one ton). There is no chance for lost or damaged cargo when this service is used.
  

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Originally posted by TheIriaeban

Those prices seem to be really cheap. So cheap as to be disruptive to trade in general.

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Perfectone Service Schedule

                         			        Teleport
 City         	Shadow  	Teleport	w/o Error
 Arabel            	3        	 5        	3
 Caer Corwell    	1        	 3       	 1
 Calimport       	8       	10       	 7
 Longsaddle      	4        	 5        	3
 Luskan             	2        	 1        	3
 Ordulin           	3        	 7        	3
 Neverwinter     	2        	 3        	2
 Silverymoon     	1        	 3        	2
 Westgate        	2        	 4        	2

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Merchant Pricing
When using a merchant company, there are several things one must consider: the courier charges, the relative security of the
transport, the chance of loss, and the amount of that loss in the case of an ambush. Table 3 (inside front cover) delineates these chances.
Cost Parameter: This is just an easy way of determining the relative cost for using a merchant company.
Average Price/Day: This is the charges for moving cargo. The longer the trip, the more it costs the manufacturer of the goods to move the freight. This also helps explain why things cost more on the fringe of civilization than near the manufacturing point.
Daily Chance for Ambush: Unless the caravan is in a heavily patrolled area (generally near a city), thereĀ’s a chance brigands attempt to steal part of the cargo.
Chance of Loss: Each time thereĀ’s an ambush, a chance exists the brigands make off with some of the cargo.
Percentage Loss: Each time thereĀ’s an ambush, and a loss of cargo is determined, the DM rolls the appropriate Ā“percentage lossĀ” die, and thatĀ’s the percentage of the cargo thatĀ’s stolen.
If a caravan suffers from multiple losses, the percentage of cargo taken is figured from the original cargo size, thus,
if a caravan suffers three attacks from thieves, and the percentage losses are 50%, 10%, and 15%, the caravan lost 75% of its total cargo.
(p.69)

Table 3: Merchant Pricing
Cost Parameter   Av.Price   Ambush Chance   Loss Chance  %Loss
Very Cheap      	 5 gp/ton       	6 in 20         	50%     	3d20
Inexpensive     	10 gp/ton       	5 in 20         	40%     	2d20
Moderate        	15 gp/ton       	4 in 20         	30%     	3d20
Expensive       	20 gp/ton       	3 in 20         	25%     	2d10
Very Expensive  	25 gp/ton       	2 in 20         	20%     	2d10
Extremely Costly	35 gp/ton       	1 in 20         	15%     	2d10

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Caravans (per day)
Cost Parameter   Loss chance, total  % Loss, av   (formula)
Very Cheap      	0.15         	4.725        	(6Ć·20)Ɨ0.50 Ɨ(3Ɨ10.5)%
Inexpensive     	0.1            	2.1            	(5Ć·20)Ɨ0.40 Ɨ(2Ɨ10.5)%
Moderate        	0.06          	1.89           	(4Ć·20)Ɨ0.30 Ɨ(3Ɨ10.5)%
Expensive       	0.0375       	0.4125         	(3Ć·20)Ɨ0.25 Ɨ(2Ɨ5.5)%
Very Expensive  	0.02         	0.22           	(2Ć·20)Ɨ0.20 Ɨ(2Ɨ5.5)%
Extremely Costly	0.0075      	0.0825         	(1Ć·20)Ɨ0.15 Ɨ(2Ɨ5.5)%

Magic transportation (total)
SC                   	0.15       	7.575         	(15Ć·100) Ɨ(1Ɨ50.5)%
TC                   	0.05       	2.625         	(5Ć·100) Ɨ(5Ɨ10.5)%
TCE                  	0       	0         	0 Ɨ0%

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Part of the issue, though, is that we've never gotten a huge amount of information on things like agriculture, because the focus is kept on the more interesting aspects of the setting, like magic and dragons.

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Originally posted by Cards77

There is no actual plausible way that the areas in and around Waterdeep could sustain that many people with food, water, fuel, and definitely not at the wages and prices listed.

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Originally posted by Kentinal

It likely is hard to even explain all factors of real world economics. Even today are talk about trends and expectations and then data reports actually being different then models predicted.

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Originally posted by HighOne

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Part of the issue, though, is that we've never gotten a huge amount of information on things like agriculture, because the focus is kept on the more interesting aspects of the setting, like magic and dragons.

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Actually, I'm 99.99% sure that the reason we haven't gotten that information is because the authors don't know how to create a sustainable economic model and would only embarrass themselves if they tried. Which, IMO, is completely fair. Not many people can do what they do (create an imaginative fantasy world); expecting them to be experts on medieval economies at the same time is a bit much.

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Originally posted by TBeholder

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Originally posted by Cards77

There is no actual plausible way that the areas in and around Waterdeep could sustain that many people with food, water, fuel, and definitely not at the wages and prices listed.

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Did those who who tinkered with this remember to take into account that "areas in and around Waterdeep" include:
- sea, from which most food probably comes, among the other things; and
- Undermountain, from which much waste heat may come, among the other... things, heh.
...even aside of being a trade port?

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Originally posted by Kentinal

Some of those that looked at Waterdeep clearly were aware of Goldenfields. It are only Thirty square miles and 5,000 residents. It is not stated how many farm of those. Traditional yields without magic tended to work out to an acre could feed one adult for a year. Under that calculation only about twelve thousand citizens of Waterdeep could be given food. After all the 5,000 at Goldenfields need to eat as well.

Clearly magic of Chauntea, however other then the statement that vast numbers of people are given food there is no explanation of how that much food produced.
It is hard to build a model of even a smaller temple being used in any place else. There is no mathematical data to work from.

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Originally posted by sleyvas


For all we know too, the problems we have with using sewage containing human waste with the spreading of disease in crops might easily be eliminated with magic, and thus goldenfield might be sitting right next to a goldmine of manure from the sewers of Waterdeep.

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