Delven's Emporium. Online magic item economy [Archive] - Wizards Community

Delven's Emporium. Online magic item economy [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
neilthrun
05-20-07, 06:42 PM IDEA! By using simple supply and demand, we can set up our merchants guild right here! Think about how often you randomly roll an item useless to the party. Once they sell it, post it. Then another DM can say that it's available in his "Magic Shop." I'll tell you what, every merchant would have a ring of animal friendship...

So, I figured, why not give this a shot? Lets see what happens. To get things started I introduced an NPC in my last session. The players had aquired some magical items, needed some information, and didn't need some of the random magical items I rolled. Then they met Delven, a performer in a local tavern, the Rusty Monkey. Delven is a traveler, bard, and seller of magical gear and information.
Delven buys magical gear at half price, then sells it back for full. He will also take magical items in exchange for information that he could reasonably know(IE whatever you, the DM, want to give your players knowledge wise) with a bardic knowledge check. In my last session the players traded a +1 elfbane light pick for some information on where another magical item was located. To get things going, I gave Delven a small stock of magical items, none of which the players really wanted.

I intend for Delven to be a cross campaign magical item dealer, that will create a system of supply and demand for magical items in my campaign and hopefully yours. This is mostly an expirement. Delven might not sell any of his gear, some high lvl adventure may decided to wipe out his stock entirely, lets see what happens. Whenever your players either sell an item to Delven, trade an item, or buy an item from Delven, simply post it here. Remember, Delven will also trade information for items. Delven will trade an item, as long as he is making a profit, IE the item he is giving away is worth less than the item he is recieving. He will always do this, so yes, he will trade that +5 longsword for a million lvl 1 scrolls. I'm going to divide his stock into minor, medium and major items. This is done by the DMG tables. For weapons, armor and shields a +1 to +3 bonus are minor, +4 to +7 are medium, +8 to +10 are major. If a magical ability increases the value, but not the +# bonus, just make sure the final gold price wouldn't place it into a different catagory.

When you make a post, say what delven has recieved and what he has given away. Also, if Delven is recieing a new magical item, please post whether it is a minor, medium or major magic item AND what the gold value of the new item is. So you might post "Delven has recieved 375 gold for his wand of Detect magic" or "Delven has recieved a Staff of Charming(Medium, 16,500 gold) and has traded away his scroll of burning hands". If the item is not from the dungeon master guide please give a source for the item. Most items found in other source books will not be listed as minor, medium or major. For these items compare their value to similiar items. For instance, Bracers of Dawn from complete warrior are worth 26000. When compairing this item to other wonderous items in the DMG you will not that the medium wonderous item chart goes from 7500 to 27500. This makes the bracers of dawn a medium wonderous item.
Delven, as of now, does not accept custom magical items. This may change in the future, but for now I'm going to avoid that. Delven will not purchase cursed or intllegent items either. It tends to be a little messy. Delven will not accept artifact items, being that possesion of such items can be very risky.

Implement Delven however you want in your campaign. In my campaign Delven is a Male human bard of 6th lvl. In your campaign he maybe a half dragon ogre barbarian or an astral deva with 20 lvls of ninja. Feel free to restrict the list for your campaign. You may not want that scroll of wish available to the pcs. Perhaps you don't have the Magic item compendium and has no idea what an item does. Your players might decide to kill Delven and take is entire stock, steal an item, sell him a fake item or whatever. Thats fine, its your campaign and allow what you will. For the purposes of this expirement I'm going to ignore things like that. So don't post "My players killed delven and took all his stock, delven now has no items for sale" expecting me to make that reality for my campaign. Please do post about how you are using delven, what types of problems or events have occured with introducing this element into the game. But for purposes of the online item store, I will only update sales, purchases, and trades(item for item or delvens info for item). You may or may not tell the players about the nature of this shop. Its entirely your choice. I'm still not sure whether or not I will tell my players about the nature of his store.
Suggestions for how to introduce delven include travelling merchant/bard, stationary shop in a hub your players frequent, a one time event, a planar store or even a magical merchant that the players access using a magic item or something. I'd love to hear how you are including this concept in your game. Here are my stats for Delven, a travelling bard and merchant. I rolled 4d6 and dropped lowest. Max hp at first, and rolled every lvl there after. Gear listed is not for sale.

Delven
Medium Human Bard 6
Hit Dice:6d6 28 hp
Initiative:+2
Speed:30 ft
Armor Class:16 (+2 dex, +4 chain shirt), touch 12, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple:+4/+4
Attack: +1 shortsword +5(1d6+1) or sling +6 (1d4)
Space/Reach:5 ft./5 ft.
Special Qualities:Spells, Bardic Music, Bardic Knowledge(+16), Raven Familiar
Saves:Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +7
Abilities:Str 10, Dex 14, Con 11, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 16
Skills: Appraise 23, Decipher Script 12, Knowledge(Arcana) 12, Knowledge(History) 12, Perform (Opera) 12, Sense Motive 11, Speak Language 9, Spellcraft 16 (+2 on decipher scrolls), Spot 11, Use Magic Device 12 (+4 on scrolls)
Feats:Skill Focus(Appraise), Obscure Lore, Appraise Magic Value, Obtain Familiar
Challenge Rating:6
Treasure:Merchant’s Scale(+2 appraise), Magnifying Glass(+2 appraise), +1 shortsword, sling and 40 bullets, bag of holding, Monocle of Perusal
Alignment:TN
Advancement:As bard
Languages- Common, Elven, Dwarven, Draconic, Giant, Gnome, Halfling, Orc, Undercommon, Abyssal, Celestial, Sylvan, Infernal
Familiar speaks Common
neilthrun
05-20-07, 06:45 PM Delvens Stock
Gold 200,000

Minor Items
+1 elfbane light pick 8,304 gp
+3 studded leather 9,175 gp
Arcane Scroll of Charm Person 25 gp
Arcane Scroll of Magic Missile (3rd lvl) 75gp
Divine Scroll of Consecrate and Hold Person 350 gp
Potion of Barkskin +2 300 gp
Ring of Protection +2 8,000 gp
Wand of Ray of Frost (50 charges) 375gp

Medium Items
Belt of Giant Strength +4 16,00 gp
Silent Metamagic Rod 11,000 gp

Major Items
Manual of Quickness in Action +2 55,000 gp
Staff of Divination 73,500
neilthrun
05-20-07, 06:46 PM saved
neilthrun
05-20-07, 06:49 PM saved for future
neilthrun
05-23-07, 05:12 PM Gonna Bump this once, just see to see if I can get some more interest going. Is Anyone interested in participating? If not, why? Any kind of feedback is welcome. I'm going to throw a link in the original thread in the repository as well.
molten_dragon
05-24-07, 01:11 PM I'm actually not running a campaign right now, but I hopefully will be again this fall. This seems like a really interesting idea that I'd love to try.
Lalkin
05-24-07, 01:57 PM I'm running the shackled city campaign right now which has a magic shop in the major town, Skie's Treasury.

I actually keep track and cycle inventory in the shop on an ongoing basis.

Not exactly sure how Skie's inventory could work with this but if you want to see the current inventory you can browse it at
http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~tcl/wiki/index.php/Tarn_-_Cauldron#Skie.27s_Inventory

The last time players sold stuff this is what they sold:

Bracelets of Inertial Armor +3
Full Plate +1
Large Chain Shirt +3
Large Warhammer +1
Light Steel Shield +1
Necklace of Fireballs (2 3d6 gems)
Wand of Summon Monster II (11 charges)

The last set of stuff they've bought is:

Bag of Holding, Type II
Amulet of Mighty Fists +1
neilthrun
05-24-07, 02:55 PM I'm running the shackled city campaign right now which has a magic shop in the major town, Skie's Treasury.

I actually keep track and cycle inventory in the shop on an ongoing basis.

Not exactly sure how Skie's inventory could work with this but if you want to see the current inventory you can browse it at
http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~tcl/wiki/index.php/Tarn_-_Cauldron#Skie.27s_Inventory

The last time players sold stuff this is what they sold:

Bracelets of Inertial Armor +3
Full Plate +1
Large Chain Shirt +3
Large Warhammer +1
Light Steel Shield +1
Necklace of Fireballs (2 3d6 gems)
Wand of Summon Monster II (11 charges)

The last set of stuff they've bought is:

Bag of Holding, Type II
Amulet of Mighty Fists +1
Hmm.... I cant think of any easy way to combine this with mine. I could place all of the items they sold into my invintory, but that wouldn't reflect supply and demand very well, because your players will most likely never buy any of the items in my store.

I'm actually not running a campaign right now, but I hopefully will be again this fall. This seems like a really interesting idea that I'd love to try.

Glad to hear it!
NightBreeze
05-24-07, 06:24 PM Hmm...seems like a good idea, but I think that you should add more items, just to push it at its beginnings. Also, let Delven buy magic items at good prices (not 100%, of course), in order to fill it's stocks.

As many people could join, there will be probably some high-level parties. Delven will need some more money to buy all the stuff.
LostMage
05-24-07, 09:50 PM I'd like to post, if my regular players were involved enough in character to sell items...:(
neilthrun
05-24-07, 10:24 PM Hmm...seems like a good idea, but I think that you should add more items, just to push it at its beginnings. Also, let Delven buy magic items at good prices (not 100%, of course), in order to fill it's stocks.

As many people could join, there will be probably some high-level parties. Delven will need some more money to buy all the stuff.

Delven buys things at half price. Just as if the PCs were selling the goods anywhere else. the 200,000 was kind of arbitrary. Might give him more if he needs it. I'll also roll for some more high lvl gear if any dms are running high lvl games and want to use this. But for now I want to keep his stock undiluted by any more randomly rolled magical items.
BillTheManiac
06-14-07, 10:38 AM This will be interesting with the game I plan to run (Abyssal Politics). In my game Delvan will be a mercane merchant.
Kurikin
06-14-07, 01:10 PM This sounds like a pretty good idea. Right now in the campaign I'm running there is a Mercane named Bubs Concession that shows up everywhere the party goes. He buys at 50% and sells at 130% due to his "travel expenses and convenience."

Next session (which will be in about 5 weeks) I could introduce Delven. Some fluff for it could be something like Delven is one of Bubs's competitors and Bubs recently had an "accident."

I'd fill out his stock a little more to begin with. Do something like rolling for 8 minors, 4 mediums and 2 majors and add them to his stock.
neilthrun
06-14-07, 08:40 PM Cool, sounds great guys. Just post up stuff when delven buys or sells things.
ssvegeta555
06-16-07, 09:49 PM Interesting experiment, I might add Delven into my next adventure in Sigil.

Question though. Does Delven accept psionic items? My campaign is psionicy (if that's a word :P ) and has a good assortment of magic items.
neilthrun
07-08-07, 11:28 AM Interesting experiment, I might add Delven into my next adventure in Sigil.

Question though. Does Delven accept psionic items? My campaign is psionicy (if that's a word :P ) and has a good assortment of magic items.

Sure Delven will accept psionic items. Sorry for my slow response, I've been a little busy, but I am still going to go forward with this idea.
DonnyDM
07-08-07, 01:22 PM My player's sold a Arcane Scroll Magic Missile (3rd lvl) 75gp
a glass Wand of Ray of Frost (50 charges) 375gp
a Masterwork Breastplate 350gp
neilthrun
07-08-07, 10:20 PM My player's sold a Arcane Scroll Magic Missile (3rd lvl) 75gp
a glass Wand of Ray of Frost (50 charges) 375gp
a Masterwork Breastplate 350gp

Alright, delvens first customers! Wooo

As a side note, delven has no interest in your breastplate(ie, I'm not adding it to the list). He traffics in magic(or psionic) gear only.

I'll update the list.
efraker
08-04-07, 10:09 PM Bah! I can't believe I'm just seeing this thread now. This idea is brilliant... someone needs to adapt this and make it an automated website...
neilthrun
08-05-07, 12:59 AM Feel free to contribute, I havn't been dming this summer, so Its going slow.
Father Tim
08-19-07, 11:48 PM Delven has purchased a Large Greatclub +3 and a Ring of Swimming +5.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
neilthrun 05-20-07, 06:42 PM	IDEA! By using simple supply and demand, we can set up our merchants guild right here! Think about how often you randomly roll an item useless to the party. Once they sell it, post it. Then another DM can say that it's available in his "Magic Shop." I'll tell you what, every merchant would have a ring of animal friendship... So, I figured, why not give this a shot? Lets see what happens. To get things started I introduced an NPC in my last session. The players had aquired some magical items, needed some information, and didn't need some of the random magical items I rolled. Then they met Delven, a performer in a local tavern, the Rusty Monkey. Delven is a traveler, bard, and seller of magical gear and information. Delven buys magical gear at half price, then sells it back for full. He will also take magical items in exchange for information that he could reasonably know(IE whatever you, the DM, want to give your players knowledge wise) with a bardic knowledge check. In my last session the players traded a +1 elfbane light pick for some information on where another magical item was located. To get things going, I gave Delven a small stock of magical items, none of which the players really wanted. I intend for Delven to be a cross campaign magical item dealer, that will create a system of supply and demand for magical items in my campaign and hopefully yours. This is mostly an expirement. Delven might not sell any of his gear, some high lvl adventure may decided to wipe out his stock entirely, lets see what happens. Whenever your players either sell an item to Delven, trade an item, or buy an item from Delven, simply post it here. Remember, Delven will also trade information for items. Delven will trade an item, as long as he is making a profit, IE the item he is giving away is worth less than the item he is recieving. He will always do this, so yes, he will trade that +5 longsword for a million lvl 1 scrolls. I'm going to divide his stock into minor, medium and major items. This is done by the DMG tables. For weapons, armor and shields a +1 to +3 bonus are minor, +4 to +7 are medium, +8 to +10 are major. If a magical ability increases the value, but not the +# bonus, just make sure the final gold price wouldn't place it into a different catagory. When you make a post, say what delven has recieved and what he has given away. Also, if Delven is recieing a new magical item, please post whether it is a minor, medium or major magic item AND what the gold value of the new item is. So you might post "Delven has recieved 375 gold for his wand of Detect magic" or "Delven has recieved a Staff of Charming(Medium, 16,500 gold) and has traded away his scroll of burning hands". If the item is not from the dungeon master guide please give a source for the item. Most items found in other source books will not be listed as minor, medium or major. For these items compare their value to similiar items. For instance, Bracers of Dawn from complete warrior are worth 26000. When compairing this item to other wonderous items in the DMG you will not that the medium wonderous item chart goes from 7500 to 27500. This makes the bracers of dawn a medium wonderous item. Delven, as of now, does not accept custom magical items. This may change in the future, but for now I'm going to avoid that. Delven will not purchase cursed or intllegent items either. It tends to be a little messy. Delven will not accept artifact items, being that possesion of such items can be very risky. Implement Delven however you want in your campaign. In my campaign Delven is a Male human bard of 6th lvl. In your campaign he maybe a half dragon ogre barbarian or an astral deva with 20 lvls of ninja. Feel free to restrict the list for your campaign. You may not want that scroll of wish available to the pcs. Perhaps you don't have the Magic item compendium and has no idea what an item does. Your players might decide to kill Delven and take is entire stock, steal an item, sell him a fake item or whatever. Thats fine, its your campaign and allow what you will. For the purposes of this expirement I'm going to ignore things like that. So don't post "My players killed delven and took all his stock, delven now has no items for sale" expecting me to make that reality for my campaign. Please do post about how you are using delven, what types of problems or events have occured with introducing this element into the game. But for purposes of the online item store, I will only update sales, purchases, and trades(item for item or delvens info for item). You may or may not tell the players about the nature of this shop. Its entirely your choice. I'm still not sure whether or not I will tell my players about the nature of his store. Suggestions for how to introduce delven include travelling merchant/bard, stationary shop in a hub your players frequent, a one time event, a planar store or even a magical merchant that the players access using a magic item or something. I'd love to hear how you are including this concept in your game. Here are my stats for Delven, a travelling bard and merchant. I rolled 4d6 and dropped lowest. Max hp at first, and rolled every lvl there after. Gear listed is not for sale. Delven Medium Human Bard 6 Hit Dice:6d6 28 hp Initiative:+2 Speed:30 ft Armor Class:16 (+2 dex, +4 chain shirt), touch 12, flat-footed 14 Base Attack/Grapple:+4/+4 Attack: +1 shortsword +5(1d6+1) or sling +6 (1d4) Space/Reach:5 ft./5 ft. Special Qualities:Spells, Bardic Music, Bardic Knowledge(+16), Raven Familiar Saves:Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +7 Abilities:Str 10, Dex 14, Con 11, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 16 Skills: Appraise 23, Decipher Script 12, Knowledge(Arcana) 12, Knowledge(History) 12, Perform (Opera) 12, Sense Motive 11, Speak Language 9, Spellcraft 16 (+2 on decipher scrolls), Spot 11, Use Magic Device 12 (+4 on scrolls) Feats:Skill Focus(Appraise), Obscure Lore, Appraise Magic Value, Obtain Familiar Challenge Rating:6 Treasure:Merchant’s Scale(+2 appraise), Magnifying Glass(+2 appraise), +1 shortsword, sling and 40 bullets, bag of holding, Monocle of Perusal Alignment:TN Advancement:As bard Languages- Common, Elven, Dwarven, Draconic, Giant, Gnome, Halfling, Orc, Undercommon, Abyssal, Celestial, Sylvan, Infernal Familiar speaks Common
neilthrun 05-20-07, 06:45 PM	Delvens Stock Gold 200,000 Minor Items +1 elfbane light pick 8,304 gp +3 studded leather 9,175 gp Arcane Scroll of Charm Person 25 gp Arcane Scroll of Magic Missile (3rd lvl) 75gp Divine Scroll of Consecrate and Hold Person 350 gp Potion of Barkskin +2 300 gp Ring of Protection +2 8,000 gp Wand of Ray of Frost (50 charges) 375gp Medium Items Belt of Giant Strength +4 16,00 gp Silent Metamagic Rod 11,000 gp Major Items Manual of Quickness in Action +2 55,000 gp Staff of Divination 73,500
neilthrun 05-20-07, 06:46 PM	saved
neilthrun 05-20-07, 06:49 PM	saved for future
neilthrun 05-23-07, 05:12 PM	Gonna Bump this once, just see to see if I can get some more interest going. Is Anyone interested in participating? If not, why? Any kind of feedback is welcome. I'm going to throw a link in the original thread in the repository as well.
molten_dragon 05-24-07, 01:11 PM	I'm actually not running a campaign right now, but I hopefully will be again this fall. This seems like a really interesting idea that I'd love to try.
Lalkin 05-24-07, 01:57 PM	I'm running the shackled city campaign right now which has a magic shop in the major town, Skie's Treasury. I actually keep track and cycle inventory in the shop on an ongoing basis. Not exactly sure how Skie's inventory could work with this but if you want to see the current inventory you can browse it at http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~tcl/wiki/index.php/Tarn_-_Cauldron#Skie.27s_Inventory The last time players sold stuff this is what they sold: Bracelets of Inertial Armor +3 Full Plate +1 Large Chain Shirt +3 Large Warhammer +1 Light Steel Shield +1 Necklace of Fireballs (2 3d6 gems) Wand of Summon Monster II (11 charges) The last set of stuff they've bought is: Bag of Holding, Type II Amulet of Mighty Fists +1
neilthrun 05-24-07, 02:55 PM	I'm running the shackled city campaign right now which has a magic shop in the major town, Skie's Treasury. I actually keep track and cycle inventory in the shop on an ongoing basis. Not exactly sure how Skie's inventory could work with this but if you want to see the current inventory you can browse it at http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~tcl/wiki/index.php/Tarn_-_Cauldron#Skie.27s_Inventory The last time players sold stuff this is what they sold: Bracelets of Inertial Armor +3 Full Plate +1 Large Chain Shirt +3 Large Warhammer +1 Light Steel Shield +1 Necklace of Fireballs (2 3d6 gems) Wand of Summon Monster II (11 charges) The last set of stuff they've bought is: Bag of Holding, Type II Amulet of Mighty Fists +1 Hmm.... I cant think of any easy way to combine this with mine. I could place all of the items they sold into my invintory, but that wouldn't reflect supply and demand very well, because your players will most likely never buy any of the items in my store. I'm actually not running a campaign right now, but I hopefully will be again this fall. This seems like a really interesting idea that I'd love to try. Glad to hear it!
NightBreeze 05-24-07, 06:24 PM	Hmm...seems like a good idea, but I think that you should add more items, just to push it at its beginnings. Also, let Delven buy magic items at good prices (not 100%, of course), in order to fill it's stocks. As many people could join, there will be probably some high-level parties. Delven will need some more money to buy all the stuff.
LostMage 05-24-07, 09:50 PM	I'd like to post, if my regular players were involved enough in character to sell items...:(
neilthrun 05-24-07, 10:24 PM	Hmm...seems like a good idea, but I think that you should add more items, just to push it at its beginnings. Also, let Delven buy magic items at good prices (not 100%, of course), in order to fill it's stocks. As many people could join, there will be probably some high-level parties. Delven will need some more money to buy all the stuff. Delven buys things at half price. Just as if the PCs were selling the goods anywhere else. the 200,000 was kind of arbitrary. Might give him more if he needs it. I'll also roll for some more high lvl gear if any dms are running high lvl games and want to use this. But for now I want to keep his stock undiluted by any more randomly rolled magical items.
BillTheManiac 06-14-07, 10:38 AM	This will be interesting with the game I plan to run (Abyssal Politics). In my game Delvan will be a mercane merchant.
Kurikin 06-14-07, 01:10 PM	This sounds like a pretty good idea. Right now in the campaign I'm running there is a Mercane named Bubs Concession that shows up everywhere the party goes. He buys at 50% and sells at 130% due to his "travel expenses and convenience." Next session (which will be in about 5 weeks) I could introduce Delven. Some fluff for it could be something like Delven is one of Bubs's competitors and Bubs recently had an "accident." I'd fill out his stock a little more to begin with. Do something like rolling for 8 minors, 4 mediums and 2 majors and add them to his stock.
neilthrun 06-14-07, 08:40 PM	Cool, sounds great guys. Just post up stuff when delven buys or sells things.
ssvegeta555 06-16-07, 09:49 PM	Interesting experiment, I might add Delven into my next adventure in Sigil. Question though. Does Delven accept psionic items? My campaign is psionicy (if that's a word :P ) and has a good assortment of magic items.
neilthrun 07-08-07, 11:28 AM	Interesting experiment, I might add Delven into my next adventure in Sigil. Question though. Does Delven accept psionic items? My campaign is psionicy (if that's a word :P ) and has a good assortment of magic items. Sure Delven will accept psionic items. Sorry for my slow response, I've been a little busy, but I am still going to go forward with this idea.
DonnyDM 07-08-07, 01:22 PM	My player's sold a Arcane Scroll Magic Missile (3rd lvl) 75gp a glass Wand of Ray of Frost (50 charges) 375gp a Masterwork Breastplate 350gp
neilthrun 07-08-07, 10:20 PM	My player's sold a Arcane Scroll Magic Missile (3rd lvl) 75gp a glass Wand of Ray of Frost (50 charges) 375gp a Masterwork Breastplate 350gp Alright, delvens first customers! Wooo As a side note, delven has no interest in your breastplate(ie, I'm not adding it to the list). He traffics in magic(or psionic) gear only. I'll update the list.
efraker 08-04-07, 10:09 PM	Bah! I can't believe I'm just seeing this thread now. This idea is brilliant... someone needs to adapt this and make it an automated website...
neilthrun 08-05-07, 12:59 AM	Feel free to contribute, I havn't been dming this summer, so Its going slow.
Father Tim 08-19-07, 11:48 PM	Delven has purchased a Large Greatclub +3 and a Ring of Swimming +5.