Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Xeviat-DM 01-08-05, 12:32 AM	My setting takes place on Earth, far into the future after several appocolypses destroyed what was known of human culture. The world has rebounded, so my setting isn't exactly postappocolyptic. But, artifacts from the "Ancient Ones" do exist around the world. Because of this, I am in need of establishing pricing guidelines for d20 Modern/Future items. Does anyone know of how I could do this?
Kobold Avenger 01-08-05, 02:02 AM	1 GP = $20 US roughly... Then use the chart on purchase DCs to dollar value charts....
Seeker95 01-08-05, 09:57 AM	You are playing D&D and need D&D prices for modern artifacts, right? Some items, like advanced firearms, would probably be "priceless". Others, like Zippo lighters, could be priced as if they were magic items, using the guidelines in the DMG. "Mundane" artifacts (like a package of Twinkies) could be anywhere across the board. If these artifacts are rare, they will all be very expensive. If they are common, they would probably follow the same patterns of pricing we see in the PHB. In any case, I don't think there is a "formula" you could use. "Mundane and cheap" in the modern world would be ridiculously expensive in a post-apocalyptic or medieval fantasy world. And outrageously expensive in a modern world may be quite commonplace and cheap in a magic world.
Edymnion 01-08-05, 02:24 PM	1 GP = $20 US roughly... Then use the chart on purchase DCs to dollar value charts....Not really, I've gone over just about everything in the PHB, and it works out much closer to 1 gp = $10. For example, a longsword costs 15 gp. I happen to have several sword catalogues here (I collect blades), and a functional longsword, no frills, runs about $150. Saw a thing on Discovery Channel (or maybe it was History, I forget which) a while back on medieval armor. Among other things, they noted that to have this particular guy make you a suit of full plate, it would cost you $15,00-$17,000. Suit of Full Plate in D&D is 1,500 gp, again, a 10:1 ratio. A "Good Meal" costs 5 silvers. If you stretch it a bit to say McDonalds will give you a good meal (hey, you get bread, meat, cheese, potato, greens, "ale", so its really not that big of a stretch), they normally run about $5. A few things don't mesh well (like the 10 gp steel mirror that comes out as a $100 shiney piece of metal), but as a rule of thumb, 1 sp = $1.
Quenditar 01-08-05, 02:54 PM	There's a discussion of this very subject over at the "Gold vs. Dollar" thread. While for most purposes Edymnion's 1gp=$10 is accurate, if you want to keep the relative affordability the same you probably need a higher figure, like 1gp=$500. Also, these are ancient artifacts; they'll cost extra.
Xeviat-DM 01-09-05, 07:59 AM	I don't really mean price for being bought in shops. I mean a relative price, closely tied to the DMG's pricing guidelines, so I know how powerful an item is to put in the hands of my players. I'd really like to see the same thing in artifacts; it's kind of a pain to just see priceless and have no idea how much it's going to empower a player. Maybe I should get specific and mention items? I'll find a few that I'd like to use.
ORC_Paradox 01-09-05, 09:01 AM	What's difficult is that D20 Modern doesn't have prices, but uses a "wealth" system. It sounds like Edymnion's got it right, though.
Seeker95 01-09-05, 09:46 AM	Maybe I should get specific and mention items? I'll find a few that I'd like to use.This might not be a bad idea. However, the power of artifacts, even priceless ones, varies from campaign to campaign. I tend to view artifacts as DM tools. The only time one enters my campaign is when I have a story line built around it. As such, I am the only one who can judge the power impact it will have. In some campaigns, a deck of many things is a no-brainer. It opens doors for the party at risk levels the DM and players can have fun with. In other campaigns, it is a time bomb guaranteed to destroy the game. In my campaign, it would result in destroying the game. The same can be said of less-than-artifact-level items. A wand of cure light wounds is a given in most campaigns, but take one into a Ravenloft campaign, and you have some serious firepower available. It's power level is quite different in Ravenloft. And immeasurable in a Dark Sun campaign! The "power level" of modern day artifacts is something only you can really judge, based on the world you are placing them in.
Kobold Avenger 01-09-05, 04:49 PM	If you read the D20 Modern columns (Bullet Points from what I remember) it use $20 = 1 gp. Plus the chart of wealth DCs to dollars is in the D20 Modern SRD.
Razoreface 01-09-05, 08:11 PM	If you read the D20 Modern columns (Bullet Points from what I remember) it use $20 = 1 gp. Plus the chart of wealth DCs to dollars is in the D20 Modern SRD. I'm not sure it is... a lot of people on the Modern forums ask questions that the chart would answer, and say it'd be a lot easier if things like that were in the SRD. Putting much of a forumla onto converting items is something that'll cause trouble.. a lot of things from the modern would wouldn't be particularly valuable in D&D terms, but would border on priceless. The Modern article about it is here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/bp/20040518a) 10gp doesn't really cut it, most "functional" longswords are still toys compared to a real one and because there's a hell of a lot of variance in it.. a longsword was something a skilled craftsman spent a few days at, and earned his wage that way. How much does a skilled craftsman make in two or three days now? Wyatt's food example is a good one, it brings $80 of food for eating out in a day to the 2gp of "good food" per day. The question that it starts off with is odd though... $5.00 for a gold piece, there can't be a heck of a lot of gold in that, or it's one tiny piece of gold.
Seeker95 01-09-05, 08:46 PM	Gold pieces are 50 to the pound. Gold currently goes for $419.50 per ounce. There are 16 ounces in a pound. One coin weighs 3.125 ounces. One D&D gold coin is worth $1,310.9375 I suspect this is NOT the answer currently being sought.
Xeviat-DM 01-09-05, 09:13 PM	What's difficult is that D20 Modern doesn't have prices, but uses a "wealth" system. It sounds like Edymnion's got it right, though. What about the sidebar in d20 Future that discusses the wealth system and Post Appocolyptic settings? They suggest the wealth system becomes representative of items carried around for bartering. I haven't DMed a d20 Modern game yet, but I worry that characters could be too powerful without an effective method of monitoring their wealth (like I have in D&D).
ORC_Paradox 01-09-05, 09:33 PM	Seeker does have a good point, though. It would be different from campaign to campaign. A lighter, for example, a non-magical way to start fires is pretty powerful. A compact disc would not be very valuable as it's not very useful. But, in a world where the medusa have outlawed mirrors, a reflective surface might be very valuable indeed.
Xeviat-DM 01-10-05, 03:42 AM	Except that creatures are immune to their own gaze attack ... but I get your point.
Quenditar 01-10-05, 04:24 AM	Gold pieces are 50 to the pound. Gold currently goes for $419.50 per ounce. There are 16 ounces in a pound. One coin weighs 3.125 ounces. One D&D gold coin is worth $1,310.9375 I suspect this is NOT the answer currently being sought. First, there are 12 ounces in a pound of gold. :D And no, neither the ounce nor the pound is the same size as the "normal" (avoirdupois) ounce or pound. Second, in the D&D world gold and other precious metals aren't all that precious. In another thread, I calculated that a D&D gold piece is three times larger than a gold florin and has about one-ninth the purchasing power of one - so a very crude estimate suggests that D&D gold has about 1/27th the purchasing power of "real" gold. Does anyone know the methodology used to reach 1gp=$20? I don't claim to be an expert on 15th-century economics, but a standard of living that high sounds funny, even allowing for the higher standard of living of D&D peasants compared to historical ones.
Razoreface 01-10-05, 05:59 AM	Does anyone know the methodology used to reach 1gp=$20? I don't claim to be an expert on 15th-century economics, but a standard of living that high sounds funny, even allowing for the higher standard of living of D&D peasants compared to historical ones. Basing a formula for converting from gold to money based on real-world economics is a kind of odd concept to begin with.. since the only things that D&D and Modern actually share are magic items, the sidebar is in the magic items section of Urban Arcana, and the price for the magic items isn't in dollars in that book. You can't even get an exact dollar amount, because the purchase DC for magic items are based on an extremely poor and basic formula that is directly Wealth DC, not money. (Which does, indeed, provide a perfectly fine way of monitoring and controlling your player's funds.. because when you buy things, it goes away) A wand of cure light in Modern is DC 26, anywhere from $9,001 to $12,000. For a 750gp wand, that's 1:12 to 1:16. A +1 resistance item is DC 22, while a +3 item is DC 28. For the +1, that's as low as 1 gp = $2, and for the +3, it's actually worth less than $1 per gp.. the value of a DC 28 is $15-20k. That's somewhere between 60 and 45 cents per gp! The purpose of the 1:20 is to do exactly what the sidebar says; to quickly and easily take magic items from the DMG and drop them into an Urban Arcana game, because there are a ton of spell effects that can't be created in UA, but if you simply took a 12,000 gp clay golem manual, and the quick calculation gets you at DC 37. The upper DC's cover an incredible range, also. That's just what it's for.. magic items. Not economics or relative value of your sword or what your pants cost. Using it for stuff beyond that, or trying to figure out how many gold coins goes into a troy ounce of gold will get you not far, because the formula just isn't that deep. How much is a plasma rifle worth that someone dug up from a thousand year old ruin? It's worthless, if nobody can use it. But it's priceless if it can be... or as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Or about as much as they'd pay for a 3d8 Aganazzar's Scorcher wand... maybe a lot less, cause it's big, heavy, requires a proficiency, and nobody can tell you how many charges are in it. ;) Also.. uh.. fifty gold coins weigh a pound. If a coin weighed 3 ounces, that'd be um.. four coins per pound. Or five, if you count the wrong kind of ounce. A D&D coin weighs not quite a quarter ounce... .24 ounces x 50 coins = 12 ounces.
ORC_Paradox 01-10-05, 11:43 AM	Except that creatures are immune to their own gaze attack ... but I get your point. Ah. I was thinking Old School. (1st ed/Clash of the Titans movie.)
Seeker95 01-10-05, 08:01 PM	Ah. I was thinking Old School. (1st ed/Clash of the Titans movie.)Even in new school, the mirror can allow you to attack the medusa easier than trying to fight with your eyes closed!
Xeviat-DM 01-10-05, 08:35 PM	Ah. I was thinking Old School. (1st ed/Clash of the Titans movie.) Yeah, makes me wonder why they decided to do that since it is kind of part of collective mythology. Guess it makes fighting them actually difficult.