DM Q&A: Raise Dead Scrolls

[Deleted]

Hello,

Not looking to make a discussion out of this in the public domain ....

Could Raise Dead ~~Scrolls~~~ be given a value increase? As found in NPC merchants. Of whatever appropriate caliber?

As I remember current ruling, crafted goods ... cost + 1.5 ... must be issued for correct pricing to honor lawful merchandising. Mind you readers, I am going off a ruling 9+ years ago for me, being too old. I tried to look for this ruling but could not find it.

Base cost for Raise Dead is 1125 to make and 45 XP. Back in my day we would add: 1125 + 45 x 1.5 = 1755, or 1800 to round.

Yet with highest appraise at the right merchants, I can buy scrolls for 1300 gold. That in and of itself violates the rules between players.

This seems counter intuitive when we want to offer more interpersonal RP between players and promoting crafted talents. "Feats" are expensive to invest in and being circumvented in even just 1 spell I think is silly when raise dead scrolls could be altered higher. There's a lot that could be discussed, but frankly I think 1300 gold for Raise Dead is too cheap, by the by.

Best wishes

[Deleted]

I was sent this link by Steelgrin

frc.proboards.com/post/46306

We can find Raise Dead in stores, so the 2.5 increase does not apply, but I remember seeing it becomes 1.5 ... somewhere.

Regardless, does the above link still apply? It'd be fine if it did. Such rare goods not found at merchants is expected and it brews appreciation for craft. I do believe it is a lost-gem-of-a-ruling lost in time. I didn't even know it existed myself.

DM Richard helped train me back in the day. I miss him.

[Munroe]

The base prices of crafted goods are built into the crafting cost. This is explained in the merchant license threads. If there were a formula that crafters were obligated to follow, you can be sure it would be widely posted.

I have no idea where you're getting your numbers. (Are you sure you're not remembering the rules from another server?)

The blocked text is my own experience with this issue.

I have been playing a scribing cleric on FRC since 2005 (with a brief hiatus during 2012-2013 when she wasn't in my vault). I have not substantially changed my pricing (I've lowered it about 75 gp over 12 years), but the NPC merchant prices have gone down to the point where high appraise characters and mid-high appraise characters can undercut my mark-up if they want to do so.

Since there is also an XP cost to the scribing (23 XP per Raise Dead scroll--previously 45 XP per Raise Dead scroll before a reduction years ago), I set my mark-up at a price that seems appropriate to me, and that price is still attractive to some buyers. I can't undercut all the merchant PCs all the time, but my prices can still make some PCs very happy sometimes, and help keep my character in gold.

There is no fixed mark-up on crafted items, they have a built-in GP cost that should be considered their minimum cost. If you can make them for yourself at that cost, then allowing other characters to buy them from you at that same cost is also a reasonable assumption. If we didn't want players to have them at that cost, the crafting cost would be higher. As the crafter, you can set your mark-up though, and sell them at higher prices than your cost. In the case of scrolls with an XP cost in addition to the GP cost, this makes the most sense. You're losing more than just the GP to make the item, so you have to determine how much that 23 XP is worth to your character.

[Munroe]

Jun 24, 2017 23:11:47 GMT -5 Warlord said:

I was sent this link by Steelgrin

frc.proboards.com/post/46306

We can find Raise Dead in stores, so the 2.5 increase does not apply, but I remember seeing it becomes 1.5 ... somewhere.

Regardless, does the above link still apply? It'd be fine if it did. Such rare goods not found at merchants is expected and it brews appreciation for craft. I do believe it is a lost-gem-of-a-ruling lost in time. I didn't even know it existed myself.

DM Richard helped train me back in the day. I miss him.

That does not apply to crafting, as is clarified in subsequent threads in the DM Q&A. That rule does, however, still apply to non-crafted goods except those listed with specific minimum prices on the Merchant License.

It looks as though you pulled that post out of a thread that contains more recent posts that clarify.

From the same thread:

Jan 23, 2010 0:13:40 GMT -5 Munroe said:

Yes, there is really a formula out there to distinguish merchants from twinkers. The order of precedence is as playaaa interprets it.

Jan 14, 2010 18:15:57 GMT -5 yago said:

My understanding of what I have read in this thread is as follows:

If a PC with a Greatgaunt merchant's license wants to sell something to another PC in Greatgaunt jurisdiction, the item must be sold for:
- a minimum of 50% of what the item would cost if a PC was to buy it from a NPC shopkeeper / merchant. (I will hereafter refer to this formula as the "50% formula").

And, that if a NPC shop-keeper / merchant who sells the item is not found by the PC Merchant, only THEN can the PC Merchant offer to instead set a selling price (to another PC) of a minimum of 2.5 times the value at which a NPC shop-keeper / merchant would offer to buy the item. (I will refer to this formula hereafter as the "2.5x formula").

Is that correct?

That is correct.

It doesn't apply to crafted items but to found items and purchased items that are being resold. Crafted items have a base crafting cost so things shouldn't be sold for less than it. Ideally there should be some mark-up as well, but minimum mark-up isn't specified explicitly. (In some cases, such as scrolls, crafting an item costs more than it costs to buy it so there's no good uniform formula for crafted items.)

In a few cases of crafting, we ask that players not resell them at all, such as with that one paladin spell that is a weapon enchantment. Holy Sword, I think. Paladins can scribe it very very cheap for some reason and it has a high caster level/long duration and a lot of benefits to the user. If they sell it at a competitive price with the market, they make a fortune. If they sell it based on how much it costs them, they put a very powerful weapon into circulation for very little gold.

[Deleted]

Thanks Munroe

As far as my opinion goes...

Crafted goods should have a low-average value of expected mark-up so that the feat and the effort isn't going to waste

To buy a scroll at 1300 from a merchant yet craft it at a higher cost is silly.

It is not improbable or impossible to track and document these things according in a simple and easy to read list. The 2.5 ruling can apply, and boy would that be awesome for the cleric crafting scrolls..

I dunno

My PC's are rich and not stupid, so I am hardly affected. Just food for thought.

[Munroe]

I bumped the merchant pricing threads that detail these things.

I found the crafting pricing details quoted in another of the DM Q&A threads as well, and it also mentions traps.

Mar 29, 2011 16:44:06 GMT -5 Munroe said:

As traps are a craftable item, they are governed more by the non-standard pricing of crafted items.

This is from the other thread I linked:

Jan 23, 2010 0:13:40 GMT -5 Munroe said:

It doesn't apply to crafted items but to found items and purchased items that are being resold. Crafted items have a base crafting cost so things shouldn't be sold for less than it. Ideally there should be some mark-up as well, but minimum mark-up isn't specified explicitly. (In some cases, such as scrolls, crafting an item costs more than it costs to buy it so there's no good uniform formula for crafted items.) In a few cases of crafting, we ask that players not resell them at all, such as with that one paladin spell that is a weapon enchantment. Holy Sword, I think. Paladins can scribe it very very cheap for some reason and it has a high caster level/long duration and a lot of benefits to the user. If they sell it at a competitive price with the market, they make a fortune. If they sell it based on how much it costs them, they put a very powerful weapon into circulation for very little gold.

In the case of traps, they generally can't be resold to NPC merchants. There may be a few merchants in the module who will take them, but not for any "real" profit.

They're a craftable item with no crafting cost (unless you count the Trapmaking kit, which costs a few thousand gp), so the value of the trap really comes down to the value of what it is made of. Some traps are more valuable than others for their raw materials, but in the end they are generally more valuable as traps, which don't have much value.

Does that make sense?

In other words, traps are basically a player-to-player market, and, in fact, are often given away by people who can't use them to other people who can. (Considering that each trap weighs 0.5 lbs and 1-to-5 stacked traps takes 4 squares of inventory, they can be self-limiting.)

[Deleted]

Thanks!

[Munroe]

Jun 24, 2017 23:43:13 GMT -5 Warlord said:

Thanks Munroe

As far as my opinion goes...

Crafted goods should have a low-average value of expected mark-up so that the feat and the effort isn't going to waste

To buy a scroll at 1300 from a merchant yet craft it at a higher cost is silly.

It is not improbable or impossible to track and document these things according in a simple and easy to read list. The 2.5 ruling can apply, and boy would that be awesome for the cleric crafting scrolls..

I dunno

My PC's are rich and not stupid, so I am hardly affected. Just food for thought.

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from. To scribe a Raise Dead scroll is 1125 gp and 23 XP. That's still significantly cheaper than 1300 gp from a merchant that you refererence (I've personally seen them as low as 1296 gp on my own PCs). I have both sold and crafted a Raise Dead scroll in the past week. For the first few years I was on FRC, it cost 1125 gp and 45 XP to craft the same scrolls. The XP cost was lowered, but over time the prices of the scrolls from NPCs has also gone down. (They used to be closer to 1500 from the shops with the good prices.)

That's only a Raise Dead scroll. Different scrolls (even in the same spell level) have different prices. If you're talking about some other scroll, you may need to say so.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 23:54:27 GMT -5 Munroe said:

Jun 24, 2017 23:43:13 GMT -5 Warlord said:

Thanks Munroe

As far as my opinion goes...

Crafted goods should have a low-average value of expected mark-up so that the feat and the effort isn't going to waste

To buy a scroll at 1300 from a merchant yet craft it at a higher cost is silly.

It is not improbable or impossible to track and document these things according in a simple and easy to read list. The 2.5 ruling can apply, and boy would that be awesome for the cleric crafting scrolls..

I dunno

My PC's are rich and not stupid, so I am hardly affected. Just food for thought.

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from. To scribe a Raise Dead scroll is 1125 gp and 23 XP. That's still significantly cheaper than 1300 gp from a merchant that you refererence (I've personally seen them as low as 1296 gp on my own PCs). I have both sold and crafted a Raise Dead scroll in the past week. For the first few years I was on FRC, it cost 1125 gp and 45 XP to craft the same scrolls. The XP cost was lowered, but over time the prices of the scrolls from NPCs has also gone down. (They used to be closer to 1500 from the shops with the good prices.)

That's only a Raise Dead scroll. Different scrolls (even in the same spell level) have different prices. If you're talking about some other scroll, you may need to say so.

Again, I am under the impression that you have to apply 1.5x to one's craft

So 1125 + 45 .. x 1.5 = 1755, or 1800 to round up.

You've more or less said that the 1.5 thing doesn't exist.

I do not know where I got 1.5 ... It was cited to me under pretense that, the same-item exists in NPC merchants, therefore? 2.5 doesn't apply. So someone that told me this at 1.5, must have gotten it from somewhere.

What is the minimal value a PC can sell a crafted good to another PC?

[Deleted]

Pardon, what is the minimal value a PC can sell a crafted good to another PC ... when the good is found at an NPC?

I guess by current examples, at cheapest, a Raise Dead Scroll from the merchant being 1296 .. must mean that it should be 1.1+...? Does that seem fair?

How does FRC value a Feat?

[Munroe]

Jun 25, 2017 0:11:23 GMT -5 Warlord said:

Pardon, what is the minimal value a PC can sell a crafted good to another PC ... when the good is found at an NPC?

I guess by current examples, at cheapest, a Raise Dead Scroll from the merchant being 1296 .. must mean that it should be 1.1+...? Does that seem fair?

How does FRC value a Feat?

I have already answered the question of mark-up. Crafted goods are sold based on the cost to craft. The other pricing schemes do not apply to crafted goods. There is no mandatory mark-up beyond the base price of crafting. This is explicitly stated.

To use the Raise Dead scroll example, the crafting cost of a Raise Dead scroll is 1125 gp and 23 XP. The minimum price a character could sell such a scroll for to another player would be 1125 gp. Since there is an XP cost as well, it's likely the crafting player would not sell it that cheaply but would adjust the price up until they felt compensated for that 23 XP they spent by a subsequent gain in gold.

I am not implying that 1.5x thing does not exist. I am telling you outright that it does not exist. There is no 1.5x thing on crafted items. I have not been unclear about this. To draw an analogy, you are figuratively asking if the world is flat. I am telling you the world is round, then you are coming back saying "But I heard the world was flat. That's what you meant, right?"

Jan 23, 2010 0:13:40 GMT -5 Munroe said:

It doesn't apply to crafted items but to found items and purchased items that are being resold. Crafted items have a base crafting cost so things shouldn't be sold for less than it. Ideally there should be some mark-up as well, but minimum mark-up isn't specified explicitly. (In some cases, such as scrolls, crafting an item costs more than it costs to buy it so there's no good uniform formula for crafted items.) In a few cases of crafting, we ask that players not resell them at all, such as with that one paladin spell that is a weapon enchantment. Holy Sword, I think. Paladins can scribe it very very cheap for some reason and it has a high caster level/long duration and a lot of benefits to the user. If they sell it at a competitive price with the market, they make a fortune. If they sell it based on how much it costs them, they put a very powerful weapon into circulation for very little gold.

Whether or not the item is sold in a store somewhere doesn't matter for crafted items. Their minimum price is set by their crafting cost.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2017 0:28:29 GMT -5 Munroe said:

I have already answered the question. Crafted goods are sold based on the cost to craft. The other pricing schemes do not apply to crafted goods. There is no mandatory mark-up beyond the base price of crafting. This is explicitly stated.

I am not implying that 1.5x thing does not exist. I am telling you outright that it does not exist. There is no 1.5x thing on crafted items. I have not been unclear about this. To draw an analogy, you are figuratively asking if the world is flat. I am telling you the world is round, then you are coming back saying "But I heard the world was flat. That's what you meant, right?"

Jan 23, 2010 0:13:40 GMT -5 Munroe said:

It doesn't apply to crafted items but to found items and purchased items that are being resold. Crafted items have a base crafting cost so things shouldn't be sold for less than it. Ideally there should be some mark-up as well, but minimum mark-up isn't specified explicitly. (In some cases, such as scrolls, crafting an item costs more than it costs to buy it so there's no good uniform formula for crafted items.) In a few cases of crafting, we ask that players not resell them at all, such as with that one paladin spell that is a weapon enchantment. Holy Sword, I think. Paladins can scribe it very very cheap for some reason and it has a high caster level/long duration and a lot of benefits to the user. If they sell it at a competitive price with the market, they make a fortune. If they sell it based on how much it costs them, they put a very powerful weapon into circulation for very little gold.

Whether or not the item is sold in a store somewhere doesn't matter for crafted items. Their minimum price is set by their crafting cost.

Excellent ... thanks! That is as concise as it gets.

I got a PM from a player whom seems to think that there is a 1.5 clause to multiply atop crafted goods.

This is the issue. Some of us simply think there is a 1.5x multiplier atop a crafted good - if found in an NPC Merchant

I thought this and they thought this. I do not know why this is thought but it does not seem to be the case.

Meanwhile, I feel it isn't so enlightening to invest in the Feat when one of its major cookie-flavored scrolls is only valued at 1.1+ atop cost

Thanks a bunch

[Munroe]

Including this here again for completeness:

Sept 28, 2011 17:18:42 GMT -5 Munroe said:

Jan 23, 2010 0:13:40 GMT -5 Munroe said:

In a few cases of crafting, we ask that players not resell them at all, such as with that one paladin spell that is a weapon enchantment. Holy Sword, I think. Paladins can scribe it very very cheap for some reason and it has a high caster level/long duration and a lot of benefits to the user. If they sell it at a competitive price with the market, they make a fortune. If they sell it based on how much it costs them, they put a very powerful weapon into circulation for very little gold.

It's actually Bless Weapon, not Holy Sword.

[Deleted]

So beyond the 1.5 - confusion, I now ask ...

Could Raise Dead scrolls sold at NPC's, be given a Value Increase? I included that in earlier posts but now it is more clear than ever I hope.

I just feel that making 1.1x the profit on Raise Dead just seem's lack luster.

Again, I have no PC that is capable of doing this. I am thinking of PC's like Dominique, Foxy, etc .. that can scribe scroll, but some of their 'best' scrolls are sold so cheap at other locations .... that I am not fretting missing those PCs.

I do not know how hard it is to apply a "value increase" ++++ to our current scrolls to make the scribing/craft of the talent more worth while. I wonder what Greater Restoration and Resurrection scale in with all this.

[Munroe]

Jun 25, 2017 1:02:32 GMT -5 Warlord said:

So beyond the 1.5 - confusion, I now ask ...

Could Raise Dead scrolls sold at NPC's, be given a Value Increase? I included that in earlier posts but now it is more clear than ever I hope.

I just feel that making 1.1x the profit on Raise Dead just seem's lack luster.

Again, I have no PC that is capable of doing this. I am thinking of PC's like Dominique, Foxy, etc .. that can scribe scroll, but some of their 'best' scrolls are sold so cheap at other locations .... that I am not fretting missing those PCs.

I do not know how hard it is to apply a "value increase" ++++ to our current scrolls to make the scribing/craft of the talent more worth while. I wonder what Greater Restoration and Resurrection scale in with all this.

This is the DM Q&A. This reply is a suggestion. I am leaving it here because it is posted in reply to the topic. If you'd like to suggest that scrolls have their prices increased at merchants, I'd recommend posting a Suggestion topic about it.

For my own two cents, as Foxy's player, I'm fine with the prices. I mark my scrolls up 300 gp, selling them at 1425 gp. This is approximately a 26% mark-up. This sets my price high enough that I'm not overwhelmed with demand, but low enough that it's a good deal for some people that do not have exceptional Appraise. I'm not marketing to people that can get them cheaper and not selling to the reseller market.

[Deleted]

Ja, you can lock this up too if you want!