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Old 10-15-2018, 09:15 PM   #1
The Wyzard
 
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Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Magic and Money

I took it into my head today to consider what it costs to have magic items made.

The normal jobs max out at $300 per week (there are some where the pay is based on a number multiplied by an attribute or talent - a quick skim indicates that it's tough to make those competitive with the flat-rate professions.) Those jobs are pretty hard to qualify for.

A mercenary captain wizard would need to be very close to a 40 point character, and a mercenary captain hero needs a broad selection of skills. Several of the $250 a week jobs are much more achievable. Highwayman, notably, is achievable by a starting character. They'd just better have good dice luck or they're going to die. Risk factor of 12. Ouch!

So, let's assume that a PC who is reasonably devoted to making money can make that 250 a week, to keep it conservative.

If this PC saved all their pennies, they could buy a 5-point power stone after 20 weeks, if I'm reading this right. That presumes they live at a low standard of living (I think) and don't have any other expenses at all.

If they similarly scrimped and saved for 64 weeks (which is I think a year and a bit less than 3 months, unless Cidri has a different number of weeks in the year, which it might), they could get a weapon with that big +5 damage enchantment.

A potion of youth costs $40,000. If you have the very best job, at $300 per week, you can afford one of those every 134 weeks, presuming minimal other expenses. You'd age a little less than two years for every three years of time. Not nearly immortality, and the life you'd be living for so long would be a meager one!

No, if you want the good toys and you want to live forever, you need lots of money. Like, cyberpunk-level-wealth-inequality amounts of money.

If you find Tollenkar's stash of emeralds, frex, that's only 25,000 dollars. Not enough for even a single potion of youth, and this is from a dude with stupid-high stats and a small army of bravos and apprentices, any one of whom would be a credible mid-level PC. He probably spent his money on magic items; his power stone is worth a scandalous amount of money.

The point is, you can't even depend on adventuring (which can easily get you killed) to give you the truly stupid amounts of money you need to get the good stuff. I'm assuming here that dragon hoards aren't vastly better or any more easily available than Tollenkar's Secret Stash. (I think that some kind of treasure guidelines are going to be part of the boxed set?)

So what are your other options? How do you put the money together to get those high-level magic items or potions of youth?
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Old 10-15-2018, 10:20 PM   #2
Helborn
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Default Re: Magic and Money

You don't. I think that was the point of TFT.

On the other hand, you can run across an idiot, (me very early in gaming) who hands out a 200 lb gold statue at the end of an adventure. $200,000. Sigh. And I thought I was being cautious since the original version had a 500 lb statue....
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Old 10-16-2018, 12:33 AM   #3
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Magic and Money

I'm with Helborn. The enchantment cost list is not there because all those things are likely to be available for sale, or affordable. It's just there to provide the difficulty to do it and the cost basis in the exceptional cases someone actually tries to make one, buy one or sell one.
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Old 10-16-2018, 04:14 AM   #4
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Magic and Money

The players aren't expected to have even one +5 magic weapon.

Very few of them will have 20 hit points either.

You shouldn't expect to survive multiple hits from a giant's club.
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