Item pricing?

[Etinarg]

I'm currently working on a RPG project once again, and once more I face the question how to set reasonable prices for my items. The items are the standard medieval-fantasy collection, axes, mace, sword, magic rings and amulets and the like.

How do you set up the item prices in your games?

[mushroom patch]

Supply and demand with a healthy derivatives market seems to work.

More seriously, I haven't seen a lot of roguelikes where the price was the real limiting factor in getting gear. Availability of any particular item is usually spotty at best (except in moria-derived games with a certain core set of very standard books, potions, scrolls etc.).

I guess the way to go is to get an idea of how much gold someone will have collected under normal conditions at certain stages of the game and make comparisons between those numbers and the kinds of gear you think are appropriate to buy at those stages. Then make some allowances for less normal play, i.e. farming/scumming/grinding, and probable expenses leading up to whatever stage. It seems most games use some system of base prices for different kinds of weapons and armor with multipliers for abilities conferred by ego or artifact types and for other pluses. With some calibration, this kind of system seems to work.

Shops and money lend themselves to design issues if items are reliably available at certain prices, so outside of certain core items, I would lean toward item availability rather than money as the limiting factor in obtaining gear through shops.

[Etinarg]

I didn't intend to make money a limiting factor for acquiring items in shops. I just wanted to give items "reasonable" prices. Many games which I have seen had some quite weird exception in prices, which I wanted to avoid.

Problems are rather how to compare a wooden club to a dagger to a sword or a shield, price wise. I guess once I have set prices for a few items I can deduce all other prices from those.

In shops there will be mostly plain items being available, so one must be really lucky if one can buy a good magic item in a shop. For magic items I'll use a system similar to the one you suggested, raise the base price with some factors determined by the magic mods.

[Rickton]

Dynamic pricing system where the price for whatever the player needs is exactly one gold piece more than they have.
And the shop doesn't buy items.

[Zireael]

I didn't intend to make money a limiting factor for acquiring items in shops. I just wanted to give items "reasonable" prices. Many games which I have seen had some quite weird exception in prices, which I wanted to avoid.

Problems are rather how to compare a wooden club to a dagger to a sword or a shield, price wise. I guess once I have set prices for a few items I can deduce all other prices from those.

You could look at WFRPG or D&D prices, they are pretty reasonable.

[guest509]

It is going to depend on how hard gold is to get, how common it is, and the utility of the item.

Super Sweet Game Breaking Item of Doom = As Much Gold As A Person Could Really Save In A Long Game.

Piddly Little Pile Of Shiz Dagger = 1 coin.

[Etinarg]

You could look at WFRPG or D&D prices, they are pretty reasonable.

That's a good idea. I found a wiki with D&D item prices, and while the D&D items do not fit 1:1 to my selection, I think I can use it as a reference. Thanks

[Krice]

I guess once I have set prices for a few items I can deduce all other prices from those.

The value has to be determined from some factors like material, size/weight, importance as item group/class, magic value, etc. Each item could have a generic importance value (something like 1-100) which compares to other items of the same class (weapons, armour, magic items, etc.) and from that the price could also be partly determined.

[BtS]

I think this is one of the things that you really have to test when the game is almost ready. I found that I adjust prices all the time while testing to make it balanced. I also found that sometimes it makes for better gameplay to not have "realistic" prices. In my game food can be more expensive than a weapon just because it may be more valuable to the player.

[Krice]

In my game food can be more expensive than a weapon just because it may be more valuable to the player.

The classical 5000gp bread. It could be interesting to make weapons so rare that they actually would cost more than a bread, but it can be difficult if enemies carry weapons and you can just grab them.

[Vanguard]

The important thing is to offer interesting choices.  If people can buy everything they want when they want it, your system is a failure.

I think game economies based on choosing which things you want for any given mission are more interesting than ones where you save up your allowance for 3/4 of the game until you can afford the best item.

[Etinarg]

The important thing is to offer interesting choices.  If people can buy everything they want when they want it, your system is a failure.

Shops have limited inventories, so even if the player is really rich, some items might just not be available in the shops. I don't think I'll make price the limit here, but generally limit the sort and quality of items which can be bought.

[BtS]

The classical 5000gp bread. It could be interesting to make weapons so rare that they actually would cost more than a bread, but it can be difficult if enemies carry weapons and you can just grab them.

Well, most weapons are still more expensive (and some much more rare) than bread . Also, I don't have enemies dropping their weapons for this reason (among others).

[Endorya]

Honestly, the "reasonable" item pricing is as much reasonable as you want it to be, regardless of the item's starting value. It really doesn't matter if a short sword costs 10 copper, 1gp or 100gp. You do however need to understand how easily the player can earn 10 copper, 1gp and 100gp. To keep the items' pricing concise you should create a few tables with pricing modifying factors to make your life easier and to make sure that a superior steel knife will never cost more than a superior steel battleaxe, rarity aside of course.

First, decide a base value for each item class (in case of doubt just use the items' overall weight and translate it into coin).

- Knife - 18gp
- Short Sword - 29gp
- Great Sword - 40gp
- Axe 30gp
- Battleaxe 48gp
- Mace 27gp
- Helmet 33gp
- Plate Armor 144gp
- Boots 12gp

Now create a materials table with its corresponding price multiplier (materials should dictate the item's durability as well as the items' score output for protection and damage:

- Common Wood *0.2
- Ebony Wood *0.4
- Copper *0.8
- Iron *1
- Steel *1.4
- Ebony Metal *2.0
- Dragon Bone *2.5

Now you can add another table for quality (quality should dictate the items' score for protection or damage):

- Broken *0.2
- Decayed *0.4
- Crude *0.7
- Common *1
- Balanced *1.5
- Superior *2.5
- Masterwork *3.0

To conclude this example we add the rarity table:

- Common *1
- Uncommon *1.5
- Semi-rare *2.2
- Rare *3.0
- Unique *4.5


So now lets see the output of some items produced using these tables:
Decayed Iron Short Sword (Common) = 29gp * 0.4 * 1 * 1 = 11gp
Superior Steel Battleaxe (Rare) = 48gp  * 1.4 * 2.5 * 3 = 504gp
Crude Copper Helmet (Common) = 33gp * 0.8 * 0.7 * 1 = 18gp
Balanced Ebony Plate Armor (Unique) = 144gp * 1.5 * 2 * 4.5 = 1944gp


These modifiers need of course to be balanced with world setting itself. As I stated at the very beginning of this post, you should take into severe consideration how easily it will be for the player to harvest money. Restricting items appearance to the player's current level could also be a solution as well as changing the item's price range depending on the player's geographic position. Some cities could have scarce access to metals making everything they sell made out of metal costing substantially more. Please, understand that this was just an example, some multiplying factors do not make that much sense at all so free to revise them

I hope it helped in any possible way.

[Etinarg]

Honestly, the "reasonable" item pricing is as much reasonable as you want it to be, regardless of the item's starting value. It really doesn't matter if a short sword costs 10 copper, 1gp or 100gp. You do however need to understand how easily the player can earn 10 copper, 1gp and 100gp.

I didn't mean the absolute value. I meant reasonable price relations between items. If a wooden club is 10 copper, and a dagger is 3 copper and a shield is 1000 copper, it seems to be odd.

So what I'm actually was asking is not the "realistic" or so price, but how to set up price relations among the items, so that the player won't point to the screen and yell, "These prices are outright silly".

The base values that you list are about what I am interested in, although I doubt that a battle axe should be more expensive than a great sword. And this is just the thing I wanted to avoid, and why I was asking. The axe is easier to manufacture and uses similar materials, so it should be cheaper than the sword. But how much? Also in relation to other items, like the mentioned bread.