31
Would you like an online tool to generate magic items by category WITH associated exact prices (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/dnd@lemmy.world
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

As a DM, my biggest complaint about the magic item shop generators online is the lack of exact price. Most come with a rarity, but I personally feel like the vast range in prices is too great for me to just plug and play. For example: I feel like a cloak of displacement is much more valuable than say a Berserker's Axe, even though they're both "Rare". So I felt like when players asked for a shop, I had to take time and read up on the item and then assign a price.

Would you use an online tool that was free (with like Google ads on side panels or something) that had associated exact prices (randomized between 75% and 125% and assigned value) that had a sliding scale based on something everyone probably has figured out for their world, like the price of a potion of Healing?

I've made a python script for my own personal use, and I'm thinking about turning it into a full web application. But I wanted to get your opinions on if this a tool you would like?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

If it was useful I'd use it. Every magic item price list I've seen has outlandish prices I would never use, so they are only useful as rough starting points. It's not clear what you are planning to do better than what is out there. You say the prices are exact but they are also randomized? What does that mean? Am I seeing randomly different prices every time I use the tool? And what do you mean by sliding scale? Like a UI slider widget that scales all the prices in the tool?

What I really need is a comprehensive guide to creating a gold economy for my players, along with well thought out price ranges for all magic items that fit into that economy. That's what the DMG should have.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Great points! Sorry for any confusion. So with my current personal script, I just went in and assessed and assigned prices to everything. When I generate the shop, I take that price, add anything relevant (like armor or weapons price because i had base types for things like +1 armor), and then assign it a random value between 0.75 * base to 1.25 * base.

    I agree, the prices would still be very arbitrary and based solely on my opinions. I would like to explore options on getting feedback or even allowing individual "overrides", but that would require like user accounts and stuff that I don't want to manage and most people don't want to make.

    I hoped to help that with a sliding scale that would be a UI slider, so you could scale it to your world's magic item prices. So say in your world a potion of healing is 5 gold, or maybe its 500 gold. The slider would scale all the prices. Like for instance, base price of a potion of Healing is 50 gp. So if you put it down to 10 gp, everything is reduced down to 20% base price.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    If you wanted to allow customization but without user accounts, you could just store all that data in a cookie on the user's machine. Just make sure you put clear warnings about how the data is stored and what will be gone if they delete the cookie

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •