Do magic items really cost at least as much to create as they do to purchase?

Question

The table on page 129 of the DMG lists the costs to craft an item.

Taking as an example a Common magic items, such as a level 1 spell scroll, the cost is listed as 100 gp. The crafter can only make 25 gp worth of progress per day, so this takes 4 days worth of effort, at 8 hours per day. The crafter must use a spell slot to cast the spell once on each of those days.

Meanwhile, the guidelines on page 139 for the costs of magic items states that a common magic item is worth 50-100gp with consumables, such as a spell scroll, costing half. So a first level spell scroll "should" cost at most 50 gp.

Looking at the tables for other rarities of items, again the creation cost is listed as the maximum of the suggested values for items of that rarity, and that doesn't even take into account the value of the crafter's time to work for many, many days to craft it.

Am I missing something here? Can someone explain how this makes sense?

(Obviously, this assumes a campaign where at least common magic items are available for purchase)

I understand that the prices listed in the DMG are suggested starting points only, but why are the suggested starting points for item values inconsistent with the suggested starting points for item creation?

Answer 1

I think there's two reasons why it would make sense for magic item creation costs to be as high or higher than purchase cost, that fit with the idea of D&D and the stories portrayed:

Most of the permanent stuff for sale is ancient

For most of it, it doesn't matter how much gp a caster once spent for it. The magic item for sale in the Bazaar of the Bizarre isn't made by the owner, or anyone he knows. It's made by an ancient wizard, who died centuries ago, and isn't going to see a penny of that money. It was probably looted by adventurers, who then decided they didn't need it all that much, so they sold it for whatever they could get for it and now it's for sale for whatever the item's owner thinks he can get for it.

The reason he asks you for 2000gp, even though you can make it for 2000gp is because A) most of the people who can afford a magic item, could also make one themselves and B) he's now undercutting any bored Wizard who tries to compete with freshly made magic gear. Considering these magic items are practically indestructible and require next to no maintenance, there's eons of time that they've been made in and most are simply still around to be found.

The market for permanent magic items is terrible because the stuff literally lasts forever and there's a whole class of people whose only job is to venture into the wilds, "liberate" the items and then sell them cheap so they can get some more potions for their next "adventure". Sellers are simply responding to this dynamic.

Most of the consumable stuff is made by specialists

The reason your Wizard takes 4 days to write a scroll and spends a 100gp on it is, for a major part, because your Wizard is a firebreathing, lightning throwing, people charming, monster summoning murder-machine and not a scribe.

Probably if you decided to spend 90% of your time learning how to write a Scroll of Burning Hands faster and cheaper than usual, you could also learn to do it in half the time and for half the cost and earn some money selling those scrolls to the other Wizards who don't perfect the art of calligraphy but instead waste their time going out to kill things and take their stuff.

You simply cannot reasonably compete with the people who dedicate their lives to creating consumable magic items and never learn to survive adventures. (And the reason there aren't any rules for doing so is because this is Dungeons & Dragons and any such character would be an NPC, not a player character)

Why you can't make money selling magic items

Ultimately, what it comes down to is this: making a lot of money off of creating and selling magic is boring and not what D&D is about, so the standard rules don't allow for it. The above is just flavoring for why it's like this.

Any experienced DM who can turn "making and selling +1 swords" into a fun play session will have enough experience to tweak (or disregard) the rules so that it works.

Any DM who doesn´t have that level of experience cannot accidentally screw up his game by showing his players how to make loads of money without actually risking their hides in the adventures that the game is about.

It's a win for everyone.

Answer 2

Magic items' costs, sans a specific campaign, are undefined. The paragraph above the pricing table on DMG page 135 makes this explicit (emphasis mine):

If your campaign allows for trade in magic items, rarity can also help you set prices for them. As the DM, you determine the value of an individual magic item based on its rarity. Suggested values are provided in the Magic Item Rarity table.

The numbers in the DMG are suggested starting points only, and DMs are required to develop actual purchase costs from that baseline. As a result, magic items are only purchasable if a DM makes it possible, and their cost to create only matches their purchase price if the DM decides that's so.

The suggested starting points are useful as a measure of the relative value between magic items, rather than their absolute value or value relative to crafting costs. The default is that you cannot use the rules for personal-use magic item crafting to turn a profit simply because a public market for magic items does not exist:

Selling magic items is difficult in most D&D worlds primarily because of the challenge of finding a buyer.

(Note that this is mostly in the context of found magic items, even, not necessarily crafted ones.)

Simply, the game defaults to magic items not being salable, and therefore does not even attempt to set up a balanced magic item economy. This fits with the rest of the system: tight balance is not attempted in the majority of the game. Based on experience with previous editions, attempting to balance a magic-item economy would have been futile in any case because it only solidifies the loopholes that undermine the initial effort. Instead, as with every issue of potential balance problems, it is left to the DM's intelligence to make it work at the table, if they want to homebrew a magic item economy. (As with a number of things in 5e, this is also an obvious call-back to editions earlier than 3e, since it's identical to the default for how magic item crafting costs and market price are [or aren't] related and set in AD&D.)

And since you've identified a problem that would be an issue for you, you're already doing exactly that for any game you might run.

Answer 3

Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017) allows crafted magic items to be sold at a profit

Meta: While this question mentions the DMG specifically, it was asked before the release of XGE , and commenter Longspeak brought up XGE recently. Therefore I believe it is appropriate and useful to discuss XGE.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGE) contains updated guidance for crafting and selling magic items in the section on downtime activities. In this answer I will consider XGE as written; however, do note that XGE rules are optional.

Selling (pp. 133-134)

Here XGE gives base prices for items based on their rarity as well as rules for selling items. Depending on the result of the sell check, the offer may be 50%, 100%, or 150% of the base price. It takes one workweek and 25 gp to find a buyer.

Note that

The character can always opt not to sell, instead forfeiting the workweek of effort and trying again later.

Therefore, a character could keep trying until they reach their best possible result.

Crafting (pp. 128-130, 133)

In terms of crafting magic items during downtime, XGE divides them into three categories.

Scribing spell scrolls

This can be profitable but are not the most efficient. The best a character can do is to scribe a 6th-level scroll at a cost of 15,000 gp in 8 workweeks. As a very rare consumable item it has a base price of 20,000 gp. If the character gets the best result (offer for 150% base price) in a single week of selling, it will go for 30,000 gp. Subtracting the initial outlay and the 25 gp cost to find a seller, that's a profit of 14,975 gp over 9 workweeks, or an average profit of at most 1663.88 gp per workweek (ignoring complications). However, if the character is not very skilled at selling, their average weekly profit will be smaller.

Notably, not all scrolls are profitable to scribe; it is impossible to turn a profit on 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 9th level scrolls even with the best possible sale result.

Crafting general magic items

This costs exactly half the base price. With enough initial funds, rarer items are more time-efficient. A legendary item takes 50 workweeks to craft and sells for up to 300,000 gp; however, it does require 100,000 gp of initial funding. Overall, that's an average profit of at most 3,921.07 gp per workweek.

However, apart from the high initial cost and potential complications, XGE also specifies an additional requirement:

An item invariably requires an exotic material to complete it. [...] Finding that material should take place as part of an adventure.

So this is not actually a strictly downtime activity.

Brewing Potions of Healing

XGE gives one more option, however: potions of healing are treated as a separate category with their own table for crafting time.

A potion of supreme healing costs 10,000 gp and 4 workweeks to brew; as a very rare consumable item, it can be sold for up to 30,000 gp. This comes out to an average profit of at most 3,995 gp per workweek, beating out general magic items. Furthermore, it requires less initial funds and there is no adventure requirement.

I would also interpret there as being no chance of complications during the brewing process:

there's a 10 percent chance for every five workweeks spent on crafting an item that a complication occurs

Emphasis mine. Since each potion takes less than five workweeks to brew, no such item will trigger a complication roll.

Furthermore, the paragraph about brewing potions of healing is after the paragraph on complications, and states:

Potions of healing fall into a special category for item crafting, separate from other magic items.

Emphasis mine. The word "separate" suggests that potions of healing are not subject to the preceding rules for complications to begin with.

Of course, complications could still arise during the sale.

Herbalism kit proficiency

Apart from the time and cost, the only other requirement to brew potions of healing is proficiency with herbalism kits. XGE also updates the rules for training tool proficiencies during downtime (p. 134), which takes at most 10 workweeks and 250 gp. Brewing potions of healing is therefore open to any character, provided that they can find an instructor (or have proficiency with herbalism kits already).

Answer 4

No.

While crafting, you can maintain a modest lifestyle without having to pay 1 gp per day, or a comfortable lifestyle at half the normal cost.

Its not clear what this money might represent―perhaps your character earns it by doing repair-work on the side to support his crafting endeavors.

Regardless of what this money means, this gold per day adds up (or rather, isn't lost.) This is why you would craft a suit of armor instead of buy it, whether its magical or not.

There is no need to resort to wild explanations that lack internal consistency.

Answer 5

SevenSideDie has it it right about why Magic Item pricing is near non-existent in the various D&D 5e books.

My answer about what to do if you want to fix it and have magic shops in a 5e campaign.

Magic Items are a Luxury Trade

A lot of folks get hung about the special nature of magic items. The fact is that if a world existed where the assumption of D&D 5e were true, people will buy and sell Magic Items. They have a value, there is a demand for them, and for many people who possess them there comes time when they need to convert that value into something else like coin.

One thing is right about the popular conception of D&D magic items is that they would not be sold like ordinary goods. Instead their economics would follow the rules of luxury goods. I am not claiming this is how it was in all times and places but based on my research it is representative of how it was handled throughout history.

• To be able to buy or even sell magic items requires knowing the right people.
• The right people will be serving a clientele of the wealthy and powerful. The people that is worth the time of a person trying to make a living in the trade.
• The sovereign of the realm will typically be offered first choice. In general this is not a bad thing but neither it is a good thing. Quite simply you won't get the price you looking to sell the item at and take whatever the sovereign is offering. But most rulers know that they can't be too greedy or the trade will go underground.
• The common and uncommon items will have known values. Rarer items will invariably be auctioned off if a sovereign doesn't want them.
• There will be a network of magic-users who create items for a commission. Getting a magic-item made requires an "in" to this group. It will be slightly easier for Common and Uncommon to find a magic-user to commission to make it.

Figuring out the Price of Magic Items.

So how to figure the price for anything? Quite simply the cost will equal to the cost of material plus the cost of labor. In D&D 5e the cost of material easier just look it up on the table on page 135 in the DMG. It is however a rather abstract system but that doesn't matter for this.

To figure the cost of labor you need to look at how long it takes to make an item, how much does a mage expect to earn on a per day basis. Note this is not the same as a cost of living. This is based on what kind of salary a mage could earn if he or she was employed in the service of another.

D&D 5e doesn't have firm guidelines on hiring a spellcaster. The most detail is given on page 159 of the 5e PHB where the price of a 1st level spell is given at 10 gp to 50 gp.

I find this somewhat ludicrous as a they also state on page 157 of the PHB that an aristocratic lifestyle can cost 10 gp per day. And it doesn't correlate with some of the other expenses, wages, and prices It not enough for something to be rare to be pricey it has to be in demand. And frankly the utility of 1st and 2nd level spells do not ever warrant 50 gp relative to the other prices that are given.

But suppose you accept their guideline and even feel that the high of 50 gp is warranted. So what is the price of a magic item?

• Cost of the material as given on page 135 of the DMG
• Take the number of days required to make a magic item and multiply by 50 gp.

Add the two together and that what it would cost to commission a given magic item.

For example a +1 suit of chainmail is rare according to page 152.

• Cost 5,000 gp in materials to make.
• Cost 75 gp to get a suit of chainmail armor.
• It take 200 days to make which costs 10,000 gp in labor.

The final price to commission a suit of +1 chainmail is 15,075 gp.

Armed with the above you can tweak the number to get the exact feel you want for the buying and selling of magic items in your campaign.