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This is a magic item valuation system which aims to make the game economy sustainable. It applies for merchants but has far reaching consequences on the world design. In short: Merchants pay very little for magic items and there is a good in-world (lore) reason for it.In not short: Non-magic equipment is bought and sold as usual - with some markup by merchants but not much (e.g. PC buys Mail for 200, sells for 140). Magic equipment is traded at extremely high markup (buy Mail+1 for 1000, sell for 20) because: In the game world everyone knows it is dangerous to keep (quality) magic items in the near vicinity because there is a chance a deadly creature "Buba" appears and kills everyone in sight - world lore, not a game mechanic (or possibly one that is off by default but can be switched on). The higher amount of magic concentrated in one place, the higher chance of "Buba" happening and there is no known way to avoid it. The magic items may or may not disappear. This makes demand for them as general merchandise very low. Most merchants have up to 4-5 weak magic items, as they see it as not too risky. They do not really want to buy more stuff. They sell rarely but at very high prices. They do not need extra magic around, so they are not interested to re-stock with magic items from you, unless it is at very, very low price. Most merchants refuse to buy highly enchanted items like +2 or +3 and up (there would be some demand for these, but the risk of keeping them around would be too high). There are merchants who deal with high magic, but they ask for high prices yet pay very little. Since they control the demand (you can sell only to them, and you can buy only from them) and they know it, they set the prices as they see fit. As a result, the player cannot make much money selling magic equipment and needs to spend a lot to purchase said equipment. Lots of extra stuff (read only if you're brave): The "High Magic merchants" have specially built stores. They use constructs to fetch equipment and sell these items by description (the game interface would be the same but a "drawn picture" show in the Sell slot, rather than an image of the item itself). They generally keep stock deep underground or have stores at desolate places. You need to wait for the item to be delivered by a construct at a specific location so the merchant is safe. They can be trusted, as the ones who exist have built themselves a reputation. There is no guarantee the items are available all the time. E.g. you could order an item, wait for it, then meet the merchant instead of the construct to get told by the angry merchant the construct has been completely destroyed and the item is missing, then get your money refunded. There should be no way to protect against Buba, as this would make the whole thing pointless. Buba can detect it, and if detected, Buba will destroy. Item magic strength should be easily detected by everyone with common devices made for that purpose. Each merchant would have these, as would many others. Magic items left in populated areas would disappear, even from containers (people would locate them, identify them and quickly get rid of them). There could be low-lifes who get rid of the items for a fee. One thing that would be missing would be the knowledge of the item's worth. This can be fixed by the availability to deposit an item for safe keeping with a High Magic Merchant. Higher quality items would cost more to keep safe until your return. An annual fee could be the item's worth in usefulness (what it would cost if Buba was not). Inn fees would increase as your equipment quality increases (less safe for the owner). Some would refuse a room when too much magic is worn. It could be possible to significantly decrease the risk of Buba by, say, keeping the items between huge solid blocks of (lead/gold/something). The idea is that they can be stored somehow more safely, but this cannot be transferred outside of a display room - you cannot carry around tons of lead/gold/something-else just so you can use safely your Light-weight Bow of Quick Movement. Also, this lead/gold/something-or-other should not be available to almost anyone, so it is off-limits for normal merchants. Possible upgrade for the stronghold - to make a magic item treasury / display room. To use the merchant item depository until then. Buba could appear in game, but it needs to be optional and when enabled, the chance of seeing that should be something like once in a few play-throughs. Very rare. But when it appears it should kill the party. People would hate that, so probably a better idea is to see another adventuring party, which was freshly Bubabbed. Legs and hands about with the stuff between missing, etc. And of course, the diary page entry about the fantastic magic item they had just found and can't wait to use. Creatures like dragons, undead, etc, could be safe from Buba, but not any player race. Almost forgot - trading between adventurers could be possible. But item/s for item/s - and it is only stuff you can take from them anyway, so no gold is gained.. Buba as a reason for this item valuation would provide good economy control but would need a lot of the lore in the world re-thought and changed. Probably there are better reasons which do not need to affect the lore as much. Also, "Buba" is only optional as official name of Buba within the game

I am not going to make a poll in this thread but the recent update by Tim Cain does raise questions about the intended direction of economy in Project Eternity. There hasn't really been a thread on this before (There's been a couple on specific elements such as economy related to magic or difficulty, or currencies), but not a discussion of the economy in itself. So I am making this thread for us to discuss economy in Project Eternity. To start off the thread properly I'll need to do a fairly good main post so I'll try to cover everything I can think of. I'll try and open the discussion from the perspective of the player's wealth as it is really the only thing that the designers have to be weary of in the game. We know the inputs to player wealth in the game (perhaps not all of them, but enough to talk about) - so I think the discussion should be about the value of those inputs, the outputs of which the player spends their wealth. Inputs to player wealth: Items found Money found Skills (Crafting, Stealing etc) Quest rewards Outputs from player wealth: and as per this post on the Something Awful forums it seems that one of the purposes of it is as a money sink for players who don't necessarily do much with the Stronghold Buying new items Paying for Crafting Paying for magical service (Healing, Restoration, Identification etc) Repairing items (currently) Player House Player Stronghold Quest inputs (eg. Paying the Shadow Thieves for transport to Spellhold in BG2) I don't think this discussion should be particularly about multiple currencies or anything specifically but by all means feel free to talk about them. My input I'll start off by saying I'm not a huge fan of Item Durability proposed in Update 58 and as per this post in the Something Awful forums it seems that one of the purposes of Item durability is as a money sink for the player in case they do not invest in the Stronghold. My suggestion here would be to remove item durability from the game and focus on other outputs from player wealth instead. Is it important that if a player does not invest in the stronghold that there be other money sinks in the game to circumvent the amount of wealth they will still have from doing so? Should the economy be balanced so that if the player wants to invest in the stronghold they might have to sacrifice other outputs? Outputs themselves are also probably affected by skills (such as bartering might reduce the cost of items or increase the cost of sold items etc, we can't be sure until we see the full skill tree). Here are some brief suggestions to get the ball rolling Buying items should be expensive Having a vendor craft items for you should be more expensive than doing it yourself for the convenience it offers Paying for magical service should be expensive There should be hopefully many quest options where you can use player wealth (paying for bribes etc) to garner specific outcomes. "Conscience do cost." Selling items should get you a minimal fraction of the item cost, perhaps influenced by reputation or a skill such as bartering if one exists Keep the money you find or are given in the game down Artifact crafting could have a high money cost like BG2 Limit the junk item sell value to 1gp or currency equivalent in game Expeditions: Conquistador also had a nice price/demand system for their trading that might be worth considering. Personally I don't think the player having excess 100K gold is an issue, but there are definitely ways to bring that number down excluding Stronghold investment. Anyway there's some points to discuss. I'm sure everyone else has heaps of ideas as well. Bring on the micro/macroeconomics enthusiasts etc.

Obsidian are quite good at providing a logical reason for the protagonist attracting followers, but what of more traditional forms of cohesion, that of financial renumeration? It may be more appropriate for some followers than others, the more mercenary of personalities, but even the most personally involved and charitable fellows will need a little pocket money. These will presumably be potent, skilled individuals whose services are in the world of Eternity quite highly valued, so their aid should logically be recompensed. Indeed if ones adventures become increasingly fraught with danger might the price of their assistance increase? Infiltrating the dreaded Onyx Citadel, infamous stronghold of the immortal Plague that Walks, should be judged as a little more risky than storming a back alley thumpers flophouse. Wouldn't a smart companion demand a few more pennies for this task? Indeed while recieving the quest ones followers could chip in to the conversation and demand better compensation, they are after all putting their lives on the line. Could you fall into debt with your companions, or knowingly decieve them and withold their pittance, thus affecting influence. Or might you have such a golden tongue as to persuade great loyalty, for the most meagre of purses. What of companions who have no control over their purse-strings, might they draw on their leaders credit, maybe even dip their fingers into the parties assets when no one is looking. Could this add another layer of personality and role playing in to the party dynamic? What say you gentles all, yay, nay or piffle?