Is there a turquoise in your magical breeches?

[LypyL]

[Narf the Mouse]

*Fifteen minutes ago*

"Psst...Hey...Let's prank the new guy. It'll be hilarious."

[Interkarma]

LOL this is why we love Daggerfall

[Narf the Mouse]

Nevermind that the quest money rewards suck, and the real money is selling off the 1x + 2x + 3x +... loot from the thief's/assassins you kill while guarding the what/whosit.

[EpicSpellsword404]

I, too, place great importance on my magical breeches.

[Jay_H]

Well, this has given me another idea for a mod: attaching jewelry to equipment to alter their stats, like in Diablo 2.

[Narf the Mouse]

Well, this has given me another idea for a mod: attaching jewelry to equipment to alter their stats, like in Diablo 2.

So I gather from the particulars of your insightful post that you desire to enable players of Daggerfall Unity to emplace items which have been enchanted with spells available in Daggerfall Unity, on other items which have been enchanted with spells available on Daggerfall Unity, so they can have said "enchanted items" perhaps stacked one upon another, because you have available information which indicates that would be something of positive interest to said players?

"Yo, dawg, I heard you like enchanted items, so I put enchanted items on your enchanted items..."

Highlight above if you don't get it.

[Jay_H]

I was thinking of attaching a specific benefit to each jewel, which could be inset to a non-magical (or perhaps magical, non-artifact?) piece of equipment to attach a permanent benefit. Some could be increased durability, increased attack speed, greater probability of finding magical equipment, greater amounts of gold found, reduced magicka costs, and better shop prices while worn. This would all be part of a major revamp of the monetary system, so these jewels would be exorbitant and/or rare. That actually brings us full-circle: a turquoise would actually be a really good reward for a quest.

[Narf the Mouse]

I was thinking of attaching a specific benefit to each jewel, which could be inset to a non-magical (or perhaps magical, non-artifact?) piece of equipment to attach a permanent benefit. Some could be increased durability, increased attack speed, greater probability of finding magical equipment, greater amounts of gold found, reduced magicka costs, and better shop prices while worn. This would all be part of a major revamp of the monetary system, so these jewels would be exorbitant and/or rare. That actually brings us full-circle: a turquoise would actually be a really good reward for a quest.

Actually, a revamp would reduce costs in nearly any fantasy game. Why?

...Well, let's go back. Way back. All the way back to about 1976, and the original RPG (or at least first to publish).[/timemachinezone] So anyway, Gygax and Arneson release this newfangled (at the time) miniatures game where you play characters on some sort of treasure-finding adventure. And it includes things like swords that cost 10 gold pieces, and sailing ships for tens of thousands of gold pieces...And 20 arrows for 10 gold pieces.

If you know anything about the cost of things (in general or the medieval period), you will probably recognize these as wildly unrealistic. ...Except in context, because that original RPG was meant to be set in a gold rush-style area. In the real-world continental American gold rushes, prospectors would pay actual gold...For a cheap meal.

Part of it was the cost of transporting goods and services an incredible distance. The other part was, if that was the only place in town to buy food, or if all the merchants gouged, well...

Turns out, if you divide the cost of stuff in That RPG by 20 (up to the third and a half edition; I've no real interest in the fifth), you get reasonable, quite close to real-world values. For example, a longsword costs 7 sp, 5 cp...Pretty much what a common longsword would cost "back then" (a knight would pay more; but a knight's would probably be the work of a master weaponsmith. heh).

What's that got to do with modern fantasy game prices? Well, some friends copied their friends, who copied their friends, and pretty soon people just started slapping dozens to hundreds or more of gp worth of costs on stuff...

...Even though, by realistic pricing, a suit of steel full plate would cost about 80 gp. (yes, that's pretty much high-end plate cost in both three and a half, and a medieval England price list).

Sources in no particular order: ENWorld, The ARMA, various internet sources that seem reliable, DnDClassics/DMsGuild.

[Jay_H]

Oh yeah, that's the plan. Starting gold sums would be based on single digits -- the human enemies in Privateer's Hold would probably have between 5 and 10 gold on them. Iron equipment would sell between 1 (boots, dagger) and 6 gold (daikatana, cuirass) per piece. Rank 1 Fighter's Guild quests would offer like 40 gold. A horse would cost... maybe 300? Houses would start at several thousands, and large houses would cost several tens of thousands. And the value scaling in vanilla would have to be drastically reduced; Daedric can no longer be 128x the price of Steel. Gems would cost around 400, so they would be exorbitant by comparison only. (And unless you have a brilliant Mercantile and Personality, you probably won't be able to sell it for above 100...). I'm just bringing numbers off the top of my head, so I don't expect them to be balanced yet.

This introduces the need for rank-exclusive guild quests, which is another idea I've had.