Bargains/rip-offs shopping in town

[Selkie]

I recently played a selling game for the first time in ages. Partly inspired by the fact I found Deadly Powers spellbook at a low level in my previous game and just had to leave it lying on the dungeon floor.

I started to notice some things were total bargains in town and other things were a total rip off.

Bargains when buying:

1) Draught of the Ents - this increases strength and con but costs like 6,000 bucks. A strength and stat potion would set you back around 48,000

2) *Slay* weapons with telepathy. These are relatively common in town and can be picked up for as little as 8,000 quid. I always think telepathy should come with a major price hike, but when I'm buying then I'm not complaining.

3) Wand of Drain life cost 4,000 in the BM and they're so useful for an early mage with recharge. Until you find Arcane Control and get mana bolt reliable then I use these wands for sniping uniques with all my mages.

4) Phase door for 15 quid is a bargain. It's literally the way to stay alive in the first 20 levels and it's the price of a burger, chips and a pint in most gastro pubs (in the UK). Thanks, I'll take 20 please

Rip-offs when buying

1) Staves of teleportation. I mean they're handy to have but they cost crazy cash for an early game player

2) Dungeon spell books at the BM are like 90,000 but they're ten a penny once you get below 50. Never have the cash when I need one, and when I do have the cash I've usually got three copies of Arcane Control in my library

3) Potion of Augmentation is amazing I do get that... but 140,000 nicker is a bit of a piss take. You could literally buy every other stat potion and it would cost exactly the same. Why not a little discount for a bulk buy? By the time I've got this sort of cash I'm already stat maxed anyway.

4) Wand of confuse monster for 650, you're having a laugh. Wands of Stunning are much more effective.

Good business when selling

1) Identify rune in the early stages is good money (I play with know all flavours/runes at birth because I'm so bored of the flavour mini-game by now) so these are just free cash

2) Any armour always seems to fetch a good price. That adamite plate suit with +80 that your mage can't even lift off the peg will be a great pay day. I never got this armour. It's rarely ego and it weighs so much even an early/mid warrior will struggle. And anyway we all know a robe of resistance will be more useful than that extra +60 AC advantage even for a melee character

3) Dungeon spellbooks you can't read. Depending on the store owner's purse in that game, these can easily be 20,000 bucks a pop. Easy money for a junk item.

Bad business when selling

1) Artifact phials or torches. The general store is always miserly and the black market rips you off. Maybe I can sell them in the magic shop? This thought has only just occurred to me as I'm writing (I'm sure I would have tried this). Anyway, you'll be lucky to get more than 6,000 for a stat boosting, level mapping phial

2) Stat potions. Because the BM rips you off so badly stat potions (despite a sale value of over 24,000) will never be worth selling at the point you're already stat maxed. I think you get about 5,000 for a full stat potion, and 600 for a stat buff/nerf potion.

[Pete Mack]

Staff of Teleport is like wand/rod of TO: it doesn't matter how much it costs if you really need it. I'd rather get one from the dungeon, but it doesn't always work that way.

[Sky]

i'm not shocked by ?Phase ta 15 but i do think !Spd should cost more - 1000g, the same as !Mana. (BM prices)

Draught of the Ents only exists in 4.2 so ...

I also agree that !Aug is too expensive. By the time you can afford one, you will already have a few maxed out stats anyway. It should be 60k.

?Identify is good money, and so are torches of brightness, M4 and P4 books, rings of Tele, obviously rings of Escape, then armours of Resistance and then dungeon books.

I agree that artifact lights are undervalued, more so in randarts, because some are incredibly useful. Say +light AND a rare resist, like rShard or rNether?? Yes please. Not to mention when they have stat bonuses, and yet they still sell for 6k.

ESP on weapons costs less than ESP on a helm that only does ESP. A Helm of ESP in BM is 24k.

Other things which are of note is Longbows of Lothlorien (if you find one, they are 15k in the shop and 45k in BM), being that they are endgame, they should cost more.

It is my opinion that in a future remake of V from the ground up, the stores should be an integral part of the progress; as any modern game, X depth gives you X cash that you can then spend on X equipment. It would alos be nice to need to unlock item depth through drops - sell a M8 to BM to unlock scrolls of Banish, for example.

Carrying loot back home is the heart of D&D-like games, come on.

[Pete Mack]

But in DnD, the loot is selected by humans. In *band, it's assigned randomly, so most of it is boring. I'd rather collect gold and ignore everything but the really good stuff.

[Selkie]

Really good considered response, thanks @sky

[tangar]

yep.. I've also rebalanced most of V prices in my variant. eg Draught of the Ents cost 22000 in Tangaria

[Selkie]

yep.. I've also rebalanced most of V prices in my variant. eg Draught of the Ents cost 22000 in Tangaria

How much is a potion of strength/constitution in your variant?

[archolewa]

Carrying loot back home is the heart of D&D-like games, come on.

And it's the most tedious part of the tabletop game too. Come on, my play time is precious, I don't want to spend it going *shopping*. And let's not even talk about how much things can drag when your five other party members want to go shopping too.

[wobbly]

I'd argue that if staff of teleport is expensive you are recalling too often. At 1st recall I could normally afford 2 or 3. I think its a good idea to minimize recalls for the sake of enjoying the game. How many is definitely going to be an individual thing, but I'll give a ball park to aim for of "can I afford my 1st teleport staff"

[Pete Mack]

@wobbly--
I usually recall a bit before I can afford it, when I run out if clw or phase door. But I certainly get one by DL 20 or so. In any case, price is immaterial as to its value.

[Estie]

I recall often to "sell", not for the purpose of getting money (I use the no selling option) but for getting information. I sell off all the unidentified things accumulated when my inventory full, to learn the runes.

Yes I could try and discover runes by experimenting in the dungeon, but since I already know what they are that is hardly the right thing to do to maximize enjoyment of the game, or in the case of the abundant curses, it would be outright dangerous.

@wobbly Are you using "all runes known at birth" option ?

It is not that I want to get rid of the identify minigame (and its part of the reason I want random items, not Caspanion -> oh I have poison resistance now), its just that recalling is the least tedious way to disclose runes I already know as a player or know I dont care about.

[tangar]

How much is a potion of strength/constitution in your variant?

cost:8000; it's base price and as you could buy them only in BM - it will be 24k per potion. Quite expensive as I wanna encourage players to find potions in dungeons and sell them in their own private stores (as variant is multiplayer - players could trade between each other).

It's pretty different from V as in Tangaria shop refreshes every few seconds while in V it takes ages

[wobbly]

I recall often to "sell", not for the purpose of getting money (I use the no selling option) but for getting information. I sell off all the unidentified things accumulated when my inventory full, to learn the runes.

Yeah I do that too. But if it's a choice of:

1. Junking a maybe slot: neutralise poison, food, lantern fuel etc.
2. Junking an unided object. you'll id the runes later anyway.
3. recalling

I'll probably do 1 or 2. unless I want to recall for something like a town spellbook anyway.