The upcoming Eberron sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition will print an official price list for magic items for the first time.
In most D&D settings, magic items are kind of hard to put a price on. That's because magic and their associated artifacts are incredibly rare and can elicit vastly different prices depending on the setting. A healing potion might be a few dozen gold in one setting, but a few hundred gold in another. Something like a +1 sword can be many thousands of gold with a wide variance between potential customers, making a single price list not just impossible but also unrealistic.
But players want magic items; they're cool, and powerful, and sometimes necessary to kill certain monsters (lookin' at you, Lich). Dungeon Masters have gotten around the problem of price by often posting their own custom price lists online, but most have been left to fend for themselves whenever a player character wanders into a magic shop.
Well, no longer. For the first time in 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons is getting a magical item price list.
It'll be in the upcoming sourcebook Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Wizards of the Coast D&D rules guru Jeremy Crawford revealed the big news on a recent Twitch-cast last Tuesday.
Chapter 5 of the new sourcebook will contain an extended magical item list, which will include prices and crafting rules. Rules for Eberron's magic item economy will also be laid out as well as how to go about buying and selling your various magic-empowered doodads.
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The reason for this is that Eberron has a vastly different relationship to magic. Whereas many D&D settings treat magic as a rare gift, in the world of Eberron magic is everywhere. Cities have street lamps and trains powered by magic, baubles and constructs are sold on every street corner, and your local apothecary has the magical equivalent of a bottle of Aspirin for sale.
With a magic-based economy playing a central role, Eberron needs to have a section devoted to magic item prices for anyone to make sense of the place.
A whole host of other topics were also discussed in the hour-long video, including rules for new playable races and the official release of the new Artificer class.
Eberron: Rising from the Last War arrives on November 19th.