That module doesn't have an economy, it is just hell.
My serious advice - change class.
Our Curse of Strahd game ended up full of rogues, barbarians and druids.
It also ended up with the characters becoming petty thieves. Everything was looted. Cutlery, crockery, clothing, furniture (in several cases) - everything. After all, when the merchant was buying everything at 1/10× and selling everything at 10×, then anything is fair game.
Of course, it never worked out the other way, noooooooo. Pay us 10× the rate for services rendered (carpentry, building, etc)? Oh no. Buy our wine at 10× the price? Not happening.
It was so tempting to just let the villagers suffer. I get that the villagers are victims, but sheesh people, work with us here!
Barbarian: What's that? There are werewolves running in the street? Well, I'd love to help but my armour is damaged and I am hungry, because I couldn't afford the extortionist prices here in town. I know - maybe you should ask the priest for help. He must be a rich man, charging hundreds of gold for each healing spell.
I'm having the same issue with my Druid and the new Summon spells from Tasha's. Through a fluke Natural 20 roll, there IS a Guilded Acorn (Summon Beast) at the general store in Vallaki, but at 1000 GP, there's no way I can afford it. And don't even get me started on the Guilded Flower (Summon Fay) or Gold Inlayed Vial (Summon Elemental). And if I did buy them, I wouldn't be able to afford diamond for Revivify.
I get that CoS is supposed to be challenging and low-resource, but it sucks when it comes at the cost of not being able to use your new toys because you can't afford components.
If "hate" is a strong word I'll admit I am a bit disdraught after the events of the last session. I am playing Curse of Strahd for the first time and for many in our group of 7 players it's our first experience with dnd.
Last session we crossed the land towards the town of Valaki to accomplish our quest by the lake. Knowing I'm a wizard, my DM created a shop out of town where we could buy and sell magic stuff. I saw there the chance to finally buy the materials I needed to transcribe some of the spells i found in a spellbook in the death house at the START of the campaign...
But the cost for even the incense to bring my familiar back costs 10 times it's normal price... and it's the same for the rare inks I nees to transcribe spells... So needless to say I couldn't afford anything and that's when I first regretted making a Wizard...
I love that class but it's an expensive class to play in the base game and if I have to spend 500 gold to transcribe the identify spell into my spellbook then pay 1000 gp to buy a perl to cast it, i think I'm better off paying the 10 gold pieces it cost me to have the spell cast on the items I showed the witch...
Sorry for the long post but I thought some context was needed here. My question is : Is the pricing supposed to be that high (x10) for class essentials items like my "fine ink" and incense ?
Thank your for your time and answers.
Your GM has messed up how the pearl works. The spell requires a pearl worth 100 gp. If the local currency is suffering 10x inflation, a pearl 1/10th the size (or luster, or whatever - I'm not an expert on pearls) will suffice - i.e. you still only need a 100gp pearl, because the spell is based on monetary worth, which by definition is pegged to inflation. If the local currency was worth 10x as much as normal, you would still need a 100 gp pearl, and it would presumably be 10 times as lustrous or whatever it is that gives pearls value.
It gets slightly weirder for copying the spellbook, which says you're consuming both ink (whose price will inflate) and material components (whose costs won't). There you do have to have your GM houserule how the inflation is hitting you.
If "hate" is a strong word I'll admit I am a bit disdraught after the events of the last session. I am playing Curse of Strahd for the first time and for many in our group of 7 players it's our first experience with dnd.
Last session we crossed the land towards the town of Valaki to accomplish our quest by the lake. Knowing I'm a wizard, my DM created a shop out of town where we could buy and sell magic stuff. I saw there the chance to finally buy the materials I needed to transcribe some of the spells i found in a spellbook in the death house at the START of the campaign...
But the cost for even the incense to bring my familiar back costs 10 times it's normal price... and it's the same for the rare inks I nees to transcribe spells... So needless to say I couldn't afford anything and that's when I first regretted making a Wizard...
I love that class but it's an expensive class to play in the base game and if I have to spend 500 gold to transcribe the identify spell into my spellbook then pay 1000 gp to buy a perl to cast it, i think I'm better off paying the 10 gold pieces it cost me to have the spell cast on the items I showed the witch...
Sorry for the long post but I thought some context was needed here. My question is : Is the pricing supposed to be that high (x10) for class essentials items like my "fine ink" and incense ?
Thank your for your time and answers.
Your GM has messed up how the pearl works. The spell requires a pearl worth 100 gp. If the local currency is suffering 10x inflation, a pearl 1/10th the size (or luster, or whatever - I'm not an expert on pearls) will suffice - i.e. you still only need a 100gp pearl, because the spell is based on monetary worth, which by definition is pegged to inflation. If the local currency was worth 10x as much as normal, you would still need a 100 gp pearl, and it would presumably be 10 times as lustrous or whatever it is that gives pearls value.
It gets slightly weirder for copying the spellbook, which says you're consuming both ink (whose price will inflate) and material components (whose costs won't). There you do have to have your GM houserule how the inflation is hitting you.
The value of the pearl isn't affected by how much you're charged for it, same with spellbook materials.
I would note that nothing above 25 gp (base value) is available in the first place, so you aren't going to be spending 500g for spellbook materials or 1,000g for a pearl, you just can't buy them. CoS pretty much doesn't have an economy, because there's almost nothing you can spend money on.
The book is only just a rough guideline. No rule in it should be followed to the letter, especially if you are playing 5E. The economy of Barovia in general is highly depressed. It is a closed society, no imports, no exports. We run costs at a rate of about 1/3 of what is listed in the DM's guide and you get what you pay for meaning quality is low.
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Oh, that's interesting. Thanks for the clarification @Lunali :). That makes sense.
That module doesn't have an economy, it is just hell.
My serious advice - change class.
Our Curse of Strahd game ended up full of rogues, barbarians and druids.
It also ended up with the characters becoming petty thieves. Everything was looted. Cutlery, crockery, clothing, furniture (in several cases) - everything. After all, when the merchant was buying everything at 1/10× and selling everything at 10×, then anything is fair game.
Of course, it never worked out the other way, noooooooo. Pay us 10× the rate for services rendered (carpentry, building, etc)? Oh no. Buy our wine at 10× the price? Not happening.
It was so tempting to just let the villagers suffer. I get that the villagers are victims, but sheesh people, work with us here!
Barbarian: What's that? There are werewolves running in the street? Well, I'd love to help but my armour is damaged and I am hungry, because I couldn't afford the extortionist prices here in town. I know - maybe you should ask the priest for help. He must be a rich man, charging hundreds of gold for each healing spell.
I'm having the same issue with my Druid and the new Summon spells from Tasha's. Through a fluke Natural 20 roll, there IS a Guilded Acorn (Summon Beast) at the general store in Vallaki, but at 1000 GP, there's no way I can afford it. And don't even get me started on the Guilded Flower (Summon Fay) or Gold Inlayed Vial (Summon Elemental). And if I did buy them, I wouldn't be able to afford diamond for Revivify.
I get that CoS is supposed to be challenging and low-resource, but it sucks when it comes at the cost of not being able to use your new toys because you can't afford components.
Your GM has messed up how the pearl works. The spell requires a pearl worth 100 gp. If the local currency is suffering 10x inflation, a pearl 1/10th the size (or luster, or whatever - I'm not an expert on pearls) will suffice - i.e. you still only need a 100gp pearl, because the spell is based on monetary worth, which by definition is pegged to inflation. If the local currency was worth 10x as much as normal, you would still need a 100 gp pearl, and it would presumably be 10 times as lustrous or whatever it is that gives pearls value.
It gets slightly weirder for copying the spellbook, which says you're consuming both ink (whose price will inflate) and material components (whose costs won't). There you do have to have your GM houserule how the inflation is hitting you.
The value of the pearl isn't affected by how much you're charged for it, same with spellbook materials.
I would note that nothing above 25 gp (base value) is available in the first place, so you aren't going to be spending 500g for spellbook materials or 1,000g for a pearl, you just can't buy them. CoS pretty much doesn't have an economy, because there's almost nothing you can spend money on.
The book is only just a rough guideline. No rule in it should be followed to the letter, especially if you are playing 5E. The economy of Barovia in general is highly depressed. It is a closed society, no imports, no exports. We run costs at a rate of about 1/3 of what is listed in the DM's guide and you get what you pay for meaning quality is low.