Reality check: one of my employers hires the plurality of the world's PhDs in one particular subject, pays them extraordinarily well, and gives most of them scutwork. Despite this low-efficiency use of modern-day wizards, said employer makes many billions of dollars in profit every year.
Here's another reality check:
You're describing a situation that is the
opposite of what is in the 5e DMG. Based upon the written game mechanics in the 5e DMG, six
HIGH-LEVEL 11th-level Wizards working in concert to enchant A Frost Brand sword.....will be sitting together in a quiet room for 11 months, after which
most customers will expect them to give their labor away FOR FREE.In fact, in many cases.....you end up selling these items for
LESS than what it cost to craft them.
But listen to me. I should make this scenario more favorable to the grogs in this discussion, because the higher your Charisma score is.......the greater the chance you have of making a small profit. So let's make them all 11th-level Sorcerers instead, with the
Guild Artisan background, the Persuasion skill
(+4 bonus) and 20 Charisma
(+5 bonus). The 11th-level Sorcerer is more likely to make a profit than the 11th-level Wizard, so we'll do things this way instead.
Six 11th-level Sorcerers with the Persuasion skill and 20 Charisma selling a Frost Brand swordd100 roll with average check ___ Buyer(s) lowball you with...
20 or lower __________________ 10% of base price
21-40 ______________________ 25% of base price (normal buyers)/50% of base price (for a "shady" buyer)
41-80 ______________________ 50% of base price (normal buyers)/100% of base price (for a "shady" buyer)
81-90 _______________________100% of base price
91-00________________________150% of base price (for a "shady" buyer)
So these six 11th-level Sorcerers have a 10% chance
EACH (on average, assuming an average roll of 11 on d20) of finding a "shady" customer from the criminal underworld.......willing to pay them enough money for their
Frost Brand sword to make a profit. To put this in layman's terms,
90% of their customers expect them to give their labor away for free. :rolleyes:
If it costs you 50,000 gp to craft an item, and 90% of your customers refuse to pay you more than 50,000 gp for it, then this means two things:
(1.) Your customers know what your creation costs are.
(2.) 90% of your customers refuse to pay you for your labor. :mad:
In fact, if we assume that
half your customers from a dice roll of 21 to 80 are "shady" criminal underworld types, then the conclusion I'd come to would be that there'd be a roughly 60% chance of most customers demanding that you sell
at a loss, a 30% chance that they'll pay you
full price (which means you're actually giving your labor away for free), and a 10% chance of "shady" criminal underworld types offering to pay you 25,000 gp in profit.
But let's break this down a little more. For the sake of argument, let's assume that your Sorcerer enclave finds a total of
100 potential customers. Here's the breakdown:
* 20 customers offer you 10% of your creation costs/base price
[you're selling at a 90% loss]* 10 customers offer you 25% of your creation costs/base price
[you're selling at a 75% loss]* 30 customers offer you 50% of your creation costs/base price
[you're selling at a 50% loss]* 30 customers offer you 100% of your creation costs/base price
[you're breaking even, giving your labor away for free]* 10 customers offer you 150% of your creation costs/base price
[you're making 50% profit]But perhaps even this is not enough information, because we want to differentiate between ordinary customers and "shady" customers.....from the criminal underworld. Remember that this is for a "very rare"
Frost Brand sword with a
base price and
creation cost of 50,000 gp.
It cost you 50,000 gp to create this weapon. So we also break it down like this:
# Customers________Payment Offer___________________Customer Type* 20________________5,000 gp (10% creation cost)____________Normal
* 10_______________12,500 gp (25% creation cost )____________Normal
* 20_______________25,000 gp (50% creation cost)_____________Normal
* 10_______________25,000 gp (50% creation cost)_____________"Shady"
* 20_______________50,000 gp (100% creation cost)_____________"Shady"
* 10_______________50,000 gp (100% creation cost)_____________Normal
* 10_______________75,000 gp (150% creation cost)_____________"Shady"
If you spent almost a year of blood, sweat, and tears working on a project.....you'd feel a little bit insulted by all this, right?
However, for the sake of argument.....let's assume that these Sorcerers rolled high, and found a "shady" customer from the criminal underworld who doesn't try to rob them, and who actually agrees to pay them a profit.
The
base price for a
Frost Brand sword is 50,000 gp, and half of that is 25,000 gp. So the 11th-level Sorcerers split this money six ways,
and earn 4,166 gp each for almost a year's work. Now call me crazy, but I think it could be much more profitable to get money adventuring. These characters are not researching anything, or learning anything new. They're just building something, by applying research they already know. And somehow, you have to convince six different
high-level characters to sit in a room together every day for almost a year......and offer them a pittance to do it, in comparison to the likely much greater money they could receive while adventuring. Meanwhile,
90% of their potential customers are insulting them by refusing to even pay them for their labor. Adventuring sounds much more lucrative than this, right?
Additionally, what you're really describing with the guys with the PhDs.....is the equivalent of a group of
zero-level sages from AD&D being hired by a wealthy benefactor.....and agreeing to sit in the same building, in order to do research and some menial labor....while getting paid well to do it. That scenario simply does not apply here. Once you're a high-level spellcaster, you're not a low-level peon grunt that gets pissed on any more
(allegedly). So your analogy completely falls apart. :cool: