TOPIC: Raven's Rough Guide to Token Trading - W.I.P.

Raven,

1st time I've seen this and kudos...great info!

Thanks, David. A lot of great forumites contributed to it, and I think it's a document worthy of publication, now.

NOTE TO ALL: The most recent version is in the first post. I made some minor tweaks to spelling & punctuation, added the web addy for the TD store, plus caught one more "combo" reference. I also changed the references from "consumables" to "Scrolls/Potions" so new players wouldn't get them confused with, say, Turkey Legs.

Now I've got a document which - on my printer at least - is exactly 2 pages, so I can print it double-sided and bring to GenCon as a hand-out.

If anyone else wants a copy, please let me know and I can send you the file or bring a copy to GenCon for you.

Also, if anyone has any objections to me submitting the file to Jeff/Dave for inclusion in the TD resources section, please let me know. I have tried to create a relatively unbiased and informative document, but I see things thru a different filter than new players, and it may need a bit of revision still.

Thanks everyone!

Some of the ingredients are worth less than 100GP, based on the transmutable gold substitution values. I find it very hard to think that the lowest typical value of ingredients is 250GP.

Age old debate and I think several, including Raven, would agree with you in that some are worth less then the listed. But it gives them a ballpark which isn't a bad plan.

I think we initially said something like 100+ and others said that was way to low.

100 GP equates to about $2.50. I haven't found any ingredient tokens going for $2.50, but I'll gladly buy any and all ingredient tokens anyone wants to sell for $2.50 each.

The crux of the debate over the "value" of Ingredients seems to be the difference in perceived usefulness between the hard core TD players (collectors/forumites/crafting-types) and the average casual player.

Those of us on the forum tend to speculate, plan ahead, buy a lot of tokens, and need a lot of ingredients for our evil plans to come to fruition.

To casual players, the ingredient tokens might represent 80GP they don't need to include when making a simple combo recipe... assuming they even make the recipe.

So forumites are going to skew the value significant upwards.

When I helped out in the combo token exchange a couple of years ago, I think there was only one person that used a monster ingredient token as part of the combo recipe that I saw the whole evening. Other than that single instance, every combo token trade-in used the GP substitute instead.

When I was standing in the Marriott hallway waiting for Combo trading to open one year, there was an enterprising merchant wandering along the line asking anyone (new players especially) if they were using their ingredients to make combo tokens, and offering to buy them for the GP substitution cost (plus a little extra, I think).

He did get a few takers.

For the UR section, it might be good to explicitly state that UR's vary in power. Just because a UR is out of print doesn't mean it will be more valuable (or even meet that $100 minimum). I'm thinking of less desirable tokens like the Hat of Healing or +2 Staff of Striking or that Rapier of Piercing.

Maybe a good compromise is to provide different GP ranges for current and older monster trophies? Like:

Older monster trophies: 100-500 GP
Newer monster trophies: 500-750+ GP, but they depreciate rapidly

You'll only get 1000 GP rarely, usually with recent monster trophies needed for 4C's. You're not going to get much for that Stirge Spittle or Minotaur Horn.

I agree with you, Incognito. But, because I'm trying to keep the document down to a very manageable 2-page max, I don't have a lot of room to give various "if/and/but" notes on a wide variety of tokens. Every single token category needs the disclaimer "but prices vary and sometimes you wont be able to get a buyer even at the minumum end of this range" I've tried to cover my bases by saying "varies" and that the price ranges are only "guidelines"

I think $100 - $250 is a good *range*, because 90% of OOP URs will fall within it. Sure, I could write $25 - $750 (thinking of the UR Ring of Pro+1, vs the HoP) but that is insufficiently informative to the average newb.

I did note (in the very last paragraph) that ingredient values depreciate.

And I think I removed the 1000gp high-end from the final draft (now on pg 1)

The friend who is just dipping into collecting will find this most useful.

Corvidae, to thee I give thanks.

This was amazingly helpful Raven & explained quite a few things that, as a newbie, I didn't even know to ask about.

Excellent job & VERY informative!