LEB Discussion Thread '09

Holy wall-of-text, Batman!

More seriously, that does sound like a system that is pretty able to keep treasure distribution consistent in a PbP living world.

However, your math is off. Well, not your math, necessarily, but the numbers you're using for your math. Stonegod was correct - you're under-rewarding the gold parcels. The DMG rewards gold over the course of a level equal to (an item of level n)*2. That is, you get 720 gp total gold over level 1, not 360 gp, and the same pattern repeats for every level.

Also, characters who get their gold at level 1 or 2 will have much less gold than what they'd recieve in a 'normal' game following the DMG parcels, and characters getting their gold at levels 4 and 5 will have significantly more. Over levels 1-5, each character should get about 1359 gold. So, even doubling the gold amounts in your proposal to match what's in the DMG, 720 gp for a level 1 gold parcel is a far cry behind, and 2000 gp for a level 5 parcel is a good deal ahead. Keep in mind that that 720 gp has to fund all of their cash-requiring expenses through to level 6 (which can be a very, very long time in PbP). I think the guy who gets his gold at level 5 is in an even worse position, though, because he's essentially dirt-poor until then, unless he wants to sell one of his item parcels for 20% value. He can't buy any potions, rituals, alchemy, or even spare equipment until level 5, and that is crippling.

I like leaving it in the hands of the DM, though. Your earlier presentations of this system had all the treasure selection done by the players, which left a bad taste in my mouth. While I'm all for wish lists and character-appropriate non-randomized treasure and all that good stuff, as a player I don't want to explicitly pick what I get and when. It's like getting to pick your own Christmas present and when you get to open it - no fun at all.

I think what stonegod meant by his point #2 was that DMs won't like it if the rules are "if my character reaches a new level without getting a reward parcel, I get to pick the one I want and recieve it right now, despite the fact that we're in the middle of an abandoned wing of the Dungeon of Doom with no treasure to speak of anywhere nearby." If I'm not mistaken, he was suggesting that instead of that, the DMs award an IOU - something like, "I know you didn't get your parcel for that level, but it's coming soon. Sit tight and I'll get it to you when it fits the game." I agree with him on that point, but I'm not sure his interpretation is necessarily what you meant. Good to check, though.

Also, I think what stonegod meant by his point #1 was that DMs are constrained in rewarding by this system. For starters, they can't use the oh-so-common "do this job and I'll give you guys X gold to split", because the gold all has to go to one character, according to your system. To deal with this, I think it would be good to keep your system with the gold parcels as-is, and reward the other chunk of gold equal to a level n item as a split reward between each character. That way everyone has some gold if they need it, and it gives DMs a little more flexibility in their treasure planning.

Lord Sessadore said:

The DMG rewards gold over the course of a level equal to (an item of level n)*2. That is, you get 720 gp total gold over level 1, not 360 gp, and the same pattern repeats for every level.

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My bad, but i could have sworn it was lvl n. Yea, that is an easy fix, just up the gold reward.

Keep in mind that that 720 gp has to fund all of their cash-requiring expenses through to level 6 (which can be a very, very long time in PbP)

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720 gold is actually quite a lot, especially if you're frugal and don't require many consumable items.

I've found that the majority of money in a game goes to purchasing items. And purchasing items is less important when you've got a more clean hierarchy of item procurement and some people don't end up with more than others.

Also, characters who get their gold at level 1 or 2 will have much less gold than what they'd recieve in a 'normal' game following the DMG parcels,

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They would at level 5, but they would not at level 1 and 2, a character who received his gold at lvl 1 would have, at the start of lvl 3, twice as much gold as he would have in a normal system. If he got his gold at lvl 2 he would have 3 times as much. A player that got his gold at lvl 1 would have, at the begining of lvl 4, still 20% more gold than he would have had you used the normal system. He is not behind until the end of level 4. A Character who gets his gold at lvl 2 or 3 is not behind until the end of lvl 5, when he is eligable for lvl 6 gold rewards. Its also important to note that some players need less cash than others and equitable trades can easily be done if some players want to spend more than others on consumables.

The problems mainly come up in people not having much gold at the start of the game, but that problem goes away if we're starting above level 1 and assign treasure parcels as if they had leveled those levels.

Its also important to note that people who have less gold will have slightly more powerful other items than those who do not. In a current system with distributed gold some people have more powerful items than others but all have the same amount of gold. This seems less equitable than my system, and while it makes sense under a shared gold situation where a single player may be using much of the gold for rituals, or gold will be pooled for shared resources, it does not make as much sense for sense for a living world setup.

If I'm not mistaken, he was suggesting that instead of that, the DMs award an IOU - something like, "I know you didn't get your parcel for that level, but it's coming soon

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The problem with this is the precise problem that time gold was invented to solve. That some characters may lose wealth in various ways and be underwealthed when it came time to actually doing things. This is especially true if a DM has to drop out and a game ends for any reason. With the more strict system the next DM doesn't have to think "O.K. this guy is broke, i have to give him a reward right now or he is going to be behind the rest of the players in my game"

Consider as well, that if the player gets an item, its quite easy to RP it away no matter where they are in the world, so long as they have a mundane item of the proper type they simply enchant it using some risiduum they found and/or their strength of will does it. If its gold, it doesn't much matter when they receive it because they can't spend it until they get back to civilization anyway, when they're either likely to get a reward or likely to be able to have some random occurance give them money.

I think the guy who gets his gold at level 5 is in an even worse position, though, because he's essentially dirt-poor until then, unless he wants to sell one of his item parcels for 20% value. He can't buy any potions, rituals, alchemy, or even spare equipment until level 5, and that is crippling.

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Part of what i was trying to say was that there is no requirement for DM's to hand out the rewards in a strict "x per level" format. Since the players have recorded what they got, the DM can reward all of them a cash reward if he wanted and they had not received a cash reward yet. Or he could reward all of them an item of various value. The only constraint on the DM's choices in treasure is what the players have already received. This is based on the assumption that no distribution of +4,3,2,1 and nx2 gold is any better or worse than the others[and i have a feeling that they aren't much different over 5 levels, but i am not going to run all the numbers] even though they may be for different classes.

To deal with this, I think it would be good to keep your system with the gold parcels as-is, and reward the other chunk of gold equal to a level n item as a split reward between each character

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Nah, that has the same problems as before, DM's have to be cognizant of not only what their players have personally, but what and when each group as a whole received cash.

It would be possible to do this as a "level/gold" function and just have them receive 1/5th n per level in gold if they had not received this parcel from the DM for that level.

This would not only bring players up to the required amount of cash for the whole of the system, it would even out expected gold return and it would also bring us back to 10 treasure parcels/level expected for a level 5 party.

So long as DM's were clear about who got what, this would work perfectly fine.

Edit: This would amend the treasure recommendation to

"Each DM gives out x number of parcels per level, where x is the number of players in his party, he choses either a lvl n+1, n+2, n+3, n+4 item, or gold in the value of an item of lvl n per character and distributes those out to each character as rewards. In addition, each character should receive gold to a value of 1/5th n. Where n is the level of the character in question at the time he should receive the reward and not the level of the party. He may not give any player any one of the rewards listed that that player has received within the current half of a tier of play[I.E between lvls 1 and 5, 6 and 10, 11 and 15, 16 and 20, 21 and 25 and 26 and 30]. A DM may give this parcel out to the player at any point during that level that he so chooses. If a player has not received a reward that he should have by the time he levels up due to time XP, he may chose a reward that he has not received within the current half tier of play and gain that reward where n is that characters level before leveling up."

I read it all, and I follow what you're both saying but I really don't know how I feel about it one way or another. It'll take a while to digest it all.

That being said from a player standpoint I'm inclined to lean towards Goumindong's side of things. I dont think the wealth thing will be as much of an issue as it seems it might be. Just from scheming in my head etc, I don't know that I see most p.c's having a need for a lot of gold. Often times I just feel like I am merely waiting for my gold to pile up to a sufficient amount to buy an item, but this is just a gut feeling.

Hopefully in the morning I'll give it a re-read and have something more useful to say.

stonegod said:

But, I'm assuming several have an idea for a character (or they have an old LEB character that has not ben converted yet). Since hanging out in the tavern doesn't require approval (as RPing in the tavern doesn't earn XP), folks can feel free to show up and start chatting in character. Once we have judges and approval in place, then we can approve those character and head out on adventures.

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Well, I'm kind of waiting to hear what level we are. My appearance will change depending on that [armor, weapons, mark ect], depending on how many feats I have and possibly on what items I have. Hard to say what i look like in the tavern thread is i don't know myself!

Hey, is there a decent source of Eberron lore that's free, or at least very cheap? My curiosity is piqued, but the player's guide doesn't quite go into sufficient depth for my tastes.

TwoHeadsBarking said:

Hey, is there a decent source of Eberron lore that's free, or at least very cheap? My curiosity is piqued, but the player's guide doesn't quite go into sufficient depth for my tastes.

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Try the Eberron Wikia or the wiki I'm writting for my RL game Shards of Light and Shadow

I haven't read this whole thread yet, so can't comment, except to say I'm interested in playing.

stonegod said:

Try the Eberron Wikia or the wiki I'm writting for my RL game Shards of Light and Shadow

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Perfect. Thanks.

I am totally doing my Silver Flame Avenger. Puritan Badass.

Ughhh...

Man that's a lot of math. I may be good at it when I try, but it doesn't mean I like it(plus it's a pain to read.) In reality, I think simple is better as far as items go. IMHO screw the math . Is anybody over in L4E really not having fun because they are behind in wealth? Let DMs sort treasure out as best they can. When it comes down to it, at an appropriate time the DM can catch people up. I mean, do DMs pay this much attention to wealth in RL games? I say all this until somebody can give me chart or simple explanation on how much treasure(gold and items) do I give out per character level. I think Goumindong has the best solution thus far.

I do have an adventure(it's called Dirty Money) in the works though so that's why I want things simple and easy. Gene, love the idea.