Proposal : Starting Wealth for level 2 and 3

Mal Malenkirk · Jul 14, 2009

The current rules for starting wealth at level 2 & 3 are absurds. There is no way such characters would have amassed three magic items and enough gold for a 4th if they had played through these levels instead of starting there.

Even if you remove the +1 item in case of people who retire and start at the same level, it is still too much equipment as far as level 2 is concerned!

A group of 5 who adventure through level 1 would normally earn 4 items and 720 gp. A fair minded group would award more gold to the PC who did not get one of these 4 items so that he can buy one for himself; probably enough for a level 2 items (520gp). That leaves 200 gp to split for 5 ways : 40 GP.

So in theory, most characters would reach the level 2 with one item, 40 gp and their starting level 1 wealth (100 gp).

Therefore I propose that a level 2 character starts with:

Level 3 item (Level +1) and 140 gp.

More would be a strong encouragement to retire at level 2 and start again richer!

Following the same logic, during the level 2, most PC would acquire another items and about 72 gp (1040 gp for level 2 - the cost of a level 3 item for the itemless PC / 5).

So a level 3 PC should have

Level 4 item (level +1)
Level 3 item (Level +0)

and 212 gp

By level 4 the starting wealth guideline start making sense.

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This is without accounting for any penalty you may want to add for someone who retire at one level and start at the same.

For those I recommend reducing the value of the starting items by one level.

TwoHeadsBarking · Jul 14, 2009

I agree that the current system doesn't work great at lower levels, although I want to run the numbers myself first. However, I know of at least one character judge (me) who will not be amused by people "retiring" just to get the items. I don't think such abuse would be the problem you suggest it could become.

Kalidrev · Jul 14, 2009

Mal,

I think there is also one other thing you're not thinking about. What you speak of is absolutely true in a standard group who plays under only 1 DM. However, with each adventure, you could be under a new DM. Even if said DM looks at each and every one of his players sheets to determine what equipment they have, at what levels, and then places items in his adventure to account for that, there is nothing saying that the players will give said item to the player the DM placed the item in the adventure for.

Without some kind of concrete system for determining who gets an item when (which would disrupt the natrual flow of DMing quite fankly) I don't really think that you'll be limited by only getting 1 item, with the exception most likely being between level 1 and 2 if you start out on a long adventure.

Stringbean2142 · Jul 14, 2009

I know I'm new, so there's probably a discussion somewhere about this that would clear up things for me, but wouldn't the solution to this be to treat characters retiring the same as characters dying the final death?

The Charter said:
If a character of 4th level or higher has been killed, the player can mark him as permanently dead, and replace him with a character of a level higher than 1st. This works the same way as retiring such a character. (See below.)

<SNIP>

If you retire a character who is higher than level 1, you have two options for creating a replacement: A) Create the new character one level below the old character, but will full starting wealth as outlined in the DMG on page 143, or B) create the new character at the same level as the old, but without the magic item at level+1. For example, if you retire a 5th level character and choose option B, the replacement level 5 character would only get magic items at levels 5 and 4, instead of 6, 5, and 4 as the DMG outlines.

It sounds like, if I'm reading that right, if a 2nd level character dies, the player makes a new 1st level character. It's not until level 4 you can die and make a new character at a higher level (3 or 4). But if a 2nd level character retires, you're allowed a new 2nd level character, and that seems the level with the most disparity between a newly-created character's equipment and a battle-worn character's earned loot.

Mal, I know you used the level 3 example, but even there I think the likelihood of one character outshining the others is reduced, because by that point everyone should have at least one magic item to play with. Is it entirely fair? Not totally, but then most things aren't. And if the DM sees a disparity like what this creates, he/she can always select magic items in the treasure that won't be used by the character. If the character has a magic longsword and someone else also uses longswords, throw out another magical longsword. It's only a true jerk that would convince the party to give him a second magical longsword when someone else doesn't have even one. That said, I can see where the disparity exists, even at level 3, and can understand if people want to introduce house rules to close it some.

Was there a reason for this difference in death versus retirement?

JoeNotCharles · Jul 14, 2009

If we're going to disallow retirement before level 4, we definitely need a system for completely mechanically changing a character, because a lot of people have asked for it and we've been telling them to just retire them.

Mal Malenkirk · Jul 14, 2009

Kalidrev said:
Mal,

I think there is also one other thing you're not thinking about. What you speak of is absolutely true in a standard group who plays under only 1 DM. However, with each adventure, you could be under a new DM. Even if said DM looks at each and every one of his players sheets to determine what equipment they have, at what levels, and then places items in his adventure to account for that, there is nothing saying that the players will give said item to the player the DM placed the item in the adventure for.

We are still talking about roughly 1 item per PC per level. Typically, if someone gains two items in one level it's because someone somehwere has had none. But that's another problem entirely.

I am talking about PCs who start directly at level 2 and wonder why they should start with more than 1 item, never mind 3 or 4 as the rules currently allow.

TwoHeadsBarking said:
However, I know of at least one character judge (me) who will not be amused by people "retiring" just to get the items.

How would you ever be able to tell the difference between a player who primarily wants to try something new and someone who is primarily motivated by the boost in power his new PC will get?

We ain't mind reader; in a case like this, we have to take what people say at face value knowing perfectly well that some will be dishonest.

It's wiser to get rid of the temptation than to assume no one would give in (or that you would be able to tell the difference if someone did).

Beside, even if someone IS motivated by the purity of Roleplaying... does he deserve better equipment for his PC than the people who stuck with their PC?

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All I am saying is that by starting at level 2 you start with better equipment than if you had adventured your way from level 1 to 2. Anyone thinks I am wrong? And if not, shouldn't we fix this? I think my suggestion does that and allows you to start with an equipment that is comparable to that of a PC who stuck it out.

TwoHeadsBarking · Jul 14, 2009

Mal Malenkirk said:
How would you ever be able to tell the difference between a player who primarily wants to try something new and someone who is primarily motivated by the boost in power his new PC will get?

That the new character and the old character are the same class, race, and gender will certainly be a clue, given that we have a different mechanism for changing just about everything else, one that doesn't alter your wealth. So yeah, actually, if someone uses retirement when they should be using an overhaul, I'll get suspicious.

Sure, in theory, someone could spend 6-12 months playing a character he doesn't really want to play so that when he hits level two, he can bring out the character he did want to play with a bunch of low level magic items. But that's a lot of time invested in abusing the rules of a pbp board. And they could be throwing away a level+4 item in the process. If anyone does go through with this, then they are free to cackle at my naivete, just as I'd be free to shake my head in pity and amazement.

I think you're right that the wealth is off, and I think it should be fixed, but like I said before, I'm not worried about people abusing the system we have now.

KenHood · Jul 15, 2009

TwoHeadsBarking said:
I think you're right that the wealth is off, and I think it should be fixed, but like I said before, I'm not worried about people abusing the system we have now.

Yeah. That's a LOT of time wasted to get the extra items. If someone is that much of a goob to try and play the system, they'll end up dropping out from frustration or be such a jerk that no one will want to play with them.

covaithe · Jul 15, 2009

I agree that the starting wealth at level 2 and thereabouts is something to be addressed. I have a feelling that we'll see a lot of retirement at level 2, when people play a character for a while and it doesn't quite work out how they thought it would, but they stick it out to 2 so as to get something for the time spent. I think that's reasonable, but, as you say, the starting wealth is out of line at level 2. I think we always knew it would be; it was just one of those things we were going to fix later rather than letting it hold up the start.

Anyway, what about using the expected wealth by level that we've been talking about in other recent threads (e.g. Time Gold) as a baseline? I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if we took the average expected net worth of a PC who has adventured to level 2 and gotten 1/5 of the standard 10 treasure packets, took off, say, 20% as a "retirement fee", and used that number as the starting wealth at level 2? No stipulation as to what you have to spend it on; I don't think it's fair to require a level 3 item when there might not be any L3 items that character would be interested in. IMO the character should get the initial 100g from level 1 starting as well, but have to pay for mundane items.

Lord Sessadore · Jul 15, 2009

Hmm ... that sounds like a pretty reasonable idea. It's a little 3.5 with the buying free-for-all, but at level 2 or 3 you shouldn't have enough choice for it to be a pain.

To put some numbers to covaithe's idea:
Total value of parcels for level 1: 3760 gp
3760/5 = 752 gp
752*0.8 = 601.6 gp

If we include the 100 gp level 1 allowance, then a new 2nd level character has just enough to buy a 3rd level item and some other stuff, and not enough to buy two 1st level items. Seems just about perfect for what this proposal wants to accomplish.

The numbers using the same method for a new level 3 character:
Total value of parcels for level 1 and 2: 8080 gp
8080/5 = 1616 gp
1616*0.8 = 1292.8 gp

That's enough to buy a small variety of items. Highest volume is three 1st level items, highest power is either one 5th level item or a 4th with a 1st. With the 100 gp allowance from 1st level, you could add a 1st level item to your 5th, or upgrade the 4/1 to 4/2. Of course, going with a 3rd level item would give you more flexibility.

Sound about right? If people agree that not forcing item level slots is the way we want to go, this method seems to work almost perfectly for the end result desired.