On character wealth an d game balance

Greenfield said:

I never questioned that rule books are guidelines. Even D&D 1st Ed had more rules than anyone could possibly use. I never knew anyone who used them all.

What I questioned was whether it actually said, anywhere, that PCs got charged more for crafting supplies and other things than anyone else. That wood and bone, sinew and glue needed to make a master crafted composite bow were having their prices jacked up whenever a PC went to buy.

Do professionals have better sources? Regular suppliers? Probably. Maybe better prices as well. But it never actually says that anywhere.

So how does one become a "professional" a member of the guild in good standing to get these better prices? By the rules, it's an arduous and challenging process that consists of writing it on your character sheet as backstory. That's it.

Which kind of rationalizes a way around the rationalization that was proposed as a solution. Except this rationalization is actually in the rules.

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That is the very mistake you are making: The rules about magic item prices are for PCs, adventurers. You are picking those rules and extrapolating them to merchants, despite numerous statements about the abstractions that are the rules.
You are basically trying to tell me the official rules of the lightsaber by extrapolating the longsword

Do the rules say that they're only for PCs, or is that something you're extrapolating?

Our exchange so far seems to be following a pattern:

Me: The rules, as written, are laughably unworkable.
You: They work just fine if you use unwritten rules.

Rinse. Repeat.

Not picking on you, and I'm not trying to call you out.

If you really feel the need to be "right" about this, I'll back off and you can be "right". The problem is, to actually be right, and not just "right" (with quotes), you need to come up with an actual rules citation, not just "Every book and Word of God". "It has to be that way" doesn't cut the mustard in an actual rules discussion. You need actual rules.

I was having a laugh, but you're getting hot and heavy serious, and it just isn't that important.

Getting back to the original topic: Since money really is power in D&D, what sort of wealth-to-level gauge should we be using?

Figure that we're aiming at a balance where a party of four, all being about level X, will spend 20-25 percent of resources on a monster of a matching CR?

(Yes, i recognize that the CR system is about as balanced as the economy, but please play along anyway.)

The goal is to come up with a relatively objective scale by which we can measure PC power relative to their levels.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Are you asking "How wealthy should a PC be in order to tackle Problem X?" Where Problem X is a monster, puzzle, etc.

Greenfield said:

Since money really is power in D&D, what sort of wealth-to-level gauge should we be using?...The goal is to come up with a relatively objective scale by which we can measure PC power relative to their levels.

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No such simple scale exists, because there is no good conversion between money and utility. Even assuming such a scale could exist, it would first require you to tweak the existing magic item cost/magic item creation system so that items were well balanced according to price. And even then, you would need an assumption that players had the will and ability to maximize their utility given the resources that they have. And that requires that you have fungible wealth, meaning that whatever the players find, they can freely convert it into the items that have the most utility for their character.

For example, supposing that magical weapon prices are well balanced, the part discovers a two-handed sword +5 - worth ~50,000 g.p. If the party contains a two-handed weapon wielder like a barbarian or a fighter specialized in the two-handed sword, then that additional wealth does reflect additional party capability. But if the party is entirely spell-casters without martial weapon proficiency, then the weapon represents a great influx of wealth on paper, but in practice little or no increase in their capabilities as a party.

The situation gets worse with respect to items that are poorly costed which includes pretty much any use activated item that grants a spell effect or buff that is probably underleveled - fly and invisibility come to mind immediately, but there are many others. In particular, watch out for buffs that last rounds when cast as a spell, but become permanent when in an item, or buffs that are quickened when on an item (free actions). They are all undercosted in stock 3.X, because stock 3.X doesn't price in the value of increasing the duration of a spell. And of course, there are items where the cost system works fairly well, but are circumstantially broken- the most famous of which is the wand of cure light wounds.

Depending on what exactly the wealth translates into, you get completely different adventuring utility. If the PC's inherit a cabbage farm, a cottage, a cart, a mule, and two oxen, that might add up to a magic item in value, but not in (immediate) utility. Equally obviously once it's stated but perhaps more easily overlooked, if the PC's have 2000 g.p. in their pockets, they have not increased their utility at all - indeed, all that encumbrance might mean they've reduced it.

That's why I state that I don't bother to follow wealth by level, and rely on the older system of semi-random treasures and keeping an eye as a DM on party capability to make sure that they have enough items to face the challenges they are expected to face. That means noticing when a party member is falling behind, and placing treasures of great utility to them in their path, and conversely drying up the treasures when a party member starts to look overly optimized in their gear. The value of the gear isn't something I spend much (or any) time considering at all. It's the utility that matters.

Probably a better approach than wealth per se is what sort of "+" items the PCs should be getting by level. Eg 4e used demi-tiers where you got +1 per 5 levels. 3e indicates in places a use of +1 per 4 levels, elsewhere +1 per 3 levels, capping at +5 at 15th. Stat buff item pluses use the attribute bonus not the increase to raw score (so are +1, +2 & +3) whereas weapons are +1 to +5, armour is +1 to +5 but you can have (at least) armour, natural armour, and deflection bonuses all stacking, so really +1 to +15. Saves are +1 to +5 (resistance), with other sorts of bonus rarer.

Hmmm. The utility of the Wealth by Level guideline is that it sets a standard for characters entering at higher levels.

What I'm hearing, though is a "Judge case by case" and an "I'll know it when I see it" sort of thing. Hard to ask players to build to a standard that can seem, well, arbitrary.

Now, to be fair, I've had players come in with characters that were on budget to the penny, and still needed to have their lists tinkered. When one of my players came in with his Paladin of Freedom, and I saw his goodies list I told him to spend an extra 5K. He was weak for his level.

Others have come in under budget, and still broken, in terms of gear. (Usually by delving into source books we weren't using, like the Magic Item Compendium.)

So hard numbers certainly aren't the final word, and they shouldn't be. But they do give a fair guideline, a target the player should aim at.

Our current DM, noting that my Wizard 9 had 83k of the 36 he should be allowed by on the Wealth by Level table, asked everyone to submit their characters for review, with items priced out, but also to mention an item or two that we might want our characters to have.

My character wasn't the farthest over budget, by the way. A character two levels lower than mine weighed in at 85k.

I sent in the list, with prices. With the DM's permission I also sent in an edited list that was in budget for the level. My character's AC ended up two points higher, had better Saves and was more capable as a spell caster.

Clue: Four Pearls of Power - Level 1 do much the same as a Ring of Wizardry level 1 for about 16k less, and they don't consume an item slot. You don't get quite the variety, but for low level utility spells they're great. You can afford ten of the level 2 Pearls for the same price as the level 2 Ring.

Adding Defender to a +1 weapon, even a simple dagger, costs a few grand and buys you a +1 AC. Not a good deal compared to a shield, but if your character can't use a shield it works. Also, if your character can cast Greater Magic Weapon then that bonus can increase for the day.

Fact is, ret-conning was a better deal than I/he could normally get. I dumped items at full market price instead of half, and managed to turn in some expensive stuff the character almost never used.

Back on topic, though (I do tend to ramble), as a semi-objective guideline for that rare player who can't actually read the DM's mind regarding what's acceptable, what would you suggest as an adjustment to or replacement for the Wealth by Level table,