D&D (2024) Gold & Other Treasure (Can we get off the treadmill?)

[Scott Christian]

No you are looking at it through some pretty significant blinkers. By designing so zero magic items are expected they were able to pretend that monsters were totally slotted into bounded accuracy even though PCs continue to advance with more HP, more attacks/damage dice, more proficiency bonus, etc. Had some level of magic item churn and progression been baked into the expectation it would have been undeniably obvious how currently somewhere in tier 2 or tier 3 the monsters become rather lacking in efficacy unless the gm creates new problems by throwing out encounters far beyond"lethal". That choice to design for no magic items has extremely far reaching consequences throughout the game.

The fact that the dmg and many books released since are packed with magic items only serves to exacerbate the problem as those magic items continue to improve in ways that ultimately undermine the gm's efforts to redesign around a bad choice wotc made before release. The obvious conflict of designing for none and printing lots is one that has even been raised a few times already.

Yet again, we disagree. This is especially true about designing encounters. It looks like we've hit a roadblock. Sorry, I read, and re-read your post to try and see your perspective. Unfortunately, I don't.

I do hope that whatever they print in the future helps you and your table out.

 

[Horwath]

In most campaigns this would serve only to take yet another restriction off of casters, which doesn't exactly help sort the caster/martial power issues.

It is not a restriction.

If PCs do not have money, the spell is irrelevant and a waste of development time,
if the money is plenty, as it is, then the spell is overpowered and having a gold cost will not remove that.

Better solution would be to balance the spell so it can be used daily or even more than once per day and not break the game.

having IE gold cost to raise dead spells is just saying that making stupid decisions is a rich people luxury in D&D as only the rich can afford to be raised.

Better solution would be aging the recipient of the spell for percentage of that species "old" age.

I.E. humans are expected to live around 80 and some years;
raise dead ages you for 20% of that, 16 years
resurrection ages you for 10%, 8yrs
true resurrection ages you for 5%, 4yrs

this will not be an issue in most campaigns, but at 9th level, 3 or 4 raise dead for single PC that was careless, might just kill them of old age.

off-topic, but connected to aging costs;
Also we run with 3.5e variant of age penalties,
Exhaustion is -1 for all d20 rolls, -1 to AC and all DCs and -5ft move speed per exhaustion level, min speed of 5ft.

you get permanent exhaustion level at middle age(40 for humans), 2 levels at old age(60yrs), and 3 level at venerable age(80yrs).
you still die at 6th exhaustion levels.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is, it's not just magic items: there's not much core-game guidance for purchasing anything much bigger than mundane adventuring gear.

That may be true.

Let me just point out that the crucial distinction is if something provides mechanical benefits.

If it does, the game should provide detailed pricing guidance. If it doesn't, that requirement is relaxed.

Of course I'm all for a beefy world building chapter that gives rough cost estimates for everything from what a horse cart and a boat ticket costs to how much time you need to build an orphanage or castle.

But to be honest I can find that stuff in any of the dozens of fantasy rule books I already have. (My first choice for "realistic" and "detailed" would be HârnMaster; just convert silver pennies to gold). What 5th Edition absolutely needs, however, is magic item pricing on the detail level of 3rd Edition's Magic Item Compendium.

 

[CapnZapp]

If you include the top half of my quote, you will see it is nothing like me telling them they're playing the game wrong. In fact, I am clear that all styles of play are valid.

Also what I am clear on, is if you are going to complain about the gold economy in D&D not working, and the players don't attempt to interact with gold except to buy potions and mundane items, and the DM either overlooks or doesn't put any effort into having the economy interact with a PC's choice to interact with the economy, then they should not complain. It is an easy solution - ignore the economy because that table's style of play doesn't need or want to utilize it.

Sure but now you're discussing with the wrong person. I'm not someone who only buys potions and mundane items.

 

[Horwath]

What 5th Edition absolutely needs, however, is magic item pricing on the detail level of 3rd Edition's Magic Item Compendium.

This.

But, I do not have much hope for 5E dedicated magic item only book.
But, that is needed, it is.

 

[DEFCON 1]

One could, I suppose, make a (very flimsy!) case that the money piece isn't essential for ongoing play; but good stealth-sneak-hide rules sure as hell are and - given that some classes outright depend on those rules in order to function - to punt on them is nigh-inexcusable.

Okay, well then as a thought-experiment... how about you come up with a set of Stealth rules that you think are exactly the sort of thing WotC should have put in the 5E14 book beyond the basic rules they gave us, post those rules here on the boards and tell folks that this is exactly what the Stealth rules for D&D 5E should be... and then see what the reactions are that you get to them. I'm fairly certain 9 out of every 10 people will tell you exactly why your rules don't work at all, or at minimum ask for a handful of changes to them so that they'd be useful (in general, or just for them.) While you're at it... write up a Warlord class, a Psion class, and an 'Arcane Half-Caster' class that you think are a-okay and post those here too and see how people react.

Personally... I find it perfectly acceptable that WotC chooses NOT design intricate game systems that are barely ever going to be used or completely crapped upon as not being what they wanted them to be. It is a waste of time and resources for little gain for most of the D&D population. Sure, you might find that half-dozen players who found Magic of Incarnum to be a fantastic addition to 3E Dungeons & Dragons... but I'm willing to be based upon how it gained almost zero traction in the game of D&D that it was an experiment that did not actually pay off in any way, shape, or form. So if they had never even published that book... it wouldn't have impacted almost any of us. Thus if WotC is choosing not to experiment in that way anymore... I'm fine with it.

If you're not? Well, then I'm sorry you aren't getting what you want and instead you just have to use your own DM chops to make it up on your own. Although to be frank, chances are pretty good that even if WotC DID write something up, you wouldn't end up liking it, you still wouldn't be getting what you want, and you'd STILL be having to make it up on your own.

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay, well then as a thought-experiment... how about you come up with a set of Stealth rules that you think are exactly the sort of thing WotC should have put in the 5E14 book beyond the basic rules they gave us, post those rules here on the boards and tell folks that this is exactly what the Stealth rules for D&D 5E should be... and then see what the reactions are that you get to them. I'm fairly certain 9 out of every 10 people will tell you exactly why your rules don't work at all, or at minimum ask for a handful of changes to them so that they'd be useful (in general, or just for them.) While you're at it... write up a Warlord class, a Psion class, and an 'Arcane Half-Caster' class that you think are a-okay and post those here too and see how people react.

Personally... I find it perfectly acceptable that WotC chooses NOT design intricate game systems that are barely ever going to be used or completely crapped upon as not being what they wanted them to be. It is a waste of time and resources for little gain for most of the D&D population. Sure, you might find that half-dozen players who found Magic of Incarnum to be a fantastic addition to 3E Dungeons & Dragons... but I'm willing to be based upon how it gained almost zero traction in the game of D&D that it was an experiment that did not actually pay off in any way, shape, or form. So if they had never even published that book... it wouldn't have impacted almost any of us. Thus if WotC is choosing not to experiment in that way anymore... I'm fine with it.

If you're not? Well, then I'm sorry you aren't getting what you want and instead you just have to use your own DM chops to make it up on your own. Although to be frank, chances are pretty good that even if WotC DID write something up, you wouldn't end up liking it, you still wouldn't be getting what you want, and you'd STILL be having to make it up on your own.

I'd say that you are missing some of why 5e's stealth rules are horrific. It has to do with the way the rules try to pretend that it's a simple and flexible rules light system by quietly dumping the work of handling the complex and compensating for what should be complex onto the gm. Stealth is presented to the players as a simple it just works kind of thing but the GM needs to either allow fallout/Skyrim style stealth shenanigans or take the heat for actually saying "no it's more complex".. unfortunately the GM can't even point to one place for the more because the various components are scattered all over the place in bits and pieces so they come off looking arbitrary and capricious.

Treantmonk and pack tactics go over it nicely in a pair of videos focused on how pass without trace blows things up while covering slightly different problems even though treantmonk goesal a bit more into the relevant bits of scattered RAW

 

[Horwath]

Okay, well then as a thought-experiment... how about you come up with a set of Stealth rules that you think are exactly the sort of thing WotC should have put in the 5E14 book beyond the basic rules they gave us, post those rules here on the boards and tell folks that this is exactly what the Stealth rules for D&D 5E should be... and then see what the reactions are that you get to them.

stealth rules in 5e are so horrible, or more precise, non-existent that we use 3.5e rules.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Okay, well then as a thought-experiment...

Spoiler: spoilered for size

how about you come up with a set of Stealth rules that you think are exactly the sort of thing WotC should have put in the 5E14 book beyond the basic rules they gave us, post those rules here on the boards and tell folks that this is exactly what the Stealth rules for D&D 5E should be... and then see what the reactions are that you get to them. I'm fairly certain 9 out of every 10 people will tell you exactly why your rules don't work at all, or at minimum ask for a handful of changes to them so that they'd be useful (in general, or just for them.) While you're at it... write up a Warlord class, a Psion class, and an 'Arcane Half-Caster' class that you think are a-okay and post those here too and see how people react.

Personally... I find it perfectly acceptable that WotC chooses NOT design intricate game systems that are barely ever going to be used or completely crapped upon as not being what they wanted them to be. It is a waste of time and resources for little gain for most of the D&D population. Sure, you might find that half-dozen players who found Magic of Incarnum to be a fantastic addition to 3E Dungeons & Dragons... but I'm willing to be based upon how it gained almost zero traction in the game of D&D that it was an experiment that did not actually pay off in any way, shape, or form. So if they had never even published that book... it wouldn't have impacted almost any of us. Thus if WotC is choosing not to experiment in that way anymore... I'm fine with it.

If you're not? Well, then I'm sorry you aren't getting what you want and instead you just have to use your own DM chops to make it up on your own. Although to be frank, chances are pretty good that even if WotC DID write something up, you wouldn't end up liking it, you still wouldn't be getting what you want, and you'd STILL be having to make it up on your own

.

I'm pretty sure you know this, but the two of you are simply coming from the situation with different goals. Lanefan* finds something wanting and wants to assign culpability and responsibility. You are looking more at whether it makes sense for WotC to have done what they did from a business perspective**.
*so far as I can gather, correct me if I'm wrong.
**where leaving no ambiguities with exhaustive rules many-to-most will ignore or prefer their own hacks to anyways is wasted time, effort, page count, and potentially attention-space from their reader

FWIW, I'm of both minds on this. I think the decision to leave most non-spell, non-(direct)-combat resolution mechanics nebulous was a perfectly reasonable decision in 2014 when it was unclear who the game audience was and the overall game seemed to be going for a (yes, very arguably, I'm short-handing here) 'TSR era game; but with WotC-era character creation, action economy, D20 (high=good) resolution, etc.' They went a little more TSR-ish for stealth*. For D&D 2024, with the buyers more clearly defined, it would be reasonable to try to make some of these vague rules a little more rigorous -- if there was reason to think they would be adopted. This gets back to the old 'is the experience of us message-board-faithful representative of current-D&D-players as a whole? I guess what they decide to put in D&D 2024 will tell us what they think the answer is.
*Although exhaustively rigorous does show up in the TSR-era. Notably in 1e AD&D's initiative system. And that's a good example of a situation where the devs made the rules incredibly complete, and people promptly rejected them (again, to an arguable degree).

I'd say that you are missing some of why 5e's stealth rules are horrific.

Spoiler: spoilered for size

It has to do with the way the rules try to pretend that it's a simple and flexible rules light system by quietly dumping the work of handling the complex and compensating for what should be complex onto the gm. Stealth is presented to the players as a simple it just works kind of thing but the GM needs to either allow fallout/Skyrim style stealth shenanigans or take the heat for actually saying "no it's more complex".. unfortunately the GM can't even point to one place for the more because the various components are scattered all over the place in bits and pieces so they come off looking arbitrary and capricious.

Treantmonk and pack tactics go over it nicely in a pair of videos focused on how pass without trace blows things up while covering slightly different problems even though treantmonk goesal a bit more into the relevant bits of scattered RAW

.

I suspect DEFCON 1 knows this. Their position is that it doesn't matter how horrific or non-horrific the rules are if people are just going to ignore them anyways.

 

[DEFCON 1]

stealth rules in 5e are so horrible, or more precise, non-existent that we use 3.5e rules.

As you should. I also find the basic 5E14 stealth rules to be lacking a bit of nuance that I'd prefer, so I extend the rules out further on my own. As I should.

But in both our cases... odds are pretty good we'd have done this anyway regardless of what WotC could have written because they do not know what we actually want for stealth rules. But people act and speak as though that if only the rules were written better that they'd be all over using them As Written. Now maybe I'm cynical, but I don't believe that for a second.