D&D and the magic economy

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I agree the rules don't make sense, but I wouldn't say they're broken. It's a game, not a real-life sim.

I won't discuss 1e and 2e, as they didn't have wealth by level guidelines.

In 3.x, magic items were vital for adventurers. You couldn't do low-magic properly without a huge amount of house rules (although there were many DMs that tried, which is why I said properly). This was because the game gave you offense bonuses for levels, but much weaker defensive bonuses.

(A 1st-level fighter would have BAB +1 (an attack bonus of +3 to +6 was reasonable) and could have an AC as high as 21 [+8 full plate, +2 heavy shield, +1 Dex]) and even higher with a tower shield. At 20th-level, without magic items, said fighter would have a BAB of +20 (attack bonus around +26, assuming 2-5 Strength boosts) and an AC of 24 (+3 for mithral and possible level-based Dex boosts).

See the difference? His AC hardly improved at all. This is why ther were so many magic items that boosted AC, and three of the seven "required"* items boosted AC. (Magic weapon, cloak of resistance, magic shield, magic armor, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, stat-boosting items).

This led to rust monsters being horrifying, Mordenkainen's disjunction being broken, etc.

It also led to PCs gaining wealth at an absurd rate, and DMs were trying to keep up with a wealth by level guideline that was almost impossible to enforce. (PCs usually gained less wealth than "expected" because they lost some selling loot to ridiculously wealth magic item shopkeepers. There's also no guarantee you won't gain several levels between visits to a metropolis. I think someone here calculated several years ago that PCs had to be able to use 85% of found magic items "as is" to avoid wealth loss.)

If PCs ended up with more wealth than expected, they could either break the game by buying/crafting more items, or they could go into business, where the rewards were much smaller (both in terms of cash and in terms of XP). So what would PCs do? They tended toward the former.

*Requirements varied by class. Wizards didn't have to have a magic weapon; an Int-boosting item was much more valuable. And they weren't as item-dependent as fighters in any event.

In 4e items are a little bit better. Because offense and defense are both boosted by levels, you could give no magic items at all and just have to use slightly weaker monsters. Only three items per PC are usually required, with anything else being flavor. (You need an implement or weapon, a neck slot item to boost non-AC defenses, and magic armor to boost AC.) Those items can be replaced by mathematically transparent inherent bonuses.

(This is great for Dark Sun. Magic items are so rare there's no set prices for them in my upcoming campaign. The PCs' rewards can be far smaller, so that "survival days" of rations and water [only 5 gp per PC per day] can have some minimal impact on them.)

As a result, it won't harm game balance if the PCs end up with more wealth than expected. I don't even know if PCs can use higher-level items, with all the limitations on items. But they can certainly invest their money into other things.

With 4e's ruleset, you could simply "slice" all treasure parcels to 10% or even 1% (including the same discounts for magic items, assuming you're not running low-magic) and the system should still work.

 

[Nyronus]

I have noted how silly the economy in 4e is before. To solve it, I tend to do one of two things: Either treat all magic gear like artifacts: I.e., they level up as you go along, usuaully in tune with the narrative. "With a high note you shatter the last runes stopping the deadly ritual. In an instant though the loose strands of magic enwrap your sword and turn it into +2 Songblade!" Stuff like that. Or, I just ignore the process and focus on the parts of the narrative that make things fun like roleplay and combat. I have also considered inherent bonuses + a system of boons ala DMG2. This keeps things relatively low magic and sensible and seem like a solid option as well. Any one of these can probably solve your problem.

 

[Rune]

One possible (partial?) solution would be to reduce the monetary treasure found by PCs by an order of magnitude (that is, gold becomes silver, which should become the new standard) while simultaneously reducing the value of magic items, art objects, and rituals by the same.

This will effectively devalue the PC's wealth by 90%, but it should not unbalance the mechanical assumptions that are built into the gameplay. Even at this rate, it should be difficult for a small town to have much of a magic item market, although not nearly as impossible as your initial example.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The alternative, and admittedly this is harder than it sounds, is to realize that D&D is not an economics simulation and not worry too much about the vast wealth disparities.

Otherwise, you'd wind up with the magic item shops being co-located with the banks, and offering financing.

Brad

 

[Tsukiyomi]

I tend to just ignore the broken economy, but if you want to run low magic you'll probably either need to look into the inherent bonuses in DMG2 or adjust the monsters (I'd do the former), because the math of 4th edition assumes that the magic items are there.

One other thing to consider that might at least help through heroic and maybe paragon tier: the PCs are among the wealthiest people around. In the real world, there are gamblers who casually throw down individual poker chips valued at $20,000 or more; that's more than a person who works for minimum wage (ie, a peasant in DnD) is going to make in an entire year, all in a single poker chip. Those high rollers don't have to worry about the price of food or hotel rooms either, since they are operating on an entirely different scale than the average joe...just like peasants and adventurers in DnD.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The 4e economy is not built to be a simulation of any kind of real economy. It is meant to present the players with a chance to gain fabulous wealth and presents a reasonable way for the DM to maintain control and balance WRT the characters. How the mundane world of ordinary people works is not its focus. It deals adequately with the ordinary issues that adventurers generally have to deal with.

For instance the 20% sale price insures that the DM can give out the magical treasure he sees fit without blowing things apart or needing to devise all kinds of ways to strip players of treasure using plot devices all the time. You want to fairly quickly get rid of some spare stuff you won't use or that is obsolete? You can get 20% of its nominal theoretical value RIGHT NOW today. If the PCs want to spend months arranging for high priced sales they can go to a major city somewhere and go through the hassle of trying to be magic item merchants and sell it for something more like what it is worth, at least up to a certain point. In that sense the economics are pretty sensible and DO work.

Basically if you assume something like an ordinary worker has a yearly income of say 100gp and very rarely has anything like 10gp worth of money they can actually spend then small villages and minor towns can handle low level PCs treasure finds. Large towns can accommodate most heroic tier needs and large cities can handle dealings with PCs well into the paragon tier.

Of course most people don't need, want, or have any use for high paragon and epic tier items. Naturally these kinds of items are virtually unique and their GP costs are pretty much meaningless within the context of the everyday life. Just like the costs of modern high tech military gear, supercomputers, space ships, etc are in real life. At best you might buy and sell those things with kings and emperors. Otherwise when you go to sell a +4 sword you're going to be dealing with fantastical beings or otherworldly locations. In those places the economy works on a totally different scale and the beings in those places really can and do buy and sell +4 items.

There are plenty of ways to make the game interesting in terms of progression of items too. You can power up existing items instead of giving out new ones (AV1 talks about this). You can use Boons and Grand Master Training options in DMG2. You can base the game on inherent bonuses (also discussed in DMG2). Running a low-magic or "all items are very special things" kind of environment is not all that difficult and the designers HAVE addressed it. Even so the design of the game is such that the intent is that when you get to a certain point you aren't dealing with the mundane world anymore. Your swords were forged by ancient Eldar smiths, etc.

 

[Umbran]

I won't discuss 1e and 2e, as they didn't have wealth by level guidelines.

In 3.x, magic items were vital for adventurers.

Prior editions didn't have explicit guidelines, but magic items were vital for adventurers in 1e and 2e as well. It just wasn't codified.

I honestly don't know if the D&D economy is broken, or if the players (mostly middle-class folks) keep thinking that the adventurers are equivalent to upper-middle class themselves - that adventuring gear is roughly equivalent to cars and laptop computers.

I think adventurers are more akin to... doctors and research scientists. In order to do the majority of their work, they need equipment that's extremely expensive. These guys are surrounded by $10K, $100K, and million-dollar equipment that you and I couldn't afford on our own. There's far more of this stuff around in our real world than most of us realize. In our world, that capital outlay is made by corporations and universities. In the adventurer's world, it is funded by hauling in treasure and using it directly.

 

[malraux]

I tend to treat the DnD economy of magic items as just an odd sort of XP system for my gear. Moreover, though this system appears to overlap with the mundane economy, it might as well not, as the prices are widely disparate.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Prior editions didn't have explicit guidelines, but magic items were vital for adventurers in 1e and 2e as well. It just wasn't codified.

I don't disagree, it's that without explicit guidelines or easily explained "must-have-items" I just won't spend time on it.

I honestly don't know if the D&D economy is broken, or if the players (mostly middle-class folks) keep thinking that the adventurers are equivalent to upper-middle class themselves - that adventuring gear is roughly equivalent to cars and laptop computers.

I think even the wealthiest mercenaries don't pay that much for their gear, and they'd probably be more badass than 1st-level heroes if they did in fact exist. Only actual military (eg fighter pilots) might have gear worth that much, but said gear is owned by the military, not them. There's no real-sim basis for these prices. Not a problem for many groups though.

 

[chaochou]

Well this has been useful.

Putting my concerns down on screen has helped clarify some ideas which will produce the kind of feel I'm looking for...

So I think I'll look at having 'real GP' - that'll be cash in hand and any reward money for quests and stuff.

And there will be 'party GP' which will just be an abstract ticker - almost like a 'luck meter' which will represent the party's ability to acquire the occasional magic item or potions, stuff like that.

That should keep the party grounded as 'men of the people' types without the need to mess around too much.