Fireballing dead bodies

[ThirdWizard]

Which amounts to smiling and giving his gear back over the next few sessions, as opposed to all at once. There's no real change.

If you play with people who quit at their first setback, let me know how that works out for you. I'm sure it's a lot of fun for you, having to give them stuff in order to keep them around.

Obviously VoP will never fully make up for it. But it is something cool that he could do, and it would develop his character more. Of course, if you don't have an RP-involved game, then the only existence of a character IS combat.

The wealth per level is actually meant to be a constant thing. It doesn't represent the total wealth aquired and used up to that point. It is meant to be the approximate current wealth of any PC of that particular level. Thus, if a character uses up all the charges on a staff, then that wealth should be "made up" at some point over the course of the game in order to bring the character up to speed on wealth again.

Thus, if a character loses a large portion of wealth at once, it is in the DM's best interest to bring the character back up to around the weath that is expected at that level, in the implied campaign. This is irregardless of how well the player role plays their character.

 

[maggot]

The problem is that wealth per level cannot be absolute. If a character loses a level, do you remove items from him. If a character gives away his +5 sword, does he suddenly start finding better magic items. What kind of world is it that being robbed means only that you will get more money in the future?

I agree that the rules for CR assume a certain level of wealth, but are there really rules for enforcing this level of wealth. There are the expected gold per encounter rules, but these say nothing of increasing the gp rewards because someone is behind.

Maybe I'm wrong and need to read the DMG a bit closer, but you are sounding like the game should be run as if wealth were just a character attribute like BAB or Fort Save.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The problem is that wealth per level cannot be absolute.

This is true and I'm not meaning to come off as sounding like it is. I try to say "guidline" and "approximate" whenever possible.

If a character loses a level, do you remove items from him.

No, but I would probably watch wealth given out, however. He'll catch up back to his old level soon enough with the 3.5 revisions on leveling in any case.

If a character gives away his +5 sword, does he suddenly start finding better magic items. What kind of world is it that being robbed means only that you will get more money in the future?

That's a difficult question to answer. I would partially depend on the circumstances of the lost item. I would imagine it also depends on how much the PC is in need of a magical weapon. Personally I give out lots of rewards that can't be stolen, abilities unique to PCs. This indirectly aids me in not having to worry about these situations very often.

I agree that the rules for CR assume a certain level of wealth, but are there really rules for enforcing this level of wealth. There are the expected gold per encounter rules, but these say nothing of increasing the gp rewards because someone is behind.

Well its expected wealth at that level. If the PCs don't have that much or have more, for whatever reason, the DM needs to take this into account when creating encounters for the characters to overcome. The problem with this particular example is that only one character has lost a potential great amount of wealth, and PCs' power in 3.X are highly tied to their magical equipment leaving that particular character at a much lower power than the others.

This is less of an issue if the players and DM want to run a low-wealth/high-wealth game. In this case, the DM just has to make sure everything is scaled properly. It is most important IMO that players have relatively equal wealths, lest one player feel more like a burdon than an equal adventurer.

Maybe I'm wrong and need to read the DMG a bit closer, but you are sounding like the game should be run as if wealth were just a character attribute like BAB or Fort Save.

I like to think of it as an ambigous hidden stat.

 

[coyote6]

If one PC was drastically underequipped, I would try to come up with an adventure where the PC would have the chance to earn the gratitude of some entity (noble, powerful wizard, deity, celestial/fiend, whatever), and said entity could then bestow on the character some stuff as a reward. "Coincidentally", this reward would bring the PC up to a more reasonable equipment level. This is less damaging to my suspension of disbelief, and also avoids possible problems (e.g., what if you put in some item just for the underequipped PC, and he decides he doesn't want it, or some other PC gets it, or the group sells it & splits the money? Suddenly, other are over-equipped, while Mr. Poor still is).

That's what I did in the past, anyways --

Powerful NPC cleric: "Hey, good job on this plausibly-related-to-our-cause task, lower-ranking-cleric PC. Here, let me enchant your weapon, and take this armor, too." Ta-da, wealth equalized.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The wealth guideline is nothing more than that. A guideline to inform the DM. It is not an absolute yardstick.

As a practical matter it quickly gets tiresome if you are a RPing "a tough, skilled fighter" and you get the snot beat out of you every single fight while no one else even breaks a sweat. There is a point at which "roleplaying hardship" becomes a futile exercise in metagaming for some kind of pointless Real Roleplayer merit badge. Tiresome for the player. Tiresome for the DM. Tiresome for the other players.

I am not talking about all characters in all parties. Certainly a weakened spellcaster could be adequately protected by the rest of the party with minor adjustment in most cases. But positions on the front line are just too dangerous and unforgiving.

 

[Saeviomagy]

OK. Lets look at a high level character who dies and loses all his stuff. Lets assume that this includes any large cash stores you have (because they were in your bag of holding, or what-have-you).

Are you a wizard? Congratulations! Now you're a commoner who can cast read magic! Have fun!

IOW - unless you get a big cash infusion, or kill another wizard before your daily spells run out, the entire premise of this character is gone - in terms of his niche, he's most likely worse off than when he started at 1st level.

He's the worst off. From there it goes through fighter, barbarian, rogue, paladin, ranger. Monk fits in here somewhere too, probably right near paladin.

At the end of things you're looking at clerics, bards and finally sorcerors.

I honestly can't imagine a magic-free party competing at epic level without some serious gimmes from the DM, including a sudden repreive from combat until they get some stuff back, scaling back of creatures by a long way etc etc.

If it's just one character, and the party are reasonable and split the cost of re-equipping him, then he'll probably be ok.

If the party don't or can't do that, he's not going to have a lot of fun.

 

[Nadaka]

I had this happen to me once with our wizard's sonic fireball. Nothing like losing 163k gp worth of magic items. In hindsight I should have lost a lot more. We forgot that sonic damage ignores hardness and I neglected to mention the rule that Hypersmurf mentioned earlier.

Oh well.

sonic damage, unlike other elements, does full damage to objects. but does not ignore hardness.

 

[Hypersmurf]

sonic damage, unlike other elements, does full damage to objects. but does not ignore hardness.

It's time for another "What the...!?" from the 3.5 Main FAQ!

From p31:
Hardness applies to acid and sonic attacks. These attacks deal normal damage both to creatures and to objects, and thus would deal normal damage to an animated object (less the effect of the hardness). You would subtract 5 points for hardness from whatever damage a Melf's acid arrow spell deals to the animated table in your example.

From p41:
Acid, sonic, and force attacks ignore hardness. Hardness applies to cold, electricity, and fire attacks.

... What the...!?

-Hyp.

 

[kyberus]

Magic items are amazingly vulnerable, its what, at most AC 14 to hit a headband, AC 18 to hit a ring (unless you are a rogue or a monk), and they have no hitpoints. I wonder about this because a DM in a campaign became angry with a character who acquired the Blindfold of True darkness (lose normal sight, 60ft blindsense) and started randomly sundering his magic items and rings. It really wouldn't have take long to destroy everything had the enemy (was invisible, permanently) not been hit by a bunch of area of effect spells and rolled poorly on his attacks and saving throws. That has me a bit leary, inbetween that and the ridiculous ease of sundering weapons (w/adamantine weapons)... urg, I'll stick with a sorcerer, and have "Undergarments of Charisma" custom made, meaning that I'm already very dead before anything happens.

Also, if you were actually WEARING armor, wouldn't most of your equiped magical items be underneath, perhaps? ie: rings, vests, bracers, maybe amulets? (but not cloaks, poor cloaks, if a foe decides to debuff you, its as simple as hitting AC 10 + dex mod, destroying your cloak of resistance) However, so far as I know its 1/2 full price to repair destroyed items, is it not (assuming anythings left)?

 

[moritheil]

Again, this is a combat oriented mentality. You can train other people to earn money, for example, or take up a job that gives you basic items and work your way back. Heck, by a high level you should have earned a lot of favors from people. Some of them will want to help you get back up on your feet. If your group keeps a cache of spare items and gear, that could help. If you're chaotic, you can always go raid some smaller guys and take their items and gear.

What I'm arguing against is that there seems to be this overriding mentality that the player DESERVES a full restitution from the DM simply because another player dropped the ball, and that it is now entirely the DM's job to take care of this, seamlessly, and without the slightest inconvenience to any of the players. IMC, that is not the DM's job. A player error implies work on the part of the players to fix it.

I believe that it can and should be RPed, and furthermore that if nothing changes in overall wealth levels or difficulty, it encourages the wizard to keep fireballing his teammates' gear.

PS: Saev, you keep bringing up examples of combat as if straightforward combat were the only option worth considering. Perhaps it is in your campaign. Have fun with it. Personally, I see it as an opportunity for the party to start relying on their wits to survive in the world, rather than relying on their extensive spreadsheet analysis and min-maxing. Again, before you post yet another time yelling at me about combat balance, I am not talking about a campaign which is nothing but fight after fight. Hopefully you will understand, since this is the second or third time I've had to post this.

The wealth guideline is nothing more than that. A guideline to inform the DM. It is not an absolute yardstick.

As a practical matter it quickly gets tiresome if you are a RPing "a tough, skilled fighter" and you get the snot beat out of you every single fight while no one else even breaks a sweat. There is a point at which "roleplaying hardship" becomes a futile exercise in metagaming for some kind of pointless Real Roleplayer merit badge. Tiresome for the player. Tiresome for the DM. Tiresome for the other players.

I am not talking about all characters in all parties. Certainly a weakened spellcaster could be adequately protected by the rest of the party with minor adjustment in most cases. But positions on the front line are just too dangerous and unforgiving.