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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9183525" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>Well as I said, I don't think they are for the GM. The GM puts money into the player's hands. The Bastion system presents an option for what to do with said money.</p><p></p><p>If the GM doesn't like it (and I reiterate, I wouldn't use these rules as written either), they don't use them and create their own. Or keep their players poor, I don't know.</p><p></p><p>Mephista, you're correct about Lifestyle Expenses- I had to go double check the PHB because I thought they were optional! Certainly, no DM ever asked me to pay them (though in the case of my high level Fighter, I did anyways because why not?). Unfortunately, those rules are very lackluster, as you don't have to engage in them, and while it says things like "you're a hobo living in a box", there's a sidebar on "self-sufficiency" in the very next section, goods and services, which allows you to directly pay for food and lodging as needed; ideal for someone who doesn't have a set place to live and is always on the move (ie, an adventurer).</p><p></p><p>All we're told is how people might react to your character based on your lifestyle, which is entirely up to the DM to interpret. In my current game, I arranged a deal with the innkeeper to buy our rooms at the local inn days in advance and not engaged with the lifestyle rules at all; I'll have to ask my DM what he thinks about them, but seeing as how our party is currently rolling in gold due to exploring a megadungeon, we could easily afford it (we have lots of treasure we can't even sell in the hub town, and will have to travel to a major city to actually sell, but when an NPC asked us for 10,000 gp to acquire +1 swords for our Ranger, I, as the party treasurer, didn't even bat an eye when I said we could afford it. Outside of filling my spellbook or buying potions as they become available, we haven't had a major player purchase since we got the Cleric's full plate back when we were level 3).</p><p></p><p>D&D only has ever had the thinnest veneer of an economy, which breaks down very quickly with the rewards for adventuring. DM's have conspired for decades to keep players poor or to get wealth out of their hands, from simply reducing money amounts, to taxes, to wildly overcharging them at inns. I often joke that the antics of PC's will inevitably lead to the economic collapse of any population center they visit, because most of the goods and services that they require are generally not needed by the rest of the communities.</p><p></p><p>The Bastion system is not a solution to this. Nor is it any kind of tool for a GM in it's current state, outside of the very basic "well, now you have something to care about I could threaten to motivate your PC", lol.</p><p></p><p>Bastion's value as actual bases is entirely dubious as most adventurers, again, travel far and wide, always on the move.</p><p></p><p>That WotC is actually taking a stab at making guidelines for acquiring magic items in the game is a good thing, IMO, even if individual DM's don't care for it. Because of the almost zero guidelines we have now, lots of games don't have magic items which really ought to. Removing magic items from the game in 5e had a lot of effects on the game that WotC never really addressed.</p><p></p><p>But at the end of the day, it's something that a DM can say "we're using this" or completely ignore, like any other facet of the game, be it Feats, Multiclassing, Material Components for spells, the entire Tasha's book, new races, or, if my experience is anything to go on, lifestyle expenses.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9183525, member: 6877472"] Well as I said, I don't think they are for the GM. The GM puts money into the player's hands. The Bastion system presents an option for what to do with said money. If the GM doesn't like it (and I reiterate, I wouldn't use these rules as written either), they don't use them and create their own. Or keep their players poor, I don't know. Mephista, you're correct about Lifestyle Expenses- I had to go double check the PHB because I thought they were optional! Certainly, no DM ever asked me to pay them (though in the case of my high level Fighter, I did anyways because why not?). Unfortunately, those rules are very lackluster, as you don't have to engage in them, and while it says things like "you're a hobo living in a box", there's a sidebar on "self-sufficiency" in the very next section, goods and services, which allows you to directly pay for food and lodging as needed; ideal for someone who doesn't have a set place to live and is always on the move (ie, an adventurer). All we're told is how people might react to your character based on your lifestyle, which is entirely up to the DM to interpret. In my current game, I arranged a deal with the innkeeper to buy our rooms at the local inn days in advance and not engaged with the lifestyle rules at all; I'll have to ask my DM what he thinks about them, but seeing as how our party is currently rolling in gold due to exploring a megadungeon, we could easily afford it (we have lots of treasure we can't even sell in the hub town, and will have to travel to a major city to actually sell, but when an NPC asked us for 10,000 gp to acquire +1 swords for our Ranger, I, as the party treasurer, didn't even bat an eye when I said we could afford it. Outside of filling my spellbook or buying potions as they become available, we haven't had a major player purchase since we got the Cleric's full plate back when we were level 3). D&D only has ever had the thinnest veneer of an economy, which breaks down very quickly with the rewards for adventuring. DM's have conspired for decades to keep players poor or to get wealth out of their hands, from simply reducing money amounts, to taxes, to wildly overcharging them at inns. I often joke that the antics of PC's will inevitably lead to the economic collapse of any population center they visit, because most of the goods and services that they require are generally not needed by the rest of the communities. The Bastion system is not a solution to this. Nor is it any kind of tool for a GM in it's current state, outside of the very basic "well, now you have something to care about I could threaten to motivate your PC", lol. Bastion's value as actual bases is entirely dubious as most adventurers, again, travel far and wide, always on the move. That WotC is actually taking a stab at making guidelines for acquiring magic items in the game is a good thing, IMO, even if individual DM's don't care for it. Because of the almost zero guidelines we have now, lots of games don't have magic items which really ought to. Removing magic items from the game in 5e had a lot of effects on the game that WotC never really addressed. But at the end of the day, it's something that a DM can say "we're using this" or completely ignore, like any other facet of the game, be it Feats, Multiclassing, Material Components for spells, the entire Tasha's book, new races, or, if my experience is anything to go on, lifestyle expenses. [/QUOTE]
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