Proposal : Starting Wealth for level 2 and 3

[Stringbean2142]

<SNIP> but if we took the average expected net worth of a PC who has adventured to level 2 and gotten 1/5 of the standard 10 treasure packets, took off, say, 20% as a "retirement fee", and used that number as the starting wealth at level 2?

As far as I can tell, that's where the 80% came from, for retiring folks only. I think this discussion is (and should be) separate from the time gold discussion. Covaithe later asked for a breakdown at higher levels (which I screwed up and took the thread off course in doing), but since he was the one who both suggested the 20% fee and asked for the high-level breakdown, I threw it in to my calculations. Is it the right value? Dunno. If we increase the value, it will take longer to hit that 30-40% over area, but we'll still hit it. Decrease it, and we hit it sooner.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

Well, I assume if we're charging a "retirement fee", then we'd be taking 20% (or whatever) off the top of whatever method we choose, which is why I was comparing Cumulative Parcels -20% with DMG Higher Level Characters -20%.

I guess a retirement fee is a good idea, but is 20% too much? I'd say more like 10%.

 

[covaithe]

20% was just a number I pulled out of mid-air for no particular reason. My thought was that retirement should have some cost associated with it; a character built to replace a retired character should be (I thought) somewhat weaker than original character. Otherwise it creates a perverse incentive to retire early and often, which is bad for character continuity and the community and motherhood and apple pie and so forth.

I still think that there ought to be some kind of cost, but, playing with Stringbean's spreadsheet while ENWorld was down this morning, I now think that factor has a more important role to play: it accounts for obsolete equipment. When you go from a +1 weapon to a +2 weapon, the +1 weapon doesn't magically turn into gold in your pocket. The best you can do is sell it for residuum, which represents a significant loss of wealth over a 30-level career. How significant? Well, we can try to guess how significant by tweaking the 20% number that I pulled out of the air, and comparing it to the DMG-suggested starting wealth.

Starting with:
     DMG        100%        80%         67%         60%
  ========================================================
1       100       100         100          100         100
2      1920       852       681.6       570.84       511.2
3      2560      1924      1539.2      1289.08      1154.4
4      3200      3443      2754.4      2306.81      2065.8
5      4480      5539      4431.2      3711.13      3323.4
6      6400      8339      6671.2      5587.13      5003.4
7      9600     12099      9679.2      8106.33      7259.4
8     12800     17459     13967.2     11697.53     10475.4
9     16000     25059     20047.2     16789.53     15035.4
10    22400     35539     28431.2     23811.13     21323.4
11    32000     49539     39631.2     33191.13     29723.4
12    48000     68339     54671.2     45787.13     41003.4
13    64000     95139     76111.2     63743.13     57083.4
14    80000    133139    106511.2     89203.13     79883.4
15   112000    185539    148431.2    124311.13    111323.4
16   160000    255539    204431.2    171211.13    153323.4
17   240000    349539    279631.2    234191.13    209723.4
18   320000    483539    386831.2    323971.13    290123.4
19   400000    673539    538831.2    451271.13    404123.4
20   560000    935539    748431.2    626811.13    561323.4
21   800000   1285539   1028431.2    861311.13    771323.4
22  1200000   1755539   1404431.2   1176211.13   1053323.4
23  1600000   2425539   1940431.2   1625111.13   1455323.4
24  2000000   3375539   2700431.2   2261611.13   2025323.4
25  2800000   4685539   3748431.2   3139311.13   2811323.4
26  4000000   6435539   5148431.2   4311811.13   3861323.4
27  6000000   8785539   7028431.2   5886311.13   5271323.4
28  8000000  11635539   9308431.2   7795811.13   6981323.4
29 10000000  14885539  11908431.2   9973311.13   8931323.4
30 11500000  18435539  14748431.2  12351811.13  11061323.4

Based on that, it looks like 67% tracks the DMG suggested starting wealth most closely, though there are some levels that are outliers. This is easier to see on a graph, but I don't feel like trying to post graphs here at the moment.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

Good point about obsolete items not being worth as much. Maybe we should run the spreadsheet again with all items more than 2 levels before the current counting as 1/5 the value to represent the sell price and see how that compares.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I think using the 67% value or something similar is better than to assume items two level and lower are going to be resold.

In practice, I know for a fact that many a 12th level melee character would still be wearing his 6th level Iron Armband of power, for example.

There are 12 item slot and only 3 are truly essential. Someone with decent enchanted boots is likely to keep them a long time, especially since the usefulness of the non-essential items vary a lot from classes to classes. Something like Fencer's boots might last a rogue for 8 levels or more.

There is just not convenient way to take this into account other than by applying a sensible penalty.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

So to summarize - if you add up the total wealth an adventurer will get throughout their career based on treasure packets, the DMG higher-level awards are roughly 2/3 of that except at level 2-4, where the DMG is substantially ahead (> 20%). Such a large discount seems reasonable because adventurers playing through the levels will spend a lot of their wealth on items which will be replaced later.

Here's the actual percent difference between the DMG and 2/3 of the treasure packets:

[sblock=Numbers]
Level 1: 0.00%
Level 2: 70.27%
Level 3: 49.65%
Level 4: 27.91%
Level 5: 17.16%
Level 6: 12.70%
Level 7: 15.56%
Level 8: 8.61%
Level 9: -4.93%
Level 10: -6.30%
Level 11: -3.72%
Level 12: 4.61%
Level 13: 0.40%
Level 14: -11.50%
Level 15: -10.99%
Level 16: -7.01%
Level 17: 2.42%
Level 18: -1.24%
Level 19: -12.82%
Level 20: -11.93%
Level 21: -7.66%
Level 22: 1.98%
Level 23: -1.57%
Level 24: -13.08%
Level 25: -12.12%
Level 26: -7.80%
Level 27: 1.89%
Level 28: 2.55%
Level 29: 0.27%
Level 30: -7.41%
[/sblock]

I'd also guess that at levels 2 to 4, the effect of obsolete items is much less because there hasn't been time to replace anything.

Based on this, I'd say to either:

Award 66% of the time gold all the way through, and low-level characters get shafted a bit (which isn't as big of a deal since there's a lot of variance at those levels anyway, and it's less hardship to throw away a level 1-4 char than to retire and replace a level 8 or 9 char that you've got a lot more invested in)

Award full time gold (maybe with a -10% to discourage character swapping) for new characters at levels 2-4, and just use the DMG numbers thereafter.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

On thinking about it more, we're just guessing about how much the turnover in obsolete items is really worth. I'm convinced that the "people playing through get more gold than the DMG says" argument is overblown, because of the depreciation in old items, but the only real guide we're using for how much to factor this in is the DMG! So we might as well just use the DMG numbers.

So I propose that when creating a new character of levels 2-4, we award time gold -10%, and thereafter we use the numbers from the DMG.

 

[covaithe]

If I understand correctly, the starting gold by level would go like this, then:

1: 100g
2: 780.4 (100 + .9*12*63)
3: 1741.6 (780.4 + .9*12*89)
4: 3113.2 (1741.6 + .9*12*127)
5+: as DMG

If that's what you meant, I vote YES.

 

[garyh]

If I understand correctly, the starting gold by level would go like this, then:

1: 100g
2: 780.4 (100 + .9*12*63)
3: 1741.6 (780.4 + .9*12*89)
4: 3113.2 (1741.6 + .9*12*127)
5+: as DMG

If that's what you meant, I vote YES.

Yes to that as well.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

A small, unbolded, white yes for me.