Proposal: Time Gold

[Moon_Goddess]

Indeed. I'll just be at the amulet merchant if anyone needs me...

Which, reminds me, what's the policy for spending gold on magic items, is there a shop in Dauton that we can buy a fancy new sword? or healing potion?

"What, you got a problem with bugbears? Me and my pa will pound ya good for that!"

"No sir, I certainly believe we can all work together despite race, I was mearly saddened by other's inablity to keep pace with your rapid advancement."

 

[garyh]

When Hrav received his first 50 GP as an advance at the very beginning of the Captain's Caper, I just declared he was going to the apothecary in the adventure thread to buy a healing potion, and put it on my sheet.

I think that's probably enough. I'm thinking Daunton should have pretty much anything Heroic Tier, and we may need to create another city for Paragon (and, dare I say it, Epic) play. I mean, are we eventually planning to have an Exarch of Hadeys pop into the Hanged Man to recruit a group of level 18 characters to take care of some trouble in the Shadowfell?

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I think tha's the best way to handle it, and probably each with their own tavern threads, there's not alot for a lvl 1 and lvl 18 to interact with each other about.

That's how I was handling my tabletop 4e game that fell apart, one small town for heroic, then a large regional city for paragon and eventually was to be a planar location for epic.



I just wanted to check if buying magic items was considered kosher, there's alot of people out there that don't feel like magic items should ever be available on the open market.

 

[covaithe]

When handing out treasure, instead of simply thinking about what his players might need or want, [the DM] would have to also figure their current item wealth.

Yes. I think there's pretty much no way around this. Or, rather there is, but it involves taking treasure rewards out of the hands of DMs entirely, and having each player get rewards on a set scale: get a level 3 item at level 1, a level 5 item at level 2, etc. Boring! If treasure is going to be left up to the DM at all, then the DM will always have to take into account the player's current wealth.

This proposal isn't really about that. It's about the fact that, so far, DMs have fairly consistently been under-awarding treasure.

That said, I do still think there's value in having some kind of table of expected wealth by level, and having players keep a running total of their current wealth on their sheet. As a DM, I'd find that really helpful, no matter what the formula was to calculate WBL.

 

[stonegod]

This proposal isn't really about that. It's about the fact that, so far, DMs have fairly consistently been under-awarding treasure.

... and its about dealing with how to reconcile differences based upon spending DM points (otherwise, we will have characters without a full level of gained treasure).

That said, I do still think there's value in having some kind of table of expected wealth by level, and having players keep a running total of their current wealth on their sheet. As a DM, I'd find that really helpful, no matter what the formula was to calculate WBL.

Players are required to keep track of their wealth as it stands, and to record this history of what they were given (in cases where they sell/use items as well); this is something character judges should ensure is happening.

 

[garyh]

I just wanted to check if buying magic items was considered kosher, there's alot of people out there that don't feel like magic items should ever be available on the open market.

I think, especially given the fact that your L4W PC isn't with a single DM his whole career who can adjust and tailor treasure to you over the long term, there has to be a way for players to get what they want.

Plus, there's the player economy. If My PC is done with his +1 sword after finding a +2 sword, there's nothing that can be done (outside of Soulbound items, to get all WoW on you) to prevent him from selling that +1 sword to a character that wants it for a mutually agreeable sum.

 

[ryryguy]

Plus, there's the player economy. If My PC is done with his +1 sword after finding a +2 sword, there's nothing that can be done (outside of Soulbound items, to get all WoW on you) to prevent him from selling that +1 sword to a character that wants it for a mutually agreeable sum.

Well, you could have a rule that players cannot sell items directly to other players, that they can only sell them to NPC merchants for the proscribed 1/5th retail value. Addressing the original question, you could even say that the only items available for purchase from NPC merchants would be items that other PC's had sold them.

I don't think I'd like such a rule and I don't imagine anybody else would much, either. In addition to making it harder for everybody's PC's to get items (and who wants that?), it's very "gamey" and damaging to verisimilitude.

But, I bring it up because the existence of unlimited player-to-player transactions should have something of an inflationary effect on the persistent game economy. The expected-wealth-per-level standards being discussed here are built on that assumed difference between PC selling price and NPC selling price creating a 4/5th's value gold sink on transactions. PC-to-PC transactions sidestep that gold sink.

I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it, but it is something on the other side of the scale... If after a couple of years there are so many hand-me-down items floating around that they routinely sell at below half regular price, then at that time the city could impose a tax or something.

Also, it suggests being a little cautious about trying to match the wealth-per-level scale exactly with time gold. Instead perhaps we should aim to undershoot it a little bit. That strikes me as a good notion in general for such measures. It's always easier to give out more loot later if you undershoot than to take it away if you overshoot.

 

[Atanatotatos]

All the treasure parcels are figured out considering that you can't sell an item at more than 1/5 of its real value. So if we allow free transactions all that's screwed. Obviously I don't like this kind of matagamish rule, but in this case, it might be necessary to keep the balance.

 

[Goumindong]

All the treasure parcels are figured out considering that you can't sell an item at more than 1/5 of its real value. So if we allow free transactions all that's screwed. Obviously I don't like this kind of matagamish rule, but in this case, it might be necessary to keep the balance.

"magical items can be dangerous. Adventurers rarely know the full effects of those things they find and while many of them turn out to be safe when in capable hands, the few that do not can cause such damage intentional or otherwise. Because of this, and to ensure that no man is shortchanged by a transaction for an item that was not as he thought, the ruling body has decreed that no man, except a duly trained and licensed individual shall buy or sell magical items under pain of a penalty of 4 times the sales price of the item"

 

[Lord Sessadore]

"magical items can be dangerous. Adventurers rarely know the full effects of those things they find and while many of them turn out to be safe when in capable hands, the few that do not can cause such damage intentional or otherwise. Because of this, and to ensure that no man is shortchanged by a transaction for an item that was not as he thought, the ruling body has decreed that no man, except a duly trained and licensed individual shall buy or sell magical items under pain of a penalty of 4 times the sales price of the item"

Yeah, you could do that ... but to me it kind of flies in the face of a town that allows bugbears and minotaurs and orcs to walk around unharassed

Addressing your previous posts, something like that could be looked into, but I'd really rather not take treasure out of the hands of the DM like that. To me, half the fun of the adventure is seeing what you get - if I get to pretedermine exactly what I get and when, it's less enjoyable. Even with a wishlist, nothing is guaranteed. It's like Christmas

Also, if we do the time gold thing right, and the ratio of time XP to 'normal' XP remains the same (about 1:1), then a character is guaranteed half of their expected wealth in strict accordance to their level, which is what it sounds like you're suggesting.

In any case, I think a clear, thorough recording of income should be a necessary thing in every character's sheet. It would be especially beneficial to divide it by levels - here's what happened over level 1, here's what happened over level 2, etc... That would make it a lot easier for DMs to see where players are at with minimum effort.