D&D 4E Prediction: 4e economy will have to change

[mysticknight232]

Given the news that magic items will be classified as common, uncommon and rare, with the common items the only ones that can be purchased by PCs or created using the Craft Magic Item ritual. This puts the distribution of uncommon items (which is most of the items currently listed) back into the hands of the DM.

One of the effects of this change is that the restriction to the number of Daily powers that the PCs can use from magic items is going to be eliminated.

Just curious if WotC officially announced they were changing the restriction to the number of Daily Powers that PCs can use from magic items or if this was just a speculative statement? Thanks!

 

[keterys]

Straight from Mike Mearls, so it's official. Unclear as to what secondary rules are attached to it, though - for example, we're hoping you can't use 10 copies of Dice of Auspicious Fortune, no matter how difficult it may or may not be to get them. I'm also hoping we're not giving people incentives to swap outfits every combat, so they can hop into different dailies.

 

[mysticknight232]

Straight from Mike Mearls, so it's official. Unclear as to what secondary rules are attached to it, though - for example, we're hoping you can't use 10 copies of Dice of Auspicious Fortune, no matter how difficult it may or may not be to get them. I'm also hoping we're not giving people incentives to swap outfits every combat, so they can hop into different dailies.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Straight from Mike Mearls, so it's official. Unclear as to what secondary rules are attached to it, though - for example, we're hoping you can't use 10 copies of Dice of Auspicious Fortune, no matter how difficult it may or may not be to get them. I'm also hoping we're not giving people incentives to swap outfits every combat, so they can hop into different dailies.

I'm not sure I would count on that though. Mike seems to be very 'old school' and NOTHING is more old school than the DM is totally on his own when it comes to managing treasure...

I'll put my bet in for they just abolish the Daily item use rule and that's it. You get the terms common,uncommon, and rare as a bone thrown to the DM to use as an excuse to slap down munchkins. That really looks like about the size of it. Mearls exact words were something close to "we took it out back and shot it".

Given that probably 75% or more of all campaigns I've been a player in died the death of loss of DM control over PC items I think we deserve something good. I'm just starting to get a bit skeptical that we're going to get it. Mike seems to have some very different ideas about what 4e should do. I'm not really convinced there's a lot of thought going into how to keep things tightly wrapped for newer DMs.

We'll see anyhow, but I think a mechanical 'encounter time' rule was a LOT stronger control than an inevitably fuzzy guideline as to what you should give your players. It doesn't matter a bit to me one way or the other and I'd venture to say all of the DMs here will be just as happy with the new rule as the old one. I bet it implodes for LFR though.

 

[Solvarn]

Given the news that magic items will be classified as common, uncommon and rare, with the common items the only ones that can be purchased by PCs or created using the Craft Magic Item ritual. This puts the distribution of uncommon items (which is most of the items currently listed) back into the hands of the DM.

One of the effects of this change is that the restriction to the number of Daily powers that the PCs can use from magic items is going to be eliminated.

However, it is my guess that another effect will be to change the economy of treasure allocation and spending.

The fact is that the vast majority of gold that gets spent right now is for other magic items. But if those magic items are not available to be bought, there isn't really a lot for the PCs to buy.

Also, with the magic items for the most part not being purchasable there is less reason for the treasure acquired per level to go up exponentially (which to me is rather annoying).

So I'm hoping that the treasure amounts for higher levels will be reduced.

Though that still brings up another thing...if PCs aren't buying magic items...what ARE they going to be buying? Strongholds? Airships?

When I read this I got this really weird vision of magic items becoming collectible cards.

 

[Solvarn]

The "economy", such as it is, is one of the biggest problems with the entire Points of Light paradigm. A tiny population spread thin simply cannot provide a rational foundation for the kind of economy implied by D&D archetypes.

You raise a very good point, and I believe that the inherent bonus system in Dark Sun does a much better job at reflecting a reward system more true to the Points of Light system. If someone charged to create a magical sword in an isolated area surrounded by evil, it is highly likely that they would rather have a favor as opposed to gold which really isn't of use to them due to trade restrictions (monsters eating traders).

This is a good thing if you are concerned about this type of issue to remember that, as previously mentioned, gold is like a second XP system. You don't always need to be giving out gold pieces. The same merchant above may be more likely to do something for you in exchange for a nice piece of jewelery worth X amount of gold, because he has use for such a finely crafted item, whereas a pile of coins he may not.

In the times I've DM'ed the focus on the economy has always varied quite a bit depending on the people playing. Some people like that level of detail and some just want to kick doors in.

 

[Kzach]

I would love the opportunity to buy stronghold spaces that do neat stuff in game. If you own an inn for example, you get to reroll your streetwise checks 1/day. Hirelings are good too.

OMFG!

WotC, hello, are you there, are you listening?

We all NEED to see this supplement! Like... now. Cancel Dark Sun. Cancel everything else but that awesome new magic item book you had planned with the cool stories and whatnot.

A stronghold, inn, earth mote, air mote, guild hall, etc. book would be freaking awesome. And I love the idea of tying it into skill usage. You could even have levels of use applicable to the expense. Buy a small guild hall for your thieve's guild (with a minor quest-line attached to attain it, omg, this just made the book even better!) and you get an automatically successful streetwise 1/day when in your home city, and a reroll 1/day when in another city. Buy a LARGE guild hall, and that's 2/day.

Would be very hard to balance it all but man, I totally love the idea.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Wouldn't that be awesome if it was say, part of the 2011 Player's Handbook?

 

[nnms]

I'd recommend anyone interested check out the Noble House rules from the Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronin. It's simpler than the BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia rules for domains, but it's really good. I managed to rip out the Noble House rules and adapt them to D&D very, very easily.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'd recommend anyone interested check out the Noble House rules from the Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronin. It's simpler than the BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia rules for domains, but it's really good. I managed to rip out the Noble House rules and adapt them to D&D very, very easily.

I think the real point is these kinds of rules are REALLY easy to create. They don't tend to require any kind of elaborate mechanics or even really balance much with anything else. I think the very first JG supplement for D&D was exactly that, and while many people have written the same thing since it always really just varies a bit in terms of how it hooks to the core mechanics of whatever game it happens to be for. In other words, it is fairly low priority because it is both dirt simple to whip up and kind of dependent on the type of game you want. I'd think it would be best as a part of say a PoL supplement.

The thing about 'D&D economics' isn't even that there really isn't any (beyond some very basic illusion) but that there's no one-size-fits-all version you can do except something in most respects just about like the 4e version, totally gamist. I mean you can buy that 3PP supplement that is like 80 pages on medieval economics, but even THAT is a crude oversimplification. Economics done to any degree of complexity means you have to map out the entire system of social roles and obligations, demographics, production, etc. You need a highly detailed realistic sort of world for that.

The other thing with economics is exactly what was commented earlier, PoL really wouldn't HAVE any. In a world where it is so treacherous to just travel to the next city that you have to hire professional adventurers to escort every caravan and STILL probably lose half of them there will be basically no trade, and thus really no currency either. Everything is like dark ages Europe, social obligations, custom, barter, real property, and the strength of the sword (etc). Gold is an abstraction that lets the game work in a reasonable way. In that kind of environment you'd much more likely have titles, rents, offices, favors, and maybe buildings and land, but you'd be lucky to ever see actual coins and they'd be of marginal value (can't eat them and there's no luxury you can spend them on with no trade).

Obviously a different type of setting is different, but it seems impossible to generalize. At some point the stacks of coins turn into big numbers across a level range of 30 levels from tough professional fighter to nascent demi-god. You can flatten the numbers down to a shallower curve, but that just means the DM's treasure allocation mistakes haunt you for a lot longer. Sure, 1 million gp seems silly, but OTOH it works and presumably when you get to playing with that kind of money you're not buying and selling in Podunkia anymore. Millions of GP actually DO make sense for instance in Eberron.