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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 9212920" data-attributes="member: 12731">EDITI now see you mention "expected wealth". Read my response as if you said "specific magic item prices as mechanical balance is a failure waiting to happen". We agree the game should not go back to "expecting" any wealth, since even if the GM awards a grand total of ZERO to the players, the game remains perfectly functional. That said, the game obviously needs to explain to the DM the internal guidelines for how much gold official scenarios will reward at different levels. A +1 magic sword could cost 10 gold or 100000 gold, the important thing is to help the DM understand at which level this sword could reasonably be expected to be sold to the heroes.And no, it still doesn't help to just list "magic sword tier II" because you STILL need a connection between how much gold you can give to the heroes at that kind of level without making items "too" cheap. Sure you could give them 100 gp and price your item at 25 gp while another GP hands out a million gp and prices it at 250000 gold.But official adventures can't do that. The writer needs to decide on something, and in order to not ruin internal consistence the next writer can't just pick a completely different number./END EDITI hope you realize the price in gold was that accurate sense. As long as you the GM realized only the first few digits were significant, which I trust everybody understands.Sure you could use different numbers, and sure, whether a +1 Thingamabob costs 3700 gold or 3800 gold doesn't matter in the slightest.But you still need a quick and easy conversion from tier or level to actual gold, since what you don't want is to have to come up with "lets see tier 5-8 means, what was it again, was it 2000 gold or 4600 gold?"If the book tags each item with an actual gold price that is both the easiest and best.And you can still switch it up whenever you want to. Just like nobody thinks just because a jar of mayo costs $6.29 at Kroegers it absolutely must cost $6.29 everywhere.Since gold loot is somewhat exponential you could simply double or halve any given price without ruining balance. If the gold price in the book is 4600 gold you could reward good roleplaying and sell it for 3900 gp, or you could say the seller is especially miserly and say it costs 5500 gp.What you don't do is sell it for 200 gold or 50000 gold.Now then. Reducing this to a level, or worse, just a tier simply makes life hard for no benefit.For all those time where you simply don't have the time and energy to customize the inventory, you want to just be able to hand out the books and say "you can purchase everything in the core PHB/DMG". If all the players see is "tier III" or "levels 9-12" that doesn't make your life any easier.So we are in complete agreement a number should tell the GM all he or she needs to know.The only thing left to discuss is why you wouldn't simply use gold asking prices. I don't see why complicating things would help.</blockquote>

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