4e Level 30 Magic Items. Who makes these things?

[Doug McCrae]

PCs don't outfit legions with +1 swords because, for the most part, that isn't what they care about. They care about winning fights with monsters. A +6 sword helps them to do that. A well geared paladin troop might make the world a better place but most PCs don't give a toss about the best way to improve the world. Very few are LG paladins.

And the ones that are? Well a true paladin wouldn't keep any of the money from the dragon's hoard - he'd return it to its rightful owners. And any money that couldn't be returned he would give to his church or to the poor. In other words he wouldn't do any of the things the D&D system demands in order to be successful.

Successful PCs have Conan's desire for treasure but instead of blowing it all on ale and whores they invest it in better ways to kill monsters.

 

[occam]

The F-22 is so expensive because it has a ton of software on it that does useful things. Designers found software to be the only viable route to add capability because they had reached the point of diminishing return when it came to adding new hardware. Every new hardware doodad on the plane had a tradeoff. Adding 10% to the airspeed of the plane and not losing other capabilities would be VERY expensive.

In the context of the avenger, that's a perfect analogy. We are not going from a "equality to superiority" situation in gaining a plus on your avenger. You are adding a small benefit for a great cost. That WOULDN'T work in a sensible economy.

That depends on what you consider a sensible economy. (Hoping to avoid the politically-related mod here...) For most military forces, spending over $130 million on a plane would be INSANE. But when you have so much money that you spend more on your military than the rest of the world combined, that amount can seem sensible. Same for PCs: 3 million gp is a crazy fantasy for most in the game world, but to a high-level PC, it's just the cost of doing business.

 

[Cryndo]

THAT'S why you invest in your hero. Because in a D&D world, the common soldiers are useless against the kind of threats you face, and for the kind of threats soldiers are good at, buying them all +1 armor is overkill.

A Legions worth of Lay Hands is incredibly useful - much, much more useful than +1 to hit and damage IMO. They would also give party members flanking bonuses. They would make it very tough to get to the wizard to melee. They wont' directly do much in the way of damaging any level appropriate foes, but they'll allow your party to do more damage and keep your party fully healed. I'd trade it for a +1.

 

[Benimoto]

I feel as though the question itself has two problems. #1 is the familiar one that it assumes that the rules of the game are the physics of the fantasy world. There's no reason why the rituals available to the heroes have to be the only way these things are made. Perhaps they are gifts from the gods in response to prayers, or maybe NPC artificers have access to other rituals that use components that can't be bought with money.

#2 is assuming that what level 30 heroes do with their money has anything to do with the mundane world. The sheer existence of level 30 heroes implies that there are level 30+ threats out there. Those threats are hopefully far removed from the places most mortals go, and as the PCs go to those places to battle them, they may also grow remote from the mortal world. The epic destinies in the DMG all have this kind of subtext, where an Archmage, Demigod, etc. begins to lose sight of mortal struggles and focuses only on his/her own goals.

 

[jmucchiello]

If that Paladin spent all that money getting 1000 soldiers booze and whores they would vote him God-Emperor and kill anyone he asked

And when he takes those paladins with him to attack Orcus, he'll wish he had the +6 holy avenger instead of the +5 holy avenger and 1k of minions.

This isn't a new phenomenon... in 2e a +1 Longsword cost the same as a fully outfitted, and crewed, Galleon....

And when the 2e gargoyle attacks, your fully crewed galleon sinks to the bottom unless someone has a +1 weapon handy. Because even the ballista on the galleon can't harm the gargoyle unless it is +1.

As Andor said, one wonders why the non-sensical economy is a sacred cow that the designers decided to keep. I suppose the answer is that it's not an easy cow to slay (maybe a +6 Holy Avenger would help).

It's not that it's hard to slay (it is hard but that's not the point). It's that the benefit of slaying it is not greater than the simplicity of ignoring something 99% of players (PLAYERS, not DMs) will never notice/care about. Making rules for how to simulate an economy could take up hundreds of pages. And if you don't believe me about hundreds of pages consider that economy is affected by climate, geography and politics. You can fix those features on Earth for a given locale in a given time frame. In a set of rules used by world building DMs, all those variables are things the rules need to cover. Economy is not a can of worms. It's a crate of worms.

 

[Lizard]

A Legions worth of Lay Hands is incredibly useful - much, much more useful than +1 to hit and damage IMO. They would also give party members flanking bonuses. They would make it very tough to get to the wizard to melee. They wont' directly do much in the way of damaging any level appropriate foes, but they'll allow your party to do more damage and keep your party fully healed. I'd trade it for a +1.

Well, again, unless you're playing in a very variant world -- for ANY version of D&D -- you don't have a Legion Of Paladins. You'd be lucky to have a dozen even in a large city. So you'd be putting ((-2e)0 Level Humans/(3e)1st Level Warriors/(4e)Human Foot Soldier) into VERY expensive gear which will:
a)Give them such a small edge over other, normal, opponents, that you'd be better off just hiring more soldiers.
b)Be basically useless against the kinds of things a 30th level Paladin would be fighting.

Now, if you're postulating a very different D&D world where classed characters are found by the hundreds in any city, that's cool, but it's not really possible to discuss "default" economic assumptions in a non-default world.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

It's not that it's hard to slay (it is hard but that's not the point). It's that the benefit of slaying it is not greater than the simplicity of ignoring something 99% of players (PLAYERS, not DMs) will never notice/care about. Making rules for how to simulate an economy could take up hundreds of pages. And if you don't believe me about hundreds of pages consider that economy is affected by climate, geography and politics. You can fix those features on Earth for a given locale in a given time frame. In a set of rules used by world building DMs, all those variables are things the rules need to cover. Economy is not a can of worms. It's a crate of worms.

Heh, cost-benefit analysis is particularly appropriate here. Yeah, valid point. Most players will probably never worry about the holy avenger market price issue. Alas, if only everyone shared my pet peeves.

Unfortunately, the game does not ignore the economic issue. It explicitly ties magic item manufacture to market price. Instead of letting the crate of worms be, the game busts it open with a +4 khopesh sword. And by postulating million-gp scale markets, the game conflicts violently with the idea of a PoL setting. I mean, the Keep on the Borderlands doesn't strike me as very much like the New York Stock Exchange.

Unless, of course, the PCs are special and the only ones doing what they're doing. But I don't get the same sense of heroic adventure from settings where the PCs are already favored by the gods/rules/physics etc. Oh well, that may be another thing 99% of people don't care about. Actually, doesn't KotS have a Raise Dead-capable NPC right in the (small) town? I've only played through it and don't own it, so I could be wrong. That would seem to go against the "PCs are special" idea, unless maybe it's not heroes who are special but paragons or epics.

On a more general note, about the 99% of players not caring about the nonsensical +5 to +6 jump, I wonder at what point players do care about the economy. Clearly, if a torch's market price was 1,000,000 gp and a holy avenger's market price was 1 cp, 99% of the players would care. My guess is that players begin to care about the economy at the point where the economy becomes visible.

 

[Toras]

And the ones that are? Well a true paladin wouldn't keep any of the money from the dragon's hoard - he'd return it to its rightful owners. And any money that couldn't be returned he would give to his church or to the poor. In other words he wouldn't do any of the things the D&D system demands in order to be successful.

Successful PCs have Conan's desire for treasure but instead of blowing it all on ale and whores they invest it in better ways to kill monsters.

Which raises the idea of why by Crom's name should it be easier for Conan to get his hand on a magical sword than the pious scion of a religious order steeped in both mysticism and grand valor, not to mention the favor of the gods. Cause he can pay cash money for it? (Bah)

Why have it in the first place? I mean I can understand why you might want to have loot improve things. But why bring that much math into what is otherwise a cheese and nachos game. Why break it down into gold pieces at all, why sweat the details if you are going poorly.

Why not a wealth/backing check? So a pious monk or paladin might be gifted with weapons by their orders in return for their efforts and donations, while the shifty eyed rogue will be hitting up the merchant. Why not make it truly simple?

I don't mind them abstracting from it further, but why do it and do it poorly?

 

[Cryndo]

Well, again, unless you're playing in a very variant world -- for ANY version of D&D -- you don't have a Legion Of Paladins. You'd be lucky to have a dozen even in a large city. So you'd be putting ((-2e)0 Level Humans/(3e)1st Level Warriors/(4e)Human Foot Soldier) into VERY expensive gear which will:
a)Give them such a small edge over other, normal, opponents, that you'd be better off just hiring more soldiers.
b)Be basically useless against the kinds of things a 30th level Paladin would be fighting.

Now, if you're postulating a very different D&D world where classed characters are found by the hundreds in any city, that's cool, but it's not really possible to discuss "default" economic assumptions in a non-default world.

I'd take a Legion of soldiers led by a dozen low level Paladins over an extra plus to my weapon any day. Even against level 30's, the soldiers will still provide more benefit than an extra + would on a weapon. I agree they wouldn't be able to do much harm to a level appropriate opponent, however the bonuses they give to allies due to flanking, aid another, blocking the enemy, etc, far outweighs a measly +1.

 

[AllisterH]

Why the 4E treasure system works (for me anyway).

As a DM, I like to hand out treasure and I want the PCs to use said item for at least a few levels. Even if the item is not "perfectly designed".

The treasure parcel system and the 20% rule plus the breakdown of the tiers insues this.

A PC can relatively easily have level-appropriate gear which gives them the fun of choosing magic items.

At the same time, the higher level appropriate items allows me to surprise players with unique items and encourage the PCs to use them. If they really don't want the magic item, they can easily change it into an item that WILL be useful for their level.

The treasure system is a smashing success from my PoV