Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JustinA" data-source="post: 3718777" data-attributes="member: 51618">Why on earth would you need to write an entire system from scratch in order to demonstrate it in principle?Let's sum up:(1) You think you can balance the power levels of different characters while ignoring a major source of power.(2) I don't.(3) You're very rude.Let me know if you want to add any other bullet points to this discussion. Or are you planning to just continue sniping instead of actually participating?True. But that's not actually what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the skew of power that happens when you take equipment away from everybody. Take away a high level wizard's items away and he gets fewer spells that aren't quite as good as they would be otherwise -- he can face fewer opponents of his CR in a day, but he can still face them. A high level fighter, OTOH, is completely dependent on his gear. Even his primary schtick -- beating on things -- is dependent on the magical pluses he gets to his attack rolls, damage, and AC.To boil it down: Without magical items, a high-level wizard is inconvenienced. A high-level fighter is screwed.That doesn't actually decouple the wealth mechanic, though. It annihilates the concept of loot (for that particular character) and replaces it with an alternate mechanic.You can certainly get rid of treasure in D&D, but that's not actually the equivalent of ignoring the effects of wealth on power balance -- it's just setting the default level of wealth at a different point.As long as D&D remains a game about traditional dungeon-crawling (kicking in the door, killing the monsters, and taking their stuff), wealth is going to continue to be an important factor in determining how much power a character or a group has at their disposal. Pretending that you can somehow ignore that factor and still balance the system is simply ridiculous. It's like trying to analyze the balance of military power between the U.S. and China without taking into consideration the number of soldiers each nation has.If Dream Machine Production's <a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive2007-08.html#20070820" target="_blank">Rule Supplement 5: Advanced Training</a> sees the light of day (4th edition may have put the kibosh on its release), you'll see a training system in which wealth can be spent on inherent abilities instead of magical items (for identical results).It's a pretty solid approach.Justin Alexander<a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net" target="_blank">http://www.thealexandrian.net</a></blockquote>

Verification