A workable fantasy economy?

[Gort]

midevil

Medieval.

Comes from medi (meaning middle) and aevum (meaning age). Not like, "the middle of the evil times".

 

[Byronic]

I'm very interested in this as well. The economy in 4th edition BOTHERS me.

The only real thing we lose in this is the loss of "getting shiner and better stuff" As well as getting legendary swords like "Excalibur" (+6 items).

What would you do with items that become better with levels? A cloak's magical properties sometimes works better with a higher level. And what about critical damage from items? They rise with each level of the item.

Are those included in your calculations? If not would letting the magic items rise in level, but only for critical damage and the items properties (not magic enhancement) solve the problem ?

Or how about just letting their magic items level every 5 levels and just give them the feats for free.

 

[Snoweel]

This is just rude.

I'm sorry for being rude.

I, for one, am very interested in the topic, despite the fact that I don't use 4E - a more realistic economy* is something I'm also striving for in my games.

And yes, it will enrich the game by increasing verisimilitude in the world. It's nice when the players know how wealthy their characters actually are, compared to merchants, nobles, and such. It also helps a lot if the players are interested in establishing strongholds, hiring cohorts, and so on.

Wow that's excellent.

What would you say is the coolest example of how it's influenced your game at the table?

*really, ANY sort of economic model is more realistic than the D&D one. There's virtually no way to make it worse.

As a linguist I think the language system needs some work as well. Something like 4 or 5 tiers of proficiency with corresponding bonuses and penalties to social interaction skills. Probably a Knowledge (xxxx) type table showing how much a non-native speaker gleans from a face-to-face conversation. We could probably make every social interaction a skill challenge.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Snoweel, thanks. We've established that a less gamist economy would not add fun for you. I'm not convinced it would be more fun for me, either. You are right that it could get needlessly fiddly. But it's an interesting idea that deserved to be played with without someone crapping all over it.

I promise to personally let you know you were right in the event that we are unable to increase the realism at all without making it suck to play.

I won't be running out to buy a card, though. There's a LOT of room between "more realistic than current" and "so realistic as to be anti-fun for non-economists."

 

[BryonD]

As a linguist I think the language system needs some work as well. Something like 4 or 5 tiers of proficiency with corresponding bonuses and penalties to social interaction skills.

I use tiers of fluency in my games.
A character at the lowest tier can speak the language but the player is prohibited from using the letter "E" in anything they say. If they use any world with an e in it, they are treated as if they mixed up their words and said something different.
The second tier allows e, but prohibits m.
The third tier is unrestricted, but the character is clearly speaking a non-native language (or has a disability).
The fourth tier is default native speaking.
The fifth tier is highly educated and provides a bonus in a few circumstances.

And this system is a BLAST!!!! at the table. For one thing, player pausing and thinking for the words comes across (roughly enough) as someone speaking a language they don't know well. Also, it is a lot of fun.

 

[BryonD]

Medieval.

Comes from medi (meaning middle) and aevum (meaning age). Not like, "the middle of the evil times".

Actually, "the middle of the evil times" sounds perfect for D&D.

 

[korjik]

I'm interested in scrapping the existing artificial economy of D&D 4e and putting in something that approximates how an actual world with magic and such would value things. Anyone want to help out? I don't need perfect detail, just some good guidelines.

For instance, I'm house ruling down monsters so they only add 1/2 level to all their attacks and defenses, instead of full level. This gets them in line with PCs, and completely eliminates the need for:

• Magic enhancement bonuses
• Weapon and Implement Expertise feats
• Stat adjustments as you level

(As for the damage difference now that you don't have magic gear or higher stats, I'm letting PCs add their 1/2 level modifier to damage rolls too.)

Why dont you just add +0 per level and get rid of all the adjustments all together? Character sheets would last alot longer.

All magic flaming swords, for instance, will just do some fire damage and have some fire tricks. You won't have to worry about whether your flaming sword is marginally sharper than a different flaming sword.

Now that it is no longer necessary to trade up from +1 swords to +2 swords and so on, I think it will be easier to have the rest of the world have reasonable costs. Magic swords might provide interesting options, but they generally won't be numerically superior in a way that skews the math balance of the game.

Technically, this just makes the +n bonus a special effect like flaming. You could call it an 'accurate weapon'

I mean, in the real world, a typical AK-47 might cost $500, whereas a +1 weapon costs 360 gp in D&D. I'm no gun nut, but I can't imagine a mercenary spending a million dollars (the equivalent of a +6 weapon) to buy a "really nifty AK-47," no matter how good it is.

First, except in the west, and AK is more like $5 than $500

Second, going from an AK-47 to a custom, titanium framed, ceramic lined, recoil compensated, muzzle braked, .50 cal sniper rifle that fires depleted uranium cored, teflon coated, fin stablized flechette rounds, and has a high magnification thermal low profile non-reflective sight and comes with a ballistic computer heads up display that computes drop and windage and adjusts the sights accordingly, all of which weighs less than 5 kilo, would probably count as a +6 weapon.

Prolly cost a couple mil, too.

So, what are some of the main pillars of a fantasy economy? Since it's sort of the mental baseline, let's assume a pseudo-medieval setting, with a mostly farm-based culture, and most of the wealth clustered in the hands of a few.

How much wealth does a typical peasant have? How much does his labor cost? What kind of stuff does he use that money to buy?

What about a middle class merchant, who probably lives in a city as opposed to in the country? How much wealth does he have? What does he spend it on, and how much does that cost?

How much wealth does the mayor of a small town have? The mayor of a city? Leader of a county (what, Duke? Lord? Baron?)? How about a king?

And where in this scale should we find your typical soldier? A talented officer? A respected knight? The general of an army? What about a famous entertainer (bard), a revered philosopher (cleric), the leader of a gang of thieves (rogue), the dean of an academy (wizard)?

If we can establish these baselines, it will be pretty easy to guestimate how much it should cost when the PCs come up with their crazy plans. I would like to use a silver standard, since my understanding is that actual gold was pretty rare except for the wealthy. Low level heroes should probably be scraping by, spending their copper and silver like normal people.

Actually, depending on how much magic can be used at technology, this scenario can go out of whack pretty quick. As has been seen repeatedly in D&D in almost any edition.

A medieval setting is pretty agrarian so most of the society is poor. IIRC, through most of the medieval period, the starting equipment of the average party is of a value equivalent to a small village. Decent swords and metal armour were worth alot.

Where things will really go out of whack is when the party starts coming back to civilization with the equvalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in loot. After only a few levels, and definitely by paragon levels, you are looking at players that should have assets equivalent to rich merchants, counts and dukes, or even minor Kings. At that point, almost anything mundane is a trivial expense.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I have an excellent pdf on the basics of this: Grain into Gold. This is an 83 page exploration of how a realistic economy feeds its populous, produces the items it requires and perhaps best of all, has a series of appendix tables with ranges of values for all items including - Cost at the Source, Cost at the Local Marketplace, Cost in a nearby City, Cost at a Distant City. Fantasy/magical effects are then considered in relation to this.

Now while the details can be pretty dry for those who don't appreciate economics (how many bushels of which grain equates to...) , these can be just happily ignored with the focus being the end values. For those however who do appreciate such stuff (and yes the 4e economy is an absolute abomination in my opinion), you garner a range of useful knowledge and tools, all in the name of bringing an increased level of verisimilitude to your game. I suppose the biggest assistance this document provides is assisting the DM keep a lid on their economy, without high level items effectively destroying the world (in an economic sense).

Highly recommended as a base for just about any system.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[ppaladin123]

A. I understand the desire to get rid of the clunky +X system, but you might be able to retain that part of it which is reasonable by focusing to a limited extent on materials. Steel really does provide more protection and more armor penetration than iron and as a result was more expensive historically. You can certainly also add in some fantasy materials like mithril or adamantite. I might be willing to trade in my flaming iron mace for a flaming steel mace. Peasants certainly couldn't afford steel plate or steel warhammers but nobility could. That means a few hundred gold pieces, not several million. You might offer very limited to hit or AC bonuses to represent this (+1 or +2 at most) or you can rely on damage reduction and the ability to overcome damage reduction.

B. Don't forget about the supply side. How many people know how to make full steel plate? How many people know how to enchant a sword to make it do fire damage or kill werewolves? What sorts of materials are required to forge/enchant magical weapons/armor? If there are few experts and/or the costs associated with necessary components and/or the creation process are prohibitive, there may not be a market for whole classes of magic items at all. This means:

1. Quests for more exotic weaponry. If you really need a sword that can pierce the magical aura that surrounds the demon lord, you are going to need to collect the components, travel to mount doom to use the black anvil, etc.

2. Assassins. Congratulations, you have a blade like no other. Those who want it certainly can't go out and buy an equivalent so maybe they might try to take it.

3. No market means limited resale possibilities. You might be able to find a collector or another adventurer in a desperate situation but chances are you are not going to be able to get rid of unwanted magic items at prices that compensate you for all the work you put into making them. Again, few people have more than a handful of gold pieces to their names.

 

[ppaladin123]

Where things will really go out of whack is when the party starts coming back to civilization with the equvalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in loot. After only a few levels, and definitely by paragon levels, you are looking at players that should have assets equivalent to rich merchants, counts and dukes, or even minor Kings. At that point, almost anything mundane is a trivial expense.

Ah the inflation that causes. Look at what happened to the Spanish economy after they conquered Latin America. Perhaps the D&D economy is more realistic than we thought.

More seriously, this is a reason not to give players buckets of gold but rather to make sure that the treasure they find is largely, "in kind."