am i doing this right?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I've never had a single player complain about treasure levels. Nor can I think of a game where ANY player has complained. I've played a dirt poor fighter that was happy to have his composite long bow at 7th level. I also don't allow the magic item Walmart IMC.

And when he needed to find a mage to enhance it as a magical weapon, said Fighter had to trudge two miles through the snow to get to the shop, uphill both ways, right?

 

[meomwt]

You're the DM. You're doing it right.

I've never worried about the wealth by party levels thing in my campaigns, and they seem to have worked out OK. Characters haven't been overpowered, I don't neccessarily have "Magic Shops" (except for potions and the like) and the players have been able to loot effectively (Mrs meomwt never leaves any corpse unstripped).

As long as your players are happy with the rewards, and PC's aren't being overpowered by level-appropriate challenges, things are likely to be working out OK.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

The thing here is that the cr guidelines assume that your PC is appropriately equipped for his wealth guidelines.

Exactly. And depending on the encounters chosen at each level, the treasure guidelines may or may not add up to the guideline! That's exactly why I am quick to do a level-end wealth analysis. If the party blows their money on bad equipment, that's fine. But I at least want them to have the funds to spend according to the guidelines.

Thus, they should not only get eq, but also ensure that the eq they have suits their character build.

And this plays more to enjoyment of them game than mechanics, although it certainly can have mechanical reasons. Players often spend hours agonizing over howto make their character. Nothing smacks a player in the face like not being able to get the equipment that makes your character complete. Is it necessary? No. But is it often the sweet icing on the cake? Absolutely!

Nor is dnd supposed to be about haggling.

Seriously! It's been my longstanding opinion that haggling around the table is counter to what roleplayingis all about. Why do so many people use CHA as their dump stat? Because DMs let their players substitute real ability for CHA every time! Who needs CHA if a DM is going to let them RP their way out of CHA? Nothing says meta-roleplaying like a CHA 8 fighter talking a merchant down on the price of a sword!

Think about it. When a charcter around the table makes a Jump check, do we go find a long jump pit and let the player see what they can do? When a character wants to make a Hide check do we let the player find a dark corner and see what they can do in real life? Why then do we think haggling should be RPing? Haggling is one of the main reasons we have skills in 3.5. Do a roll, see the result, and give the price. If you want to RP the interaction, cool. But the roll (based on thecharacter's CHA at some point) determines theresult.

And remember - merchants should have good ranks in whatever skill you're using for their haggling skill (Diplomacy, CHA check, etc). Merchants who have poor ranks in whatever skill haggling uses quickly will be out of business. For the record, in my game players who want to haggle who lose the opposed roll by a significant amount (like 9 or 10 or more) find the price goes up because they offended the merchant so badly!

I've played a dirt poor fighter that was happy to have his composite long bow at 7th level.

Yeah. And so long as they want a bow for their character design that's cool. And ... it depends on the purpose for the game. If I'm gaming just to have fun with my DM or players and I'm not in competition with them ... this would just irritate me. I mean, it's a game. It isn't like it's real money, or real items, or anything. So long as the players are expecting the kind of game where you get what you get and like it, then its cool. But not all players will. Some players enjoy combining the feeling of a well designed character with the feeling of items that blend into their character design.

I also don't allow the magic item Walmart IMC.

You say this like it's a bad thing! I love the Magic-mart, and so do my players. I can understand how it stretches the suspension of disbelief for some people - and if so then don't use it in the game. There's nothing wrong with not using Magic-marts.

However, in a game where characters can be raised to new life, where staffs can contain and hold special powers, where monks can move an outrageous number of feet in a 6 second round, etc ... I think that Magic-marts are fine. It eliminates the player/DM tension (if any exists). It allows characters to design exactly the character they want. There's nothing wrong with not using them, butthere's nothing inherently wrong with using them, either.

And the only players that take half-value for an item are a) in a rush to dump it ASAP; and b) aren't willing to haggle.

As for a) - Runestar has a really good post above as to why selling equipment is worthwhile.
As for b) - I don't agree with the haggling position. (But, we're allowed to disagree. Your game doesn't haveto be my game so long as there is room for both games within D&D)

As long as your players are happy with the rewards, and PC's aren't being overpowered by level-appropriate challenges, things are likely to be working out OK.

I think this is a great summary. If the game is working and the players are happy ... then its all cool! But in the OP, it sounds like there is a little possibility of the natives being restless. The nice answer is that it is an easy fix. Make sure the party is around the DMG guideline and the players will behappy. How you get them to the guideline is up to you the DM!

 

[Runestar]

I guess I have been spoiled by playing in a FR setting. At 1st lv, my PCs had already chanced upon a thayan enclave, and magic shops (or some variant thereof) aren't really all that rare in FR. Heck, waterdeep alone lists some 4-6 vendors where you can readily sell/buy gear. So magic item "sweat-shops" don't really seem blasphemous to me. But perhaps it is just me.

Seriously! It's been my longstanding opinion that haggling around the table is counter to what roleplayingis all about.

My understanding is that it just gets tedious and boring after a while. Seriously, in the past, my group already had so little time to get together to play (typically 1 overnight marathon session every 2-3 weeks, because individual commitments make it hard to schedule a common free day). The last thing we want to do is to spend half an hour trying to get more gold for our items, when we could be using that time to explore some dungeon or something more productive. It may be fun to some, but for me, just give me my gold and magic items and get on with the main campaign plot already!

 

[azhrei_fje]

one of my players argues that in the above situation, the PCs really only took in 425gp of loot, and not 600gp, as items only sell for half.

What the players do with the loot is up to them. The fact remains that the recommended treasure amounts produce the correct "asset levels" for the PCs.

There will always be something in every treasure hoard that cannot be used by the party. When I played a monk I was usually short-changed as the standard treasures in most modules don't include +2 kamas, for example. So I would get a share of the treasure which I then had to sell in order to buy half as much.

A conversation with the GM corrected this and things progressed smoothly from there on. But we still got equipment we couldn't use -- that's just part of the randomness of being a treasure hunter.

 

[Jonathan Drain]

No, people ditch treasure in Diablo 2 because they have a strictly limited carrying space, so they only take back the most valuable things.

That's true, but it's also a matter of the value of gold. Items sell for half and shops have a limited range on sale. After the early levels there's nothing worth buying, which means there's no point in collecting "vendor trash".

 

[irdeggman]

There is a difference between loot/treasure and "gear".

While treasure found in a creatures home is best determined randomly - gear should never be done so.

Gear is is what is appropriate for the NPC wielding it. The DMG has some "minions" that are pre-equipped. That does not mean that the NPCs you use should all be the same. Whatever they have is supposed to be appropriate for the character in question. For example you come across a wizard - should he have a suit of masterwork leather armor and a Mw greatsword? No, because they, in general, are not apppropriate for such a character (there are exceptions). Having several protective scrolls and potions on the other hand is quite appropriate.

 

[irdeggman]

Umm...a masterwork greatsword has a market price of only 300+gp. A 2nd lv PC is supposed to start with 900gp worth of gear, so masterwork armour is pretty much standard issue for him (A 2nd lv fighter can expect to start with masterwork weapon, armour and shield).

If they are putting all of their money into a single weapon.

That is not counting the cost of a ranged weapon (composite bows are 75 (or 100 )gp + 100 gp/ Strength bonus.

A plain chain shirt is 100 gp (MW adds 150 gp to the cost).

Rations are .5 gp/day

Rope and other "essentials" add up pretty quickly too.

So unless you are not counting those things (the only thing a PC gets for free is a single suit of clothing) it is not that hard to eat up the 2nd level wealth.

It is not entirely impossible. The party fighter could be specializing in a different weapon (either he took weapon focus in another weapon and/or using sword+shield style).

Not part of the issue. That is actually part of the matching "treasure"/gear with the party. But a character who has weapon focus in a different weapon needs that to make up for the MW bonus - so he would be just as effective with the MW greatsword as he was with the weapon he has WF in.

Clerics can't use martial weapons anyways (barring war domain). Much less needs to be said for rogues and wizards. Since they opted to sell the sword, I believe it is safe to conclude that their party indeed had little/no use for the greatsword.

Wrong on who can and can't use the weapon.

Anyone (except for a druid) can use a MW greatsword. They are not inherently proficient with it but they can use it with a -4 penalty (-3 when using a MW weapon).

As far as the party not having a use for it - could be, or it could be that they "wanted" something else instead.

In an old Dark Sun game the party routinely kept any metal weapons we found becasue we thought they were better and passed over a lot of "magical" non-metal ones in the process. Basically a party needs to be adaptable instead of rigid.

 

[Runestar]

Now you are just grasping at hairs. I was simply trying to offer reasons as to why the party might have opted to sell the masterwork greatsword instead of keeping it. I assumed the players were a rationale bunch - they would keep it if was of use to them. The real reason may or may not be amongst the ones I suggested, but whatever it is, the fact is that they sold it, possibly because they did not have much of a use for it.

It would be fallacious to argue that they are the ones at fault for selling an item they did not want.

 

[irdeggman]

It would be fallacious to argue that they are the ones at fault for selling an item they did not want.

But remember the OP's point that one of his players was insisting (well questioning) that the "wealth" value was only 1/2 because they were going to sell it.

The point I was trying to get to was that it was "their choice" and it wasn't like the items were "useless" to them. They were just "not preferred" which is entirely different.

Just because the group wants to sell the items they acquire isn't justification to change the economic system of the game.