Annoyed with Wealth Tables

[hong]

Re: Re: Re: MIs

Already been there Hong, as we have gone round on this before.

We have?

You know you've pimped too much when you start pimping the same thing twice to the same person.

My question: do you take any DM controls, or do you let them burn all the XP they want on anything?

Anything subject to silliness/reasonableness checks. No imbued bags of holding, for instance, because I KNOW I won't beable to resist making stupid jokes about inserting stuff up/pulling stuff out of one's ass.

So far the group's reached 7th level and most of their items have been pretty straightforward: +2 stat boosts, +2 armour, +1 sword, etc.

 

[LokiDR]

Steverooo,

Don't get me wrong. Magic marts are fine sometimes. If a GM wants a party to really dangerous, let them buy anything they want.

But if you don't allow a party to get most cheap items they want, you had better be ready to change the challanges you throw at them. There is something nice about being able to pull out a random printed module and knowing the PCs will be at least somewhat challanged and not overwhelmed.

If there was some printed way to scale back from the huge amount of gold-value the CR system is based on, I think it would good. Not all of us believe that every adventurer of decent level could buy out a small nation.

 

[LokiDR]

Re: Re: Re: Re: MIs

We have?

You know you've pimped too much when you start pimping the same thing twice to the same person.



Anything subject to silliness/reasonableness checks. No imbued bags of holding, for instance, because I KNOW I won't beable to resist making stupid jokes about inserting stuff up/pulling stuff out of one's ass.

So far the group's reached 7th level and most of their items have been pretty straightforward: +2 stat boosts, +2 armour, +1 sword, etc.

Your powers of pimp are great

Since I limit the XP players can spend, I let them get away with almost anything. The cleric has an amulet gives natural armor and that casts shield of faith, unlimited uses. The mage has a staff that casts mage armor and bulls strength, both unlimited. One character just spread plusses around his armor and sword. I figured, if PCs are defined on their stuff, their stuff should be unique, if they want it. 10th level party, so they should have a bit more.

 

[Steverooo]

Where do Magic Items come from?

Steverooo,

Don't get me wrong. Magic marts are fine sometimes. If a GM wants a party to really dangerous, let them buy anything they want.

But if you don't allow a party to get most cheap items they want, you had better be ready to change the challanges you throw at them. There is something nice about being able to pull out a random printed module and knowing the PCs will be at least somewhat challanged and not overwhelmed.

If there was some printed way to scale back from the huge amount of gold-value the CR system is based on, I think it would good. Not all of us believe that every adventurer of decent level could buy out a small nation.

You missed the point, Loki...

PCs get magic items, they just can't BUY them! They find them in the ruins, get them from the villians, are offered them in return for undertaking the quest, etc. They don't BUY them, unless they have them made to order (which is how I finally got my weapons).

Ergo, the GM controls what's available. Casters who take the feats can still make their own stuff, but unless they own a mithril mine, those chain shirts will still be unavailable!

I don't know how your campaigns work, but the ones that I play in (or run) have no magic shops, and players can only "buy" magic items when creating a character above first level. In-game, they can't do it at all. The GMs place all items in the dungeons or hands of NPC, piles of monsters' discarded remains of previous victims, etc. The wealth works out the same, the selection just isn't controlled by the players.

 

[Murrdox]

In Forgotten Realms, where I play... magic is pretty common, and that's how I GM it.

Thus, in any really high quality weapons store, a Merchant is going to have a few +1 or even +2 weapons under a special glass case, or "in the back... for special customers like yourselves". It all depends on what the local economy will support. When you start talking about wanting to buy +1 flaming longswords, or +2 Orc-Bane bastard swords, then I start rolling to see if its available. If not, they have to either make it themselves, or pay a wizard to do it for them.

Basically, I look at it this way... I don't want to tailor my campaign to equip my characters. The characters should equip themselves for my campaign. What the heck is the point of having a +2 flaming longsword as the primary treasure of a dungeon - when none of the characters use a longsword? My players will just say "whoa, that's cool!" and then proceed to try and sell it. On the other hand, if I tailor the rewards to the dungeon to meet the party's needs, then it just all seems coincidental.

Thus, I do various combinations. Sometimes I DO put seemingly random treasure in my campaign that I think the characters will want/need. Sometimes I'll specifically TELL them there are rumors of a specific weapon that matches the needs for one of the party members which has been buried in this ancient tomb, yadda yadda, and they can go after it if they like. Other times, I just give them random treasure, and let them trade for the items they want, or pay high level wizards to enchant it for them.

I'm famous for never rewarding my players. I'll never hear the end of the Minotaur Maze which only had 300 gold and a suit of half-plate at the end of it.

 

[Shalewind]

I love that imbue system.

It seems people have various interps of the wealth system and how magical items should be incorporated.

Personally I agree more with Steverooo and LokiDR in my style of DMing and play. Thanks for all the insight guys.

 

[Fenes 2]

Another option is to have certain deeds awaken a weapon, unlocking further powers. F.e. that sword the PCs found at level 3 may function as a +1 weapon until it has tasted the blood of/slain an ogre mage/fiend, and later it is discovered that the weapon is destined to bring down Krak the terrible etc. That way the weapon can grow with the wielder without using up exp.

Then there is the piecemeal-weapon. The sword itself is a +2 ewapon, but add the lost enchanted ruby to the pommel, and it gains flaming burst capabilities, restore the missing decorations on the crossguard and it gains defending power.

 

[Cheiromancer]

If the treasure and xp tables are accurate reflections of what goes on in a particular campaign, I don't see how PCs could have the recommended levels of treasure.

If there are 13.3 equal CR encounters per level of experience, each character has to retain 85-90% of all treasure accumulated to have the treasure indicated by the tables. If they get their experience from encounters of their CR + 2 (challenging encounters), they are actually worse off- they get twice the experience, but not quite twice as much treasure. They pretty much have to hoard every copper piece they ever found.

If a party beats up on opponents weaker than them, they get a little more treasure- at CR-2 they earn only half as much experience per encounter, but they get a little more than half the treasure. So when they level up they have 15% more treasure than their equal CR fighting counterparts.

Still, lodgings and upkeep, disposable items like potions, scrolls, wands and dusts, alchemist's fire, holy water, tanglefoot bags, riding horses that get eaten by monsters, spell components, lost or destroyed magic items... there's no way that you can have standard treasure, standard xp, and have characters who are still as wealthy as the books say they should be.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I'm not sure how you can have a 3e game without the ability to buy items per the DMG rules without a crapload of DM deus ex machina. Opponents have to be selected carefully and random encounters have to be less random. Most DMs are too lazy/insufficiently detail oriented to do this well. When I'm a player, nothing ticks me off more than to be up against purely randomly generated opponents in a game with serious limitations to the available items.

From an in-game perspective, are there no temples? Do clerics not make and sell potions to increase their church's coffers? Are there no cash-poor apprentice mages selling scrolls of identify to bards and rogues? No mages past the adventuring age enchanting items in return for cash to live a golden twilight? No adventurers selling off much of their gear to buy a nice villa on the coast?

Despite those opinions, I argue against ubiquitous magic shops. Economics denies it. Look, a shop where everything is even slightly magical at all would have a huge GP/sq.ft ratio; as big if not bigger than a jewlery store. The security must be quite effective and apply to both magic and mundane means. Therefore the cost of entry barrier is high. Temples and mages' guilds will likely have some, if not all, of those defenses already so they are merely optimizing their resources. Anyone else has a high fiscal wall to climb.

In my world, temples and guilds sell or act as clearing houses for magic items. Most of their "inventory" is in potions and scrolls along with a few "standard" items (+1 or +2 longsword, shortsword, longbow, shortbow, chainshirt, halfplate, arrows, item of protection/resistance). Truely neat things (e.g. shocking burst mace+1 of disruption) are sold at auctions, typically during fairs. The players keep a list of which cities have fairs when and make plans to be present; in some cases paying for rooms at the inn months in advance. They like attending just to get an idea of who else in the region has that much cash. Security is incredibly tight and the local thieves' guild is paid to both stay away and offered a bounty for thieves caught in the act.

Not to mention the plot hooks.
"So Mr. Bond, we meet again."
"Bidding on the Vorpal Hat, are we Oddjob?"

 

[Piratecat]

I've just been eyeballing the treasure tables for my own game, awarding what treasure I thought was appropriate and not worrying about wealth, so long as it seemed balanced to me. When the PCs recently leveled, I sat down and calculated the wealth of the 18th lvl cleric and 20th lvl bard -- and damn, their magic items were exactly where they should be, pro-rating for xp earned over the level cap. Either I got lucky, or the game design mirrors my own philosophy of loot.

I seldom have stores that sell magic, but when I do I try to make them mysterious and memorable. I'm fond of the odd little merchant in the dusty side alley, for instance. Things can often be commissioned in these cases, but they seldom have the item that people are directly looking for. And when they do, a plot-hook-laden history probably accompanies it.