Be honest, how long would it really take you to notice all of this stuff...?

[Olaf the Stout]

since the birth of D&D in 1973 and print in 1974 humans and everything else you encounter is a monster. only the PCs are not.

This here kids is the rare sighting of the dangerous beast known as diaglo!

I haven't seen you around here in ages!

Personally I agree with the comments about not sticking to the PC wealth by level. I don't think I've done it in my games, simply because it isn't much fun for players or GM's to try and keep track of the GP value of the stuff they own.

 

[Obryn]

I've gotten better over the years to the point where I think I'm usually pretty accurate about weighing gameplay bits and pieces. Far from perfect, but better than I was a few years ago.

Completely outside D&D, I playtested Feng Shui 2 recently. The bits I thought looked broken (Sifu, Bag of Guns, Gene Freak), often were. However, other bits interacted weirdly and I didn't notice them until they came up in play.

I try to err on the side of calling things fine, these days, and save my worries for factors like action denial.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Personally I agree with the comments about not sticking to the PC wealth by level. I don't think I've done it in my games, simply because it isn't much fun for players or GM's to try and keep track of the GP value of the stuff they own.

Personally, when I'm making NPCs, I just give them the magic items I feel like they should have. I don't want to do math. The value is often an interesting surprise.

I suspect a lot of deviation from default assumptions is not a product of some concerted effort to rewrite the game, but simply doing what comes naturally and easily.

 

[Jacob Marley]

In all my groups in 3x/pathfinder we have always played pretty strictly by RAW. House rules were rare except for points of clarification when the rules were ambiguous. Same with WBL. I usually track my characters WBL and if we're below expectation I make sure to let the DM know (most of the time it's because s/he didn't adjust for the number of players) and if it's over I usually find a non optimized way of filtering it out, such as donating it to a church, overpaying for things, etc. I don't particular like 3x/PF when it deviates too far from the RAW expectations.

Enlighten me as to how this is possible. In 3.5 the Dungeon Master's Guide Tables 3.2: Encounter Difficulty, 3.3: Treasure Values per Encounter, and 5-1: Character Wealth by Level are related in such a way that, if they are strictly followed, they should not produce a character below expected wealth by level, regardless of the number of players that show up.

 

[Hussar]

True but even the best of us make mistakes. And it's not like you have to be dead on the nail. There is a reasonable range. After all wbl grows as you level so there will be times you are high and low depending on where you are in a level.

 

[sheadunne]

Enlighten me as to how this is possible. In 3.5 the Dungeon Master's Guide Tables 3.2: Encounter Difficulty, 3.3: Treasure Values per Encounter, and 5-1: Character Wealth by Level are related in such a way that, if they are strictly followed, they should not produce a character below expected wealth by level, regardless of the number of players that show up.

When you run modules or APs, it is usually based on 4 players not 2 or 6. If you do not adjust the module/AP you gain more or less treasure. Or if you end up bypassing a section it can lead to less treasure than expected. In my experience most alterations involved increase the number of creatures or the difficulty of the creature based on the number of players, but they do not alter the amount of treasure gained. It's easy to forget that you need to do both.

 

[Lanefan]

When you run modules or APs, it is usually based on 4 players not 2 or 6. If you do not adjust the module/AP you gain more or less treasure. Or if you end up bypassing a section it can lead to less treasure than expected. In my experience most alterations involved increase the number of creatures or the difficulty of the creature based on the number of players, but they do not alter the amount of treasure gained. It's easy to forget that you need to do both.

Where wealth-by-level always falls apart is when characters start dying off; because their wealth often ends up spread around among the remaining party members.

So, if you have a party of 5 all happily trucking along at expected wealth level X and one dies, the remaining four are suddenly at 125% of X. And they're not likely to part with it when the dead character gets replaced (probably at wealth level X again). So now you've got 4 at X=1.25 and one at X=1. Then the new guy dies. Now the first four are at X=1.50 while the fifth player* hauls out the dice again. And what was this wealth-by-level thing anyway?

* - all too often me.

Lanefan

 

[DaveyJones]

Where wealth-by-level always falls apart is when characters start dying off; because their wealth often ends up spread around among the remaining party members.

this is where in OD&D(1974) they had rules in place. but mostly b/c they didn't want someone losing out next time they played too far behind. you inherited stuff from your former PC part of it going to pay costs to bury. but only if you wanted to keep running Zapnard the XVII. the previous XVI died while adventuring.

 

[sheadunne]

Where wealth-by-level always falls apart is when characters start dying off; because their wealth often ends up spread around among the remaining party members.

So, if you have a party of 5 all happily trucking along at expected wealth level X and one dies, the remaining four are suddenly at 125% of X. And they're not likely to part with it when the dead character gets replaced (probably at wealth level X again). So now you've got 4 at X=1.25 and one at X=1. Then the new guy dies. Now the first four are at X=1.50 while the fifth player* hauls out the dice again. And what was this wealth-by-level thing anyway?

* - all too often me.

Lanefan

Good point. It's also gets wonky when at one moment you're sitting on 2,000 gp of scrolls and wands and the next time to calculate WBL they're used up so your numbers are off. And then there's party items, bought, found, or crafted that are used to benefit the party as a whole, such as wands of cure or instant fortresses or ships for travel.

 

[Zardnaar]

Follow up question. A lot of you have said you immediately noticed 3.x problems or pathfinder problems. Why do you think those problems exist if they are so blatant? Why would the devs stick with them if it was just so completely obvious? What was going through their heads?

Was not play tested that well and apparently not at all over level 10. They also play tested it like 2nd ed and missed things like wands of CLW, polymorph and 3.0 haste. They also missed the combinations around stacking magic items and spells. They more or less ported over spells from 2nd ed untouched and did not account for the relaxation of the AD&D restrictions, the different levelling rates AD&D had and the change to saving throws. They basically nerfed the fighter for example.

Also a lot of groups were not part of the internet hivemind so they were not power gamers as such or evne knew about how good wands of CLW are,