D&D 4E Confirming the 4e Math, Stage 1: Iconics

[eryndel]

The L25, L24, and L23 items are worth:

625,000, 525,000, 425,000 or

1,575,000 GP in magic

plus 325,000 gold


How is that anywhere near:

2,804,140 GP in magic

plus 1,015,199 gold?


It's approximately 50% straight up or 40% disenchanted.

Thanks... I shifted a column in Excel. 1.6 million equivalent is for L23, at L24 it would be 2 million, right? (L25 item at 625K, L24 item at 525K, L23 item at 425K, and L23 item worth of cast 425K)

Now, going with the Parcel system, that 2.8 milion wouldn't all be sold off/disenchanted. The character's magic items would come from that. In fact, some of the items received would be level 26 and 27 (I believe 1 L27 and 2 L26 items would be a part of the parcels). Because of the geometrically increasing nature of treasure in 4e, the useful items (those items L20+) would amount to the lion's share of the 2.8 million.

To put number's where my mouth is, if we assume that all items below L15 are "junk" and are d/e'd, you can subtract 60, 390 gp from the above total. Thus, a 24th level character run through the parcel system would have 2.744 million gp worth of items which are level 15 or higher, and about 1.027 million gp of walking around cash (well, less that through the consumption of healing potions and such.)

Oh, as a side note, the cash value of all items that are non epic (less that level 20) is only 300k. Even in the extreme case of keeping only level 20+ items, we're looking at 2.5 million gp worth of items alone. So there is a pretty significant discrepancy.

 

[Pickles JG]

I did this same exercise last June & found the following as reported in the moribund Kommitatus D&D forum.

(Follows a discussion of how the PC maths lags the monsters.)

“Anyhow with this in mind I made up some 21 level characters & tried them against some level 21 encounters from the MM. I asolutely trashed a Dark Naga plus 3 Mummy Lords & then whalloped some Ice Archons & Fire monsters too. I used one AP & 2 daily powers in total & 1-2 healing surges per character. It seems at that level that PC can have a good time of it. I will try a couple more if I can generate the enthusiasm - it's a bit of a chore as you can imagine.

Level 21 is a bit of a peak too - all the at wills, weapon focus & striker bonuses get a boost in damage & improved crit was taken by all who could. I think level 20 characters would have had it a lot tougher. I may also have been favouring the PCs tactically but there were a lot of things to think about.

I really cannot see how to take down a dragon though unless it wants to be taken down. AC 40 with +25 attack is actually in clobbering distance after lots of team buffing (dailies) & stunning/immobilizing to stop it doing much but its mobility when it does get un mezzed makes it a bit problematic. (That's the level 22 red one BTW).

Anyway there are still another 9 points of monster improvements & only 7 guaranteed PC boosts so it will get tougher at the top (probably), but it does seem to work pretty well at level 21 so far.”

Of course I then thought level 21 encounters were an appropriate challenge for a level 21 party. I would use 22 23 24 now. I did try a couple more (one with devils IIRC) but they were very easy. I used 5 PCs - as I remember Dwarf Iron Vanguard Fighter, Longtooth Angelic Avenger Battle Cleric (High Wis ofc), ?Wizard (Eladrin?) - cleric Crit giving PP, Brutal Human Rapier Rogue, Hybrid Elf Ranger. Lots of demigods given the lack of choice.

Re the current, more thorough, investigation. I would suggest using level 20 as I mention above the PCs are a lot weaker than level 21 but not knocking onto the final endgame.

I think the party is unbalanced in that it has only 2 melee characters & 2 squishies. I would prefer a battle cleric (more iconic IMO) or a 5th PC - Hybrid or Melee Ranger. In my experience the melee/range split seems to be more important than the role split. Also Strikers are the most common type in play (IME) & in number of types available, though the latter may inform the former.

The cash issue is a bit more pronounced at 21 level as there is quite a jump from level 20 to 21 item values so the amount of hard cash you get is significantly behind what you would get at 1 level higher.

Anyway I look forward to your experiences.

 

[KarinsDad]

You only get 20% on sold or DE-ed items so... it's a lot closer than you're thinking.

No, it's not. All of the low level stuff combined is worth less than one high level item. It's purposely set up that way so that PCs cannot buy a single higher level magic item more than a level or two higher than them.

The 2,804,140 GP in magic you cite isn't actually 2,804,140 GP in magic. (And presumably you're not hoarding all your gold as you level up, but spending it on appropriate-level items as well.)

At least 75% of that stuff, probably more, is going to be +1 to +4 items (weapon, armor, neck) that you're not using anymore because you've got +5 gear. Thus, it gets sold or disenchanted for 1/5th value.

75% of the items, but less than 10% or so of the overall worth.

Thus, a 24th level character run through the parcel system would have 2.744 million gp worth of items which are level 15 or higher, and about 1.027 million gp of walking around cash (well, less that through the consumption of healing potions and such.)

Oh, as a side note, the cash value of all items that are non epic (less that level 20) is only 300k. Even in the extreme case of keeping only level 20+ items, we're looking at 2.5 million gp worth of items alone. So there is a pretty significant discrepancy.

What eryndel said.

 

[Nail]

Can't we just "brute force" the wealth estimation? That is, start a PC at 1st and start giving him treasure parcels as he levels up, automatically disenchanting magic items that are "X" levels lower than him. Go up to 24th level (Stalker0's target level).

I mean sure, this would take time to set up....and admittedly, I don't have that time right now. But surely this could be done?

 

[keterys]

No, it's not. All of the low level stuff combined is worth less than one high level item. It's purposely set up that way so that PCs cannot buy a single higher level magic item more than a level or two higher than them.

Correct... so the DMG method has you picking the optimal gear for you at that level, which you'd have to burn things for 20% of value to otherwise achieve.

For example, in the 21st level example all of Stalker's 21st and 22nd level picks are +5 items, particularly weapons, whereas in a home game a fair number of them would be boots, rings, bracers, etc as well which are less bang for the buck.

You also have things like the rogue who burns a lightning dagger to enchant his footpad's dagger up to spec.

I'm not claiming the DMG method is all that accurate, but I'm also saying outright that the method of just totallying up all the treasure you might have gotten as a value is definitely inaccurate

 

[KarinsDad]

Correct... so the DMG method has you picking the optimal gear for you at that level, which you'd have to burn things for 20% of value to otherwise achieve.
...

You also have things like the rogue who burns a lightning dagger to enchant his footpad's dagger up to spec.

I think the difference between optimal gear and DM handed out sub-optimal gear is very slight. The DMG recommends that the DM hand out items that are desirable by the players for their PC. So if the DM does this for a campaign, the Rogue might on occassion burn a lightning dagger to up this footpad's dagger. But, this footpad dagger will sometimes be +1 lower than weapons that other PCs have (because he cannot up it above his level).

So sure, if Stalker gives the Rogue that item and it is +6 instead of +5, it's a slight edge. 700,000 GP edge? Doubtful.

I see what you are saying, but since PCs cannot manufacture gear above their level anyway, I would suspect that the majority of higher level gear used in a campaign would be found gear.

Stalker should not set this up with optimal gear except for lower level gear. He should set it up with reasonable "found" gear, otherwise, what good is the test if the magic items are optimal every time?

The test should duplicate a normal game first and possibly a manufactured game or a game started at level x later. At least IMO.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Can't we just "brute force" the wealth estimation? That is, start a PC at 1st and start giving him treasure parcels as he levels up, automatically disenchanting magic items that are "X" levels lower than him. Go up to 24th level (Stalker0's target level).

I mean sure, this would take time to set up....and admittedly, I don't have that time right now. But surely this could be done?

The problem wth that is that you'd have to do it for a party, not for a single character, since if you are doing it for a single character, you have to come up with the 'fair' way to split the loot amongst the PCs.

In general though you have, for a party of five, lvl 2 + 2(lvl 3) + 3(lvl 4) + 4(lvl 5) + 4(lvl 6) + ... + 4 (lvl x-1) + 4(lvl x) + 3(lvl x+1) + 2(lvl x+2) + 1 (lvl x+3)

Then you have cash equal to 2x the cost of an item level for each level before the current one.

This needs to be split 5 ways. It's possible that, by spending half the money on magic items, and the other half of ritutals/consumables/etcs, that you end up with 5 items of each level up to the level before last.

Then you have 10 items to split between the party of 4 of the current level, 3 above the level by one, 2 above the level by two, and 1 above the level by 3. So, you can give each character 1 item per level from 5 to 23, one person gets a level 24 item and a level 27 item, two people get a level 24 item and a level 26 item, one person gets a level 24 and a level 25 item, and someone gets two level 25 items (or the party agrees on some other way of distributing the wealth).

Also, some of the higher level cash or consumables would still be available, hypothetically.

Part of the discrenpency of course is that as a new PC you are picking your starting gear, not being given what the DM has put into parcels, and deciding as a group who gets what, etc, etc, etc.

 

[keterys]

I think the difference between optimal gear and DM handed out sub-optimal gear is very slight.

Umm, you may want to take a much closer look at the gear options.

The DMG recommends that the DM hand out items that are desirable by the players for their PC. So if the DM does this for a campaign, the Rogue might on occassion burn a lightning dagger to up this footpad's dagger. But, this footpad dagger will sometimes be +1 lower than weapons that other PCs have (because he cannot up it above his level).

In the 21st level example, organically grown PCs would have some level 23 items, even though instantly created ones won't. Let's say that if you gave a 21st instant sorcerer the option for a 23rd that he'd take a +5 Staff of Ruin, for the extra +5 damage and d10 crit dice... but the organically grown sorcerer might instead have a staff of the war mage, with d8 crits and a daily +1 increased area size. That latter staff is still a perfectly fine staff, but it's incredibly worse for damage - to the point that I'd not be incredibly surprised if some players would opt for the +4 staff of ruin instead (+1 attack and the daily vs. +3 damage), even if I wouldn't myself... and again, the organic rogue character might also have level 22 Boots of Balance instead of the +5 Vicious Weapon the instant character is taking, etc. Near perfect choice is incredibly valuable.

So sure, if Stalker gives the Rogue that item and it is +6 instead of +5, it's a slight edge. 700,000 GP edge? Doubtful.

It would take DEing five 'Boot of Balance' equivalents to make the +5 Vicious equivalent. And it's hard to measure the difference between the +5 staff of ruin and the +5 staf of the war mage, but I could easily see an argument for say x3 value (half-way to the next plus) which would give it a value difference of 850,000g for that one piece of gear.

I see what you are saying, but since PCs cannot manufacture gear above their level anyway, I would suspect that the majority of higher level gear used in a campaign would be found gear.

Precisely my point - while all gear picked for instant PCs is _selected_.

Stalker should not set this up with optimal gear except for lower level gear. He should set it up with reasonable "found" gear, otherwise, what good is the test if the magic items are optimal every time?

Heh, don't be surprised if people object to that, though... after all, what kind of test is it if you don't have bloodclaw weapons and orbs of 'never make a save, ever' etc

The test should duplicate a normal game first and possibly a manufactured game or a game started at level x later. At least IMO.

And doing so is a tricky thing.

 

[KarinsDad]

Precisely my point - while all gear picked for instant PCs is _selected_.

Precisely my point - while all gear picked for adventuring up levels PCs is _selected_.

Selected by the DM. Selected by Stalker for instant PCs and selected by the DM for adventuring PCs should be the exact same process. Pick items that you would have in a treasure vault for these PCs if you were the DM.

Don't pick the best optimized items if you would not put them into a treasure vault because that skews the test to "what can optimized PCs do?" instead of "what can fairly mainstream PCs do?".

 

[Bayuer]

@Stalker
I looked to powers you choose for your characters. You didn't missed any single power that gives boost to AC/NADs or penalty to attacks rolls. Also powers that give stunned/blinded conditions. I just asking why? You are trying to see how team that take such a powers will fight? I don't think that iconic characters wil have such optimization... Especially if they don't know how powers that give stunned/blinded/+AC,NADs bonuses/penalties to hit are powerfull.

Many player's don't build team characters, but individuals that have max. damage. Occasionaly taking some helping other powers (when player don't play leader role).