D&D General D&D game world economy, wages and modelling the ancent world

[Ancalagon]

Why and how is it suddenly less important than in the real world wrt the shared fiction

Every module sold by WOTC or even it looks like 3rd parties creates actual expectations of character gold and magic items and they really are assuming SOMETHING and they can pretend otherwise but I am not accepting the claim.

However if a game designer admits like how 3e did and 4e did you can then easier adjust to what the assumptions instead of guessing while changing modules. Now this has little impact on those of us who do not purchase modules. I could throw on the inherent bonuses rule in 4e and neglect magic items entirely for a particular campaign AND still use every module coming down the pipe or ones shared by others. And I could give any or no gold (it would annoy my players when they had to forage all there food but hey some would like that I enable foraging for ritual components too)

I can't comment about 4e, my knowledge of that system is very limited. But in 3e, game balance was in part dependent on magical item availability, which was dependent on how much gold the party had. So it was one thing you could change with more difficulty. In 5e, the gm can increase/reduce the amount of reward to their taste with much reduced impact on the power of the PCs (It will have story impact, but less "I can/can't afford this fancy new +2 shield!").

 

[Garthanos]

I can't comment about 4e, my knowledge of that system is very limited. But in 3e, game balance was in part dependent on magical item availability, which was dependent on how much gold the party had. So it was one thing you could change with more difficulty.

I did hear about the trivial purchasing of CLW and potions yeah that is a fragility 4e ditched too. ..Potions in 4e an healing items in 4e were not unending healing supply even if you had huge numbers for instance

However 4e did have an economic factor that was problematic in a different sort of way : high level wealth making low level rituals potentially too free. (they still had casting times and such but the pocket change became negligible so well the flavor could be crazy even if it wasn't really a POWER problem

Magic items were still in there but easily didnt have to be OR could be if your players liked being able to make their own for instance.

In 5e, the gm can increase/reduce the amount of reward to their taste with much reduced impact on the power of the PCs (It will have story impact, but less "I can/can't afford this fancy new +2 shield!").

5e is certainly less dramatic than 3e but someone with a +3 weapon is going to notice it more than a little.

 

[Ancalagon]

I did hear about the trivial purchasing of CLW and potions yeah that is a fragility 4e ditched too. ..Potions in 4e an healing items in 4e were not unending healing supply even if you had huge numbers for instance

However 4e did have an economic factor that was problematic in a different sort of way : high level wealth making low level rituals potentially too free. (they still had casting times and such but the pocket change became negligible so well the flavor could be crazy even if it wasn't really a POWER problem

Magic items were still in there but easily didnt have to be OR could be if your players liked being able to make their own for instance.


5e is certainly less dramatic than 3e but someone with a +3 weapon is going to notice it more than a little.

But that's the thing - you can't buy a +3 weapon in 5e, or any magical items (save a few very minor exceptions, like a healing potion). In 2nd ed, there were some strong and well thought out arguments about why magical shops were a bad idea*. In 3e that changed completely. 5e returned to the 2e stance, that magical items are sprinkled through the adventures by the GM as they see fit (along with some guidelines as how many magical items that should be). In 3e, gold = magic items. This doesn't exist in 5e.

*particularly in the book "Dungeon Master Option: High-Level Campaigns" which had a few chapters that were quite insightful - the "this should be in the DMG!" type of advice, useful at any level above 3 really.

 

[Garthanos]

But that's the thing - you can't buy a +3 weapon in 5e, or any magical items (save a few very minor exceptions, like a healing potion).

I see that too as a limit on the kind of campaign you play... i can allow them to buy potions and magic items and it doesnt cause problems even if they have lots and to me that is much better.

 

[Garthanos]

But that's the thing - you can't buy a +3 weapon in 5e, or any magical items (save a few very minor exceptions, like a healing potion). In 2nd ed, there were some strong and well thought out arguments about why magical shops were a bad idea*.

I saw high level parties in 1e days and lots of lots of magic items and according to something Gygax wrote if you didnt do something close to that you were nerfing classes like the fighter particularly as they levelled up.

4e said have shops if you want or don't have shops. (here is a tool if you want fewer magic items or just want them to be gravy for a while) ad go ahead and let enchanters build items and gave rules to make it so that in terms of raw power it was usually not a big issue

Optimization could make characters more powerful and yes you enable some of that in 4e by people having more control over their items but the amount better is just not anywhere near the scale of 3e.