D&D 4E Economy of Inherent Bonuses

[d2OKC]

So,

I'm getting a bit tired, as a DM, of the crazy amount of magic items my players get in game. I don't think it's wrong, necessarily, but it definitely makes them a bit entitled, and it makes the magic items a lot less interesting or meaningful.

We played an afternoon's worth of Dark Sun a few weeks ago, and I kind of enjoyed the inherent bonuses that are used for that setting. I'm considering, once my current game is over with, starting in a new setting with no magic items - or, at least, very very few.

Here's the problem. I'm not sure how this messes with the economy of the game. If there aren't magic items, what do the players spend their hard earned gold on? If I strip them of gold, what kinds of rewards are the best to give them?

I'm considering going so far as to making the entire economy of the game a barter system.

I love it in theory, but I'm not sure how well it will do in practice.

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Ajar]

It depends on whether you want them to be able to buy magic items at all. If you leave items or alternative rewards in the game on a limited basis and allow purchases in some circumstances (e.g. save up gold to buy training time from a grandmaster), then presumably you want the PCs to be able to afford them. In that case, you can use the table and spreadsheet I posted in this thread, where we discussed what the stipend should be for PCs in Zeitgeist if the inherent bonuses system is used. Basically, the PCs get the treasure value of 4 items per level instead of 6.

It sounds more like you're going to strip out everything except the occasional wondrous item, rare, artifact, boon, or grandmaster training. In that approach, you can pretty much ignore the game economy, or rebuild/replace it however you see fit, and just award items whenever you want, even if they have an item bonus. As long as you aren't going more than about +1 over whatever inherent bonus the PCs currently have, it won't break anything.

Edit: Where I struggle with items in 4E is the complexity they add. By epic tier, characters already have way too many abilities, and adding a handful of item powers on top of that just makes things that much more painful. I've been deliberately swapping out items with powers for passive items on my level 23 character.

 

[d2OKC]

Basically, yeah. I want it to be a world where magic is not something one can purchase with money. It has to be earned through effort, bargaining, compromising, luck or whatever. I would cut out magic item shops completely, and the items that were available would be rare, and fought over. Carrying a magic sword would be as much of a danger as it would a boon. That kind of thing.

Like, the sword in the stone kind of thing. Excalibur was so awesome, because it was one of a kind. When I was younger, I remember how upset I was because my character had to sacrifice his +1 dagger! Now, that kind of thing is like candy. I want there to be a bit more investment in magic items.

 

[Blackbrrd]

If you go with inherent bonuses, you should be able to just drop the whole economy of 4e and just run with a more ordinary one - that to me makes sense. Drop the magic item shops, and stop giving away 1-2 magic items a session. This would make finding a magic weapon much more of an occasion and less of a head ache. It's what I am going to do in my next campaign.

In addition, I am going to level-up the to-hit/ac/ref/fort/will of my monsters to be within 1-2 levels of characters. (adjusting low level mobs up and high level mobs down). This way I will be sort of simulating the bounded accuracy of 5e and hopefully make lower level mobs more interesting and high level mobs less of a bore (usually you just can't seem to hit mobs that are 4-5 level or more higher than the characters).

... I could just start playing 5e as well, but currently, it isn't close enough to done for my taste and the other campaign we are playing in is a 4e campaign, so just fiddling a bit behind the scenes will go a long way in creating the game I want. (and hopefully my players will enjoy). 4e has plenty of progress with more powers and more powerful powers and feats as you level up, and I will try to add some other goals than loot together with the players for their characters.

 

[d2OKC]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I love the idea of a game using only the barter system. Do you guys think that has any chance of working at all?

 

[Ajar]

It isn't an issue for 4E from a mechanics perspective. From a narrative perspective, you'll need to design the setting to account for it in a way that makes sense.

 

[Storminator]

You can easily make it work. But you have to make sure you players are interested. I've run a bunch of different treasure systems, because nothing really seems to work out right for 4e treasure. I'm currently giving each PC an artifact that grows in power over time, and then throwing out some minor magic items.

If players aren't spending money on magic items, they can start buying other things - ships, castles, titles of nobility, etc. That can make them invested in your game world (if they weren't already)

PS

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, you can buy forts, mercenaries, ships, land and such if you keep the gold ratio high.

Much like spellscars or dragonmarks or whatever, you can offer your players special boons. Perhaps a priest did something incredibly pious and earned a pair of wings(average flight). Maybe your rogue stole a powerful relic from the king and bartered it to a demon for the power to become a living shadow(+2 stealth, vulnerable 5 radiant, resist 5 shadow). Perhaps your dwarf saved the child of an ancient earth elemental and was turned into living steel as a reward(+2 AC, cannot swim, but no longer needs to eat, breathe or sleep). Perhaps your party is evil and your Drow gained Lolth's favor to become a drider (Large(no size bonuses), spiderclimb).

These of course are not going to be simply inserted into the character builder. Some players will be interested, and some won't. But it's an entertaining alternative.

 

[Balesir]

One of the genius implications, in my view, of 4E's division of items into "Magic Items" (that I view as largely player-controlled, through the item market and rituals) and "Artifacts" (that are DM-controlled reqards, maguffins, NPCs and enigmas) is that you can easily eliminate one or the other from the game, if you want to. With Inherent Bonuses, you can even eliminate both.

Without magic items to spend gold on, rituals and consumable items would likely become much more used/useful. If you are feeling inventive, larger sums might be spent on "boon fonts" that are part of a base or stronghold, and that generate consumable-type boons once per level or once per day (although this might be counterproductive, if part of your aim is getting rid of breadth of player choice). Alternatively, as already suggested, you could just can the whole "treasure" economy entirely.

I would mention, though, that you do lose something, in my opinion, in the mix, here. Many players - several of mine included - like the character design and development sub-game. 4E style Magic Items bring something to this particular party, because they represent character power options that can be shared and selected by the player group, rather than being character-specific boons chosen by a single player for his or her own character. The bringing of teamwork and collaboration into the realm of character building has been a useful contribution of the 3E and 4E magic item "economies", I think.

You don't have to go the whole hog, though, in removing Magic Items in order to tame the "Magic Item Economy" a bit. One problem I have seen in my own game is the strong tendency for players to have their characters scrimp and save in almost all ways in order to get "proper magic items" - i.e. not consumables or the like. This is easing off at high-Paragon levels, but in Heroic and early Paragon it was endemic.

One approach I plan on trying in my next campaign is to split off "Magic Items" from the general economy. To do this I'll just make "residuum" (possibly renamed) a separate thing; to make a Magic Item you need its full value in residuum (plus gold for the transformation ritual), but the "Disenchant" ritual returns the FULL amount of residuum used to make the item. This means that the party is limited in the quantity of Magic Items it can have by the amount of residuum (either in the form of Items or in the form of dust) it finds. Gold, in this schema, is used to convert residuum from one form (Item) into another, to power rituals, to buy consumables, to buy bases and such like, and even to get other "one off" bonuses (such as being used for bribes in a social conflict, or buy mundane gear to help in an exploration challenge).

In summary - I think there are loads of ways that 4E's item/gold/artifact economy can be reconfigured to make engaging and interesting games. Whatever version you intend to try, good luck!

 

[Balesir]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I love the idea of a game using only the barter system. Do you guys think that has any chance of working at all?

Barter is just a form of currency - a rather complex and clumsy one. Every item still has a value - you just don't have any useful measure to give a shorthand number for that value, any more.

That's not to say that a game world of barter needs to be hard to set up. Just make actual coin somewhat rare. You can still use the regular price lists and so on to give a measure of how much something is worth. But make finding coins unusual, and give NPCs scant coin, too. Then invite bargaining that swaps something of X g.p. value for something else of (roughly) X g.p. value. Looking at what happens in Earth history can be instructive. Where real coin has been scarce, people have resorted to using postage stamps, sweeties and other small "kibble" as change. For adventuring types, maybe "change" will be given in iron rations, sunrods, torches and flasks of oil?