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Message: <blockquote data-quote="painandgreed" data-source="post: 1854619" data-attributes="member: 24969">Okay, anybody still with me?So, we have all these wizards making stuff and due to the metaphysics of magic, they can't do so unless they kill something first. they've got to get the XP to pay for these items they're making so they've got to do some "adventuring". The 11th level is going to be buring around 400 XP per year, maybe twice that if they're getting special abilities with their +3 swords. the 6th level is going to be around 100 and 50 a year will probalby take care of the 4th and 5th levels. We'll ignore the 1-3rd levels. Let's say they go off and take on one encounter of an equal CR rating to their level with their three best buddies every year. That will get them the XP and according to Table 3-3, DMG p. 51, some money. Their shares for the 11th/6th/5th/4th will be 1875/500/400/300 respectfully for a total of 4,775 GP a year. That's enough to pay the bills but nothing to write home about. They still make more manufacturing items. If they are very active and take on 3 CRs equal to their level a year (one for each season then make items in winter), then the payout is 5,625/1,500/1,200/1,500 for a total of 15,225 GP a year. The top ten magic users a year, on the verge of doing actual adventuring still don't pull in as much money as the average noble family combined, but they could probalby make all the magic items they wanted for themselves.Just for the sake of completeness, if you figure out the XP after making the items, you'll find the 11th level advancing to the next level in 26 years if he resorts to one encounter a year while the others advance in around 16. Going by the more advanced rate, they'll hit the next level in about 5 or 6 years if you wanted to keep track.What about an honest to goodness adventuring party? What sort of income are they hauling in. Let's assume the leisurely rate of one level (13 encounters of equal level) every year. Again, according to DMG, p.51, the year they are 6th level, the party will pull in 26k GP or worth. Most of this will probably be in items rather than actual wealth, so it might not be apparent, but you can judge at this level they're making as much together as the average noble family. At the 11th level year, they'll pull in as much as the average noble family each. At 13th level they pull in 169,000 GP a year which probably makes them as rich as some of the more powerful nobles. At 20th level they're pulling in around 1 million GP a year as a party. This is still less than half of what the king has to play with evey year, but the PCs probably aren't managing countries. In their entire careers, they've pulled in almost 4.5 million GP worth of treasure.Now, just what does that mean economically. For the party that spreads its 20 levels over 20 years, it doesn't mean much. They're wearing most of their wealth and while they're good business while in town, they barely affect any but the smallest economies. Where it does affect things is when the party walks into a small community. They're usuually big spenders and are good business for the locals while any rise in prices would be unoticed by the adventurers. Unless there were a large number of adventurers or they sought to buy up all of the commodities (like every chicken in town), the supply will always be far enough beyond demand to keep prices low. The trait of most adventurers is to spend in GP and I've seen many adventurers pay for a CP of ale with a GP, usually buying drinks for everybody. For the adventurer, its preferable than carrying around all that silver while traveling light, and for people whose daily pay is a SP, its a huge amount of money. What happens in those cases where we have the 20th level by 20? Then you've got a whirlwind of a party who has collected the equivilant of almost half the taxes of an entire kingdom in just a few years. Of course, most of this wasn't grain or trade goods but material wealth that people had saved around them. Let's say that every family have twice their average yearly income laying around in material goods, not including land. This is their savings plus what they have of this years income. That means your average nobel family has 56,000 GP worth of magical weapons, gold coins, silver plates, horses, sadles, trade goods, etc. in their estates not including any castles or land. If the party got their wealth by adventuring into a humanoid kingdom of similar make up as our human one, then in aquiring their loot, they have  taken the compelte wealth of 80 of the humanoid nobles families. Of course, long before that, they've probably drawn the attention of our humanoid king and some of that wealth is no doubt his, or that of their wizards. In acheiving their 20 levels, they have almost taken half of the humanoid kingdom's wealth and carried it back to their kingdom. Things are probalby grim for the humanoid kingdom unless they have their own adventuring party to stop the human one.How much would that land be worth? People besides adventurers tend to think in the long term for such purchases with the intent on passing it down to their children. Good farm land with peasants to work it and defensive fortifications to hold it is probably worht something like the average income of the next 20 years. Thus a keep with 600 acres of farm land, along with the serfs is worth around 156,000 GP not including the price of the keep and other surrounding lands such as woods. If our 20 by 20 adventuring party was looking to carve out lands for himself and half their wealth is in land that would be around 8,600 acres. Assuming that farmable landis only about 1/10 of the total, that's about 130 square miles. Of course, if they killed all the humanoid peasants, then it would be more land as the land wouldn't be worth near as much.Let's say our party hadn't taken over the other kingdom but wanted to. They decide to raise and army and march it into the other kingdom. They get a force comparable tot he other kingdom's of 10,000 infantry, 5,000 calvary, and 150 leaders, all mercenary. Pay according to the DMG p. 105, assuming double cost for danger of war, will be 8,180 GP/day in wages. Feeding the army will also be another 2,400 GP/day for all the men and horses. Assuming you can march the army there in a very quick two weeks, then the party is out almost 150,000 GP before the battle has even been fought. This doesn't take into account arms and armor for the army (or horses) which must be bought for such hirelings. Those will easily be over a million GP. they could probalby cut that in half by hireing blacksmiths and such to make the weapons and armor rather than buying them. There are also untold other costs such as wagons that have to carry all the food to feed your army and such. If the war drags on more than two months, then the party is going to have to sell some magic items or call the entire thing off.</blockquote>

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