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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ledded" data-source="post: 1781997" data-attributes="member: 12744">We have done a lot of these things and more, covered mainly under the power of the GM to bestow circumstance bonuses based on a situation.  My detective character in our modern game tends to keep a few different sets of clothes in his office or even his vehicle so that he can dress up/down for a specific occasion.  Not necessarily disguising, just trying to blend in (or not blend in) as the situation warrants.  Questioning a wealthy socialite while wearing grungy street clothes (showing an apparent wealth lower than I may have at the moment) may cause my Diplomacy to take a penalty, depending on the circumstances, while trying to gather information from guys in a blue collar bar while wearing my Rolex and Armani suit may not be the best thing to do.  We've not used disguise to fake an allegience (as far as I know), though I have used bluff/intimidate to attempt to do so numerous times.  Certainly.  Every time he levels he makes profession checks like everyone else, and then can use the Gambling rules when he is in a particular high-stakes game and not bilking the tourists.  Well, first I try not to think of Wealth in d20 Modern as a total measurement of wealth, it's not 'permanent' wealth, really just a measure of your current spending power. I'll try to give this a shot. A guy, Richie Rich, has a wealth score of 20, which in the game makes him reasonably wealthy, almost 'rich'.  He can drop a decent amount of cash without feeling it.  Lets say he has played his career right (game wise) so that he drives a jag, owns a big house, and has lots of things like big screen TV, DVD player, expensive stereo, country club membership, goes to dinner at fancy restaurants all the time etc. A guy, Joe Schmoe, has a wealth score of 7, which makes him lower middle class or thereabouts.  He can go to a movie or grab a lower-end meal without worrying about it.  He lives modestly, with a TV from Wal Mart, no fancy memberships, and drives an older model S-10 ford pickup. Richie Rich decides that he just has to have the sports car of his dreams, even though it's a bit out of his reach.  But he buys the $200,000 (DC 36) sports car anyway.  So, since the car is 16 points higher than his current wealth score and also greater than a DC 15, he pays 2d6+1.  Let's assume he maxed the roll (ouch) for a 13.  His wealth just dropped to a 7, the same as Joe Schmoe. Does that mean his is now no more wealthy than Joe?  No, not to me.  He still has the big house, the jag, the fancy clothes and the fancy country club, while Joe is still living pretty modestly.  What it does mean to me is that Richie messed up his finances so that he really cannot afford to drive that car.  The insurance, upkeep, credit card payments, house payment, etc are so much that his liquid spending power is vastly reduced;  maybe he took a hit in the Stock Market (explaining that 13) so his available cash just suddenly dried up the same time he plunked down 200k for a dreamy ride (bad luck, Richie).  He can always sell the big new car or the jag to boost himself a little if he's in big trouble, but of course they are not going to sell for anywhere near what he payed for them.  But for the time being, he really can't afford discretionary spending more than Joe Schmoe, and at that level is probably pretty stressed out by barely making his bills and missing those thursday dinners at Spago, while Joe is happy enough with his Burger King and a movie rental.   Just a little figuring involved, but by just looking at it by the DC's needed to meet the task, you can easily convert it to cash and back again.  That way you can say "you borrow 200k from Nicky the Knife" instead of "You borrow at a DC <whatever> from Nicky the Knife".  And then just hope the juice is worth the squeeze.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I'm not sure, but the book I think says 0 is as low as it goes.  In our game, we would probably allow it, but below 0 means that not only are you broke, but you owe money that folks are now actively looking for (i.e. the RBGM is going to have a field day with you).  And you wouldnt be able to spend on anything till you got the wealth back above 0.  It hasnt happened yet though so I couldnt say how our regular GM would handle it.  Oh sure, there are things like diplomacy or gather info that bribes can help with a lot, especially if you can afford to toss out large amounts of cash without worrying about it.  If you are willing to take a hit to your wealth score, a large enough monetary contribution at the right time can do wonders for a Diplomacy or Gather Info attempt, which can vastly sway how a particular adventure path goes (getting the key info at a different time or even at all).  Your example is spot-on for what I would see there, but is left up to a lot of GM's call and not explicitly specified by the rules (other than the poor guys not being able to palm the bouncer a few Benjamins to get inside).    For our game, it is most often a logisitcal aide and general indicator of what we can do with our cash, instead of bookkeeping too much.  But it comes up like in the examples I provided above as plot hooks or even minor triggers.</blockquote>

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