How do the Wealth Guidelines affect your style of play?

[The Thayan Menace]

Big Snarf in Da House

Ah, Thayan Menace, I don't take your views as snarky Is that even a word?

That's cool ... besides I'm really more "snarfy" than "snarky" anyways.​

"Snarf ... Snarf ...."​

I do expect people here to question my style of DMing. I have read a LOT on different styles and there are certainly many options out there that I would not use and then again I have seen MANY good ideas here on the boards.

Good response. I am very glad that you have a mature outlook about all this. I too enjoy enjoy engaging in discourse and learning from others.

I provide options based upon what suits the campaign...not the character wealth guidelines and CRs.

Although your style of play is definitely not for me (or WotC), you're welcome to it. As long as your players have fun, that's all that really matters anyways.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Regular audits. I have an excel file that keeps track of how much wealth each PC has, and the players are welcome to look over it for errors. They're pretty used to it now.

In the one campaign I have played, I believe my 9th level fighther had a +2 weapon and a ring of protection +1. And, then the DM was so upset at how powerful the druid's summons were. Why, they were more powerful than my fighter! Well, duh... I was freakin' crippled. *sigh* Call it backlash if you will, I keep the PCs around the wealth guidelines.

In my Sigil game, however, I raised the bar. Everyone gets one item far above their power level, but in exchange, they count as +1 ECL when I'm determining proper challenges in adventures I design. For example, they had a +2 flaming longsword of undead bane around 5th level (activates as a standard action). But, I expected them to be able to kill a CR 6 with a 20% loss of resources, so I took the increased wealth into account.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

You Gotta Keep Track of this Stuff

Regular audits.

Agreed. I do the same thing.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Originally posted by the Thayan Menace
Although your style of play is definitely not for me (or WotC), you're welcome to it. As long as your players have fun, that's all that really matters anyways.

Oh, here is something that I forgot to mention. I DO see a reason for the system of having a wealth guideline and of course CRs. I actually reckon it was fantastic of WotC to do such a thing. There does need to be a standard to which to compare and for a common base. I mean when writing generic modules there needs to be some guidelines for what treasure and what creatures the PCs will encounter if the adventure is written for a certain level. I mean buying a module for 4th level and then getting no magic and being expected to fight a demon horde, just wouldn't cut it. BUT situations like this MAY occur in a campaign

I like the idea, I just don't see a need for it in my game. But there IS a need for guidelines, especially for beginning DMs, tournament play, writing generic adventures and just for comparisons sake.

I just don't use these in my campaign. A campaign is much more than the individual adventures though. Many rumours/seeds helps PCs determine which path to take and therefore which challenges they will face. And I hate the 'oh we should have a +2 weapon by now, so it will appear in a hoard soon...' Again, I love randomness, hence the generators I have created over at d20zines.com (another thread).

Hoping some of my players may actually jump in here and discuss what they think re the campaigns I have run.

Connors

 

[Connorsrpg]

To answer the heroic vs running away. My players DON'T run away from every encounter. They are quite the opposite. I was just mentioning that I don't believe the belivability of every encounter being a 'satisfactory challenge for the group' or even that is should use up 25% of their resources.

In fact, that group that is 6-7th level rarely run, oh, and have only lost one character since starting at 2nd level with NO gear.

I guess they have made the right choices as to which adventures to pursue. And remember the taking no notice on the CR works the other way too. If they choose an easy option = fine by me.

Connors

 

[Ace]

In a way, I strictly enforce the wealth guidelines, and I find that this has simplified my style of play. My house rule is that every time a character gains a level, his equipment refreshes to the standard wealth guidelines for his new level. 1st-level characters start out with 300 gp worth of equipment, and when they reach 2nd level, they replace their existing gear with 900 gp of new stuff. The player may justify this in any manner he pleases: perhaps a relative gives him a gift, or he has unlocked new abilities of an existing item, or he earns a reward of some kind. The standard handwave is that the characters belongs to organizations that supplies them with gear appropriate to their level.

What I like about this system:
1. I don't have to worry about putting too much or too little treasure into the adventure.
2. The players have much better control over their characters, and I don't have to second-guess what cool stuff they actually want.
3. The players are more inclined to use charged and one-shot items instead of hoarding them.

Thats a darn fine idea! I am going to try it next time I DM.

 

[Ace]

I ignore them. I am very comfortable with that.

I have two styles of play

High/er magic -- this is book amounts or higher magic. In these I have to keep track of money amounts to keep it all balanced.

Low/er magic-- in this style I just give out whatever I want to. Characters have compensatory advantages (feats a 1/3/5etc +2 skill points per level and a a level based defense) that make up for systems issues like dependance on magic to geta decent AC

 

[Arnwyn]

So what exactly is your style of play and how do you allow the wealth guidelines to dictate/define it?

Challenge Ratings and magic items are closely tied in that some monsters have abilities that require magic items to counter/overcome. Wealth and magic items closely tied as well, so default wealth guidelines are related to the CR of creatures you throw at a party.

So do the wealth guidelines dictate your style of play? If so, how? How comfortable are you with deviating from the wealth guidelines?

While I neither slavishly adhere to them, nor do I ignore them outright, I maintain an "awareness" of the wealth guidelines. I certainly do not consider them a "rule" in any way, shape, or form - just a guideline as to what the CR of creatures assume to meet the "20%" resource breakdown.

So I don't want to say that they "dictate" my style of play, but I keep an eye on them to see if my game is out of line in any way in relation to monster CRs. However, I don't use them in determining what treasure I make available, and if anything, they usually turn out to be an 'absolute upper limit' to the treasure that the PCs have. I am quite fine in having lower CR monsters provide a challenge for a longer period of time.

 

[delericho]

These days, I stick pretty close to the wealth guidelines, and allow reasonably easy access to magic items/special materials. However, I'm not obsessive over either of these. I check every few levels to ensure the group are fairly close, and alter the amount of treasure to compensate, but that's it.

This entails running the game at a much higher level of magic than I've used in the past. Especially in 2nd edition days, I ran things with very low levels of magic. However, I have found that the game is more fun (for me and my group) this way.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I use them to keep from being way to big a cheapskate - 'You defeat the ancient red wyrm Cinderax, and find 23 copper pieces, a masterwork dagger, and some pocket lint...'

The Auld Grump