How do the Wealth Guidelines affect your style of play?

[KB9JMQ]

I have never even read them, so I would say I don't follow them.
I play by feel. If when the party returns to a place to spend their money and I think I gave them too much then the next couple of adventures will have less gold in them.

If I give out a weapon or magic item which makes the pc's to powerfull I just up the encounters a bit so they don't mop the floor until they get to a point where the item is not overpowering anymore.

 

[blargney the second]

We're following the wealth guidelines pretty closely for the first time in my experience, and I find it really changes the nature of the game. Creatures with innate abilities stack up just fine based on CR. Normal class/race NPCs, on the other hand, simply cannot be effective opponents unless they have a fairly high budget for gear.

I think my personal preference would be for equipment to be less necessary in order to highlight the individual power of characters.

-blarg

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Choose Your Own Style

As another of Conners long term victims , er players, I have to say that this style of GMing has been very rewarding as a player ....

Your opinion is key. As long as you enjoy the game, that's all that really matters.

The real enjoyment from his campaigns is derived from having a self interest in the character as they progress upwards in level, rather than through what they own, because it is so difficult to get them to really high levels. Rarely do characters get to higher than level 7 (actually I think thats the highest I've ever had) before they either get killed or we retire them for roleplaying reasons.

Once again, your personal enjoyment is paramount. However, if our DM was consistently running "campaigns" that kept us miserably poor and killed us off by level 7, we would definitely mutiny.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Oh Well

Ah, Thayan Menace where are you now? Some of my players have finally made an appearance ....

The fact that your players speak well of you is a good sign, however your choice to completely ignore the wealth guidelines would not go over well with our crew. No matter; to each his own ....

 

[Doc_Klueless]

In a nutshell: I see them as guidelines for creating characters, not as guidelines on how to modify or restrict characters already in play.

 

[IcyCool]

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.

FireLance, you've mentioned this before, and I like it very much. My only question then is, do your players bother to take item creation feats? It would seem a little pointless, but maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Brought from Crothian's Would you give your 2nd level parth 30 thousand gold thread.



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?

There are wealth guidelines?

Seriously, I don't refer to them. For me it has always been more of "that feels like too much" kind of thing.

If I see the party really struggling in some encounters, I try to see if its because they aren't equipped well enough and make some adjustments (yes, including a little fudging if I think I really screwed up).

If they are romping all over my encounters, I may bump up the CRs for a while and the party may go through a bit of a treasure "dry spell" until I feel things are back into some kind of balance.

edit: if I had bothered to read all the posts I would have just dittoed KB9JMQ's post...

 

[FireLance]

FireLance, you've mentioned this before, and I like it very much. My only question then is, do your players bother to take item creation feats? It would seem a little pointless, but maybe I'm missing something.

We adopt the RPGA approach to item creation feats. An item creation feat gives you a 25% off an item that you can create yourself. A wizard scribing a scroll of a 1st-level spell in his spellbook pays 18.25 gp (19 gp if you don't want to deal with fractions). If he wants a scroll of a 1st-level spell that is not in his spellbook, he pays the full 25 gp.

 

[genshou]

I paid attention to the wealth guidelines, complete with random audits to double check appropriate treasure, exactly once.

It was, without a doubt, the campaign I've had the least amount of fun running in 3e. The players didn't enjoy the feeling that their wealth was being monitored, and it caused a great deal of problems when they were dividing treasure. Then, just to top it off, we had a TPK the session after everyone's wealth levels were correct for their level, on an encounter that was an appropriate EL for the party.

These days I tend to run DnD just like I did in the old days - handing out treasure and writing up encounters that I think are appropriate for the party. Occasionally I'll use the EL and wealth guidelines as a double-check if I'm not sure about something, but things work well enough without bothering with the extra paperwork.

Usually I have more to say in a thread than this, but...

Everything I need to say can be read in the post I quoted above. Including the part about having once monitored wealth and then having a TPK at the next battle.

 

[Ibram]

I completly ignore the wealth guidelines, to the point that my players would be considered flat broke by most standards. It works rather well, since I use mostly humanoid oppoents the DR bit doesnt come up, and since wizards are rare the few times they interact with the party they dont overshadow non-casters.