How much is too much - The Game Economy

[Greenfield]

Our current DM (we rotate the job) has apparently decided that part of our treasure reward in the current adventure (a trip to China) should be in the form of trade opportunities.

We get to buy rare items at discount prices, then sell them for premium when we get home.

The Shrink Item spell makes shipping almost a non-issue, both in ease of transport and by preventing spoilage.

Some characters are taking more of an advantage of this opportunity than others. Some of the characters have more cash to speculate with than others.

So far my own character (who is a master of diplomacy) is set to about triple his cash wealth.

Now for the scene, this is all well and good, since the DM planned it this way and appears to be encouraging us to trade this way.

But how much is too much? There are a lot of ways that magic can be used to accumulate wealth, even if the game economy isn't broken beyond repair. We've pretty much barred Teleport, Greater Teleport, Teleport Circle, etc from play for game flavor reasons, so the worst abuses of long distance trade aren't available, but still this treads on dangerous ground. Money is power in this game.

So, how much would you allow a PC to enrich themselves through magic or craft?

 

[xigbar]

Barring the teleport spells, anything that mass produces normally cheap resources. (Wall of X, X to Y, and the ladder/10ft pole loop.)

 

[elfstone]

WHy limit a creative PC espically when it only aboit wealth. you still have to survive teh trip back to trade your items. Not to mention if you become known as wealthy you could have entire adventures just protecting said wealth.

 

[Is_907]

In my opnion, it's important to remember that just because you have cash that doesn't mean you can spend cash.
I've had plenty of DMs (and been the DM) who simply said "No, that item is not available in this city."

So yeah, the big fear of players having too much gold/platinum/astral diamonds in their pockets is one of buying tons of magical items, but that's only a problem if the DM isn't prepared to deal with players having the resources to upgrade themselves.

Of course, that's all just IMHO and YMMV. ;P

 

[xigbar]

WHy limit a creative PC espically when it only aboit wealth. you still have to survive teh trip back to trade your items. Not to mention if you become known as wealthy you could have entire adventures just protecting said wealth.

Which become very silly when you have mid level characters, all with Belts of Battle, and Epic Weapons, etc.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I use a slightly different method than the standard wealth by level guidelines, so I don't feel as much of a need to limit the cash accruing potential of characters.

I put the kibosh on it when it starts to interfere with more run of the mill adventuring, however. (i.e. when it starts to take up too much time at the table).

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

But how much is too much? There are a lot of ways that magic can be used to accumulate wealth, even if the game economy isn't broken beyond repair. We've pretty much barred Teleport, Greater Teleport, Teleport Circle, etc from play for game flavor reasons, so the worst abuses of long distance trade aren't available, but still this treads on dangerous ground. Money is power in this game.

So, how much would you allow a PC to enrich themselves through magic or craft?

The most important thing to remember is that in D&D there are really three economies. One is the subsistence economy that most of the no-name commoner NPCs and such are part of. A step up there is the gold economy where low to mid-level characters are part of, then there's the Wish economy where the gold or any other physical resource that can be made by a wish is no longer valuable and trade is in exotic planar materials and magic items or services. On top of that there's the issue of supply, if it doesn't exist it can't be bought or it might be so rare getting it is an adventure in and of itself. The key thing is that while you can get a +1 or even a +2 item with gold if they're available that +5 keen greatsword can only be bought with agony pearls, fossilized ideas, congealed chaos, material hope, high-level magic scrolls, or other such very exotic and rare things.

I've attached one of the best explanations on D&D economics I've ever encountered on the web. It might work for you, it might not, but I've found it useful.

 

[Talonblaze]

Also, even with tons of gear being collected to be sold in large quantities the drawback that many players forget (and sometimes DM's) is that towns never have an infinite supply of gold to hand out. (A thorp isn't gonna be able to shell out 1mil of gold for all their gear.)

So essentially the stacking up of weapons and gear would bankrupt most PC's or make them utterly rich compared to the rest of the world affecting possibly buyable weapons and services. So its not always a good idea to exploit the money advantage.

Of course, this is if the DM wants to.

 

[HoboGod]

This is an interesting question. The correct answer is never give out more gold through any means that would put a PC above the character's wealth per level illustrated on page 135, table 5-1, of the Dungeon Master's Guide. But that's a boring answer for the DM never bold enough to inject a bit of chaos in their games.

On one hand, the easiest way to break any game is to give your players excessive treasure. Even if you restrict what they can and cannot buy, the game falls apart because your PCs are rich beyond the value of their gold. All you get is a Legend of Zelda syndrome where your players find no value in their gold and leave it on the ground. Adventuring no longer becomes about the getting that last 200 gold you need to upgrade your sword before you consider what upgrades your armor needs, it becomes the chore you painfully understand will push the story along.

On the other hand, giving your PCs surplus or (even unlimited wealth) can give a positive change the face of the game. New reasons to be adventurers may emerge. Rather than trying to get rich and powerful, your PCs become crusaders of the land that call them champions, your PCs develop their own nations, your PCs might even surprise you with something you never thought of. More than likely, however, this wont be the case and your PCs will be dullards that can't move past the linear "kill monster, take loot" phase. However, this becomes a MARVELOUS opportunity for you as a DM. Instead, you can initiate a new kind of currency, one that doesn't buy material possessions. (This is something I'm trying in my current game.) Your PCs start taking jobs that don't pay in gold, but something abstract that can't be bought. It can be anything you want! It can be an item to shape reality, stop time, create artifacts, foresee the future, open paths into strange new lands. Or it could be information, a forbidden lore, a bit of knowledge lost long ago, a piece of a puzzle to something greater. The limits to what DnD becomes when players aren't greed-driven actually becomes quite interesting.

 

[Greenfield]

As far as the "Can't sell it so who cares", and "Can't buy it so who cares." crowd is concerned, consider this:

"Between the item crafters in the party and grotesque amounts of gold, everybody gets to have as much top end gear as we want, limited only by how much Exp we care to spend making it."

So it isn't a question of buying or selling magical gear, it's accumulating and using magical gear that threatens the balance of the game. Everybody at max armor class, maxed out in protective items, maxed out in magical weapons, wands, scrolls, gloves and belts and slotless bling. (Yeah, slotless costs double, but if the cost isn't an issue, who cares?)

So what if we can't sell all our trade goods in one place, or if we have to go to a major city to find a market for the high end items. We'll go to those major towns, or hit a dozen trade ports along the way.

Consider this, as a real world comparison: Would the Borga or Medicci power base have ever broken if they could make a China trade run in two weeks time, whenever they wanted? (Thank you Shadow Walk for 6,000 miles in 12 days).

That last question isn't rhetorical, by the way. Our campaign world is based on the real world circa 500 a.d., and our characters are just now returning from China. In one level we get Shadow Walk, and the DM is introducing the PCs to the China trade. High level casters who also know about the opportunity are very rare, and the traffic is currently so light that nobody's been granted licensed monopolies yet. Round trips by mundane means take years, we'll be able to make them once a month.