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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Griffith Dragonlake" data-source="post: 3280846" data-attributes="member: 40379">I think this is the most compelling argument.  I've often wondered how the Black Prince became such a high level knight without getting killed young.With regards to the other posters, let's look at some basic numbers:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">978,000 gp actually costs 489,000 in raw materials.  Labour cost is already taken care of by the royal wizard.</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">England had a population of approximately 3,750,000 shortly before the Black Death. London was around 80,000.  Paris 250,000 and perhaps France had 7,500,000 (at least double England).  Constantinople had a population of 1 million or more. The Byzantium Empire had around 30 million inhabitants at its peak. Let's say your typical fantasy kingdom is like France.</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Let's say that the king levies a one-time tax of 1sp per working adult to pay for equiping the heir at the time of his knighting. The tax is potentially worth 750,000 gold pieces and 1/3 of the tax is lost due to non-payment, corruption, etc. Which leaves around 500,000 gp which covers the raw materials with some leftovers.</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Historically the ruling class levied all sorts of taxes to fund a number of things, many of which could be quite frivolous. Therefore I believe that paying for the gear is not an issue in a D&D kingdom.</li> </ul>As to how to spend the money, there has been some good suggestions. The dilemma of course is how to ensure that the children (or perhaps the heir) can earn exp without dying too often. As I mentioned above, I think having the wise tutors in the background is perhaps the most effective.For the children who become wizards, I would imagine that they would be given the best possible education and probably have learned every known spell. But would still have some cool gear.As for being targets of robbers and assassins, I should think that they already are even without the gear. In a D&D world, the ruling class would take great precautions to prevent assassinations, teleporting commandos, elementals, demons, etc. from kidnapping themselves or their families.My point of this thought exercise is to challenge the pre 3.x thinking regarding wealth. High level magic items can be created, bought, and sold per the RAW in metropolises of 25,000+. In the real Middle Ages, there were a number of cities that fit that category. I think that in a D&D world, populations would be higher due to the amount of healing and plant growth available. And given the number of high level spellcasters available, it is not a stretch at all to imagine royal and ducal wizards, sorcerers, clerics, and druids of high level.I think it's easy for us to forget just how wealthy the peerage and royalty really were back then. And even more importantly it's easy for us to get so wrapped up in wealth by level, NPC classes, etc. that we forget that the truly wealthy are going to have much more wealth by level than others are. Would the top 1% wealth holders of the kingdom invest in magic items for their own and their family's safety? Of course. Would they collect magic items in the way the wealthy today collect yachts and exotic sports cars? Sure they would. And they would show off their toys to their rivals and friends. Are they targets for thieves? Yes but there would be precautions.Personally, I think there is too much magic in D&D. I don't like the fact that magic items can so easily be made, sold, and purchased. But if I'm going to play D&D, then I'm going to follow the logical conclusions even if that means placing high level spellcasters and lots of magic items in the hands of the great magnates.</blockquote>

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