Leveling and Items

[KenHood]

Ah!

But you've just proven my point, Joe.

As a conscientious DM, you recognized that a problem existed, and you developed a means to address it within your game, in a manner that is fair to your players.

---

To me, it appears that a many of our proposals boil down to people desiring to ensure fair treatment of their characters, so they want to create rules that enforce that treatment. The underlying implication of this is that people don't necessarily trust DM's to be fair or treat them as they desire to be treated. They want something to enforce equality.

However, during the time that we've been playing, how many people have been mistreated by their DM's and apportioned unfair amounts of treasure/XP/etc.? I don't think it has happened in our community with any regularity, if at all.

We've already got a mechanism in place to support and reward fair treatment. Players and DM's play by consent. Judges provide oversight.

I don't think we need rules to force people to act in a fair manner. I think our community reinforces it by its very nature.

I think many of our proposals attempt to address theoretical or extreme abuses of the system, but I don't think we need rules to address those. We have people for it. Honestly, how many players would refuse to address a problem if their DM or a judge said, "Hey, I think this is making the game less fun..."?

 

[Atanatotatos]

as some point the AC of monsters is going to assume that everyone has a +1 weapon and it really seems like we arn't going to assume that at the same speed as a offline campiagn does.

Yeah...
*glances at Phoenix*

joking. Sorta.

 

[KenHood]

mainly I'm just worried about the fact that as some point the AC of monsters is going to assume that everyone has a +1 weapon and it really seems like we arn't going to assume that at the same speed as a offline campiagn does.

I understand, and it's a valid worry. But let me ask: If you, as a DM, had a player in your game that had this problem, would you address it? If so, do you believe that the majority of DM's (perhaps even all of them) would attempt the same thing?

 

[TwoHeadsBarking]

I agree with KenHood. I don't think there's a good way to solve this with mechanics and rules. When DMs start adventures they should look over their players' sheets and see if anyone really needs a magic item more than anyone else. It's something to watch out for, but not something to be fixed.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

Well, you'll note that at the top of the thread I mention it's not a proposal it's a discussion

I didn't want to propose something as much as just have a the community talk about it. The more we talk about it the more aware of it we all are.

The only proposal I might even have would be to allow DM credits to be spent on items INSTEAD of XP and even that I don't know if it's a good idea.

I wasn't trying to enforce anything. I saw a problem and thought we'd best look at the problem, I didn't say it was a problem that couldn't be fixed by DMs

 

[JoeNotCharles]

I was thinking that if your character reaches a new level and they're substantially behind the suggested wealth given in the PHB, they be allowed to take some items (from approved sources) to top up. (Off the top of my head, I'd say something like, if your wealth is more than 2 levels behind where it should be, you can take enough so that it's 1 level behind - want to be sure that finding stuff in an adventure is still the default way to get items, because it's just more fun.)

The problem with this is that we (at least I) haven't been giving as much thought to items when looking at proposals, because we figured the judges need to look at them during adventure submissions anyway. If players are allowed to pick their own items, we'd have to either approve all their selections or start validating the entire list.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Note to self: learn how to click that little button that actually submits posts, rather than writing them up, then getting distracted for an hour and coming back and realizing, "Hey! I've got a post all written up here waiting for me to click the button!" That is to say, I had this written up about an hour ago, and forgot to post it.

An idea that occurred to me was that if a DM notices that a certain character is exceptionally far behind their party mates on the money front, they could just award them a low-level magic item or two to make up the difference. The idea is that the DM awards the sort of item that said character would have bought if they had the cash to do so. Basically the same as Joe's idea, except in the DM's hands instead of the player's. Thing I like about this version is that (in my opinion) it doesn't require a proposal or any extra fiddling with character approvals and such. DM notices it, asks the adventure judge if it's ok if he rectifies the problem, and away we go. Done and done.

Now, I know we're not all fans of the armchair theorist approach, but I think some figures and landmarks could be beneficial to get some perspective here, since we're basically talking about spreadsheet magic

Being short on money isn't likely to make a difference before level 3 at the earliest. With a 5-man party, using the parcels out of the DMG, a PC is expected to have gotten 352gp in monetary treasure through levels 1 and 2, which means that they shouldn't have the cash to buy a level 1 magic item yet. (L1 item = 360 gp.) By the end of level 3, PCs should have recieved a total of around 620 gp, so they could buy an item somewhere during level 3. Also remember that a lot of characters tend to spend a bunch of that cash on new equipment, potions (or some of the "cash" of the adventure comes in the form of potions), and other single-use expendables, so most PCs probably can't afford to buy a magic item with cash until late level 3. Of course, that's if you have the "ideal" party, and follow the parcel system to the letter. I agree with Ken that they're more of a guideline, at least as far as the money part.

Even in a normal D&D game, if you're following the parcel system reasonably close, I think that realistically it would take until around level 4 or 5 before all the PCs had +1 weapons/implements. Unless the DM purposefully gives them out first (as opposed to armor or whatever other items).

Basically all I'm saying is that shortage of money won't really affect a character's power level until level 3, at the earliest. Ignoring the character's mindsets and motivations, that is the prime concern with awarding treasure fairly - making sure that no one falls behind the curve.

 

[weldon]

An idea that occurred to me was that if a DM notices that a certain character is exceptionally far behind their party mates on the money front, they could just award them a low-level magic item or two to make up the difference.

This is a good argument for having a detailed history of money and items acquired and lost over time so that DM's could acquaint themselves with why a particular PC has the money and items that they do.

I'm a little unclear if there is already a standard way to do this on the character sheet that has already been worked out. If not, I'd be happy to try and come up with something. Just a little busy this weekend, though.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Well, that's what the treasure tracking section is intended to be for. It doesn't have a structured template or anything, so it's basically up to the player to come up with or steal a system of noting treasure that makes it clear.

For example, here's Raiyek's treasure tracking section.

 

[stonegod]

I'm a little unclear if there is already a standard way to do this on the character sheet that has already been worked out. If not, I'd be happy to try and come up with something. Just a little busy this weekend, though.

As Lord S said, that is exactly what the loot tracking is for. I remember for 3.5 artificers, that section got really complicated... see Tondrek for an example (see Logs).

But yes, DMs should have a look there to see what's what.