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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5280550" data-attributes="member: 82106">There are other effects too:With a flatter curve the players are much more able to grab some control of the system by for instance pooling all their cash. Looting behavior is also encouraged because cash value of mundane items is now significant. Looting the fallen also becomes a lot more attractive. This last is especially interesting (and annoying). In the current system it doesn't do you a lot of good usually to loot your comrades bodies. Sure the stuff they have is hard to come by and close to impossible to buy, but it is also only worth 20%. You may get some better stuff by looting but due to the steep curve getting ahead doesn't do you much good for long. With a flatter curve you get ahead a lot more for a longer period.I think the main thing that people discount with the 4e treasure system is its HUGE robustness. Eamon mentioned that but it is worth mentioning again. Having played in a large number of games I can say that one of the primary factors that causes campaigns to collapse is the players ending up with too much loot. In the 4e system the NUMBERS get large, but the PCs relative purchasing power tends to stay firmly controlled in a way that has never been true of earlier editions. The system is self-correcting. If the DM gives away 5x too much loot at one level it won't break the game much at all. If he takes away all the PCs wealth entirely, including all their stuff, they'll be right back on the curve a couple levels later. Obviously if you have a game where everyone is on the same page and creating a story together and they'll all watch out for things that will make it not work out right then you can do anything with treasure. Heck you don't need a treasure system at all, just let the players do their thing and items and treasure are pure story hooks. In most games though it isn't like that. I think people that play a lot lose sight of the most common game where the players mercilessly exploit any mistake the DM makes and maybe now and then contribute to the story, if there is one beyond the dungeon crawl. In that type of game you really want the 4e treasure system, and verisimilitude is pretty much irrelevant.Lots of people have criticized the design of the current system, but I think they mostly just aren't judging it against the criteria it was built to fill. The other part is that again when people complain about huge absolute numbers in high level treasure it is sort of irrelevant really. Wealth is in what you can do, not what you have. Someone with infinite or effectively infinite wealth really has an illusion. There is only so much stuff in the world, you can't buy it all. 30th level PCs with millions of GP won't actually be able to own anything they want and won't collapse the economy either. They can offer to buy the whole city, but the inhabitants will just laugh at them. Things don't work that way and there's no reason it has to undermine verisimilitude.</blockquote>

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