Managing Equipment Creep in Fantasy RP?

[Lanefan]

Make all magical equipment more fragile than the normal rules indicate; explained if needed by "magic by nature is inherently unstable and this instability carries over to the things it enchants".

Every time someone fails a save vs. an area-effect damage spell or situation, force all their equipment to save as well. Use the table in the 1e DMG for item type vs. damage effect, and don't stop when one item fails. And if you really want to be nasty like me, have it that magic items might go *boom* or cause other random effects when their magic is suddenly released in ways it shouldn't be (like being broken, or burnt to a crisp), potentially triggering another round of saves~...

That way, within reason it doesn't matter how much stuff you give out as you know it'll most likely all eventually break anyway; and in the meantime they get to use some cool gype. An example: just this evening I re-did the party NPC's character sheet before the session and noted he'd picked up a fair bit of useful magic. By sheer bad luck, by session's end he'd lost 2/3 of it: half the losses coming via the same event that killed him and the other half going to pay for his resurrection.

Lan-"easy come, easy go"-efan

~ - caution: cascading meltdowns like these, though rare, are very messy things; and can take hours (!) to resolve in a magic-rich party.

 

[Celebrim]

I suppose your solution of gold <> (!=) combat gear is a decent point, it's just feeling like an arms race

It's not a decent point, it's the only point.

I could make a long list of ways to take treasure from the PC's. And, the 1st ed. DMG has pages and pages on removing excess treasure from the PC's. However, if that is your primary approach to the problem of treasure, you are heading toward a highly antagonistic game because the players will rightly percieve you as continually trying to screw them over. If your primary approach to treasure is to think of every possible way to take it from the players, then your game is already off the rails.

If I tone Down the enemy equipment, they slaughter them. If I turn it up, they all get amazing equipment.

This is my first game with alot of NPCs as enemies...Is that a good way to deal with the problem?

No, not really. You can get away with it somewhat, but unless you up HD without adjusting the CR upward then all you are doing is increasing the experience point reward relative to the threat. You can also up the attributes of the NPC's, but this tends to result in making the PC's below average in their attributes. Generally, I tend to use relatively low amounts of equipment and adjust CR down to compensate, then increase the number of threats to bring the EL back up.

When using NPCs to challenge the players the primary way to increase the challenge is to note that the PC's are almost always the agressors and the NPC's are almost always fighting on their home ground. The primary way to deal with the PC's is through a combination of good teamwork, good tactics, and well prepared terrain. You want to make sure that the NPC's have a good combination of archers behind cover, brutes that can stall the PC's advance, and low level spellcasters that can debuff and harass the players.

The basic tactic(s) for medium sized humanoids is archers behind 90% cover preferably at an elevation, leave some of the archers to ready actions to fire on spell-casters, armored brutes with defensive feats who fight defensively, and low level spell casters harassing the players with spells that steal actions from the players either by forcing save or stun, counterspelling, or by creating difficult terrain between the players and where they want to get. Augmenting these tactics with basic grenade weapons - acid, vials of flaming oil, etc. - or with seige weapons or traps (that might partially bypass AC), or with low CR tame monsters who have level invariant attacks (attacks that bypass AC like touch attack, or which still have an effect like half-damage even on a save) can give you more umph for a given CR.

I would also suggest that if you are going to start fiddling with anything, you are better off fiddling with the CR/EL system than anything else. In particular, it is my belief that for creatures with very low CR relative to the PC level, adding +2 to the EL for each doubling generates excessively high EL's relative to the actual threat posed. This is made worse by the fact that NPC's tend to have CR's vastly in excess of the threat that they actually pose. In particularly, many classes do not in fact have a good level = CR relationship. Classes like rogue and monk tend to have a relationship closer to CR = level -1. Even cleric is more like CR = level -1 if the cleric isn't primarily built out for combat. NPC classes are worse. I know at one time the suggestion was the CR of a warrior was level - 1. The real number is closer to level / 2, and for a commoner its more like level/4. And single NPC's tend to go down hard almost without regard to level. I tend to be more fond of 2 NPC's at level - 2 per PC if you are going for a climatic fight. If you have a party of 8th level characters, 32 1st level warriors or rogues isn't really twice as hard as 16, nor is it really even close to being an equivalent challenge to to fighting a CR 11 monster. It's much closer to a CR 6 monster, because you can expect the party to wipe the floor with them without expending signfiicant resources.

Keep that very much in mind when appraising published encounters or in designing your own.

 

[Mark Chance]

Re-institute the GP = XP rule. Every x GP spent in such a way that a character has nothing tangible to show for it equals y XP.

 

[Stoat]

A valuable lesson I learned DM'ing Spelljammer lo these many years ago:

Maintaining a warship is expensive.

Repairs cost a stack, maybe 100 gold per ship's hit point restored.

The crew expects to be paid, and if they have to fight, they expect danger pay (or a cut of the loot).

Coming to port means paying tolls, tariffs, fees, taxes, duties, excises, bribes, gratuities, etc., etc., etc.

As I understand it, your other problem is that NPC's carry stuff, often magical stuff, and magical stuff is valuable. You can always take the 4E way out, NPC's don't need magical stuff to be better, but that's an option that rankles a lot of folks. Consider larger groups of lower-level foes. Instead of a 6th Level swashbuckler with a +2 rapier, send out 10 or 12 2nd Level fighters with masterwork rapiers. Then make it a little trickier for the PC's to buy and sell items. Merchants pay less when they're buying swords in bulk. It takes a few weeks or months to consign fancy magic items.

Another option is to be straight with your players: "guys, I've given out too much stuff. We gotta do something about it."

 

[Ed_Laprade]

If they spend most of their time in cities, this won't help. If they pass through a village with a lot of mundane arms and/or armor, make it a poor one. One where the (very sympathetic) head man hints that the local militia sure would like to turn in their clubs and staves for something like that, but can't afford to. If the characters have an ounce of Heroic blood in them the village sould get the stuff for (next to) nothing.

And if they scoff and walk away, make sure they come by that way again fairly soon. To the burned out remains, with bodies everywhere...

 

[Ariosto]

Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes and Tolls

(1st ed. DMG, p. 90)

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I would recommend implementing a design conceit from 4E... and that being that monsters {NPCs} do not operate under the same rules as heros {PCs}.

Stat the bad guys out as if they had the equipment, but they don't.. so its not loot.

That way you can better control the magical arms race while keeping a relatively CR equivilent combat scenario.

One thing I would rarely pull is the level of treasure would attract the attention of a Thieves Guild. I think I only did this once or twice in all my years of gaming... but it was effective.
{ I also once set up a group to set off a Mordenkanen's Disjunction.. but that was just mean...}

I also like Stoat's recommendation of just talking with the players. I was in a Star Wars game once where we got ahold of a ton of loot, my slice was 4 billion credits.., and we ended up blowing it on a bunch of stuff that was off-screen. I think one of the guys bought a resort planetoid...

 

[los]

Lots of great suggestions in this thread. Let me add another one: PCs with lots of bling can easily become targets not just for burglars but also for muggers, thugs, assassins, et al.

A valuable lesson I learned DM'ing Spelljammer lo these many years ago:

Maintaining a warship is expensive.

Historically, a Spanish galleon cost more money to maintain and outfit for a year than it cost to build. I think that *excludes* the salary of the crew, but I can't find my references right now. And it certainly doesn't include taxes and such, because the crown didn't really have to pay them.

 

[los]

It's not a decent point, it's the only point.

I could make a long list of ways to take treasure from the PC's. And, the 1st ed. DMG has pages and pages on removing excess treasure from the PC's. However, if that is your primary approach to the problem of treasure, you are heading toward a highly antagonistic game because the players will rightly percieve you as continually trying to screw them over. If your primary approach to treasure is to think of every possible way to take it from the players, then your game is already off the rails.



No, not really. You can get away with it somewhat, but unless you up HD without adjusting the CR upward then all you are doing is increasing the experience point reward relative to the threat. You can also up the attributes of the NPC's, but this tends to result in making the PC's below average in their attributes. Generally, I tend to use relatively low amounts of equipment and adjust CR down to compensate, then increase the number of threats to bring the EL back up.

When using NPCs to challenge the players the primary way to increase the challenge is to note that the PC's are almost always the agressors and the NPC's are almost always fighting on their home ground. The primary way to deal with the PC's is through a combination of good teamwork, good tactics, and well prepared terrain. You want to make sure that the NPC's have a good combination of archers behind cover, brutes that can stall the PC's advance, and low level spellcasters that can debuff and harass the players.

The basic tactic(s) for medium sized humanoids is archers behind 90% cover preferably at an elevation, leave some of the archers to ready actions to fire on spell-casters, armored brutes with defensive feats who fight defensively, and low level spell casters harassing the players with spells that steal actions from the players either by forcing save or stun, counterspelling, or by creating difficult terrain between the players and where they want to get. Augmenting these tactics with basic grenade weapons - acid, vials of flaming oil, etc. - or with seige weapons or traps (that might partially bypass AC), or with low CR tame monsters who have level invariant attacks (attacks that bypass AC like touch attack, or which still have an effect like half-damage even on a save) can give you more umph for a given CR.

I would also suggest that if you are going to start fiddling with anything, you are better off fiddling with the CR/EL system than anything else. In particular, it is my belief that for creatures with very low CR relative to the PC level, adding +2 to the EL for each doubling generates excessively high EL's relative to the actual threat posed. This is made worse by the fact that NPC's tend to have CR's vastly in excess of the threat that they actually pose. In particularly, many classes do not in fact have a good level = CR relationship. Classes like rogue and monk tend to have a relationship closer to CR = level -1. Even cleric is more like CR = level -1 if the cleric isn't primarily built out for combat. NPC classes are worse. I know at one time the suggestion was the CR of a warrior was level - 1. The real number is closer to level / 2, and for a commoner its more like level/4. And single NPC's tend to go down hard almost without regard to level. I tend to be more fond of 2 NPC's at level - 2 per PC if you are going for a climatic fight. If you have a party of 8th level characters, 32 1st level warriors or rogues isn't really twice as hard as 16, nor is it really even close to being an equivalent challenge to to fighting a CR 11 monster. It's much closer to a CR 6 monster, because you can expect the party to wipe the floor with them without expending signfiicant resources.

Keep that very much in mind when appraising published encounters or in designing your own.

QFT, especially the first section. Whatever the solution to the problem is, it has to have the buy in of the players. Or you'll soon find yourself without any.

And really the whole "Adventuring" economy as portrayed in Greyhawk et al is based on having most of the players' opponents nonhuman, or poorly equipped, AND on having ridiculous upkeep costs. If you tweek with those balances, you have to find a way to rebalance.