D&D 4E Prediction: 4e economy will have to change

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Why not supply rules for those people who _do_ want to run such games. Especially given that WotC is on a nostalgia kick, and running strongholds was certainly part of the game, at least in the BECMI days.

I know at least one of my players wanted to start building a stronghold in the last campaign.

 

[Joshua Randall]

In 3.5, yeah getting gold is nice but you aren't so mathematically directed to increase your weapon, armor, and neck items like 4e.

Uh, yes you are. Badaxe Games' Trailblazer breaks this down quite nicely.

]I'd strongly support a change to make gold something that you'd actually use as a resource that promotes choices in-game as compared to a second experience count.

I do agree with this, as some people really enjoy that type of game.

However, the game also needs to work when the PCs only spend their gold on magic items. That seems to be functioning properly now (pre-Essentials 4e). I hope they don't inadvertently break it with Essentials.

 

[mmaranda]

I would rather not see such rules, since D&D is for group-based adventuring games. Running domains or the like, in my experience, only focuses on a subset of the players. I would prefer for all the players to be able to be involved in each scene as much as possible.

I think you are missing the point. Having PCs buy keeps, maintain guilds, taverns, etc... is a great money sink for PCs. It is a way to have easy plot hooks. Arsonists are burning down the city stop them before they get to your stuff (or they burned your stuff while you were away adventuring).

Additionally it is a fun way to reward a player with a cool perk every once in a while. Oh the players think a scribe that works in their wizards tower might have done research on that Demon. *rolls dice* YES!.

Players can play house, building super secret lairs and it is almost always stuff that sucks loot and happens off screen. Maintenacne is just throwing money at a chamberlain, house manager, or aged brother of the field. When a meaningful choice needs to be made the player can do it, if they so choose.

 

[Scribble]

Running an Inn or being a Lord of a Manor or something would be a great spot to use skill challenges.

 

[shamsael]

Why not supply rules for those people who _do_ want to run such games. Especially given that WotC is on a nostalgia kick, and running strongholds was certainly part of the game, at least in the BECMI days.

I know at least one of my players wanted to start building a stronghold in the last campaign.

One of my best memories of the revised 2e dark sun box was the passage that informed you that you could not opt not to take on followers after 9th level, that Athas was such an inhospitable and bleak place that the people were desperate for someone to believe in and that no hero could hide from has reputation.

Although strongholds don't seem to fit in DS4e, I will definitely be incorporating followers into my Dark Sun campaign.

 

[shamsael]

I think you are missing the point. Having PCs buy keeps, maintain guilds, taverns, etc... is a great money sink for PCs. It is a way to have easy plot hooks. Arsonists are burning down the city stop them before they get to your stuff (or they burned your stuff while you were away adventuring).

Additionally it is a fun way to reward a player with a cool perk every once in a while. Oh the players think a scribe that works in their wizards tower might have done research on that Demon. *rolls dice* YES!.

Players can play house, building super secret lairs and it is almost always stuff that sucks loot and happens off screen. Maintenacne is just throwing money at a chamberlain, house manager, or aged brother of the field. When a meaningful choice needs to be made the player can do it, if they so choose.

It also puts a large chunk of the gold PCs find into the hands of the local economy, increasing the chance that a merchant or someone will be able to raise enough cash to buy that old longsword +4.

 

[Scribble]

One of my best memories of the revised 2e dark sun box was the passage that informed you that you could not opt not to take on followers after 9th level, that Athas was such an inhospitable and bleak place that the people were desperate for someone to believe in and that no hero could hide from has reputation.

Although strongholds don't seem to fit in DS4e, I will definitely be incorporating followers into my Dark Sun campaign.

There's even an epic destiny linked to that idea.

 

[Insight]

Although strongholds don't seem to fit in DS4e, I will definitely be incorporating followers into my Dark Sun campaign.

I don't see any reason why this would be true. Most of the city-states have some form of noble class and some sorcerer-kings even hand out estates to those who please them. I can definitely see PCs getting strongholds or estates this way.

 

[RangerWickett]

Barring antiques (which cost more due to sentimentality and rarity), do weapons in the real world scale in cost and utility as magic items do in D&D?

In the real world, you can buy a pistol that costs $100. It's dinky, but it works. That's a normal sword.

If you want a quality pistol, you can easily buy one for $1000. That's a +2 sword.

If you're a gun aficionado, you could even buy a custom-made pistol with specially made bullets, a personalized grip, the finest and lightest scope, and some amazing technology to kill any kick, and spend $10,000. That's a +4 sword.

But the only people I know of who have $100,000 pistols are drug lords of international cartels, and I don't think this thing is a +6 weapon:

I dunno, maybe magic items in D&D cost too much. Or maybe Olympic shootists and elite mercenaries do spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single gun.

Either way, my main problem is that a lot of 'epic' magic items are boring. Oh, so this sword is mathematically superior to that one? Wow, that's impressive. But I'm fighting gods. Where's my sword that can cut down a forest in a single swing?

D&D characters spend irrationally. If I have $300,000 dollars, I'm not going to own three $100,000 items and nothing else (one to hold, one to wear, and one for my neck). I'm going to have most of that invested or in a bank, and probably splurge for a single $50k item, and then have a variety of smaller things.

 

[Barastrondo]

The idea is remarkably close to what my own plans for high-level play would be, so I'd be thrilled to see it come to fruition. One of the things I liked least about the shift from 2e to 3e was the origin of the gold-to-magic equivalency: instead of gold being something primarily spent on luxuries, home bases and ships, it was something that you had to tithe to the casters to keep them in scrolls and suchlike. I get the 4e conceit that "you have too much money and power for the mundane world now, go plane-hopping", it's just not aligned with what my group wants to do — which is hang largely around the mundane world without wrecking it by virtue of their presence.