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

[pemerton]

One annoying feature of the 4e system is that the growth in XP over levels is out of whack with the growth in gp over levels: XP for encounters doubles every 4 levels, but gp for items multiplies by 5 every 5 levels.

This means that you can't just associate a given treasure with a given encounter and plug it into the gameworld and wait for the PCs to stumble across it. The higher level the PCs, the larger the amount of treasure you have to associate with an encounter of a given level if you are to make sure that the PCs get their full quota of treasure parcels for their level.

 

[nnms]

One annoying feature of the 4e system is that the growth in XP over levels is out of whack with the growth in gp over levels: XP for encounters doubles every 4 levels, but gp for items multiplies by 5 every 5 levels.

This means that you can't just associate a given treasure with a given encounter and plug it into the gameworld and wait for the PCs to stumble across it. The higher level the PCs, the larger the amount of treasure you have to associate with an encounter of a given level if you are to make sure that the PCs get their full quota of treasure parcels for their level.

AWESOME! If I hadn't given out too much experience in the last 24 hours, I would totally give you some. In fact, I will be back to do just that.

I'm going to analyze a possible relationship further and see what I come up with. I already have my sights on changing the 5x treasure over 5 levels variable. I wonder if I can make it line up with the monster level/experience value instead...

EDIT: More on this here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-dis...-non-rules-written-campaigns.html#post5280393

 

[ferratus]

Thanks Kzach. I got the idea sometime last year, when I was coming up with ideas on how strongholds and realms would work in 4e. It didn't garner much interest at the time though.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...gholds-followers-domains-d-d-4th-edition.html

 

[Storminator]

I recently heard a podcast that included a segment from the At-Will blog.

He changed his accounting. Instead of giving out gold, he gives out 20% gold, 40% luck, and 40% fame. Then you buy everything with a combination of luck, fame and gold. When you sell items back, you get gold.

He even lets his PCs spend luck to get specific items in treasure parcels.

Seemed like a pretty slick idea.

PS

 

[KidSnide]

I think the real point is these kinds of rules are REALLY easy to create. They don't tend to require any kind of elaborate mechanics or even really balance much with anything else. I think the very first JG supplement for D&D was exactly that, and while many people have written the same thing since it always really just varies a bit in terms of how it hooks to the core mechanics of whatever game it happens to be for. In other words, it is fairly low priority because it is both dirt simple to whip up and kind of dependent on the type of game you want. I'd think it would be best as a part of say a PoL supplement.

The thing about 'D&D economics' isn't even that there really isn't any (beyond some very basic illusion) but that there's no one-size-fits-all version you can do except something in most respects just about like the 4e version, totally gamist. I mean you can buy that 3PP supplement that is like 80 pages on medieval economics, but even THAT is a crude oversimplification. Economics done to any degree of complexity means you have to map out the entire system of social roles and obligations, demographics, production, etc. You need a highly detailed realistic sort of world for that.

I'm not so sure that they are easy to create well, but you're right about there not being a "one-size-fits-all" version.

The point of an economic sub-system is not to simulate the economics of the fantasy world, but to create a game-viable and believable system for the PCs interacting with the economics of the fantasy world. In an adventure-only campaign, 95% of the PC-economy interaction is about buying and selling magic items. Correctly, that's the focus of the basic game, and I think the basic 4e rules do an OK job. That is, it's easy to figure out how much a magic item costs and due to the realistic-yet-not-believable-to-many "sell at 20%" rule, the game leaves magic item creation in the hands of the GM while allowing the PCs to craft.

(That said, I think I'll prefer the common-uncommon-rare rule which would allow the PCs to create or purchase certain types of magic items while leaving other types in the hands of the GM.)

The more interesting, if harder to write, form of economics rules would provide an entirely different way of interacting with the game world. Under these rules, PCs can purchase game-world elements (such as inns, castles, ships, etc...) that would provide an in-game benefit. The trick to this system is that it is harder to generalize because (A) the types of things PCs can buy, (B) the degree of benefit and (C) the level of detail depend greatly on the campaign.

This is trickier because the whole idea is that the PCs should be able to invest for future economic gain. This creates a delicate (and campaign-specific) balancing act. The PCs should gain a benefit from investing their goods, but that benefit shouldn't be level-inappropriate. If the investment benefits accrue too quickly, it is easy for the PC's investment income to provide huge quantities of resources. If the benefits accrue too slowly, then the whole thing becomes a waste of time because - by the time investment bears fruit - the benefits are vastly outstripped by the resources available to the PCs by virtue of being a higher level.

-KS


provides a means for investment in the campaign world. Essentially,

 

[nnms]

The more interesting, if harder to write, form of economics rules would provide an entirely different way of interacting with the game world. Under these rules, PCs can purchase game-world elements (such as inns, castles, ships, etc...) that would provide an in-game benefit. The trick to this system is that it is harder to generalize because (A) the types of things PCs can buy, (B) the degree of benefit and (C) the level of detail depend greatly on the campaign.

This.

In my upcoming Essentials-only campaign, I'm going to be basically completely separating magic times from monetary treasure. Crafting magic items will be at a minimum and purchasing them will be even rarer. They'll get oodles of magic items that they can either find a use for, break down into ritual components, or contribute into the economic system for plot benefits not normally provided by the system.

The monetary part will be about them building something great in the fantasy world. A big temple, restoring an empire, building a stronghold, whatever. Or building their reputation, throwing parties, etc.,.

This is trickier because the whole idea is that the PCs should be able to invest for future economic gain. This creates a delicate (and campaign-specific) balancing act. The PCs should gain a benefit from investing their goods, but that benefit shouldn't be level-inappropriate. If the investment benefits accrue too quickly, it is easy for the PC's investment income to provide huge quantities of resources. If the benefits accrue too slowly, then the whole thing becomes a waste of time because - by the time investment bears fruit - the benefits are vastly outstripped by the resources available to the PCs by virtue of being a higher level.

I'm not planning on having their economic investments providing them with reasources they can use for combat potency is the direction I'm going to go in at all. However it is worth noting that there will be implications if someone keeps the current crafting and purchasing rules and gives tons of extra gold out of some sort of "investment" system.

I don't want a game where PCs build a network of merchants and a succesful mercenary company in order to use the proceeds to buy a +1 higher sword. I would much rather them find that extra +1 higher sword through adventuring. It's one of the reasons I don't allow a lot of crafting or magic item shops.

Other people might like that though. And the DM is going to have to make sure they have something pretty solid worked out.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think in terms of 'investments' the easiest way to handle that is just to allow characters to acquire property on the basis of actions they take. Either they get them as rewards which then translate later into some sort of 'profit' that provides the mechanical reward for whatever they originally did, or the reverse, they get something, have to accomplish some kind of encounters to make it work, and get rewards in the form of some kind of profit.

That allows for some movement of resources from 'story' category to 'wealth' category but only in response to encounters they overcome, which makes it the same thing basically as just giving away treasure parcels directly, but with more story involved. I just don't generally allow the players to direct wealth in the other direction, you can't really buy a castle for instance, though I might give out some extra treasure to provide for buying lesser types of property. I'll just generally agree with the players what they are going to do ahead of time.

 

[nnms]

A simple investment house rule:

When you invest money with a local merchant, trader, noble, etc., figure out how many percent of an item of your level the investment is worth. For example, at level 5, a PC invests 200 gold. That's 20% of a level 5 item (1000 gold).

When you withdraw the investment, it's worth the same percentage of an item of your current level. So the PC is at 17th level and takes his investment out. His 200 gold has ended up funding a nice merchant empire. He is bought out for 13000 gold (20% of 65000, the item value of a 17th level character).

So why do it this way?

It's just a simple wash to allow people to suspend their purchasing of an item without losing the purchasing power of their gold to the fact that items go up 5 times in price every 5 levels.

If you do this though, you'll be removing one of the features of the D&D treasure system-- that the exponential growth of treasure undoes any instance where the PCs have gotten too much treasure.

 

[KidSnide]

The monetary part will be about them building something great in the fantasy world. A big temple, restoring an empire, building a stronghold, whatever. Or building their reputation, throwing parties, etc.,.

I don't want a game where PCs build a network of merchants and a succesful mercenary company in order to use the proceeds to buy a +1 higher sword. I would much rather them find that extra +1 higher sword through adventuring. It's one of the reasons I don't allow a lot of crafting or magic item shops.

Other people might like that though. And the DM is going to have to make sure they have something pretty solid worked out.

A simple investment house rule:

When you invest money with a local merchant, trader, noble, etc., figure out how many percent of an item of your level the investment is worth. For example, at level 5, a PC invests 200 gold. That's 20% of a level 5 item (1000 gold). When you withdraw the investment, it's worth the same percentage of an item of your current level. So the PC is at 17th level and takes his investment out. His 200 gold has ended up funding a nice merchant empire. He is bought out for 13000 gold (20% of 65000, the item value of a 17th level character).

I'm inclined towards your first idea. The purpose of a "more than treasure" monetary system is to allow the PCs to engage in an entirely different sub-game (rule the kingdom, accumulate influence, usher in an era devoted to the new deity), not to invest so that your +4 item is cheaper because of an investment made at level 8.

Maybe the right answer is to make it increasingly difficult to turn treasure into high level magic items and make it more about equipping an army, funding a cathedral or whatever else your campaign is about? Personally, I like the idea of a game where the PCs reliably gain in personal power, but still have to scrape to make ends meet. Or, alternatively, one in which the PCs have vastly more gold than they need for their equipment needs, but in which they desperately need to hire enough swords to defend their newly defended borders.

Either of those games seems more fun to me that "default treasure." But maybe I'm just weird. I don't think the PCs in my primary game have been "professional adventurers" since before 3e came out...

-KS

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, I'm not sure what is the issue with the default treasure system for what you're talking about KS. The ramping up costs of items IS "it gets increasingly difficult to turn treasure into high level magic" isn't it? At that point the difference between a "build an empire" game and a "dungeon crawl" game is just emphasis. Instead of going on adventures and garnering the huge treasures needed to get +X weapons and such the characters spend their time on non-adventuring pursuits where they get small amounts of money and mostly don't earn a lot of XP either. Instead of turning into super demi-god level epic heroes they become army generals and kings and merchants. Of course the rules weren't written with that game in mind, so you have to wing it, but I'm not convinced you need to change the treasure system one bit.