question about character total value.

[francom13]

If you have a mage that can craft wondrous items and has.

Does the total value of the item get taken into account as part of his total value or just the money you spent?

I would say only half the value gets taken into account as a balancing measure for the cost of spellbooks.

Any rules quoted on this would be of great help.

thanks
-Matt

 

[AGGEMAM]

Only the money you have actually spent but remember to pay those XP as well.

 

[Artoomis]

Well, keep in mind what ther total character wealth is meant to do. It's meant to be used to create characters at greater than first level.

In that case, it pretty easy. Give the character as much mioney as is on the table - it can be spent in any way. Of course, the character who creates their own items will have fewer experience points, which sort of equals out that his money goes farther. And remember that you cannot lose a level by spending experience points for creating items.

To calculate total character wealth for other purposes, total up all cash on hand and add in the book value for items. Any cost saving from making your self is balanced out by experience points spent.

That way you don't need to keep track of how items were aquired - all that matters is what you own and its book value.

 

[francom13]

Well my DM trys to keep roughly to the value per level suggested in the DMG.

The fact is is valued at what you paid for it is what I thought but I can't find anything that specifically says it.


So let me get this straight the Values in the DMG are just for character creation and not recomended value of character for calculating CR?

-Matt

 

[AGGEMAM]

So let me get this straight the Values in the DMG are just for character creation and not recomended value of character for calculating CR?

You only calculate CR for NPCs and they have thier own suggested wealth table.

 

[francom13]

Maybe CR is not the correct term.

In the DMG under assigning experiance it adds up all the levels of the party and gives your group a value based off of equipment value and other things.

 

[Artoomis]

So let me get this straight the Values in the DMG are just for character creation and not recomended value of character for calculating CR?

-Matt

Look it up. You'll find the table is only listed under the section providing advice on how to create characters of greater than first level.

Of course, one could use this as a guide to how much wealth you should have at each level, and clearly the whole Challenge Rating and Encounter Level system is based on PCs having roughly that value of equipment.

As far as how you figure it out, I recommend you use the book value for the item, NOT what you spent. If you use only what you spent (or what's it worth if you sell it), than the value quickly becomes useless as a measure of character power.

Does that make sense?

Let me put it another way:

Character Power, relative to the wealth per level table = Total book value of all your stuff, money included.

Book value = the value listed in the DMG or PHB, not creation cost or resale value.

There. I think that makes sense.


BTW - yes, it IS possible to create items that end up with your character having more Character Power than is appropriate for your level - of course, you will also be behind the rest of the party in experience points.

Someone else can crunch the numbers to see what happens - it might be interesting to create a 10th level character with 1 exp pt less than 11th level, assume he spend ALL his money on creating items (it doesn't matter which ones, it's just a numbers exercise), and see where there exp pts and money end up.

And then do the same for a 15th level character (starting with 1 exp pt less that 16th level). If the system is fully balanced one would expect reasonably balanced results.

I don't have the raw numbers with me to do this (exp pts and money per level). If someone gives me the numbers, I'll do the math. I'd need:

10th level money
10th level exp pts.
11th level exp pts.
15th level money
15th level exp pts.
16th level exp pts.

 

[Anubis]

Actually, when creating a character above Level 1, you do not reduce the character's XP at all. there is a specific rule in the DMG that applies.

It says to count a charged item as half its full value and then roll for the number of charges left, and items the character can create are valued at 70% of their actual values. Charged items that the character can create count at 35% of their actual costs.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Average party level?

Anyway, I give out a certain number of XP to a player and say, "create a character with 3000 XP".

Under normal circumstances that would make him 3rd level with 2700 gp. But if she decide to create her own magical items she must spend the XP to do so, eg 300 XP. That would make her a 2nd level character.

I still give the gp as if she were 3rd level, though.

I am after all not a Dire Rat Bastard DM.

 

[Anubis]

Also, character wealth by level is a bit hard to come by considering a character accumulates wealth throughout a level.

As such, a fair DM should calculate how close to the next level a character is, take that percentage, and multiply it by the amount of wealth between levels, then add that to the wealth of the level to get that actual wealth.

Example:

Level 14, 100,000 XP

91,000 needed for 14, 105,000 needed for 15

That puts the character 64% of the way to the next level (9000/14000). That means the character's wealth should be equivilant.

The character gets 150,000 gp for being level 14, but also gets an additional 32,000 gp for being 64% of the way to the next level (0.64 x 50000), giving the character a total of 182,000 gp.