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<blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 5844659" data-attributes="member: 70707">First, D&amp;D originally did have &quot;wealth by level&quot;, in a way.&nbsp; The bulk of XP was directly from treasure.&nbsp; So it was reasonable to assume a significant fraction of XP, by level, was also what they could be expected to have in GP.Second, while &quot;don't assume magic items&quot; sounds nice and all, it lies in direct conflict with two other desirable things: game balance, and magic items that &quot;mean something&quot;.&nbsp; Any magic item that has any use to it at all, even if it isn't a bonus to a stat, is an increase in PC's power.&nbsp; If game balance is desired, there needs to be some sort of mechanism to account for that.&nbsp; In 3E and 4E, it's by assuming a certain amount of magical gear.&nbsp; I suppose an alternative could be to add GP value of gear to XP, and use that to calculate an &quot;effective level&quot;.&nbsp; But that's rather complicated.It seems to me that most campaigns have magic items in them, so it makes sense to simplify things, and assume a certain level of magic.&nbsp; But even in campaigns that aren't light on magic, people seem to dislike the mere presence of that &quot;assumption&quot;.One possibility would be to treat XP, and GP (which would include Magic Items, at their GP value) as essentially interchangeable.&nbsp; In high magic campaigns, characters would receive, perhaps, equal amounts of XP and GP, and would face creatures significantly higher than their character level.&nbsp; In low-magic campaigns, characters would receive XP almost exclusively, and would fight monsters at their character level.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="dkyle, post: 5844659, member: 70707"] First, D&D originally did have "wealth by level", in a way. The bulk of XP was directly from treasure. So it was reasonable to assume a significant fraction of XP, by level, was also what they could be expected to have in GP. Second, while "don't assume magic items" sounds nice and all, it lies in direct conflict with two other desirable things: game balance, and magic items that "mean something". Any magic item that has any use to it at all, even if it isn't a bonus to a stat, is an increase in PC's power. If game balance is desired, there needs to be some sort of mechanism to account for that. In 3E and 4E, it's by assuming a certain amount of magical gear. I suppose an alternative could be to add GP value of gear to XP, and use that to calculate an "effective level". But that's rather complicated. It seems to me that most campaigns have magic items in them, so it makes sense to simplify things, and assume a certain level of magic. But even in campaigns that aren't light on magic, people seem to dislike the mere presence of that "assumption". One possibility would be to treat XP, and GP (which would include Magic Items, at their GP value) as essentially interchangeable. In high magic campaigns, characters would receive, perhaps, equal amounts of XP and GP, and would face creatures significantly higher than their character level. In low-magic campaigns, characters would receive XP almost exclusively, and would fight monsters at their character level. [/QUOTE]

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