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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5844773" data-attributes="member: 54877">Let's try a tangent here for a second. How about character wealth guidelines, but serving a different purpose? In 3E/4E, the wealth guidelines are supposed to help you balance characters with expected challenges. And they sort of do, most of the time. But the system is not as robust as the wealth guidelines would have you believe. That's because the other pieces of the equation are things like "players", "DMs", and "adventure style". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Or if you prefer, the wealth guidelines pretend to a precision they don't have. It's been awhile since my chemistry class days, but wasn't there something about rounding with precision measurements? You multiply 2.00 by 3.000, you get 6.00--not 6, not 6.000 (or something like that). Your final measurement can only be as precise as the least precise of your source measurements. So why not simply admit that magic items aren't balanced, and leave them out of the equation? In fact, glory in it. Items can do all kinds of wacky stuff. Then, your wealth guidelines aren't telling you how much to provide to get balance, but how to recognize when you aren't happy with the balance, and what to do about it. Your group isn't all that tactical or strategic, and aren't getting any better at handling the challenges you want to throw at them? Give them more stuff! They are walking all over everything and feeling a bit unchallenged. Give them less stuff! Steal some of their existing stuff. (You may note resemblance to some early D&D advice. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />)  That is, magic items as a DM adjudicated "correction" lever will make the overall system more robust, not less--while allowing for a wilder and wider variety.  Naturally, this doesn't work as well for pick up Con games, RPGA events, and the like. Well, the RPGA is a special animal that should be setting its own wealth guidelines--not using the ones in the main rules, which may not work well for it. One-shot and other such adventures where you don't know the players should be set at the adventure level--perhaps based on what the DM is comfortable handling.  If your adventure features a gargoyle that requires +1 weapons to hit, then you need to see that the party has such weapons, can get them in the adventure, or you have an alternative or two for them to use.  Your choice. One size does not fit all, and pretending it does leaves everyone kind of "meh" on this issue.</blockquote>

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