HEADLINE: HELL FREEZES OVER
Yikes, Sonofapreacherman, UK, and I all accept the new formula! Wow! Well then, since I'm on a roll, I might as well reveal my next proposal!
This next one has to do with wealth and trasure. As I'm sure most have already figured out, the old treasure tables do not work when coupled with the new EL system and the new PC wealth formula. First, UK's formula gives far more wealth at low levels and far less wealth at high levels. Second, the current treasure tables work off of EL and are designed to work with the DMG's wealth tables, and this new system is a significant change. Third, wealth increases even more when one EL encompasses many levels, making a linear system seem unworkable. In light of all these facts, one would think that wealth and treasure get terribly broken under the new system. This is mostly true unless you work out properly. After three seperate attempts, I believe I have finally found the solution.
I'll skip all the mistakes I made and get right to the results here. In order to figure out how much treasures should be worth, you must find out how many levels it takes to reach the next EL up and then calculate the wealth increase. Divide that by 13 1/3 (the number of encounters it should take to reach the next level) and then by the number of levels in that EL (which doesn't come into play until middle levels) and then you have the ideal value of a treasure of that level. From there, simply give treasure based on the EL.
Before I go on, I will post a table of the wealth of Levels 1-40, because that is the scope of my initial findings and the most likely used levels. These numbers are all derived from the new PC wealth formula.
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PC Wealth
Level 1 0
Level 2 800
Level 3 2,700
Level 4 6,400
Level 5 12,500
Level 6 21,600
Level 7 34,300
Level 8 51,200
Level 9 72,900
Level 10 100,000
Level 11 133,100
Level 12 172,800
Level 13 219,700
Level 14 274,400
Level 15 337,500
Level 16 409,600
Level 17 491,300
Level 18 583,200
Level 19 685,900
Level 20 800,000
Level 21 926,100
Level 22 1,064,800
Level 23 1,216,700
Level 24 1,382,400
Level 25 1,562,500
Level 26 1,757,600
Level 27 1,968,300
Level 28 2,195,200
Level 29 2,438,900
Level 30 2,700,000
Level 31 2,979,100
Level 32 3,276,800
Level 33 3,593,700
Level 34 3,930,400
Level 35 4,287,500
Level 36 4,665,600
Level 37 5,065,300
Level 38 5,487,200
Level 39 5,931,900
Level 40 6,400,000
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Now I will give my proposal exactly as I gave it to UK. Here is the proposal as I originally wrote it in my e-mail to UK:
Anyway, I've been thinking very hard about this, and I think I have come up with a solution. The ONLY possible bad thing about the solution is that wealth gained during gaming would not exactly match wealth from the tables at certain points. Then again, I don't know a single campaign where those tables are followed to the number, so the differences are within acceptable limits. All things considered, it all balances out in the end because although you get more treasure at the low end of a particular EL, you get less treasure at the high end of the same EL. All in all it's the ONLY solution that works at ALL levels.
Indeed, you must give out treasure PER EL (as you guessed at one point), and have a specific level of treasure for each EL. This of course would normally give us the problem of giving more treasure to higher level characters within the same EL, right? WRONG. By taking the average needed for every level within a given EL, you get an average amount of treasure per encounter within that EL.
In order to do this, though, you must change things at ALL levels, not just epic levels. I present to you the following chart:
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EL Treasure Value Treasure Level
1-4 240 1
5-6 570 2
7-8 1,110 4
9 1,830 6
10 2,730 7
11 3,810 8
12 5,070 9
13 7,320 11
14 10,920 12
15 15,240 14
16 20,280 15
17 29,280 16
18 43,680 18
19 60,960 19
20 81,120 20
21 117,120
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For every value that is within the parameters of the DMG, I went ahead and assigned a Treasure Level from the DMG. The first column is the EL of the encounter. The second column is what the value of a treasure from such an encounter should be in order to keep PCs with wealth parameters. The third column gives us the Treasure Level from the DMG to use that matches those values, as per p.170 of the DMG. Five Treasure Levels will of course never be used, but that's okay. Each Treasure Level indicated gives an average of the indicated amount of treasure and thus keeps PCs within wealth guidelines. Over Treasure Level 20, it is of course up to the DM to assign treasure that is worth a total of about the given value, as per the suggestions in the ELH about not randomly generating epic treasure.
The numbers in the second column were obtained through a method similar to the one I gave you before for obtaining treasure values per level. The formula seems more complex, but it actually isn't and this is unfortunately the only way to get accurate treasure numbers. It's no more complicated than your entire CR system. The formula is as follows:
{ [ (calculated wealth for first level of next EL) - (calculated wealth for bottom level of current EL) ] *4 } / 13 1/3 / (number of levels in current EL)
That looks even more intimidating than before, of course, and likely needs explanation. What it means is subtract the wealth of the bottom level of the current EL from the wealth of the bottom level of the next EL up (because that's how much wealth should be accumulated through that particular EL), multiply the result by 4, and then divide it by 13 1/3. Then finish it up by dividing the result by the number of levels within the current EL. Remember that by the system, 13 1/3 encounters is the technical norm, and that is where I got the number of course. Now it is time for an example to explain. The following is how you get the value of an EL 21 treasure:
EL 21 = Levels 32-39
EL 22 = Levels 40-47
PC Level 40 (bottom level of EL 22) Wealth: 6,400,000
PC Level 32 (bottom level of EL 21) Wealth: 3,276,800
6,400,000 - 3,276,800 = 3,123,200
3,123,200 * 4 = 12,492,800
12,492,800 / 13 1/3 = 936,960
936,960 / 8 (number of levels within EL 21) = 117,120
As I said, PERFECT. This finally fixes the problems with wealth and treasure, assuming you use the wealth formula that has been settled upon for PCs. I know this is a bit complex, but then again, it's 255% necessary. You changed the way to CR/EL system works, which breaks the current treasure system by default because it was run based around the old CR/EL system. As such, there were bound to be complications when wealth was changed, and as such, treasure needed to be changed right along with it.
Anyway, problem solved.
Questions? Comments?
