Starting Gold and Leveled Wealth/Gear Value

[Kalshane]

The only time I use the wealth tables is for designing NPCs and for characters entering the game at higher than 1st level. I have yet to get any complaints from my players about lack of loot or unfair distribution.

As for starting cash, Frank the DM has covered the reasoning pretty well. If everyone had equal starting cash, either the fighter is going to be hurting for gear, or else the monk is going to load up on tanglefoot bags, depending on which way you change the amounts.

 

[FireLance]

My group adopts the approach that every time a character gains a level, his equipment refreshes to the standard wealth guidelines for his new level. 1st-level characters start out with 300 gp worth of equipment, and when they reach 2nd level, they replace their existing gear with 900 gp of new stuff. The player may justify this in any manner he pleases: perhaps a relative gives him a gift, or he has unlocked new abilities of an existing item, or he earns a reward of some kind. The standard handwave is that the characters belongs to organizations that supplies them with gear appropriate to their level.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Do you audit your PCs at various levels and see if they fit the expectations in the DMG?

Actually, truth be told, I keep my data in an Excel worksheet. Every character in the game (PC's and adventuring NPCs) have their own homemade Excel spreadsheet. I then have a master Spreadsheet that has direct links to the PC/NPC worksheets. This gives me easy access to everything I nee to know about the PCs midgame at the tip of my fingertips without having multiple worksheets open. One of the functions on that spreadsheet tracks individual and combined PC wealth as wealth as what I call material wealth (wealth invested in posessions).

So, yes. I keep track of it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Actually, truth be told, I keep my data in an Excel worksheet. Every character in the game (PC's and adventuring NPCs) have their own homemade Excel spreadsheet. I then have a master Spreadsheet that has direct links to the PC/NPC worksheets. This gives me easy access to everything I nee to know about the PCs midgame at the tip of my fingertips without having multiple worksheets open. One of the functions on that spreadsheet tracks individual and combined PC wealth as wealth as what I call material wealth (wealth invested in posessions).

So, yes. I keep track of it.

I too keep track of things via a series of linked Excel spreadsheet. I keep the players' character sheets between sessions and just update any changes that occurred between sessions. This helps me to see exactly what a player has and what he is lacking in terms of magic items so that I can "plan" treasure for future adventures.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Mark CMG]

While I keep track of what the characters have, I was talking to a guy at my FLGS (Games Plus) who does regular audits and he told me that his game sessions were incredibly easier to plan since doing so. He's been DMing since the 80's and only started doing audits since about the middle of this 3.x era but he says that he no longer has the unwanted surprizes of finding his PCs in over their heads (or cakewalking) and having to fudge his dice or heavily adjust his games in EL on the fly.

 

[Numion]

I don't actively track wealth. In one campaign I checked the characters once they hit around level 17 and one character had 75% of the suggested wealth while another had close to 200%.

That was a surprise, but it didn't seem to affect much.

 

[delericho]

With PC wealth meant to be equal at all levels above first, and if the characters are all starting at the same time, does having them start with random, and unequal, wealth truly make sense?

Perhaps not, but it's necessary, as others have covered.

Do you audit your PCs at various levels and see if they fit the expectations in the DMG?

Occasionally, just to make sure they're not wildly off the expected amounts, and to make sure there's not a great disparity between characters. If there is, I'll correct over the next few weeks, but dropping the amount of available treasure, or raising it, and by adding more class-specific items suited to the hurting character.

What of the disparity between first level NPCs and PCs and how this effects the lowest levels of play?

What about when that disparity flips only a couple of levels later, what effect does that have on the pace and tenor of the game?

This hasn't ever caused me any problems.

 

[gizmo33]

In my gaming style, DnD is a resource management game. PCs look for wealth, they make important and tough decisions about spending money. They protect their stuff from theft. They make tough decisions about whether or not to use potions, scrolls, et. al. They make meaningful decisions about what to share, what to sacrifice, what to sell. Finding or losing stuff matters.

Finding a big pile of cash in one encounter doesn't mean the DM is going to start manipulating wealth levels in the next encounter. Using a potion in an encounter doesn't mean the DM is going to hand you one before the next. If my adventurer bursts through the door of some old chamber and finds a priceless ruby, then I basically know that I can stop looking for treasure since I've exceed my wealth level. If a street urchin steals that ruby later on, I can pretty much sit back and wait for the DM to dump a new one in my lap. Where's the "adventure" in that? Seems like a joke.

"DM audits" and guarranteed levels of wealth makes resource management pointless, though I guess resource management is just one possible aspect of the game. IMO auditing wealth is one step away from getting rid of dice. Getting rid of the "dungeon" - just step PCs through a series of encounters, and with each one say "you lose a resource point, and gain a wealth point". Why bother rolling dice or presenting choices to the players when in the long-term it's just a facade?

 

[frankthedm]

Iron heroes may be worth looking into for those who like being able to say **** the magic items.

 

[Stalker0]

I do audits every so often. It has been useful, as I did find some big descrepencies among my players in wealth, and I was able to correct that later. Also, it helps to give me some guidelines for the CRs I throw at them...a 10th level character with 11th level gold is often more an 11th level character than a 10th.