Starting Gold

[mvincent]

Using excel I managed to develop a 6th order polynomial that (usually) gets the thousands digit correct.

You have a formula to calculate starting gp? What is it? Most of us know the formula for calculating XP per level, and I know that expected gold is fairly close to your XP for levels 1-10, but I haven't found an actual formula.

 

[DanMcS]

Using excel I managed to develop a 6th order polynomial that (usually) gets the thousands digit correct. With some judicious rounding (and guesswork) such a tool might help you.

Just don't use it for 1st level. . . 4624 gold, 6 silver and 2 copper.


. . . it kinda makes me wonder where they came up with the numbers in the first place.

They just made them up.

I'm impressed that you got that to work, though. I tried to do that a year or so ago and couldn't get it to work right. Care to post the formula?

 

[DanMcS]

You have a formula to calculate starting gp? What is it? Most of us know the formula for calculating XP per level, and I know that expected gold is fairly close to your XP for levels 1-10, but I haven't found an actual formula.

There isn't an "actual" formula, just an approximation, that's why you need 6 degrees of factors to get it to work. Ie

Ax^5 + Bx^4 + Cx^3 + Dx^2 + Ex^1 + F = starting gold for level x.

 

[hafrogman]

Yes, it was a joke mostly. Even at the sixth degree, it's still horribly innacurate. It's simply a regression line fitted to the data points. The exact formula I came up with is at work, but it started with 0.08(level)^6, it's hardly easy math to do in your head. Perhaps with more sophisticared programs one could make a better equation, but it would still be so needlessly complex that you'd be far better off trying to simply memorize the values.

 

[Bront]

Using excel I managed to develop a 6th order polynomial that (usually) gets the thousands digit correct. With some judicious rounding (and guesswork) such a tool might help you.

Just don't use it for 1st level. . . 4624 gold, 6 silver and 2 copper.


. . . it kinda makes me wonder where they came up with the numbers in the first place.

I wan;t to be 1st level in your campaigns

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Oddly enough the Psionic SRD contains starting gold for psionic PCs.