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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benimoto" data-source="post: 4264611" data-attributes="member: 40093">First, thanks for the well thought out and enlightening post, KarinsDad.I think that just as a naval wargame would bog down with realistic movement scales, you have to accept accelerated advancement in a game like D&D to keep things moving along.  In other words I agree that yes, the rate of money (and XP) advancement in a standard D&D campaign is probably 10 times any sort of "realistic" rate.So, imagine that instead of having $12,000 laying around in their lair, the kobolds have $1,200.  That's more realistic, perhaps.  But then it would also be more realistic that an adventurer might adventure for 2-3 years before hitting the level of a professional soldier (level 3-4?).  The advancement is accelerated to keep the game moving at a satisfying reate.In regards to the adventurers picking up 17 million laying around at epic levels, that actually sounds about right to me.  Think if it in the same terms as you thought out your base level 1 costs.  At paragon levels, you're dealing with monsters that are untouchable by almost any amount of rabble or conscripts.  Monsters like the elite ogres or adult dragons can fight dozens or hundreds of professional soldiers and expect to win.  To deal with them on their level, you have to break out the big stuff.  In modern terms, by level 15 or so, the fighter's sword might cost as much as an M1 Abrams tank, or perhaps $2 to 4 million.  Since a level 15 magic item costs 25,000 gold, we're on the right scale here.At epic levels, you're dealing with stuff that has no modern parallel aside from at the movies.  A monster you might fight at level 29 is the Tarrasque, a threat to whole nations who could only compare to stuff like Godzilla or the Cloverfield monster.  In Cloverfield, the monster only flinches, when directly hit by air support.  Since the $137 million F-22 Raptor would be about a level 26-27 magic item by your scale, I think we're in the right ballpark.  Adventurers who can deal with not one but several of those kinds of threats in a day finding $17 million laying around sounds about right.  The economic damage is not even a factor.  It's clear that by the time those kinds of threats are out in the open that the entire world is imperiled.But, as I mentioned earlier I do consider the wealth and perhaps XP advancement rates accelerated by perhaps an order of magnitude.  This is done to keep things advancing at an interesting rate, and perhaps to make it so that the adventurers can hit level 30 before they're too far into middle age.As a side note, the factor of five you refer to in your title, as you've already discovered, refers to the utility of each "+" in the magic item world.  What I'm not sure I saw mentioned in the thread is that in 4e as it's designed, this is directly related to the 20% sell rate.  The low sell rate in 4e seems designed to make it clear that you are expected to use the magic stuff you find.  It's a deliberate decision that by selling stuff considered non-useful you get the equivalent wealth of an item five levels lower.  Changing the cost advancement rate will also tip this out of balance.  I can't pretend I've had enough experience with 4e to predict what effect this will have, but I just wanted to point it out.</blockquote>

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