To Reimburse or Not to Reimburse?

[FireLance]

Sometime I'm going to run a goofy Diablo style campaign, so I can say "Let's cut the crap: you know what you want, and I want to give it to you. So when a monster dies, you get to choose which item mysteriously pops out of its corpse."

Eh, I get enough of that in video games. I'd much prefer a more traditional approach, such as a noble, some rich merchant, a wizard, a high priest, or some other local bigwig thanking the PCs for what they have done and offering each of them a magic item of their choice of up to X level as a reward.

 

[Wormwood]

I guess this is why I removed the magical economy from my game entirely.

Players come up with Wish Lists as normal, increasing their chances of finding higher level items during their adventures. If they want any other items of their level or lower, they must make them themselves (using rituals). A great way for them to spend their money, btw.

If they find themselves with spare items they no longer want, they simply Disenchant them (for 20% value in residuum) and proceed as normal.

No shopping, no haggling. They are on their own.

edit: and to address the OP's point: I've found that poor financial decisions in this regard are self correcting. Putting the entire magic economy in the hands of my players encourages prudence and forethought. After all, *I'm* not punishing them for bad decisions---*they* are.

 

[S'mon]

It's an extreme situation, but there ya go. Should the PC be 20k behind expected wealth for the rest of the campaign, or should the DM cut him some slack the next time he plans a loot drop?

I think the best approach is for the GM not to track/tailor wealth in the manner you suggest, but take a more objective approach to treasure placement. I prefer giving the PCs opportunities to acquire plenty of wealth, more than wealth-per-level, but not ever guarantee acquisition.

What the GM can do at higher level is keep an eye on whether PC magic items are better than, similar to, or less than the expected standard, since in extreme cases the PCs may operate at slightly higher or lower than expected level, and that is worth knowing. However the way 4e wealth scales the difference is very unlikely to be more than 1 "plus", which is not a huge deal.

Edit: In your example it looks like the PCs sold the sword for 25K, then the merchant only wants 25K to sell it back?! That seems very unlikely; even if the PC is the king and the merchant his retainer, he'll still want a profit. I'd normally have the merchant charge at least double what he paid for it, unless he owed the PCs a big favour or was in a weak position vis-a-vis them, in which case a smaller profit might be ok, maybe as low as 20% (4K on a 20K sale) in extreme cases. Per the 4e RAW he'd want 125K.

 

[firesnakearies]

Speaking of the guidelines in the 4E Dungeon Master's Guide, at least, the game obviously "expects" you to "lose" slightly more than a third of your total wealth gained as you level up. (Or at least, it accounts for a loss of 1/3 of your wealth in what it expects characters of a certain level to "need".)

Here's the evidence:

Leveling up a character from brand new to 11th level, your share of all of the treasure parcels gained in levels 1 through 10 is . . . 49,439 total gp value.

Making a new character starting at 11th level, the DMG grants you . . . 32,000 total gp value.

....

Leveling up a character from brand new to 21st level, your share of all the treasure parcels gained in levels 1 through 20 is . . . 1,285,439 total gp value.

Making a new character starting at 21st level, the DMG grants you . . . 832,000 total gp value.

I didn't bother to continue the math to 30th level, but at both the 11th and 21st level marks, the "expected necessary wealth" is a bit more than 1/3 less than the "total earnable wealth".

So, there you have it.


$

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Edit: In your example it looks like the PCs sold the sword for 25K, then the merchant only wants 25K to sell it back?! That seems very unlikely; even if the PC is the king and the merchant his retainer, he'll still want a profit. I'd normally have the merchant charge at least double what he paid for it, unless he owed the PCs a big favour or was in a weak position vis-a-vis them, in which case a smaller profit might be ok, maybe as low as 20% (4K on a 20K sale) in extreme cases. Per the 4e RAW he'd want 125K.

Whoops, typo!

I guess this is why I removed the magical economy from my game entirely.

In my own campaign, I've done so as well. There are no enhancement bonuses, so my players don't need magical toys. Which is good because I'm very irresponsible when it comes to loot.

Speaking of the guidelines...

You're right that selling old stuff for pennies is part of 4e's plan, but I don't think the starting-above-1st-level wealth guidelines are meant to be any accurate indication. If you plot out all the loot that a PC gains over the levels via default parcels, you'll see that the new character guideline is only roughly accurate from about 4th level to 7th. Heck, by 14th level or so a character who started at level 1 should have six or seven items!

 

[keterys]

If you assume that 3/5 of a character's old items are wasted (nothing else, because you've got your primary 3 slots - weapon, neck, armor - that get replaced every 5 levels) you'll find those guidelines work out a lot better than you're imagining.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

If you assume that 3/5 of a character's old items are wasted (nothing else, because you've got your primary 3 slots - weapon, neck, armor - that get replaced every 5 levels) you'll find those guidelines work out a lot better than you're imagining.

Actually if you assume that only weapons/implements, armors and neck items are wasted, the guidelines look even more lopsided.

"Dude, where's my bling bling?"

 

[keterys]

I'd suggest removing the section for items over 30th level, fwiw... it detracts from the chart's usefulness at the high end.

That chart is useful for seeing the total value of goods that someone acquires, sure, but doesn't show what I expected to find - any kind of comparison to the guidelines, loss of treasure, etc. Is it just you making up a new suggested treasure by level guideline without saying why or how you're getting your values?

Just the other day I made a 21st level character by giving him items at every single level (level +2 as you get to each next level, like in your document). And at 21st level he's using 1x22nd, 1x20th, 1x18th, 3x16th, 1x14th, 1x12th, 1x10th, 1x7th. Plus he'd probably have a bit more 10th or lower things like salves of power if I converted a couple more things into residuum. Which is totally inline with what he'd have if he were created using the DMG guidelines. A couple of those are effectively converting level 19 items into 16ths, but those were more useful to him than the alternative. And yeah, upgrading to the new + every five levels is immensely notable.

It's even worse if you're talking about a dual wielding character, who will be trying to upgrade two weapons, armor, and neck.

And, again, I created a 14th level character for a game just the other day, and I've got better items than many of the people already in the game who've been getting full treasure (actually, probably at least double treasure based on what I could see)

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'd suggest removing the section for items over 30th level, fwiw... it detracts from the chart's usefulness at the high end.

You don't like the idea of cool bling -- and by that I mean items that the PCs can't make -- for high epic characters? I realize that it's outside of RAW, but I do think it's in the spirit of 4e's "every PC should have a special toy or two that can't be made" philosophy.

That chart is useful for seeing the total value of goods that someone acquires, sure, but doesn't show what I expected to find - any kind of comparison to the guidelines, loss of treasure, etc. Is it just you making up a new suggested treasure by level guideline without saying why or how you're getting your values?

The only change I made to the default parcel system is to assume that the DM converts half of each level's monetary parcel into an item equal to the PCs' level -- so that each character gets a new toy every level. It ends the "Sorry Timmy, it's your level to lose out" situation, and it makes the math simpler -- but not different.

Beyond that, my chart is written with the assumption that weapon/implements, armors and neck items will be sold every 5 levels, and that other items will be sold every 10 levels. That still might be a bit generous, but it is by no means outside of the game's assumptions.

And, again, I created a 14th level character for a game just the other day, and I've got better items than many of the people already in the game who've been getting full treasure (actually, probably at least double treasure based on what I could see)

If you say it is so, then it must be so. Yet I wonder whether your DM really is using the default parcel system, and whether you're using the new PC guidelines that I'm thinking of (one item of level +1, one item of level +0, one item of level -1, and cash equal to the value of the latter). Because using the default parcel system a 14th level character should have about 12 items, plus cash parcels.

Or maybe you're simply a wiser spender than the other players. (Or maybe the DM's been giving the other players crap items.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The 20% price is not that unreasonable...

Just think about the risk the merchant takes, buying an item which he may or may not sell ever again...

If PCs however find a real magic item shop, where you can trade magic items directly without using money... then we would rather look at a 50 - 70% ratio...

The best ratio would be trading with other adventurers... there you should be able to get a 1:1 ration if you have an item they can use...

20% is the minimum price you always get, because the merchant can just disenchant item if he does not have a use for it.