D&D 5E Treasure Rolls & "a typical campaign"

[Reynard]

Oh, I agree [MENTION=6790771]Kikuras[/MENTION], good example with the XP system.

As an aside: I think how XP is handled has more to do with whether there is a forward moving "plot" (like an Adventure Path) or a more open, sandboxy game. That is just an impression, though, and I am sure there are millions of counter examples from both sides.

 

[Coredump]

XP is also something that is 'behind the scenes' and really only the purview of the DM. While giving detailed crafting and costs turns the DMG into a Sears catalog for players.

I will admit, the magic item creation 'rules' are junk. But I think the game is better because of it. I realize some folks would rather have it another way.... but I still think the game *overall* is better off.

Some players are already insisting that Death domain and Oathbreaker should be readily available for PCs.... if there was a price list it would create the expectation that anyone with 2K gp could grab a +1 sword.

And the creation times *have* to be very long, its the only way to explain the low amount of magic items in the world.

But hey, if you want more magic, go for it. You don't need prices for all bajillion items in the DMG, you only need prices for the few items the players are actively wanting.

 

[Kikuras]

It depends on whether the rules in question serve the overall design goals of the game, which crunchy item creation and economy rules apparently do not for 5E. You would not expect core 5E to include detailed rules regarding sanitation and disease transmission because 5E is not a game about gritty low fantasy. You might expect an article to appear in Dragon (if we had Dragon) or a supplement from a third party publisher (if we had those either). The things you include and exclude from the core rules, as well as those things you note as optional, define the tone and intent of the game. Despite some poor arguments to the contrary over the years, some even by designers, D&D is not and never has been a universal fantasy game engine. There is an overarching "D&D fantasy" genre and each edition has modified that genre through focusing on some things over others. 5 E is not the highly detailed crunchy game 3.x was (or is, including Pathfinder) and it seems strange to demand it be that game when those rules are still out there in perpetuity.

You can't discount the fact that there's an elaborate and detailed system for giving the characters gold, yet the system for using that aspect of the game is not even close to symmetrical.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I would have quite happily done away with pages on sanity & honor, lazer rifles, etc in favour of better magic item crafting /economy rules, even if it was just a "variant". Even better rules on scribing scrolls and brewing potions would have been something at least.

Although I dont personally want magic item prices, and prefer the DMG without them, I reckon the devs will put such a list into one of the future online columns. There is no harm giving such a list as an option for tables that want it. Everyone wins.

 

[Reynard]

You can't discount the fact that there's an elaborate and detailed system for giving the characters gold, yet the system for using that aspect of the game is not even close to symmetrical.

The system isn't especially well detailed or granular. First of all, the guidelines for how often the PCs are expected to find a hoard are (like many things in 5E) intentionally vague. Second, a pretty broad range of CRs rely on the same tables, indicating treasure is not especially tied to either difficulty or character level. There are lots of tables to roll on, so I'll grant you "elaborate" at least, but those tables are more of a throwback to older versions of the game: random tables are fun and add unexpected variety to the game.

That said, I totally agree that there are not enough interesting but otherwise (mechanically) unimportant things on which to spend that treasure PCs do find. Again, this is an area that Dragon used to excel at -- filling in those spaces that did not make it into the rule books because either there was not room or the designers had not thought of it. Can you tell I'm irritated at the lack of Dragon or an OGL?

 

[LostSoul]

page 128: "Magic items are the DM's purview, so you decide how they fall into the party's possession. As an option, you can allow player characters to craft magic items."

What follows are all the necessary guidelines for that process, including costs, time required, prerequisites and rules for combining effort. It even directs you to the guidelines for creating new items.

Notice how I used "guidelines" instead of "rules" above? That is because that is what 5E is really working toward and why it is, IMO, the best version of the game to come out in a very long time. D&D is not like chess or Monopoly or even Warhammer (or Chainmail, for that matter). Because it is a game that ultimately centers around stories (some people plan those stories out, others allow those stories to emerge, and most everyone does something between the two extremes) D&D suffers when encumbered by endless hard coded rules. Even Gygax, who is often associated with a my-way-or-the-highway attitude, wrote explicitely in the 1E DMG that everything in the gamebooks was a suggestion and a guideline.

If you want tight item creation rules and rules for the adventuring economy, implement them. It is too bad that WotC has not introduced an OGL or similar license because it would make finding such rules to implement much easier. But even as it is, searching message boards and blogs will invariably turn up those rules -- and there is nothing saying whatever official rules WotC might have come up with would have been any better than what dedicated fans can produce. Moreover, those kinds of rules don't fit within the framework of 5E as it is written. This is a version of the game that goes back to interpretation and adjudication on the part of the DM in many cases, even spells and class abilities (and not to even mention the definition of "hidden" -- oops, I did mention it). That is the game it is. So your options are to tweak the game to get it the way you want it (huzzah, I say!) or to choose a game that better fits what you are looking for (huzzah, I say, also!).

What really is not a viable option is grousing about how the design team failed because they put in a system that meshes absolutely perfectly with their design intent.

My view is different. Games provide decisions for players to make. They weight those decisions through their mechanics. While D&D is unique in that a lot of those decisions are based on imagined content (fiction), it still weights decisions - obviously, because otherwise you wouldn't have any decisions to make. This is a difficult thing to do; basically balance decisions against each other. That's what game design is all about.

It seems that 5E doesn't give spending GP the kind of weight that [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] would like - which means that CapnZapp can't make those decisions he or she would like, because there aren't any to be made. CapnZapp can provide that weight, but that's essentially game design, something you'd like to leave to the professionals.

I'm making my own game and while a lot of it relies on judgement calls from the DM - in order to bring the imagined content to the fore - balancing decisions around GP, XP, and in-game time is difficult and probably beyond me (though what I have seems to work okay). I don't think it's unfair to expect that WotC would have done that work already, especially when it was such a big part of a previous edition's play.

I'm not sure if the system they put into place meshes with their design intent - I don't know what their design intent was! What it seems is that they didn't design any decisions to be made around how getting or spending GP impacts the core game, namely adventuring in dangerous environments. To expect that what was one of the main rewards* of previous editions to be a reward in 5E doesn't strike me as strange; on the contrary, leaving out GP as a reward seems strange.

* - By reward I mean something like "game fuel": you play the game, you get the reward, and that deepens the complexity of the decisions you can make. For GP it would be something like: Adventure -> Get GP -> Spend GP -> new gear allows you to adventure in more places, assuming your decisions are good ones -> Adventure -> etc. (There's also the "domain" level of play that GP opens up; Spend GP -> Create Domain -> Adventure to maintain or expand Domain -> Get GP -> Expand Domain -> etc. It seems that this, too, is missing from 5E. Though I'd be surprised if they didn't release a detailed supplement for this sort of thing.)

 

[CapnZapp]

XP is also something that is 'behind the scenes' and really only the purview of the DM. While giving detailed crafting and costs turns the DMG into a Sears catalog for players.

The DMG will never be a Sears catalog because it is already printed and in your bookshelf. Of course you knew that

I will admit, the magic item creation 'rules' are junk.

Thank you.

Can you imagine how hard it is to find a voice of reason in this sea of madness?

But I think the game is better because of it. I realize some folks would rather have it another way.... but I still think the game *overall* is better off.

(Quoting mainly so nobody thinks I'm conveniently ignoring it...)

Our views differ, but I respect the opinion, especially since you're one of the honest few who doesn't pretend those magic item rules are good enough for us who need them.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's not like a magic item economy is a niche demand

and bring "too hard" to balance is not an excuse

Thank you.

Getting all warm and fuzzy here

 

[CapnZapp]

There is another solution for those that are incapable of operating using intentionally broad guidelines for treasure and the magic item economy: both the 3.5 and Pathfinder SRDs are readily available. Just import the item creation rules and item pricing whole cloth. Over time you 'll find inconsistencies and have to tweak them, but that's no different than converting adventures or monsters.

Thank you for the advice...

...but can I make one slight tweak to it?

Could I suggest someone doing that for me? Perhaps, I don't know, professional game designers? That way, I can actually pay them for their hard work, which is a win win scenario: not only do they not have to give it to me for free, I can also hold them to the quality of what I have purchased.

Do you happen to know of a rpg studio that would be suitable for the job? Mind you, they need to negotiate a D&D license to do it right. Unless you know of one that already owns the license?

Other than that, thanks Reynard for your excellent suggestion!

 

[CapnZapp]

I suspect they would take the criticism to heart. If I were CapnZapp, I would expect an apology at the least if not a special article to provide the information ASAP.

Let me make it clear I neither expect nor want an apology.