Wealth in 4th Edition

[Goken100]

The new Wealth skill is an interesting idea, but totally impractical for most folks. 4E just isn't designed for new skills, and introducing a new one would upset the balance.

My suggestion is a group of new feats instead. Here are a few possibilities:

Noble's Purse
Requires: Training in Intimidate
You have the bearing of a noble, can move in noble circles, and accumulate and wield power and resources as an aristocrat. Imtimidate rolls determine success in attempts to wield power and influence for specific purposes.

Love Can Buy Me Money
Requires: Training in Streetwise
You become a beloved figure to the people of the streets. While you might appear humble, the pull you have with the masses allows you to wield surprising influence and resources toward your goals. Streetwise rolls determine success in attempts to wield power and influence for specific purposes.

Know Your Mark
Requires: Training in Insight
You always know who's got what you need. You can just understand people. And you understand where to go to find the coins you need and the favors to ask to procure what you want. With a few well placed requests, the wealth and influence of someone of much greater advantage is at your command. Insight rolls determine success in attempts to wield power and influence for specific purposes.

 

[avin]

Horrible metagaming, IMO.

 

[the Jester]

Horrible metagaming, IMO.

Yup. I hate the idea of just giving pcs magic items for leveling up- I mean, after all, sometimes they level up mid-adventure!

 

[Thasmodious]

4E just isn't designed for new skills, and introducing a new one would upset the balance.

That has certainly not been my experience, nor the experience of many house-rulers, custom and expanded skill lists are one of the easiest and most common hacks to make to 4e. How does adding a skill "upset the balance"?

On topic, I really like the idea. I've toyed with ways to abstract treasure in previous editions, the tedium of paying for arrows or a room and some food is just not part of my or my groups fun. I'm not sure I like it as a skill or pseudo-skill. While I like that it rises with level, representing the PCs growing wealth, I don't like that it isn't influenced by events (such as finding a dragon's hoard or other major treasure). The hunt for treasure is an iconic adventure motivator so I think finding treasure needs to have a direct impact on whatever system you use.

Savage Worlds uses the idea of ammunition levels to abstract ammunition use by the PCs allies, so you don't have to track bullets and arrows for every last NPC. After any fight in which the allies are involved their ammo level drops by one. The levels are Very High, High (the default), Low, and Out. It allows for the need for some resource management without tedium. I've used that idea for levels of other things in my SW games (like a spare parts level for repairing a ship in a scifi setting). Using something like this for wealth could work. Finding special treasure hauls could raise the level by one, while month by month the wealth level drops. Or each month or week, the PCs make a wealth check with success meaning they maintain their current level, failure meaning they go down one. Big purchases, like land, could automatically decrease their level. Just spitballin' here.

 

[Jhaelen]

There's several good rpg systems that use such a kind of abstract representation of wealth. In general, I prefer those systems to counting every penny.

However, I think, implementing wealth as a skill is not a good idea. Not at all. It might work as a combination of background benefit and a feat (that can be taken multiple times).