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The characters in my game have recovered a bunch of gear from NPCs and creatures they defeated. How do I determine the Wealth bonus from the items they found?
The straightforward, simple, by-the-book method for Wealth awards from adventures is to simply grant a Wealth award as directed on page 204.
If the heroes recover a bunch of gear from NPCs, they can divvy it up and sell it individually. For example, one character gets the NPC's assault rifle, another takes his night-vision goggles, and a third gets his laptop. Each individual hero can then keep his share if he wants to use it, or sell it according to the rules on page 94.
You can also let the characters ``sell'' cash, if you prefer to give cash instead of the Wealth awards listed on page 204. For example, instead of giving the party an overall Wealth bonus of +6 for an encounter, you might give them $1,600. Splitting it up among 4 characters, they each get $400-the equivalent of purchase DC 15 (from Table 7-1 on page 204). Each character gains Wealth as if selling an item with a purchase DC of 15. Remember that the sale value is equal to the purchase DC minus 3-that rule applies even when ``sellin'' cash. "
"I'm running a real-world (no FX or GeneTech) campaign with a mafioso theme, where the players will be playing mafia family members fighting against corporatized, corrupt law enforcement. However, it occurred to me that the Wealth system, while effective and well-conceived, doesn't seem to cover something I need to cover. For example, the mafioso characters bust up a rival family's drug deal. There's $100,000 in cash in a couple of a briefcases. The characters take it (obviously), but how would that effect their Wealth rating? Do I instead assign the briefcase a 'modifier value', like "there's +10 Wealth in that briefcase" and split it up between the four players? Or can I do the following, which a friend and I brainstormed earlier: The $100,000 goes into a Pocket Wealth modifier, which can be used to lower Purchase DCs of items they want/need. For example, hypothetically, I turn the $100,000 into a 20 Wealth points. Each player gets 5, with which they can lower the DC of something/things they want. Like they want to buy a gun with a DC of 17, so instead they use 3 of the points to lower the DC to 14, so it takes the pressure off their personal Wealth modifier. Does this make sense? Will it horribly unbalance the Wealth system? Does it even work?
I recommend approaching this from another angle. Rather than deciding in advance that the briefcase contains X much money, and then trying to convert that into Wealth, start instead by determining an appropriate Wealth reward for the encounter (or adventure), and then convert that into dollars. (Remember, it's the Wealth reward that matters--the dollar amount is really just flavor.) In this case, if you're planning this briefcase to be the reward for an EL 5 encounter, Table 7-3 (page 204) recommends a Wealth bonus of +8. As GM, you could then arbitrarily decide to describe the briefcase as containing, perhaps, somewhere around $20,000 (or whatever). The important thing isn't really the amount of cash--it's the bonus to Wealth. "
Those are from the online FAQ and Errata, listed at: http://www.otherniceman.net/download/
The characters in my game have recovered a bunch of gear from NPCs and creatures they defeated. How do I determine the Wealth bonus from the items they found?
The straightforward, simple, by-the-book method for Wealth awards from adventures is to simply grant a Wealth award as directed on page 204.
If the heroes recover a bunch of gear from NPCs, they can divvy it up and sell it individually. For example, one character gets the NPC's assault rifle, another takes his night-vision goggles, and a third gets his laptop. Each individual hero can then keep his share if he wants to use it, or sell it according to the rules on page 94.
You can also let the characters ``sell'' cash, if you prefer to give cash instead of the Wealth awards listed on page 204. For example, instead of giving the party an overall Wealth bonus of +6 for an encounter, you might give them $1,600. Splitting it up among 4 characters, they each get $400-the equivalent of purchase DC 15 (from Table 7-1 on page 204). Each character gains Wealth as if selling an item with a purchase DC of 15. Remember that the sale value is equal to the purchase DC minus 3-that rule applies even when ``sellin'' cash. "
"I'm running a real-world (no FX or GeneTech) campaign with a mafioso theme, where the players will be playing mafia family members fighting against corporatized, corrupt law enforcement. However, it occurred to me that the Wealth system, while effective and well-conceived, doesn't seem to cover something I need to cover. For example, the mafioso characters bust up a rival family's drug deal. There's $100,000 in cash in a couple of a briefcases. The characters take it (obviously), but how would that effect their Wealth rating? Do I instead assign the briefcase a 'modifier value', like "there's +10 Wealth in that briefcase" and split it up between the four players? Or can I do the following, which a friend and I brainstormed earlier: The $100,000 goes into a Pocket Wealth modifier, which can be used to lower Purchase DCs of items they want/need. For example, hypothetically, I turn the $100,000 into a 20 Wealth points. Each player gets 5, with which they can lower the DC of something/things they want. Like they want to buy a gun with a DC of 17, so instead they use 3 of the points to lower the DC to 14, so it takes the pressure off their personal Wealth modifier. Does this make sense? Will it horribly unbalance the Wealth system? Does it even work?
I recommend approaching this from another angle. Rather than deciding in advance that the briefcase contains X much money, and then trying to convert that into Wealth, start instead by determining an appropriate Wealth reward for the encounter (or adventure), and then convert that into dollars. (Remember, it's the Wealth reward that matters--the dollar amount is really just flavor.) In this case, if you're planning this briefcase to be the reward for an EL 5 encounter, Table 7-3 (page 204) recommends a Wealth bonus of +8. As GM, you could then arbitrarily decide to describe the briefcase as containing, perhaps, somewhere around $20,000 (or whatever). The important thing isn't really the amount of cash--it's the bonus to Wealth. "
Those are from the online FAQ and Errata, listed at: http://www.otherniceman.net/download/
