d20 Modern wealth rules

[Urpriest]

I'm planning to run a game that mixes 3.5 and d20 Modern rules. I was considering using the d20 Modern wealth system, but I've heard some criticism of it. I'd rather use it than a gold or credits system because I want wealth to be more of an abstract standard of living than some sort of giant pool of easily exchanged liquid wealth. The players should be able to own a house or a spaceship without being able to just sell it and buy enough dorjes to take over a planet.

Is the d20 Modern wealth system reasonably usable? Any major pitfalls? If it's a bad idea, is there a better system out there to use? One of the benefits of d20 Modern is the Urban Arcana rules for converting magic item prices to purchase DCs, since this system will have magic (or more correctly psionic) items, and I'd like some way to find prices for these without having to handle every item individually.

[Gabe the Bard]

It seems like an interesting system, but are there limits for how much stuff you can own? It seems like you only need to make checks when you buy things, and it only matters when you buy something really expensive. You would have a problem if your characters can keep on buying an endless supply of moderately expensive items that don't affect their wealth bonus.

[Z3ro]

Just be aware that it can be horribly abused. I remember a D20 modern campaign I played in once that resulted in one player starting at something like level 5 with some insane wealth level, basically being able to own anything in the book without decreasing his wealth (I don't remember the details). As long as you are aware of this and no one intentionally breaks it, the system works fine.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I'm planning to run a game that mixes 3.5 and d20 Modern rules. I was considering using the d20 Modern wealth system, but I've heard some criticism of it. I'd rather use it than a gold or credits system because I want wealth to be more of an abstract standard of living than some sort of giant pool of easily exchanged liquid wealth. The players should be able to own a house or a spaceship without being able to just sell it and buy enough dorjes to take over a planet.

Is the d20 Modern wealth system reasonably usable? Any major pitfalls? If it's a bad idea, is there a better system out there to use? One of the benefits of d20 Modern is the Urban Arcana rules for converting magic item prices to purchase DCs, since this system will have magic (or more correctly psionic) items, and I'd like some way to find prices for these without having to handle every item individually.

What Z3ro said. It's perfectly usable as long as you and the players go into it with the understanding that no one is going to abuse it. I like it for the simple reason that, at a certain level, players shouldn't have to worry about the cost of basic equipment like...weapons, ammo, and armor (barring special ones of course) or, at a certain point, certain consumable items. The Wealth system, for all it's faults, handles that very problem. At a certain level of Wealth, players are only going to lose Wealth on expensive things and don't have to worry about losing all their money buying simple equipment, just finding somewhere to buy it from.

The badside is it IS breakable and not particularly hard to break at that. One fix for this is to introduce a rule for when players 'buy in bulk'. If they buy, say, more then four/five of any one item in one sitting then instead of handling the wealth on each separately have each item after the first add +1 to the Purchase DC of the first item and just calculate that instead. That way, assuming your players start buying small things in massive bulk, they are still expending resources to do so. Otherwise they don't have to sweat the small stuff like...duct tape any more.

[Urpriest]

What about the magic item pricing rules? I'd like psionic items to be relatively common in this setting (the setting is kind of a psionic Tippyverse, I had an earlier thread on it for those who remember). Does using d20 Modern rules for magic item pricing make magic items about as attainable as in D&D, or are they dramatically less or more attainable?

[mucat]

It seems like an interesting system, but are there limits for how much stuff you can own? It seems like you only need to make checks when you buy things, and it only matters when you buy something really expensive. You would have a problem if your characters can keep on buying an endless supply of moderately expensive items that don't affect their wealth bonus.

Any time you're using an abstract wealth system, you need to tell your players up front that you're trusting them not to abuse it. The fact that you're not trying to track every purchase will automatically leave open some loopholes where people try to make a ridiculous number of "under the radar" purchases which don't individually affect their wealth level.

I've even seen a player try to justify this as logical in-character behavior: "Since my character knows that items under $200 don't lower her wealth, of course she'd fill her garage with every existing tool up to that price."

So you have to make sure your players understand that the wealth system is an OOC concept; it does not exist in the game world. When your character opens her bank statement, she doesn't see "Wealth level 17"; she sees actual numbers. The wealth system means we're not bothering to keep track of those exact numbers...but they still exist in-world, and abusing the system just reintroduces the need to track numbers after all, which is not good for the game.

If a character has a legitimate reason to buy 60 digital cameras, great; estimate their total cost, and treat it as one purchase. If he's just buying them because each one is "free"...well, the first time they do that, I remind them what the wealth system is and why we're using it (and the purchase is canceled, unless they want to go ahead and treat it as one large purchase.) If they keep trying shenanigans, they simply lose a wealth level each time, with the in-game explanation being that the character got burned by investing in silly get-rich quick schemes. :smallbiggrin:

[Doonesman]

The other crucial point behind the d20 Modern wealth rules is that, in a society with a banking structure like the modern world, it's not as simple as "you have $200,000, here's a +2 flaming Uzi." What if your players get a loan? Or a mortgage? Do they have an overdraft? What about tax implications? Is their company-issued armoured personnel carrier considered a benefit-in-kind?

The idea is that wealth levels hide all this complicated stuff behind a simple number. Your wealth is 17, therefore you can afford this shotgun, but not this spaceship.

In short, if you're playing in a world with an advanced financial system (i.e., more than you can carry in a bag of holding), then the wealth system stands up provided you watch your players. Just like you'd drop the hammer on a player who didn't change his gp after a shopping trip, have no mercy on those who are clearly trying to manipulate the system. Otherwise you wind up like me - one player with a pair of Glocks and a pushbike, the other with a Lamborghini.

[Acanous]

I treat the wealth system as counting things like investments, savings, properties and loans.

That's why buying a bunch of items valued at under $200 doesn't actually impact wealth, if your character is making $6000 a week on the TSX.

Of course, things can go wrong, and pulling out money from your investments, even ones with great returns, means there's less to reinvest.

Enough small purchases will decrease wealth level.