Handling WBL as a meta-resource

[Firechanter]

This is an idea I had quite a while ago, but now it looks like we're actually going to try it in a game. Some nicks and creases still need to be ironed out, though.

So first off, to explain, what does "meta-resource" mean? -- Essentially it means something not tangible by the character. Basically the same as Hitpoints -- you as player know exactly how many HP your character has, but the character wouldn't say "Oh my, I am down to 27 hit-points".

The idea is to treat mundane wealth and (magical) gear separately. The standard system has a few problems that have always bugged me, such as:
- a single weapon costing more than the armament of an entire division,
- on the other hand, an entire typial dragon's hoard amounting to not more than a single cubic foot of gold

Now for my concept how to fix that:
- Magic Items simply are not available for money (alone). List prices and WBL only count as "Wealth Points" and have nothing to do with ingame currency.
Example: the PCs loot a +3 Greataxe. If one of them keeps it, it counts as 18000WP towards his WBL limit. If they get rid of it - for example by selling it - they get half that amount, 9000WP, to split between their accounts. If they sell it, they may get 100GP for it or 50000GP.
- Now if however someone wants to enhance his armour from +2 to +3, he may have to pay a nominal fee in GP, could be 100GP, could be 10000GP, whatever is appropriate for the setting. The important thing is he pays 5000WP. If he can't pay the WP, no amount of GPs can buy the upgrade.
- similarly, expensive Material Components for spells are also to be paid with WP, in addition to what may be a nominal price in ingame currency, but even a Raise Dead will not fail for lack of diamonds as long as they can spend the WP.
- crafting items also requires WP equal to the regular GP creation cost.

This de-coupling of money and equipment gives the DM much more leeway with the tone of their campaign, without fouling up the game balance.
- For example, you can now run a low-cash op, where the adventurers are actually poor by mundane standards, even though their equipment is well on par for their level. Without having to resort to the crutch that is VoP.
- or vice versa, you can really get cracking, and have a dragon's hoard be worth meeeellyuns of dooooollaaars. The adventurers can swim in money, but still their equipment will be just adequate for their level, no more, no less.

What do you say, think this is workable? Anything I haven't considered? Just wanna make sure this thing doesn't explode in our face in the middle of the campaign.

[Malroth]

It might work, it might be that every item has the potential to contain magic but no amount of money can awaken its potential. Only great Deeds of Heroism or Villany and the accompaning fame that goes with them can cause the innate power of the items to work. That way PC's can "buy" legendary gear that allows them to handle new challenges even if their mundane wealth is so poor that they can barely afford a mule. Donating the stolen Holy Relic to the church generates the same amount of fame that can power other items that the cultists would have gotten from destroying it in their dark ritual, which mechanicly both happen to be the same amount of purchasing power they would have gotten from selling it.

[Glimbur]

Honestly, I think that WBL works better as a 'meta resource' than in character, because it explains why heroes swing swords that are worth more than countries.

I once ran a (short) campaign where magic could not be bought for gold. Instead, when you killed inherently magical critters, the raw magic came out of them. It looked rather like mercury. This could be used in a simple magic ritual (read: no skill checks or spellcasting required) to make items which you had the recipes for. It worked ok. I think they were level 3-4 over the course of the game.

Then I killed the party with a rogue straight from the DMG and a dinosaur/storm elemental. But that's another story.

[BowStreetRunner]

So, just to be clear about how your system would work, could you explain what would happen in the following cases?


A PC finds himself aboard a sinking ship and is forced to remove his armor, leave his belongings behind, and swim to shore with none of his items. Having lost everything, what happens to his WBL in your system?
A DM using this system manages to screw up and allow a PC to successfully gain access to a dragon hoard way before he should be able to pull it off. The PC wants to loot it, but the value is way above what should be allowed by his level. How is this handled in your system?
A PC gains access to a legacy weapon or to a relic whose full power he is not currently able to access. How do you calculate the WBL value of this item?
A PC gains an item he is unable to identify, but keeps it and eventually tries to use it blindly in battle. How does this work in your calculations?

[Firechanter]

"Fame", I like that.

Actually the test game will be a classical epic Good vs Evil yarn, so using meta-wealth also solves another headache: what does a Good party do with a bunch of looted Unholy or Hellforged weapons? Anyone you might want to sell them to will not want them. Anyone who might be interested to pay the usual price will be someone you wouldn't want to have the stuff.

Handing in the Evil loot to the church to destroy and gain Fame by that manner should work much more smoothly.

Will answer your questions in a bit.

[Malroth]

Good questions and something i just thought off spontaneously in 5 seconds wasn't able to answer that 100%

1) He looses his gear in a bizzare accident but lives to tell the tale. I'd say whatever WBL equivilent he's invested in those items is lost as well avalible to whatever young treasure hunter brave enough to salvage it from the briny depths. But the Survivor himself gains fame from surviving to tell his harrowing tale so whatever the next treasure he finds to replace his lost riches are bound to be even more spectacular.

2)He finds 3 and a half tons of useless yellow metal, he gets really drunk the next night, spends the money on women, expensive meals, Toadies currying favor, Repaying the loansharks, back taxes and some mysterious maps from some shady guy in the bar before waking up the next day broke and hungover. In the long run however he hasn't gained any more fame than the guy who charged into the burning orphanage to save their pet rabbit or the mad sorcerer who turned that village into Ducks.

3) Its WBL equivilent is however much he's invested in it, Your grandfather might have used this sword to kill at Titan in a single blow but it doesn't quite work right for you yet but you think you're working in the right direction. In fact thats probably going to be the norm for most magical items.

4)He gets hints of what it might do or might pretend to do in the case of a cursed item.

[Firechanter]

So, just to be clear about how your system would work, could you explain what would happen in the following cases?


A PC finds himself aboard a sinking ship and is forced to remove his armor, leave his belongings behind, and swim to shore with none of his items. Having lost everything, what happens to his WBL in your system?
A DM using this system manages to screw up and allow a PC to successfully gain access to a dragon hoard way before he should be able to pull it off. The PC wants to loot it, but the value is way above what should be allowed by his level. How is this handled in your system?
A PC gains access to a legacy weapon or to a relic whose full power he is not currently able to access. How do you calculate the WBL value of this item?
A PC gains an item he is unable to identify, but keeps it and eventually tries to use it blindly in battle. How does this work in your calculations?


Yeah, it's that kind of stuff that's a bit tricky... but actually less tricky than with the regular system, I believe. So here's my spontaneous take on the matter:

1. whether your gear is worth Gold or Fame, in either case it's gone for the moment, and it's the DM's responsibility to replace it asap. And that should be easier with a gold-less system, because the DM doesn't have to pull an enormous amount of treasures out of his arse to allow the adventurer to re-equip.

2. That's the beauty of it. Let them have the gold. They can spend it on Ale & Whores, they can buy a castle with it, they can stuff it under their mattress, but they can't buy magic stuff with it.

3. Well I never used Legacy weapons because we all know they suck, but basically it comes down to what Malroth says: you unlock the powers by investing the Fame.

4. TBH we've never made a big deal out of identifying items, so can't help you there. Except to note that a character doesn't need to maintain _exact_ WBL at all times; it's rather impossible to achieve in a normal game. So if a "sleeping" item skews the WBL a little bit for half a level or so, that's not so terrible.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The biggest hitch I see is in expendables. I understand shoving out the gold/diamonds for a Rez is supposed to dip into your collective wealth. But for other expendables, such as scrolls and potions, have much shorter use. A Rez, obviously, continues to pay for itself. Because your alive, not dead. But after a potion is quaffed, a scroll cast and the effect eventually wears off, there's your Wealth Points down the drain. Some kind of 'regeneration' of these lost WP would fix this issue, but the balancing between too quick regeneration means endless expendables. Too slow, and you end up with hoarded expendables or under WBL characters who invested in expendables early.

Obviously, the regeneration only takes place after the expendable is expended. Though for charged items, that may function a bit differently. I'd have to crunch numbers.

[Firechanter]

Good point. But can be solved easily.

Normally, if you cumulate the standard Treasure per Encounter over time, you get a figure that's on average 15% higher than the nominal WBL. This difference is the amount the designers figured you'd spend for Consumables.

So you may keep a separate pool for Consumables, worth 15% of your current WBL / Fame Point total.

Edit: it just occured to me that these 15% might also be in part planned as compensation for any losses incurred by exchanging a piece of gear completely.

Example, imagine you have a Full Plate +3 but you want a Mithral Full Plate. Can't help but get rid of the old armour. At 50% list price, you run a loss of 5000GP.

The Meta system thus discourages frequent equipment changes, because you lose points that way. It's preferable to hold back on adding enhancements until you get your "for keeps" item; typically a weapon or armour made of special materials.

[Glimbur]

You can also just throw extra Fame at them a few sessions/adventures after they raise their companion, or sell their gear for half, or do whatever to dip well below expected Magic Power Density.

Since the meta-resource is assigned entirely out of game, it is controlled by the DM with better verisimilitude: in the old system a party might say "we want to rob a bank/dragon/gold mine/etc" and in-game that is reasonable except that it will break WBL. With magic item access controlled at the meta-game level, you can say "you rob the dread dragon Avaeoin and acquire a massive pile of gems. In time your Fame will spread."

[BowStreetRunner]

You also have to consider that the Challenge Rating System takes into account how much of a party's resources are likely to be spent on the encounter. While this includes spells cast that have to be memorized again before they can be used, it also includes potions drunk and even arrows fired. Anything that impacts this may alter the effective CR of an encounter, depending on how sizable the shift in expendable resources.

[Firechanter]

After thinking about it a bit longer, it's probably the easiest solution if you just deal out Wealth Points / Fame at the same pace as you'd normally hand out Gold Pieces. In other words, about 15% more WP per level than the standard WBL is supposed to be. This extra margin serves as compensation for consumables, material components, and losses from item swaps/trade-ins.

So if the players are extra responsible with their Fame, use few consumables and carefully plan ahead their gear, they may come out a bit ahead of the line.
However, it cuts both ways -- if they are wasteful with their resource pool, they may end up a good deal below nominal WBL.

[Absol197]

I hesitate to mention it, but why not adapt the d20 Modern Wealth system?

Instead of having to track thousands of points, you only have to track a single modifier, and you wouldn't have to track individual pieces of gold.

I suppose you'd run into a problem you're trying to avoid where someone who loses an expensive piece of equipment may not have the funds to buy a replacement, and so is weaker than expected for their level, but otherwise it seems to be something along the lines of what you're trying to do.

[MrLemon]

Great Idea actually, I like it a lot.


Loot does not increase Fame, Fame automatically scales with level (or maybe XP for smoother progress). The total FP (Fame Point) cost of your items must not exceed your Fame.
Loot only increases actual Wealth, albeit at a reduced rate. For example, divide magic item costs by a flat 10, keep mundane prices (special materials are really expensive that way, which I endorse)

This way, players switching around their equipment more are not penalized.

Actually, this partly solves the consumables-problem, since your FP are only invested as long as you have that potion.
(This of course is quite metagamey and makes no ingame-sense)
Since you still permanently reduce your money by buying potions, it still works quite fine.

Expensive Materials like Diamond Dust are decoupled from the Fame system completely.


The next (large) step would be to integrate item crafting into this system, probably by completely abolishing all XP costs, flat, but only reducing the GP cost of the items, not the FP costs.

[Firechanter]

I hesitate to mention it, but why not adapt the d20 Modern Wealth system?


Just looked at it, but as I see it, it does the exact opposite of what I am trying to do. I want to separate monetary wealth and equipment quality, and I want to make the progression more reliable for the players. d20M keeps monetary wealth tied to equipment quality, and it also adds a gambling element to it.

So thanks for the suggestion, but no. ^^

[sdream]

I've been experimenting with something like this in a weekly game (started at lvl3, now at lvl 5, about a dozen sessions later)

The party travels with a cart of loot from foes, which is not exactly counted.

Defeating any encounter provides XP and loot.

The XP is added to their individual XP totals.

Those XP totals represent their single resource, and can be used to buy levels AND/OR gear (at 1xp=1gp).

Anything interesting in the loot can be bought as gear at half price (same as vendor sell price), whereas the cash and other vendables just goes into the uncounted "cart o loot" which represents the roleplaying stuff they barter for the gear they ACTUALLY purchase with XP.

I like this because:
- there is a single number I can check against each character's level and gear to make sure they are staying "in budget".
- it is up to the player how much of their power is in the form of gear VS in the form of innate skills

SO it is like your system where WBL is a meta-resource, only I combine wealth and XP into one meta-resource.