Balancing Gold to XP: Purchasing equipment w/experience

[DE5PA1R]

Hey all,

I'm looking to implement a GP->XP system for my Pathfinder game based on Demon's Souls/Dark Souls. I'd like off-the-cuff input on balance.

INTRO/BACKGROUND
For those of you who haven't played Dark Souls: wtf? Go play the greatest game of the PS3/Xbox360 generation so far. I'll wait.

Go on. It's on PC too. If you tell me you don't have one of those I'll know you're lying.

All right fine. Basically, the currency in the Souls universe is, unsurprisingly, Souls. You get them from defeating enemies. Killing bigger enemies means obtaining more Souls. There is no other type of in-game currency. Want to buy a sword? 500 Souls. Want to buy a spell? 1000 Souls. Want to upgrade your armor? 200 Souls. Want to level up? Spend Souls. You get it.

THE QUESTION
I'm not looking to completely overhaul the XP system. Gaining a level would work traditionally, except that a player can choose when to level. Got 2,000+ Souls on hand? Great! You may proceed to level 3 if you so desire. Or you could buy that +1 Longsword and have some change left over. Your choice.

What I'm thinking is just doing a straight 1 GP= 1 Soul conversion. The example above is spot-on for these purposes. But the party will start at level 4 and proceed up to lv 9. Is this reasonably balanced? Are there any blind spots I need to be aware of?

Thanks.

[DarkSonic1337]

Having experience and wealth come from the same pool is frankly...a bad idea.

Wealth by level scales MUCH faster than experience per level

At level 4, the PCs would normally have 6,000xp and 5,400gp.

At level 10, the PCs would normally have 45,000xp and 49,000 gp and the gap between wealth and experience just continues to expand from there.

Also consider this. A character who combines their normal WBL and XP in your system at level 4 will still be level 4 (though almost level 5). However, a level 5 character who combines their normal WBL and XP would have the XP of a level 6 character (and 4,000 left over).

IMO you're much better of simply having souls replace GOLD purchases, but leaving XP the same.

[Coidzor]

I'd recommend looking at one of the Vow of Poverty fixes that gives a pool of resources to spend on the benefits of magical gear without having to have the physical pieces of magical gear.

That seems the quickest way to approximate that without running into the problem of them making themselves into super-noobs by having massively over-geared low-level characters.

[Keneth]

So basically you intend to screw over mundanes some more? Cool.

There's a reason why Pathfinder removed all XP costs from everything.

[DE5PA1R]

Having experience and wealth come from the same pool is frankly...a bad idea.

In a specific system where it's not intended, maybe. In general though, it's a f***ing awesome idea. I don't know about you, but I spend most of my time trying to put PCs into situations that require difficult decisions (in-combat or otherwise). GP->XP is a heck of a way to put players into that mindset.


Wealth by level scales MUCH faster than experience per level

At level 4, the PCs would normally have 6,000xp and 5,400gp.

At level 10, the PCs would normally have 45,000xp and 49,000 gp and the gap between wealth and experience just continues to expand from there.

That's an important thing to consider in some games, but like I said this game will run from 4 to 9ish.


Also consider this. A character who combines their normal WBL and XP in your system at level 4 will still be level 4 (though almost level 5). However, a level 5 character who combines their normal WBL and XP would have the XP of a level 6 character (and 4,000 left over).

PF Lv 4 XP (medium advancement): 9,000
PF Lv 4 GP: 6,000

PF Lv 5 XP: 15,000

It's just enough to get to level 5, if that's what the PC wants. But, I'm not real sure where we're going with this discussion.


IMO you're much better of simply having souls replace GOLD purchases, but leaving XP the same.

I appreciate the input, but that's just sort of a re-skinning of the same system.



So basically you intend to screw over mundanes some more? Cool.

Linear warriors, quadratic wizards. I hear this complaint most from people who spend too much time at high levels and/or not enough time at low levels. My group mostly plays in the gritty space between 2 and 7.

Is the implication that magic-users don't rely on equipment as heavily as non-magic-users? If so, some counters:
1) My group keeps track of components. That stuff gets expensive, and it's not easy to lug around. Especially when you have to decide on a Bag of Holding or level 5.
2) Wizards need Saves and AC just as badly as anyone else. Much worse, in fact, because they're being hit waaaaay more often than the fighters. In a fight against Int 3+ baddies, a wizard/druid/cleric is 4 or 5 times as likely to be targeted as compared to a paladin/fighter/ranger. Unless the PCs are fighting easily distracted or provoked foes, combat any other way is poor role playing on the DM's part.
3) You need to understand that few if any of my monsters are copy-pasted from books. I will almost always give a monster a highly accurate, low-damage option and an inaccurate, high-damage option. My players know this. That strongly offsets the diminishing returns on AC. If a mini-boss has the chance to take half or 2/3rds of a PC's health with a +2 to hit, you can bet the wizard will buy that Ring of Protection before proceeding to the next level.


There's a reason why Pathfinder removed all XP costs from everything.

I don't follow.

[Kamai]

A warning I'm seeing here is that experience scales much faster than wealth, even on Fast. At Medium, going from 7 to 8, I'm choosing the level or an extra 50% of the total WBL for level 8. Do you think that a mundane going to 8th level gets enough to get those class features instead of 24,000 gold?

[Keneth]

1) My group keeps track of components. That stuff gets expensive, and it's not easy to lug around.
2) Wizards need Saves and AC just as badly as anyone else. Much worse, in fact, because they're being hit waaaaay more often than the fighters..
3) If a mini-boss has the chance to take half or 2/3rds of a PC's health with a +2 to hit, you can bet the wizard will buy that Ring of Protection before proceeding to the next level.

1) Unless you've decided to give a price to inexpensive components, and remove all methods bypassing them, I don't see why that would matter.
2) Arcane casters pretty much get +8 to AC at first level for free with mage armor and shield, and it only gets worse henceforth. Divine spellcasters aren't far behind. If you're targeting casters 5 times as likely as other characters, you're either metagaming or pitting your group against extremely cunning opponents. The vast majority of creatures in Pathfinder wouldn't do that with any kind of consistency, especially when a 7th level sorcerer throws a DC 21 fireball dealing 10d6+20 damage and levels half the battlefield on the first round, or at least injures everything to the point where another hit would be fatal. And that's just the nice kind of caster. The kind that vaporizes your enemies instead of pitting them against each other or using some other devious machinations. :smalltongue:
3) Then your players are clearly doing it wrong. A level, especially for a spellcaster, is in most cases worth far more than any non-artifact piece of equipment.


I don't follow.

No one likes paying XP prices. Not only does it create a disparity between characters, but when there are clear differences between classes and their need for funds, it's a really bad idea.

[SowZ]

In a specific system where it's not intended, maybe. In general though, it's a f***ing awesome idea. I don't know about you, but I spend most of my time trying to put PCs into situations that require difficult decisions (in-combat or otherwise). GP->XP is a heck of a way to put players into that mindset.



That's an important thing to consider in some games, but like I said this game will run from 4 to 9ish.



PF Lv 4 XP (medium advancement): 9,000
PF Lv 4 GP: 6,000

PF Lv 5 XP: 15,000

It's just enough to get to level 5, if that's what the PC wants. But, I'm not real sure where we're going with this discussion.



I appreciate the input, but that's just sort of a re-skinning of the same system.




Linear warriors, quadratic wizards. I hear this complaint most from people who spend too much time at high levels and/or not enough time at low levels. My group mostly plays in the gritty space between 2 and 7.

Is the implication that magic-users don't rely on equipment as heavily as non-magic-users? If so, some counters:
1) My group keeps track of components. That stuff gets expensive, and it's not easy to lug around. Especially when you have to decide on a Bag of Holding or level 5.
2) Wizards need Saves and AC just as badly as anyone else. Much worse, in fact, because they're being hit waaaaay more often than the fighters. In a fight against Int 3+ baddies, a wizard/druid/cleric is 4 or 5 times as likely to be targeted as compared to a paladin/fighter/ranger. Unless the PCs are fighting easily distracted or provoked foes, combat any other way is poor role playing on the DM's part.
3) You need to understand that few if any of my monsters are copy-pasted from books. I will almost always give a monster a highly accurate, low-damage option and an inaccurate, high-damage option. My players know this. That strongly offsets the diminishing returns on AC. If a mini-boss has the chance to take half or 2/3rds of a PC's health with a +2 to hit, you can bet the wizard will buy that Ring of Protection before proceeding to the next level.



I don't follow.

A fighter who doesn't get better gear barely gets more powerful at all. A wizard who doesn't improve his gear just keeps on getting significantly stronger. Normally, the difference is less noticeable at low levels, sure. But magic items are one of the only ways to make up for lack of spells. Not to mention that many spells are balanced based on the assumption that it won't be too many levels until you have an item that can duplicate said spell. Here's what you should do.

Play E6, (D&D with a 6 level cap,) where everyone starts at level 6. Have souls be a currency for items. Also, you can choose to spend 5k souls on a feat, 1k souls on a skill point, or 4k+(current modifier times 2000) to raise an attribute. Balance issue largely averted AND it feels a lot more like Dark Souls since you level up specific things in Dark Souls as opposed to gaining generic levels.

[Mnemnosyne]

Taking your specific example of going from level 4 to level 9...a level 4 PC has 6,000 xp and 5400 gp according to the tables in the PHB and DMG/MiC. A level 9 PC has 36,000 xp and 36,000 gp. This means that in order to go from 4 to 9, a PC needs to gain 30,000 xp. And in order for their equipment to scale with them, they need to gain 30,600 gp. Within your specific level range then, what you're saying is they will need to earn double the amount of xp in order to cover both xp and gp requirements.

If you're fine with them essentially taking twice the amount of time to level up, that's fine, but the fact that casters and melee are incentivized differently for where to spend their xp/gold is also a problem that should seriously be considered. When a caster has a choice between an item and a new level of spells, he will (and should) almost always choose the level of spells, because that will increase his power far more than the equipment might. Certain exceptions exist, but that's the general way it works. The fighter, on the other hand, is probably better off picking equipment. It's something important to keep in mind as you consider the system, it's benefits and disadvantages, and how the players actually interact with it in practice.

[PraxisVetli]

I'm actually in a Dark Souls-esque campaign.
I'ts all Souls, but xp pile and gp pile are different.
Xp can transfer to gp if player wishes, but its optional and doesn't go both ways (no gp to xp). It works quite well.
(Ftr, we started at 1 and are currently lvl 10, so that covers your window)

Also.
I very much like SowZ' idea.

[Big Fau]

Linear warriors, quadratic wizards. I hear this complaint most from people who spend too much time at high levels and/or not enough time at low levels. My group mostly plays in the gritty space between 2 and 7.

The disparity starts at 1st level and escalates quickly. Spellcasters are dangerously overpowered at any level, whereas Fighters are one critical hit away from retirement at 1st level and have to play Rocket Tag with nerf bats until 6th.


Is the implication that magic-users don't rely on equipment as heavily as non-magic-users? If so, some counters:
1) My group keeps track of components. That stuff gets expensive, and it's not easy to lug around. Especially when you have to decide on a Bag of Holding or level 5.
2) Wizards need Saves and AC just as badly as anyone else. Much worse, in fact, because they're being hit waaaaay more often than the fighters. In a fight against Int 3+ baddies, a wizard/druid/cleric is 4 or 5 times as likely to be targeted as compared to a paladin/fighter/ranger. Unless the PCs are fighting easily distracted or provoked foes, combat any other way is poor role playing on the DM's part.
3) You need to understand that few if any of my monsters are copy-pasted from books. I will almost always give a monster a highly accurate, low-damage option and an inaccurate, high-damage option. My players know this. That strongly offsets the diminishing returns on AC. If a mini-boss has the chance to take half or 2/3rds of a PC's health with a +2 to hit, you can bet the wizard will buy that Ring of Protection before proceeding to the next level.

Your Wizard players are not playing to their full potential. Spell components are, on average, dirt-cheap (a single spell component pouch gives a Wizard carte-blanche access to every spell component without a GP cost).

Meanwhile, who needs access to the two most expensive item types in the game? The Fighter. Weapons and armor are hideously overcosted, and forcing the Fighter to choose between better equipment and leveling up is a lose-lose scenario: If the Fighter chooses to level up, he is mechanically weaker because he lacks WBL. If he chooses WBL, he is mechanically weaker because he lacks HP, BAB, feats, and multiclassing options. If he mixes both, he will fall behind and become useless.

A properly player Wizard can choose to level up and forsake the WBL, and he will remain effective throughout the campaign. See above, as it sounds like your players are playing their characters near the Wizard class' optimization floor.

Spells > 3.5. This is a fact.