Wealth by Level is exaggerated: A Thesis [Archive]

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heavyfuel

2014-11-17, 08:32 PM

I've seen people, both on the forums as well as real life, that see the Wealth by Level table in the DMG as a borderline divine rule. Heck, I've seen people say they outright refuse to sit at a table that doesn't follow WBL guidelines! And while I agree that the WBL values are good, I also think that the table takes into account more expenditure than most players do, and that the actual amount of wealth possessed by players at any given level is lower than most people suggest it is.

Now, we all know that WBL are guidelines and should be left for each individual DM to adjudicate, and some will rightfully argue that the rewards from encounters actually give a bit more treasure than what is necessary to keep players at WBL, but even then I found that players were left at lower wealth than recommended.

While during this post I'll try my best to stick to the RAW, I will include some judgement calls I make when I DM. These are my personal opinions on how the game should work based of my view of common sense, and are not, to my knowledge, reflected onto the rules. Feel free to disagree with me, and even tell me that these houserules are plain wrong, just try to explain your point of view on why they're wrong, instead of simply stating that they are.

For this exercise, lets assume a standard party of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard that go about their adventuring careers taking on a variety of quests. Lets also assume a mid OP level, were things like Fabricate to acquire lots of wealth, and any infinite or NI loop won't be allowed.

#1 - Random Loot:

The main culprit. Your lv 1 party has just defeated the Goblins that had terrorized a small village and that boosted them to lv 2. When they enter a hidden room, a pile of copper, silver and gold pieces are clearly in display, with a well made Longsword stuck in the pile. After proper accounting and division of the coins, you have that each party member has about 800 GP, while the sword hasn't been divided. Now, the sword is a MW Longsword, worth 315 GP, so the average wealth of the party is (315/4)+800 which is about 880 GP per party member, very fair for a lv2 party with a recommended WBL of 900.

However, the Fighter has taken EWP:Spiked Chain, the Rogue uses Weapon Finesse, and neither the Cleric nor the Wizard are proficient with it. So the sword is pretty much useless, which means they're gonna have to sell it. Since they sell it for half of what it's worth, the average wealth has dropped to 840 GP.

This problem is exacerbated at higher levels, where PCs can pretty much have any item they want custom made for their needs. Sure the 15th level Cleric can keep the +5 Splint Mail he just found, but why would he, when he has a +3 Full Plate (same AC, better Touch AC, cheaper to enchant)? So the party sells it and loses 12'675 GP, or approximately 6.6% the wealth of a PC of his level.

#2 - Useless Custom Loot:

Very similar to the first one, but still different. Not always the DM is going to make the loot random, but maybe the custom loot wasn't created for the players, but as a plot point.

When the party arrives in the mage capital of the kingdom, they are approached by a member of the Wizard Academy, who needs someone unrelated to the school to foil an illegal potion dealing scheme under promise that they can keep whatever they find. After capturing an alchemist that's been illegally selling potions to help wealthy apprentice Wizards to pass their tests at the Wizard Academy, they find his stash of 100 Potions of Fox's Cunning, which they'll end up selling because the Wizard already has a Headband of Intellect +4. These 15000 GP (half of the 30000GP the potions cost) wasted at lv 9 is roughly 1/7th of the party's wealth.

Sidenote: Custom Taylored Loot is, in my opinion, bad. Just plain bad. What are the odds that this large devil just happens to have a Studded Leather armor just like the one I wanted to buy for my Halfling?

#3 - Consumables:

The party enters a tournament in hopes of winning it, and having a chance to kill the current champion, the personal bodyguard of a corrupt Earl, that competes in his spare time. The fights are 1v1 and at the end of a long day filled with battles, both the Cleric and the Wizard, depleted of their spells, lose, and (thanks to the Rogue sabotaging some contestants) the Fighter wins. He now must defeat the bodyguard alone.

Comparing the contestants, the Fighter is lv 8 while the bodyguard is lv 11. Knowing that he is hopelessly outmatched, the Fighter wisely asks the Rogue to sneak in a bag with all their reserve potions, while the bodyguard (with Wisdom of 6) who has seen the Fighter compete and is therefore incredibly confident in his abilities, enters the arena with no buffs, while the Fighter is chugging potions of Fly, Heroism, Barkskin, Bear's Endurance, Blur and Haste, and using an oil of Keen Edge right before entering. The Fighter end up winning, but at no small cost because he just spent 750+750+300+300+300+750+750 GP. That's 3'900 GP or 14.4% out of his 27'000 GP wealth. Sure, it was an Overpowering encounter, but these should happen 5% of the time anyway.

This also includes spells with costly Material Components. Almost every single magical item (besides Potions and Scrolls) you acquire for the first 11 levels comes with a 100GP Identify tax attached. Every time the Wizard decides to lock someone inside a Forcecage, that's 1500 GP. That one time the Cleric died and you had to find another cleric to cast Raise Dead on him, that was 5450 GP if your DM was nice enough to let you have it, let alone for that price.

#4 - Cursed Items:

This is one those things I've never seen being used, but should be taken into account regardless.

According to the SRD, 5% of all randomly generated items are cursed. Items can also be cursed because they were incorrectly made, although the SRD never gives a plain percentage of when that happens, and is left up to DM's purview.

This is going to vary from DM to DM, but considering the SRD gives a plain 5% chance for random loot, I think it's fair to say that 5% of all created items are also cursed, especially when you consider that any random loot had to be created by someone at some point.

Sure, some cursed items are mild inconveniences, and can be completely ignored, but this is not always the case. At any rate, because these items are priced like regular items, some wealth is bound to be lost because of cursed items and hell, they may not even be able to sell the item, especially if it's a particularly expensive one, aka, subject to an Analyze Dweomer by whoever wants to buy it.

#5 - There isn't a market for every item:

Upon defeating the Nalfeshnee with Monkey Grip that happened to wield a Gargantuan Darkwood Nunchaku +4 and had enslaved a group of cultists of Pelor, the players go to town to sell their loot, where they are met with laughter when they try to sell their 20ft long magical double stick on a chain that reeks of obese demon sweat and blood.

While this item's value is a bit over 32000 GP, there's no way anybody is going to buy that for the theoretical 16000 GP. Just think of the amount of money you just spent buying on an item you're never going to sell... You're better of investing your 16000 GP on literally almost anything else. And unless the players just happen to find a creature that is 1: either Gargantuan or Huge with Monkey Grip/Powerful Build; 2: Taken EWP:Nunchaku; 3: Is willing to pay them instead of killing them; and 4: Doesn't already have a better Nunchaku, they just lost 32000 GP of wealth, or about 9% the WBL for a lv 12 party.

#6 - Broken Items:

Much like cursed items, I've never seen this in use, but it too should be taken into account.

With a few adventures under their belts, the fourth level Rogue decides to use his gold to buy himself a +1 Dagger, while the Fighter decided to get a MW Spiked Chain because he had spent his gold on a +1 Full Plate. After a few drinks at the local tavern, they are recruited to exterminate a band of 20 Troglodytes that was seen attacking fishermen by the river. So they go, and quickly dispatch of a clutch of scouts, but one was able to escape. The Cleric is able to track him with ease and they find 6 of them, including the runaway one. The Rogue spots a strange symbol around the neck of what appears to be their leader, but doesn't have the knowledge to identify it.

After devising a plan, they attack the trio and take the already wounded one down immediately, leaving 5 of them. As the skirmish rages and seeing their demise approach, one of the Troglodytes decides to sunder the Rogue's brand new dagger in hopes of making him less of a trouble against the remainder of the band. The one with the symbol, a Cleric of Tiamat, sees this and decides to replicate, using a Shatter spell on the Fighter's Spiked Chain. The group wins the battle, but at the price of one magic dagger and a masterwork spiked chain. Sure they can be repaired, and while the spiked chain will cost a measly 60GP, the dagger will cost a whopping 650 GP, or 14% the Rogue's wealth.

Later on their career, the Cleric and the Fighter, both now lv 16, have gotten themselves +1 Floating Heavy-Fortification Heavy shields. These nifty pieces of equipment are worth 64000 GP each. When raiding Castle Stormfire, lair to the lv 19 Gnome Sorcerer that's been eluding them for so long, they meet with the Gnome in his chambers who, pissedly about having his alone time disturbed, decides to teach them a lesson, starting with a Quickened Chain Greater Dispel Magic that turns most of their equipment non-magical (really easy considering the CL of items). The shields fall to the ground, unattended. He uses a Chain Shatter spell to destroy both shields (no save) as well as some of their other gear. Even if they eventually win the battle, this came with the cost of at least 1/8th the wealth of both the Cleric and the Fighter.

Conclusion and TL;DR:

While your the total wealth you've acquired over your adventuring career should be about what's described in the DMG, there are way too many things in the game that chip away at it, and your actual wealth, that you can actually spend, is only a fraction of it, even if a large one. This is definitely anecdotal evidence, but the single time I've DMed using all of these things, I've noticed that the PCs ended up with anywhere from 60% to 70% the wealth after it was eroded, and that is the actual wealth that should be taken into account, not the one from the table

PsyBomb

2014-11-17, 08:41 PM

icefractal

2014-11-17, 08:48 PM

A couple issues:

1) I believe that the amount of wealth you receive from random encounters, if you fight monsters with "Standard" treasure and sum it all together, is significantly more than WBL. WBL already takes into account that some consumables will be used, some treasure will be unusable by the party, and so forth. I may be wrong on this, but that's what I remember from the last time I looked into it.

2) There are two ways to do WBL:
a) "Hard" WBL - if the party gets extra treasure, by crafting, stealing, whatever, then they will get less from monsters until it balances out. But conversely, if they get less treasure or lose treasure, they will get more until it balances out. In this case, I'd expect people to be exactly at WBL.
b) "Soft" WBL - the standard treasure guidelines are followed, and monsters are chosen that yield "Standard" treasure on average. In this case, they could definitely lose WBL by all the means you mentioned. However, they could also gain extra by crafting, gaining gold in non-combat ways, etc. I would say this is definitely more variable, but just as likely to be above WBL as below, unless the DM actively tries to prevent that. Speaking of which ...

3) Fabricate is not TO, or even high-OP. It just isn't. It's using a core spell in exactly the obvious usage. The only case you can give for blocking it is sticking to a Hard WBL stance - in which case, not below WBL either.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2014-11-17, 08:49 PM

What PsyBomb said. If you take a gander at the actual expected treasure accumulated through an adventuring career, especially if you throw in a dragon or two, it comes out to a good chunk more than wealth by level. This is one of those rare cases where the designers actually did come up with a mechanic that anticipated basic things (like selling loot and using consumables) occurring in actual play.

Also, I wouldn't start saying "No one would buy [X magic item] at [1/2 listed price]." Down that road lies economics, and many ways to break and/or bog down the game mundanely. Just let them sell it for 1/2 in a big metropolis; there are always wealthy collectors out there looking for weird items.

Aegis013

2014-11-17, 08:49 PM

A lot of your points are merely anecdotal evidence, as you correctly ascribed to them.

My table tends to go well above the WBL chart in general. Either payments for jobs/quests and the like in raw coinage equaling the WBL in addition to random loot, or random loot being only counted as the value for which you could sell it at market. Frankly, my group very rarely utilizes consumables, but generally consumables are roughly accounted for and added to random loot or job completion payouts.

Basically every game that I've tried to play outside of my main group, other than a PbP I'm running here on the forums (using the first scenario described above), either never got far enough to tell, or fell apart too quickly to matter.

So my evidence is no more valid than yours, but it's clear we've certainly had vastly different experiences when it comes to WBL.

heavyfuel

2014-11-17, 08:57 PM

You are actually missing one very significant point. The WBL system assumes that you are arranging for loot to come their way in excess of the raw numbers, such that their rough value AFTER EROSION is what is on the chart. The description specifically calls out that consumables are not counted (or that they are only counted as a likely reserve). Long story short, that 720,000gp a 20th-level character is worth will have probably come about over a 1.2 million-gold career.

No I'm not. I've mentioned it in the second paragraph. The point is that despite the excess, they were still at lower WBL.

A couple issues:

2) There are two ways to do WBL:
a) "Hard" WBL - if the party gets extra treasure, by crafting, stealing, whatever, then they will get less from monsters until it balances out. But conversely, if they get less treasure or lose treasure, they will get more until it balances out. In this case, I'd expect people to be exactly at WBL.
b) "Soft" WBL - the standard treasure guidelines are followed, and monsters are chosen that yield "Standard" treasure on average. In this case, they could definitely lose WBL by all the means you mentioned. However, they could also gain extra by crafting, gaining gold in non-combat ways, etc. I would say this is definitely more variable, but just as likely to be above WBL as below, unless the DM actively tries to prevent that. Speaking of which ...

3) Fabricate is not TO, or even high-OP. It just isn't. It's using a core spell in exactly the obvious usage. The only case you can give for blocking it is sticking to a Hard WBL stance - in which case, not below WBL either.

The problem I see with "Hard" WBL is that it basically makes the players choices moot. I remember this one time I game my players a LOT of cash, but all in CPs. Something like 50k GP in CP, just to see how they were going to transport all that. With "Hard WBL" they could've just ignored it, and expect the next creature to give them more money than usual. Similarly, if you were momentarily above WBL and killed a Dragon he would yield little to no loot. I always use "Soft" WBL

Fabricate can be high-OP, sure it's not exatly insanely-high-tippy-level-OP, but it is high OP, especially if you use for something like Black Lotus Extract to acquire infinite wealth

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-17, 09:04 PM

#1) This is, indeed, the single greatest threat to the players reaching their proper WBL values but this -was- accounted for in the system. There's a note on this very fact in the DMG and it points out that the average values for random treasure yields a fair amount more than the WBL values with the expectation that the party will find or buy and subsequently use expendable materials.

In the given example, a DM can simply insert an extra 200 or so gold and solve the problem handily, though at that level it's much less important than it will later become.

#2) That's just poor planning. Obviously they're going to sell off, at least most of, that pile of identical or otherwise unuseable items. You should've simply dropped a greater number of them in the first place. On the sidenote; sometimes willing suspension of disbelief is necessary. "Wow, that is a heck of a coincidence. I was just going to buy one of these after we got back to town."

#3) That's poor player decision making. Why did they have so many potions to begin with? Why was it so important that at least one of them win the tournament that they were willing to blow that kind of cash on it? Why wouldn't you, as a DM, cough up a little extra treasure to compensate for making such a heavy expenditure necessary?

#4 & 5) Nonsense. A large enough community is supposed to be able to liquidate -any- item below the town's GP limit. There's somebody somewhere that wants that crap or, if you have them in your game, an artificer that can render it down into something more useful.

#6) Again, it's -very- simple to just toss in a few extra platinum coins, gems, or art objects to compensate for this sort of thing and the players never need to know about it.

TL;DR: The DM is responsible for handing out treasure. It's not hard, at all, to throw in an enemy or two with higher than average treasure values or simply throw a little extra treasure on the pile to get the players back up to WBL or do the reverse to bring them back down if they're too far over.

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-17, 09:10 PM

The problem I see with "Hard" WBL is that it basically makes the players choices moot. I remember this one time I game my players a LOT of cash, but all in CPs. Something like 50k GP in CP, just to see how they were going to transport all that. With "Hard WBL" they could've just ignored it, and expect the next creature to give them more money than usual. Similarly, if you were momentarily above WBL and killed a Dragon he would yield little to no loot. I always use "Soft" WBL

It only makes player choices moot if they abuse it. If they ignore 50k worth of cash just because it's all copper then you're under no obligation to compensate them at the earliest opportunity. Let them sweat that lag for 5 or 6 encounters or even an entire level and only -gradually- compensate them for being below WBL. Giving them another 50k immediately is simply rewarding foolish behavior, though in all honesty I couldn't imagine the players just ignoring 50k simply because it's not easily transported.

Extra Anchovies

2014-11-17, 09:18 PM

The WBL guidelines don't have to be stuck to. At all. As with literally every single other rule in the game, it is entirely subject to DM discretion. However, it is worth noting that if character WBL is changed, then challenges have to be adjusted accordingly. If the PCs can't afford magic weapons or special materials, don't send them up against creatures with high DR (or use those creatures in encounters where creative thinking saves the day - e.g. stopping an iron golem by collapsing the ceiling on it). If the PCs can't afford cloaks of resistance, don't send things with high-DC SoD abilities against them. All it takes is a few adjustments and a healthy trust between players and DM that wealth will not be abused and lack of wealth will not be punished.

AmberVael

2014-11-17, 09:25 PM

...though in all honesty I couldn't imagine the players just ignoring 50k simply because it's not easily transported.

Indeed, learn to expect the opposite.
"Haul away the giant adamantine doors, lads!"

heavyfuel

2014-11-17, 09:31 PM

Also, I wouldn't start saying "No one would buy [X magic item] at [1/2 listed price]." Down that road lies economics, and many ways to break and/or bog down the game mundanely. Just let them sell it for 1/2 in a big metropolis; there are always wealthy collectors out there looking for weird items.

This makes sense, although I still don't see it as being something that should be readily available. My only fear is that it opens up to Chaotic Stupid PCs that will want to steal from him because he has so much money, which will then either split the party, making me DM two different adventures (with him dying), or he may convince the entire party (resulting in a TPK)

A lot of your points are merely anecdotal evidence, as you correctly ascribed to them.

My table tends to go well above the WBL chart in general. Either payments for jobs/quests and the like in raw coinage equaling the WBL in addition to random loot, or random loot being only counted as the value for which you could sell it at market. Frankly, my group very rarely utilizes consumables, but generally consumables are roughly accounted for and added to random loot or job completion payouts.

Basically every game that I've tried to play outside of my main group, other than a PbP I'm running here on the forums (using the first scenario described above), either never got far enough to tell, or fell apart too quickly to matter.

So my evidence is no more valid than yours, but it's clear we've certainly had vastly different experiences when it comes to WBL.

Yes, I've certainly seen groups with above average WBL. I think that the reason is that most DMs are a bit too nice. If they were to brutally role play the enemies as I was during this particular campaign, there was so much Sunder and Coup de Grâce going on that the players were below WBL somewhat considerably.

snip

#1, 2, 6 and TLDR: Now were back at Icefractal's "Hard" WBL. It makes players choices useless because they know they'll always be recommended WBL. Right now I'm a player in a campaign with LOTS of downtime, and basically having some way to make money in this downtime is almost essential. Why should I, who have spent lots of skill points in my Profession skill (homebrewed to actually be worth it) and spent the last year and a half working, have the same wealth as someone who didn't? This also makes all arguments against Sunder moot. Whenever someone says they want to sunder, they are met with "it sucks cuz it destroys wealth". Well... Not if you go by Hard WBL.

#3: Why he had all those potions? Random loot. Why he used them all up? At that point it was either do or die. The original plan was to have the Rogue help him via the sabotage, but some things happened and that was the best he could do.

#4 & 5: I don't usually have them in my campaigns, given that they are pretty bound to Eberron's magi-tech which isn't how my games usually work, but I understand your point. As for town GP limit, I may be OK with GoodbyeSoberDay's approach that some crazy collector wants it, but I don't see it being readily available for sale at any town

OldTrees1

2014-11-17, 09:32 PM

Personally I use Hard WBL for the first couple of sessions so I can get a feel for the group. Then I feel I have enough information to switch to Soft WBL without them falling behind. Think of it as Calibrated Soft WBL.

heavyfuel

2014-11-17, 09:38 PM

It only makes player choices moot if they abuse it. If they ignore 50k worth of cash just because it's all copper then you're under no obligation to compensate them at the earliest opportunity. Let them sweat that lag for 5 or 6 encounters or even an entire level and only -gradually- compensate them for being below WBL. Giving them another 50k immediately is simply rewarding foolish behavior, though in all honesty I couldn't imagine the players just ignoring 50k simply because it's not easily transported.

Indeed, learn to expect the opposite.
"Haul away the giant adamantine doors, lads!"

I don't see why they should be compensated at all. They were foolish and now shall be at 50k lower WBL for the rest of their adventuring careers. But I knew they weren't going to just leave the treasure, I really just wanted to see how they were going to transport it with them.

Adamantium doors have become somewhat of a joke in our group. A friend and I came up with the solution that adamantium doors are just steel doors with adamantiun plating and pure adamantium bolts. The doors are pretty worthless, but they always take away the bolts regardless

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-17, 09:45 PM

#1, 2, 6 and TLDR: Now were back at Icefractal's "Hard" WBL. It makes players choices useless because they know they'll always be recommended WBL. Right now I'm a player in a campaign with LOTS of downtime, and basically having some way to make money in this downtime is almost essential. Why should I, who have spent lots of skill points in my Profession skill (homebrewed to actually be worth it) and spent the last year and a half working, have the same wealth as someone who didn't? This also makes all arguments against Sunder moot. Whenever someone says they want to sunder, they are met with "it sucks cuz it destroys wealth". Well... Not if you go by Hard WBL.

I already addressed this but I'll repeat; you want to keep them near WBL in a "Hard WBL" fashion but that doesn't mean you want to do it instantly. Your character -should- have an immediate advantage in that money in the form of you having whatever you spent it on immediately available while the other players will have to earn enough to catch up during the actuall adventuring.

Look at the flipside of the coin here. You worked for a year and a half and earned however much extra money that is. So now you should have that wealth advantage over your allies because you played your character "better" than they did? That's not really good for the group dynamic and it makes setting up encounters more difficult for the DM because it creates a power disparity between the PC's.

#3: Why he had all those potions? Random loot. Why he used them all up? At that point it was either do or die. The original plan was to have the Rogue help him via the sabotage, but some things happened and that was the best he could do.

Those questions were supposed to be rhetorical. That said, the fact that they didn't sell those potions kind of undermines point 1.

#4 & 5: I don't usually have them in my campaigns, given that they are pretty bound to Eberron's magi-tech which isn't how my games usually work, but I understand your point. As for town GP limit, I may be OK with GoodbyeSoberDay's approach that some crazy collector wants it, but I don't see it being readily available for sale at any town

With items like the example item you're talking 10's of thousands of GP worth of merchandise. That's certainly -not- going to stay with the guy who bought it off you for half what it was worth. It's going to move through him and probably a half-dozen or more other people before eventually ending up in the hands of someone who can actually use it.

If a settlement is large enough then even if you can't find someone to buy this sort of thing for himself, you should have only moderate difficulty in finding a guy that knows a guy who knows a guy who works for a trade consortium that deals with outsiders. Let me see if I can't dig something up for you that may be.... enlightening.

Psyren

2014-11-17, 09:55 PM

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-17, 09:59 PM

Here we go. This is a post I made a while back that gives a model for how being able to buy and sell anything within a settlement's gp limit could work. It's also a possible explanation for why "Magic Mart" is only an apparent thing rather than an actual, single shop.

I'm with the crowd saying a stockpile of highly valuable magical items all in a 'shop' doesn't make any sense.

You can get minor magic items (as in DMG table 7-27) by going to one of a number of local guilds, unions, or confederacies or even the odd noble house, depending on what exactly it is you're looking for; e.g. the mercanary companies have surplus arms and armor, usually looted from dungeons or off of targets, to supplement funding from jobs, likewise with the thieves guild for your more larcenous tools but not the loot because they have to fence that stuff asap to actually make a profit, the exploration confederacy sells items useful for travel and exploration as well as bits and bobs from the latest expedition that they haven't traded away yet, and the wizard's tower or temple of the god of commerce or artifice will have a broad selection of a bit of everything as well as the tools of the spellcasting trade and can have initiate members craft items on request. None of them will have a standing stockpile though, only a few, mostly random items that they're more likely to trade than to sell.

A +1 weapon is worth 40 trade-bars worth of gold. Nobody except money changers, trading companies, and governments traffic in that kind of cash. The above mentioned companies and guilds will -trade- you their goods for your loot and old equipment and will accept cash if you've got it, but -none- of them will give you cash for your crap unless it's something that they'll have a serious use for. They're going to immediately sell your old stuff to one or another trading company for cash for their own use.

The trading companies don't keep anything at the local office at all and don't do trade in minor items with individuals from the general public. They facilitate the exchange of those goods between the various companies and guilds and supply the governments with items in quantity immensely faster than the governments' crafters can make them. They will, however, deal with individuals for the exchange of intermediate and major magic items as brokers.

The only shops that actually keep a stockpile of magical goods are potion brewers. They don't worry about thieves because their whole stock is labeled in code, the key to which is either stored somewhere very secure after hours or only exists in the shop owner's head. There's also the factor of potions being pretty much unsellable by anyone but the guy who makes them. This is because there's no way to know if the potion you're being sold second-hand is what the seller says it is because he almost certainly didn't make it and if he stole it he might not even know what it is. If you rob a potion maker's shop the best you're going to get is a couple scrolls of spells that aren't on the shopkeeper's list, maybe a schema of a spell for a particularly popular potion, and a crap-ton of potions that you'll have to identify and can't sell. You might also get a few alchemical items, but noone cares about that.

Now, of course, this isn't the only possible model for such a thing but it's the one I use and it makes more than a little sense to me.

Aegis013

2014-11-17, 11:15 PM

Yes, I've certainly seen groups with above average WBL. I think that the reason is that most DMs are a bit too nice. If they were to brutally role play the enemies as I was during this particular campaign, there was so much Sunder and Coup de Grâce going on that the players were below WBL somewhat considerably.

Being nice has nothing to do with it. :smallconfused: In my games and experience, it's not unheard of for enemies to target Haversacks/BoHs or, if the party even makes it so far, them to face enemies touting Disjunction. Probably about half of the games I have run for my table (almost all of which stay well over WBL on average through the game) have ended in TPK. I pretty frequently have enemies use tactics to erode player resources. These things are just accounted for and the players regain those resources later.

heavyfuel

2014-11-18, 12:02 AM

WBL is a very rough estimate of where the party should be on average. You can spend several sessions, even an entire plotline, at greater or lesser WBL than is on the chart. This allows you to have random or situational loot in your games (#1 and #2) and not worry so much about micromanaging the party wealth. If while DMing you find yourself agonizing over a longsword drop in a single encounter the way you are in scenario 1, you should take a step back and a deep breath.

Consumables (#3) meanwhile are a godsend. They allow you to have monsters that one would expect to have high treasure values - like enemy mercenary bands or cultists or efreeti and the like - and keep them challenging without decking them out in christmas-tree gear. Have most of their wealth be tied up in consumables - which they consumed right before the battle of course - and you get all of the buffs and challenge with none of the permanency. That way you don't have to resort to throwing plants, oozes and elementals at the party exclusively for several sessions to keep them from getting any further out of line.

Cursed Items (#4) are simply not worth considering at all. If you go by the tables they have an extraordinarily low chance of appearing, and if you're including them intentionally (which, imo, is the only time they should be used), then they should be plot devices, not simply contrivances to point and laugh at the player who is now less geared than they thought they were.

#5 (unsalable loot) is just an elaborate way of going back to #1 and #2 - if it is useless to the party and cannot be sold, then it's effectively random loot that lowers their WBL. So you handle it in the same way - they are under for a few sessions until you can compensate, either by providing a merchant that can handle the thing or providing the players incentive to use it. Maybe the monk finds a wizened sensei who will train him in using that nunchaku, and maybe it turns out to be much better than advertised (e.g. intelligent.)

#6 (breakage) is a well-known problem with 3.5 so I would simply suggest using Pathfinder's rules here. Disjunction is nerfed, Make Whole works on magic items, Sunder can weaken opponents without erasing their gear from the treasure pile etc.

I wasn't agonizing... It was just an example.

Agreed that Consumables are a blessing for buffing NPCs. I usually use them this same way to great success

Well, 5% isn't extraordinarily low. It's basically rolling a 1 (or any other number for that matter) on a d20. I don't usually include them, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be taken into account when you distrubute treasure. Since I don't use them per se, they basically translate to "every once in a while, there should be slightly less wealth to account for a cursed item that would be here"

But random loot lowering WBL is part of the argument that WBL isn't as high as most people think, unless you go by a "hard" WBL. If the item is sold as Kelb or as GoodbyeSoberDay explained, it's fine, but it will decrease WBL somewhat regardless.

Much like having random loot decrease your WBL, having opponents that Sunder, Disjuction and Shatter items is a crucial aspect of WBL that should have already be taken into account.

Here we go. This is a post I made a while back that gives a model for how being able to buy and sell anything within a settlement's gp limit could work. It's also a possible explanation for why "Magic Mart" is only an apparent thing rather than an actual, single shop.

Now, of course, this isn't the only possible model for such a thing but it's the one I use and it makes more than a little sense to me.

This kind of thing does make sense, if I understood you correctly. What I didn't understand for sure, is how this solves the problem of 20ft nunchaku. The companies might trade for it, but then you'll just end up with a bunch of semi-useless (aka. cheap) magical items. And of course, if those items were traded on a 1:1 price and you got your full 32k in minor magic items, that means you can resell them at 16k and keep the expected WBL. But why would the guilds give you a bunch of magic items that might be useful for them in exchange for your giant stick?

Being nice has nothing to do with it. :smallconfused: In my games and experience, it's not unheard of for enemies to target Haversacks/BoHs or, if the party even makes it so far, them to face enemies touting Disjunction. Probably about half of the games I have run for my table (almost all of which stay well over WBL on average through the game) have ended in TPK. I pretty frequently have enemies use tactics to erode player resources. These things are just accounted for and the players regain those resources later.

Then, from what I've seen, you and your table are the exception. People seem really touchy about sundering players magic items and using CdG on them, because the players might find it unfair. Well, of course that if you doon't do that, they're gonna end up well above WBL! But you are saying that even then, your players had above average WBL. Well maybe your players are just smarter than my players are then... :smallamused:

Aegis013

2014-11-18, 12:21 AM

Then, from what I've seen, you and your table are the exception. People seem really touchy about sundering players magic items and using CdG on them, because the players might find it unfair. Well, of course that if you doon't do that, they're gonna end up well above WBL! But you are saying that even then, your players had above average WBL. Well maybe your players are just smarter than my players are then... :smallamused:

I suppose it's possible, but I really suspect it's largely in part because I clearly communicate to my players that if the Crusader's +1 Vicious Vampiric Greatsword gets sundered, disjoined, or ends up plummeting into an abyss never to be seen again, that they will in fact recoup the value of those items in a reasonable amount of time (in or by the next city visit or otherwise, story permitting) and be able to re-equip themselves with equal or, more likely, better equipment. Then I take extra measures to make sure it happens, as long as they have survived.

I can't say the same about my players, but I'm actually touchy about exactly the opposite. If the enemy sensibly would CdG me and don't, I feel like my character should be dead and sometimes I'll lose interest in the character/game. It's even more of a problem for/with me if my character actually dies and then it's taken back by fiat or my character is restored to life by fiat.

Though, it's very possible my table is the exception. Despite joining more than half a dozen other games, I still wouldn't know due to other groups failing to continue or playing with conditions that I simply won't play under (e.g. Core Only). :smallsigh:

Curmudgeon

2014-11-18, 01:52 AM

Aegis013

2014-11-18, 02:10 AM

Wealth by Level is a table used for creating characters above 1st level. A DM who uses that guideline to micro-manage character resources is very heavy-handed, and I wouldn't play in their game. If I go out of my way to figure out how to use a piece of random treasure (with a proficiency feat or whatever) rather than sell it for 50% value, I expect to get the full benefit of that choice. I would greatly resent a DM who deprived my character of future wealth because I had used other resources to make it worthwhile to keep that item. Similarly, if I chose to use a great deal of consumables for a particular encounter, I wouldn't want to be treated like a spoiled baby and auto-magically gifted with extra treasure to replace those consumed items.

I want my choices in the game world to matter. That's why I play.

I certainly see how a DM taking extra efforts to follow the WBL guidelines post character creation could potentially cause it to seem like the player's actions don't matter.

But, give me your opinion on this hypothetical. Assuming you were a pretty savvy player and were given a task by an NPC, you go collect some information through various means, Gather Information, divinations, or the like, purchased several consumables tailored to the event and utilize them to efficiently handle the event.

Using these consumables, you handle the task quickly and efficiently. The NPC who gave the job is impressed with your work and pays out a little extra. Maybe the NPC's motive is to make sure you're interested should they want to purchase your services again or maybe they say they want you to keep quiet about the job and identity of the employer.

Maybe the extra gp isn't the full value of the consumables, but over the next few encounters extra treasure is added on, sometimes in forms used by the enemies against you, to get your funds back up to the guideline suggested amounts.

If done in that manner, is it still invasive regarding your efficacy on the game?

I'm legitimately curious, because that tends to be how I go about it with my table. Not, and I realize it may have sounded this way previously, "You used a potion of bull's strength? The Goblin had another 300gp in its pocket!" which, in my opinion, would really strain immersion.

Dr TPK

2014-11-18, 02:12 AM

OldTrees1

2014-11-18, 02:58 AM

In my games the players almost always celebrate the death of PCs because it brings more cash to the survivors than killing monsters or finding treasure.

Beat that, please.

I have always assumed that character death was not equal to forfeiting possession. I mean there are some cases, but for the most part a character can be assumed to either have a "sell for rez" arrangement with an NPC or there is an NPC(family for example) with prior claim on the deceased possessions.

Note: This is part of creating a realistic world, it coincidentally applies to your PPK situation.

Dr TPK

2014-11-18, 03:10 AM

I have always assumed that character death was not equal to forfeiting possession. I mean there are some cases, but for the most part a character can be assumed to either have a "sell for rez" arrangement with an NPC or there is an NPC(family for example) with prior claim on the deceased possessions.

Note: This is part of creating a realistic world, it coincidentally applies to your PPK situation.

Some players like creating new PCs instead of having the same PCs with a lower levels (as "rez" lowers your level). In fact, most of the players I know like creating new PCs when their current PCs die. It also gives the party gear-galore since the survivors get to keep the gear and the new PCs can't start naked. Consider this: It's the fastest way to get rich in D&D. There are no ifs or buts about it.

With all due respect, I would like to see these "NPC family gets the Cloak of Resistance +2" and "The hero gets buried with his gear" scenarios actually happen. I'm not saying that they don't, but they seem mythical to me.

icefractal

2014-11-18, 03:26 AM

I wasn't saying you necessary "should" go for Hard WBL - I prefer Soft WBL most of the time, because having some gameplay around loot is fun. Hard WBL can be good for when you don't want to focus on money much though.

But IME, the softer the WBL connection is, the more above WBL the PCs tend to be. Because there are a lot of ways to get gold. Using magic to supercharge production. Just selling spellcasting directly. Stealing things. Taking those adamantine doors back to town. Political schemes. Magic item crafting ... the list goes on.

And as far as "dead PC's heirs get the loot" ... well, depends a lot on the party. A very honorable group - yes. Although even then, if they're in the middle of a quest to protect the town/kingdom/world, then the needs of the many may outweigh the needs of the few. But a more morally dubious group, that didn't necessarily like the dead PCs that much? Haha, no, those shinies are up for grabs.

And of course, sometimes the PC in question doesn't have heirs, and might want the items to go to his friends (the rest of the party) anyway. Or the party may allocate loot in a more communal style, where people get what they can benefit from the most, but don't really "own" it.

OldTrees1

2014-11-18, 03:41 AM

Some players like creating new PCs instead of having the same PCs with a lower levels (as "rez" lowers your level). In fact, most of the players I know like creating new PCs when their current PCs die. It also gives the party gear-galore since the survivors get to keep the gear and the new PCs can't start naked. Consider this: It's the fastest way to get rich in D&D. There are no ifs or buts about it.

With all due respect, I would like to see these "NPC family gets the Cloak of Resistance +2" and "The hero gets buried with his gear" scenarios actually happen. I'm not saying that they don't, but they seem mythical to me.

Oh yes Players usually jump characters rather than play with the lost level. But that does not mean the character does.

My group has a low mortality rate but the 2 times I remember went as thus:
1) The former employer of the PC took back the equipment they had outfitted the PC with.
2) The knight was buried with his blade.

So these events are certainly less mythical at my table. Case 1 happened despite the party being Evil and Greedy.

NichG

2014-11-18, 03:51 AM

Personally, I don't care for WBL as more than just a convenient reference point - it's useful in order to ballpark how much wealth a new player's character should have coming in at higher levels, and it's useful in order to get a rough estimate of whether or not the party is comparatively 'rich' or 'poor' for their level, but to me it isn't such a big deal.

I do want to point out though, that when we're talking about WBL we're talking about an exponentially increasing curve (actually, its exponential at high levels and faster than exponential at low levels). If at the low end the party is at 50% of their intended WBL because they're selling everything and buying custom stuff, and at the high end the party is at 300% of their intended WBL because they're crafting everything themselves and only receive monetary loot rather than specific items, that's still only going to be a few levels difference in gear. And gear is only a portion of a party's overall power-level (highly class dependent, but at mid-op I'd say it's about 25% of the party's power, with 'infinite wealth' corresponding to at most a +5ECL boost as long as you restrict things to pre-epic gear).

So if you're Lv2 and you're at the low end, then it's sort of like being 0.25 levels behind. If you're at the high end it happens that 3*WBL at Lv2 is the WBL for Lv3, so it's just like being 0.25 levels ahead. That's not actually that big of a difference.

At higher levels, the difference gets a bit bigger because the curve slows down. If we do the computation at, say, Lv15, then 50% WBL corresponds roughly to Lv13, and 300% WBL corresponds roughly to Lv19. So that's still just something between -0.5 ECL and +1 ECL; significant, but well within the distribution of CR variations between encounters (even putting aside effects like CR being very spotty and player optimization ability as the dominant factor in determining a party's actual power level)

So while I don't think that you should take WBL all that seriously, I also don't think its quite as broken as the OP suggests, because you can actually make quite large errors in the absolute amount of wealth and not make much change in the party's wealth-ECL.

TypoNinja

2014-11-18, 05:16 AM

with 'infinite wealth' corresponding to at most a +5ECL boost as long as you restrict things to pre-epic gear).

No, Its really not. Money is Power. Full stop.

I've played in exactly one game where the party got hilarious amounts of money (not infinite, but billions of GP without epic magic items might as well be). The power difference was not 5 levels, the power difference after we went shopping was "we win".

I tried to warn the DM he didn't want to let the party have that much money, regardless of if we'd earned it in game or not, it would break things. Boy did it ever.

If your players ever come into vast piles of cash beyond WBL, try to nudge your players towards the Stronghold Builders Guidebook, its a great way to drop hundreds of thousands of gold on awesome goodies the Players feel happy about that they can't bring with them into a dungeon crawl.

WBL is a stat for a reason, the game expects you to have a certain amount of magic loot. It will survive being off a little in either direction, depending on the OP level of your party, more or less. But if you ever make the mistake of tossing it right out the window, you will regret it.

Also its worth noting that the WBL stat in the DMG is lowballed. A PC who starts his adventuring career from scratch will find he earns a significantly larger amount of goodies than the WBL chart, with one exception. Right at the switch from 20 to Epic. There's a real jump there, and its because Epic Magic Items are based on a larger cost formula, so too are Epic Treasure tables. A freshly 21st (even higher possibly) party may not have fought anything yet that grants them an Epic loot pile. In that case a new character might be far richer than pre-existing ones. This is obviously a fairly large edge case, and frankly I'd not recommend introducing a new player so fantastically late into a campaign anyway.

NichG

2014-11-18, 06:11 AM

No, Its really not. Money is Power. Full stop.

I've played in exactly one game where the party got hilarious amounts of money (not infinite, but billions of GP without epic magic items might as well be). The power difference was not 5 levels, the power difference after we went shopping was "we win".

I tried to warn the DM he didn't want to let the party have that much money, regardless of if we'd earned it in game or not, it would break things. Boy did it ever.

I've both played in two games and run one game myself where this was the case, and which allowed things like creating slotless items at 2x cost, and even with all of that the difference was about 5 levels worth of power. As a DM running for a party of mid-to-high op players who were able to get pretty much any non-epic gear they wanted, I found I had to amp things up by about +5 CR to keep the game challenging. It's harder to judge in cases where I was a player, because the results were entirely dependent on how the DM compensated.

Our experiences aren't actually contradictory - 5 levels should be enough to mean that the power difference is 'we win', if the DM doesn't increase the CR of opponents to compensate.

Psyren

2014-11-18, 09:34 AM

I wasn't agonizing... It was just an example.

Agreed that Consumables are a blessing for buffing NPCs. I usually use them this same way to great success

Well, 5% isn't extraordinarily low. It's basically rolling a 1 (or any other number for that matter) on a d20. I don't usually include them, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be taken into account when you distrubute treasure. Since I don't use them per se, they basically translate to "every once in a while, there should be slightly less wealth to account for a cursed item that would be here"

But random loot lowering WBL is part of the argument that WBL isn't as high as most people think, unless you go by a "hard" WBL. If the item is sold as Kelb or as GoodbyeSoberDay explained, it's fine, but it will decrease WBL somewhat regardless.

Much like having random loot decrease your WBL, having opponents that Sunder, Disjuction and Shatter items is a crucial aspect of WBL that should have already be taken into account.

What I'm saying though is that, with the exception of your last statement (which as I've said is a major problem in 3.5 due to how disproportionately it impacts martial classes), the rest of them are pretty minor exaggerations if they are exaggerations at all.

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-18, 09:56 AM

This kind of thing does make sense, if I understood you correctly. What I didn't understand for sure, is how this solves the problem of 20ft nunchaku. The companies might trade for it, but then you'll just end up with a bunch of semi-useless (aka. cheap) magical items. And of course, if those items were traded on a 1:1 price and you got your full 32k in minor magic items, that means you can resell them at 16k and keep the expected WBL. But why would the guilds give you a bunch of magic items that might be useful for them in exchange for your giant stick?

You did, indeed, misunderstand. I'm partially to blame though since I could've been clearer.

That old post of mine was intended as both a rationale for why magic mart was only an apparent phenomenon rather than an actual thing (though I did lampshade it that one time for a laugh) -and- as a rationale for the fact that a party can go into a town of sufficient size and dump their crap, pick up what they want, and move on. They do a bit of shopping around and I advance time at least a couple of days, sometimes a week or more, to represent the time it actually takes for brokers to shuffle their stock around.

In the particular instance of the ridiculously oversized nunchucks, you'd take them to a broker who would contact his trade group and see if anyone is looking for something like that, maybe there's a storm giant on the other side of the continent, maybe there's a collector of odd and exotic weapons, maybe there's a cult that believes that such an item is a holy artifact. The exact details don't matter, all that matters is that the city is of sufficient size that its GP limit is over 32k. You -could- block the sale by saying that the broker can't line up a buyer at this time so as to make them drag it around for a while and delay the increase in wealth but you -should- eventually let them hock it for the cash its worth.

And of course artificers are still a thing. 32k worth of nunchucks is 1,280xp.

The OP is right if you go by the book. I certainly go by the book in the games that I DM. However, you are still missing the biggest and, by far, the most critical problem with WBL.

PPK (partial party kill)

Four PCs wander about in the Abyss and fight with a bodak. The death gaze kills the chaotic neutral halfling rogue and the human paladin. Since both were annoying and their players want to create new PCs, the remaining PCs take their gear and return back to prime material.

The new PCs are a dwarven monk and human wizard. They don't need or want the gear left by the dead PCs and the survivors don't want or need them either. They decide to sell them, and soon they realize that the death of the two PCs has generated more quick cash than the slaying of any monster. Ever.

How about that?

In my games the players almost always celebrate the death of PCs because it brings more cash to the survivors than killing monsters or finding treasure.

Beat that, please.

That's just the players giving you carte blanche to use sundering, rust monsters, thievery and whatever other trickery you'd normally avoid to bring their wealth back in line. It's a temporary boost; nothing more.

Two things I feel I need to put forth that I seem to have missed saying before now; 1) If you're going to be sticking close to WBL it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to let your players know up front. You don't have to but it can help if they have a bad habit of stripping everything that's not nailed down or on fire for loot or leaving otherwise good characters dead for the cash dump. 2) WBL -is- a guideline. As long as the players are within, say, 15~ish percent of the listed values at level up, you're doing just fine.

heavyfuel

2014-11-18, 10:38 AM

The OP is right if you go by the book. I certainly go by the book in the games that I DM. However, you are still missing the biggest and, by far, the most critical problem with WBL.

PPK (partial party kill)

Four PCs wander about in the Abyss and fight with a bodak. The death gaze kills the chaotic neutral halfling rogue and the human paladin. Since both were annoying and their players want to create new PCs, the remaining PCs take their gear and return back to prime material.

The new PCs are a dwarven monk and human wizard. They don't need or want the gear left by the dead PCs and the survivors don't want or need them either. They decide to sell them, and soon they realize that the death of the two PCs has generated more quick cash than the slaying of any monster. Ever.

How about that?

In my games the players almost always celebrate the death of PCs because it brings more cash to the survivors than killing monsters or finding treasure.

Beat that, please.

Some players like creating new PCs instead of having the same PCs with a lower levels (as "rez" lowers your level). In fact, most of the players I know like creating new PCs when their current PCs die. It also gives the party gear-galore since the survivors get to keep the gear and the new PCs can't start naked. Consider this: It's the fastest way to get rich in D&D. There are no ifs or buts about it.

With all due respect, I would like to see these "NPC family gets the Cloak of Resistance +2" and "The hero gets buried with his gear" scenarios actually happen. I'm not saying that they don't, but they seem mythical to me.

That depends on how the DM handles new character creation. At my table? If you die, you either get rezed, suck on that negative level and small wealth loss, or you create a new character that is going to be at least 2 levels lower than the rest of the party and that has zero wealth. Yes. Zero wealth. Usually this comes in the form of a prisioner that was stripped, or a gambler that lost it all, or a junkie that managed to waste away his money.

That's how I beat that. Having your char killed shouldn't be "*shrug* I'll just create a new one...", it should have consequences that really affect gameplay. It's up to the new PC to convince the party to let him borrow equipment to help them and so on. Alternatively, if heirs get the wealth or the PC is burried with the armor and such. I these cases the new PC comes equiped with roughly the wealth a character of his lower level would have.

I wasn't saying you necessary "should" go for Hard WBL - I prefer Soft WBL most of the time, because having some gameplay around loot is fun. Hard WBL can be good for when you don't want to focus on money much though.

But IME, the softer the WBL connection is, the more above WBL the PCs tend to be. Because there are a lot of ways to get gold. Using magic to supercharge production. Just selling spellcasting directly. Stealing things. Taking those adamantine doors back to town. Political schemes. Magic item crafting ... the list goes on.

Like I said before, Soft WBL can very well mean richer players, but my personal experience is that the PCs were always 20~30% below it. YMMV

You did, indeed, misunderstand. I'm partially to blame though since I could've been clearer.

That old post of mine was intended as both a rationale for why magic mart was only an apparent phenomenon rather than an actual thing (though I did lampshade it that one time for a laugh) -and- as a rationale for the fact that a party can go into a town of sufficient size and dump their crap, pick up what they want, and move on. They do a bit of shopping around and I advance time at least a couple of days, sometimes a week or more, to represent the time it actually takes for brokers to shuffle their stock around.

In the particular instance of the ridiculously oversized nunchucks, you'd take them to a broker who would contact his trade group and see if anyone is looking for something like that, maybe there's a storm giant on the other side of the continent, maybe there's a collector of odd and exotic weapons, maybe there's a cult that believes that such an item is a holy artifact. The exact details don't matter, all that matters is that the city is of sufficient size that its GP limit is over 32k. You -could- block the sale by saying that the broker can't line up a buyer at this time so as to make them drag it around for a while and delay the increase in wealth but you -should- eventually let them hock it for the cash its worth.

Ok, I got what you're saying now.

Elkad

2014-11-18, 11:49 AM

You -could- block the sale by saying that the broker can't line up a buyer at this time so as to make them drag it around for a while and delay the increase in wealth but you -should- eventually let them hock it for the cash its worth.

Ok, I got what you're saying now.

I've done this even with non-magic items. Low-level party lugs a very expensive piece of jewelry (that would put them over WBL by a fair amount) out of a dungeon and hauls it to the moneychanger in Smallville. I tell them he can't handle the sale, but is willing to broker it to a big city for a percentage of the proceeds. Broker fronts them a percentage of it's value that won't break their WBL, and they get the rest a session or 3 later (when it fits their WBL).

Dr TPK

2014-11-18, 01:23 PM

That's just the players giving you carte blanche to use sundering, rust monsters, thievery and whatever other trickery you'd normally avoid to bring their wealth back in line. It's a temporary boost; nothing more.

With intelligent players that would not work. Imagine a thread titled like this:
"Help! My DM keeps targetting my character's gear!"
After a page or two, the player would be well-equipped to handle this. There are ways to destroy gear, but there's also ways to counter that. Your idea of destroying the gear doesn't work with dynamic players who want to keep it.

Psyren

2014-11-18, 01:26 PM

heavyfuel, did you miss my post at the bottom of the last page?

I've done this even with non-magic items. Low-level party lugs a very expensive piece of jewelry (that would put them over WBL by a fair amount) out of a dungeon and hauls it to the moneychanger in Smallville. I tell them he can't handle the sale, but is willing to broker it to a big city for a percentage of the proceeds. Broker fronts them a percentage of it's value that won't break their WBL, and they get the rest a session or 3 later (when it fits their WBL).

This is a fantastic solution too. Organic to the gameworld, the PCs don't feel cheated, and the table stays behind the scenes where it belongs. And when the rest of the gold arrives three sessions later the players will likely have forgotten and treat it like a bonus windfall. Everybody wins!

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-18, 05:56 PM

With intelligent players that would not work. Imagine a thread titled like this:
"Help! My dad keeps targetting my character's gear!"
After a page or two, the player would be well-equipped to handle this. There are ways to destroy gear, but there's also ways to counter that. Your idea of destroying the gear doesn't work with dynamic players who want to keep it.

Maybe, but now they're spending resources on protecting their gear. This is -much- less problematic than them spending those same resources on furthering their power and ultimately futile. It's -very- difficult to completely protect all of your gear and the adamantine horror exists. Disjunction, heavy handed as it is, -will- destroy a large portion of the party's gear. What say we settle this point of contention as you've suggested, though. It'll be a good resource to point to for people who have a DM overusing this strategy.

New thread: here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384294-Protecting-Gear).

aleucard

2014-11-19, 09:56 AM

WBL is a gauge of roughly how much they should have in gear if they come into the game at that level and not a single XP higher. They should get the difference between that level's WBL and the next one's over the course of them getting the XP for it. Bear in mind three things when any discussion about it is included, however.

One, it's considered a minimum for a reason. With the exception of a few classes and even fewer builds that don't involve those classes, if you don't have certain minimum-requirements met at or before a certain level, you will encounter monsters and other challenges that are flat-out unbeatable without the hole-patches provided by your bank account. Allips are just one of the most iconic examples of this. Not everyone wants to have to use potentially-cheesy builds in order to be acceptably WBL-independent. Don't force your players to have to use those tactics, you will not like the logical conclusion.

Two, there are things your players can buy that actually shouldn't really count against WBL that they may want/need anyway. As such, you shouldn't count GP and at least the majority value of consumables against the party's WBL. Sure, they could potentially abuse this, but that breaches the Gentleman's Agreement, and if that happens either they weren't conscious of its inclusion in it or there's deeper problems that need to be addressed. If you're running low on ideas for dealing with this, I agree with TypoNinja's suggestion of looking up the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and put that extraneous cash towards something that's both useful and won't overpower the party's mission capability. Some campaign types thrive on this sort of thing, really.

Three, should the party exceed WBL by a significant amount (2+ levels ahead is a good benchmark), absolutely nobody will begrudge you for breaking out the gear-eaters, aside from maybe the players. If their WBL is going towards things you can't target normally (Manuals, an Easy-Bake Wizard's or Erudite's Library, etc.), then drop them in a place where everything's hostile for a couple levels (one of the Evil Afterlife planes is an iconic choice, and at least Devils would probably put protections on their gear against looters and non-Devils trying to use them) until the parity's within tolerable levels. If even that don't work, or if they start crying bull!@#$ over it, then talk to your players about how their spending habits are dragging the party's power levels over lines you're not ready to cross quite yet.

Dalebert

2014-11-19, 10:24 AM

Telonius

2014-11-19, 10:37 AM

I don't see why they should be compensated at all. They were foolish and now shall be at 50k lower WBL for the rest of their adventuring careers. But I knew they weren't going to just leave the treasure, I really just wanted to see how they were going to transport it with them.

Adamantium doors have become somewhat of a joke in our group. A friend and I came up with the solution that adamantium doors are just steel doors with adamantiun plating and pure adamantium bolts. The doors are pretty worthless, but they always take away the bolts regardless

I'll never forget the day that the players cut through the wall around the hinges, since it was easier than breaking down the door...

aleucard

2014-11-19, 10:38 AM

How do you guys figure in item creation feats, if at all? These are feats that have practically no benefit other than saving money at the cost of PC time, and xp in 3.5 (but not PF). Does this create a lot of extra bookkeeping? For instance, do you try to count items they created as half cost for total WBL calcs?

I'd say that all relevant items count as their listed purchase price for WBL, regardless of how you came across them, unless if your method of use means they're functionally indistinguishable from either a consumable or a temporary buff (for instance, a translated version of the Demon's Souls weapon Stormruler). You'll have to keep track of what they're using, but it also means that the party's more able to use, er, 'creative' options with their expanded bank accounts that ultimately don't make THEM any stronger personally without feeling like it hurts their power.

Dalebert

2014-11-19, 11:01 AM

I'd say that all relevant items count as their listed purchase price for WBL, regardless of how you came across them...

So it would be pointless to take these feats in your game?

aleucard

2014-11-19, 11:10 AM

So it would be pointless to take these feats in your game?

In my game, it'd be useful for being able to turn GP into gear without having access to a Magic Mart and allow you to upgrade/customize your gear at your leisure. Sometimes "close enough" is not close enough.

I wouldn't hard-cap their treasure, though. What I'd do is include Rust Monsters and the like into the random encounter tables until the WBL is something more sane.

Remember, I ONLY count gear and at most a fraction of consumables against WBL. If they want to spend it on a Doom Fortress or as a circumstantial Diplomacy/Gather Information bonus, then I won't get in their way.

heavyfuel

2014-11-19, 12:09 PM

What I'm saying though is that, with the exception of your last statement (which as I've said is a major problem in 3.5 due to how disproportionately it impacts martial classes), the rest of them are pretty minor exaggerations if they are exaggerations at all.

heavyfuel, did you miss my post at the bottom of the last page?

Yes, I had missed it. Sorry.

Sure, I may have exagerated them... Cursed items that can really screw someone for instance almost never come into play (maybe twice or thrice per campaign), but I still think it's something that needs to be accounted for. It does reduce the player's wealth by a little bit.

WBL is a gauge of roughly how much they should have in gear if they come into the game at that level and not a single XP higher. They should get the difference between that level's WBL and the next one's over the course of them getting the XP for it. Bear in mind three things when any discussion about it is included, however.

One, it's considered a minimum for a reason. With the exception of a few classes and even fewer builds that don't involve those classes, if you don't have certain minimum-requirements met at or before a certain level, you will encounter monsters and other challenges that are flat-out unbeatable without the hole-patches provided by your bank account. Allips are just one of the most iconic examples of this. Not everyone wants to have to use potentially-cheesy builds in order to be acceptably WBL-independent. Don't force your players to have to use those tactics, you will not like the logical conclusion.

Two, there are things your players can buy that actually shouldn't really count against WBL that they may want/need anyway. As such, you shouldn't count GP and at least the majority value of consumables against the party's WBL. Sure, they could potentially abuse this, but that breaches the Gentleman's Agreement, and if that happens either they weren't conscious of its inclusion in it or there's deeper problems that need to be addressed. If you're running low on ideas for dealing with this, I agree with TypoNinja's suggestion of looking up the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and put that extraneous cash towards something that's both useful and won't overpower the party's mission capability. Some campaign types thrive on this sort of thing, really.

Three, should the party exceed WBL by a significant amount (2+ levels ahead is a good benchmark), absolutely nobody will begrudge you for breaking out the gear-eaters, aside from maybe the players. If their WBL is going towards things you can't target normally (Manuals, an Easy-Bake Wizard's or Erudite's Library, etc.), then drop them in a place where everything's hostile for a couple levels (one of the Evil Afterlife planes is an iconic choice, and at least Devils would probably put protections on their gear against looters and non-Devils trying to use them) until the parity's within tolerable levels. If even that don't work, or if they start crying bull!@#$ over it, then talk to your players about how their spending habits are dragging the party's power levels over lines you're not ready to cross quite yet.

You say it's a minimum, but nowhere in the books does it say it's a minimum. It's a guideline at best, and the general opinion seems to be that staying about 15% above or below it is just fine. Also, if a party is suffering because the Fighter doesn't have a +1 weapon to fight the Allip, that's poor planning on part of the Wizard, Cleric or the Rogue, since all these characters should carry a scroll of Magic Weapon, which costs 25 GP and lasts 10 rounds.

I'll never forget the day that the players cut through the wall around the hinges, since it was easier than breaking down the door...

Adamantium weapons do make that easy to do.

How do you guys figure in item creation feats, if at all? These are feats that have practically no benefit other than saving money at the cost of PC time, and xp in 3.5 (but not PF). Does this create a lot of extra bookkeeping? For instance, do you try to count items they created as half cost for total WBL calcs?

I too make the items worth it's full WBL, however, since I play by Soft WBL, that doesn't usually mean much. Note that Artificers don't usually exist in my campaigns, and depending on the group I'm DMing, neither does any T1 and T2 classes. So I haven't had a problem with Craft feats so far because the group that would be able to break WBL with it are usually playing ToB classes or T3 casters like Beguiler, Bard or Duskblade.

Kelb_Panthera

2014-11-19, 02:43 PM

How do you guys figure in item creation feats, if at all? These are feats that have practically no benefit other than saving money at the cost of PC time, and xp in 3.5 (but not PF). Does this create a lot of extra bookkeeping? For instance, do you try to count items they created as half cost for total WBL calcs?

Item creation feats have the benefit of getting you -exactly- what it is you want and while the half-price won't matter in the long-term, it -is- felt in the short-term. That +3 equivalent weapon you just crafted 2 levels before you could reasonably afford to buy the same -will- make a difference but only for the next level or two.

OldTrees1

2014-11-19, 03:39 PM

Ashtagon

2014-11-19, 04:52 PM

georgie_leech

2014-11-19, 06:52 PM

NichG

2014-11-19, 07:10 PM

Wouldn't that have the effect of exacerbating accidental WBL issues? Undergeared PC's are leveled faster, so need fewer encounters and thus fewer chances at randomised loot, while the overgeared PC's get more randomised loot.

I think so. I've seen that kind of thing happen in games - a PC wants to be more powerful, so they push the DM to grant more XP, with the result that relative to appropriate encounters they're actually less powerful than before.

heavyfuel

2014-11-19, 08:06 PM

The hatarakimono GM's approach:

Keep track of the actual value of the equipment the PCs have equipped. If that matches their "correct" WBL, all is well and good. If they are carrying a total equipment value above their level, their ECL increases, which will reduce the XP earned per encounter. Conversely, if their carried gear is below their "correct" WBL, reduce their ECL, which will result in more XP per encounter.

If they game that by intentionally leaving gear at home to reduce their WBL and therefore ECL, they're more likely to have characters die due to not being properly geared up for the fight.

I actually follow a similar approach to hatarakimono's, whoever he is, in most of my games (not the one that's subject of this thread).

Basically, it follows the guideline that a CR appropriate encounter should cost 25% of a character's resourses. So if you just end the enemy with a single charge, you don't get full XP because you didn't expend 25%. It was too easy for your character, regardless of his level, and he didn't therefore grow. Because of how OP my players like to keep things, this doesn't usually become a huge issue, but higher OP chars are usually at lower XP than less OP chars

Ashtagon

2014-11-19, 10:30 PM

Sorry, I forgot top mention the other part of the hatarakimono GM approach: You adjust the size of the treasure drops according to the amount of WBL the party is carrying.

ArqArturo

2014-11-19, 10:47 PM

I approach WBL as follows:

1.- Coin, art, and gems are the common pile, and there's one bit of treasure that benefits at least one party member, and very rarely do I do something specific (this is why I love PF treasure guidelines, it gives you some leeway to make treasure).

2.- My players actually solve the problem of them getting more loot when others die: They actually do a 'viking funeral' on the dead character(s) religiously, to the point that one player playing a sorcerer created scrolls of (and later, on a wand) Disintegrate to destroy unburnable treasure. This of course angered a new player, who said that it was the dumbest practice ever.

Oko and Qailee

2014-11-19, 11:18 PM

2.- My players actually solve the problem of them getting more loot when others die: They actually do a 'viking funeral' on the dead character(s) religiously, to the point that one player playing a sorcerer created scrolls of (and later, on a wand) Disintegrate to destroy unburnable treasure. This of course angered a new player, who said that it was the dumbest practice ever.

How could they ever think this is dumb? Heck, this is AWESOME. I want my PC's to go with their gear.

That +5 mercurial greatsword and me bonded...

ArqArturo

2014-11-19, 11:57 PM

How could they ever think this is dumb? Heck, this is AWESOME. I want my PC's to go with their gear.

That +5 mercurial greatsword and me bonded...

Well, it was only one player, and while most of the conversation was over a few months ago, the gist of it was this:

Player: And then we bury her with her belongings
Player2: I set the fire and mutter prayers
Me: Ok, the fire burns everything, except the armor, the shield, and the coins and jewlery.
Player2: I take the wand of disintegrate
Player3: ... Wait, what? No! I step infront of them! We gotta loot the corpse
Player2: Dude, it's her stuff, she's taking it with her.
Player3: No, damn it! It's worth a lot, we just can't
Player2: And we will
Player3: This is CENSORED

VisitingDaGulag

2014-11-21, 09:19 PM

Hard WBL isn't enough: it discourages playing well. Strict WBL is 760k gp in an adventurers career period. How much benefit you gain from those limited resources is up to you. This the only way to not end up with ridiculous player actions: You get WBL in coins, regardless of what you do with it. No babying from a DM being 'soft' on WBL

A) Consumables are a last resort. Don't use them unless you must to progress to the next level. Either you aren't playing smart or you didn't optimize enough. It can still be fun, but it has to feel different rather than "WBL says these don't count! I chug all these potions / use all these wands before every battle and always win! And it never hurts my WBL!"
B) Everything can be sold at 50% through a fence. Artificers would love that high-priced ton of XP cursed item you have. This isn't a last resort, but it is the fault of your own stupidity if you accept it. See below.
C) Learn to work for coins. People don't barter anymore and important adventurers don't take payment in random, mildly valuable objects that enemies might have. The enemy items belong to the king. He can pawn them if he wants, but you earn the cash regardless. If you have to sunder a few things, no skin off your back.
D) Learn to protect your gear, whether its your stronghold or your shield. Without 9th level enemy casters running around, there are ways to make sure the enemies can't break your bling.

PS. player death is the hardest to balance. Just like XP penalties hurt you by rez'ing and often carry over when someone makes a new character (to make it fair with a player that agrees to a rez), WBL should stay per player. After all its so hard to find good help.