Handeling settings and CR when everyone and everything gets to ignore WBL?

[Schattenbach]

So I wonder about how to best handle Handeling settings and CR when everone gets to ignore WBL? Among the most important of things I've noticed is that when everyone gets to ignore WBL, monsters and such (or rather ... everyone that lacks equipment) usually get sort of screwed over (which would make it pretty high priority for animals/vermin/beasts and such to gain intelligence as to actually be a credible threat as well as some ways to aquire magic, I guess), while its also fairly easy for super large organisations to amass incredible amounts of wealth and to grow stronger and stronger (i.e. building incredible strong foundations overthousands or even millions of years and thus reaching near Xianxian-esque sect stats of brokeness by amassing countless overpowered magic items and/or artifacts/major artifacts) as time goes on unless they're restrained by other forces to some degree or fall into internal strife that wastes some of these resources or makes them - eventually - collapse.

Some reasonable options I've considered in regard to that are ...
... making item destruction (sundering/disjunction/etc.) just that much more common in their use (which in turn forces people - NPCs and PCs - to invest in ways to make their stuff more durable ... and actually destoying stuff is something that will eventually turn out to be necessary in combat, because items make things scale much faster than actual class features and such, especially when stacking several sources of things, like several sources of AC/Saves/nasty features or several sources of item-based spellcasting or several blanko immunities etc., at once)
... making stuff past certain epic thresholds (like CL over 40, or overall weapon enhancement over +40 or SR over 40 or Competence Skillbonus over 45 or ability score bonus over +12 or natural armor bonus/luck bonus to AC/Insight bonus to AC/Deflection bonus to AC/profane bonus to AC/Sacred Bonus to AC over +8/+10/+12 or so and stuff like Non-Resistance save boni over +6 or +8 etc.) just that much more expensive (even if someone finds ways to migiate the costs down, it will still take years to craft that stuff, so the supply is somewhat limited by crafting time investment alone)
... to make items past a certain threshold more difficult to aquire in general (because that "CL 50 Dictum" At-Will or a few uses per day item is a bit too troublesome to sell freely) as major factions (as likely aren't many people outside of these factions that are able to craft that stuff) are likely unwilling to sell them without at least considering it a favour (and offering it up for cheap, like for some champion of their cause, might just be something they're willing to do for something that's willing to champion their cause, anyway); so one either has to somehow has to own some bigshot (be it some wizard or some actual 0825 god that champions good/some god of magic or nature/evil god/demon god/etc.) a favour even just for aquiring that item (which requires making connections with that bigshot in the first place) or has to find if from some ruins or has to win a auction or so where that stuff could be aquired (hopefully something that was discovered in some ruins and not stolen from some major faction, as the one that gets the item might anger the major faction the item has been stolen from)

I'm still troubled in regard to how to adjust the CR, though, as WBL is a reasonable consideration in that regard (and even the epic level handbook - despite it flaws - somewhat figured out that that's the case by pointing out that NPCs, due to their usually much lower amount of wealth being something big, should get some modifications to their CR when it matters, etc.).

As such, some insights and advice in regard to how to handle that would be nice.

Thanks in advance.

[Darrin]

I'm not sure what you're asking for. When you say "ignore WBL", do you mean that this is a post-scarcity campaign world where every player is essentially creating their own pocket planes with an army of ice assassin aleax clones that are regularly casting epic-level spells for mundane tasks like taking out the garbage? If that's the power level of this campaign... then I don't think there's much useful advice we can offer you, as you are essentially playing Advanced Calvinball at such a high level that the game rules are largely reduced to a spectator role.

[Florian]

Hm...

CR/WBL deal with resource handling. Even with unlimited WBL, this´ll take a step towards action handling. Consider that in a setting with limitless WBL, options that drain resources hard are CR-5 and quite common.

[The_Jette]

Consider a few situations where you take this the opposite direction. For instance, the group hears about an ancient dragon and dream of using its hoard to their advantage. They attack, and overcome the obstacle just to find that the dragon didn't even have a hoard. There are so many town's guard that are stocked up with Arrows of Dragon Slaying that the only way this dragon lived as long as it did was by not going out and raiding for a hoard. It sleeps on piles of pillows and blankets instead of coins and gems.

[Schattenbach]

Thanks for the answers thus far.


I'm not sure what you're asking for. When you say "ignore WBL", do you mean that this is a post-scarcity campaign world where every player is essentially creating their own pocket planes with an army of ice assassin aleax clones that are regularly casting epic-level spells for mundane tasks like taking out the garbage? If that's the power level of this campaign... then I don't think there's much useful advice we can offer you, as you are essentially playing Advanced Calvinball at such a high level that the game rules are largely reduced to a spectator role.

"Ignoring WBL" as in "not being restricted by it", i.e. now that ancient powerful wizard can amass as much (or as little) wealth over the thousands of years of his life as he reasonably could, and the same goes for that super rich Lvl 5 human Expert that made it rich it big quickly. Obviously, there are some who could freely produce wealth (like, for example, deities ... things like Alter Reality are quite helpful in that regard), though just because they possess (or can freely generate at least 25,000gp with one standard action) wealth doesn't mean they have direct access to powerful magic items.

For the purpose of this thread, lets assume that deities and such exist and are active and that the reasonable ruling applies that SLAs/Alter Reality/etc. that have no EXP/GP component cannot use the optional and/or variable EXP/gp functions of that spell/etc (so no wish for 1,000,000,000,000gp worth of magic items through some SLA wish or such) and that spells/SLAs/etc. cannot freely create things beyond the caster level they're used at.

[Zombimode]

"Ignoring WBL" as in "not being restricted by it", i.e. now that ancient powerful wizard can amass as much (or as little) wealth over the thousands of years of his life as he reasonably could, and the same goes for that super rich Lvl 5 human Expert that made it rich it big quickly. Obviously, there are some who could freely produce wealth (like, for example, deities ... things like Alter Reality are quite helpful in that regard), though just because they possess (or can freely generate at least 25,000gp with one standard action) wealth doesn't mean they have direct access to powerful magic items.

It seems that you see WBL as a tangible "law" in the game world.

This is not the case. WBL is a metagame construct to facilitate that the game functions in a certain way.

The "restriction" you are thinking to remove does not exist in the first place.

There is no "law" by that a PC of a certain Level has a certain wealth. It just recommended that the DM will construct the game in such a way that the events in-game evolve such that it "just happens" to be so that the PC will attain a certain Level of wealth.

[Schattenbach]

It seems that you see WBL as a tangible "law" in the game world.

This is not the case. WBL is a metagame construct to facilitate that the game functions in a certain way.

The "restriction" you are thinking to remove does not exist in the first place.

There is no "law" by that a PC of a certain Level has a certain wealth. It just recommended that the DM will construct the game in such a way that the events in-game evolve such that it "just happens" to be so that the PC will attain a certain Level of wealth.

I'm well aware that it is only a guideline; that's not what I'm talking about, though? I'm talking about how a setting where things aren't artifically tailored according to these convient guidelines (that are the way thing are supposed to work, according to the assumptions the various rules make) at all - regardless of if its about overall wealth in general (the fortress the Big bad possesses usually costs much more than his WBL would allow for, anyway, and so do the minions he might've to pay for) or equipment (the equipment of said big bad mentioned before is, after all, still, regardless of that, kept in line by the strict WBL-based assumption that the CR10 & 10 HD big bad lacks equipment in the 1,000,000gp range ... or epic items at that, "because non-epic characters aren't supposed to possess stuff like that because ... reasons and stuff" ... and as far as I can tell thus far, both the books and web articles supplement this assumption quite a bit by going on and on about what level a NPC would have to be to "own" a particulary piece of equipment, based on his/her/its NPC WBL) or other things along these lines and more - but instead works based on how things might work over time when people accumulate (or, in some cases, use up/get robbed of) quite a bit of wealth (though accumulating unfathomable wealth and possessing next to nothing in terms of wealth are two of the major issues here, I guess) and I wonder about how to reasonably make things work out in a setting (that according to the laid out rules framework isn't that good at handeling that, as outstanding epic equipment is often just so much better than class or monster capabilities) so that things don't escalate too much (its incredibly easy to get sky high saves, after all, once someone isn't restrained by money any longer, after all ... and sky high saves is all one needs so that even Disjunction only has that 5% chance - or even lower, if one is using one if the saving throw variants - to blow through those defenses along with all that magic bling that is protected by these considerably disjunction-proofed saves) and so that one could work with CRs - i.e. without all EXP being ad hoc - and such.

[Gildedragon]

In the case of the big bad: their WBL is the items they have use of and access to for an encounter.
The rune circle that gives him fast healing counts; the escape pod maybe does maybe doesn't; the lavish rug on the front door does not and is just handwaved away as part of the PCs treasure.

[Andezzar]

CR and WBL are balancing constructs. Why don't you want to use them?

D&D does not work as a world simulation. If it were such a simulation you would have a non-zero probability of 1st level adventurers encountering an epic lich riding a great wyrm. As a game you don't want that, because the result is pretty clear. The same goes for over (or under) equipped characters. A single level of wizard and cleric and a steady supply of wands for example could let a level 2 character punch significantly above his weight class.

Taking that away will just make balancing a lot harder or you will end up with more frequent TPKs. What is your goal for removing WBL?

[Schattenbach]

In the case of the big bad: their WBL is the items they have use of and access to for an encounter.
The rune circle that gives him fast healing counts; the escape pod maybe does maybe doesn't; the lavish rug on the front door does not and is just handwaved away as part of the PCs treasure.

I aware of thar but thanks for pointing that out, anyway, as that's a good starting point here in regard to the second point of this thread ... CR. I.e. ... the foe possessing much more equipment and general magical bling when compared to his/her opponents ends up making combat considerably more difficult (it might even be nearly unwinnable for them, but that depends on what that wealth has been invested into), while that wild beast might be quite powerful on its own, but being nearly without wealth, is unlikely to be the slightest match for a party of PCs (or, if that matters, other equal leveled NPCs). One could simply adjusting the CR up and down due to special cirumstances (as it is the case with things like ambushes or fog or whatever) to take that into consideration, though I'm not sure how well that might work in practice here. Edit: Though the other extreme, i.e. removing wealth-related considerations from monsters (and increasing -or reducing - their CR accordingly) might also work out somewhat, I guess, and while this still ends up with those with extreme wealth having the edge, equipment (Major Artifacts aside) being destroyable (and good equipment not being that easy to replace) might balance that out somewhat. It would end up making out-of-combat power building stuff even stronger, though.


& Edit:



CR and WBL are balancing constructs. Why don't you want to use them?

D&D does not work as a world simulation. If it were such a simulation you would have a non-zero probability of 1st level adventurers encountering an epic lich riding a great wyrm. As a game you don't want that, because the result is pretty clear. The same goes for over (or under) equipped characters. A single level of wizard and cleric and a steady supply of wands for example could let a level 2 character punch significantly above his weight class.

Taking that away will just make balancing a lot harder or you will end up with more frequent TPKs. What is your goal for removing WBL?

I prefer Sandboxes ... Sandboxes being less restricted by wealth-related concerns for everyone (as the PCs can and likely will break WBL, anyway ... its a Sandbox, after all) should make things go better overall and give the setting more consistency ... 1st PCs running into an epic lich riding a great wyrm is unlikely anyway (the PCs usually just too unimportant as far as that Duo of bigshots is concerned) and even if they somehow run into one of these (maybe because there's something out there that that Epic Lich&Great Wyrm Duo wants and they happen to be near that location), unless they somehow irritate them or that Duo feels like it has to be mean or the 1st level PCs end up getting caught up in some fight between the Duo and some other force (ending up as possible collateral damage as a result), I wonder why they would even bother with these small fries (their time is highly valuable, after all).

[Andezzar]

OK, now I start to grasp what you are getting at. You can still run a sandbox with WBL largely intact. Just use it as a rough guideline. A bog standard goblin still would not have a magic weapons and armor whereas the aforementioned lich wouldn't be naked either. WBL should give you an idea what a creature should have in items that could impact the encounter (magic items, poisons, mundane gear etc.) it should not be a measure of the creature's total assets.

You just have to wing it. clever wealth management even within WBL can make characters of quite different power levels. If you thow WBL out of the window this issue just becomes more pronounced.

Re CR & WBL: The DMG gives the option of modifying the EL of an encounter due to favorable or unfavorable conditions. Being significantly better or worse equipped is such a favorable/unfavorable condition IMHO. It is not more complicated than that, I think.

[Eldariel]

If you slam everyone around a similar tier, intraparty balance will largely remain intact without WBL. Then just wing encounters based on party capabilities.

[Coidzor]

Creatures that are able to generate wealth in a timely manner will be able to buy better gear, but will also be targets for strong creatures that want that wealth/gear.

Wealthy nobles and the like probably have better gear than they would just going off of the NPC WBL table for their level.

Being a crafter who invests the lion's share of their wealth into constructs would probably be the most safe way to invest money to prevent dragons from trying to increase their hoard or get a hoard in the first place by ganking you.