3.5 wbl how strict?

[wookietek]

How strict do people play according to Wealth By Level guidelines? I know the key word is 'guidelines' but...

I am in a game that started at 5th level, and we rolled our characters with the wbl chart. I assumed loot would drop, but I am close to 10th level, and still have the 5th level wealth. This is mostly due to the loot that has dropped has been more useful to other characters, but even with that averaged among the party I would estimate that we are still woeful levels under. I also feel like we are under performing as a party; the 2 deaths may have been avoided with better resources.

Now I don't think we need to be at exactly wbl, but within even 20% would be nice. What's the best way to handle this?

[CharonsHelper]

How strict do people play according to Wealth By Level guidelines? I know the key word is 'guidelines' but...

It's a balance factor. The mechanics basically assume that you're close. Being too much higher or lower screws up balance and especially penalizes martials (who can't afford it) while not affecting arcane casters much besides hurting their defenses a bit.

Basically - wealth in 3.x is closely tied to character power and should be thought of as a secondary EXP track. (I've even known GMs that did away with wealth and just allowed PCs to purchase equipment effects with "moxie" equal to their WBL and at the same costs.)

WBL level guidelines shouldn't be messed with much unless you are using one of the alternate auto-upgrade systems. (Pathfinder Unchained had a couple of them.)


Now I don't think we need to be at exactly wbl, but within even 20% would be nice. What's the best way to handle this?

Talk to your GM. If your GM has kept you poor, in-character actions are unlikely to fix it.

[Swaoeaeieu]

loot is strictly the Dm's domain. So if you arent getting enough it might be on purpose. Or he doesnt realise.
I say you should ask your dm about it, it might be his wish for the campaign to be deadly and poor.

[KillianHawkeye]

In my group, we basically just use it for starting wealth when making a new character at higher level. Otherwise, whatever treasure we get is what we get.

Some of the DMs in the group are known for being more stingy or more generous with treasure, and they have their own reasons for it, but it generally doesn't cause too many problems. It's more like a running joke in the games where we don't get much, and it gets a bit silly in the ones where we have a lot more (especially since that's also the game where I'm playing a Wizard who crafts items in his downtime, further exacerbating the situation).

[Psyren]

You can deviate from WBL, even sharply, but it should be for a limited period of time. If you're spending multiple sessions in the red, especially if you're leveling up and/or facing tougher challenges while still being behind, you should talk about it with your GM.

[Goaty14]

Not.

I am in a running campaign with my DM, and we rolled starting gold as if we were level 1, and the last pile of treasure got us ~120 gold each.

That said, it IS our first campaign.

[flappeercraft]

I literally just drop motherloads of GP value. By this point my players probably have over twice the WBL Guidelines in wealth

[zlefin]

I mostly use them for starting wealth determination; that said, it is true that the game balance is based on those wealth levels, and being far below/above it will make the party weaker/stronger; especially being short on it can make martials weaker by making their attack/ac/saves too low. (casters of course can just be poewrful anyways, and are a bit less sensitive to wealth).
A good dm, or a powerful party, can work around alternate wealth levels fine if they're aware of it; but if they're not it could cause a problem. I'd say check with your dm about it to amke sure he's aware of it.

[Necroticplague]

Well, ideally, a party shouldn't have any magic items. The balance of the game is fragile enough as it is without introducing a whole new immersion-breaking mechanic to min-max.

[CharonsHelper]

Well, ideally, a party shouldn't have any magic items. The balance of the game is fragile enough as it is without introducing a whole new immersion-breaking mechanic to min-max.

Lol - not in 3.x without alternate rules. (And why is a flaming sword more immersion-breaking than someone who can wave around their arms and throw bat poop to create a roiling ball of flame?)

[Eldariel]

An experienced DM with a balanced party doesn't need to really care. It's mostly an intraparty and party vs. CR balance question, but an experienced DM can outperform both raw metrics with their own understanding and analysis of the actual variables beyond those numbers. You can just roll with whatever the party finds and go with that but martial types in particular are quite reliant on magic items for both, AC and non-AC defenses, and basic utility like flight, anti-invisibility, anti-illusion, immunities (mind-affecting, criticals/precision damage, negative energy, etc.), etc. Though more advanced martial classes like ToB classes can provide for themselves to a degree - again, it's a matter of intraparty balance. Casters can basically do all that with spells so they just enhance their spells with magic items like metamagic rods, caster level boosters and such (and get backup spells in the form of Wands and Scrolls for when they run low).

In sandbox-style campaigns, you obviously never give the party anything but what they themselves earn and find. Generally such games work best with experienced players and DMs, though the average monster treasure often does result in fairly reasonable WBL for the level if the items are liquidated and the wealth split fairly across the party. A successful party of dragon hunters is gonna be way richer than average (or way deader) though - but that's always the story of a big game hunter. In a player-tailored campaign you can give magic items for the weaker or lagging party members to try and even the scores, or to just keep them near WBL if there's no particular character in need. Both are equally valid, though the former is more work and IMHO much more rewarding.

[Psyren]

Well, ideally, a party shouldn't have any magic items. The balance of the game is fragile enough as it is without introducing a whole new immersion-breaking mechanic to min-max.

Are... are you in the right subforum? :smalltongue:

[Sagetim]

How strict do people play according to Wealth By Level guidelines? I know the key word is 'guidelines' but...

I am in a game that started at 5th level, and we rolled our characters with the wbl chart. I assumed loot would drop, but I am close to 10th level, and still have the 5th level wealth. This is mostly due to the loot that has dropped has been more useful to other characters, but even with that averaged among the party I would estimate that we are still woeful levels under. I also feel like we are under performing as a party; the 2 deaths may have been avoided with better resources.

Now I don't think we need to be at exactly wbl, but within even 20% would be nice. What's the best way to handle this?

In the campaign I am currently running with Pathfinder, to get my players used to using Path of War and Path of War Expanded material, I've been building custom npcs for them to fight and custom monsters to spawn to provide them with a more appropriate challenge. Now, that said, 5 mummies each with a level of Steelfist Commando turned out to be much more of a fight than I anticipated, because it wasn't until the second encounter with them (I've built my own little random encounter charts for this game) that I remembered 'oh right, they have to make will saves when they first hit within 30 feet'. And while the first encounter with those mummies wasn't so bad (someone got mummy rot, but it was over pretty quick) the second one, with the rules being properly utilized in it, was a helluva fight for the players. Now, they did manage to win (with a bit of small help from an npc that had hired him to be his muscle to see him safely to the next town, dude has an eternal wand of fireballs, but that doesn't solve every problem). But the mummies in that fight, being monsters who are vaguely souped up, granted random loot drops according to their adjusted CR.

Of course, I did say they are fighting custom npcs, and they are. There's a 'beat this guy with your superior kung fu to unite the macguffin' going on with the campaign, and each of the npcs carrying a macguffin is a mid to high level martial maneuver user of some kind, so I built them as a player character with player character wealth by level (and the macguffin on top). This works out pretty well, in that it introduces the characters to incrementally better gear, for the most part, by looting it from these fallen foes. While some of the players are bound to be a little behind or a little ahead, I'm not particularly concerned if they shoot upwards in finances, because the only way for them to spend copious amounts of money on upgrading their gear is by doing the crafting themselves or by commission. While there are enchanters about in the kingdom, there aren't going to be a lot, or any of them, with a +5 sword just sitting around waiting to be bought.

Having monsters explode into loot bags at the end of every fight tends to help make sure the players have Something for their efforts regularly, even if the monster entry is normally a giant middle finger of 0 loot. I'm not worried about my players getting too much money, their main goal for the campaign is time sensitive (or at least, feels time sensitive because regular people are endangered by it not being completed and the party has enough good aligned people that this matters).

Now, that all said, I have been in a game as a player where the loot did not flow properly. From level 3 to 6 we barely got anything, and then managed to get a handful of level appropriate items, then from 6 to 10 or so we again had a drought of gear. It was a zombie apocalypse, but thankfully I was playing a Soulknife, so while my ac was getting progressively worse for my level (in that it wasn't going up) at least my mindblade kind of kept pace with the challenges we were facing and the sheer weight of the party's dps saw us through a number of combats that a more traditionally balanced party would have fallen to. That didn't stop it from being awful though, and eventually the GM wound up awarding us with story appropriate loot for one of our accomplishments (Rather, we finally got to loot the hell out of one of the fights we were involved in) and the sale of that loot vaulted our wealth by level up over our current level. And then we kind of never quite fell back under wealth by level, because the GM had learned to properly sprinkle loot opportunities into the fights (or at least, give us enough of a chance to loot the enemies we were facing to make due).

TL;DR- If this is getting really bad, talk to your GM about it. Not in an accusatory tone, but as a point of concern. Like "I am concerned or characters just won't be up to the challenges we face due to a lack of level appropriate gear" rather than "how dare you gimp us by not giving us the wealth amount it says on the chart, etc ,etc ,etc"

[Necroticplague]

Lol - not in 3.x without alternate rules. (And why is a flaming sword more immersion-breaking than someone who can wave around their arms and throw bat poop to create a roiling ball of flame?)

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD? I know of only one such story, and that's because it's based off a video game, and the main character is a crafter (and the other characters react, universally, in astonishment at this ability).

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, not some interchangeable 'bonus I need because my class doesn't provide what I need'. If you absolutely need a magic item for your class to work, it's your fault for picking an incompetent class. The mage is fine casting because it's an ability that they alone possess. A generic magic item should not exist because there is nothing special about it.

[inuyasha]

I pretty much only pay attention to wbl when I'm building characters. When I'm DMing, my players get as much gold as I deem fit for the situation, guidelines be damned. It usually ends up being a lot, but all of us have a good time, and that's what matters.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, [...]
Screw that. Magic item crafting & WBL rules produce a universe I'm happy with, don't want no stinkin' 'supposedses' ruining it. Real-life adventurers bring a ton of advanced gizmos with them, don't see why your mid-range D&D (N)PC shouldn't have as many. That would be immersion-breaking.

[Sagetim]

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD? I know of only one such story, and that's because it's based off a video game, and the main character is a crafter (and the other characters react, universally, in astonishment at this ability).

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, not some interchangeable 'bonus I need because my class doesn't provide what I need'. If you absolutely need a magic item for your class to work, it's your fault for picking an incompetent class. The mage is fine casting because it's an ability that they alone possess. A generic magic item should not exist because there is nothing special about it.

That's nice, but probably more the subject of your own thread than this one. Which has to do with 'how badly are we gonna die if we don't have wealth appropriate to our level?'. To which the answer is inevitably going to swing back to 'it depends if the DM did this on purpose or not, and how much of a jerk they might be.'

[NOhara24]

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD? I know of only one such story, and that's because it's based off a video game, and the main character is a crafter (and the other characters react, universally, in astonishment at this ability).

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, not some interchangeable 'bonus I need because my class doesn't provide what I need'. If you absolutely need a magic item for your class to work, it's your fault for picking an incompetent class. The mage is fine casting because it's an ability that they alone possess. A generic magic item should not exist because there is nothing special about it.

You must be fun at sessions. :eyeroll:

[Grod_The_Giant]

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, not some interchangeable 'bonus I need because my class doesn't provide what I need'. If you absolutely need a magic item for your class to work, it's your fault for picking an incompetent class. The mage is fine casting because it's an ability that they alone possess. A generic magic item should not exist because there is nothing special about it.
I agree with you conceptually, but that's not how 3.5 was designed. The underlying math assumes you're getting magic weapons, armor, stat boosting items, and so on. (The easiest place to see that is AC-- attack bonuses go up with level, AC is roughly static without items). The "classes can't contribute without items" thing is probably accidental, but the need for "big six" magic items is very real. You really can't cut them out of 3.5 without some sort of replacement.

[Eldariel]

I agree with you conceptually, but that's not how 3.5 was designed. The underlying math assumes you're getting magic weapons, armor, stat boosting items, and so on. (The easiest place to see that is AC-- attack bonuses go up with level, AC is roughly static without items). The "classes can't contribute without items" thing is probably accidental, but the need for "big six" magic items is very real. You really can't cut them out of 3.5 without some sort of replacement.

Well, you can if you play casters; cast stat bonuses are nice but not necessary and beyond that, you can do everything with spells. Magic Vestment, Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Circle, Halo of Sand, Barkskin, Shield of Faith, etc. Even casting stat bonuses are kinda available. And if party has casters with those spells, the abilities are available to other party members too making it less of a problem. Mostly, lack of magic items increases the caster reliance and kinda weights the game towards everybody just playing casters to provide all the effects necessary for everyone to function as normal.

[CharonsHelper]

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD?

You mean like Tolkein?

Frodo had

1. Magic ring (obviously)

2. Magic Sword

3. Magic armor

4. Magic Rope

5. Magical lembas bread

6. Magic elven cloak

7. Phial of Galadriel (contained star of Earendil)

And probably more that they never bothered explaining. And this is in a relatively low magic world (something no one has ever accused D&D of) and a rather low level character.

[Psyren]

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD? I know of only one such story, and that's because it's based off a video game, and the main character is a crafter (and the other characters react, universally, in astonishment at this ability).

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, not some interchangeable 'bonus I need because my class doesn't provide what I need'. If you absolutely need a magic item for your class to work, it's your fault for picking an incompetent class. The mage is fine casting because it's an ability that they alone possess. A generic magic item should not exist because there is nothing special about it.

I'm actually fine with this mindset (though it is not by any means the only way to play) - but it requires significant overhauling of encounter math and PC progression if you want to apply it to 3e or PF. If you want magic items to be rare, you will be required to either (a) use an alternate gearing model like Automatic Bonus Progression, or (b) set a low haes cap on PC progression like E6 does. You simply cannot run the system as-is with rare magic items, not if you want your PCs to actually survive past low levels.

And to answer your question, no it's not just D&D that does this - Almost every RPG with a variety of item slots ends up having generic magic items. Look at magic items in a game like Elder Scrolls, or Diablo, or WoW; the vast majority are bundles of stats that serve only as Differences in Scale rather than truly unique Differences in Kind.

[Crake]

I solve this issue by removing magic items completely, using automatic bonus progression, and making loot about the exotic mundane equipment. Instead of rolling on a magic item table, I roll on the special materials table and give players awesome gear that they can call their own, rather than getting tossed aside and replaced within the next couple of sessions. That, and a high focus on consumable alchemical items that cover a wide variety of bases that spells would normally be required for is all the players need to play a fun, happy game free of worry about "do we have just the right amount of loot from this encounter to maintain a competitive edge for the next one?

[Necroticplague]

And to answer your question, no it's not just D&D that does this - Almost every RPG with a variety of item slots ends up having generic magic items. Look at magic items in a game like Elder Scrolls, or Diablo, or WoW; the vast majority are bundles of stats that serve only as Differences in Scale rather than truly unique Differences in Kind.
And those are all video games, where immersion is inherently impossible, due to the method by which one controls them. So they're still immersion-ruining, it's just irrelevant, because the immersion's already been ruined.

[ExLibrisMortis]

And those are all video games, where immersion is inherently impossible, due to the method by which one controls them. So they're still immersion-ruining, it's just irrelevant, because the immersion's already been ruined.
You have a very limited view of immersion and video games. Immersion is totally possible in video games, and if you don't experience it, that's you to blame, not video games. If you're going to make this sort of claim, I'm (we're, probably) not going to take your position seriously, so let's pretend you didn't.

[Psyren]

And those are all video games, where immersion is inherently impossible, due to the method by which one controls them. So they're still immersion-ruining, it's just irrelevant, because the immersion's already been ruined.

"Impossible?" Nonsense, CRPGs are plenty immersive. (Well, maybe you are incapable of roleplaying in a game like Morrowind, but I assure you other people can.)

Regardless, my point applies to tabletop too - if the game has numerous item slots, designers will fill those slots. If the power level of the game has a wide enough range (e.g. rats to bandits to giants to dragons) those slots will end up creating differences in scale in addition to differences in kind. Few RPGs have the substantial christmas tree that D&D does, but there are plenty where not every magic sword is the Macguffin of an entire plotline either.

[Necroticplague]

Regardless, my point applies to tabletop too - if the game has numerous item slots, designers will fill those slots. If the power level of the game has a wide enough range (e.g. rats to bandits to giants to dragons) those slots will end up creating differences in scale in addition to differences in kind. Few RPGs have the substantial christmas tree that D&D does, but there are plenty where not every magic sword is the Macguffin of an entire plotline either.

The idea that magic shouldn't be special comes before slots. Slots are only needed if magic stuff is so common that you can get crap that starts overlapping with each other.

[Thurbane]

WBL is a guideline only, not the 11th commandment that a lot of min/maxers portray it as.

Sure, 3.5 is pretty gear dependent, and if the DM expects the party to fight a Balor with masterwork spear and a +1 ring of protection, then obviously there's going to be issues.

But by the same token, entitled players expecting DMs to slavishly adhere to the WBL tables down to the last copper isn't entirely reasonable either.

As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between.

[heavyfuel]

Every time this discussion pops up, people speak of balance, but they forget that the game designers were pretty clueless about any notion of balance and what is and isn't powerful (or maybe they just didn't care, but the argument stands)

Anyway, in all tables I've played at/DMed for the past few years, players (myself included) have had builds so optimised that there has been little need to have WBL anywhere near the recommended. Of course, this is just our particular play style, but if a Lv 5 group can wipe the floor with the CR 8 monster the DM throws at them, there's already no need for extra buffs to the players

[zlefin]

heavyfuel -> in that case the issue is also that the optimized PCs are facing UNoptimized monsters. having different optimizatoin levels between the PCs and the monsters does change the dynamic considerably.

your claim that people forgot of balance here is utter nonsense; we full well know the designers didn't balance well; but many of the basic numbers are setup under assumptions which do have enough relevance to be worth mentioning. especially as for some playres the optimization level between them and the monsters is more similar.

[heavyfuel]

You mean like Tolkein?

Frodo had

1. Magic ring (obviously)

2. Magic Sword

3. Magic armor

4. Magic Rope

5. Magical lembas bread

6. Magic elven cloak

7. Phial of Galadriel (contained star of Earendil)

And probably more that they never bothered explaining. And this is in a relatively low magic world (something no one has ever accused D&D of) and a rather low level character.

Yeah, but none of these were throwaway items except for lembas and maybe the magic sword (which apparently was pretty common as far as elvish blades go)


heavyfuel -> in that case the issue is also that the optimized PCs are facing UNoptimized monsters. having different optimizatoin levels between the PCs and the monsters does change the dynamic considerably.

your claim that people forgot of balance here is utter nonsense; we full well know the designers didn't balance well; but many of the basic numbers are setup under assumptions which do have enough relevance to be worth mentioning. especially as for some playres the optimization level between them and the monsters is more similar.

Monsters from the published books. There are many threads on how some them ar under/over CRed, but most DMs don't have time to fiddle with them to create more challenging monster with the same CR (and it's even ludicrous the system allows something like this, as CR should be how challenging a creature is, therefore creatures with the same CR should be equally so. But that's for another time)

It's not utter nonsense. Claiming the designers know nothing of balance and then demanding correct WBL because of balance is stupid, as they designed WBL too. If the level of optimisation between party and monsters are the same, then WBL guidelines should be followed more closely, but that doesn't make my argument nonsense because its essence is that the DM should make the call of how much to give in order to make the game satisfyingly challenging.

[CharonsHelper]

Yeah, but none of these were throwaway items except for lembas and maybe the magic sword (which apparently was pretty common as far as elvish blades go)


And my D&D characters wouldn't throw away their +2 ring, +3 cloak, or their +2 shield. They like them a lot.

[heavyfuel]

And my D&D characters wouldn't throw away their +2 ring, +3 cloak, or their +2 shield. They like them a lot.

Sure they wouldn't. They would, however, sell them as soon they got a +3 ring, a +4 cloak, or access to Magic Vestment for the +1 Shield which is just so much cheaper to enchant

[Zordran]

I think a DM is wise to stay close to WBL guidelines, if only as "legal protection" for his players' fun. Death is real, real bad below level 10 or so, since every one reduces party wealth. I've gotten stuck in that spiral more than once, to the point where I started referring to a friendly NPC druid as Discount Resurrection Warehouse.

If the players have what the book says is "enough stuff," then it's a lot harder to blame PC failure on a DM screwjob.

[Psyren]

The idea that magic shouldn't be special comes before slots. Slots are only needed if magic stuff is so common that you can get crap that starts overlapping with each other.

That's perhaps how it should work, but in practice, design works both ways - some start from slots and go back to item rarity, while others start from item rarity and go back to slots. In other cases the game changes over time - with only a few slots having eligible items early on, to the christmas tree at later levels.

You have a clear preference, and that's okay - all we're saying is that if you want that paradigm where items are special, you need to radically alter 3e (and PF) to make it work.

[Elkad]

Sure they wouldn't. They would, however, sell them as soon they got a +3 ring, a +4 cloak, or access to Magic Vestment for the +1 Shield which is just so much cheaper to enchant

Sell? Someone else in the party needs it. Including my tiger, warhorse, familiar, henchman, cohort, etc.

And while I see the benefit to using Magic Vestment/Weapon in WBL savings, it always feels super risky
By the time it's online, Dispels are flying around like mad.

[Lans]

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD? I know of only one such story, and that's because it's based off a video game, and the main character is a crafter (and the other characters react, universally, in astonishment at this ability).

Magic items and abilities are supposed to be something special and rare, not some interchangeable 'bonus I need because my class doesn't provide what I need'. If you absolutely need a magic item for your class to work, it's your fault for picking an incompetent class. The mage is fine casting because it's an ability that they alone possess. A generic magic item should not exist because there is nothing special about it.

In Wildbow's Pact, several characters where described loaded in magic items.

[Deophaun]

The idea that magic shouldn't be special comes before slots. Slots are only needed if magic stuff is so common that you can get crap that starts overlapping with each other.
No, the idea that magic shouldn't be special comes from the idea that the characters aren't. Frodo was special, so he walked around with the full Christmas tree in a comparatively magic-poor world and no one bats an eye.

The difference between magic items being special or everyday comes from the DM's description, not from the number of slots the PCs have filled out.

[Elkad]

Because it makes magic items a mundanity, like a phone or a computer. How many other stories have such throwaway, indistinct magic items as DnD?

Enough.

Wheel of Time is getting there by the end. Most people don't know about them, but there are vaults full of miscellaneous magic items stashed everywhere. Everything from color changing dresses and magic sex toys to dimensional portals and artifacts that can change the weather on a planetary scale.

The Myth books have the Bazaar at Deva, where you can buy literally anything if you have the cash. Cubic Gates (d-hoppers), amulets of dragon control, rings that shoot fire, or let you fly, or whatever else. Whole armies go hopping about on Alternate Primes to find new planets to conquer. People who masquerade as high-powered Magicians, who are actually just Mechanics - getting by on an inventory full of magic items. Your little house in town has a extra-dimensional space to make it much bigger on the inside.

Wizard's Bane series has a fair amount. Hedgewitches make minor items for villages. Elite troops have standard issue magical gear for Communications, protection, etc, and lots of magic arrows with various powers (like arrows of Seeking that one-shot dragons).

Harry Potter. A lot of items (Brooms, Rememberalls, Trading Cards, Newspapers, various Potions, etc) appear to be mass-produced, and the amount of individual custom items is staggering.

[Nupo]

As a DM I never even look at the wbl guidelines. We always start characters at first level, so we never need them at character creation. I've got a pretty good handle on how much loot to dole out, but I've been DMing for almost 40 years. In truth it really doesn't matter. I view the job of the DM it to create a vibrant world that contains a variety of challenges. It's the players job to decide what challenges they undertake. If the DM has been overly generous, they will be able to overcome more difficult challenges. If they bite off more than they can chew they might all get to create new characters, but that's OK. They will learn from their mistake, and make better decisions with the new characters.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if you worry less about manipulating things, and more about giving the players freedom it will find its own balance all on its own.

[ksbsnowowl]

I try to stay within one level of the WBL guidelines. It's generally worked pretty well.

As I'm closing in on the end of running all the Sunless Citadel adventure path modules, I asked my players to fill out a little survey, so I better knew what they wanted out of the next campaign. I offered up the idea of running a lower-magic-item game, but supplementing that lowered wealth to meet the system's assumed bonuses/WBL by everyone getting the bonuses from Vow of Poverty for free. Only one player was interested in that, and his interest was more related to the story-integration way that I couched the question (PC's and major foes having these inherent abilities as the result of something that made them special, something more than the common man; something like the god-bloodedness of the Birthright setting).

So, my players at least, like their trinkets.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Maybe make it an in character goal to get better gear/become rich/something?

This is not as a substitute for talking about this out of character, more an addition. Characters who raid the unholy temple of money are semi-logically richer than those who help the poor farmer get his daughter back from trolls. The GM might have figured a world where everything just has a massive treasure is weird and immersion breaking, and he'd rather have you try to make money as you need it. Of course, maybe that's not how you and your group want to play this game, you just want better gear ones so often and select your fights based on how interesting they are rather than how well they pay, so talk to the GM and the group either way. But this could become part of the story if that's something you might like.

[DeTess]

One thing a lot of people have implied but haven't really said is this: if your DM isn't strict about WBL (in either direction) he shouldn't slavishly adhere to CR). As long as he actually estimates what is a good challenge for the party, going over or under WBL isn't a problem, but if you want to use CR as a law, rather than rough estimation, you should also stick to WBL.

[Eldariel]

One thing a lot of people have implied but haven't really said is this: if your DM isn't strict about WBL (in either direction) he shouldn't slavishly adhere to CR). As long as he actually estimates what is a good challenge for the party, going over or under WBL isn't a problem, but if you want to use CR as a law, rather than rough estimation, you should also stick to WBL.

However that does little to address the intraparty class balance unless you stick to roughly equal tiers of power far as choices/builds go.