Afgncaap5
2018-04-02, 03:23 PM
What's your general guideline for giving players something really *fun*?
Like, for instance: at level 1 or 2, player's probably shouldn't be able to walk into the nearest store and find a Heward's Handy Haversack at an affordable price. But looking around at a few 1st party adventures and seeing the impact on the game, I can't say that it was really "game breaking."
Or what if I want one of my players to get a Scimitar of Stonestriking (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20020921a) while they're in a desert? With a price tag of 138,315 gold, it's pretty hard to come across. Heck, the average value of a CR 20 encounter is 80,000 gp, so I guess it's a reasonable reward for players who beat two CR 20 monsters in a row with little else in the way of reward. My gut says differently, of course; I wanna say that a player should be able to "acquire" this with some effort between levels 10 and 16, maybe as the reward for a long dungeon or storyline, but it's hard to measure.
It's the same principle as an artifact, of course, where it's more of a "story" thing, but the presence of actual GP values keeps throwing me off. And some artifacts have built-in downsides; the Orbs of Dragonkind put a massive target on your back, and the Deck of Many Things provides enough potential risk to basically be its own "encounter."
Like, for instance: at level 1 or 2, player's probably shouldn't be able to walk into the nearest store and find a Heward's Handy Haversack at an affordable price. But looking around at a few 1st party adventures and seeing the impact on the game, I can't say that it was really "game breaking."
Or what if I want one of my players to get a Scimitar of Stonestriking (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20020921a) while they're in a desert? With a price tag of 138,315 gold, it's pretty hard to come across. Heck, the average value of a CR 20 encounter is 80,000 gp, so I guess it's a reasonable reward for players who beat two CR 20 monsters in a row with little else in the way of reward. My gut says differently, of course; I wanna say that a player should be able to "acquire" this with some effort between levels 10 and 16, maybe as the reward for a long dungeon or storyline, but it's hard to measure.
It's the same principle as an artifact, of course, where it's more of a "story" thing, but the presence of actual GP values keeps throwing me off. And some artifacts have built-in downsides; the Orbs of Dragonkind put a massive target on your back, and the Deck of Many Things provides enough potential risk to basically be its own "encounter."