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Climowitz
2018-08-02, 06:39 AM
Hello everyone, so im trying hard to come with a reduction of the curve of monetary situations of characters by level. What i want to achieve is to reduce the exponentiation of the curve, giving it less difference between levels, however this should also affect the costs of supplies and magics and everything. How could i achieve something like this, so gold isn't so needed or crazy different from level to level.

What im looking for is to reduce the amount of gold that levels handle, and reduce it heavily, so to reduce the amount of gold in the world and the amount of power it has.

Goaty14
2018-08-02, 07:15 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357810-Chopping-Down-the-Christmas-Tree-Low-Magic-Item-Rules

Sticking this here... I personally approve.

Cosi
2018-08-02, 07:28 PM
I'm not 100% clear on what your goal is, and why you're trying to achieve it. Do you want to make characters less powerful? Do you want there to be less complexity to track? Do you want players to simply have smaller amounts of physical wealth? Do you want people to have less items?

If you want to reduce the number of magic items people get, give people something like Pathfinder's Automatic Bonus Progression or the benefits of Vow of Poverty (changed to not be Exalted-specific, and with no restrictions). That should keep people's numbers mostly on track, and allow you to cut wealth dramatically.

If you just want to reduce the amount of bookkeeping people do, I would recommend using a scaling bonuses + item slots based solution. One such example is here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=53704&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0), though I'm not sure if it has 100% of the stuff from the implementation I'm used to. The basic idea is that people have a hard limit on how many items they can use -- usually 8 -- and that each item provides a minor effect and a numeric bonus. There is no gold-for-items economy, you simply use the gear you find or receive as quest rewards and upgrade when you get something you like more (which will usually happen fairly rarely as you never upgrade for bonuses).

Maat Mons
2018-08-02, 09:19 PM
Well, killing 13.5 NPCs of your same level will cause you to level up. And you'll split the revenues from selling their equipment evenly across your 4-man party. So, that means, each time you level up, your wealth increase by about 1.7x the NPC wealth of your previous level.

Now, how far behind PCs should NPCs lag on wealth? Should NPCs have 30% of the wealth of PCs? If so, with NPC wealth defining PC wealth, and PC wealth defining NPC wealth, that pretty much ties your hands on how wealth scales with level.

Specifically, it means a 20th-level PC will have about 2,500x the wealth on a 1st-level PC.

You could pick different numbers for how many encounters it takes to level up, or what fraction of PC wealth NPCs have. But if you want to change the overall growth rate, I can only see two options. You could make it so level ups happen faster at high level. So a low-level character might have to fight 14 battles to level up, and a high-level character might level up after every battle. Or you could make NPC wealth a smaller and smaller fraction of PC wealth as levels go up.

Well, you could also strictly control the frequency with which your players are allowed to fight humanoids. "No, you're not allowed to go after the Duke yet. You haven't worked through your allotment of treasureless encounters against wild beasts."

Gorum
2018-08-04, 07:18 AM
5th edition DnD had magical gear being not mandatory. 4th edition Dark Sun had a rule where you gained the ability to emulate an enhancement bonus.

Why?

Because for as long as having a +4 weapon is kinda mandatory, people will wonder if a +3 weapon and a Belt of Strength +4 might be a better choice. Soooooo... Play better games than DnD, or implement rules that make magical gear non-mandatory, otherwise you're stuck in this trap.

Also, if the Duke flees using a potion of water breathing, he grants XP without giving GP's worth of goods AND the potion is substracted from is monetary valie when he IS downed.

ngilop
2018-08-04, 10:59 AM
I am kinda of confused and I'll explain my confusion.

Why are you wanting to not only give players less gold ( it ends up hurting the non spell access classes more) but also compensating by making items cost less gold (which seems like a lot of work to regain to bit of balance loss from taking away of the gold)


If your complaint is 'why is it not just linear?' then that is easily explained. the way the CR system I set up is each +2 in CR is roughly twice as difficult/powerful. So a CR 9 is twice as powerful as a CR 7, which is twice as powerful as a CR 5 which is twice as powerful as a CR 3 which is twice as powerful as a CR 1. SO a CR 9 is 16 times as powerful as a CR 1. Since the game doe snot operate its encounters on a linear progression, the rewards are not going to be linear.


IF your question is why does magic items mean so much for D&D. the answer is the characters are reasonably expected to have access to counter to certain attacks, defensives, and debilitations at certain levels. You can do something like pathfinder did and set up automatic progression (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/automatic-bonus-progression/) for the big 6

But if all you want to do is just not give them gold because there is too much gold at each level, just don't give them gold.

MoleMage
2018-08-04, 11:43 AM
Exponential WBL increases allow you to gate certain equipment to certain levels without saying "you get exactly this much gold".

Say there's an item you want to be available at level 5, but not significantly earlier or later than that. Since it isn't the only item you're going to have, let's say it costs...75% of your WBL for level five.

Linear example gives 1000g per level. At level 5, you have 5000g, so the magic item has a planned value of 3750. BUT, if you forgo other expensive items, you can easily pick up this item a level early.

Exponential example gives 1000g for 1st level, doubling every level. You'd have 2000 at 2, 4000 at 3, 8000 at 4, and finally 16000 at level 5. Item's expected cost is 12,000, meaning that item is not reasonably going to be given to characters before level 5 (and it will become easier to fit in a budget as they continue to level).

Obviously these examples are over-simplifications, but it does demonstrate a concern you need to watch out for. WBL on a growth curve allows you to say "before X level, this item is not reasonably expected" and "after Y level, this item, an equivalent, or an improvement are assumed".

Climowitz
2018-08-04, 11:49 AM
I want there to be less distance of wealty between levels.

1 longsword costs 15gp
1 masterwork longsword costs 315gp = 21 longswords
1 +1 longsword cost 2315gp = 154 longswords
1 +5 longsword cost 50315gp = 3354 longswords

What i would want is this prices to be closer to each other. So that a weapon is always an investment and not just a minimum cost to a characters wealth. 1 14th level character could have 10000 longswords in wealth.

Maat Mons
2018-08-04, 03:30 PM
Okay, but, let's say everyone starts at 1st level with a sword.

One 1st-level guy kills 3 other 1st-level guys, and thereby gains enough experience to become 2nd level. Now he has 4 swords, the one he started with, and three that he took from the guys he killed.

Now let's say you have 4 2nd-level guys. Each one of them has 4 swords. They must, after all, they got to be 2nd level by killing other guys, and those guys had swords, which these guys took. Now, one of these guys kills the other 3, takes their swords, and ascends to 3rd level. He now has 16 swords.

Since that's how everyone got to be 3rd level, every 3rd level character has 16 swords.

And since the pattern continues, every 4th-level character has 64 swords, every 5th-level character has 256 swords, and so on, and so forth.

This game is fundamentally based on killing things and taking their stuff. When you're at a level where killing 1st-level guys is trivial, then gaining 1st-level gear is also trivial.

Gorum
2018-08-10, 08:46 PM
Okay, but, let's say everyone starts at 1st level with a sword.

One 1st-level guy kills 3 other 1st-level guys, and thereby gains enough experience to become 2nd level. Now he has 4 swords, the one he started with, and three that he took from the guys he killed.

Now let's say you have 4 2nd-level guys. Each one of them has 4 swords. They must, after all, they got to be 2nd level by killing other guys, and those guys had swords, which these guys took. Now, one of these guys kills the other 3, takes their swords, and ascends to 3rd level. He now has 16 swords.

Since that's how everyone got to be 3rd level, every 3rd level character has 16 swords.

And since the pattern continues, every 4th-level character has 64 swords, every 5th-level character has 256 swords, and so on, and so forth.

This game is fundamentally based on killing things and taking their stuff. When you're at a level where killing 1st-level guys is trivial, then gaining 1st-level gear is also trivial.

1. What is Quest XP?
2. What is Sunder and/or why do weapons have HP and Hardness?
3. Why not trade +/- 10 swords for a Potion of Bull's Strength. Since it is a consummable, this would make level 3 fighters poor characters to loot. Heck, a good negotiator can trade 3 swords for a CLW potion.

I begin by stating that in D&D / Pathfinder, prices are completely artificial and not meant to fluctuate. You can't, for instance, buy 1 pound of diamond for 8000 gp, then crash a few diamond mines to decrease supply, have their value triple and thus triple the amount of resurrections you can afford with your supply.

I made an Epic 6 game where PC began as lvl 1 NPC class characters (warrior, noble, expert...). When the call for adventure came, the only two items that weren't "broken" were daggers.

(And of course they faced little tougher than a mite and a few 1hp giant insects).

By the end of level 1, they had unoptimized but working gear. By the end of level 2, they all had at least 1 masterwork item. Full plate armors and simple magic weapons and wands began appearing around level 4 and so on.

Very little gold per se and reductions in price (as no one can truly afford paying 2k golds on a sword except the highest lords) worked wonders.

Sooooo... either play by the rules and avoid digging too deep (yes, the 120 inhabitant hamlet's economy can handle a sudden influx of 120 000k gp, and they won't increase their prices even as you buy what ale the community consumes in 3 years in a single night), or see these prices as mere suggestions and set prices as you will. But expect that price variations might turn your campaign into a pretend-business venture.

Just to Browse
2018-08-10, 09:56 PM
1. What is Quest XP?
2. What is Sunder and/or why do weapons have HP and Hardness?
3. Why not trade +/- 10 swords for a Potion of Bull's Strength. Since it is a consummable, this would make level 3 fighters poor characters to loot. Heck, a good negotiator can trade 3 swords for a CLW potion.



OK, I think this offers us three solutions to the problem:

1. We can have players fight exactly 1 level-appropriate enemy per level, and the rest of their XP can come from non-combat-related quests.
2. We can add some more fights, but somehow either their weapons or the players' weapons must be destroyed in each combat.
3. We can get rid of 10 mooks' weapons and replace them with 1/10 of a potion of Bull's Strength. I suggest having the weapons magically turn to dust like the old Drow weapons.

Alternatively, we can live with the fact that our one-off example where literally every inhabitant in the entire world walks around fighting with a sword until they die might be a simplification to illustrate a larger, complicated system.


@Maat, I think that we can actually "cheat" in a solution to your problem by emphasizing the crafting requirements of magic arms & armor. A +1 sword requires a level 3 char to craft it, a +2 sword requires a level 6 char to craft it, a +3 sword requires a level 9, etc. Maybe in your world, there aren't a whole lot of level 9 characters in the lands where +2 swords are bought and sold and stolen. You would need to do some worldbuilding to make sure each chunk of levels is in a different spot, but if you do that, you can probably just get rid of bonus squaring altogether as call it a day.

Gorum
2018-08-10, 11:18 PM
OK, I think this offers us three solutions to the problem:

1. We can have players fight exactly 1 level-appropriate enemy per level, and the rest of their XP can come from non-combat-related quests.
2. We can add some more fights, but somehow either their weapons or the players' weapons must be destroyed in each combat.
3. We can get rid of 10 mooks' weapons and replace them with 1/10 of a potion of Bull's Strength. I suggest having the weapons magically turn to dust like the old Drow weapons.

Alternatively, we can live with the fact that our one-off example where literally every inhabitant in the entire world walks around fighting with a sword until they die might be a simplification to illustrate a larger, complicated system.


@Maat, I think that we can actually "cheat" in a solution to your problem by emphasizing the crafting requirements of magic arms & armor. A +1 sword requires a level 3 char to craft it, a +2 sword requires a level 6 char to craft it, a +3 sword requires a level 9, etc. Maybe in your world, there aren't a whole lot of level 9 characters in the lands where +2 swords are bought and sold and stolen. You would need to do some worldbuilding to make sure each chunk of levels is in a different spot, but if you do that, you can probably just get rid of bonus squaring altogether as call it a day.

A larger, complicated and deeply flawed system where low-level characters rely on gear that are worth 40 years of a commoner's savings (2000 gp).

And your "snark" wasn't a counterargument to the point that smart opponents use consummables, meaning that you can't expect a 2nd level encounter to drop exactly the same value as 4 * first level encounters.

I understand the details and fluidity of an economy might be a bit too complex for the average DM to enforce, but GP values are arbitrary and a huge part of the imbalance of the game:

WBL is simply far more advantageous with the use of wands and scrolls than it is for, say, a character with two-weapon fighting, a ranged weapon, that requires a decent AC because he goes into melee range, and which relies on potions.

That said, enhancement bonus per level is not a bad idea per se. A bit damaging on the whole suspension of disbelief, a clear rip-off of 4th edition in which it is a stated rule, but not a bad idea.

I'd go as far as proposing the bonuses be +1 per two levels, only half (rounded up) can be put on actual enhancements, the rest must go on abilities...

But what about casters who'll want scrolls, wands, staves and other misc. items?

Just to Browse
2018-08-11, 08:10 PM
Do you mean a totally fine system that facilitates heroic fantasy? :smallamused: Remember that there is nothing inherently evil about quadratic wealth. Commoners don't buy magic swords, and that's OK because they are commoners. Quadratic wealth & cost is absolutely not the root of game balance issues... I think it's a great equalizer overall.

My snark was indeed pointed at your idea of using consumables. You can take the frustrating approach of 2e drow equipment where anything with long term use turns into dust, or you can take the frustrating approach of a videogame where kobolds and mind flayers alike walk around with a WBL-appropriate consumables that only get used in PC battles. In both cases, your system breaks the suspension of disbelief that you claim to value, and your players will be annoyed.

My "clear rip-off of 4th edition" is not a rip-off at all. It's a default part of D&D 3rd edition rules. Straight from the SRD:


Creating magic armor has a special prerequisite: The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the armor. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met.


Creating a magic weapon has a special prerequisite: The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the weapon. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met.

The reason I listed the bonus restriction was to show that even the most basic magic items (and the items Maat has previously referenced) have caster level requirements. Scrolls, wands, staves, flaming enhancements, ebony flies, iron horns of valhalla, and basically every magic item ever has a level requirement. So if you build a world where casters are separated out into groups, you can let characters have their quadratic wealth while still keeping item prices low. Creating a world where lvl6 casters don't hang around level9 casters is the real videogamey change, but that's what you get when you change one of D&D's fundamental assumptions.

Gorum
2018-08-14, 10:33 PM
I can admit I misread your idea. I read "level requirement to craft" as "level requirement to use", which is a brand new idea brought with 4th edition.

Quadratic wealth might not be evil, but evil is not linked to intelligence score either :smallbiggrin: . And it serves no purpose.

Now, to give an idea how retarded the idea of selling / buying / spending half the amount to create a 50308 gp longsword (+5 enhancement), the background trait "rich parents" allow you 900 gp in gear.

Now, rich parents can be assumed to be spending as much as they an afford on their childs to ensure their survival and the family's reputation.

This means an average 2nd level character, which can still be killed by a single lucky average orc's blow (1d12+2 *3) as enough wealth to completely outshine the average top 1% child. Heck, a +5 magic weapon could be worth all the assets of a noble family! There can be NO demand for such a weapon and price! Then what is the price based on????

This is beyong "High risk, High reward".

Now, compare with the suggested price ranges of magic items in 5th edition. Which makes more sense? Which don't require renting 3 carts and spending 3 days counting coins to buy an item?

Just to Browse
2018-08-14, 11:27 PM
The answers to those are really simple: "rich parents" as a background does not dictate the price of goods, because rich parents don't buy +5 swords. The price is based on the demand from people who actually want to buy those swords: high-level, badass adventurers who have slaughtered dragons and stolen their hoards. And yes, those high-level adventurers can transport their hoards by the cartload if necessary. D&D 3e also assumes that a significant amount of your wealth is bound up in gems, art objects, and other magic items (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/SRD:Treasure). There's nothing "high risk high reward" about that, it's just a normal part of the world where quadratic wealth exists.

Gorum
2018-08-14, 11:50 PM
Wait... Life as an adventurer slaying dragons to steal their hoard, gaining in the process more money than in-game proportionnal equivalents of George Soros does not register as "High risk, high reward to you?

Also, an adventurer carrying around in gear the value of all the assets of a small nation doesn't register as odd to you?

And you play in games where there is an actual subset of the economy that transact in amounts greater than their nations' GDP?

Finally, said "subset" of the economy is large enough that possible buyers can not only afford such item, but not care to try to pressure prices down? And here, the term subset is somewhat ill-chosen: It is a subset if you compare volume of sales, it is the vast majority of the economy if you go by GP value. One +5 sword is the totality of the yearly income of more than 1000 commoners. About 42 000 000 USD. And swords can be worth 200 308 gp without special materials...

Man, your suspension of disbelief is bulletproof. And while I respect the fact you enjoy such a fantastical universe, I'd rather play in games where the most influential people can actually challenge the PCs in AT LEAST their areas of expertise.

You go play Dr. Manhattan's power level, I'll remain at the X-men'.

Just to Browse
2018-08-15, 07:55 AM
A life of slaying dragons and carting off hoards of gold is not high risk because these are +5 swords. By age, Smaug is something like CR 15, and your players are level 15+. This at best 1/4 of their daily encounter budget. They will step on him and take his money.

Carrying around the wealth of a peasant nation is totally fine when you are not part of the peasant nation, because (again) the peasant nation is not buying +5 swords. That's why we don't measure +5 swords in years of commoners' toil, but instead measure it by the output of high-level players. You don't do trade with US dollars when you want a +5 sword, because the United States does not exist. Instead you trade in the planar metropolis of Sigil, where authority figures are level 12 with PC classes, the sale limit is 200,000gp, and their income is tied to heading into random lower planes via the Lower Ward and harvesting valuables.

I want to be clear that I'm not suspending any additional disbelief here. I'm taking D&D's wealth system to its logical conclusion to avoid suspending disbelief. The only suspension of disbelief here is in your game plan for removing quadratic wealth by implementing videogamey mechanics like NPCs all saving their consumables for a fight. I'm not willing to turn my fantasy worlds into video games, so I'm going with the other option of planar metropoli and GP not getting sold for USD.

But I get it. You have willingly shackled yourself to a universe where cartloads of gold = bad, and I doubt I can change your desire to stay shackled. That is fine. You can play D&D however you like and no one has the right to tell you that you're doing it wrong. But do your part to make the world a better place by not confusing your distaste for quadratic wealth with the actual problems quadratic wealth poses.

As a side note, if you are looking for a very realistic world where GDP is a useful metric, I suggest going outside the realm of D&D. The D&D economy is fundamentally based on the CR & XP systems, where people gain levels by beating up monsters and CR (X) creatures are as valuable as 2 CR (X - 2). Neither of those are true in real life, so including them in your game means most of our economic understanding of the fantasy world has to be built from the ground up.

Climowitz
2018-08-15, 11:33 AM
But to take dnd to level up by beating monsters is to take the game to it's rawest and most primitive place. If one wants to use milestones to avoid that, we lose that part.

What i want to achieve is an easier economy with more possibilities of gold power rather than level power. For a commoner to be able to have a powerful item to surprise another. And not to define a world of difference of inventory after 4 levels.

Climowitz
2018-08-15, 11:35 AM
And to achieve such a thing i would like to keep a cuadratic increment but less exponentiality. Instead of a plain x^2 maybe x^4/3

Gorum
2018-08-15, 02:57 PM
But I get it. You have willingly shackled yourself to a universe where cartloads of gold = bad, and I doubt I can change your desire to stay shackled. That is fine. You can play D&D however you like and no one has the right to tell you that you're doing it wrong. But do your part to make the world a better place by not confusing your distaste for quadratic wealth with the actual problems quadratic wealth poses.

Before this craziness all began, I was known as Sam "light-fingers". I was one of the best pickpockets in the city and I did the occasional burglary. Or at least "we" did. I was part of a team. We had tactics to distract, to goad, that sorta stuff.

One day, the Shadow Thieves (with whom I was on good terms) sent for me. Apparently, they had been approached by a strange sponsor willing to recruit my talents. As an aside, Sponsor jobs are rare. But they're usually worth it. Once, I had to steal some shmuck's shield. A really good shield. Well... once it was done, and the guild took its share, my payment was a full fifteen gold pieces. Let's just say that after I paid some debts I had, I went on a binge that lasted at least two months. So I was pretty enthusiastic.

So I met with the guy. Not your typical sponsor. Actually, not your typical ANYTHING. The guy had so many spells on him, he appeared blurry. I guessed he feared the guild turning on him or something. In fact, the situation was so weird, I would've considered myself unfriendly. But a few words in and I was charmed.

Diplomacy check between a lvl 20 high-charisma NPC and a lvl 2 rogue

Him: "I've got a small task to ask of you. You are to acquire for me the sword of Bob the Fighter. And bring it back as soon as possible."

Me: "I heard of this guy... Isn't he the one who carved his way out of a Purple Wurm, a Remohrahz, an elder dragon and who battered down half a dozen of steel construct?"

Him: "The very same. And he's done much more than that in the last week."

Me: "I'm not touching that."

Him: "Oh? Let me try and change your mind."

He then proceeds to grab an odd-looking bag next to him. He opens it and pour its content on the floor. It was a shower of gold like you've never seen. Like that shouldn't be possible. And I mean it literally: Once he was done, there was far more gold than the volume of the bag itself could have contained.

Him: "This is 10% of that sword's value. 20 000 gold pieces. Do this and it shall be yours."

Then, staring at the Shadow Thieves' representative.
"And I guarantee your fellow thieves will leave you alone. I promised them the same amount, and I think they want me to retain their services."

20 000 gold pieces. I won't lie, I was going to accept anyway, but I still had to ask.

Me: "How..."

Him: "Bob the fighter, for all his prowess, is not really perceptive. He relies on his friends, Lothilondonis Shadowblade who can track dragons in flight, and Gorhum Roothunter the Herald of Moradin. Well, the first is currently dead..."

Currently?

"And the second will be spending his whole day searching for about 8000 gold pieces of diamonds.. Of which, sadly, the city is sold out on."

He grinned. Up to this day, I still believe he had a hand in both occurrences.

"Furthermore, I shall enchant you with the grace of a cat, protection from divinations and grant you this potion, which'll make you vanish out of sight for a short duration. While this will make Bob the Fighter completely unable to detect you, it wouldn't fool the Herald of Moradin however, so be careful."

Now, the job itself merits little mention compared to how precise and quicks my reactions were once he was done "enchanting" me and the sheer awesomeness of simply turning invisible by drinking a flask of bitter liquid. So I struck while he was in the market. I had a kid bump into him to distract him. The guy... he apologized and gave him 10 gold pieces. Just like that. He's lucky no one else seemed to pay attention, otherwise he would've been swarmed under urchins.

Either way, I had the sword. And what a sword! It felt so sharp that I feared that, if it slipped out of my grip, it would not be stopped by the ground. It would sheath itself in flames if properly held. And it had an otherwordly feeling... the kind of sword that could cut someone's soul in two.

Now, I know that time did not work in my favor with such a powerful target, with such powerful friends, to be looking for this sword. But I had to hide for a little while. No doubt that the law enforcement would be up and about, I thought.

This is when hell broke loose.

From what I was told afterward, the guy searched for the culprit for an hour or so. He then sent for his friend, the Herald of Moradin, which found the situation mildly annoying and who cast divinations spells to try and find me, to no avail. Failing that, Bob the Fighter put up a reward of 50 000 gp for the return of his sword. No question asked.

By then, even city guards left their posts and attacked people who looked suspicious, on sight, to try and recover the blade I had in my possession. And needless to say that, when the local law enforcement is rioting itself, even murdering people for behaving strangely or carrying anything that COULD hide a sword in... like ******s of sticks, piles of hay, or even just scabbards. I quickly became paralyzed with fear.

That is when a impish little creature just "appeared". From nowhere. I swear! The thing was smaller than a hobbit, stood upright, had bat wings and skin of a deep red color. It was carrying the very same bag my sponsor opened before my eyes. I won't re-tell what it told me, but let's say it wasn't reassuring nor flattering. To this day, I still don't know why the creature didn't simply do the job. Closest I've got to an answer was that the thing "smelled evil" and I was still "unskilled enough" for me not to "be detectable by my alignment". Whatever that means.

Now, I hid the bag as well as I could. Not only was it invaluable, according to the creature, it "smelled" magic. But if I hid it under a foot or so of stone, it should be undetectable. He invited me to see what would happen next, and to make sure I did not carry anything that could hide a sword. He then, and I **** you not, disappeared again. Just like that, no potion or anything!

So I went as quickly as I could. When I arrived, he simply told me to hide in the walls (this was, after all, a Shadow Thieves hideout) as "magical means of concealment would do no good". And to wait. After quite some time, something inexplicable happened.

The sponsor's appearance changed instantly. Like when I, or the creature that calls it master, turned invisible, but only it revealed a walking, talking, decrepit skeleton. I nearly stumbled from the shock. What killed him so quickly, I don't know. But it did not seem to bother him that much.

Him: "Ahhh... Gorhum. Bob. I'm glad you guys could make it. I hope you didn't have TOO MUCH trouble finding some diamond dust for mister Shadowblade's resurrection?"

He then opened a bag similar to the one he gave me and casually grabbed an handful of diamonds.

Him: "I'm sorry, I realize how rude it is to ask a question when I can't actually hear your answer. Anyway, I guess you guys are here to witness the show."

He then proceeded to do complicated hand gestures and incantations that I would be hard-pressed to describe, and within a few seconds, the marvelous blade was nothing but a small pile of dust. He then cackled maniacally, and within' a few seconds and a few more incantations, disappeared completely.

This is how I've got the money to start my fiefdom.