True Wealth by Level?

[gogogome]

In another thread some time ago someone said that PCs should only have half the WBL if they're cherry picking their gear. Is this true?

In one of my games we have 0 loot and the adventurers just receive their WBL in gold shortly after they level up in the form of a quest reward or a supply drop from their organization. So should I be giving them their WBL or half that since they're cherry picking their gear?

[heavyfuel]

Well, yes.

If your party finds a +5 Greataxe, the party now has additional 50'000 gp of Wealth, which counts towards WBL. If they decide to sell for 25k to upgrade the fighter's Sword, well, that's their decision.

It's Wealth by Level, not Gold Pieces by Level

[Florian]

Is this true?

Basically: Yes

The core assumption about WBL is based on (found) loot, not the raw gp value. Also consider the Equipment distribution percentages that comes along with the WBL tables, so roughly 25% in consumables and such.

[gogogome]

Well, yes.

If your party finds a +5 Greataxe, the party now has additional 50'000 gp of Wealth, which counts towards WBL. If they decide to sell for 25k to upgrade the fighter's Sword, well, that's their decision.

It's Wealth by Level, not Gold Pieces by Level

If the player sells the Greataxe I have the next encounter make up for the 25000gp in other loot, but I guess that was a mistake and I've been giving players twice their WBL all this time.


Basically: Yes

The core assumption about WBL is based on (found) loot, not the raw gp value. Also consider the Equipment distribution percentages that comes along with the WBL tables, so roughly 25% in consumables and such.

Right, forgot about that.

[heavyfuel]

If the player sells the Greataxe I have the next encounter make up for the 25000gp in other loot, but I guess that was a mistake and I've been giving players twice their WBL all this time.

Choices should carry consequences. Be them good or bad consequences, player choice should matter, and this applies to more than just plot choices.

A player that goes out of their way to better use random treasure (by taking a feat like Weapon Focus or whatever) instead of selling it for 50% the price should expect to get the full benefit of that choice.

[Doug Lampert]

Choices should carry consequences. Be them good or bad consequences, player choice should matter, and this applies to more than just plot choices.

A player that goes out of their way to better use random treasure (by taking a feat like Weapon Focus or whatever) instead of selling it for 50% the price should expect to get the full benefit of that choice.
Additionally, crafting feats are useless in a game that gives "compensation" for the loss in selling gear and consumables are far too good if you give extra to make up for stuff spent.

Crafting for 50% is how you can customize and still have full WBL.

Just give appropriate treasure for encounters and WBL will take care of itself. The table is roughly what you get if you roll loot randomly and let the dice fall where they may.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The WBL tables in the DMG are already about 50% of randomly rolled lewt, so if you choose your items based on the WBL chart, this is already occurring.

[Fizban]

Yes and no. Even when rolling randomly the tables give out a solid chunk of cash, and some of the rolled items should be acceptable to all but the pickiest of players. So even selling "everything" you'd still have more than 50% of the total average results of those random tables, which is all the WBL table is. But yes, if your players are decked out in nothing but fully customized splatbook gear to exactly the WBL table, without even crafting it themselves, that is not possible with randomly rolled loot (on average, since if you got lucky for a while you would of course have some extra to spare).

The most important part is that WBL is just a representation of the DM's actual job, which is making sure the PCs get appropriate magic items. DMG p212- roughly: don't hand out things too big, don't be too stingy, the random tables exist, and you the DM can just pick things instead of rolling them, which you will get better at with experience.

Getting a certain amount of cash, being able to buy magic items, and sell those you can't use, are all just baseline backup mechanisms for the randomly generated system, so you can run monsters straight out of the book with random loot and players can adjust in response. Just like character level doesn't describe competence, WBL doesn't describe competence. The DM still has to evaluate and approve the characters, and the DM still has to evaluate and decide if they have enough magic items, or too much, as the game continues. A game where players have no choice over their items at all is a perfectly valid game- as long as the DM puts the needed items in there (and everyone agreed to a no buying/selling game of course), and the cash value of those items doesn't matter.

The simplest example would be a bane weapon. If the campaign is against one type of foe, the fact that a +1 bane weapon costs 8,000gp compared to XYZ WBL doesn't matter. The bane weapon functions as a +3 enhancement/+2d6 weapon against all the foes you're fighting, which is too strong at low levels but will last for a good while until it really needs to be replaced with something better. So if I ran a campaign where there was only one type of foe, I'd make finding this bane weapon a big deal at some point around midgame, and it would stay until they found the endgame weapon or upgrade, regardless of "WBL." That game would also have to limit access to certain feats/features/spells which are not normally expected to work all the time, you'd need to find the goblin slayer to teach you about having goblins as a favored enemy, or uncover the lost tome of fiendlsaying, etc.

[Erloas]

Choices should carry consequences. Be them good or bad consequences, player choice should matter, and this applies to more than just plot choices.

A player that goes out of their way to better use random treasure (by taking a feat like Weapon Focus or whatever) instead of selling it for 50% the price should expect to get the full benefit of that choice.
This depends a lot on the class and item though. You're looking at a lot of potential opportunity cost there.
If you've already put 3 feats into using two weapon fighting then using more feats to use that random greataxe and loosing the effectiveness of your previous feats just screws over the class. In some cases I would say the feat is worth more than many items, unless of course you're also giving the ability to retrain feats. You don't want to screw over a character, primarily martial characters but not always, because you've dropped some really expensive item on them that they don't have any good way to use.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I've played in games where the DM didn't give out any wealth at all except for extremely low-level mundane items (that is, even masterwork items were vanishingly rare), except for a triple-handful of incredibly powerful artifacts that only two characters could use, with the rest of the party being completely SoL. The DM got royally hacked off that I showed up for my first session with them with actual magic items, fully according to WBL, even though he never specified differently. And I never got another magic item throughout the entire rest of the game, after getting hit by a couple of disjunctions. Luckily, my setup allowed me to protect myself from that. Unluckily, it only hacked the DM off more.

From that point on, I made sure to take Ancestral Relic and Item Familiar as my feats, as well as a number of other options that gave me some sort of WBL regardless of what the DM gave out. Because never getting magic in a heavy combat game and constantly dying as a result isn't nearly as much fun as some DMs presume.

[gogogome]

I've played in games where the DM didn't give out any wealth at all except for extremely low-level mundane items (that is, even masterwork items were vanishingly rare), except for a triple-handful of incredibly powerful artifacts that only two characters could use, with the rest of the party being completely SoL. The DM got royally hacked off that I showed up for my first session with them with actual magic items, fully according to WBL, even though he never specified differently. And I never got another magic item throughout the entire rest of the game, after getting hit by a couple of disjunctions. Luckily, my setup allowed me to protect myself from that. Unluckily, it only hacked the DM off more.

From that point on, I made sure to take Ancestral Relic and Item Familiar as my feats, as well as a number of other options that gave me some sort of WBL regardless of what the DM gave out. Because never getting magic in a heavy combat game and constantly dying as a result isn't nearly as much fun as some DMs presume.

The more important question here is why the hell did you stick around?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The more important question here is why the hell did you stick around?I had friends in the group (that weren't the DM) and didn't have any other options? There were fun parts there, but I had to dig through lots of annoyance to find them.

[Minion #6]

It's pointless to try and use the WBL system to give your players half of what's on the chart as a GM because you can just discuss it with your players. If you want to give out half, just say "hey, just so you know, for this game we're using half of what's on the chart" rather than trying to justify "well you actually care what gear you get so teeeeeeechniiiiiiicallyyyyyyyyyyy".


Table: Character Wealth by Level can also be used to budget gear for characters starting above 1st level, such as a new character created to replace a dead one. Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins. Different character types might spend their wealth differently than these percentages suggest; for example, arcane casters might spend very little on weapons but a great deal more on other magic items and disposable items.

In PF, at least, your WBL is assumed to be fully customisable (within certain limits) past 1st level. Nothing about just having half.

[gogogome]

It's pointless to try and use the WBL system to give your players half of what's on the chart as a GM because you can just discuss it with your players. If you want to give out half, just say "hey, just so you know, for this game we're using half of what's on the chart" rather than trying to justify "well you actually care what gear you get so teeeeeeechniiiiiiicallyyyyyyyyyyy".



In PF, at least, your WBL is assumed to be fully customisable (within certain limits) past 1st level. Nothing about just having half.

I want to play d&d. Which is why I insist 25PB on my PCs because that's what the game is designed for. Higher PB makes the game easier and d&d is easy enough with the power creep the splat books brought over.

I also don't go above or below WBL but if WBL is supposed to be half then I've been letting my players "cheat" so to speak and the encounters should've been much harder. I really don't care about how strong my players are, I just want them to be within the rules.

[Minion #6]

I want to play d&d. Which is why I insist 25PB on my PCs because that's what the game is designed for. Higher PB makes the game easier and d&d is easy enough with the power creep the splat books brought over.

I also don't go above or below WBL but if WBL is supposed to be half then I've been letting my players "cheat" so to speak and the encounters should've been much harder. I really don't care about how strong my players are, I just want them to be within the rules.

Unfortunately, there's no hard-and-fast way to know. People that believe effective WBL is half the chart do have a point, but there's arguments the other way that have a point too. Ultimately, like with everything, you just need to find the balance that works for your table.

If it's any consolation, the rules to D&D aren't that well designed for balance in the first place. A party of 4 35PB Soulknives is going to be outperformed by a party of 4 25PB barbarians any day of the week, and a party of Fighters with 1/2 WBL is going to be weaker than a party of full casters with 1/2 WBL.

[Erloas]

I want to play d&d. Which is why I insist 25PB on my PCs because that's what the game is designed for. Higher PB makes the game easier and d&d is easy enough with the power creep the splat books brought over.

I also don't go above or below WBL but if WBL is supposed to be half then I've been letting my players "cheat" so to speak and the encounters should've been much harder. I really don't care about how strong my players are, I just want them to be within the rules.

The true gauge, and all that really matters, is how does it feel in actual gameplay? Not all classes are affected the same way by magical items, not all encounters are either for that matter.
Are you regularly having to drop ECL to not chance wiping the party or killing someone? Then you might need to increase their wealth a little bit. On the other hand if you've thrown what should be very challenging encounters at them regularly and they just walk through them then they might be getting a bit too much wealth. Granted that is not all wealth, but it is at least a guideline. There is also nothing stating you've got to run a standard magic item game, some have a lot more and some have a lot less. If your PCs are never finding their gear lacking but some high level NPC wouldn't even have a +1 short sword then maybe you've got an imbalance. At the same time if the enemies are all equipped with magical armor and weapons, and the players kill them and suddenly all their items have turned mundane and they're finding 8000gp on the NPC leader then that just doesn't fit, it doesn't feel right.

[gogogome]

The true gauge, and all that really matters, is how does it feel in actual gameplay? Not all classes are affected the same way by magical items, not all encounters are either for that matter.
Are you regularly having to drop ECL to not chance wiping the party or killing someone? Then you might need to increase their wealth a little bit. On the other hand if you've thrown what should be very challenging encounters at them regularly and they just walk through them then they might be getting a bit too much wealth. Granted that is not all wealth, but it is at least a guideline. There is also nothing stating you've got to run a standard magic item game, some have a lot more and some have a lot less. If your PCs are never finding their gear lacking but some high level NPC wouldn't even have a +1 short sword then maybe you've got an imbalance. At the same time if the enemies are all equipped with magical armor and weapons, and the players kill them and suddenly all their items have turned mundane and they're finding 8000gp on the NPC leader then that just doesn't fit, it doesn't feel right.

My PCs are optimized enough that I don't throw them CR appropriate encounters. So if my party is 11, I don't throw a CR11 monster. I throw two or three, or throw in an equal level spellcaster. This results in PCs leveling faster but I'm ok with that. I got this idea from age of worms where the first encounter is two wolves and an advanced wolf and the difficulty was just perfect.


If it's any consolation, the rules to D&D aren't that well designed for balance in the first place. A party of 4 35PB Soulknives is going to be outperformed by a party of 4 25PB barbarians any day of the week, and a party of Fighters with 1/2 WBL is going to be weaker than a party of full casters with 1/2 WBL.

You're correct which is why I don't bother trying to "balance" the game and insist on sticking to the rules as written and tell my players to balance their characters around that.

[Erloas]

My PCs are optimized enough that I don't throw them CR appropriate encounters. So if my party is 11, I don't throw a CR11 monster. I throw two or three, or throw in an equal level spellcaster. This results in PCs leveling faster but I'm ok with that. I got this idea from age of worms where the first encounter is two wolves and an advanced wolf and the difficulty was just perfect.
To me that says either you're giving them more power than they are designed to have, or you've found a good balance for your particular players/characters, depending entirely on how you and them feel about it. They clearly aren't being starved for magic items, but teasing apart magic items versus general optimization and player skill is not going to be found in any table or guide.

[King of Nowhere]

do keep in mind that wealth by level is a guideline. it is perfectly reasonable to run campaigns with more or less than standard wbl.

personally, i would not get overly fixated over it. if my pcs are overperforming because they have too many goodies, i'd be stingier for a while. If they are running low in loot, I may add a few big drops.

[Sleven]

You heard wrong. The DMG and MIC assume a portion of the treasure will be relevant to the characters in the party. If it's not, and they're just selling it, you're expected to make up for that by providing more relevant items or injecting more wealth. This is part of the reason why the MIC provides further guidelines for what typical item values should be at each level and expanded the treasure tables to allow for further customization. It's also why the random treasure given is higher than WBL, as Fizban mentioned.

WBL is WBL. There is no secret to it. It's the value of all the items you have, regardless of what you crafted or sold. It's a guideline for balance that WotC thought most appropriate and tried to balance the game around. You're free to run poverty games or restrict magic items, but this mostly punishes non-casters and creates stagnant or fight or flight gameplay.

WBL doesn't have to break immersion either. I personally up the wealth at lower levels but stay around the guidelines for levels 15+. I expect players to roleplay, so I provide some means of purchasing land, edifices, drinks, etc. that I expect players to use for roleplaying purposes and not adventuring gear. People that would abuse it would not be invited to my games, so it's not an issue. This idea is even supported by the DMG's WBL guidelines. At the same time, I've never had a problem making encounters challenging, so I don't count coins and some players end up slightly ahead in wealth.

[Calthropstu]

I am going to go against the curve and say you are wrong. I often do this.

"wealth by level" means "The gear my character uses should add up to X amount at Y level. If I find an item of value that I can't use, then I will sell it."

Ultimately, if the gear can't really be used, it really isn't the character's. That means it is of half value to them (their sale price.) So wealth by level should be the character's gear GP value + their loot value. That +5 Greataxe is loot and can be sold for X gold. The headband of intellect worn by the wizard is gear and is valued at y gold (full price). Gear value + loot sale value = WBL.

[Crake]

It's worth noting that there is a section specifically dedicated to creating PCs above 1st level. That section notes the wealth by level table as the amount of money the PC has to spend on whatever gear they like. There are no RAW restrictions on what you may purchase with that money beyond "The DM can impose whatever restrictions he wants, such as limiting a level 3 character to only a single minor wondrous item, or a level 8 character not being able to spend more than 1/4th of his money on any one item". There is nothing in there about reducing the amount of wealth by half to account for selling loot to buy specific gear, any such reduction in wealth is not supported by the rules, so do not feel imposed to do any such thing.

[Fizban]

Uh, that's a pretty misleading way to say it. How about the starting part you skipped over?


You're free to limit what magic items characters can choose when they create characters of higher levels, just as if you were assigning those items to treasure hoards in the game. You can exercise an item by item veto, but an easier method is to use maximum cost for a single item as a limit. [example single item limits follow]
Yeah, it says it's easier to use a gp limit, with the obvious assumption that if you're using that you're okay with them buying whatever is under that limit. But, before that, the first thing it says is that the DM can limit items at character creation to match what they would assign as treasure, including item by item vetoes.

If in the DM's estimation your item list is too perfect, they can veto it- this is particularly applicable in the realm of customized items. If you've filled every penny of your WBL limit (improbable, since everyone should have a decent chunk of cash ready), with perfectly customized items (also improbable, because if the DM would not have handed you those exact items, then you would have had to sell something and thus lost some of the value), which are all at the perfect cost-value ratios and butting up against the per-item limit (indicating not a single item was ever above curve and they all just recently received their upgrades at once), and filling all your item slots with no overlaps (even though overlaps are highly probable and thus result in selling), well that's a heck of a lot of reason to veto that list. Anyone who's played a game knows that the second you start, those item lists get out of whack fast, and the DM is under no compulsion to allow unnaturally perfect item lists just because the characters were created above level.

Basically: just because you're creating a character above 1st level doesn't mean part of your character gets to dodge DM approval, including approval of your item list. The only things in the game that guarantee a player's ability to pick their magic items are character mechanics that specifically let them pick their items- crafting, Ancestral Relic, etc (and even then the DM can still veto items that no one is allowed to have without infringing on those mechanics).

[Crake]

Uh, that's a pretty misleading way to say it. How about the starting part you skipped over?


Yeah, it says it's easier to use a gp limit, with the obvious assumption that if you're using that you're okay with them buying whatever is under that limit. But, before that, the first thing it says is that the DM can limit items at character creation to match what they would assign as treasure, including item by item vetoes.

If in the DM's estimation your item list is too perfect, they can veto it- this is particularly applicable in the realm of customized items. If you've filled every penny of your WBL limit (improbable, since everyone should have a decent chunk of cash ready), with perfectly customized items (also improbable, because if the DM would not have handed you those exact items, then you would have had to sell something and thus lost some of the value), which are all at the perfect cost-value ratios and butting up against the per-item limit (indicating not a single item was ever above curve and they all just recently received their upgrades at once), and filling all your item slots with no overlaps (even though overlaps are highly probable and thus result in selling), well that's a heck of a lot of reason to veto that list. Anyone who's played a game knows that the second you start, those item lists get out of whack fast, and the DM is under no compulsion to allow unnaturally perfect item lists just because the characters were created above level.

Basically: just because you're creating a character above 1st level doesn't mean part of your character gets to dodge DM approval, including approval of your item list. The only things in the game that guarantee a player's ability to pick their magic items are character mechanics that specifically let them pick their items- crafting, Ancestral Relic, etc (and even then the DM can still veto items that no one is allowed to have without infringing on those mechanics).

I think you'll find that section is after the part I'm talking about, which is step 5 in the previous heading:


5. Equip the character. When creating a 1st-level character, this means buying normal equipment. At higher levels, it also means deciding which magic items a character has acquired so far. Refer to Chapter 7: Magic Items, where all magic items are listed along with their market prices. Table 5–1: Character Wealth by Level (page 135) shows the total value of a player character’s gear at a given level. This value includes mundane items described in Chapter 7 of the Player’s Handbook, but the bulk of it, especially at higher levels, is composed of magic items. See Magic Items as Gear, below, for advice on how to govern what sort of magic items a PC can buy with this wealth. Note that these values apply only to player characters. NPCs use Table 4–23: NPC Gear Value (page 127) to find the total value of their equipment.

Also, keep in mind that limitations on what you can buy is different from what's being discussed here, which is the amount of money you have to spend. Again, sure, the GM is free to reduce that amount, but the default, which is what gogome is asking about, is listed in the wealth by level table. Gogome wants to know if he's been reading it wrong this whole time, to which the answer is: no, he has not been. Yes the GM can change all of those variables as they please, but if the GM chooses to run things by the book, you get the amount of money in the wealth by level table and can spend it how you wish, there's nothing mentioning only getting half wealth because you're able to buy whatever you want.

Basically what I'm trying to say is: my post is only misleading if you ignore the entire context of this thread.

[Fizban]

You said:

It's worth noting that there is a section specifically dedicated to creating PCs above 1st level. That section notes the wealth by level table as the amount of money the PC has to spend on whatever gear they like.
Which refers to the list of steps. But the rest of your post, where you're actually being specific is:

There are no RAW restrictions on what you may purchase with that money beyond "The DM can impose whatever restrictions he wants, such as limiting a level 3 character to only a single minor wondrous item, or a level 8 character not being able to spend more than 1/4th of his money on any one item".
Those are the examples from after the list, after the statement that the DM can limit the equipping of higher level characters to items they would assign as treasure. The phrase "no RAW restrictions' heavily implies the idea that the player has full authority over what they can do there, which is simply not the case. Hence why I have called it misleading. Yeah, step 5 says to decide what magic items the character has, based on WBL and magic item prices, and then tells you to look at the next section for how to decide the rest of how that works. It also does all of this from the DM perspective, not the player perspective (funny- it says "the players should follow these steps," but then explains them from the DM's point of view, but it's the DMG so I guess they wrote it for the DM to use directing the players).

Answering the OP's question requires more than just a yes or no, because it's not just a yes or no. The idea that cherry-picked items should reduce WBL comes as a direct result of following the directions for equipping higher level characters, which say those items should be similar to what the DM would give out as treasure anyway, and the fact that fully random or DM-handpicked treasure does not convert into custom player-cherry-picked items. There is a direct dependency chain from step 5 to Magic Items as Gear some 5 lines down the page.

The 50% value the OP has heard is wrong by almost any measure from the default, but the DM is absolutely within their rights to refuse an item or reduce starting wealth in order to compensate for it if the item is one the DM would allow, but would not put in a treasure hoard. That is the RAW. Sometimes RAW says to ask the DM.

Edit: to clarify, I think you're focusing too hard on the idea of "how much they have to spend." Because that doesn't matter nearly so much as what they can spend it on. If the idea is cherry-picked items should reduce WBL by 50%, the question isn't how much they should have to spend, the question is how much those cherry-picked items are worth compared to "normal" WBL. Because normal WBL says that items are "bought" from what the DM would assign in normal treasure. The very ability to cherry-pick your items is dependent on the DM allowing it, nevermind how much you should have to spend on them.


I feel like addressing more of the OP

In one of my games we have 0 loot and the adventurers just receive their WBL in gold shortly after they level up in the form of a quest reward or a supply drop from their organization. So should I be giving them their WBL or half that since they're cherry picking their gear?
Now, this is a perfectly convenient method, and if you're fine with the gear they've been cherry picking there's no real need to mess with it because you've already been running it how you want (if you actually do think they're a bit overpowered, then you might want to add limits, after talking it over). The main thing you're missing out on is that when the system switches from average random treasure to WBL, they cut out the consumable budget. Presumably since you're boosting them exactly to the next level of wealth, that means they can use whatever consumables they want, but you might be interested in how much the game normally expects them to spend on consumables.

You'll find those values in the Behind the Curtain sidebar on page 54. Subtract the Expected Wealth Gain value from the Treasure per Character value, and you have the amount the DMG figured they'd spend on consumables or other non-permanent stuff. So on the way from 1st to 2nd, it is expected that a PC will spend around 100gp on non-permanent stuff. And since random treasure includes consumables and cash, even if the treasure rolls were higher or lower than usual, you can still plan for the same consumable budget.

[Crake]

You said:

Which refers to the list of steps. But the rest of your post, where you're actually being specific is:

Those are the examples from after the list, after the statement that the DM can limit the equipping of higher level characters to items they would assign as treasure. The phrase "no RAW restrictions' heavily implies the idea that the player has full authority over what they can do there, which is simply not the case. Hence why I have called it misleading. Yeah, step 5 says to decide what magic items the character has, based on WBL and magic item prices, and then tells you to look at the next section for how to decide the rest of how that works. It also does all of this from the DM perspective, not the player perspective (funny- it says "the players should follow these steps," but then explains them from the DM's point of view, but it's the DMG so I guess they wrote it for the DM to use directing the players).

There are no RAW restrictions. Literally none. The player does have full authority over what they can do. Unless the DM imposes restrictions, as he/she is well within his/her right to do regarding any aspect of the game, which I reiterated by say "No RAW restrctions beyond what the DM imposes" with the examples written in the book. I don't see how anything is misleading there.

[Fizban]

There are no RAW restrictions. Literally none. The player does have full authority over what they can do. Unless the DM imposes restrictions, as he/she is well within his/her right to do regarding any aspect of the game, which I reiterated by say "No RAW restrctions beyond what the DM imposes" with the examples written in the book. I don't see how anything is misleading there.
This was longer, but I've cut it down because there's no reason to heavily elaborate or try to draw an example when I know I won't change your mind. But I'll try a more direct response:

The misleading part is where you're trying to lump it in as part of general Rule 0 type restrictions with "as he/she is well within his/her right to do regarding any aspect of the game," and play up the player authority more than it really is. It's not a general Rule 0 ability, it's a specifically granted opportunity (and suggestion) of limitation, part of the process of creating a character above 1st level, which cannot be completed without a DM. It's not "No RAW restrictions beyond what the DM imposes," it's "RAW says the DM decides what items are appropriate." You might not see it this way, but phrasing things as RAW first, DM second, sends a very clear picture about which is more important, especially when the "RAW" is being read as "absolute freedom."

You get to make the choices about your character, those choices are yours, that is your player authority. You get to pick what magic items you want for a character starting above 1st, and the DM decides if they're appropriate, in whatever way they choose, because treasure is under DM authority. That's what the rules say. If something isn't appropriate then your authority has not been infringed in any way, the DM is not instructed to apologize for being unclear or anything, etc. In fact if you want to focus on the RAW there, that order of operations says if the DM decides an item you wanted to start with isn't an allowed starting item, you don't even get to go back and adjust your character for it.

Anyway I've explained twice now why I think that statement is misleading, even if unintentionally. Even if it's a technically true statement, it can still be misleading through omission and presentation. If the OP has read my posts they already know enough to make their own decisions on the main topic, and if all they wanted was a debunking of the 50% idea then that's been done by basically every poster in the thread.

[Sleven]

If it helps to edify the point, the MIC has more explicit text agreeing with Crake. Something along the lines of, "If a player asks if they can purchase a specific item, generally the answer should be yes."

It's also noteworthy that the custom magic item rules being brought up are treated differently than printed items and come with the caveat that they are mere guidelines and are not necessarily representative of the true value of such an item.

[P.F.]

do keep in mind that wealth by level is a guideline. it is perfectly reasonable to run campaigns with more or less than standard wbl.

personally, i would not get overly fixated over it. if my pcs are overperforming because they have too many goodies, i'd be stingier for a while. If they are running low in loot, I may add a few big drops.

This. Most games I've played in have a long curve of being under-treasured, then amassing/crafting well beyond WBL, then getting gradually deflated (none of these animals have treasure, this town doesn't sell those things, we have to pay a bribe, etc) and sometimes straight-up robbed (the rust monster incident, captured by the enemy, the year of blight and famine, the disjunction debacle, etc).

No one I've ever played with has been a spoilsport about spending a few sessions scraping for coppers and then later a few sessions with so much plat we blow it on ballistas and spyglasses and **** we don't really need.

Adhering to WBL as rules instead of guidelines would mean we just stay somewhere in the middle all the time, which honestly feels more like we just never quite have enough money to buy the gear we really want for our level. And where's the fun in that?

[Doctor Awkward]

In another thread some time ago someone said that PCs should only have half the WBL if they're cherry picking their gear. Is this true?

In one of my games we have 0 loot and the adventurers just receive their WBL in gold shortly after they level up in the form of a quest reward or a supply drop from their organization. So should I be giving them their WBL or half that since they're cherry picking their gear?

The game is built with the expectation that players are going to have certain equipment which provides mechanical bonuses to various aspects of their characters by certain levels. This expectation is represented with the Wealth By Level table, which give a rough estimation of how much equipment a character should be able to afford by that level. That table is seen here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/xp.htm) in the Total Equipment Value column.

Page 199 of the DMG, under the "Magic Items as Gear" subheading of the section on Creating PC's Above 1st Level, there are guidelines which suggest that, at the DM's discretion, they may impose any number of restrictions on what the players are allowed to buy, such as exercising an item-by-item veto, or more simply imposing a maximum cost for a single item as a limit. The example they give is an 8th-level character with 27,000 gp to spend not being allowed to spend more than one quarter of that amount (5,500) gp on any one item.

Supposedly this is to "prevent imbalance", implying that the designer's feel that certain more expensive pieces of equipment are inappropriate for the level of play by which you could technically afford them, although they are naturally short on the details of exactly why they think that.

A 6th-level wizard with Boccob's Blessed Book (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook) makes things more convenient for him over the long term, but he's certainly not any more overtly powerful than any other 6th-level wizard out there. And he will likely often be at a tactical disadvantage when compared to a 6th-level wizard who spent most of his money on the many useful Limited-Use items in the Magic Item Compendium. Even something as simple as Tunic of Steady Spellcasting would be a significantly more practical purchase.

[Quertus]

The WBL tables in the DMG are already about 50% of randomly rolled lewt, so if you choose your items based on the WBL chart, this is already occurring.

This. Just roll random treasure, the way Gygax intended, and you'll have the "correct" amount of treasure.


The true gauge, and all that really matters, is how does it feel in actual gameplay? Not all classes are affected the same way by magical items, not all encounters are either for that matter.
Are you regularly having to drop ECL to not chance wiping the party or killing someone? Then you might need to increase their wealth a little bit. On the other hand if you've thrown what should be very challenging encounters at them regularly and they just walk through them then they might be getting a bit too much wealth. Granted that is not all wealth, but it is at least a guideline. There is also nothing stating you've got to run a standard magic item game, some have a lot more and some have a lot less. If your PCs are never finding their gear lacking but some high level NPC wouldn't even have a +1 short sword then maybe you've got an imbalance. At the same time if the enemies are all equipped with magical armor and weapons, and the players kill them and suddenly all their items have turned mundane and they're finding 8000gp on the NPC leader then that just doesn't fit, it doesn't feel right.

Thus, play with double WBL, to help out the muggles, who benefit most by wealth, and generally need the help.


You're correct which is why I don't bother trying to "balance" the game and insist on sticking to the rules as written and tell my players to balance their characters around that.

Eh, why not just say "**** the rules".? Why not just let them build random homebrew with random WBL, so long as it's balanced to the table?